32 minute read
Waihi
TOWERING TREASURES
WORDS: DENISE IRVINE • IMAGERY: PETER DRURY
Projects abound for the tight-knit group of volunteers who play a vital role in keeping Waihi’s substantial goldmining heritage alive
The stillness at Union Hill is broken by a chorus of cicadas, and the skyline is punctuated by six slim concrete towers that look as if they’ve been dropped from another planet into this serene space.
Union Hill is a former goldmine on the outskirts of the Coromandel township of Waihi, and the cylindrical ferro-concrete towers are cyanide tanks built early last century for the long-gone Waihi Gold Mining Company of London.
In their heyday, the tanks were the key to an innovative process of extracting gold from crushed ore in a township rich in this precious metal.
Listed as a Category 1 historic place, the tanks are the only examples of their type and size of construction in the country.
Each tank is 16.7 metres high and 3.66 metres in diameter and soars above its bushy backdrop.
They are sited a little off the beaten track from Waihi’s many goldmining heritage treasures, which include the Martha Mine Pit Rim Walkway and the adjacent Martha Mine No 5 Pumphouse, known as the Cornish Pumphouse, which is also on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero.
Warwick Buckman and other stalwarts from volunteer group Waihi Heritage Vision (WHV) want to increase the visibility of Union Hill with a plan to make it more visitor friendly.
“There is no signage from the road, nothing to let people know it’s here,” Warwick says. “There will be a lot of satisfaction from this work.”
Hear more from Waihi Heritage Vision in our video: youtube.com/ HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga
1 The remains of Union
Hill’s once thriving gold-processing plant.
2 The Martha Mine.
3 Peter Beveridge.
4 The ‘T’ Memorial.
tūrangawaewae: a place where one has the right to stand
A former Waihi College geography teacher, Warwick chairs WHV, which aims to protect and promote Waihi’s natural and built heritage features. Union Hill is a major work in progress, and today Warwick is on site with wife Krishna Buckman, WHV’s secretary-treasurer, and members Robyn Ramsey, Peter Beveridge and Baillie Scott.
The tight-knit WHV team, founded in 2007, is a classic example of Kiwi ‘can-do’: it comprises about 12 people and membership is $1. It gets funding as needed from various charitable trusts as well as OceanaGold, the global goldmining company active in Waihi and the town’s largest employer.
WHV has multiple projects either completed or on the go, aimed at enhancing and protecting the identity of a town that many descendants of the early goldminers still call home and also supporting future economic growth through increased tourism.
“There is already plenty to do and see here, and there will be more,” says Warwick.
At Union Hill, he leads our party further on from the tanks to the stone remnants of Union Hill’s goldprocessing plant and a stamper battery.
There are also ore-roasting kilns further up the valley, built in the late 1880s to heat gold-bearing ore and support the recovery of gold. The kilns are now shrouded in undergrowth and won’t be publicly accessible until there is a plan for managing them.
OceanaGold owns the Union Hill area where the cyanide tanks and other historic workings are located,
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THE TUNNELLERS MEMORIAL
Peter Beveridge feels the magic of remembrance when he stands before the memorial to the New Zealand Tunnelling Company in Waihi’s Gilmour Park. The ‘T’ Memorial, a towering metal sculpture by Waihi-based sculptor Nick Brumder, honours the New Zealand men who went to the Western Front in France during World War I to help dig, with picks and shovels, a labyrinth of tunnels and caverns used to move and hide thousands of Allied troops. The sculpture incorporates a globe, recognising that the tunnellers came from all over the world.
Peter Beveridge’s grandfather, Joseph Bertie Beveridge, was a World War I tunneller, and the memorial wall at Gilmour Park has a photograph of him in rescue kit at an army mines training school in France. Joe, as grandson Peter calls him, was one of 1300 Kiwi tunnellers who took their civilian mining skills to the Western Front. There were 90 Waihi goldminers in the company.
