CHARMS OF ST BATHANS

Press, 29 October 1977, Page 19

CHARMS OF ST BATHANS

St Bathans. By Gladys NicolsonGarrett. John Mclndoe. 96 pp. >5.95. (Reviewed by Robert Lamb) Text and illustration combine admirably in this book to present the character and charm of an old goldmining town, which, for the author, has had a life-long attraction. She spent her childhood and youth at St Bathans and was postmistress there for eight years. She warms to her subject when describing the work of the men who constructed the waterraces, and this enthusiasm she is able to communicate to the reader, page by page, as the narrative progresses. Not

all writers of local history have this gift, but Mrs Nicolson-Garrett possesses it to a marked degree. Old Otago newspapers, as well as the diaries of mine managers — for whom her admiration is unbounded — have come to her aid in the difficult task of trying to piece together fragments of St Bathans’ past, and to weave them into a colourful and meaningful mosaic. Institutions such as banks, churches, school and post office, had each a distinctive contribution to make to the town’s history, as the author makes abundantly clear. Nor has she overlooked the St Bathans police station and jail, opened on May 12, 1887. James Kennedy, the first constable there, was “an ideal country policeman — friendly with everyone, familiar with no-one.” As for the old St Bathans cottage hospital, mentioned on page 12 of this book, neither this author nor earlier Otago historians seem able to say just when it was founded or when it ceased to function. However, there is documentary evidence in the Hocken Library, Dunedin, to show that the hospital was still in existence in 1898.