Farewell for 'a big kid'

Former fat man Paul Jeffreys died unexpectedly after surgery for a benign brain tumour. Picture / Dean Purcell

Paul "Squeeze" Jeffreys' friends and family thought the funny fat man had put the threat of dying young behind him.

But yesterday almost 500 of them packed into Sacred Heart Church in Ponsonby for the funeral Mass of the 44-year-old, who documented his 64kg weight-loss campaign in a book and a television documentary.

Mr Jeffreys, a former advertising executive, shed the weight over 12 months but barely got time to enjoy his new lease on life.

He died unexpectedly on Friday night in Auckland City Hospital after surgery for a benign brain tumour.

"I never thought Squeeze was going to die because of brain surgery, because he was a well-known pyromaniac," quipped David Walden, a long-time friend and head of Whybin/TBWA.

Walden remembered a spontaneous and good-natured Jeffreys who launched fireworks at a motorway and exhibited a "total disregard for the rules of life."

Jeffreys did donuts in his boat and specialised in saying people's names backwards. He delighted in wearing night-vision goggles.

After being caught driving on the wrong side of the road, he didn't just get out of the ticket - he got an apology from the High Court judge. "He was, in lots of ways, a big kid," Walden said in his eulogy. "He allowed the child inside all of us to escape."

Jeffreys weighed 168kg when he walked away from his position as managing partner at M&C Saatchi in 1999, telling a Herald reporter, "Now is the right time to go. Otherwise, you end up with 'He was a good ad-man' on your gravestone and, to be honest with you, that's a most unsatisfactory way to leave this Earth."

He left behind his six-figure salary and moved with wife Caroline to Muriwai to wage war on his weight. Inside New Zealand documented the feat in the programme Fat Man Slim, and Jeffreys chronicled it in the bestselling book Diary of a Fat Man.

Jeffreys became a staunch advocate for health and fitness. His second book, Fat Man Cooks, co-written with Carolyn, provides recipes for meals with a low-glycaemic index - the factor Jeffreys considered essential to his own weight loss.

He launched his own line of clothing; a catalogue is scheduled for release next week. He also returned to the advertising business as a three-day-a-week consultant for Whybin/TBWA.

"Squeeze was at the top of his game," Walden said. "To be dismissed in this fashion is a damn shame, but we all must take some solace at having watched a master of the game at work."

Jeffreys is survived by Caroline, parents Philomena and Gerry, and sisters Pandora, Jacaranda and Tara.