Fossicking amid bottles

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 20

Fossicking amid bottles

Gold, Coins, Greenstone, and Bottles. By Peter Neame. Published by the author, 7 Camerons Road, Greymouth, 1985. 52 pp. $18.95. Peter Neame has the makings of a West Coast character. His family settled there four generations ago and his roots are firmly in the gold, the coal, the timber, and the legends. He is a fossicker — especially for bottles, and for coins and greenstone. He has also been a male nurse, and a local political force. Now he is an author, with a happily eccentric approach to punctuation. The title — gold, coins, greenstone and bottles — sums up his book’s contents. This is a personal record of discovery as Neame and his family £pnged the Coast and extended their searches to Canterbury and Wellington. The text is well illustrated, the maps are adequate, and many of the fragments of history are fascinating. Neame has worked hard at his discoveries, and equally hard to put them before his readers. His book is a diverting account of one family’s pursuit of the history that turned out to be lying all around them. It is partly a hand-book for would-be prospectors, especially those in search of old and rare bottles, and partly an excuse for the author to offer his personal views on a variety of matters. It could only have come from the Coast, and that is its charm. — Literary Editor.