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Betty Gilderdale tribute. 24 July 2021

Hello, I’m Rosemary Tisdall, Storylines member and Trustee, and children’s literature enthusiast & specialist.

The focus of my tribute today will be the children’s literature aspect of Betty’s life.

I couldn’t come and talk about Betty without having some books in my arms. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read them all aloud. Although, I’m sure Betty wouldn’t mind us having some discussions about them. (each book mentioned in the tribute below to hold up at the appropriate time).

The influence of Betty in the children’s literature world in New Zealand is far reaching, and her work and dedication may have had impact beyond what many realise or appreciate. If you say the name, , most people will say The Little Yellow Digger. And certainly, this book has had enormous success, making Betty (and Alan) a household name across the country, if not the world.

But she is far more than the mother of that cute little yellow machine.

Between 1969 and 1981 Betty taught at the North Shore Teachers’ College, not long after her arrival in New Zealand. At least two very important things happened here that had a huge influence on children’s literature in this country, Betty was on the foundation committee (and later became President and Life Member) of the newly established Children’s Literature Association – CLA – along with Dorothy Butler, Ronda Armitage and others. They went on to host events and meetings to which no fewer than 100 people turned up each time. CLA also offered a platform for overseas speakers such as children’s publisher Kaye Webb from Puffin books, and authors such as Joan Aitken and Madeleine L’Engle. This organisation flourishes today, over 50 years later, under the name Storylines.

The second major factor through Betty’s time at North Shore Teachers’ College was when Tom Fitzgibbon, Head of Department, challenged Betty that her lectures featured English and American books only; what about New Zealand authors? Betty realised there was very little available. On learning there was a collection of New Zealand books for children in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, she began making regular visits, as she was keen to add this knowledge to her teaching. There, she steadily read over 800 books that had been written by New Zealand authors and published for children between 1833 and 1978. She particularly enjoyed the work of Esther Glen, Mona Tracy, Isabel Maud Peacocke and Joyce West.

This expansive reading provided her with the knowledge to write A Sea Change: 145 years of New Zealand Junior Fiction. Published in 1982, this book did much to establish writing for young people as an important and successful genre within the New Zealand literary landscape. It subsequently won the PEN Award for best first book of prose.

University of Auckland’s, Professor Terry Sturm, saw its merits and commissioned her to write the children’s literature section for The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature.

Many other works also featured Betty’s essays and critical reviews.

Betty said: “When I started full-time teaching, I made sure that I read aloud to my classes, both primary and secondary, to encourage them to become readers. I also discovered what very good books were available for children and I enjoyed The Hobbit, or books by authors

2 like Susan Cooper, Rosemary Sutcliff and Leon Garfield as much as my classes did. C.S. Lewis was absolutely right when he said, ‘If a book’s no good when you’re fifty, it’s no good when you’re ten’. A good book is a good book for all ages.”

She went on to say, “So, one of my missions in life has been to try to bring good books into children’s lives. It is a mission which has led to meeting authors and writing about them. That has been tremendous fun, especially the week spent with when writing her biography. She and many other New Zealand authors have contributed to making New Zealand literature for children some of the best in the world.” This biography, Introducing Margaret Mahy, published in 1987, won the White Raven Award from the International Youth Library of Munich. On republication, it was named Magical Margaret Mahy.

In Beneath Southern Skies by Tom Fitzgibbon and Barbara Spiers, in reference to the Kotare series which Betty edited, she reiterated: “I feel it is vitally important for New Zealand children to have a literature that is kept in print – if they never know how ideas change yet people remain recognisably the same, how are they ever to get any feeling of historical perspective?” Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton, many books by those authors mentioned earlier, as well as Ron Bacon and Eve Sutton, were republished.

In the mid 1980s, Betty secured part-time work lecturing on children’s literature at the Continuing Education Department of the Auckland University, as well as on a broad range of historical subjects.