Peter says Gilmour Park has become the tūrangawaewae for the old miners and their families, and he is deeply appreciative of WHV’s efforts in developing the site, which was dedicated in January 2016.
The initiative was led by then WHV chair Kit Wilson and his wife Sue Baker Wilson. Peter, who moved to Waihi a few years ago, now volunteers with WHV.
Peter’s grandfather was from Christchurch, and he served in both the Boer War and World War I as Henry Coventry. He’d thought a stint in borstal as a youth would have kept him out of the New Zealand Army if he’d signed up as Joe Beveridge.
A letter from ‘Henry Coventry’ to the wife of a fellow World War I miner is part of the permanent – and poignant – Khaki Miners exhibition at OceanaGold’s education centre. This was also developed by WHV and salutes the tunnellers with photographs, interpretive panels, and beautiful handcrafted wreaths and poppy cloaks. The cloaks were a collaborative effort by many Waihi women, co-ordinated by Krishna Buckman, who also made the wreaths.
Peter Beveridge was seven when Joe died. He remembers him as a strong, fiercely independent man. He says Waihi has done the tunnellers proud. n
and it has earmarked a recently retired SAG mill (a semi-autogenous grinding mill used to separate gold from ore) for the Union Hill heritage project.
The big mill is in storage, awaiting the move to Union Hill. It is envisaged that visitors will enter the site through the mill and there will be interpretive panels telling the story of the area’s mining heritage, from past to present.
The car park will be upgraded, a picnic area developed and entrance signs installed.
Warwick has drawn the plans for this project and they are currently with OceanaGold for approval. Both parties are also working closely with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga staff on the project, which will later require consents from Hauraki District Council. Funding has yet to be finalised.
Phil Salmon, Community Development Advisor for OceanaGold, says the company is pleased to work with WHV members on projects to get the best out of local heritage sites.
“They are a constant source of feedback and we value their input. We are lucky to have such dedicated people in Waihi,” he says.
“Warwick Buckman is that guy who gets out and does things. He walks the talk, as do other members.”
Warwick says WHV similarly values the connection with the company. “But we don’t feel they are buying us. It is a positive relationship.”
In the past three years, WHV has worked with OceanaGold and many local volunteers, including children, at Union Hill. Trees have been cleared around the cyanide tanks, creating better access and views, and there has been a big push to replant with natives. OceanaGold and its contractors have contributed funds and manpower for this stage of the project as well.
Amid the sound of cicadas and the stark remains of the formerly productive plant, Warwick draws attention to the significance of our surroundings: “This was a large industrial site in the early 1900s, and the cyanide tanks were revolutionary.”
1 WHV members at Gilmour
Park, from left: Warwick
Buckman, Robyn Ramsey,
Krishna Buckman, Baillie
Scott, Peter Beveridge,
Florence Chambers.
2 Robyn Ramsey beside a mural of Ada Maud Donaldson MBE.
3 The Grand Junction refinery building. Grand
Junction was the second most important mine in the Waihi area.
4 A handcrafted red poppy cloak at the Khaki Miners exhibition in OceanaGold’s education centre.
5 WHV collaborates on the maintenance of a weir and water race on the
Ōhinemuri River.
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PROJECTS AT A GLANCE
Projects completed by WHV in recent years include the Khaki Miners exhibition in OceanaGold’s education centre, and the beautiful New Zealand Tunnelling Company memorial in Gilmour Park (see sidebar, page 41).
In addition, an historic mine cart has been rebuilt by member Roger Pearce using original pieces. It can be seen from the Martha Mine Pit Rim Walkway.
WHV was also part of a massive community effort to commemorate the Armistice Day centenary in 2018, marking the end of World War I. Since then, WHV has organised an annual Anzac Day display of 2000 white crosses, gifted to it by the Fields of Remembrance Trust. These are placed each year on a grassy slope near the Cornish Pumphouse.
