Te Puke resident Syd Honeyfield still bowling and dancing at 99

Syd Honeyfield, third from the right, cuts the birthday cake to celebrate his 99th birthday. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

He can no longer get down on one knee to bowl, but that hasn’t stopped Te Puke’s Syd Honeyfield playing the indoor version of the game every Monday.

Syd was 99 last week and, as always, joined his bowling mates at Te Puke Citizens/RSA for a few games - after being surprised with a cake to mark his birthday.

“I’d hate to say,” he says when asked how long he had been playing indoor bowls. Then he pauses and says: “It must be more than 40 years.”

Before that he was a lawn bowler.

He says it is the company as much as the games he enjoys.

“It keeps me alert,” he says.

Syd gets around on a mobility scooter and his grandson Ian Warren drives him if his destination is out of scooter range.

Twice a week he attends the Kauri Centre’s activity programme and he can be found at the Te Puke Methodist Church’s monthly morning tea.

One of the social highlights, though, is the monthly Te Puke Scottish Society dance, where he is patron.

The activities, he says, keep him going.

“It all keeps me meeting people.”

Born in 1923, Syd’s 18th birthday was also the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He first came to Te Puke from Taranaki when he was 21.

He says he worked in farm jobs and as a “grease monkey”.

Syd Honeyfield at 84 was the country's oldest bus driver. Photo / File

In 1947 he married Gladys Ward in the old Te Puke Methodist Church after they had met at a dance at McDowell’s Hall.

At the suggestion of his father-in-law, Ernie, Syd found work as a bus driver. He got his licence in August 1952.

He first drove on workers’ and school runs, and then on long-distance routes with New Zealand Road Services, part of NZ Railways.

After around 20 years he began driving school buses again, something he continued to do well into his 80s.

At one time he was New Zealand’s oldest school bus driver and also the driver who had held a bus passenger driver’s licence the longest.