K’ Road Chronicle
Stories synonymous with sex, drugs and rock n roll.
Bronze Winner of the 2023 Podcast Awards.
K’ Road Chronicle
Dave, K' Road Security
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
People in your neighbourhood
By H Sthompson, hensonmistypooh@gmail.com
Dave, Karangahape Security, granted this interview on the condition we keep his surname and Iwi private.
However, very few people would not know his face if they have spent any significant time on Karangahape Road.
Dave grew up in Ponsonby and Penrose.
He is the father of three daughters, 82 years old and still working his own security business.
Dave has been securing Karangahape gates and doors for more than 18 years.
“K Road is a place where every one wants to come. But lately things have changed. More people are trouble makers. Shops can’t keep up with shoplifting and are closing down,” says Dave.
“In the last few months lot of people are losing their jobs. There are more and more people on the street. They want to live so they have to take,” says Dave.
Dave starts his day out on the streets from 05:30hrs and patrols until around 15:00hrs. He starts a second shift from 17:00hrs and patrols until early morn’.
“Crime is getting worse, says Dave. One particular building has had three break ins during the last month, yet other than that they haven’t had a burglary in years.”
“I work seven days a week, continues Dave. Due to the recession I lost one company who was 80 percent of my business. For the last ten months I haven’t had much business at all.”
Dave says when he started he was looking for a job and the Building Depot was looking for a security guard. My job was to walk around the warehouse checking people weren’t stealing. He got a job with Chubb Security who was based on K’ Road. Dave wound up working for the American Consulate and has maintained a relationship with K’ Road ever since.
Dave suffered a heart attack a couple of years ago but says he is determined to keep walking.
He lost 22kgs.
“The Doctor told me my legs are the main objective for survival, says Dave. “Legs will keep you alive. Movement, interventions and people. If you sit and don’t move you will die. As long as I can walk I will keep working.”
Listen to the full interview on the K’ Road Chronicle Podcast
Okay, we are recording, so I am here with Daddy. Daddy was a literal happy road. And um predominantly worked in security during this time, so Dani, tell us a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_00What would you like to know?
SPEAKER_01Well, where'd you grow up?
SPEAKER_00Um I was born in Pon in Ponsonby.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Moved out to Penrose. Started my schooling at the Oranga Primary. And I ended up at the Odahu Um College. So that's basically priming up to then. Married children. First marriage, three three girls, all in their sixties now.
SPEAKER_01How old are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm 82.
SPEAKER_0182 and still working.
SPEAKER_00Still working? Still working the road. My own business, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, doing security.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01What do you think has changed in the in your was it 30, 40 years during K-Road?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, K Road's around about uh 18 years in total.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and what do you think has changed in that time?
SPEAKER_00Well, K Road has for some reason has always been sort of everyone wants to come to K Road. Do their thing, say I've been there, done that, heard about this, whatever. But lately with the recession, uh things have changed. People are now more troublemakers, homeless. Um shops can't keep up with the lack of turnover and they're closing down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Lunchau, the supermarket's closing down. Yeah. Scallery is clo has closed. The little cafe there, which I would have thought would be a viable business. And the Mass Save is closing down. Do you talk to the business owners about, you know, why they're closing down or I well I don't know everybody.
SPEAKER_00Um I have a lot to do with Mass Save because he's he's right next to where I'm I work on a daily basis. And it's very sad because he's had a lot of years there. They will be missed. They yeah. And the poor bugger, if I can say that, he's got his business up for 50-70% discount, and they're still robbing the guy. You know? I can't tolerate that. I I'm absolutely prebagas about it all.
SPEAKER_01Do you think I mean recently you told me about how you've been doing the George Courts building for a number of years, and just in the last month, it's got pretty feral. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, because of the situation of homelessness and uh the recession, etc., people losing their jobs, whatever, there's more and more of those people that are on the streets, and they're now so badly off they've got to live, they want to take.
SPEAKER_01What's the worst thing you've ever seen?
