Hawke’s Bay centenarian Murray Houston celebrates birthday

A hundred years in Hawke’s Bay has allowed one centenarian to enjoy the best of what the region has to offer.

Born December 19, 1924, Murray Houston was the eighth of 10 children.

Houston’s family were based in Hastings, where his father worked for the railway.

They were living there when the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake struck in February 1931.

Houston would regularly go to commemoration lunches to remember with other survivors.

As he grew older, Houston cycled up Taupō Rd or out to Kereru to spend the weekend deer stalking or pig hunting to help put food on the table at home.

When he left school, Houston signed on as an apprentice as a carpenter at the freezing works, where he worked until retirement.

Murray Houston celebrates his 100th birthday at Mangapapa Lodge.

Around this time, he met a young woman called Gwendoline Cockburn.

They would court and marry and, in due course, produce a daughter, Jeanette, in 1951.

They purchased an Art Deco house on Sylvan Rd, where Houston lived until recently when a fall meant he needed to go into a rest home for extra care.

Two parties were held to mark Houston’s impressive century; one in Haumoana at St Francis Church Hall in Beach Road where about 50 friends and family gathered to hear the letter from King Charles III read aloud and celebrate, and the other at Mangapapa Lodge for a high tea.

Houston’s niece Glenda said of her uncle: “It is great to know someone who has actively aged and set an example to us younger generation.”