“At the age of five I went along to
school fully prepared to cooperate with the authorities; at three o’clock I
came home with a lifelong hatred of oppressive government.” So begins Tony
Simpson’s political memoir; that day also marked the beginning of a nearly
seventy year battle with the authorities and their biblical precept: thou shalt
not!
In the course of this warfare he was
expelled from one school, initially denied access to university, and told he had
no future as an historian. Along the way he had several confrontations with
Muldoon, observed at close hand the rise of Margaret Thatcher, survived the
1981 Springbok Tour, and was outraged by the disaster of the Lange government. Despite
this, after further twists and turns he ended up as a senior advisor to the Deputy Prime
Minister Jim Anderton. Somehow he retained his wry sense of humour which shines
through this book and throws light on some very murky goings on.
About the author
Tony Simpson is one of New Zealand’s leading
social and cultural historians. This new book brings the total of his published
books to seventeen of which the award winning The Sugarbag Years, an oral history of the Great Depression of the
thirties, is the best known. He has recently retired from an almost fifty year
career as a public servant, journalist, and industrial advocate and is now writing
full time, as well as running a small Wellington publishing company, the
Blythswood Press.
RRP $48.00 - Blythswood Press
RRP $48.00 - Blythswood Press
No comments:
Post a Comment