In today’s headlines, desperate Ōtara patients queue in the cold for hours, housing market heats up and coffee costs spark debate.
A fruit-selling fixture and friend to the feathered residents of Napier’s Marine Parade was left unable to see her seagulls or set up her stall when her car broke down.
Now a friend of Merrin Fairless says she will be kicking off a fundraiser to help get a new car for a “local pearl”.
On Monday this week, Fairless was driving back into Napier in her 2002 Holden Commodore after picking up six boxes of fruit when her car blew a head gasket and she was forced to a stop.
Merrin Fairless was stuck at her Taradale home, unable to set up her Marine Parade fruit stall, when her car broke down. Photo / James Pocock
“I get to the roundabout at the top end of Marine Parade and I get halfway around and the engine stops, the power steering is gone and I’m thinking ‘Oh my goodness’. So I cruise gently just into a parking space,” Fairless said.
The cost to repair it was more than the car was worth and Fairless said she is unable to afford another vehicle.
She needs a vehicle with a towbar to take herself and her trailer from her Taradale home to Marine Parade to set up her stall.
Casper the seagull during one of his daily visits with Merrin Fairless, the Marine Parade fruit vendor, in 2022. Photo / Paul Taylor
It was one thing that she wouldn’t be able to regularly sell fruit but Fairless was also very concerned her seagull friend Casper and, more recently, his girlfriend Josephine would miss her.
“They have been waiting there every day for me. Casper will stand there all day growling at the others: ‘Go away. My mummy, my food.’ He is very serious, he will attack them,” she said.
“They are a great company and they are a lot smarter than you can imagine.”
Cynthia Simpson said she had been friends with Fairless for about nine years and thought she was “the most amazing woman” who helped others when she could and often gave fruit to those in need, like the homeless people living on Marine Parade.
“She is our local pearl, she really is, she is such a giving soul,” Simpson said.
Simpson said she thought it would be nice to try and do something to help Fairless out.
She wasn’t sure how much they would need to raise, but she believed any vehicle with a towbar would be enough.
Fairless said she was “blown away” when she heard Simpson was going to set up a Givealittle page for her.
She said she tried to help out others when she could.
“There is always somebody who is in dire need, far worse than I am I would imagine,” Fairless said.
“I find whenever I give away it all comes back to me in some way or another. My suppliers are good to me which enables me to do that.”
James Pocock joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2021 and writes breaking news and features, with a focus on the environment, local government and post-cyclone issues in the region. He has a keen interest in finding the bigger picture in research and making it more accessible to audiences. He lives in Napier. james.pocock@nzme.co.nz.
