Types Husband’s Books

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31315, 10 March 1967, Page 2

Types Husband’s Books

Many “bush” typists are content to plug along with two fingers all their lives, but, there came a time in the life of Mrs Florence Unstead when two fingers were not enough.

Mrs UnMead and her husband, Mr R. J. Unstead, an English historian and author of textbooks, are visiting Christchurch on a “part pleasure, part business” tour, which has taken them to Nairobi and will take them to Singapore before they return to their home in Aldbury. Suffolk.

“My wife is a very conscientious woman,” Mr Unstead said. “When I decided to form a company and pay her a salary a few years ago, she

insisted on going to night school and learning to toucr type.” As the author of more than 20 history books, Mr Unstead has kept “the typist” very busy.

“Work comes in spasms but when a book is nearly finished there is a terrib e rush,” said Mrs Unstead, who has to eope with a seven-bedroom

house and a large garden as well as her secretarial work. Their house overlooks a lake; 50 yards from their back door is a golf course—and they are keen golfers. They also share a love of gardening.

Both enjoy seeing plants and shrubs which grow in their own garden in different settings. “Your roses in Christchurch are the first we’ve seen to equal ours since we left home,” said Mr Unstead.

The Canterbury Museum delighted the couple. “It is the best piece of social history I have seen since I left York, and I would not say so in York but I think it is better," said Mr Unstead.

Their present tour included several leisurely drives through the game reserves in Kenya. “The lions, with their cubs, looked so lovely. I was ever so tempted to open the door,” said Mrs Unstead.

The couple have three daughters. One, a dental surgeon, has recently married, the second is an infant teacher, and the youngest is at boarding school in Suffolk, where her headmistress is Miss M. Oakley, a former headmistress at Craighead Diocesan School in Timaru. “Miss Oakley loved New Zealand and she has passed on her enthusiasm to the girls,” said Mrs Oakley.