At 36 he was New Zealand's youngest captain of a frigate. Under the umbrella of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – known as NATO – he led our troops into Bosnia. He was the first foreigner since World War II to be integrated into the United States intelligence spy network.

John Graeme Peddie lived his life with distinction.

The late John Graeme Peddie. Photo Supplied.

He refined the Queen, taught Her Majesty how to eat kiwifruit properly. So he performed with decorum as well as distinction.

John was a distinguished senior naval serviceman – Commodore Peddie, W16695, Royal New Zealand Navy (Rtd) – who died recently in Tauranga, aged 72. Commodore, superior to a Navy Captain, but not quite a Rear Admiral.

Dale Peddie and dog Zara.

While the spirit of the sailor has returned to sea, his legend lives on ashore. And legend has it that Peddie had been invited aboard HMY Britannia in Lyttelton for a private luncheon with the Queen.

'He escorted the Queen twice,” says his wife Dale. He was given gold cufflinks as mementos. And when Peddie chose a kiwifruit from the fruit bowl being offered by the Queen, she seized the moment.

'Now John,” said the Queen 'I am very interested to see how you prepare and eat it.” Or words to that effect. Did Peddie, the first commanding officer of the Leander class frigate Wellington, peel the kiwifruit, cut it in half and spoon the flesh or eat it whole, skin and all?

The last option wasn't an option. 'He cut and spooned of course,” assures Dale. Cutting and spooning is probably royal protocol to this day.

Peddie was from academia – his father was a professor of physics at Victoria University, who worked with the father of the atom bomb, Sir Ernest Rutherford.

His father had been a dux; his brother was a proxime accessit or runner-up. Peddie's teachers had aspirations for him too, but he got a sniff of the briny and left school at 15 for naval college.

'But no matter what, John did he was going to succeed,” says Dale. And he did, for 38 years and 71 days with the Royal New Zealand Navy. And beyond.

His sea postings included HMNZ Ships Taranaki, Canterbury and Wellington, Pukaki and Otago.

'He was a good and popular captain. He was a natural with people,” says his widow Dale.

And he was at the helm of F148, the HMNZS Taranaki when the Rothesay class frigate was paid off, sold and broken up in 1982.

He was also captain of the Bacchante – later re-commissioned as the Wellington – on its delivery voyage.

As they sailed out of the Solent they were lifting the Mary Rose – the 500-year-old remains of King Henry VIII's flagship.

It was suggested Peddie slow down as they passed the salvage site to avoid a wake and an international incident. He throttled off. Smartly.

'There is no way I am going to be responsible for sending the Mary Rose back to the seabed,” he remarked.

When a man spends 38 years in the navy, stories evolve. Like this one, of a proud and grateful mum at one passing out parade. She thanked Peddie, who was in command of naval training at the time, for the impact he'd had on her graduate son.

Since joining the navy, she told Peddie, her boy had started using an ashtray instead of stomping out his butts all over his mother's floor. The Navy maketh the man, but sometimes in tiny increments.

In the early-1990s Peddie was Inspector General of the New Zealand Defence Force.

'Not a popular posting,” says Dale. 'He was charged with making sure the army, air force and navy were doing what they said they were doing. That was stressful.”

And the man, who dropped out of high school attended the Royal College of defence Studies in London, became one of just 40 overseas students, the cream of military post-graduates. And in 1994 he became head of New Zealand defence staff, London and defence adviser/attache in Paris, Brussels and Bonn.

He returned home to be Maritime Commander, New Zealand – the operational and administrative commander of naval forces.

Dale recalls one posting with fondness, a year in Hawaii when this registered nurse was not allowed to work.

'Too much unemployment to allow foreigners to work.”

However her tennis and horse riding skills improved out of sight.

But it wasn't all roses being married to the navy.

'John would be away for six months at a time. And this was before emails.”

And jobs had to be sacrificed for yet another posting. And they were always dale's jobs.

They were unable to adopt children.

'We were considered unsuitable as parents because the perception was we were gallivanting around the world,” says Dale.

Some kid today would be very peeved to learn that attitudes of the time had deprived them of an exciting, adventurous, globe-trotting childhood.

By 1998 Peddie was out of uniform and growing golden kiwifruit in Katikati. And that gave him a cue to reconnect with royalty.

Through a friend, who was master of the Queen's household, Peddie packed off a tray of kiwifruit to Her Majesty.

'She knew who it was from and we got a lovely ‘thank you' letter from a lady-in-waiting.”

And the kiwifruit would have been eaten with Peddie seemliness of course. Cut and scooped.

Out of the service, but Peddie continued to serve. As a trustee and secretary of the Bay Health Foundation he helped raise millions of dollars for community health-related projects – like the satellite renal dialysis centre at Tauranga Hospital and the eastern and western Bay of Plenty cancer centres.

And when the Katikati Avocado, Food and Wine Festival rolls around again next summer the name John Graeme Peddie will be uttered with fondness and reverence. He was a founding father of the event.

And about 19 nautical miles down State Highway 2, at the Bethlehem Country club retirement village there's fox terrier called Zara, which is anxiously waiting for the sailor to come home. Sadly, she'll have to make do with memories.