What happens when a family historian investigates their own family? If you're Kat, the Battle of Waterloo comes into it...
The Colombo-Gloucester corner: A sweet spot over the years
As work begins on the new Court Theatre building Kat looks at the history of this city corner that includes more than a little confectionery.
WORD Christchurch 2020: More than a spoonful of social enterprise
What started of as a high school youth enterprise project has now become not only a book but also a tasty WORD Festival session, hosted by Annabel Langbein. Rather than create a business, Tulsi Lathia and others from Rangi Ruru School wanted to create a social enterprise project that uses food of the world to…
A fond farewell
Due to changing circumstances this will be my last blog for Christchurch City Libraries. I've had a whole lot of fun writing about all sorts of interesting things. In total I've written 56 blogs for the library (including this one) and three for our professional development Bibliofile site. I'm going to look back briefly at…
A distinctly dodgy District Health Officer
You know how sometimes you keep coming across someone's name, get a bit curious and poke around a bit further? Well I seemed to keep coming across a Dr Hugh Earnshaw Finch, Christchurch's District Health Officer in the 1900s and 1910s, so I decided to investigate further. I first came across him in a picture…
Further First World War stories
Although the commemorations marking the centenary of the First World War have come to an end, the war continues to be remembered and its stories continue to be told. The war is a huge, big subject which sometimes, to me, feels too massive to truly comprehend. Therefore it really is those individual or local stories…
A fire, a mysterious lady and a singed parrot
Today we know the Ilam Homestead as the University of Canterbury's staff club and for its connections to the Parker-Hulme case, but another house existed on the site and burnt down in 1910. This wooden house was built in the 1850s for the Hon. J. C. Watts Russell, a prominent early settler. It changed hands…
Vulnerability and advocacy at WORD Christchurch Festival
Once again, WORD Christchurch was fabulous. All the session I went to were thoroughly interesting and enjoyable, and reading all the fabulous write ups of other sessions caused some serious past-tense FOMO. My holds list has also got rather long... However, I've also been thinking about some of the connections between different sessions. One very…
Melting the canon – Explosive Archaeology: WORD Christchurch Festival 2018
This fantastic session included no stripey jumpers or whips or trowels - the archaeology was metaphorical, asking us to look back, elevate, uncover and dig up those who have been excluded from the literary canon. Poet Tayi Tibble, academic Erin Harrington, novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam and curator Jennifer Shields were asked by session chair Pantograph Punch…
“Everything else is just filler” Sex and Death Salon: WORD Christchurch Festival 2018
Host Victor Rodger warned that this session was going to be dirty and lowbrow. I intend to make this blog as dirty and lowbrow as the editors will let me! Featuring poets Tayi Tibble and Chris Tse, and authors Stacy Gregg and Emily Writes, this was a no holds barred, late night sessions about things…
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