He’s thrown up all over the Admiral of the Royal New Zealand Navy during high tea in calm seas and dodged flying eggs thrown by angry farmers, aimed at a nearby politician’s head.

But you won’t catch Michael Fallow ducking away from a good story.

Michael Fallow. Photo: Supplied

After 46 years in the job, all but a few for The Southland Times, Michael’s interviewed many famous names and never had to travel far from the hometown he loves.

Every Prime Minister back to Rob Muldoon has been subjected to his dry wit and satiric style.

From Woodstock musicians to dramatic stories recounted by famous war correspondent Peter Arnett and occasionally jailed African-based reporter John Edlin, both from Bluff, Michael has told them all.

His unique, descriptive style has held readers captive and searching for more. Two interviews stand out as unforgettable for Mike – record-holding American NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid, who travelled more than 70 million miles around the globe mostly on the Russian space station Mir, and renowned Auschwitz survivor Fred Silberstein, who testified at the Nuremburg trials.

“That one nearly brought me to tears,” Michael recalls.

This Local Legends story is kindly supported by E Hayes & Sons

“He was young enough to be put to work but unfortunately caught the eye of the horrific Nazi “doctor” Josef Mengele – nicknamed the ‘Angel of Death’, who operated on him without anaesthetic as part of his awful experiments.’’

Despite this travesty Fred was quick to advise Michael not to confuse people with a swastika tattooed on their neck walking around Invercargill with Nazis.

“’They are just angry young men’, he said. He was a moral, intelligent guy,” Michael says. “At the time someone was trying to say the Holocaust was a hoax.

He said, ‘Drag the argument out into the open and test it. It will wither in the sunlight but do very well in the shadows.’ I’ve always remembered that.”

As for Shannon, in true Fallow style Michael’s first question was: “Is it easier to get up on a Monday morning if you’re weightless?”

Edlin had him mesmerised with stories of tagging along with Mother Teresa in Africa in the Band Aid days. Her challenge prompted Edlin to fundraise around Europe with a friend and build a lifesaving African orphanage.

A young Michael Fallow. Photo: Supplied

Michael was raised Catholic - taught well by Dominican nuns and Marist Brothers.

Sadly, his mother died when he was only four, leaving his bank officer dad, Ken, to raise their three sons.

While his forebears – early pioneers who settled in Thornbury, were strong Presbyterians, Michael’s mum had been assured that her boys would be raised Catholic which they were.

“I think the nuns spoiled me a bit knowing I was going home to the cold bosom of a Presbyterian household,” Michael grins.

Playing on the banks of the Puni, building tree huts and playing soccer “badly” passed the time until Michael discovered the movies – then three picture theatres in Invercargill – the Majestic, Regent and Embassy.

“Saturday was a stampede to the matinee. I loved it.” His earliest memory was at about three and being taken to see the Wizard of Oz.

“Nobody had explained what the movies were, and I’d been assured and promised that there was no such thing as witches, but there she was up on the screen, and she was big and green!” Michael cowered under the seat until he heard ‘Ding Dong The Witch is Dead’.

“No way was I coming out, but they finally coaxed me out only to see flying monkeys!”

The long-time Times television and film reviewer, Michael gained early entry to the opening of the new Invercargill Movieland complex, unofficially baptising it by rolling ceremonial Jaffas down each auditorium aisle.

Somehow writing had always come naturally so Michael’s dad encouraged him to apply for the one-year Wellington Polytech course in 1977 while still in sixth form – only 50 places a year. He got in and in 1978 started work at the Ashburton Guardian on the Police round, dubbed ‘The Blood Beat’.

Michael hard at work, during the typewriter days. Photo: Supplied

At 21 he was encouraged to be nurtured in his career by the “safe hands” of Southland Times chief sub editor Jim Valli, editor Peter Muller and chief reporter Clive Lind.

“We had Imperial 66 typewriters. I never feel older than when I go into E. Hayes and see one of those. I desperately want to bang away at one again, but the sign says, ‘please don’t’.”

His editors have come under flak for his controversial ideas, none more so than a satirical, tongue-in-cheek effort that sought to mock climate change denial, insisting that not just the extreme summer melting in Antarctica - but the existence of the continent - was a hoax perpetrated by the corrupt scientific world.

“An awful lot of people didn’t get the joke.”

Stretching the truth about never being seasick when Michael ‘smelt a junket’ to Tahiti on the Royal NZ Navy frigate Southland, didn’t end so well either.

“I’d never been to sea but pretended I had. We ended up sailing from American Samoa where I was horribly seasick all over Captain Ian Hunter in his cabin where he’d invited me for tea.

The seas were calm!” Several years later he became Admiral Sir Ian Hunter – head of the navy.

“I was put on naval medication and remained pretty high for the rest of the trip, filing stories daily which Michael Turner had to rewrite back at the office.”

This Local Legends story is kindly supported by E Hayes & Sons

Flying around the Sub-Antarctic Islands on an Air Force Orion he didn’t fare much better.

Standing on the Civic Theatre balcony in 1986, Michael narrowly escaped flying eggs and tomatoes, aimed at Labour Minister Trevor de Cleene by thousands of angry, shouting Southland farmers.

“An egg sailed right over Trevor and me and detonated over organiser Lionel Paterson.”

It’s all been worth it though, Michael winning one, and finalist for three, NZ Qantas Editorial Writer of the Year Awards and a team Qantas award for the anniversary project on the Southland floods of 1982.

The NZ Sceptics Society even awarded him for his part in stitching up a leading English psychic performing at the Civic Theatre – the headline: ‘Can A Rare Medium Be Well Done?’ Trainee journalist plants were sent into the audience in venues around the country, seeking and receiving messages from either non-existent or still-breathing relatives.

“They did the heavy lifting. I was just the smart arse who wrote the end story,” Michael grins.

He wrote the company history ‘Times of Change’, but the role Michael’s most proud of was sitting on the committee overseeing, ‘Murihiku – The Southland Story’, a modern era regional history of the south.

While the job has changed around him, Michael says it’s now up to journalists to adapt to this new environment.

“There are a lot of parasitical organisations making money off our work, but we will always need local journalism.”

Michael in pensive mode. Photo: Supplied

The formats and methods of delivery may change but journalists should still hold true to those core values:

“Journalists need to have moral, accountable and informed judgment so they can best discern the truth.”

Michael turns 65 in April and reckons it’s time to cut him some slack. “Last week I registered for National Superannuation at the Ministry of Social Development.

The guy let me have a card on his desk that said in big letters: ‘Elder Abuse is Not Ok’.

When the need arises, I will be pulling that out and shoving it right in the face of my colleagues.''