The installation takes two weeks to complete and each of the town’s six schools sends students to help (about 50 children a day). Krishna Buckman says it is wonderful to hear children spontaneously sharing stories of their ancestors who fought overseas. In other current projects, WHV is working alongside Habitat Enhancement Landcare Partnership Waihi (HELP Waihi), to clear rogue vegetation around a weir on the Ōhinemuri River and the water race to the former Victoria Battery, in a tranquil area once humming with mining activity.
Warwick Buckman says the weir, water race and a dredging plant are major (and less well-known) goldmining features and they need maintenance and a management plan. So far the group has felled some crack willow growing on the banks of the water race, sprayed gorse and blackberry and walked the area with a DoC archaeologist to discuss options for further work. The location is listed with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga as an historic area.
WHV is also developing plaques for the township that tell local stories. Member Robyn Ramsey has recently completed one that honours Ada Maud Donaldson, the wife of a Waihi mayor, who was awarded an MBE in 1918 for her work with Red Cross and St John New Zealand. Robyn also leads heritage walking tours in the town.
At the Goldfields Railway station in Waihi, member Peter Cooper is researching heritage plaques for 10 buildings.
“These are precious pieces of history,” he says. n
WEST life WORDS: YVONNE VAN DONGEN
West Auckland has a strong heritage as a source of artistic inspiration and a hub for creatives. Yvonne van Dongen reports on three heritage properties that are keeping alive the area’s reputation as a home for art lovers
Wild country abounds out West Auckland way, as do some big names – such as artist Colin McCahon, wine industry pioneer Assid Corban, and author and children’s literacy pioneer Dorothy Butler. However, these three share more than the honour of being West Auckland identities: all their former homes have become destinations for art lovers and practitioners and are open to the public.
Forward planning for a visit, however, is essential. Corban Estate Arts Centre (formerly the Corban Winery and Mt Lebanon Vineyards) and McCahon House are open year round, but tours must be booked, and Butler’s former home, Karekare House, is only open to visitors when an artist’s residency (offered at the house for up to three months) ends. I was lucky enough to strike one such period when my writer friend Deborah Shepard and photographer John McDermott finished their joint residency there in 2018.
Karekare House was bought in 2016 by husband and wife Sarah Elsby and Donald Cheesman from Butler’s children, of whom two still live at Karekare. Since then they have given the house a new lease of life thanks to the residency programme they established with the assistance of charitable trust Eden Arts, which supports the arts in Mt Eden. Sarah is also an artist and a long-time member of Eden Arts.
Sarah says it wasn’t the house, however, that was the main attraction when buying the property; it was the vast lawn: “It’s an airy space, and more intriguing and interesting because of the openness, with nothing to interrupt its expanse.”
There are two dwellings on the property, both built by timber merchant Charles Murdoch and together scheduled as a Category B historic heritage place in the Auckland Unitary Plan: the 1889 Winchelsea House, also known as ‘the cottage’, and the 1900 Karekare House, also known as ‘the barracks’.
The barracks was later used as a guest house by another well-known local family, the Farleys. Sarah says this explains all the small doors opening to the outside along the front of the house. At that time the house had no bathroom, just an ablution block situated where the garage is now.
When Dorothy Butler bought Karekare House in 1972, it was regarded as a rural slum. The Butlers renovated both properties, including an extension to the barracks, where Butler established her study. The dining table that now sits in Karekare House was found in the wreckage of Winchelsea House and has since been restored.
Winchelsea itself was named after the British home town of the Farley matriarch and is now Sarah and Donald’s part-time residence.
Tucked away in a bush-clad valley, the location of Karekare House surely offers inspiration for its artist residents (it also caught the eye of Jane Campion, who featured Karekare House in her 1993 film The Piano), but if that’s not enough, the tumultuous expanse of Karekare beach is less than five minutes’ walk away.
