The Love Apple (27 page)

D
espite
The
Love
Apple
being a novel, and obviously fiction, many of the events it describes did take place. Readers may be interested to know that there was considerable support for the Irish cause in late nineteenth-century New Zealand, especially in Westland. Feelings ran strong in support of the Manchester Martyrs — three Fenians executed in England in 1867 — and delegations of Irish nationalists supporting Home Rule in the Westminster Parliament, such as that of 1889 led by John Dillon MP, were welcomed with wild enthusiasm.

Ten New Zealand contingents, totalling 6507 men, served in the 1899–1902 Anglo-South African (Boer) war. A total of 230 men were killed in action or by accident, or died of wounds or disease. The Irish Transvaal Brigade — and other groups of Irish irregulars — did fight on the side of the Boers in this war. (Today the flag belonging to the brigade is in the National Museum of Ireland, in Dublin.) In the failed Irish uprising of 1916 a small number of Boer rifles were seized by the British authorities in Dublin.

Danish immigrants Peter and Caroline Hende were real people who, from 1878, operated a ferry and accommodation house on the Wanganui River, near Harihari.

The traditional Irish folk song about the dead lover who
dies or runs away, and returns in ghostly form to confront the former sweetheart, has many versions, two of which are quoted. The ‘She Moved Through the Fair' version sung in Chapter 22 is the best known and the most beautiful. Padraig Colum arranged the words early in the twentieth century, a little later than this novel is set.

Books have many progenitors; this one is no exception. The New Zealand Society of Authors generously provided me with the support and direction of a mentor in the writing of
The Love Apple
. I am most grateful to the NZSA and to Linda Burgess, who was unfailingly helpful and charming in her mentoring role.

I would also like to thank Harriet Allan of Random House New Zealand and Rachel Scott, editor, for their work on this book; Nancy Fithian for her invaluable assistance; Gerry Gandy, who took me to the West Coast and made me look; Linda Hart (my underwritten friend) for her constant support and interest; Peter Ireland for his advice to always ask, ‘What exactly is going on here?’; Tanya Tremewan, who has been unswerving in her belief in my writing; and Paula Wagemaker for her encouragement.

I am also most grateful to Max Broadbent and Christine Bush of the Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury; along with Julia Bradshaw and staff of the Hokitika Museum, for providing information and useful avenues for research; Chris Carrow of Circo Arts, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, for explaining the intricacies of learning trapeze; Di Lucas, of Lucas Associates, for her advice on trees; and Rory Sweetman, who checked my material on the New Zealand visit
of John Dillon and the Home Rule Delegation.

Close to home, thanks are due to my father, the late Cyril Atkinson, for his stories of family, Ireland and South Africa, some of which live again in this book; my ever-supportive sister, Tania Connelly; and my grandmother, the late Olive Wright, friend of the young man who had difficulty dancing when wearing a dress sword.

Finally, there is my husband, Wolfgang Kreutzer, for his unstinting love; and New Zealand and Ireland, inspiration for
The
Love
Apple
,
dual homelands of my heart.

Born in Ireland, Coral Atkinson moved to New Zealand as a girl and studied history at the University of Canterbury. She has worked as a secondary school teacher and educational
journalist
as well as in book publishing; currently she tutors on a publishing course and runs adult education seminars. Her short fiction has been published in New Zealand, Ireland and England. It has won and been shortlisted in several short-story contests. Coral Atkinson co-authored
Recycled People: Forming New Relationships in Mid-life
(Shoal Bay Press, 2000) and has also published various non-fiction articles, essays and educational texts.