The Far Downers
The People and History of Haast and Jackson Bay

Julia Bradshaw

Key Points

• After outlining the Maori and European history of this isolated New Zealand district, Bradshaw presents edited versions of interviews she conducted with people who grew up there during the 1920s and 1930s, living a life that had disappeared a generation earlier in the rest of the country.
• Personal photographs and family trees supplement the idiosyncratic biographies.

The Book

At the end of the road on the southwest coast of the South Island, Jackson Bay is today a fishing village. In 1874, it was established as a special settlement for European immigrants, some of whom refused to disembark from their ships, such were the harsh and isolated conditions of life they saw before them. Those who remained were a feisty lot, living a pioneering life while elsewhere in New Zealand people went to the movies, listened to the radio and drove cars. No road link to the area existed until 1960. This book introduces the reader to the Maori and European history of the Haast district, and shares the life stories of nine people who grew up there in the first half of the twentieth century.

Contents

Introduction 1 Early Settlers and Visitors / 2 A Special Settlement at Jackson Bay / 3 Residents of Arawata 1875–1925 / 4 'You grew up very innocent' Ruby Hill (nee Eggeling) / 5 'He ran a clinic on the back verandah and pulled 96 teeth' Allan Cron / 6 'I've been a bushman most of my life' Henry Buchanan / 7 'I rode my first bucking horse when I was eight' Des Nolan / 8 'The only other girl in my life was my sister' Ann Mackey (nee Nolan) / 9 'No such thing as rules and regulations' Bernie Cowan / 10 'I was just so homesick' Myra Cowan (nee Roberts) / 11 'We were so thrilled to have running water' Betty Eggeling (nee Buchanan) / 12 'I was a terrible tomboy' Mary Jones (nee Cowell) / Notes / Sources / Index

Author

Julia Bradshaw is a researcher and writer formerly based in Arrowtown, where she worked as a researcher and exhibitions person at the Lakes District Museum. She is now curator at the West Coast Historical Museum, Hokitika. She has written books and articles and undertaken oral history projects, mostly about the history and people of the Lakes District and South Westland. She is also the author of Arrowtown: History and Walks, published by Otago University Press.

In-store: 1 September 2010
History / Biography 170 x 240 mm, 152 pp, b/w photographs
ISBN 978 1877276 07 1, $34.99, reprint