The sounds of life are certainly different at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in Henderson. Every 15 minutes railway bells herald the arrival of a commuter train running alongside the centre, although Madeleine Gifford, my guide and the centre’s curator and exhibitions manager, says she no longer hears them.
Lebanese migrant Assid Corban presumably also learned to tune out the bells following his arrival in 1902. In any case, he was pleased to live near a railway line, knowing it would be a godsend when it came to transporting his wine around the country.
The vineyard he established was not the only one in the area at the time, but just 20 years after Assid arrived, the Corban family was the largest winemaker in the country.
The three-storey cellar building, which still stands today, was built at an early stage (1903-07); todemonstrate their subsequent success the family homestead, housing the Corbans and their nine surviving children, was erected in 1923-24. The spacious home was intentionally
1 Karekare House, also known as ‘the barracks’.
2 Looking from the hallway through the front door onto the lawn at Karekare
House.
3 Winchelsea House.
4 The restored dining table now in Karekare House was originally in Winchelsea House.
5 Current artist in residence
Kalisolaite ’Uhila and Sarah
Elsby, Chair of the Karekare
House Charitable Trust.
IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP
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designed to accommodate Lebanese-style, extended family living that allowed the adult children to remain there with their spouses once they were married and continue to assist with the family business.
The Corbans ensured their heritage was also referenced in the decorative elements of the house, such as the stained-glass clusters of purple grapes and leaves surrounding the front door.
The brick archway that once welcomed visitors is long gone, but the homestead itself stands proud and well cared for – obviously thriving in its incarnation as the centre’s gallery and reception area.
It’s been 20 years since Waitākere City Council bought the site and eventually created the humming arts hub. Madeleine says to mark this anniversary, celebrations are taking place throughout 2022.
Much of the complex has been recognised as a Category B historic heritage place in the Auckland Unitary Plan. (At the time of writing, an assessment was in progress for the potential entry of the homestead and wider winery complex to the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero.)
Today, the ground floor of the three-storey cellar building is home to the Arts Centre’s café; wine has been stored in surviving concrete vats. The former bottling plant, which is attached to the cellar building, now houses workshop spaces. Many of the estate’s venues are also available for hire.
Also on the property is the old St Michael’s Anglican Church, formerly sited across the road, where many Corban offspring were married. A few pear trees from orchards still remain on the grounds, as do many shelter trees planted alongside Te Wai o Panuku (Opanuku Stream) that helped protect the vineyards.
Spacious is the last word that comes to mind when viewing McCahon House, situated on the road to French Bay, near Titirangi. It is salutary to remember that Titirangi only really opened up in the 1930s when the first all-weather road, Scenic Drive, was constructed.
The Category 2 historic place (also recognised as a Category B historic heritage place in the Auckland Unitary Plan) was built as a weekend cottage in 1939 and bought by Colin McCahon in 1953. Here the McCahon family (Colin, Anne and four children) lived until 1960.
During this time McCahon completed numerous projects at the house, such as building the deck, adding the grid windows in the living room that frame the bush, making a dish rack out of knitting needles and using one of his paintings as a sliding cupboard door. The distinctive pea-soup green interior is also of its time. These alterations were left largely untouched by the subsequent owner and the house was later acquired by the Waitākere City Council in 1999.
McCahon would paint on the deck and on the floor of the lounge. He also worked in the garage (look for telltale black paint splatters on the wall).
1 The homestead, Corban
Estate Arts Centre.
2 Stained-glass windows at the homestead entrance.
3 Old St Michael’s Church,
Corban Estate Arts Centre.
4 Corban Estate Arts Centre from Great North Road.
IMAGERY: SAMUEL HARTNETT
5 Works by Daphne Espiritu at
Corban Estate Arts Centre.
IMAGE: RALPH BROWN
6 Artworks McCahon created while living in Titirangi.
7 The dining area at McCahon
House.
8 The exterior of McCahon
House, showing the deck
McCahon built.
