Shining a light on long-serving PM

Much more is known these days about major but previously largely forgotten figures from New Zealand's history. One of the chief beneficiaries of this is William Ferguson Massey, prime minister from 1912-25. Two books about him have just been published.

William Massey: New Zealand, by James Watson (Haus Publishing), is a short general biography of him, focusing mainly on his role during World War 1 and the subsequent peace conferences. A Great New Zealand Prime Minister? (Otago University Press) is a series of essays edited by James Watson and Lachy Paterson. The most interesting is described as "towards a reassessment", by Erik Olssen; it is long overdue.

Massey was an interesting man. In his historical context, he emerges as the trend-setter for the long-serving Centre-Right politicians New Zealand has experienced, and had much in common with Sid Holland, Keith Holyoake, Rob Muldoon and Jim Bolger. John Key is from the same mould. Like them, he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, was a self-made man, was hard-working but subtle, and had the gift of the gab.

He is best-remembered by the trade union movement, where he is seen as a villain, as being responsible for the strike-breaking "Massey's Cossacks". During 1913, to smash a long-running national waterfront strike, trains were provided to bring farmers and their horses to act as special constables at the ports. There was considerable violence, in Wellington especially.

One of the so-called "cossacks" became my grandfather, and a milder man you would never meet.

Greatly daring, I once asked him what had happened. He said the watersiders had driven six-inch nails into wooden planks for the horses to stand on. This had so infuriated the riders that they took their stock whips to the strikers.

It just shows that in history, as in other walks of life, there are generally two sides to every story.

• Oliver Riddell is a Wellington writer.