Mr Weatherall (66) has worked for the same employer since joining the Dunedin City Council at Waipori Power Station on October 20, 1958, aged 16, after a short period working for a sawmill.
The council's electricity department has changed names twice since then - first to Dunedin Electricity, and more recently to Delta - but his record of service has continued without a blink.
"My father told me what are you working at the sawmill for. You should get a job at the council. It's a job for life. And he was dead right," Mr Weatherall said.
He now works for Delta in Central Otago and has lived in Albert Town since 1999.
One day, his boss asked him when he was thinking of retiring.
"Tomorrow, if you like," he replied.
"But he said, 'No, I didn't mean it like that. I just needed to know so I could be clear about the future.'
"So I told him, 'As long as I have my health and enjoy being here, I will be here.' I haven't heard any more about it," Mr Weatherall said.
Mr Weatherall's father, George, worked for 38 years for the Dunedin City Council as a linesman, based at Waipori Power Station.
Mr Weatherall senior and his wife, Cath, raised their two sons, John and Brian, at Waipori, where they went to school.
John Weatherall started as a "grease monkey", or powerhouse attendant, at Waipori in 1958, and when his father transferred to Dunedin, he did too, becoming a "pole monkey" for the city network.
In Albert Town, he describes his role as a "gofer monkey", doing anything from travelling to Christchurch to pick up vehicles to maintaining street lights in Wanaka, putting up Christmas decorations and inspecting poles between Queenstown and Roxburgh.
He did general road maintenance, pushed snow off roads to get power to houses, went to Henley to get coal for staff houses and ferried pregnant mothers to hospital in Mosgiel.
He went missing once and a lake search was nearly commenced.
"After finishing work on night shift in the No 2 powerhouse, I had a nap in a big box full of the cleaning cloths. Next shift thought I was missing, but the powerhouse operator found me asleep in the box," he said, laughing.
Mr Weatherall qualified to do high-tension glove work and he and his team tested 110KV and 33KV insulators from Dunedin to Waipori, and all the substations as well.
When the contracting era arrived, he was briefly contracted to Waitaki Power for live glove and barrier work.
He also undertook a large line job from Otautau to Riverton and was involved in maintaining lines between Port Chalmers and Portobello.
When helicopters were introduced to run the lines over gullies, many hours of work were saved, he recalled.
Among the many major jobs he attended were the fire at the Henley Hotel, the Abbotsford slip, Taieri Plain floods and a slip that closed the Waipori power station.
"There were many storms over the years, with wind, rain and snow. Myself and mates worked all day and night.
Sometimes, before shifting to Wanaka, there was a big snowstorm in Central and Dunedin guys helped out at Roxburgh putting in new poles at Horseshoe Bend," Mr Weatherall said.
In all his years' work, it would not have been possible without teamwork, trusted workmates and the support of his wife, Jeanette, he said.
"Looking back over 50 years, if I had the chance, I would do it all again," he said.
