March 2015

Call for Papers

Contributions are now invited for the 2016 issue of the Turnbull Library Record.

The Turnbull Library Record is a peer-reviewed journal in the humanities, published yearly by the Alexander Turnbull Library in association with the Friends of the Turnbull Library. It publishes information relating to the activities of the Library, as well as articles covering a wide range of research, with special emphasis on the societies and cultures of New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Its purpose is to increase knowledge of the Library’s collections by showing their scope and richness, and the ways researchers are using them.

The 2016 Record will not be themed, but will instead be a general issue. Articles or pictorial essays should be between 2,000-5,000 words. Contributions that have not been previously published are welcome and, before acceptance, will be independently refereed. They should be written in a lively and accessible manner, with a scholarly underpinning.

Deadline for the submission of papers is 1 September 2015.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to decline to publish an article, whether solicited or unsolicited. For more information, to propose an idea, or to submit a paper, please contact the Managing Editor: Fiona Oliver

fiona.oliver@dia.govt.nz

Once on Chunuk Bair

In a talk to the Friends on Wednesday 11 March, Dr Lucy Treep – recipient of the 2014 FoTL Research Grant – spoke about Maurice Shadbolt’s play, Once on Chunuk Bair, which was produced by Ian Mune at the Mercury Theatre in Auckland, opening on ANZAC Day 1982. She said Shadbolt first visited the battle site on Gallipoli in 1977, and almost immediately began to think about writing a play to convey the story of the New Zealanders’ experiences. That first Auckland production was acclaimed; but Shadbolt himself was irate at a last-minute cut of two pages in the script. Later, the play was published by Shadbolt as a book with an introduction by Michael Neill. The cut pieces were reinstated and Shadbolt made extensive revisions to the script, this time drawing on a series of interviews he began in June 1982 with a number of returned servicemen for a television documentary. By 1989 Shadbolt had reassessed the whole episode and decided that “Chunuk Bair is a contemporary play. … It is only ostensibly about New Zealand’s fatal day on Chunuk Bair on August 8, 1915. It was really about New Zealanders – and New Zealand – seventy years on.” Lucy Treep sees this as an indication that Shadbolt was actively seeking to not only interrogate commonly held myths but also to create them, to shape the ‘spirit of the age’, or the ‘spirit of a nation’.

Treep_3 — Dr Lucy Treep speaking at the National Library of New Zealand on 11 March. Photo: Kate Fortune

Rona: a gentleman’s racing yacht

Alexander Turnbull’s classic yacht Rona, built by Robert Logan Sr in Auckland in 1892, is still afloat – but is in need of renovating. Hank Schouten of the Dominion Post (Monday March 2) described this beautiful Kauri racing yacht as needing major repairs, including a realignment of the hull and new decking. In Alexander’s lifetime, the Rona won the 1893 Auckland Regatta and the 1895 Wellington Regatta, and it has continued to be successfully raced up to the present day. It was bought in 1981 and fully restored over nine years by Nelson architect John Palmer (who spoke to the Friends of the Turnbull Library about his project in August 2005). Since 2006 it has been owned by the Rona Preservation Trust.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/66816634/Grand-old-lady-needs-a-makeover