Growing Up in Grey Lynn and Ponsonby Between the Wars

 

AS IT WAS
Growing Up in Grey Lynn and Ponsonby Between the Wars
Russell Stone

78-­1-927305-28-7, $34.99
240 x 165mm, 240 pages, paperback

illustrated
David Ling Publishing
Distributed by David Bateman Ltd

Russell Stone has reached an age and stage in life where he can be regarded not just as an historian but also as part of the stuff of history itself.

When he was born in 1923 life was simpler, relatively uncomplicated. But it was also harsher, with much hard physical labour for men and women alike. The memory of the Great War was still raw. And although the attitudes and practices of our colonial past were still to be seen on every hand, Auckland, just like New Zealand as a whole, was already passing over the threshold to modernity. Electrical power, motorised transport, new recreational facilities, liberalising educational policies, a redefinition of the Empire, and much else were initiating changes, which seemingly modest at the time, are now to be seen as forerunners of our twenty-first century way of life.

Russell Stone grew up these close-knit inner suburbs of interwar Auckland that are written about in this book. He was educated at Mount Albert Grammar School and the University of Auckland. After war service he became a secondary-school teacher for thirteen years before joining the staff of the History Department at the University of Auckland, from which he retired in 1989 as an Emeritus Professor.

 
He has written a number of historical books and articles, including twelve full-length books on various aspects of Auckland history. Since 1960 he has also served on a number of groups promoting the study of history and biography and the preservation of archives. In 1987 he was made a member of the Mount Albert Grammar Hall of Distinction, in 2002 an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and in 2011 a Fellow of the Auckland War Memorial Museum.