IMAGERY: SAMUEL HARTNETT
kaumatua: elder
“The children slept in an open-air bedroom,” says guide Jack Hadley. “This wasn’t uncommon at the time, and visitors to the house often share their own memories of similar experiences growing up.”
While I’m trying to imagine living in this small, rustic bach, Jack leaves me to explore the space and listen to some of the 16 audio displays, supported by images, about McCahon and his work. I learn that his last full year here was one of his most significant; it was when he produced works such as the ‘Elias’ series and the Northland panels.
The McCahon House Trust established a residency in 2006 for three artists a year, each for three months, funded by Creative New Zealand. Architect Pete Bossley designed the studio residence – a simple, large-windowed structure on stilts linked to the house via a wooden walkway – which was named ‘Parehuia’ by Te Kawerau a Maki kaumatua the late Eru Thompson in 2008. Pete’s design is strikingly similar to a plan McCahon himself drew for a studio.
McCahon and his family spent many happy hours sailing in their dinghy out on the bay, and while much has changed since that time (the bush is denser for a start), the house – except for gentle conservation and cleverly introduced interpretation – still appears as it was on the day they left for central Auckland in 1960.
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WORDS: LYDIA MONIN
The use of historic places as locations for film and television productions helps transport audiences to other times and places. And in the streaming age, as content-making juggernauts vie for viewers’ attention with grand productions and hefty budgets, the demand for historic locations globally is steadily increasing
It’s amazing what a mop of tousled hair, a couple of impressive sideburns and a damp shirt can do for heritage. In 1995 Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice dived into a lake at England’s historic Lyme Park – and the financial ripple effects are still being felt at the estate’s ticket office today.
In the 1990s we were on the cusp of a golden age of television. Channels were multiplying and soon we’d go digital, streaming highquality programmes on demand. And the lavish period dramas kept on coming: feature-length films, binge-worthy series, the latest screen adaptations of 19thcentury classics.
Historic buildings were needed as film sets and their custodians saw opportunities.
“We went out there and invited film companies to come and have a look,” says Harvey Edgington, Senior Filming and Locations Manager for Britain’s National Trust, which set up a Film Office in 2003. Harvey says he’d been approached by film companies before but the trust, which looks after properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, needed to be proactive, not reactive.
Now he deals with everything from period dramas such as Bridgerton and feature films to documentaries and photo shoots. Filming requests can’t be party political, religious or about the paranormal (ghosthunting usually requires an overnight stay).
“The location manager gets the script, phones me and says, ‘This is what I’m looking for’. And it could be anything from a ballroom to a cave halfway up a mountain.” There are location fees for filming, but if a show is a hit, much greater financial rewards can follow. Pride and Prejudice is still worth £900,000 (NZ$1.76 million) a year to the National Trust property Lyme Park, says Harvey.
Tim Burton’s 2010 film Alice in Wonderland was shot at Cornwall’s 18thcentury Antony House.
“They went from 23,000 visitors to just
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under 100,000 in a year because it was in the film, and it was mainly children making adults go and see it,’’ says Harvey, adding that the ‘Harry Potter effect’, in which children have become heavily invested in certain books and their subsequent movies (which feature some highprofile historic locations), has been “phenomenal”. When the chatelaine of Highclere Castle heard that her friend and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes needed a real house for his fictional Crawleys, she hosted a get-together.
“I could ask Julian Fellowes to come and stay along with other friends and that made it fun – but it’s soft marketing,” says Lady Fiona Carnarvon, 8th Countess of Carnarvon.
“You’re all in it together, thinking what you can do. Good food and good wine go a long way in my view!”
Lady Carnarvon’s husband is George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon; his family has lived in the castle since 1679.
As Fellowes later told Lady Carnarvon when he was a guest on her podcast: “I wanted a house where a family had stayed continuously through the different periods, and the pictures and the furniture told the story of a family who hadn’t moved around, because that’s what I very much wanted Downton to be.
