After 37 years at King's High School, technology teacher Neil Andrew will retire at the end of this year.
When he started out as a builder more than 40 years ago, the last thing he expected to be doing with a hammer and saw during his career was teaching in a secondary school.
But looking back, the 64-year-old said he could not imagine his life any other way.
After 37 years of teaching technology at King's High School, Mr Andrews has decided to retire and look at some new projects. Mr Andrews came to teaching in 1976 when he found the building profession was in a rut and not paying his bills.
So he went into teaching, with the hope of returning to the building trade when it returned to profitability.
''But I never did go back. I left the building trade on the Friday and I was in a classroom on the Monday.
''It's very infectious, this place. I didn't intend to stay this long.''
Mr Andrews said the hardest thing about changing professions was the constant change in classes.
''You had a new class/project every 40 minutes - not like building houses where you had a new project every few months.''
He learnt very quickly that pursuing a teaching career had many rewards.
Coaching the school's rowing, rugby, yachting, volleyball and smallbore rifle shooting teams and watching boys develop their skills and grow into young men was particularly rewarding, he said.
''I love the family atmosphere here.
''Former pupils still come back to the workshop to offer their expertise and to see what's changed over the years.
''I also teach a lot of the sons of boys I taught when I first arrived at the school.''
His legacy will live on in the many projects his pupils have built over the years, including the school squash courts.
''I built them with the help of all the students carrying concrete blocks every night after school; and I was the communication person between the school, the architect and the builders during the rebuilding of the school.''
One of the major benefits of the job was being surrounded by experts in other fields, he said.
''I was taught photography by a fellow teacher.
''It was one of the many bonuses of going into teaching. You get to pick the brains of other teachers for free.''
Learning to take professional-quality photographs led Mr Andrews to become the school's ''official photographer'', photographing sport, musicals, staff and prospectus images for the school.
He has photographically documented almost every major event at the school since 1976, and has been the official photographer of many former pupils' weddings.
Mr Andrews will retire at the end of this year to become an apiarist (beekeeper).
He has tended many hives part-time in Central Otago over the years as a hobby, and now plans to move to Alexandra and make it his ''life after retirement''.
Mr Andrews said he would inevitably miss the pupils the most when he left the school.
So he planned to return to the school occasionally to continue photographing important moments in the school's history.
As he said: ''It's very infectious, this place.''
