Although he hung up his apron many years ago, a former Timaru butcher has carved out a new milestone — his 100th birthday.
Jack Falvey, affectionately called ‘‘Poppa Jack’’ by his family, was born on October 9, 1925 and grew up on a six-acre property in Laughton St, Washdyke with his parents, two brothers and a sister.
His early memories of growing up included having a cow for milking as well as a draught horse and being given jobs by his father while on holiday from Washdyke School, including thinning swedes and picking spuds.
He was named dux of the school and then went off to attend Timaru Technical College.
While he was at Timaru Technical, World War 2 began and through mutual friends of the family, Mr Falvey was offered a job working at the butchery on the corner of Grey Rd and Elizabeth St, as the boss was looking for young men to replace those who had gone off to war.
He said his initial duties involved more biking than butchering.
‘‘Them days a lot of people didn’t really have fridges or anything. You had a round, so you took one order, biked around, delivered it and then wrote down what they wanted for the next day.
‘‘I also had to take sausage meat up to the Highfield shop to be made into sausages.’’
Mr Falvey was too young to be drafted into World War 2 but this did not stop him from considering lying about his age to get in.
‘‘You didn’t know anything about the war. I would have thought it would have been an adventure overseas.
‘‘I’m glad I didn’t, although I wanted to at the time. Dad didn’t let me. He was fairly strict on everything but he was a good dad though.’’
Apart from a stint on the bottle line at the DB Brewery just before retirement, Mr Falvey worked as a butcher his whole career.
After a few years he moved to work at the butchery in Hassall St where he stayed for 13-14 years, then The Bay Butchery for another 13-14 years, before finishing up at the butchery in Morgans Rd.
The children from the Morgans Rd neighbourhood dubbed him Jack Savvy, as he would make them to sing to receive a free saveloy when they visited the shop.
He said he very much enjoyed his career as a butcher and being able serve customers and train a lot of other young men in the profession.
In 1954 he married Joan Thomas, and they were married for 57 years before she died.
They had one child together, Lyn.
Over the years some of Mr Falvey’s biggest passions included rugby, dancing and horse racing.
When he was 18, his father got a job as the caretaker at Phar Lap Raceway and they moved into a house at the racecourse.
He would work at the races, put the steeples out and clean up all the torn-up losing ticket stubs after a race — occasionally finding one that had been wrongly discarded.
He played third grade rugby for South Canterbury Zingari and fondly remembered South Canterbury winning the Ranfurly Shield in 1950 and 1974.
His daughter Lyn described him as a ‘‘real Fred Astaire’’ on the dance floor.
‘‘He’s well known for that. He would flutter around the dance floor at the RSA.
‘‘He’s got the trophies to prove it, he was a real twinkle-toes.’’
Mr Falvey put reaching 100 down to having the odd whisky and keeping active.
He said it had been quite amazing to see how much the world had changed over his lifetime.
‘‘First time I answered a phone was when I came to work. We never had a phone at home, we didn’t even have any hot water. We only had hot water at the stove.’’
Just over five years ago he was diagnosed with Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a condition that causes vivid visual hallucinations in people with significant vision loss, where the brain attempts to compensate for the lack of visual input.
Despite the condition he still lived very independently and did his own washing, made his own bed, showered himself and cooked most of his own meals.
Mr Falvey said he had enjoyed a great life and was very proud to have a close-knit family that along with his daughter consisted of two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
