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Account of life in a hostile place

23/4/2020

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Scott Base Antarctica – The Early Years
by Don Webster

 
Don Webster’s book began as a project to document photographs he had taken during two expeditions to Scott Base during the early sixties. His first expedition began at the end of 1959 when he was one of four young science technicians who, together with a senior technical officer, boarded HMNZS Endeavour for a fourteen-day voyage to the Antarctic. His second trip in 1963 was by plane.
    Webster’s career began in 1957 as a technical trainee in a government laboratory, part of the Department of Science and Industrial Research (DSIR). His training and work as an electronics technician led to him being selected for the Antarctic over-winter team. Preparation for the job included learning about the Antarctic, making and recording observations in the field and the Auroral radar which New Zealand had been offered by Stamford University in the USA. Little of this prepared them for venturing into the Southern Ocean on board the 190 foot wooden Endeavour.
    The author describes the journey south to the ice shelf, and Scott Base as it was when they arrived there. A shortage of accommodation saw them sleeping outside in tents until someone discovered the deep snow of their campsite was where explosives were kept.
    There is a good deal of specific detail about the layout of Scott Base on Ross Island and how it was developed and added to over the years. The huts, labelled A, B, up to F – separated from one another and joined by an enclosed access way – included accommodation, messroom, laboratories, radio and machinery spaces.

    We are taken on a tour of the work they did and how they socialised and entertained themselves. They had to adapt to sixteen weeks of continuous daylight in summer and sixteen weeks without sunlight during winter. During summer other parties came in by sea or air to carry out research projects or to use the base as the starting point for expeditions. Around the middle of March all ships and aircraft would depart, leaving the wintering-over party of fourteen on its own. Their only contact with New Zealand would be by radiotelephone or by walking miles in the dark to the American McMurdo Base.
    The Antarctic is a hostile place, where the temperature can fall below minus fifty Celsius. Deep snow drifts and unstable ice are the order of the day. I was surprised to learn that one of the greatest dangers was from fire. With a dry atmosphere, drums of fuel and heat sources throughout the base, they had to remain alert. The author describes a fire he experienced and comments wryly in the style of a lab report, ‘the design specification of human beings does not include living in cold polar conditions without habitation.’  
    The book is abundantly illustrated with photographs taken by the author and from other sources. He apologises for the grainy quality of some of them but, if anything, this adds to the charm, harking back to the 1960’s. There are some photographs of wingless aircraft – the wings having been torn off in crashes – used to “taxi” personnel between the ice landing strip and base. They also had more conventional ways to get around, including tractors, Landrovers and dog sledges.
    The Appendices provide a list of personnel involved, together with their brief biographies. This is followed by a further reading list and a good index. 
    Scott Base Antarctica – the early years would be an excellent resource for anyone interested in the polar regions and in the history of the development of atmospheric and geological science. Essentially, this is a story about the way in which humans can live and work in one of the world’s most challenging environments.

Review by Ian Clarke
Title: Scott Base Antarctica – The Early Years
Author: Don Webster
Publisher: Don Webster
ISBN: 9780473458522
RRP: $59.95
Available: https://www.donwebster.org
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Short history on big subject

16/4/2020

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A Short History of Farming in New Zealand
by Gordon McLauchlan

