Nobody loved tankers like Andy: global dairy giant farewells a special man

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Nobody loved tankers like Andy: global dairy giant farewells a special man By Indira Stewart,

1News In-depth Multimedia Reporter Mon, Jul 28 https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/07/28/nobody-loved-tankers-like-andy-global-dairy-giantfarewells-a-special-man/

The weekend saw a Fonterra-style funeral to farewell Andy Oliver, whose joy for life and for milk-collecting tankers was unrivalled. Indira Stewart reports. Andy and the global dairy giant – Watch the full story on TVNZ+.

This milking season, when Fonterra tanker drivers reach the familiar longstretching driveway of the Olivers' Te Rapa, Waikato dairy farm, their routine will be remarkably different to how it's been for more than 20 years.

Last week, tanker driver Kevin Healey drove his tanker to Ken Oliver’s farm and left with a vibrant crayon-drawing, decorated with more than a dozen stickers and sketched by Ken’s 41-year-old son Andy Oliver.

Before he died on July 16, Andy had made a final drawing for his tanker driver mates, marking the end of an unusually special milk-collecting routine that made headlines across Aotearoa and turned Andy into an internet sensation.

'He had an incredible mind’

If miracles exist, you might’ve seen one during milking season on a dairy farm in Te Rapa, just before Andy's bedtime. He’d be zooming down his driveway on his adult-sized tricycle, wearing a high-vis Fonterra jacket and cap.

Andrew Oliver, or Andy as he was known, was the only person in New Zealand diagnosed with Fryns-Aftimos syndrome and the oldest known survivor of the syndrome in the world. The rare genetic disorder brought physical and intellectual challenges and, combined with his severe epilepsy and other complex symptoms, Andy was a daily miracle to those who knew him.

“He had an incredible mind,” his mother Deidre Oliver says. "And his body was like clockwork. There were certain things that had to be done before he went to bed and [greeting] the tanker was one of them.

“Everything had to be done in the right order. He had to draw a picture for the tanker drivers, he had to put on his Fonterra uniform, he had to watch 'Dan the weatherman’ on the 6pm news and wouldn’t have his bath and go to bed until the tanker had visited.”

In the past, when the tanker's routine was unpredictable, that sometimes meant that Andy's parents Ken and Deirdre, were up until 3am.

For years they managed it, until one day in 2015 Ken hit the wall. ”Deirdre had a minor stroke. I was absolutely out on my feet trying to keep the farm going and surviving on 3-4 hours sleep and I’d just run out. And so I phoned the call centre and actually started crying on the phone. I said, look my life has just become impossible and I can’t get sleep until this boy’s in bed," he told RNZ at the time. Global dairy giant Fonterra changed its milk tanker schedule in Te Rapa, a district of more than 1000 farmers, just so Andy could go to bed on time. Four years later, his story went public and reached millions. Fonterra’s then spokesperson Barry McColl told RNZ the company had never before changed its milk tanker schedule to accommodate someone’s bedtime. But they did it for Andy.

'You realise how lucky you are' “It’s a special relationship and everybody knows Andrew,“ said tanker driver Kevin Healey in 2019. “He draws a picture for us and we take it back to the office and we put them up on the wall at work. He asks us what we’ve had for dinner, whether we'd been to see Mr so-and-so down the road. He asks us about the tanker.

”You realise how lucky you are that you’re able to do this.” The cherished friendship changed Andy's life and theirs. Whenever a tanker visited it would blast its horn as it made its way down the driveway. A call met by the furious jingle of Andy’s bike bell before he tailgated the tanker on his tricycle. Andy’s tricycle was one of his favourite possessions, gifted to him by his tanker driver mates years ago. It had a license plate at the back that read “Andrew, Fonterra’s No 1 Fan.”

Over the past year, as Andy's health worsened, the sight of him hooning down the driveway on his trike became less frequent. He struggled to make it to the tanker on time in the evenings and eventually one of his carers began to drive him there. Some days, he’d place his drawings inside the key box by the milk vats during the day. In return, drivers would leave him a note and sometimes a treat and blast their tanker horn as they drove past his house so he knew they’d been.