SPEAKER_00Um, one instance in that particular building, about four years ago, a local girl, street girl, tailgated a car into the into the um car park. And they have uh trolleys in there for the tenants to bring their groceries from from the say black limb cow or whatever. And um when I went to do my 11 o'clock check, I heard noises in the car park, and I just happened to have turned round the corner, and there she was a trolley full of goodies. So I rang the police, said I met you at Mercury Lane main door, two cars arrived, five policemen, and we went inside. And as soon as she saw them all walking towards her, she started screaming and crying, and I'm not doing any wrong, and all this sort of carry-on. But it turns out she had about$10,000 worth of product in those food trolley.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00One car had not been locked by the owner, two guitar speakers, two guitars, one gold-plated uh saxophone. She had that in the trolley. Other cars that weren't locked, uh, clothing and all the little money coins from the box. And if she hadn't got onto the street with that, I think she would have given it all away for a dozen pack of beer. Wow. That's held, yeah. But luckily she never got away with it. So it was all handed back to the owners.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Do you ever find yourself in, you know, like a bit of danger, a bit of conflict, you know, where your personal safety might be put at Russ?
SPEAKER_00I'm aware of it. And more so now, because of I'm out on the streets at 5 30 in the morning. I'm driving around certain areas till 3 o'clock in the morning, and I'm incognito because if I was I don't even wear my yellow vest on K Road any longer because I'm a target.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's the reason why I drive a mufty car, I wear mufty clothes, and everything's done under cover, so to speak. Yeah. Everyone on K Road knows me, usually, they they put it up with us. Um, we don't interfere, but I'm always wary. Attitudes can change, the desperation can change. Yeah. Desperate people do desperate things.
SPEAKER_01So um really do those bikes really have to be that note. In case you're wondering, audience, we end up filming, uh recording this in my office in the Lundshaw Food Court, which is um sponsored by May Shaw, lovely lady indeed, and proprietor of the Lundshaw Food Court. But if you want to support what we're doing, remember check us out on patreon.com forward slash K Rogue Chronicle. Um you can make a modest donation there, and then that's where we load all the um stuff that's a bit too risque for a public audience or or just maybe is a bit shit. Um thanks to my sponsors, the White Lady, the World of Maternal Local Board, uh PC Pastor, Lifewise Methodist Church, um, but back to Dave, 80-something years old, not out, still patrolling the security of Kalangahupi Road, and giving us a bit of an insight into his world. Now, with the homelessness situation, do you ever find you know you come across people sleeping where they shouldn't be, and you you have to deal with that, or yeah, they they're sleeping in a lot of the doorways.
SPEAKER_00Even my my doorways, I've got to get in, I've got to say, excuse me, guys, I've got to move you out, I've got to open up, and blah, blah. They get agitated, they're slow, they don't want to do it. Yeah. And the end result is look, if you don't move, I've only got one thing I have to do, and that's call the police.
SPEAKER_01So they ever get aggro?
SPEAKER_00Some do. Yes, yeah. Um there's a lot of new blood come in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's but they're always new blood coming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I mean more so, um, and and we have frictions. I've seen frictions between outstanding locals with the new blood, and they've there's there's problems between them and all that. But I mean, that's life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Do you think the 501s, the uh Australian deportees, have had an impact on the level of violent crime and around C Rod?
SPEAKER_00Well, I personally haven't heard about too much of that, but um I've caught, as I say, I've caught people in my buildings. Um one particular building's had three robberies in in one month, and they haven't had one for three, three or four years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So people are getting desperate.
SPEAKER_01If you had uh if it was, you know, if you had plenty of money and it was like, you know, time to retire, what was your ideal retirement look like?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've walked worked since I was 14. I had two jobs.
SPEAKER_01What was the first job?
SPEAKER_00Uh delivering New Zealand Heralds to houses.
SPEAKER_01I know that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00At 14 I was doing that. After college, I went to the local Four Square in old Papatotte, and I was delivering all the food parcels to the houses that the wives of of the families had bought. In those days, all the doors were unlocked. There was nothing locked. I could walk into their houses, put the dairy foods into the fridge, rest on the table, and walk away. But you couldn't do that now. Hell no. No. No. So that was it for 14 years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I can't even get my um Walworth's guy to bring my groceries in.
SPEAKER_00But we had with um that was part of life in those days. They they had those big bicycles with the big whisk uh baskets on the front.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember that.
SPEAKER_00Load them up and off I go.
SPEAKER_01Did you ever do a milk round?
SPEAKER_00I worked for the dairy company when when I was 19.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was I got married, and I had to buy a house, so I had two jobs when I was 19.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00One was for servicing the local um milk vendors to the houses, their loads of milk, bringing all the empties back and signing them out. And then within an hour of closure, I was working for uh East Tamaki uh chicken farm. And I I was working from 10 o'clock at night till seven, eight o'clock in the morning for the dairy company. Then I'd start at 8:30 for the chicken farm, finish at 3, 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And that was my lifestyle.
