CHURCHWOMAN AND WRITER

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33693, 16 November 1974, Page 10

CHURCHWOMAN AND WRITER

The Sun is High. By Rita E. Snowden. Hodder and Stoughton. 187 pp.

Rita Snowden needs no introduction to readers in more than one hemisphere, having written more than 50 books, most of which seem to have been best-sellers. In “The Sun is High” she reviews the main events in a fully matured career, starting with her early life as the child of a fanning family in Nelson, and tracing a distinguished vocation as a deaconess of the Methodist Church, and vice-president of the church conference.

The course of her full and useful life has had many vicissitudes both of health and fortune. After her training as a deaconess she spent some time as a home missionary in the Waikato and King Country, travelling long distances on a perilous motor-bicycle, bought for a few pounds. After that, at the height of the Depression, she worked in the poorer parts of Auckland. But she was soon to discover her gift for the written word, as well as the spoken one, for she gave many public addresses in her professional capacity. Her first books, mostly devotional works, met with such success that she, and a lifelong friend with whom she has lived for many years,

were able to travel. Thereafter, she became deeply attached to England where her literary reputation brought her in touch with other authors, among them Vera Brittain, and she had a brief meeting with her cousin, Lord Rutherford.

Miss Snowden’s descriptions of the great distances she covered during her joumeyings about the world make an inspiring travelogue. Her scholarship enabled her to register .the historical significance of many of the buildings she visited and her pen brings to life the main points of her rambles in countries as far apart as Australia and Palestine.

A pretty wit enlivens these pages which, otherwise, might be a little overweighted with moral reflections, and the book paints a portrait of a woman with her feet always on the ground, notwithstanding her soaring spirit.

Only one serious criticism can be levelled against her. In a work so crowded with details of encounters, achievements and an exacting workpattern an index is almost essential, and this aid to readers is lacking. Nevertheless, the portrait of a woman of unusual gifts with a record of worth while endeavour still remains clear.