Fifty-five years after graduating in Dunedin and 49 years since joining and subsequently taking over his late father's practice in his home town of Levin, Peter Mackenzie, dental surgeon, is putting aside his drill and associated professional paraphernalia to move into virtual retirement.
Peter has closed his surgery on his former home property at the corner of Cambridge and McArthur Streets and moved up two sections in McArthur Street to a smaller dwelling he and his wife Marjorie chose five years ago for their retirement.
The 76-year-old Peter actually scaled down his work back in 1973 in his preparation for this. Filling the cavity which has been created in his lifestyle should not pose a problem for Peter and Marjorie.
They have many mutual interests, especially gardening, love of the outdoors, travel and, for Peter, especially boating, sailing in the area of the Sounds in the South Island.
Peter is also an elder of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, a denomination which his wife confesses she had enticed him into from his original Anglican faith. She also makes no secret that she is older than her husband but displays no evidence of the 10 years' difference in their ages.
Up until the age of 68 she was the instructor in a Keep Fit class. They have many friends in Levin, have much community interest and, says Peter, "we've been very happy living here".
They have a surviving family of two girls, Jackie (Romanovsky), who teaches English in a school in Kobe, Japan, and Janet (Pascoe), who is a teacher in Correspondence school, Wellington.
Peter and Marjorie have also much in common professionally. They met when, after graduating in 1941, Peter was manpowered into the practice of Dr Birch Vial, Wellington, in 1943. Marjorie (nee Barton) was a daughter of J.S. Barton, the senior magistrate in Wellington at the time. Towards the end of 1944 Peter was called up, initially in the Army. As there was a shortage of dentists he actually saw service with all three forces - Army, Air Force and Navy and even treated American marines.
"When I came into the war it was virtually over," said Peter. A short time after this Peter's father, who was also a dentist and practising in Levin, decided to retire and "I virtually took over the practice here. His father died at the age of about 70 in 1952. They first lived in Queenwood Road after having difficulty in securing a house here which was a problem at that time. The return to Levin was a homecoming for Peter who was born here and educated at Levin School and then Levin District High School. At the time Peter joined his father Mackenzie senior was only working part time.
The Mackenzie family have been associated with dentistry in Levin as far back as ???? which was the year Peter's father started his practice here. David Stuart Mackenzie's wife Mabel Mary had come up from Wellington and they set up house, which ??? the surgery near the former Chronicle building in Oxford Street.
The original house and surgery occupied the site of the Levin Club. The last remnant, the front portion, was recently demolished and is now a licensed restaurant.
Peter recalls recalls that it was virtually "the out-skirts" of the business area of the town. Cows grazed in neighbouring paddocks.
Mr Mackenzie was invited to the opening of the re-vamped club the other week but there was "nothing I could recognise".
Dentistry has been a family profession. An older brother, Jim, was a dentist in Wellington before going farming. While on war service with an army dental unit he and those comprising the mobile surgery team were captured by the Germans in Greece.
A sister, Joan (Armour), went through dental school and she ran her brother's practice during the war. At one stage there were four Mackenzies in practice in Woodward Street, Wellington. To add to the unusual practice name of Mackenzie, Mackenzie, Mackenzie and Mackenzie, their accountancy firm was styled Barnett, Barnett, Barnett and Barnett. (A John Barnett had married Peter's eldest sister and that was the connection, said Peter).
A letter arrived one day addressed to the Mackenzies' practice care of the accountancy firm which created some amusement for the postal people.
This is the year of the 75th anniversary of the School Dental Service but Peter's father, Stuart Mackenzie, had a much earlier input into the treatment in schools of children's teeth. He travelled around the schools in this district checking on the teeth of pupils and advising on dental care and hygiene - as far back as 1919. Travelling over rough roads by car and sometimes by train with some equipment for a small annual fee he gave constant attention to the teeth of young people.
Mr Mackenzie senior also was keen to see children learn to swim from a young age and to encourage them he donated a 'silver medal' - a two shilling coin - to each child who could achieve a certain distance in the baths. One of his own children, at the age of four, was the first of the recipients.
Peter said an older sister, Margaret (Barnett), was their father's nurse in the practice and she went on to be a school dental nurse. There was also a small practice operated by Mr Mackenzie senior in Otaki two days a week. It was located in the railway station locality and demolished only about 10 years ago. One or two floods he recalled went right through the surgery and ruined much equipment.
Gas was used as the anaesthetic in the early days and dental decay was a very real problem. He recalled his father constantly emphasising the importance of cleaning teeth. "It was salt and water in those days. There was no toothpaste".
When he first was in practice it was unusual for anyone over 60 years to still have their own teeth, said Peter Mackenzie. "Now we do work on the over 60s with their own teeth which can be expected to last them for another 30 years."
There had been big changes. Fluoridation had "made a big difference". It had started in Hastings. Within five years of fluoridated drinking water there had been a 50 per cent reduction.
There had been a referendum in Levin but it had never been implemented, he said. There was, however, fluoride in toothpaste now.
The older generation had been against using it in drinking water. Education had made the younger generation more aware of the value of the need to look after teeth and contributed to the improvement. There had been a marked improvement in teenagers' teeth but some of the younger ones still got dental decay. "Giving kids a bag of chips" he thought was not helpful. "Eating these and fat foods were not so bad but if it prevented eating more wholesome food it can have a long term effect."
One of the biggest changes in dentistry was the introduction of the high-speed drill which made it quicker and virtually painless. There was also much improvement in local anaesthetics over the past 50 years.
The fear of a visit to the dentist had virtually passed, he felt, largely through regular treatment. "In the past nothing was done until the tooth actually began to ache."
The "great advance" today was in dental implants where a tooth could replace one which had been knocked out.
They could now build up the gum tissue around the tooth. A former "local boy" Bill Gaudie had been to the forefront of this development and recently demonstrated it to a meeting of the Manawatu branch of the dental association in Levin.
(Since this interview there has just been an announcement of the implant of fluoride capsules which would serve to help prevent tooth decay it is claimed by 70 per cent).
Peter Mackenzie said "while we can now save the teeth of older people it can become 'rather expensive'. "
A now historical aspect of the early dental practice of the late Stuart Mackenzie, Peter's father, was that there was once working there as a dentist a young man - Bernard Freyberg. He was subsequently to win the Victoria Cross in World War I, command the 2 NZEF in World War 2 and become the post war Governor-General.
It is recorded that the late Stuart Mackenzie established a close friendship with Bernard Freyberg when both attended Wellington College. It was after qualifying in dentistry that he was to work for a period in the late Stuart Mackenzie's surgery premises, now the site of the Levin Club.
He was godfather to one of the Mackenzie children.
Peter Mackenzie says it has frequently been stated that Freyberg was a dental mechanic. This was not so. He had served his apprenticeship "as had my father" and had all the requirements then needed to perform dentistry.
The late Stuart Mackenzie was a founding member of the Levin Club and was its president for a period. He had a remarkably fine record of community service to Levin including being on the local council for three periods. He was also president of the Wellington Dental Association for a period.
There were few sports he was not, at one stage or another, been active in including forming the first hockey team in Levin which won the Manawatu championship in its first year. Table tennis and tramping were among his other interests.
On the occasion of his death it was said of him that his life had been "linked with an important phase of the district's development" - "a true sportsman, an excellent dental practitioner and a fine man".
