Case Study Great Skates

Alan Glides Into His Senior Years

- Julie Jacobson

Alan Graham reckons he’s not a health nut. Still, the 82-year-old would put many people half his age to shame.

Twice a week, you’ll find him gliding – perhaps not so much with ease, but with spirited determination – with the best of them around Avondale’s Paradice ice rink.

This is Alan’s happy place, and has been since the 1950s, when he was taken to see an ice show in St James’ Theatre in Wellington.

An active skier – he once taught in Ohakune for 10 years – it was another ice show in Northern California, where he was working at the time, that reignited his interest in skating.