The personal and national cost of burnout.

The Nine Lives of Kitty K. by Margaret Mills, Mary Egan Publisher, $34.95

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. During 1976 and 1977 Margaret Mills worked as a postie in Queenstown. At this time she became friendly with a Miss Winnie Mulholland whose mother, Mary Jane Mulholland, was born the same year as Kitty K and knew her story.

Mills became fascinated with Kitty’s story and tucked it away for another time.

She had always had a hankering to write a novel; at 91, with gardening not being as easy, Mills’ life took another turn. She has has fulfilled her ambition and written Kitty’s story.

Kitty Kirk was born Kitty Cameron, the bastard child of a gentry son. On becoming pregnant at 15, Kitty’s mother Catherine was swiftly married to a renegade brother of her soldier lover, a remittance was set up and both were shipped off to New Zealand.

On arrival in Dunedin it did not take her husband long to vanish. Catherine was left to fend for herself and her daughter.

With her share of the money settled on her she bought two cows and established a dairy of sorts. As Kitty grew up she showed a real affinity with animals. An incident with her cows resulted in Catherine meeting George Kirk, who was to become a major fixture in their lives. Marriage was out of the question as Catherine was already married to a husband who had vanished. School was miserable for Kitty, taunted by the children.

Catherine and George moved to George’s land in central Otago and began setting up their own dairy business. Kitty flourished. Her affinity with animals turned to horses and she could ride or train any horse. George was delighted with Kitty d abilities, her mother Catherine considerably less so. She wanted Kitty to be a a real lady. Although Kitty tried it was impossible for her to be the daughter Catherine craved.

George had employed John Kregg. He was years older than Kitty, who was now just 15, but Kitty saw him as a stable figure and when he asked her to marry him Kitty jumped at the chance to be independent at last. Unfortunately this was not what happened. The rest of the story follows Kitty being subdued by John until a terrible tragedy made her rethink her life.

It would be churlish to be too critical of this book. I am full of admiration that a 91-year-old could write her first novel. Perhaps it could have done with a little more editing, but her research paints a great picture of the lives our forbears lived at this time in our history.

—