SPEAKER_01You're a worker, you're a grafter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what's an average day like for you now?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I work seven days a week, yeah. And it's for myself. I don't have staff any longer because with the recession I lost one client who was 80% of my business. Yeah. And that was a construction company I had worked for for about um 22 years. And the strange thing was when I was working on K Road as security, walking up and down the streets, the iron bank building was being built by a company called McCreamy Construction. And I walked into their office one morning and I said, Hello, my name is David. I'm security for the C Rode business, blah, blah, blah. Do you think you'll want security for this building at nights, weekends, whatever? And they said, Yes, we will. Leave your card and we may get in touch with you. And I did. Nat's going back maybe 60, uh 20-something years. And I've been with them ever since. I've done about 125 buildings, but for the last nine, ten months I haven't had any very much work because of they're in recession as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've had a couple of um sponsors that are um really struggling to provide it that they're really struggling. And businesses are doing it. So it seems to me a lot of people are holding out their um hopes for the new railway station. Do you think that's gonna bring in the kind of revenue that that people are hoping for?
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't think so. That's my open uh opinion. I mean, I I I don't I think if you've got a business in that railway station, I don't think you're gonna be getting many clients. They'll still use the K Road Main Street venues. I they may go and have a look and a nosy, but I think eventually they'll go back to the the old places' haunts and and utilize them.
SPEAKER_01So, what does it take to be a good security guard?
SPEAKER_00Well, when I started, I I was looking for a job and I read the newspaper and it says security guard wanted for a company called the Building Depot in Mount Wellington Highway. No, they went bust about a year after I started. But they had uh businesses all over New Zealand. Yeah, I remember them. You know, home products and timber and concrete and all that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01A bit like RCMs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my job was to walk around the warehouse making sure people weren't trying to steal things and checking cars and invoices when they left. And uh when they finished, I uh looked around again for work and I came to K Road to a company called Chubb Security. They were based in K Road. And I got the job, and the first job they gave me was go to Takapuna, nine o'clock in the morning till five o'clock at night, and you'll stand in front of the BNZ Bank greeting all the customers and saying thank you for coming and making sure that everything's safe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I lasted four hours. Lunchtime I rang the new boss, and I said, Sorry, mate, I said, this is not for me, I have to go. So I'll finish my shift, but if you can replace me by tomorrow morning. And he said no. He said, tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, you'll be at my office, please. So I ended up there, and he said, We've been looking for people like you, and we don't want to lose you. So he said, I want you to go to this address. There's a senior officer down there, and lo and behold, it was an American consulate in Custom Street. So that's where they put me. And um, my job was to, when people came in, I had to check them with a metal machine and take all their all their belongings into a tray, put in a cupboard, and now go through this little walkway. Yeah, you're clear, you can go into the room, or you oh you still got some metal on you. Oh, it's your belt, so we'll have to take your belt off. I'll leave your belt because I know it's the belt, and that that sort of thing, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then up on the roof, I had to go and check all the uh little uh electrical areas where it could be people gonna. They were very fanatical with this, the Americans.
SPEAKER_01Well, I bet they were, because I mean it's close, like it's a target.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then down in the car parks, long-handled mirrors under the cars looking for gunpowder and bombs. I mean, I never heard of this before, but I had to do it. And then I had to wipe cloth on the um bonnets, openings of the car, the petrol um cap area, the door handles, and then we put into a machine for gunpowder residue and all that sort of thing on a three-day um um time or day, you know. So that's how the Americans were, and that's going back 20 odd years, um, so they're probably worse now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So do you think you're ritualized sometimes so sometimes soon?
SPEAKER_00Well, after the heart attack I had two years ago, the surgeon came up to see me, and he came up. I had to stay there for two months because I was in the lift when it happened, and the lift photographs showed me getting up off the floor four times, and what I had done is damage to my little the little guitar called femurs or something or other in the ankle area. Yeah, and if you break those, you could be in a wheelchair, not able to walk, whatever. So I was in plaster for two months, couldn't walk anywhere, everywhere was by wheelchair, sleeping in there. I lost 22 kilos. And he came three times to see me, and a nurse said to me once, she said, he only usually comes once a time after the operation to talk to his customer. But he's been here three times with you. Unusual. But anyway, I thought that was a privilege. He said to me, Your legs are your main object of survival. And I thought, well, I thought it would be the heart, other other organs, whatever. And he said, Oh, yeah, they do come into play if you if you're damaged or whatever, you can die and all that, but the legs will keep you alive. And I and he explained it to me. Movement, interventions, people, um stimulation, because you can move around and do things. If you sit in the house, nowhere to go, nothing to do, the brain will die, maybe Alzheimer's or whatever, and within two years, most people will die. So, so long as I can walk and talk, I would like to keep working.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. You enjoy your job?
