Ken Ring

Ken William Christopher Ring was born on 2 February 1940 in England, at the height of the Second World War — his mother had been evacuated from London to the countryside to keep her unborn child safe. That dramatic entry into the world set the tone for a life lived very much on his own terms. He emigrated to New Zealand with his family in the 1960s and grew up in Auckland, the son of Leonard Ring, a former bodybuilder and wrestler who became a beloved television personality, famously teaching New Zealanders proper exercise technique on behalf of ACC. Trained in mathematics and psychology, Ken became a teacher, but the classroom alone could never contain him. He discovered early that a magic trick could hold a child's attention long after a textbook had lost it. Under the stage name "Mathman," he crisscrossed New Zealand performing at more than 500 schools, transforming equations into illusions and abstract concepts into something children could see with their own eyes. In 1992, the Queen Elizabeth II Award for Performing Arts recognised his extraordinary contribution to education and entertainment. Between 1993 and 1996, he served three elected terms as president of the New Zealand Society of Magicians — a role that reflected the affection the magic community held for him. In the 1970s, Ken, his wife Judy, and their child Kerry traded suburban life for something altogether different: a painted house bus and a self-sufficient existence in Ōpōtiki on New Zealand's east coast. There, steeped in Māori traditional knowledge and the rhythms of rural life, he began studying the relationship between lunar cycles and weather. It became a lifelong pursuit. In 1999 he published his first New Zealand weather almanac, and in 2002 he founded Predict Weather Ltd, eventually extending his almanacs to Australian and Irish readers. He called himself the "Moon Man," and the name stuck. From his sun-filled garage — stacked with books, telescopes, and instruments of his weather prediction trade — Ken wrote more than 14 books covering weather, mathematics, magic, and even a lighter work, Pawmistry: How to Read Your Cat's Paws. He contributed columns to farming and fishing publications for decades and served as an on-call weather reporter for Channel 7's Today Tonight in Australia. Scientists consistently challenged his methods, but Ken met every question with characteristic stubbornness and good humour: "I never shy away from questions," he was known to say. A stroke in later life slowed his pace but not his spirit. He remained a recognisable and irreducibly individual figure in New Zealand public life until the end. Ken Ring passed away on 21 October 2026 after a short illness, aged 86. He is survived by his family, who remembered him as "one of a kind" — a man who inspired everyone around him to think beyond conventional limits and believe that anything was possible.