Bushman's shed gym outlasts the gang culture

Rex Jenkins has been training boxers in this shed for 35 years. Picture / Alan Gibson

When boys - and girls - join the boxing gym in the back shed at Rex Jenkins' Ford Rd home, the first rule is: remove your bandannas and all other gang regalia.

"You've come into my gang here," Mr Jenkins tells them.

Mr Jenkins, 64, has spent a life as a bushman. He thought he had a job to get him through to retirement converting a forest back to farming near Taupo, but tight times in the industry have just made him redundant again.

In 42 years in the Ford Block, he and his wife Glenys have raised 10 children. Most of the boys were boxers in their time, and now one of their 23 grandchildren is training with his father and grandfather.

Mr Jenkins started training young boxers in his garage 33 years ago. On the night the Herald called, three females and about a dozen males, aged from 9 to 34, went through a series of set exercises before some got individual training sessions with Mr Jenkins and his son.

Over the years, a succession of national and Oceania champions have come out of the garage, and Mr Jenkins has coached the NZ team at numerous championships.

"We have taken kids out of the Ford Block - kids who would never even have left Ford Rd. We have taken them all over New Zealand and some to Australia and Tahiti," he says.

"When we first came in here it was a real hard area. The kids were just gangies. Twenty or 30 years ago, kids would walk up and down here in mobs looking for scraps.

"Over the last 10 years things have really changed. I think we are nearly getting rid of the gangs. I think a lot of it was that the kids causing the problems grew up and the next generation that came through are a lot better - maybe because there are more things for the kids to do."