JOHN BREEN

John Breen born 1943

Alexandra

John Breen is an important rung on the ladder of Breen Construction. At 83, he may have taken a step back but John is still putting pen to paper to get all the adventures down. His is a tale of hard work done with a humble passion - one lived out at great heights, in his wide backyard of the bush. 

John Breen is writing one last book. One last book about one large life - his own. John, without trying and most probably without knowing it, is a lyrical talker. He has a beautiful and particular way with words interspersed with sardonic pauses and dry laughter. A storyteller through and through.

“I’m not black and white,” John thinks out loud, “there’s shades of grey in me”. His words are full stopped with a low laugh and a raised eyebrow. 

There’s no mud on John, he says it as it is and he’s as down-to-earth as they come. At 83 he’s slowed down, but he’s good with that. His life has been full - packed with adventure, hard graft and fun, “oh yeah there’s been fun alright”.

Always drawn to the outdoors, John says from a young age that adventure, “attracted me straight away”. “I started chasing rabbits, then goats, then we progressed to having a rifle that was my mate's fathers - that he didn't know we had. We kept it under the good shed down at the railway station. His father found out and there was trouble. We got an ear bashing but that’s how we started our hunting career.”

John’s horizons are a little less wide and tall now - but still bright and bold. His veggie garden is a favourite place, his memories of mountains, bush, rivers and the sea are there when he digs and plants. “I’m happy in my own backyard and my backyard has gotten smaller. I’m happy growing my tomatoes and my spuds and playing it close to the chest a little bit. My physical ability is fading which can piss you off all you like but that’s what happens isn’t it? You've just got to make the most of it.”

It’s a sentiment born from a childhood where his dad was mostly absent. John was the eldest of six and when he was born his father went off to war in the Solomon Islands. “When he came home I didn’t want him and he didn’t want me because I was a bloody nuisance”. A harsh laugh lightens the sentiment. 

John remembers Alexandra back then as a place of many orchards. A great place for fruit gathering raids and for, “young boys being young boys”. 

Sent to boarding school before he was even 12 years old, John quickly had to come to terms with heavy homesickness. “But anyway, it was the best thing they did to send me to boarding school. I eventually got into my share of trouble there as well. I grew into that, that was alright.”

“I learnt to look after myself and that followed through into the rest of my life. I was out from under mum and dads apron strings.”

Pragmatism, getting on with what’s in front of you and a generous sense of irony and humour was the result and a firm knowledge that he would always return home. 

“I’ve never considered leaving where I am. When I went away to school I knew I would always come back to Alexandra. I was coming home to be a builder and that was that.

That’s the way it was and the way it still is.”

Breen Construction was very much a fully formed and respected enterprise by the time John had completed his six years of study in Dunedin in 1966. He came away from there as a qualified quantity surveyor and he says he also learnt a thing or two about playing rugby and drinking from the scarfies. “I had to knuckle down when I came home,” John admits wryly. 

John walked into a business with foundations built by his family before him through sheer hard work and community connections. Breen Construction was formed in 1939 by John’s uncle, Jim Breen and his grandfather, Jack Breen. John’s dad Charlie was a shareholder and later became a company director in 1945. 

John has great admiration for both his grandfather and his father. Jack, as John tells it, was a bit of a character with a side of scallywag. “My grandfather was an illegal bookie in Invercargill. He had a barbershop there but he never cut hair. He was there for taking bets. There were barbers working there but that was the front. I thought that was outstanding and I have acquired an appreciation of him,” John says this with a sideways grin that perhaps his grandfather would have been proud of. 

John’s father Charlie was completely self-taught in all his skills, having never acquired a formal education. John says his father gave him the head start he needed in the business. “My father did very well. He had an inherent intelligence and he worked very hard.”

Some of Breen’s first construction jobs were the Queenstown Post Office and the Waiapapa Sanitorium. For that job the crew lived in camps which John says, reading between the lines of the building notes, "wasn't all bad as there were nurses at the sanatorium of course”. 

Back then the company tendered for their jobs in the public system and community relationships were important as well. John says while many things have changed over the years, “relationships and reputation are still very important. It’s what you live and die on as a contractor.”

John stepped into more responsibility when his father became unwell in the late 60s. He says it was a “natural evolution, a natural extension and I just took it up as it came.” Over the years John worked as far north as Turoa and as far South as Port Pegasus in Stewart Island. John was very much of the opinion that saying “yes” to challenging jobs was the way to learn and “back then we figured it out as we went along. Common sense prevailed in the old days.” “Suck it and see!”, was the motto.