Felicity Goodyear-Smith
RRP: $39.00, published July 2025
ISBN: 9780473-74539-4
Format: 252 x 190 mm, paperback
Colour photos throughout.
Available online at Canoeandkayak.
Dacre Cottage and the Weiti Block: their history and preservation tells the story of the little brick Dacre Cottage and the surrounding Weiti block of land. The Cottage is the second oldest existing building in Auckland. It was build by Captain Ranulph Dacre in 1855 to house his 15 year old son, sent from Australia to farm the and after all the kauri trees had been logged. Dacre was a sea captain, trader, entrepreneur, businessman, and family man, and the book includes many tales about him, his eleven children and his many contemporaries in early Aotearoa New Zealand.
The cottage sits on the shore of Karepiro Bay in the Hauraki Gulf, at the coming together of the Weiti and Ōkura Rivers. Dacre Cottage and the Weiti Block also includes many stories about the community groups and individuals who have fought to preserve Dacre’s original Weiti Block, restore his cottage, and to protect the surrounding the forest, estuary, beach, and ocean, along with the native reptiles, birds and marine animals that live there. These include endangered New Zealand dotterels and godwits which migrate every spring back from Alaska, with ongoing efforts to protect their unique breeding and feeding grounds.
All proceeds from sales of the book will go to the Dacre Reserve Management Committee to contribute to their ongoing maintenance and improvement programme for the Cottage and the Historic and Esplanade Reserves.
Felicity Goodyear-Smith
RRP: $39.95, publishing 9 February 2023
ISBN: 978-0-473-66306-03
Format: 229 x 152 mm (portrait), 254 pages, paperback
12 pages of black & white images (insert)
The book is now available:
From Crime to Care presents the history of abortion in Aotearoa New Zealand from pre-colonial times to the present, weaving in stories and experiences from key people on both sides of the debate. After the first abortion clinic opened in 1974 there were protests and pickets, and the issue shaped our politics in the 1970s. Moral crusaders, activists, legislators, abortion-providers and many others put their reputations and sometimes their lives on the line to do what they thought was right.
The abortion struggle serves as an illustration of our changing political and social landscape, with a public move from conservative towards more liberal values. Finally, after 180 years, abortion in Aotearoa is a health rather than a criminal concern. However, the issue continues to divide people, and events in the United States have shown how quickly change can occur, with their Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and several states banning abortions.
Felicity grew up in Campbells Bay on Auckland’s North Shore, initially a remote part of Auckland and remembers walking over the Harbour Bridge when it was opened in 1959. She went to school on the North Shore and then to medical school at the University of Auckland. She practised medicine in the Hokianga and Whangarei before going to the UK, and was a GP in a village in South Wales and then Kingston, Jamaica, before returning to New Zealand to be GP in Freemans Bay (then a very deprived part of Auckland). Felicity worked as abortion certifying consultant from 1981 to 2020.
There’s more about Felicity’s work at https://goodyearsmith.com/