Dear Oliver: Uncovering a Pākehā History

by Peter Wells

When writer and historian Peter Wells found a cache of family letters amongst his elderly mother's effects, he realised that he had the means of retracing the history of a not-untypical family swept out to New Zealand during the great nineteenth-century human diaspora from Britain. His family experienced the war against Te Kooti, the Boer War, the Napier earthquake of 1931 and the Depression. They rose from servant status to the comforts of the middle class. There was army desertion, suicide, adultery, AIDS, secrets and lies. There was also success, prosperity and social status. In digging deep into their stories, examining letters from the past and writing a letter to the future, Peter Wells constructs a novel and striking way to view the history of Pakeha New Zealanders.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

371 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a single review on GR (as of November 2025)! is there not one person in New Zealand who feels the necessity to praise, or condemn, Peter Wells' final book? How transient is reputation! [please see: https://www.read-nz.org/writers-files... - think it better than his Wikipedia entry at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_W...]. Peter Wells is a superb writer whose works have entertained and also moved me deeply and this book builds, or more properly expands on his earlier 'Long Loop Home' but although using his family, or properly his family antecedents, he explores what it means to be Pakeha in today's Aerota New Zealand.

Of course for those of us who don't live in New Zealand words like Pakeha or Aerota mean nothing but that are being used is part of the complex history of the UK with the history of its former 'Imperial' lands. When I say the UK I am also thinking of Ireland not simply because Ireland was 'officially' part of the UK during Britain's long complex acquisition of colonies and empire in the 19th century but because while Ireland was as much a colony as New Zealand and its people at times as thoroughly used, abused and dispossessed as the Maori in New Zealand, Irish men, and women, were also part of those who were the agents of Englands imperial activities. Although for years the Ireland that emerged from rebellion in 1922 liked to present themselves as victims (and the echo of it was still there in my schooldays in the 1970s) but the reality is that whatever monstrosities they suffered at home they failed to recognise others as their brothers and sisters abroad.

Peter Wells explores the way New Zealand was a land of opportunity for so many fleeing a lack of opportunity in the UK at the same time their 'opportunities' rested on the sufferings of New Zealand's native people. What is extraordinary is that Peter Wells, born in 1950, to parents who married just before WWII, grew up and was educated at the height of 'white' New Zealand's indifference/denial of its insalubrious colonial antecedents yet went on to become part of and help create the change that would bury everything he grew up to respect into obliquity. But while burying the ways of thinking he was born up and brought up he also respects those poor immigrants who created the world that made and he turned his back on.

This is a wonderful memoir of family and also a place. He loves New Zealand and it makes him the great writer he is. I cannot recommend this book highly enough but I advise anyone who is new to Peter Wells to start with his 'Boy Overboard' and then move on to his earlier memoir 'The Long Loop Home'. They will provide a fictional and narrative structure to this book. But then again maybe you don't need anything else and can dive into the unknown with assurance. I just don't want anyone to be disappointed and, as I love his other works so much, I want as many as people as possible to read as much of his work as possible!