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Heartfelt accounts from immigrants

29/5/2023

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Southern Celts, Stories from Kiwis of Scottish and Irish descent in Aotearoa
by Celine Kearney
   
Southern Celts is the result of Celine Kearney’s PhD research to discover how Celtic ancestry impacts the lives of New Zealanders today. Over six years, she conducted a series of interviews from the Far North to Southland, speaking to a kiltmaker and a whisky importer, artists, sportspeople including a curler, writers, a clergyman, educators… In common, they have Scottish and/or Irish ancestry. 
    How has that shaped their lives and how does it still influence their lives, even after many decades in Aotearoa New Zealand? The individual interview transcripts often reveal common threads such as a love of Celtic music and poetry; memories of close-knit family get-togethers with cousins and grandparents, and cultural-comfort foods; family traditions of story-telling. 
    Religion and politics have inevitably played a significant role in the families of many of the interviewees. Some of them were brought up in staunchly Protestant homes while others were very Catholic. Astonishing is the experience of a Catholic who, when interviewed for a job in a Dunedin museum, is asked if he can put his Catholic faith aside to do justice to the city’s Scottish Presbyterian history.
    The families range from those who seldom spoke of politics to those who were very politicised, and recount the experiences of ancestors who escaped hanging in exchange for deportation or who immigrated to New Zealand as political exiles. 
    A thought-provoking part of the transcripts relates to the spiritual-cultural relationship between Celts and Māori. Many interviewees spoke of a feeling of kinship and a strong connection to Māori art and traditional crafts. Oration, extended families and ways of dealing with death are discussed as shared features of both cultures. 
    At the same time, there is a consistent undercurrent of detachment from England. Hostility is muted but colonisation and subjugation were major drivers of emigration. From the Highland Clearances to the colonisation of Ireland, there is frequent mention of Scottish and Irish immigrants having been oppressed and forced off their land. Interesting debates then ensue as to whether, upon reaching Aotearoa New Zealand, they, as the newly-oppressed, then became the oppressors in their relation to Māori. 
    In Southern Celts the interviewees’ transcripts seem to be presented in a natural, largely unedited state, so that it is as if the interviewee is really speaking to us. This makes for very heartfelt accounts. It also results in some sweeping generalisations which discerning readers may wish to question or investigate further.
Because it is a selection of unconnected transcripts, Southern Celts is a book to dip into, to read slowly and to digest the opinions and experiences of each interviewee. With an estimation that today over half a million New Zealanders have Irish ancestry (figures for Scottish ancestry are not provided) Southern Celts is a book in which many readers will recognise their own families, while others will gain a deeper understanding of why many of us are the way we are.

Review by Carolyn McKenzie
Title: Southern Celts
Author: Celine Kearney
Publisher:  Mary Egan Publishing
ISBN: 9780473634117
RRP: $40
Available: bookhops
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Cleverly crafted novel

20/5/2023

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The Spanish Garden
by Cliff Taylor


A cleverly crafted and engaging novel built around real events that shaped our modern world. 
    Sidney does not really wish to celebrate his one hundredth birthday as he struggles to come to terms with the choices he has made in his life and some of the choices that were made for him. 
    Passionate, well-meaning, and sometimes foolish decisions flit in and out of his ageing memory. Doubt, guilt, regret. 
    At the same time, to the south of Barcelona, there has been a discovery of a victim of the Spanish Civil War, buried with a silver locket. Taylor skillfully creates a tale that ultimately conjoins both events. 
    I consumed this novel in three sittings and found it a real page-turner. A fictional life story made real with interesting,  subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, political commentary. Also made real by the creation of a centenarian who is really not sure if he has ever done the right thing in his long life, if he has ever loved or been loved. 
    Truly enjoyable read, Thank you Mr Taylor. I would recommend this work to anyone who appreciates the art of storytelling.

Review by George Hollinsworth
Title: The Spanish Garden
Author: Cliff Taylor
Publisher: Quentin Wilson Publishing 
ISBN: 9781991103116
RRP: $37.50
Available: bookshops
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Spirit of the time captured

12/5/2023

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Howling in the Wilderness
by Diana Harris


This book tells the story of Henry and Marianne Williams, who arrive in the Bay of Islands in 1823, as agents of the Church Missionary Society. This time of early Maori-European contact was not what it later became.
    For one thing, the amount of established authority in the land was inversely proportional to the degree of licentiousness in places such as Kororareka and for another, the number of Europeans in NZ wasn’t great enough to worry Maori — unlike, say, the 1860s. This point is well made in the opening chapter, when Henry is physically threatened by a chief intent upon plundering ‘his’ Pakeha’s largesse in what sociologist have come to term a ‘Cargo Cult’. 

