book details

Book: Scarlet Runner by Lily Ennis

categories: Book, Romance, History, New Zealand, Gold, Mining, Waihi, Labour, Unions, Protests, Historical Fiction

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Lily Ennis

about this book: The book relates the 1912 Waihi miners' strike in New Zealand. It was an event that changed New Zealand politics. The Labour Party has its roots in this terrible episode. The strike was never supposed to take five months, it was never supposed to result in death, it was never supposed to pit brother against brother, son against father. It was never supposed to result in half of the town's workers being run out of town to be replaced by scab labour. The strike was never officially called off.

The story follows Archie, a mine manager and Mary, whose men in her family were on the other side of the strike and how they managed to make love work. All the relationships in the book are complicated because of the alliances or perceived alliances people had.

Scarlet Runners was the name given to the women who smuggled guns and food parcels to the brave people embroiled in the strike. They would picket outside the mine then go back home to keep the home fires burning and manage a household with no money coming in save for the pittance that other unions around the country donated. As the strike went on this became less.

There is a lot of information in Papers Past on the strike. Readers of history and of romance would equally enjoy this book.