Author’s Shanghai days
Growing up the son of a German diplomat in Shanghai during World War II as Mao’s Red Army took on the Japanese sounds like something one might talk about often.
But for Tyl von Randow his life after arriving in New Zealand as a teen was so totally different that those childhood memories were left largely dormant for decades.
Later in life he began talking of his interesting childhood with a friend and was surprised at how clearly he remembered it all.
He began to write it down, bit by bit as a series of episodes, eventually realising that in chronological form they would make an interesting book. Ten years later that book is ready for release.
It opens with a privileged early childhood amongst Shanghai’s international community as World War II progresses.
Trained as an architect with interests in music, theatre and painting it wasn’t until his late sixties he was finally ready to revisit and own his childhood again.
Von Randow eventually made his home in the Auckland region, a Bethells Beach resident for more than 30 years now he says of the many places he has lived it is here he calls home.
Tyl von Randow will be speaking at the Waitakere Central Library 4pm-6pm, August 4.