A Back-country Life

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29850, 16 June 1962, Page 3

A Back-country Life

A Life’s Roundabout. By E. Arnott Anderson. Pegasus Press. 173 pp.

Mr Anderson’s book of reminiscences and reflections will be read with particular interest in Canterbury. Although he has lived and worked in the North Island and served with the armed forces in Greece and the Middle East, Mr Anderson was educated in Christchurch and grew up in the province. After the war he returned to Canterbury and took up farming at Kalimera, Hundalee, overlooking the Conway river.

The first seven chapters of “A Life’s Roundabout” are probably unique After leaving school, Arnott Anderson went as a cadet on a sheep station on the Rakaia river “For the privilege of being able to get up at 4.30 a.m., groom, feed and work a sixhorse team my father paid my boss £1 a week.” This did not last long, as might be expected, and from there “I went to an old scallywag of an Englishman farming at the foothills of the Southern Alps. Here I really began working for my keep " Further experience with sheep on St. Helens station fitted Arnott Anderson for the career he had in mind; and this section of the book is full of memories of happy and laborious days, besides giving an interesting general account of life in the back country more than half a century ago.

Finally in 1906, with two’ of his friends, the author went to the North Island to gain further experience on larger runs. He certainly had numerous experiences, many of them arduous; and he kindly refrains from mentioning the name of his employer or the location of the property At the end of this period he began farming on his own account, breaking in new land in the King Country. Life seemed full of promise, and Mi Anderson felt that he could afford to propose to rhe girl of his choice Some happy and rewarding years followed, "bringing this very difficult country into a fairly high state of production, at considerably less expense than it is costing the Government at present to develop the same pumice country, even with all the know-

ledge now available." As a sideline, he bred Red Poll cattle, and the Tutamai stock was soon well known in both islands.

However like many other farmers of the day, he was hit hard by the post-war slump, and after an arduous struggle was compelled to walk oft the property He then joined the firm of Murray Rooerts at Feilding, and a fairly eventful period followed. curing which Mr Anderson watched his family growing up and consolidated his own position. His sons were following in their

father's footsteps, working sheep in the rough country at the back of Taihape. when w'ar broke out in 1939 Mr Anderson was then 54 years old; but he enlisted at once, giving his age as 39 He left New Zealand with the 4th Echelon and arrived in the Middle East at the end of 1940. One way and anothe r he had h:s share of excitement; but his experiences were shared by others who have also described the campaigns in Greece and Crete Nevertheless his day-by-daj account has the vigour that might be expected of a man with so great a zest for life However, what will remain with most readers of "A Life's Roundabout" is the pleasure gained from the author’s memories of the untrammelled outdoor life he led up and down these islands at an interesting period of their development during the first quarter of the century.