Born in the seaside town when it still had a maternity hospital, the only time he has been away was when he went to high school in Invercargill.
- Main feature - About the South: Anxiety about jobs and safety
His lifetime love of the place has positioned him well for his role as the chairman of Bluff’s community board.
It has also given him an unrivalled insight into what makes his fellow Bluffies tick.
"I like to think I have, anyway," he said.
Talking to Mr Fife while tourists snapped photos of the famous Bluff signpost at Stirling Point behind him, highlighted the contrast in the town’s main drawcards.
As well as being a tourism hot spot, it is also a port town.
"Our preference is to see it stay open because a lot of Bluff people travel to the smelter to work. It’s the indirect jobs as well."
As a stevedore he was affected because he helped load and unload the ships at Tiwai.
"It will have an impact on all those businesses in Bluff, engineering firms, the whole lot, if Tiwai does close."
There had been hints the smelter could close, and people had been aware of that.
"But when they were told last week that this is going to happen in August next year, it finally sunk in.
"It’s going to be a very hard year ahead for a lot of people."
Nevertheless, he was optimistic about a post-smelter Bluff.
"Bluff’s resilient. We just hope that there are other opportunities for the town like, for instance, aquaculture."
Trying to get the planned walkway between Invercargill and Bluff finished was a also big community issue, he said.
"There is some funding but if we had more funding from the Government we could really speed it up and probably make it a better quality one."
