A young Pete Marsh, who was recently found dead in Hastings. Artist, craftsman, chef, outdoorsman; Pete Marsh was so much more than the person whose body was found among the weeds of an abandoned industrial site in Hastings. The spectre of mental illness was a persistent foe for Pete over his 63 years. It came in various forms. It would be absent for years, then return. For the final years of his life it was nearly constant, and it saw a talented and vital man become an irascible loner who withdrew from everyone but his mother. The oldest of four children, Pete was born and raised on a sheep and beef farm in the open, isolated hill country of Motu, between Gisborne and Opotiki.