The Back Country

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 4

The Back Country

Remembered Trails. By J. E. Tomlinson. Tomlinson. 132 pp.

These rather too fragmentary reminiscences describe the career of a New Zealander whose lines have been cast mostly in back-country farming. Mr Tomlinson‘s father, son of an English settler, began life as a shepherd in North Canterbury, but left It to take a sheep run in Tarndale, “the highest Inhabited station all the year round in New Zealand.” After four years in Tarndale, Mr Tomlinson, senior, and his wife bought the Tophouse hotel in 1899, and stayed there nearly 20 years. Their youngest son John, writer of this book, began his own farming experience as shepherd, rabbit poisoner, etc., at the age of 15, and did much work in the high country around Molesworth. At the beginning of the First World War he volunteered for military service, but was unlucky in hi* health which broke down so badly that though he attained the rank of sergeant he was compelled to spend most of his service In Sling Camp, to England. After the war Mr Tomlinson married Miss Veronica Wilkinson of Richmond (to which the couple have now retired), and of their nine children, seven survive, and are doing well in life. The author has a remarkable memory for names, and bi* stories of his career, and the people he has known will make an abiding record for his family and friends. The book is lavishly illustrated with photograph*.