The Boy from Ngakawau. Half an Hour at High School. (George Calvert) by Paul Corliss.
The Boy from Ngakawau. Half an Hour at High School. (George Calvert) by Paul Corliss.
Published: By Purple Grouse Press, 2014. First edition. Softback in very good condition, minor shelf/edge wear, slight fading to rear. No inscriptions.
From a Charming Creek childhood, a Buller coal miner to Heathcote Valley multi-millionaire, the story of cleaning king and Canterbury hardcase identity George Calvert. With the history of the Buller mines, digging beneath Manapouri for the power project with later Mayor Tim Shadbolt, in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo, boxing promoter. The George Calvert narrative has enough backblocks-Kiwi tenacity, overcome-the-odds success and rough-edged charm and magic to more than warrant its recording. Such charm as.evading the Russian mafia in a Prague casino by shooting thru the roof of the taxi; taking on one of New Zealand's biggest financial advisory giants; sleeping in a helicopter in a Nevada desert while a con-artist wanders outside; first Cantabrian to completely rebuild a quake-devastated pub; chartering a DC3 to fly to Westport to watch a horse race named after his father; sitting ringside, chomping on the end of a cigar the size of a dog-roll, while Evander Holyfield had a chunk of his right ear bitten off and spat onto the canvas by Mike Tyson. The photographs include many historic and current Buller/West Coast scenes, an extensive compilation from the depths of the Manapouri Project, world-renowned boxing identities and personalities and the effects of the Canterbury earthquake. It also includes one of the largest spreads of on-the-ground photographs of NZ's armed involvement in the Indonesian confrontation in Malaysia & Borneo.