She was still reviewing children’s books for The New Zealand Herald in her own regular column, which she did for over 20 years. This work allowed Betty to see books as they were published and to keep up-to-date with trends in writing for children. She kept the review books as she wanted to easily refer to them; of course, they were enjoyed by her children, and subsequently her grandchildren. She also searched second hand bookshops for early New Zealand stories for children, so was developing quite a collection. In 2000, she donated all 1200 books. It is known as the Gilderdale Collection and is housed in the Special Collections in the General Library on the ’s city campus. As a mark of respect, Special Collections will be mounting a display of a few items from her collection in the Reading Room display case during August.

Children were always Betty’s focus, promoting good literature. She felt that television should have worthy programmes for them too. With others, she formed Children’s Media Watch, which lasted 15 years; it subsequently merged with Media Matters.

In 1990, she compiled the short story collection Under the Rainbow: A Treasury of New Zealand Children's Stories. Her passion for New Zealand children to know more about New Zealand authors, resulted in the book Introducing 21 Children’s Writers, in 1991, after visiting and interviewing a growing number of local authors.

I know The Little Yellow Digger series has been discussed already, but I can’t talk about Betty’s children’s literature world, without commenting on its impact. The series has sold more than 800,000 copies, and of course the original Little Yellow Digger title makes up, by far, the bulk of those sales. It appears frequently in the bestseller lists.’m sure it’s no coincidence that The Little Yellow Digger has shown up TWICE on last week’s bestsellers list, the board book and paperback versions.

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All are based on true events so Betty, as a non-fiction writer, saw these still fitting that genre…

The Little Yellow Digger won the Storylines for a Much-Loved Book in 2003, and the New Zealand Booksellers Platinum Award in 2004. Huia Publishers added Te Mīhini Iti Kōwhai to their oeuvre of classic stories retold in Māori in 2013. And most important of all, of course, is that my 18-month-old grandson now can say the word “stuck” and uses it in appropriate situations.

In 1994, Betty received the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal Award, New Zealand’s most prestigious honour for children’s authors.

Betty was very interested in Lady Barker, an early Canterbury colonist, and writer of Station Life in New Zealand. After intense research, the biography, The Seven Lives of Lady Barker, was published in 1996.

In 2012, her memoir, My Life in Two Halves was published. Betty received the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014 for her services to children's literature.

For the Storylines family, a very special award is the one she received back in 1999. It was the Distinguished Service Award from the Children’s Book Foundation, which Children’s Literature Association was about to merge with (to become Storylines). She asked at the next committee meeting what the award would now be called (and wondered how she’d managed to miss the one meeting where we’d voted on her being the recipient). The committee took great delight in telling her it was to be known as the Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award. She was overcome.

This award would be given every year to someone for outstanding service to children’s literature and literacy, for no personal gain. There are a few recipients of this award from over the years, here today, and as one of them, I feel certain they will be feeling just as I am, proud, so proud, to have received this award in Betty’s name. The award comes with a monetary prize and a certificate. My talented son-in-law made this for me which sits in pride of place on my desk at home (a ‘trophy’ of a little yellow digger mounted on a wooden plinth, with an inscription).

Betty is a lady I have always admired, revered and respected from my very first meeting with her when I joined the CLA committee. She was knowledgeable and a stickler for doing things right, which is one of my values. Book Chats at her home were something that many of us remember fondly – her delight and excitement in discovering new books we’d brought along that she hadn’t seen, particularly showing Alan any picture books. And, her cups of tea, in elegant bone china cups, are legendary.

Betty may be known for her chunky yellow machine, but by contrast, my lasting memories of her are a refined lady, so gracious, warm, polite and always eager to learn of the next best book for children. Her devotion to Alan was always evident, and I would love her emails which invariably ended with, Alan joins me in sending warm good wishes.

Thank you for your work, Betty, and your immense contribution to children’s literature in New Zealand.