SPEAKER_00I have well, yeah. I mean, it's been for many years. A lot of things. Um, just to bring up one, about seven or eight years ago, there was a big fight on K Road, Mercury Lane, Pitt Street Corner. Two gangs, island gangs. They decided to come to K Road to have their altercation. Four o'clock in the morning, that's when they were going to start the fight. And I there was two of us walking around K Road doing our patrols. And I said to my associate, Have you noticed groups of island boys? He said, Yeah. You know, three over here, ten over there, and another flight or six over here. And I said, It's unusual. Doesn't look right, but we we just put up with it. Four o'clock, that was the whistle. Two groups went bang into each other. I roughly counted about 70 involved. Pitt Street, I counted seven people had been knocked out on the road, so cars couldn't move in or out of Pitt Street. The police took 20 minutes to get there, and um it started on K Road Pitt Street Corner and it ends up down the bottom of Vincent Street. And it was just bedlam. But the one thing I we noticed, we were wearing yellow vests with security. We were never once attacked or punched or anything. They just ran past us, they had only the gangs in of each other in their minds. So we we I couldn't believe that or security, this bang them, you know, hit them or whatever. Never happened. We got away unscathed, and we were sort of walking around amongst them. Um and that was the biggest fight I've ever seen on K Row.
SPEAKER_01What's your opinion of the police? Of who? The police.
SPEAKER_00Well, I've I've always respected them and um they've respected me. They've they've actually um rung me for information over the years. I even was um put up for an award by the police for service to the Auckland community. Oh wow at the um Vodafone Center in Manichau. That's where there were there must have been three, four thousand people and looked like a picture theatre, big building. And all the police were getting their medals and service record and whatever, and there was five public. I was one of those five, and I was the last to go through. But one apparently one guy stopped someone from jumping off a motorway bridge, which would have killed him because he would have gone eight, ten feet down, or he would have been hit by a car. Another one through someone drowning, that's what I can remember. And I was the last winning to receive my award for service to the community. And um, out of the boo, but I know I I accept it gratefully, and it's still still at home. So, yeah. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what is what is it you love about K Road? What is it you hate about K Road?
SPEAKER_00I never had, even though I lived in Auckland, K Road never came into my mind or my knowledge or anything until I applied for the job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um with with Chubb. And the th and the reason I got into K Road business was the fact that the guard was employed by Chubb to the K Road business. He was sick, and they rang me and said, Can you work K Road in the absence of the guard? It could be a week, and then you'll go back to the customs um American uh consulate. I said, Okay. So um I went there for about five days, left. Thank you very much, they said. Well done. And then I got a phone call from the building uh somebody the Association manager, can you come up and meet me for a lunch? And I said, Yes, I can. I get an hour for lunch. So I came up here and she offered me the job. Um Chubb had it. They were dissatisfied. They wanted to go into their own employment of their own staff. And they thought I was the person for the job, and from that point on, I I I worked 18 years with them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay, sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And um one, two, three, three managers I I um worked for. And um I still um I'm not working for the K-Road any longer, but I am working for private enterprises that I that I have done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well. Dave, I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule and um sharing some insights into K-Road security, Kiranga Hubberry Road Security. Um, is there anything you want to add before we wrap up?
SPEAKER_00Um all I can say is um I've enjoyed it. I've been respected for it. When I when I actually left K Road, the a lot of the homeless people came up and shook my hand. Because I wasn't a vindictive to them. I said, if you do something in front of me, I'll have the police here. I don't care what you do behind my back. Sure. That was my attitude. And it seemed to rub off in the right way with them. And even now, today, all those years later, when I see them, they'd say, Kiara, karmatua, whatever.
SPEAKER_01Alright, Dave, that's us. Thank you very much for for coming in and sharing your stories, more stories. And hey, like, just a reminder to our audience if you do like what we're doing, please support us on patreon.com forward slash K Row Chronicle so we can keep bringing you more quality community content from the Kelona Happy community, just like this. Thank you very much.
