KIWI RIDER NOVEMBER 2021 VOL1 | Page 28

OBITUARY

ROGER KIM MORONEY 1954-2021

Jon Bentman ( KR editor 2000-2002 ) Roger should not be gone . This has to be too soon . I did not get to spend too much time in person with Roger , but he did still do so much to inform me on life in the real New Zealand ( that is life beyond Auckland ’ s city limits ) thanks to his monthly columns in Kiwi Rider . He was there in Kiwi Rider when I first arrived in NZ in January 1996 , he was there when I left in 2003 , and he was still there up to last month . So , I got to read his columns , and for three years I got to edit his columns , then latterly to just read them again . First up , I have to admire his staying power , to write compelling columns for so long – and always to deadline ( he was a professional ) – takes an inner strength , not to say immense creativity . Secondly , I loved his columns for their sense of local colour . He wrote always , on all subjects , from his viewpoint as an everyman in the Hawkes Bay . True or not , it seemed each one came from a typewriter set in a spare room in an ageing weatherboard and iron bungalow
Kiwi Rider stalwart ‘ Moroney ’ sadly passed away on October 1 , 2021 . Have one on us Rog ...
located in a small , often-neglected suburb on the edge of town . And in that house , the fridge – an old , tall , nearly-rusting steel unit with two or three faded ‘ Napier – NZ ’ s deco town ’ magnets on its door – was always half empty . I picture Rog looking out of a rain-streaked
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