It was, from memory, 1996 when I visited Barry Brickell's Driving Creek Railway and pottery at Coromandel, so it was a pleasure to delve into Rails Toward the Sky (David Ling Publishing) and discover just how much progress has since been made on this unique, private narrow-gauge line.
Brickell, who was New Zealand's first full-time craft potter, describes how he conceived the venture, originally to bring clay and firewood from the hills to his workshop, and then developed it as a fully fledged tourist venture, using basic principles of art, conservation and engineering.
Superb illustrations, maps and diagrams complement this narrative of one Kiwi's remarkable ingenuity and triumph over scepticism, financial adversity, bureaucracy and the forces of nature, to bring to fruition a dream which is now recognised around the world.
- Gary Newton
Beautiful building, attractive book
John Barsby's booklet The BNZ Building (Southern Heritage Trust) describes in words and pictures one of Dunedin's most beautiful heritage structures, sadly unused today but with plans afoot for a revival. Reliant on other sources rather than original research, it nevertheless is an attractive publication, well-suited to collectors and as a gift. It contains reproductions of some very early photographs of Dunedin, interior pictures and sketches of the design.
- Bryan James
The Southland Book of Records compiled by Lloyd Esler (Craigs) is, says the author, his contribution to the 150th anniversary of the province, which occurs this year. It is an extremely comprehensive digest of facts, figures and photographs, succinct - necessarily so given the vast range of the contents - and quite fascinating.
Open it at random and I'm sure you'll be entertained for an hour or two, and ex-Southlanders will doubtless have a fine old nostalgic time. It is well-organised and even has a subject index.
- Bryan James.
Fire brigade history grand effort
Ready Aye Ready, by John Ingram and Paul Clements, describes 150 years of Dunedin fire brigades, and is published by the Dunedin Fire Brigade Restoration Society. It is a grand effort, down-to-earth, factual, anecdotal, brimful of photographs and highly descriptive of the challenges faced by successive brigades. I found two aspects especially interesting: the remarkably slow pace of technological change in our fire brigades, and the account of the industrial action by firefighters over the decade from 1990 as an attempt was made by an ideologically driven central government to overturn years of practicality and experience - a lesson for many services.
Notable fires are listed and a few are described in detail, along with some of the inevitable fault-finding post-fire inquiries. There's a first-class index. This is a publication to interest a wide readership.
- Bryan James
One hundred and fifty-nine pages on grassroots rugby and nary a mention of Otago or North Otago?
It is an unfortunate omission from the otherwise impressive For The Love Of The Game (Exisle), a largely photographic celebration of club rugby and the people who keep it alive.
Southland features - the cover has a classic shot of a scrum being set in a game between Bluff and Riverton - but there is nothing of Wakatipu, of Matakanui Combined, of Kurow or of, arguably New Zealand's most famous club, Otago University. Shame.
Gregor Paul's words are occasionally laid on a bit thick - there are sweeping generalisations of all clubs performing the haka, and all schoolchildren playing in bare feet - and there is an unfortunate mis-spelling of Colin Meads' club as "Waiti", not "Waitete". But the photographs (from Canada-based Gregory Crow) are outstanding and evocative, and the book generally does a good job celebrating the heroes of the heartland.
- Hayden Meikle
Readers of Running Writing Robinson (Eds David Carnegie, Maul Millar, David Norton, Harry Ricketts; Victoria University Press) are advised they will come to know Roger Robinson for "the extraordinary man of many worlds that he is". And it's an accurate prediction.
Robinson, emeritus professor of English at Victoria University and editor of the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, is the surprise subject of this collection of memoirs, essays and poems.
His friends and colleagues have pitched in to honour his contributions to running, journalism and creative writing, and the result is a lovely tribute to the former masters champion, prolific author and husband of marathon great Kathrine Switzer.
Some of the pieces are directed so personally to Robinson they will hold limited appeal to the general reader; others, of the academic sort, are on the dry side. But a clear picture emerges of an interesting man, and there is some fine writing on the lonely art of running.
- Hayden Meikle
