Aiming High, Di Buchan
RRP $45.00, PB, 296pp
ISBN: 978-1-7386176-1-6
To purchase a copy of “Aiming High”, email: di.buchan.nz@gmail.com
Byron Brown – entrepreneur, businessman, community leader, benefactor, broadcaster, environmentalist, philosopher, poet and storyteller, and an internationally recognised expert on the works of Shakespeare and Dickens.
Mary-Annette – artist, actor, event organiser, broadcaster and the Queen of Wool for the New Zealand Wool Board.
This is their story.
Author bio:
After a career in social and environmental research, Di Buchan retired to Ōtaki and became a historian.
She joined the board of the Ōtaki Museum and for a year or so wrote regular columns on the history of Ōtaki for the local newspapers. After two years of research, she published a history of the Ōtaki Children’s Health Camp – Sun, Sea & Sustenance in 2017 and set up a Charitable Trust to restore the nationally important rotunda building at the camp which once served as the children’s dormitory. In 2019 she produced Triumphs, Tribulations & Tragedies: The Low family of saddlers in Otago and Southland, a history of her maternal ancestors. Aiming High is her third book and like the previous works, is very much a social history of a particular time in Aotearoa.
She is a firm believer in the importance of recording the stories of the past to help us understand the world we have inherited, to appreciate the contributions made by past generations and to understand that for every generation there are hard times and sacrifices.
History also shows us that in every generation there are individuals who rise above the everyday and leave legacies that, in reading about them, enrich our lives.
“My grandfather was a remarkable man by any account. In this book, Di Buchan has captured the very essence of the man – his virtues and faults, his values and passions, his energy and achievements. Reading this book has been like reliving my childhood and so much more. The stories of his earlier life, recorded in so much more detail than I knew before, have increased my admiration and understanding of him. And Di has done the same for me. Putting my life into a wider context has enhanced my own memories. Her insightful observations have resulted in a colourful, accurate record of the times through which I lived my life, so strongly influenced by the example my grandfather set.
This book provides a vivid record of particular aspects of New Zealand life from the late 1800s to 2000. As such it should be on every school library shelf in the country.”