“You can always see in a film when they’re working in something that’s been got up out of props and hired furniture – it’s not quite the same.”
A former accountant, Lady Carnarvon says not even her daily costs of hosting the Downton film crew were covered, to begin with. The commercial opportunity lay in its potential as a marketing platform, from which Highclere has since launched tours, books, a blog, a
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podcast, an Instagram account, interviews and speaking engagements – even a Highclere Castle Gin. And the money generated has helped fund much-needed repairs.
“The filming went on for years on and off – you don’t take up the baton after that. You have to think your way through it and go with it from the start. You’re running a business and you need to think in a business fashion.”
Film crews bring extra equipment to protect heritage buildings from damage, like floor coverings and split tennis balls to put under the feet of camera tripods. The National Trust has rules about how many candles can be used and how many fire extinguishers and stewards are needed. Fake snow has to be a biodegradable, plant-based cellulose that can be shovelled up like real snow at the end of the day. Older substitutes like salt and foam are banned.
But accidents happen. An antique was smashed on the first day of the Downton shoot – one of several mishaps. Over-confident lorry drivers have caused the odd scrape trying to squeeze through National Trust property gateposts.
Covid-19 created more problems. “Do we risk cleaning that historic doorknob every time someone uses it or is it best to put clingfilm on it and keep replacing the clingfilm regularly?” says Harvey. After every shoot, conservators write him a report on what went well and what went badly.
Dublin-based Andrew Gallimore has spent more than two decades directing historical documentaries at locations ranging from the pyramids of Giza to the Palace of Westminster.
“We generally have far fewer people on set; however, the increase in the production values of television drama has influenced documentary filmmaking, and there’s certainly an expectation these days that we take a more cinematic approach. It creates a series of ‘trust falls’, with the producer – who’s completed the riskassessment forms – at the head of the queue depending on me not to drop him or her. Meanwhile, I have the director of photography behind me.
“The temptation to strive for that new shot, that new ‘tension-packed angle’ is always there. How much better would it look if we started just a few centimetres closer to that priceless chandelier? I should say that not a single piece of crystal glass has ever been hurt in the making of any of our films!”
Andrew filmed the temples of Angkor, Cambodia, in 2001 for a series on landmines. Around the same time, the temples were used in a very different shoot – as the setting for the Hollywood blockbuster Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Ta Prohm, one of the largest temples, was dubbed the ‘Tomb Raider temple’ and tourists pretending to be Croft climbed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site’s ancient ruins.
“Now that’s definitely not a problem that afflicts us,” says Andrew, wryly noting that documentaries don’t spark the same fan fervour that leads to tourism opportunities for blockbuster film locations.
The spirits of Hollywood and New Zealand’s greatest cobbler came together for a recent shoot in Wellington. The production company was Piki Films, co-founded by Oscar-winner Taika Waititi. The location was
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1 The music room at Highclere Castle is now used as a dining room. The baroque ceiling was painted by Francis Hayman in 1740.
2 Highclere Castle’s north library.
IMAGERY: SUPPLIED
3 Visitors by the lake at
Lyme Park, Cheshire.
IMAGE:
NATIONALTRUST.ORG.UK
4 Lady Fiona Carnarvon and the family’s two dogs.
IMAGE: SUPPLIED
5 Filming for the 2015
BBC adaptation of Hilary
Mantel’s Wolf Hall at the
National Trust’s Montacute
House in Somerset.
IMAGE:
NATIONALTRUST.ORG.UK Antrim House, built in 1905 for Robert Hannah, founder of the Hannahs shoe company, and now the headquarters of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. The film was Dox, a comedy feature about two Tongan rugby fans, and Antrim’s foyer and boardroom were used for a scene in a church office.
Crews have also been filming at historic Otago sites. Locations for Netflix’s feature film The Royal Treatment included Larnach Castle, Olveston Historic Home and the Victorian Heritage Precinct in Oamaru, while Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog also featured the precinct as well as the Dunedin Railway Station.
