RIP John Street

I'm being told that as well by assorted unrelated sources.

Many years back, the 70's, I was in the fifth form (no idea what current metric name is) for the second time and on a Monday we were told report cards out on Friday. Oh Shit!!! I thought having to walk passed my boats in it's locker at Narrow Neck to get to TGS. Often we got there and no closer to school but had a great days on the water. Anyway report cards won't be good so Tuesday morning I jumped on the ferry and rocked into Foster and up into John Streets office. 'G'day lad, how's your old man?', they knew each other well, 'All good thanks'. "So what are you doing here?", "I need a job", "OK, why's that?", I told him and he laughed. 'Ok we have a spar maker apprentice position opening shortly, hows that?", "Cool as, I'm in, I'll be here 8am tomorrow", "No, 8am Thursday to match pay week". Went back to school and signed out, much to the pleasure of a few teachers. Started at Fosters as a boy 2 days later while we got shit sorted. How much of a boy I hear you ask, I was that far down the food chain Smudge Midgley the 2nd year apprentice was my boss, can't get much lower

I was at Fosters when National brought in the boat tax. John was a big national party supporter at the time. He used to walk past the loft to get to his office and if he was not having a good day we knew fast. One day he came in and holy crap was he 100% fully sparked up enraged, he was ropeable. Not long after there was a full staff gathering when John told us all Fosters no longer sold yacht masts only TV poles for caravans, no more boating blocks they were all for holding up shade sails only, no more boating rope it was only for tieing shit on trailers and so on. We were told to actively talk punters out of buying boat shit and into caravan like shit instead. So we had punters come in wanting things like say a kite pole. Nope we don't make them anymore, but we can sell you a post to hold your TV ariel on your caravan though. "I don't want a TV pole I want a kite pole,...Grr......", "Ok no problem we can build you one, 40% tax on that though where TV ariel poles have none". Strangely, not, punters suddenly remembered they had caravans not boats John keep us doing that for quite a while, we all knew it was a bit shady but John was fine with it and it was his arse on the line.

While we were doing that John cancelled a cheque he'd just written to the national Party, for a rumoured 10K which was huge back in the day. For those who can remember them, John then used some of that 10K to print a shit load of bumper stickers that said 'I'd rather be boating but I voted National'. Not long after that the tax was repealed but it had done the damage, some of which we still see the results of today.

As a boss he was awesome as long as you didn't piss him off. One day there was a meeting of Peter Blake, Bruce Farr, Peter Robbie and John to discuss the mast for this boat called Ceramco. In the loft was also me and Geoff, the 2 who were building the 2 rigs. The first rig was quite different for the times and very small at the top. I chucked in the comment 'You sure its strong enough? looks like it's a bit fragile'. Instantly the loft dropped 20 degrees in temp and both Streetie and Robbie gave me very serious evils. After Bruce and Peter had gone I got reamed big time for questioning Bruce, was not a good moment. Anyway we built the rig and the spare which was way gruntier than the first and in 2 pieces so it could fly. Some time later I came into work to find it open and activity gearing up, Fuck! Ceramco had dropped it's rig and needed the spare fast. We were rushing the spare onto the trailer when Streetie came in and he stared straight at me, pulled out the finger and said in a deep slow malicious tone common in horror movies 'One word from you and I'll rip your fucking head off'. I didn't need to be told twice, I liked my head just where it was. Took the mast out only to find one section was 700mm to long so whipped it back and it flew out later that day in 3 pieces.

One day the loft young lads got a call, 4 of us younguns to Mr Streets office now please. Oh shit, that's not good. We got a right bollocking as John had just had a call from the Manager of the pub up on the corner. We used to sneak up there for 2 high speed jugs at lunch time. We'd done it again and I think it was a Pilkington who poured some coins into the jukebox and pushed Saturday Night Fever 20 odd times just as we left. The pubs management and Streetie banned us form the place for a month and Streetie banned us from the jukebox forever

Then moving on to Johns massive investments into NZ boating, especially some of the classics over the last 10 years or so. Many would not be with us today if it was not for him throwing in a lot of coin, a LOT.

A huge man on the waterfront for a very long time. He will be missed in many ways by a shit load of people and organisations.

He is 1 of only 2 bosses I've ever had. While I did get reamed once or twice, and hard to say they weren't justified, I have only fond and thankful memories of him.