This is a lovely review by Porirua librarian Bee Trudgeon:
Dinah Priestley and Cassidy Abbot with The Wicked Plum Tree
The newest published author out of Whitby is a teenager named Cassidy Abbot who is no stranger to Porirua Library. He has engaged in writing and story time initiatives with the library since he was little, and can now find his name on the library’s catalogue alongside his grandmother’s, author/artist/actor/historian Dinah Priestley, thanks to a picture book they have created together. The Wicked Plum Tree is dedicated (in part) to ‘those who love trees’, and tells the story of a naughty one. Although the book is threaded through with fantasy, it is partially based on fact.
Having a dear and companionable friend is what makes life worth living don’t you think? And that’s what Sheila was.
She was a most delightfully unusual person
deeply soaked in that tough Stewart Island background she’d come from. Whalers and sealers who had married into Maori families. People with names like Jacka Lee, Yankee Smith Black Swan, Manuel Gomez and Ned the Nailer.
Both she and Gilbert would say of themselves.” We are Foveaux Strait. A very mixed crew. Down here we think of people by name not by whether they’re Maori or Pakeha.”
I’ve known Sheila since the 1990s when in desperation I asked her to introduce me to Stewart Island families whom she thought I should interview for my radio series Dinkum Purlers. People whose blood was worth bottling.
Dinah Priestley tells how, in 1962, two New Zealand couples, each with a small child, decide to convert an ex-army truck into a travelling home, and drive it to England.
Glad so many of you liked For God’s Sake Saddle me a Donkey. I’m currently working on the book illustrated with my cartoons. I’ll let you know when it comes out.
This episode recalls how our small group of travelling New Zealanders came to stay with the Maharaja of Bharatpur.
Wake up with me, Dinah Priestley, travelling from Wellington to London in an accident-prone WW2 truck called Leviathan. Friends said to us “You are mad! Those toddlers of yours will be dead before you reach London.” But we were lucky.! We survived, with help from peasants and prostitutes, missionaries and maharajahs.
I’m so proud of my daughter Justine who has edited films such as Touching the Void, Black Sea, Locke The Iron Lady, State of Play, One Day in September. The Eagle, Last King of Scotland and won numerous awards, including Best European Film Editor.
Justine Wright
I just love this picture of her…
She is multi talented with excellent artistic and technical skills. This picture includes her generosity, her zany sense of humour but also a touch of don’t mess with me buddy.
