My Home Town - Robyn Langwell - 1991

If, as has been said, the past is another country, then My home town can be read as a travel guide to a land that has become increasingly, and perhaps regrettably, unfamiliar. Drawn from the popular column of the same name published in North and South magazine, this collection of 23 pieces is a fond remembrance of life as it used to be lived in New Zealand, from Waipu in the north to Waianiwa in the south, and the likes of Katui, Hawera, Gonville and Geraldine in between. Writing with the fluency and passion that people express when discussing their childhood years, the contributors to My home town paint a wonderful picture of past lives and times. Here are the sights and smells and experiences of growing up in the first half of this century, the uncomplicated lives and simple pleasures that were to be had in all our home towns