The New Zealand Journal of Agriculture was published for 55 years before being handed over to a commercial publishing house, Wilson and Horton. The first of the Government close-downs for economic reasons.          At its peak, it was sold to 156,000 families. it was a popular magazine for both city readers and for rural…

Recently I listened to a live online interview given by Susan Eisenhower the granddaughter of the late President. She had written a book titled “How Ike Led”. I was moved by her interview, her eloquence, and the way she answered questions. I am keen to read her book.          It’s easy to admire great leaders…

         Many friends have sold their houses and moved into small apartments in retirement villages – it’s both fashionable and expensive.          Downsizing has advantages but many of our house objects bring back happy memories. They are usually given away to a charity shop or they go to the dump.          During our lifetime we…

After working in the Whanganui district for six years I became tired of driving on backcountry roads, never being home with the family, and spending too many nights living in uncomfortable boarding houses in Ohakune and in Taihape pubs.      I applied for a job overseas as a Trade Commissioner and had been called down…

“We lord our glorious mountain, its cap of glistening snow, its skirts of native beauty, and the green fields down below.” From a school song.          The mountain certainly brought back happy memories and influenced the local climate.          I never reached the peak. I set off several times but a change in the weather…

I recently attended, online, the annual general meeting of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticulture Sciences held at Lincoln University.          It was held after a forum titled ” Can farmers mitigate climate change?”          It held a special meaning for me because when I was president in 1970/71 my AGM was held…

        In 1965 I was conscripted to work in the Head Office of the Department of Agriculture in Wellington – against my wishes. I purchased the first house I looked at in Dorset Way, Wilton, Wellington. I lived in it for one month before my wife saw it. I still live in it today.         …

One morning I came to breakfast to find a newspaper cutting on my plate telling me a Toastmasters Club was to be formed in Wellington.          My wife said, “This wouldn’t do you any harm.” How right she was.          I joined the club and attended the first meeting. An old school friend belonged to…

Not many people in New Zealand can remember sitting around a camp fire and singing songs with the late Lord Baden Powell – I can!      The place was in Hastings at Winsor Park, and I was a young grub (a cub at that time). It must have been in 1935 – I was 9…

I never had an ambition to be an author or a publisher. It just happened – it was an evolutionary process,          I have written 26 titles, all non-fiction how-to -do-it books.                   It all started when I was working for the Department of Agriculture in Taranaki and I was conscripted to a job…