 
This is a rather curious book, a short history on a rather big subject. The late Gordon McLauchlan has also written short histories on bigger subjects, this is something of a series, but it seems more of a challenge. One may think there’s been plenty of writing on farming in New Zealand, but there has been very little of note by historians who aren’t specialists, and ‘agricultural’ historians don’t exist.
    McLauchlan was also more of a journalist writing history than academically-trained: this is a strength, but also a weakness in this book. The author can make a good point very concisely, but also prefers to insert very long quotes without any referencing, something a professional historian would not do. The subject matter is much broader than just pastoral farming, as even former pests like deer get a chapter, as well one on horticulture. There are still quite a few chapters on sheep and dairy farming, but with no real structure in terms of chronology. The reader will get to chapter 10 and still find the author discussing the meaning of land settlement, as it was understood in the 19th century.
    One of the strengths of the book is that McLauchlan does not shy away from the environmental destruction of bush clearance, especially in the North Island, and the many failures that happened for aspiring farmers on small blocks of uncleared land. The clearing of bush also involved fire and created a stark landscape that really was an environmental disaster, even if the family farm was viable economically. There is no a sense of the ‘booster’ here, a narrow view of land settlement.
    While a lot of the detail about farming, and especially trade policies, seems familiar, some of the detail is quirky. I was not familiar with the so-called ‘remittance’ men who were 19th century migrants from Britain, usually recalcitrant aristocrats with an alcohol issue, who did some casual labouring, but relied on money coming from ‘home’. The whole idea of Britain as ‘Home’ is played out here over a number of chapters, as almost all our export trade went on ‘home boats’, until Britain joined the European trading block. The politics of this has already become a cliché.
    McLauchlan obviously specialised in narrative history, but as the book goes on he adds more literary allusions, and somewhat odd metaphors. He refers to the UK and EEC relationship as a marriage, which made the New Zealand farmer the “mistress of the British food business.” This somewhat dodgy metaphor continues in the next paragraph, as the jilted mistress tries to ply her wares to other customers, a rather odd way to describe ‘diversification’ and ‘restructuring’ in the 1980s. A similar thing happens in the next chapter with an odd quote attributed to John Ruskin, which compares the colonised Indian people to the Scottish, the kind of settlers found in the South Island.
    Another aspect of the narrative in this book is the need to repeat a lot of statistics, and numerical proportions. For some reason McLauchlan can’t bring himself to use the % symbol, so writes in ‘per cent’ every time. Indeed, there are no tables of figures or graphs at all in the whole book, which makes the text a bit monotonous. There are no illustrations or photographs either. So, while it is a well-designed book, it is all text, and something that only Gordon McLauchlan could have written.

Review by SA Boyce
Editor’s note: FlaxFlower sends condolences to the family of Gordon (‘Gordy’) McLauchlan, who died on January 26, after battling cancer for several months. He had just celebrated his 89th birthday. Gordon was a gracious supporter of FlaxFlower reviews.

​Title: A Short History of Farming in New Zealand

Author: Gordon McLauchlan
Publisher: Bateman
ISBN: 978-1-98-853801-3
RRP: $29.99
Available: bookshops
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Read, listen and sing

8/4/2020

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Kia Kaha! Together standing strong
by June Pitman-Hayes 
Illustrated by Minky Stapleton
Maori lyrics by Ngaere Roberts


KIA KAHA! Together, standing strong is what this little book is all about; children relating to one another, and caring about each other, whether it be in school classrooms, parks, playgrounds, homes or backyards.
    These caring little characters are multi-cultural and from various ethnicities. Some are handicapped. Others are able. Their clothing styles are as varied as their cultures too, but the underlying message is that our kids grow up seeing no one as really different from anyone else; they are all just kids. And all kids are different anyway, regardless of how their eyebrows sit on their brow, or how tall they might be.
    For example, one kiddie falls and grazes his knee and another is stung by a bee. As one little girl gets stuck up a tree, another is feeling sad and lonely. 
    But not to worry, friends stick together and together friends are strong.
          Kia kaha! Kia kaha!
             Together standing strong.
             We join our hands in friendship, that’s how we get along.
             All around our gentle land, no matter where we’re from
             We’ll fill the air with laughter and our kia kaha song!
     Whilst singing along to this catchy little song, the illustrations show the very many ways we can reach out and be friends to one another, no matter the place, the season, or the background. The song is also written and illustrated with Maori as the language.
     This is a gentle read, and easy for young children to follow. The rhyming verses help them remember the words and learn the message in the story. And the illustrations are clear and simple, showing how adults care about each other too. It’s lovely.
Comprehensive glossary at the back.
     Plus a BONUS CD!
     I have previously reviewed My Kiwi Gumboots, by the same author and illustrator. If you enjoyed My Kiwi Gumboots, you are sure to enjoy this too.

Review by Susan Tarr
Title: Kia Kaha! Together standing strong
Author: June Pitman-Hayes; with Minky Stapleton (illustrations), Ngaere Roberts (Maori lyrics)
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN:9781775436225
RRP:$19.99
Available: bookshop

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