Archie Griffin grabs his ukelele and starts strumming the first chords of the John Denver classic Take Me Home Country Roads.
The 75-year-old reveals it is the song the Riverside Ukes will play as his coffin gets carried out and taken to Hautapu Cemetery where the plot he and wife Linda have chosen for themselves has a view towards Te Miro.
“Looks out to our farm,” says Linda who then reveals she thought the funeral would have been last week so bad was her husband of 51 years’ health after she called the ambulance out earlier this month.
Take Me Home Country Roads by John Denver. Photo: You Tube.
The couple moved into Summerset Retirement Village in November last year after 10 years living in nearby Boulton Place. When they sold the four-bedroom house they had a big clean out, filling two skips and donated the furniture that was just too big and bulky for their new two-bedroom villa. Prior to that they farmed for years in Te Miro. Archie kept his agricultural interests by working as groundsman at Fieldays.
Both are Waikato born – Linda, 74, is from Piarere and Archie from Matamata. Archie, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Copd), started smoking at 15 when he became an apprentice jockey.
“They said to me ‘to keep your weight down, just smoke’. So, I did.”
He had a reasonably successful career in New Zealand and Australia with trainer Jack Hayes where one of his jobs was as a strapper, dressed in a three piece suit, taking the horses into the birdcage.
It was from there he saw Australian gelding Gatum Gatum go past the post at the Melbourne Cup in 1963.
On his return to New Zealand, he met Linda at one of the Caledonian Society’s dances in Matamata.
Linda and Archie Griffin at the Summerset Summer Fete with the ukelele at the ready. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
Archie played rhythm guitar in a band called Old Time whose staples were songs by the Everly Brothers, Bill and Boyd and songs like Put Another Log on the Fire and Take Me Home Country Roads.
After years working in the Kaimai Tunnel, powder factories and sawmills – where there was lots of dust – plus the smoking – Archie’s health and breathing today is precarious.
Mikayla Lewis, a breathing and musculoskeletal physiotherapist in Leamington has taught him how breathe better with Copd but that was of no help when Linda called the ambulance out fearing the worst.
“I was sitting on the end of the bed and thinking to myself there’s got to be something better than this,” said Archie.
When the ambulance driver arrived, he asked Linda, and the couple’s Cambridge-based daughter Christine if there was an action plan in place for Archie.
The answer was no, a stark reminder to get things sorted.
They signed up with Hospice Waikato which delivers specialist community palliative care in the community looking after those who have terminal or life limiting illnesses.
A hospice bed has been moved into their Summerset two bed villa. The couple, who have two children and four grandsons, have arranged their finances and written down what sort of funeral they both want.
“The kids thanked us. They said ‘that’s one less thing to worry about Mum and Dad’,” said Linda.
The couple believe the decisions have given Archie more time in Summerset where they have settled in effortlessly even agreeing to be hosts with other residents at the Summerset Fete on Saturday.
“They look after us, they even shifted us in here while I was in the hospital,” said Archie.
“You can’t kill weeds,” laughs Linda.
And with that we all start singing:
“Almost heaven, West Virginia……… Country roads, take me home……. To the place I belong…. Take me home, country roads.”
Take me Home Country Roads. Photo: Dana Tentis. Pexels.com
