Where the Norwester Blows: Roland and Betty Clark of Staveley

(Hardback)

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This is the story of Roland Clark (aka Norwester), a provocative and entertaining farmer and agricultural commentator, and his wife Betty, who farmed at Staveley in the Foothills area of Mid Canterbury from the 1950s to the 1980s.For more than twenty years Rolands New Zealand Farmer articles, notable for their wisdom, charm and provocative humour, were a monthly highlight for farming families throughout the country. Readers of the Christchurch Star were equally enthusiastic, avidly reading his weekly columns about one thousand of them, and some two thousand articles in all. Where the Norwester Blows draws extensively on Rolands lively writing.In addition to chronicling family, farming, local and social history, the book colourfully charts Rolands rise from farming novice (he had to ask a neighbour to show him how to plough a paddock!) to being one of New Zealands leading agricultural commentators and a founder of the New Zealand Tree Crops Association.The narrative takes us from their early days in Ireland and the Queensland outback, through years of war (Roland was in the Special Operations Executive in the Mediterranean) and managing a Belfast linen mill to when they moved to New Zealand in 1958. The book provides a rich account of their early days in rural New Zealand as well as the development of their farm, Glenshane.

Author Bio

Bee Dawson is an author, columnist and social historian who enjoys writing about people, places and gardens. She has now authored 21 books, including Otari: Two hundred years of Otari-Wiltons bush and A History of Gardening in New Zealand and writes for New Zealand Gardener. Bee and her husband, Sandy, live and garden on a windswept hill above Wellington Harbour.