When Healey visited the farm last week, he looked inside the box to find Andy had left behind one last final drawing. ”We've had time to look back and we now recognise that things were winding down, that he was coming to the end of his life,” he says. Andy wasn’t expected to reach age 21 but for 41 years, he defied all odds. “He was always the come-back kid. I kind of expected him to come back from this one but it was his time and as Andy has always done, he did it his way. You could almost sort of hear him say, 'well I’ve had enough of this, I’m out of here' and that was him," says Ken. Andy died peacefully at Waikato Hospital on July 16, having had pneumonia. Deidre says, "Looking back now, his body was starting to have had enough.” It was five days before milking season started up again. Ken says, "His last words to me were, 'Dad, I love you. Don't forget to do the silage.’" Incalculable riches On Saturday, Andy was laid to rest in a custom-made coffin covered in pictures of a tanker, firetruck, a digger and his beloved trike. He was dressed in his high-vis shirt and cap, and his trike sat in the foyer of the Salvation Army City Corps, where his service took place. Andy's service was a celebration, unconventional for the long-standing Salvation Army family and perfect for him. As his coffin was carried into the venue, the opening theme song from the classic Thunderbirds TV show rang through the church speakers. Instead of hymns, family and friends sang songs Andy loved to sing himself, including Silent Night. His siblings, Daniel, Jared and Kimberlee, along with their spouses, carried out Andy’s coffin to 'Hakuna Matata', from the Lion King soundtrack, one of Andy’s favourite movies. As a final farewell from his tanker driver mates, Kevin Healey followed behind the hearse, as it carried Andy’s coffin down Hamilton’s Harwood St, in a milk tanker. “Every now and then, I guess we'll hear the tanker go by and it'll remind us and that's a good memory. A very good memory because you move on with life, you have to,” Ken says. Andy leaves behind a mission for his mum and dad. In 2019, Ken and Deirdre opened Kōwhai House, right next to their farm, where people with similar needs to Andy's could be supported to live as independently as possible with carer support. Andy lived there with two flatmates, also living with disabilities, Mike and Tim. “With whatever's left in our lives we want to continue that work and dream on Andrew’s behalf," says Ken. "It’s very easy to think that a person who cannot express themselves somehow is stupid or not worthwhile but we know otherwise. “He has enriched our lives in ways that you cannot calculate and now we’re just looking back, so grateful.” The Olivers have a Give-A-Little page to raise funds for Kowhai House. Andy and the global dairy giant – Watch the full story on TVNZ+

'My angel in high-vis'

Murdoch Ngahau was an 11-year-old runaway when a Māori warden pulled up in a yellow van. Here he is writing to the woman who stopped and saved him.

This story was first published on E-Tangata. https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/people/my-angel-in-high-vis

To Joyce, my angel in hi-vis.

Thirty-seven years have passed since you pulled over on that stretch of State Highway 1 just outside Hamilton, and I’m still trying to find the words to thank you properly. Not just for the ride, not just for the three months you gave me sanctuary in your home, but for something far more precious — you gave me back my voice when the world was determined to silence it.

I need to tell you this story again, Joyce, because it’s not just my story anymore. It’s become something bigger, something that speaks to the heart of what it means to be Māori in this country, to be whānau, to be human.

Ko Murdoch Ngahau ahau. I te taha o tōku pāpā nō Te Kaha, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui.

I te taha o tōku māmā nō Te Teko, Ngāti Awa. Putauaki te maunga. Rangitaiki te awa. Mātaatua te waka. Kokohinau te marae. Ngāti Mahuta te hapū. These are my roots, my whakapapa, the threads that connect me to this whenua. But at 11 years old, standing on that roadside with my thumb out, I felt severed from all of it. Like a young kākā that had fallen from its nest, wings not yet strong enough to fly, calling out into the wind with no one to hear.

That morning, when I decided to run away from my aunty’s place in Te Kauwhata, I wasn’t running toward something. I was running from the weight of not belonging anywhere. The kind of displacement that settles in your bones when you’re a kid bouncing between whānau, when the adults around you are doing their best but sometimes their best isn’t enough. I was carrying trauma I didn’t even have words for yet, abandonment that felt like a constant companion, and a deep, aching mistrust of the world that no 11- year-old should have to carry.

Think about the audacity of what I was attempting, Joyce. A kid, barely tall enough to see over the bonnet of most cars, standing on one of the busiest highways in the country, trying to hitchhike 375 kilometres. The courage that took — or maybe it was desperation disguised as courage. The mana of a child who had already learned that survival meant taking impossible risks, that sometimes the only way forward is to leap into the unknown and trust that someone, somewhere, will catch you. That’s what you did, Joyce. You caught me.

