Soldier Settlements in the south – and their fight to survive

Although the book, “South of Martinborough – Two Soldier Settlements and their Neighbours,” by

Diane Grant, was launched exactly two years ago at the Waihinga Centre, it continues to be sought

by people who weren’t in the audience back then.

The book was the idea of Danna Glendining who farmed with her husband John in Tuturumuri for more than 20 years. During that time she asked residents who had grown up and worked in the district to record their memories from the early 1920s when the first soldier settlements were established around New Zealand.

The result: a daunting collection of boxes containing interviews, reminiscences, diaries, correspondence, newspaper clippings and other items which were lodged with the Wairarapa Archive when the Glendinings moved to the Waikato. 

Aware of the region’s history and the importance of the material, the Archive decided a book had to be written, but it was some time before Diane Grant, an old friend of Danna’s from the women’s movement of the 1970s, and partner in Fraser Books, Wairarapa’s independent publisher, said she would take it on – despite other commitments.

It took three years and, Diane notes, “among the mass of material were leads that, if followed up, would have taken a further three years.”

South of Martinborough tells the story of the two soldier settlements at Tuturumuri (following World War One) and Tora (after World War Two) and the struggles of the returned servicemen settlers to survive in an isolated, poorly-serviced corner of New Zealand where they won farm ballots then lived through collapsing commodity prices and, in the 1930s, the Great Depression while paying rent or interest on often indifferent farmland.

Largely a book about the importance of people and their relationship with the land, the story is told

in their own words through diaries, memoirs and interviews _ stretching from the 19th century to today, bringing them and their times to life. It is the story of a microcosm of New Zealand society.

As South of Martinborough’s introduction explains: “The district this book focuses on is bounded on the south-east by the Pacific Ocean for 30 kilometres from the Rerewhakaaitu River in the north to the Waitetuna Stream in the south. Along the western boundary the Aorangi Range reaches 1,000m, while in the north is the Sunnyside/Whakapuni Hill. It is an area of approximately 180 square miles and 46,000 hectares/114,000 acres.”

Diane Grant, a partner in Fraser Books, was a pre-school, primary, secondary, and university extension teacher and national president of SPELD (Specific Learning Difficulties Association). She also had major roles in the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), and in 2001, Diane Grant was awarded the ONZM for her work in the community.