Editorial: Holmes has a story we should read

A bit more than a year ago, broadcaster Paul Holmes phoned me to say he would reluctantly have to cease his weekly column for Hawke's Bay Today.

From my point of view, it was a real shame. Holmes is one of the most high-profile people in New Zealand and a resident of Hawke's Bay. His Holmes at Poukawa column was always thought-provoking and crafted in a very personal style.

Not everyone found Holmes at Poukawa an appealing read of course but that's ok in my book. Who wants a columnist that everyone agrees with every time he puts pen to paper.

But right back from the days when I worked for the Herald on Sunday and we brought Holmes on as a columnist for that paper, I liked his style. He is, many would agree, a gifted story-teller.

The reason Holmes dropped his Hawke's Bay Today column was because he had become just too busy.

I could understand that, what with his radio, TV and other publishing commitments.

But now we discover that through that period, he was working on the book Daughters of Erebus, which has just been released and went straight to No.1 in the bestsellers' list.

In Daughters of Erebus, Holmes calls on politicians to exonerate the pilots from any blame in the November 1979 Mt Erebus crash. Complimentary copies went to all 121 Members of Parliament. So far, National's Maurice Williamson, Labour's Trevor Mallard and United Future's Peter Dunne, have endorsed Holmes' call to clear the pilots' names.

Air New Zealand, says Holmes, was grossly negligent in changing the navigation co-ordinates early in the morning on the day of the flight and not informing the pilot.

"So much of what happened was so wrong," says Holmes. "The book involved much painful research and a lot of pain was felt by the Collins girls [pilot Jim Collins' wife and his four daughters] remembering it all."

New Zealand's most influential book blogger Graham Beattie, calls the book "gripping, riveting and totally readable".

It goes to show that Paul Holmes is indeed one of New Zealand's best story-tellers.

And that some of his stories are very important for us to read