A 93-year-old veteran of community radio broadcasting is hanging up his microphone after 25 years on air.

Ray Woodley has presented an assortment of music programmes in Palmerston North and he has just recorded the 700th - and last - episode of his latest show Musical Confection.

A builder by trade, Woodley only began broadcasting after he retired, but he says he has loved every minute of it.

RNZ sat in with Woodley for some of his final recording, which began: "Greetings everybody for this programme, Musical Confection, programme number 700 - how did I ever get to here?

"They've given me an hour today, so I'm going to play lots of tracks I have liked over the years - whether anybody else did, I don't know."

Woodley has presented Musical Confection since 2011. It mainly focused on big band classics and jazz standards.

There were many other programmes in the decade before that too on the airwaves of Manawatū People's Radio - one of 12 community stations throughout New Zealand - as well as stints as an announcer and even board chairman.

"I can still remember driving my car up Rangitīkei Street for the first time, nervous as billy-o, and never thinking I'd get to 700 programmes, of this one," he said of his radio debut.

Woodley showed some emotion as he unpacked CDs neatly stacked in his briefcase and cast a last final eye over his programme's runlist.

"I've got mixed feelings about today, but that's what happens in life - parts of your life come to an end."

The end of an era did not go unmarked - a portrait of Woodley was unveiled on the radio station wall. It was drawn by radio station content co-ordinator Hugh Dingwall's daughter Leilani.

And as Woodley took a break from recording his extended farewell, there was time for a few stories over a glass of alcohol-free bubbles, including the time he was on air and a woman phoned in with a request.

She wanted to hear a song she insisted was well known, Share Your Banana With Me.

Woodley said he was stumped, so consulted the then-station manager, who eventually worked out the caller meant Kiwi classic, Sir John Rowles' Cheryl Moana Marie, which Woodley played on air. The woman rang back, thankful to learn the song's real name.

Woodley said the nerves of his early days were gone, although he admitted he was not as confident as he once was.

But he was grateful the small team at Manawatū People's Radio looked after him.

Dingwall said Woodley was full of surprises, and was a generous man who would regularly bring in fresh produce from his garden.

"He's definitely going to be missed," Dingwall said.

"Because he lives at Olive Tree, at a rest home, he's in direct contact with a lot of people who are his listeners, in a way that's quite unusual for our shows.

"He'll get people knocking on his door saying, That was a good one you did, Ray."

Woodley was a stalwart of the Manawatū music scene, Dingwall said.

"In many ways he's kind of a last window into a world of music that doesn't exist any more. He had an early career as an itinerant piano player.

"There was a period of time where every building had a piano, so if you were having a party you hired a guy to come and play it, and in Manawatū that guy was Ray. He had to know every popular song off the top of his head."

Woodley is also a banjo player and, around his day job, managed bands.

He will now have a gap in his weekly schedule, which he said he would probably fill with more lunches and more piano playing at the rest home.

"It does seem a bit strange. I'll probably find for a couple of weeks I might think, hello, what should I be doing today?

"It's my 25th year and 700 programmes - it's probably a good time to call it off."