Somehow my morning coffee routine at High Tide in Oakura, Taranaki, coincided each day with a guy who had a smile so big it could cheer up even the surliest coaster. Cyril, it turns out, is a bit of a legend.
He comes from a family of eight: three sisters and five brothers who grew up in an era in New Zealand when speaking te reo was frowned upon and even punished. He's now 80, but you couldn't guess that in a million years when chatting with him. Shaking his hand is a vice-grip of rural belonging.
He and his four brothers all played representative rugby at the highest levels and were natural sportsmen.
"We'd play for different provinces and play against each other," he laughs with a shake of his head. "I can assure you there was no brotherly love out there on the paddock in those games."
I ask him how he still manages to shine so bright at 80.
"It's where you start from. I started as a farm boy – we were breaking in a farm back in those days," he offers with a seriousness in his eye. "Breaking it in – clearing scrub and fencing – things like that. My Dad was a bloody good farmer, I'll give him that – a hard bugger. My mother was a good mother – a beautiful mother."
"It was hard work. When it came to the time where we left the farm and started looking for our own jobs Dad offered the farm to all of us boys. Not one of us wanted it. We'd had a gutsful of it."
"A lot of young fullas would have stepped in and taken over the farm, but we all did our own things ... and were successful at it."
Each in their own way carved out a future away from the farm. Success came easily to the Tamati siblings – on the back of an impeccable work ethic.
"I put down all that success to the hard work we all put in. That's the secret," he chuckles. "Hard work won't kill you, but the lack of it might."
His sportsman genes passed on to his own children; Lisa is celebrated throughout the world for her running and ultra-endurance feats; Dawson played rugby professionally for eight years including a stint with the Hurricanes and roles in the UK; and Mitchell became a big mountain skier, training in Austria. These days, both Dawson and Mitchell can be found tearing up the surf along Surf Highway 45.
"I'm very proud of my kids. They've all done well and they're all happy."
And his kids were there three years ago when the doctors told Cyril that his wife's aneurysm would render her a vegetable and she'd have to go into full-time care. They refused to accept that.
Led by Lisa, they started to research and take matters into their own hands. They pulled together, started a rehab of their own design, bought a hyperbaric chamber from the US and never gave up.
His wife's not with him today at High Tide – she drove herself into town to go to the movies with Lisa. It's a remarkable story that has been shared through Lisa's latest book: Relentless.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS While in Taranaki we were invited to chat on The Perfect Wave Surf Show presented by co-host Jarred Hancox with Cory Palmer and Streeter Parker. Here's how we solved the surfing world's problems on The Most FM.
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