Peter Gray, 1954-2005

Peter Gray was born in Wellington in 1954, the youngest of six children of Lewis and Katherine Gray, who had escaped as Jewish refugees from Germany in 1939.

He went to Johnsonville Primary School and Onslow College, proving himself a very good soccer player and an excellent tennis player. His ability in tennis was undermined only by an overly temperamental approach to the game, nevertheless he did make it to a Wellington junior rep squad.

Peter's leadership abilities were apparent in his teens. Though not particularly assertive, he had an air of confidence and competence. At 17 he was elected leader of a Jewish youth group and took responsibility for organising several two-week camps for hundreds of young people from all over the country. His leadership style was always consultative and cooperative.
Peter’s family were butchers by trade, working in smallgoods and seasonings. Peter knew there was a good living to be made in food but he didn’t want to be a butcher himself. Instead he apprenticed in baking at bakeries in the Johnsonville and Porirua area.

Having done his hours, he took up an opportunity to spend a year in Israel through a youth development scheme. The kibbutz on which he stayed saw many weddings that year as they made the most of their on-site wedding cake maker.
Peter was 20 when he returned to New Zealand in January 1974. In February he opened his first business, a bakery in the inner-Wellington suburb of Hataitai.

The first Nada cake shop
He called the bakery Nada after a bakery he liked in Jerusalem. (He just liked the sound of the word.) The family supported Peter all the way. His mother, Kate, was the first Nada shopgirl.

Peter’s enthusiasm, dedication and talent for baking and for business saw the Nada business grow, and within a few months Peter had opened a second outlet over the hill from Hataitai in Newtown.

Always enterprising
At around that time too, Peter, always enterprising, set up a mobile cake shop in a truck. This he took on the weekends to the Coastlands Shopping Centre in Paraparaumu where he operated it in the carpark.

More cake shops in various Wellington suburbs: in Island Bay in 1980, in Berhampore, 1981, and a year later in the mid-city Dukes Arcade. Those shops were outlets only. The shop he opened in Johnsonville in 1982 included his second bakehouse.

Driving ambition?
During those years, Peter’s recreational interests turned to motorsport. He became a devotee of rallying, never competing but often tooling around Makara in his sporty little white Mini and his souped up Hillman Hunter.

He never lost his love of big boys’ toys.

A family is formed
Judith, later to become his wife, first entered Peter’s life when they were both about nine years old. They shared many friends as they grew up with many mutual friends in the same young Jewish social circle but they were in their mid-twenties before they formed a closer relationship.

The opening of the Johnsonville bakery was only one of the major events in Peter’s life in 1982. Early in the year he and Judith became engaged and began building a house together in Tawa. They married in August of that year.

For various reasons, the business took a turn for the worse the following year. The chain of shops had become more of a burden than an asset, and in the end Peter decided to close all of them except Johnsonville.

It was a wise decision. Concentrating all his efforts there certainly paid off as it developed a reputation as one of the city’s finest bakery, worth a long detour for many loyal customers..

Peter and Judith’s first child, Michael, came along in 1984.

More enterprise
In 1985 Peter went for the first time, accompanied by his brother David, to the great IBA bakery trade show in Germany. Together they picked up some agencies and began importing bakery machinery from Europe. The end of import controls and the growing sophistication of the bakery market made it an ideal time to begin such a business. Nada Machinery continues to prosper in a small way.

Peters family grew. Rebecca was born in 1988 and Benjamin, the mighty little postscript, was born in 1994.

A solid reputation
Peter was elected president of the New Zealand Baking Society in 1997. He had long been a keen member of the Society and had established an impressive reputation for the quality of his work with many awards in various categories of the baking competition.

Over the years, Peter and his Nada team won the New Zealand Baker of the Year competition a remarkable three times, establishing Peter Gray as a top baker in every way.

Initiatives and growth
Peter’s work for the Baking Society has been prodigious, with initiatives in many directions to expand the scope of its activities and to providing more and better services to its members.

Peter always loved the special mystique of baking as a kind of ancient brotherhood, where bakers have always cooperated in their craft as much as they have competed in business. The Baking Society is a practical demonstration of that tradition in action.

