Bread and Roses: Sonja Davies - Her Story

by Sonja Davies

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography

320 pages, Paperback

Published November 24, 1988

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest, revealing and down to earth. Yes, she famously sat on the railway lines at Tui, near Nelson to protest the government decision to not complete the West Coast to Nelson rail link. But of more interest are her struggles to reconcile home, family and her passionate interests and giftings, which so often leave busy women working themselves to the bone to keep all their juggling balls in the air. Yet, this amazingly determined woman, often at her own cost(on the smell of an oily rag), travels most of New Zealand & the world to change the lives and awareness of women as to how they can be involved in politics, trade unions, pay parity, employment options in male strong-holds, raise child-care standards and serve in local government and community endeavours. All her work is accompanied by realisation of her mistakes, a sage analysis of what can & can't work in New Zealand and plan Bs to attempt different solutions. This is also a current history of New Zealand - we are seeing now the fruit of some of her work and yet there are still huge battles to be won esp. in people's mind-sets from our British heritage and traditional male roles. But all this is moving along at a fast pace as we survive her 3 marriages, heart-break over the first, the death of her marine husband on active service, her third happy marriage to Charlie Davies, all against the back-drop of her prolonged struggle with tuberculosis threatening her life. We somehow emerge through the realities of nursing training in the early 1950s in Wellington, much of which was still reality for the students of the early 1970s. We also survive with her through the tragedy of the death of her son and Charlie. This book was published in 1984 & Sonja herself died in 2005, but her battles and victories live on. A MUST read for all NZ women, everyone involved in peace-movements and politics and all those seeking equality across gender and cultural barriers.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! Sonja Davies knows how to tell a story. There is a lot of big picture political stuff, but she manages to keep it mixed in with personal anecdotes and funny slices of life. She was an amazing woman and I learnt a lot about Aotearoa New Zealand (and other parts of the world) during the 1920s-1980s. It did end a bit abruptly, so I’ll have to read Volume 2, Marching On.