“A Provincial Saga” by Margaret Coghill

This memoir was written by a 98-year-old woman. She grew up in New Brighton, and later worked in Wellington, as well as travelling overseas. Margaret was a Hansard Reporter and offers some interesting snippets of Parliamentary history.

What struck me about the book was how many facts the author was uncertain of. It’s understandable that a 98-year-old’s memory may be fragmentary, but I couldn’t help thinking that many of these facts could easily have been researched by an assistant, and that some editing would have been useful. Maybe just writing her story down was what she wanted to do.

Margaret relates how when her grandfather married for a second time he neglected to tell his new wife he had seven children dotted around Christchurch. This reminded me of my grandfather who neglected to tell my grandmother that two sons of his first marriage had come with him to Christchurch from Australia. Many details of places and events in this book are ones that I either remember or remember hearing about, e.g. my mother was also there when Kingsford Smith arrived from his flight across the Tasman.

I was lent this book from the New Brighton Historical Society. It has a copyright notice, and was printed by Printabook who are “self-publishing experts”. There is nothing to say who the publisher is, although it was evidently the author, and there is no ISBN number, which indicates the book was never intended for sale. Christchurch City Libraries hold one copy which is for in-library use only. Some diverting episodes are included, but Margaret’s story failed to enthrall me. I wondered who had thought of the title, which didn’t quite seem to match the book.

When near a hundred years have passed
the anecdotal scope is vast