The Antrim House shoot manager, Peter Tonks, says there’s always been a demand for New Zealand’s historic buildings as locations, but many have been modernised with the loss of original features and furnishings. If a location is needed for more than a week, he says, it can be better to build a set.
“By the time you pay for security, get your gear in, find places for lunch and somewhere to park 50 vehicles, it’s often cheaper to film in a studio.”
When today’s visitors arrive at ‘the real Downton Abbey’, are they appreciating Julian Fellowes’ imagined history, the real story of Highclere Castle, or both?
“It’s all a muddle together,” says Lady Carnarvon. “A lot of people have seen Downton; some haven’t. That’s all fine and hopefully people have a lovely time going round. Our numbers can’t increase because we’ve only got one set of rooms and tours, so everybody muddles along together.”
Lyme Park also offers a blend of fact and fiction. The famous ‘wet shirt’ scene, in which Colin Firth emerges dripping from the lake, was voted the most memorable British TV drama moment of all time in 2013. In reality though, Firth only appears post-swim when his clothes have dried a bit. The ‘slightly wet shirt after the swim’ scene, however, would never have caught on.
WORDS: MARIANNE TREMAINE
Shaping up
Books showing how past experiences have profoundly shaped the present
Books often show how the taken-for-granted present has been shaped by the past, and while the books in this column are on very different subjects, they all have this in common.
Two examples reviewed in this column are The Forgotten Coast, in which Richard Shaw shows how exploring his family history exposed his forebears’ culpability in the soldiers’ onslaught on Māori living peacefully at Parihaka, and Too Much Money: How Wealth Disparities are Unbalancing Aotearoa New Zealand, in which Max Rashbrooke shows how changes in New Zealand’s recent political history have also changed this country’s thirst for equity and social justice.
Similarly momentous changes are shown in The Front Line: Images of New Zealanders in the Second World War (Massey University Press, $79.99). Glyn Harper, with Susan Lemish, has researched sources to gather photographs showing how the ‘then’ of 1939 became the ‘now’ of the years following 1945.
The experience of World War I had left New Zealanders with little enthusiasm for another war. However, the situation in 1939 made it difficult to see an alternative option.
Despite decision-makers’ understanding post-World War I that “fighting a country as powerful as Germany meant years of pain, separation and suffering” as well as “appalling numbers of dead and wounded men and lasting physical and mental pain for those who survived” (page 17), the political decision to join Britain in the war was seen as necessary.
At the time, “New Zealand was very much a part of the British world, and it was in New Zealand’s interests to protect it” (page 14).
The book’s photographs give the past an immediacy, showing what it must have been like for those living through World War II. The words offer a background to events, but it’s the photographs that illustrate their impacts – almost as if you were there. The comprehensive photographic portrayal of New Zealand’s involvement in the war offsets all the words that have been written about World War ll and allows you to add your own responses to what you are seeing.
Another book that clarifies history and its impacts impressively is Too Much Money: How Wealth Disparities are Unbalancing Aotearoa New Zealand by Max Rashbrooke (Bridget Williams Books, $39.99). Max explains the cultural changes brought about by having a lot of money in the hands of relatively few New Zealanders – a change that has taken place only in recent decades as successive government policies have led to the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer.
Max writes with clarity and an ability to analyse the events and decisions that have led to the unbalancing of wealth. It’s a book with considerable explanatory power. Despite having lived through these events and knowing superficially at the time what was happening, prior to reading Max’s analysis it had always been difficult for me to understand why.
Similarly, a book explaining change by highlighting contributions others have made to improving our way of life is Nine Lives: New Zealand Writers on Notable New Zealanders (Upstart Press, $31). Each of the nine chapters has been written by an author who is well informed about the notable person’s achievements.
This approach helps the reader think about notable New Zealanders individually, which in turn helps them to absorb the events that shaped each person and understand their motivations and goals. One of the nine, for example, is Margaret Sparrow, who has worked courageously over the years towards abortion law reform.
