The Dauntless Two of Martinborough

This book about the life and times of Martinborough in the mid 1950s has just been published. Although it is primarily a boy’s adventure story, with a target readership of children and younger teenagers, the themes covered are relevant to adults with an interest in the social history of New Zealand during the two decades following World War 2.

For example, much has been written by adults during and following the preparation of the Mazengarb Report on juvenile delinquency in 1954, but very little is recorded from the perspective of youngsters who lived through that tumult.

The setting of the book is 1953-1955. The narrator is a 13 year old boy using the vernacular of the times. Although cast as fiction, it is based on real events. Each chapter is a separate short story with no thematic or chronological connection with any other.
Some stories describe the wilder adventures of the Dauntless Two — trying to blow up the town rubbish dump, planning to rob a bank, building a human glider, making an underground fort, and diving for gold in the bottom of a local river. Others concern family activities — fishing at Kiriwai and in Lake Wairapapa, pig hunting, and happy times in the family possom bach on the edge of the Rimutaka forest.

A range of interesting characters appear, from eccentric old men to a much respected school teacher, the local policeman, doctor and chemist. The Saturday visit to the flicks is a regular feature of life in the small rural town before television, and provides inspiration for some of the adventures, while the visit of a Circus is a one-off highlight.
The book is authored by Foss Leach, who attended the Martinborough school from 1946 to 1955 before going off to boarding school. He returned many times to Martinborough, working in local shearing gangs, the saw mill, scrub-cutting, possum trapping and crop harvesting, to pay his way through university. His research on the ancient history of Maori in Palliser Bay earned him a doctorate in 1975. Like so many of his generation he then travelled the world, working in various research laboratories, including at Oxford University. He was Associate Professor at Otago University until he retired. He and his wife Dr Janet Davidson now live in Cottage Grove in Martinborough.

Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of the book should contact the author at this email address: Foss.Leach@gmail.com