    Like many other members of the CMS, the Williams came with high-minded intentions of bringing the Gospel of Peace to the Māori people, and of stopping internecine warfare by showing the tribes ‘a better way’. In their conviction that the indigenes would welcome the Word with both hands, and with no concept that it was alien to Maori because it wasn’t to the missionaries, the Williams fell foul of customs such as utu and muru, and hence had an uphill task in inducing Maori to ‘reform’. 
    In fact, even the section dedicated to Henry Williams’ selfless work in transcribing the Treaty of Waitangi shows that the infrastructure of the CMS was, as befitted a product of the 19th century, a Eurocentric one. In truth, the whole concept of the Treaty was alien to a subsistence warrior — as witnessed by Williams’ struggle to put European legalese into forms that would mean something to the Maori. Something, indeed, that continues to bedevil us today.
    They persevered, however, and their altruism and dedication won some sort of praiseworthy reputation and following among the tribes of the Bay of Islands, even ensuring tolerance from the fearsome Hongi Hika. 
    However, Maori were not the only opposition. The author doesn’t gloss over the failings and shortcomings of other members of the CMS, for some had an eye, if not to the main chance, then at least to land acquisition for the maintenance of themselves and their families, and not even Henry was immune to that. Such activity offered ammunition to whites disaffected by missionary efforts to protect Maori from the ravages of settler land-hunger, and the motivations of the New Zealand Company provide a case in point. Also, even among the CMS, jealousies existed that were quite alien to notions of Christian brotherhood.
    Diana Harris has captured admirably the spirit of a time that has largely escaped the attention of historians more concerned with the Wars of the Sixties. She shows clearly the at-times slender threshold between peace and war and makes us very aware that the European founders got by very much by leave of the dominant power in the land. She also shows in fine style the religious fervour of Victorian people; something which arguably hung around to shape much of the upbringing of a generation of Kiwis in the 20th century.
    Looking at the length of the book, one wonders whether or not there might have been a greater degree of selection, for there are passages much more dedicated to ‘telling’ than ‘showing’, and in these places the text reads more like a textbook than a novel. This impression is only accentuated by a comprehensive and formal bibliography.
    Overall, however, Howling in the Wilderness indicates that the years of its gestation were years well spent, and Ms Harris deserves congratulation both for her dedication and its product.

Review by MJ Burr
Title: Howling in the Wilderness
Author: Diana Harris
Publisher:  Mary Egan Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-99-117981-4

RRP: $33.00
Available: bookshops​
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Story of many New Zealanders

5/5/2023

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The New Zealand Dream 1, The seeds are sown
The New Zealand Dream 2, Growth and destruction
by Sheila


​These two books are the story of a young woman growing up in New Zealand that tourists do not see. It is the side of society that social workers see and it has to be the cause of many a social worker’s heart ache.
    I just wish that those in decision making roles could wave a magic wand and give children opportunities that enable them to take part in society feeling as though they belonged and felt safe.
   However, it is not like that. Instead, we have young people, like Sheila, uneducated, struggling to find their place and drifting from one crisis to the next.

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    This is Sheila’s story. It is, she tells us, creative non-fiction. She warns us it is not an uplifting story where the writer lives happily ever after…although we are told the pattern of self-destruction (set in train in Book 1) which we see in Book 2, changes in Book Three. I hope we do because all the pain she experiences is hopefully going to lead somewhere positive. 
     I found myself despairing at times as she kept looping back to old patterns and behaviours.
    This series is worth reading in order to understand how early mistakes can compound and build on themselves until it seems only a miracle can reverse a downward trend. Perhaps that is coming in Book Three.
    This is the story of many New Zealanders. I give Sheila five stars for having the courage to talk about her life in a way that lifts the veil and reveals the struggle many people experience.

Review by Suraya Dewing
​
​Title: The New Zealand Dream, The seeds are sown
The New Zealand Dream, Growth and destruction
Author: Sheila
Available: Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HRNG8YP
​or direct from [email protected] with free author signing and postage within NZ.
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