Silence for the chopper

FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Ike Urlich-Morrison is happy to be talking again.

Ike Urlich-Morrison has raised a lot of money for the annual rescue helicopter appeal over the years, but this time he wanted to make a personal contribution. So he stopped talking.

His self-imposed 60 hours of silence ended at 6am a Monday or two ago, but his alarm clock didn't go off and he slept in, so unofficially he made 61.

He said yesterday that he had learned that having duct tape across his mouth was painful, that he would never want to be kidnapped (for that reason), and that Kaitaia is a wonderfully supportive community.

Pledges came in from all directions, he said, including from his colleagues at Westpac Bank, and by the time he broke his silence - with the words "I'll never do that again" - he had raised $2710, including $51 paid at auction for a rose made of duct tape (the farthest-flung bid coming from London).

He had a whiteboard to help him out, did a fair bit of web chatting, and used his webcam to show himself watching The Wizard of Oz, so everyone could see he wasn't talking (or singing along).

Ike, who had the faith of only one his bank colleagues - the others gave him no show - will end his eight-year career with Westpac (all in Kaitaia, where he was born and bred) in July when he heads to Wellington, to do he knows not what. He's confident of forging a new career in something though, possibly a field that involves lots of talking.