Heather Heberley: Last of the whalers: Charlie Heberley's story

By MARGIE THOMSON

Heather Heberley will be familiar as the author of the autobiography Weather Permitting, in which she told of life on a remote farm in the Marlborough Sounds. There's still a lot of weather going on in this new book: Heberley excels at stories of people who live in environments that demand respect.

Here, she tells the story of her father-in-law who, along with his mates in the shore-based whaling industry of the first half of the 20th century, she considers the "last of a breed of men New Zealand will never see again".

While Charlie is a remarkable character, tough, resilient and a terrific storyteller, it is the sense of a New Zealand-gone-by that will be of more interest, when people were less cushioned against hardship than we are now.

Charlie worked in the bloody, stinking whaling industry until 1964 when dwindling whale stocks saw it come to an end. He turned against the industry in later years, supporting the moratorium on whaling, and decrying irresponsible depletion of natural resources. An interesting corner of New Zealand history.

* Published by Cape Catley, $29.95