Hitting it off
One of the most useful and supportive relationships in Peter’s life was with Graham Heaven, a highly successful baker in Hawkes Bay.

The two enthusiastic bakers hit it off from the start when they met back in the early 80s, seeing eye to eye on many aspects of the craft and the business: a similar devotion to quality and innovation and the same refusal to rest on their accumulating laurels. Denise Heaven and Judith Gray hit it off too.

Jason Heaven, following in his father’s footsteps as baker, has been like an older brother, mentor and mate to Michael Gray from the start too. At the age of ten, Michael began enjoying wonderful holidays in Napier working alongside Jason in Heaven’s bakery.

Peter encouraged Graham and Denise Heaven to go to IBA in Germany for the first time in 1988.

The ideas, the contacts, the stimulation they got from these events continued to be like an essential injection of energy for them and for many other bakers similarly encouraged to go since.

The Aussie connection
Peter developed a warm regard for a number of Australian bakers that he met at IBA and some of those have developed into very firm friendships too.

The great and amazing Tom O’Toole from Beachworth impressed Peter immensely, as he impresses many thousands of others, and Peter has been a devotee and a great mate of Tom’s ever since.

Ralph Plarre in Melbourne became a close mate too, and together they kicked off ANZBake, an alliance of Australian and New Zealand baking organisations that is proving very useful in many areas.

Peter’s favourite listening on long car journeys was Tom O’Toole’s motivational tapes. “You’ve got to give that little bit extra!” Peter certainly heard that.

Wild Oats
Peter had long enjoyed a close friendship with Martin Chait, another leader in the Wellington food scene, scion of the famous Chait delicatessen and café family. That friendship resulted in Martin and Peter combining their strengths in 2000 when they opened Wild Oats, a big bakery-café in the Wairarapa. With those two in charge it could hardly fail.

Apart from anything else, going back and forth from Johnsonville to Carterton gave Peter ample opportunity to drive his car and listen to Tom O’Toole. What could be better?

Still a petrol head
Peter was still a petrol-head of course, his attention turning to vintage vehicles in recent years. Messing about in boats with motors also became important: you need boats for fishing, and the Gray family holidays at Lake Taupo have been an essential and treasured summer break for nany years.

Family man
Above all else, Peter was a family man. On top of fishing, sport, motorsport, even above baking, business and the Baking Society, Peter’s greatest interest and enthusiasm was in his growing children.

Michael’s school, Scots College, got to know Peter and Judith Gray very well indeed through their frequent and keen attendance at all sorts of school functions and activities. Peter had little taste for music (nor much taste in it) but that didn’t stop him backing Michael’s efforts as drummer in the Scots College Jazz Band all the way.

Like Scots College, Rebecca’s school, Queen Margaret’s College, has seen a great deal of the Grays too. When Rebecca decided to take up rowing, she could not have had more support from her parents, and rowing, as many parents will know, is one of the most demanding of sports in terms of times and sheer hours of training.

A formidible team
The Gray family was there for the entire weeks of the big annual rowing regattas in Twizel and Karapiro, supporting not just their daughter but the whole Queen Mags team. Peter did it not as mere duty but with enthusiasm. Sport and competition of any sort always brought out the best in Peter.

Judith’s support for Peter in every aspect of his life has been far beyond the call of duty. They made a formidable team in the business, in the wider community, in the baking industry, and in their wonderful home.

Peter clearly took enormous pride in his kids, and who wouldn’t with a family like his? We are lucky that so many of his fine qualities have been passed on. Benjamin shows promise as an artist perhaps. Rebecca is already a very accomplished sportsperson, and Michael is a passionate baker and businessman to his fingertips.

Peter, Judith and Benjamin were in the Waikato for a week to support Rebecca and her rowing team when the tragic accident took Peter’s life. They were in Cambridge, towing a trailer loaded with catering equipment and suchlike for the team, when it happened.

Peter died immediately. Judith escaped from the inverted vehicle through a broken window, severely gashing her arm and chipping a bone. Benjamin escaped unscathed.