[?]nspiration

Norfolk Island [?]s home and [?]nspiration

Norfolk Island is both home nd inspiration for Mrs. Merval loare. While there she has written books of poems and two istories of the historic island.

The first history, the popular ambler’s Guide to Norfolk Island, as just gone into a second edition, wised and enlarged. A full history to be published later this year by ic Queensland University Press.

Merval and Raymond Hoare, both ew Zealanders, went to Norfolk land 19 years ago following their arriage in Wellington. In the home at Raymond Hoare built, Merval arted to keep a journal which ;came the basis of her histories.

They did not have a car when

they arrived so Merval explored the island on foot, and recorded these excursions together with the history and the legends of this small Aus tralian-administered island in the South Pacific.

As she delved deeper into the island’s history, starting with its dis covery by Captain Cook on October 10, 1774, the British occupation in 1788, followed by the first and second penal settlements and then the Pitcairn period from 1856, Mrs.

Hoare became fired with enthusiasm to write more.

“I went to libraries in New Zealand, to Sydney’s Mitchell Library and got photostats from the British Museum and from the Tasmanian archives,” Mrs. Hoare told me re cently, as we sat in her homely, comfortable living room overlooking Cascade Bay—one of the loveliest spots on the island.

Her typewriter was on the dining table and she could look across the hills as she worked.

“It was pretty primitive in some ways when we first arrived,” she said.

“There were less than 100 cars on the island then, but now there are about 700 vehicles plus the motor scooters.”

Today most visitors hire scooters or cars for their sight-seeing or shopping (Norfolk Island’s goods are duty-free) and there is not a great deal of exploration on foot. Today’s visitors are fortunate that Mrs. Hoare did her exploring the casual way, and has passed on her discoveries.

Yet at heart Merval Hoare is a poet—a fact which is clear when you read some of her descriptions of the island in Rambler’s Guide.

Although she has had three books of poetry published, she told me wist fully, “Nobody reads poetry”. And she added, “Do you?” —Lois Miles.

Merval Hoare.