Local Focus: Meet the Kiwi characters making coffins for charity

The Kiwi Coffin Club is making a difference with bespoke coffins at half the usual price

Dianne Pye has an unusual pastime, she lines the insides of coffins for the Kiwi Coffin Club in Rotorua.

Less surprisingly, a big part of her job is comforting strangers as they prepare for their own departure.

“Some people are towards the end of their life and they just need a little bit of cajoling to come to terms with what they’re going to do, and they get to be happy with what they do,” she says.

“Other people are a bit like me, just come along and ‘Yeah, I’m going to make my coffin so I have prepared for the future’.”

The Kiwi Coffin Club is a Rotorua-based charitable trust offering custom-made coffins at about half the usual price.

It is staffed by about 20 volunteers and relies on donations from the community and favourable rates from suppliers.

Ron Wattam is one of those big-hearted volunteers.

He works all hours of the day and night to help those in need of a coffin.

The retired coffin maker is one of the Kiwi Coffin Club’s longest-serving volunteers and doesn’t shy away from a challenge.

“Earlier this year a gentleman who knew he was passing away ordered his coffin.

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“He was a car enthusiast and he wanted it to be like his car,” Wattam said.

“They gave us some photos, and we made a car look-alike, painted that car exactly the same colour as his car and it looked very close.

“It had four wheels on it – it was an MG Sports Car 1955 model for those who may know it – and it just looked like that and I took it around to his place to show him before he passed.

The man had previously told family members that he was going to be cremated, Wattam said.

“Only two weeks before he passed he announced to the family … ‘I just want to make this announcement, I’m now going to go away in my car, into an underground car park’.

“There was the family, there were friends and his wife – everybody was there – and I was in the background.

“And we were just stunned, we didn’t expect that.”

Much like the customers, Pye has also planned for the inevitable.

She’s currently working on the third version of her own coffin.

“The first one was the actual coffin shape and I’d undercoated it and everything.

“I’d taken it home because I was going to do some absolutely fantastic things with it but then I thought, you know, I don’t really want a coffin shape at home.

“So I took it back and it was sold.

“We made another one, just the casket shape which is the oblong one. Last year during lockdown, I came in and painted it bright pink.

“Then after I finished painting it I was going to put the lining in, which was going to be this Christmas present lining.

“But then I thought, I wonder if I’m going to fit in there, and so I gave it a try.

“And no, I wasn’t going to fit. You know, somebody would have had to jump on it to keep the lid on.

“Anyhow, I put some of the commercial lining in it instead of my pretty stuff and it was sold just recently.

“In the meantime, I wanted another one. I wanted a wooden one this time and all I’ve done is put some beeswax on it.

“So it’s just waiting. It’s only a box now. It doesn’t become a coffin until I’m in it.”

The Kiwi Coffin Club was one of 40 recipients of the Rotorua Lakes Council community grants.

The charity remains on the lookout for passionate volunteers to help provide customers with their final home.