Brian Byrne: Past lives of the Kaipara

By MARGIE THOMSON

It's not often an author acknowledges "the unseen hand of serendipity", but Brian Byrne, author of a stunning 550-page history The Unknown Kaipara, 1250-1875, admits he discovered many what he calls nuggets of invaluable material by sheer, happy accident.

Such as the time when, sitting in the Alexander Turnbull Library, tired but with 10 minutes still to go in a long afternoon, he thought "Blow it!" and began flicking through the book in hand as you might flick through the telephone directory.

The pages "just stopped" and there was something extraordinary - the second-oldest Maori-drawn chart in existence, previously unknown. Te Tirarau Kukupa's chart of Kaipara and Wairoa, 1837-39, now sits proudly on page 61 of The Unknown Kaipara.

There are many similar instances, but you are tempted to remind Byrne there is no such thing as luck. Over his 10 years of researching this book, and with his addiction to primary resources, he has simply put himself, again and again, in the right place to make a discovery.

"I like to get to the primary documents," he says. "You know what you're reading is the bedrock, you're not inventing it."

This retired insurance executive stopped work 12 years ago, but found himself engaged on his life's work. An immigrant who arrived from Britain in the 1950s, he was fascinated by his new country and pleased to find there were no in-depth histories of what he considers the two great West Coast harbours of the North Island, Manukau and Kaipara.

He has since written a history confined to the maritime Manukau, but when it came to the Kaipara he widened his scope to include the hinterland.

Thus The Unknown Kaipara contains gripping accounts of bloody, pivotal Maori battles, such as Moremonui and Te Ika-a-Ranganui, which devastated Ngati Whatua and created a syndrome, Byrne says, equivalent to that of the French after the battle of Verdun.

Byrne is fascinated by this idea of legacy and consequence, but describes his histories as non-confrontational, and steps carefully around the "quicksands of interpretation".

Early European sailors, settlers, traders and businesspeople also populate his pages, often speaking in their own words, thanks to Byrne's use of original documents, such as letters and diaries.

A bibliophile with strong ideas about aesthetics, Byrne kept total control of his project, refusing to let the "blue pencil" of a publishing house force him to compromise and change it.

So the book is his own: from his long-hand original manuscript -"a quill and a phone" is all the technology he needs, he says - to the finished hardcover book. The result, beautifully reproduced in an elegant typeface, recently won a gold medal at the Pride in Print awards.

Byrne will discuss his work at the Going West Books and Writers festival, with fellow historian Michael King, on Saturday, September 13, at 10.25am, in the Titirangi War Memorial Hall.

The festival, this year themed "Wild New Zealand - Voices from the Landscape", from September 12-14, also includes C.K. Stead, Geoff Park, Steve Thomas, Emma Neale, Victoria McHalick, Jenny Pattrick, Geoff Chapple, James George, Kapka Kassabova, Catherine Chidgey, Albert Wendt, James McNeish, W.H. Oliver, and many more. Programmes are available from bookshops and libraries.