The Sound of Water

Author Valerie Davies wrote columns in the Auckland Star and New Zealand Women's Weekly in the 1970s and '80s. She wrote about single parenting, at a time when about 11% of New Zealand children were living in single parent homes and there were few resources for families. Valerie first came to New Zealand in 1970, fleeing a failed marraige in Hong Kong with two young children. She knew no one, had no job and set out to define her own life. Now she lives in a village in Northland, with her husband, journalist and Arthur Allan Thomas campaigner, Pat Booth.