I remember the sound of your van. A big yellow Bedford that looked like it belonged to the A-Team. I remember thinking this was either my salvation or my doom, but by then I was too tired to care either way.

When you stepped out in your Māori Wardens uniform, something shifted inside me. Here was a woman who looked like she belonged to something bigger than herself, who wore her service like a korowai, who radiated an authority that came not from power but from aroha.

“Kia ora, young man. Where are you going?”

Four words that changed everything. Not “What are you doing?” or “Where are your parents?” but “Where are you going?” As if my journey mattered. As if I had agency in my own life. As if I was a person worth asking.

When you told me I wasn’t getting in that van to continue my journey to Patea, I felt that familiar sinking feeling — another adult making decisions about my life without consulting me. But then you explained about the Māori Wardens convention in Ōtorohanga, and suddenly I wasn’t being rejected, I was being invited. Invited into a whakapapa of service I didn’t even know existed. Those three months in your home taught me what manaakitanga actually looks like in practice. Not just the concept we learned about in kura, but the daily acts of aroha that transform lives. The way you made space at your table for whoever needed feeding. The way you stood up to social welfare when they came to collect me, and insisted that my voice mattered in deciding my own fate. The way you taught me that being Māori wasn’t just about whakapapa. It was about responsibility, looking after one another, ensuring that no one gets left behind.

You were writing the playbook for Whānau Ora decades before it became government policy, Joyce. You understood that healing happens in relationship, that belonging isn’t just about bloodlines but about being seen, valued, and given the space to grow into who you’re meant to be.

I often think about the statistical likelihood of you stopping that day. How many cars drove past an 11-year-old on the side of the road? How many people saw a “problem” instead of a person? How many decided it wasn’t their responsibility? The fact that you — a Māori warden heading to a convention, already carrying the weight of community service — chose to stop, chose to complicate your journey, chose to see me as worthy of care, still takes my breath away.

That moment when you stood between me and the social welfare officer, when you insisted they ask me where I wanted to go — that was the moment I learned that my voice had value. That was the moment I understood that being Māori meant more than just surviving the systems designed to diminish us. It meant standing up, speaking out, and ensuring that the most vulnerable among us are heard.

You taught me that aroha ki te tangata isn’t just a nice phrase — it’s a practice that requires courage, conviction, and the willingness to step into other people’s chaos with your heart wide open. You showed me that being a Māori warden isn’t about wearing a uniform or having authority. It’s about being a kaitiaki for your people, a guardian of mana, a bridge between the broken and the whole.

Now, as you navigate the challenges of dementia, as I saw your daughter Gloria caring for you with the same devotion you showed to countless others, I’m reminded that the aroha you planted in people’s lives continues to grow long after the planting is done.

The rangatahi you sheltered, the families you supported, the systems you challenged. We are all part of your legacy, Joyce. We are all seeds you scattered with your generous heart.

I want you to know that every time I stand up for someone who can’t stand up for themselves, every time I insist that voices be heard, every time I choose to see the person rather than the problem, I’m channelling the mana you gave me that day on State Highway 1.

You didn’t just save me from the roadside, Joyce. You saved me from becoming someone who had learned to be silent, someone who had accepted that their voice didn’t matter. The boy who climbed into your van that day was broken, displaced, carrying wounds he couldn’t name. The man writing this letter is someone who found his purpose in service, who learned that healing happens in community, who understands that our greatest strength as Māori people lies not in our ability to survive but in our commitment to ensuring others thrive.

That transformation didn’t happen overnight, Joyce. It took years for me to understand the gift you gave me. But every day since, I’ve been living proof that one act of aroha ki te tangata can change everything. That one person choosing to stop, to see, to care, can alter the trajectory of a life, can turn a story of abandonment into one of belonging.

Mauri ora, Joyce Williams. Thank you for stopping. Thank you for seeing. Thank you for showing me that love in action looks like a Māori warden in a yellow van, willing to complicate her own journey to ensure a lost child finds his way home.

With all my aroha and eternal gratitude, Murdoch.

Murdoch, along with Dr Amber Hammill, has written and produced Hi Viz Manaaki: Māori Wardens, a podcast for RNZ which launches on Wednesday, July 23. It will be broadcast on RNZ National on Sundays at 7am from August 31, with new episodes every week. Murdoch Ngahau (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Awa) has worked in kaupapa Māori, community projects, and commercial media for over 20 years. He is the communications director at Te Kōhao Health, while also involved in iwi, media, and tikanga Māori projects as well as mentoring.