Author shares extraordinary life
‘Vera Girl’ has had a colourful and challenging life
Don’t Follow Me Vera Girl By Roni Fitzmaurice Reviewed by Judith Lacy .. .. .. .. .. ..
What a woman! What a book! There — the shortest book review ever. But Roni Fitzmaurice’s life is anything but short and it’s certainly been colourful, challenging, and one of community contributions.
Her autobiography, Don’t Follow Me Vera Girl, will be launched at Palmerston North City Library on November 25 at 3pm.
Fitzmaurice arrived in Palmerston North in 1982 and quickly got involved in the community. She was a city councillor from 1992-1995 and later a Horizons regional councillor. In 2017, she moved to Waikanae to be closer to family.
Veronica Eager was born in 1933 in Liverpool. Her mother and father were not married, nor did they live together.
It was a childhood of poverty, neglect, eviction, living in a condemned building, time in care, and World War II. Fitzmaurice was 6 when World War II broke out — when King George VI was on the throne. Her mother Kitty was a sex worker.
Fitzmaurice’s depictions of her childhood reminded me of Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes.
I don’t know if it is intentional but the title and the front cover photograph of the Liverpool slums immediately evoked Dame Vera Lynn and We’ll Meet Again.
The self-published book with the design done by Palmy’s own Anthony Behrens is beautiful to look at and a real page turner. There are remarkably few typos, particularly in the earlier chapters.
Fitzmaurice is startlingly frank at times — especially about her marriage and family planning, and her writing made me see my own life through a new lens.
She writes that completing her story has not been easy.
“At times I found myself in an emotional whirlpool, not knowing what to hold on to and what to let go of. Occasionally I needed to withdraw for a while.”
Life certainly wasn’t a bed of roses when she immigrated to New Zealand in 1951.
Fitzmaurice’s eldest child gave her a notebook in 1997 and encouraged her to start writing her “cornucopia of stories” that very minute. Thankfully she followed Louise’s advice.