Waiting for the Sugar-water

This is Shirley Grave's major work of imagination ... an autobiography set in New Zealand's South Island that recalls a childhood as one of the 'bovine herd' in Primer One, to the evening of her life watching the tuis and bellbirds waitng for their sugar-water.

Shirely Grave was born in Oamaru in 1924, the daughter of well-known explorer and solicitor WG Grave. She wrote poetry since childhood, and this is her first book.

In 'To the Is-land' Janet Frame wrote of Shirley Grave ... I first became aware of her through the teachers' complaints about her lack of order, her absentmindedness, which were apparently balanced by her imagination .