My Three Rivers

My Three Rivers is a vivid account of the challenges and satisfactions of rural life in the first part of twentieth-century New Zealand, on land defined by unpredictable rivers, few reliable roads, and no bridges. With a sharp and often humorous eye, Shirley Bagnall Metcalfe captures the community at Thames, beside the mouth of the Waihou, where the Bagnall family owned a sawmill.

The narrative continues at an isolated farm on the East Coast beside the Kopuapounamu River, where she farmed with her husband until they retired by the great Waikato. Shirley wrote with a fountain pen in Warwick Jotters, and her grandson, Andrew Wright, has transcribed her words for publication. The book is enriched with photographs from family and museum archives, offering a fascinating glimpse into this bygone era.