Writer and bookshop coowner Catherine Robertson wrote the chapter on Sparrow. She herself had an abortion performed by Sparrow and gives an insight into the momentum and trajectory of Sparrow’s life by quoting her own words from her book Abortion Then and Now: New Zealand Abortion Stories from 1940 to 1980.
In it, Sparrow describes 1956 as “an eventful year” when, “in chronological order, I was married, was nearly killed in a car crash, graduated BSc, had my first job as a research assistant, turned 21, got pregnant, and had an abortion” (page 10).
Women are also the subject of Lana Lopesi’s book of essays, Bloody Woman (Bridget Williams Books, $39.99). Lana looks at women from the perspective of the others in society, who may find them difficult to understand and irritating because they seem so unpredictable. ‘Bloody’ expresses that sense of frustration, as well as alluding to the fact that they have monthly periods during their fertile years.
Lana also celebrates the power of women in negotiating complex situations where they have to meet the expectations of different cultures, such as Samoan and New Zealand. The book’s subject matter is complex and challenging, and Lana’s courage and determination in tackling it are impressive.
Each person who writes a book faces specific challenges. For Steve Holmes, an obvious one was fitting all the cars and drivers he admired into his first book. The solution? A second volume: Historic New Zealand Racing Cars 2 (Bateman Books, $45). From its first few sentences it’s obvious the book is written by a man who loves cars and admires the commitment that designers and drivers have to their vehicles.
Each chapter describes the features of a car and its performance history. The details of the relationship each driver has had with their car are intriguing and the stories of the ways drivers have become involved with their cars and their challenges and successes along the way are absorbing, no matter how much (or how little) you know about racing cars.
This is a great present for any car-racing fanatic, and a safer and less expensive way to gain insights into what can be an allconsuming and expensive sport.
Just as absorbing is The Forgotten Coast by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press, $35). Richard discovered a great deal about his family history when he began writing this book. He realised that the land his family had lived on was at Parihaka, where Māori had been living peacefully, growing crops and raising their families when in 1881 they were forcibly removed from their homes.
A Massey University professor of politics, Richard realised he needed to be selective when embarking on writing a family history, so he centred on his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
In doing so, he addresses the issue of choosing to shelter in a “comfortable ignorance” of parts of our history, in his case relating to feelings of guilt about the harm his ancestors may have caused Māori in his home town of New Plymouth.
He writes: “It took establishing that my great-grandfather was there on the day [the sacking of Parihaka] for me to directly confront that comfortable ignorance” (page 46).
Reading about the path he took to face up to and travel beyond it is an enlightening experience and makes you wonder how often similar events have been part of other families’ histories.
Another book capable of rousing confronting emotions is Agency of Hope: The Story of the Auckland City Mission 1920–2020 by Peter Lineham (Massey University Press, $49.99). Peter outlines that there was a good deal of colonial poverty in early New Zealand, yet no one person or institution wished to take responsibility for the poor.
Against this background, he shows how the Auckland City Mission came to be, struggling to remain financially viable and balance pastoral and social work.
Peter’s work is another example of why looking at current institutions and ways of living should not lead us to see the present as a mirror of the past; instead it is more like a staircase, rising from ‘then’ to ‘now’.
GIVEAWAY
We have one copy of Agency of Hope: The Story of the Auckland City Mission 1920–2020 to give away. To enter the draw, send your name and address on the back of an envelope to Book Giveaways, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140, before 30 March 2022.
The winner of last issue’s book giveaway (A Bunk for the Night: A Guide to New Zealand’s Best Backcountry Huts) was Lesley McIntosh,
Books are chosen for review in Heritage New Zealand magazine at the discretion of the Books Editor. Due to the volume of books received, we cannot guarantee the timing of any reviews that appear and we are unable to return any copies submitted for review. Ngā mihi.
