Summer Catch up: Mountie's life mended after tragedy and burglaries

Mount Maunganui surfer, bikie and concreter Brett Morrison has a new lease on life. Photo/George Novak

Mount Maunganui good guy Brett Morrison has recovered from the death of his wife and a spate of cruel burglaries to be on top of life again.

He lost his wife Sarah to bowel cancer in May 2015 and spent the next nine months taking a breather from concreting to deal with his grief from the top of a surfboard.

Just when he was getting through it, burglars broke into his Papamoa home and stole Sarah's jewellery, including her engagement and wedding rings and the earrings she wore on their wedding day.

It was a cruel blow, made worse by the burglars returning two weeks later. Morrison shifted up the coast to the Mount and, in a typically generous response, used the insurance to donate a picnic table to the public, on Marine Parade.

He said Sarah was always a big Christmas and beach person, so the first thing he did on Christmas morning was to sit at the picnic table and wish her a happy Christmas before heading to the Coromandel to spend the rest of the day with his parents.

''It seems like a different lifetime ago,'' Morrison said of her death which had shaped how he looked at life.

The 35-year-old started his own business, Mount Maunganui Concrete, early last year, survived a ''horrible winter'' and 11 months later was running well ahead of projections with six on the payroll and three vehicles.

He put part of his success down to the name of the company which sounded like a well-established big business. The rapid growth of Mount Maunganui Concrete also meant his vehicles were being seen everywhere around town.

Although surfing would always be his life, Morrison's other liberating experience was riding his 2002 Harley-Davidson V-Rod.

And he got a lot of satisfaction from helping others, like stopping to help motorists broken down on the side of the road or trying to set up a roster of tradesmen to take on the task of providing and delivering hot meals to Tauranga's homeless.

The scheme started with a hiss and a roar, but the growth of his concreting business meant he was unable to put as much time into it as he wished. It was something he would like to revive this year.

Entering the ranks of becoming an employer had not changed his resolve since losing his wife that Kiwis worked too hard and put in too many hours on the job instead of with family and friends.

''It has given me a different outlook on what is important and what is not.''

Morrison said he liked to give clients what they needed but not to the extent where giving someone a driveway a day early was at the expense of family and friends or losing sleep.

With weekends virtually gone and people working 50 hours a week, many Kiwis were not spending enough time with the people they wanted to spend time with, he said.

Sweden was on six-hour days because it had been proven that productivity dropped off markedly after six hours on the job.

''Prioritise stuff, work is not that important. We need to rethink the whole structure of the workplace.''

Looking forward to what might be, Morrison said: ''I live a great life - someone would have to be really special to change that.''