DAVID HILL - A PROFILE
By Trevor Agnew
First published in
Magpies Magazine,
May 2017
Dusted off to celebrate David Hill's
84th Birthday in June 2026:
John McIntyre’s
recent Newsletter from The Children’s Bookshop at Kilbirnie, mentions “the growing number of children’s authors
well past retirement age still pumping out stories.” He notes Jack Lasenby
(85), Maurice Gee (85) and Joy Cowley (80) and then points out that “David Hill is in his mid-70s and his recent
history-themed fiction is among his very best work.”
The youngest of
that quartet of silver-haired literary lions, David Hill, has no illusions
about the public perception of the elderly.
In his novel Sinking (2013) he
makes young Conrad say that, “George is
really old, about 65, maybe.” That would make George about six years
younger than David at the time.
As a society, we
tend to undervalue the aged (which was one of the themes of Sinking) but David Hill’s achievements
as a writer are remarkable because of the consistently high quality of his
written work, whether as journalist, columnist, author, reviewer or playwright.
By my rough tally,
David Hill has written more than fifty books for young adults. He was awarded
the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 2004. He has a
cupboard-ful of awards, including the Esther Glen Award (twice), the Gaelyn
Gordon Award, the Margaret Mahy Lecture Award, and the Silver Quill award (for See Ya Simon). Coming Back was
selected for The White Ravens International Youth Library Stand at the Bologna
Children’s Book Fair. His novel My
Brother’s War won the NZ Book
Awards for Children and Young Adults for Best Young Adult Fiction, while, last
year, his picture book First to the Top
won the Non-Fiction Award.
So his 75th
year, and the 25th anniversary of his first novel, seemed a good
time to ask David Hill to reflect on his long writing career.
His response was
typically generous and funny. “Hi,
Trevor, I’ve washed the car and done some of my bloody Income Tax return, so
I’ll turn with relief to answering some of your questions.”
Most authors, when
asked the chestnut about ‘where you get your ideas from,’ admit to being
influenced by episodes from their childhood and adolescence. Anyone who has
read The River Runs or Journey to Tangiwai will realise that
Napier and Hawkes Bay occupy an important section of David Hill’s memory banks.
“Yes, I was born in Napier, and we lived on
the hill in a dilapidated, old, rented house till I was 15. My parents were
saving for their own house – that golden vision of the post-World War II
years. I remember the determination of
their saving: the vegetable garden; the use of firewood cut with friends so
they didn’t have to spend on heaters, and the darning and sewing to avoid
buying new clothes. I found them irritating as a teenager; now I recognise and
respect them, and they’ve given me wonderful material for stories.”
Those raised in or
around Napier are constantly reminded of the effects of the 1931 Hawkes Bay
Earthquake, which severely damaged the area. David, born there in 1942, is no
exception.
“My Mum had indeed been in a farmhouse which
was wrecked by the 1931 Hawkes Bay earthquake, and she told me numerous stories
about it, which I’ve pillaged subsequently. It also made me realise the
potential in other such dramas, so I’ve written quite a lot about river
crossings, train wrecks, frightening climbs, and near-drownings. The precariousness of human life is such a powerful
source of material.”
David Hill
began school at Napier Central Primary School (which he has immortalised in
several articles and stories) followed by Napier Intermediate and Napier Boys’ High
School. Peter’s first day at Napier Boys’ High in Journey to Tangiwai reflects David’s memories, “I put on my uniform: light-coloured khaki
shorts, roman sandals, NBHS school cap…The older ones all wore their caps
pushed back on their heads, so Tom and I did the same.”
David Hill agrees that
recognition of past events or objects can create a bond between writer and
reader, particularly memories of school.
“Funnily enough, these schools I went to come
a lot into the adult fiction I write. I’ve done a lot of short stories for
radio and magazines, plus various feature articles. Adults (of course) love
reading about the times of their youth, so I exploit this.”
When asked about
his youthful self, David Hill is typically self- deprecating and uses such
words as small, timid, shy, lazy, and awkward. He even used alliteration when
he told an early biographer, Tom Fitzgibbon: “I was short, stout and stammering.” He found that being overlooked
was a bonus for his future career. “I was the kid in class whom people didn’t
notice much, which turned out to be brilliant for a writer – I could watch them
instead.”
“I was a socially inept teenager, and that
turned out to be SO valuable for me as a writer, because my memories of
shyness, awkwardness, and the desperate wish to be cool and popular remain, as
do the strategies and lies I used to try and promote myself. Wonderful material.”
As well as being
an enthusiastic writer from an early age, David Hill was also an enthusiastic
reader. Although he is an admirer of the writing of Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley
and Maurice Gee, asking him about other favourite writers is wasted effort.
“I was an omnivorous and undirected reader
for years; I gulped and swallowed and read for entertainment. Realistic
adventures appealed most. I’m a real disappointment, in the sense that NO one
author inspired me – indeed, I’m hard pressed to remember titles or names. But
early on, I got into the HABIT of reading, and it remains a great solace and
charge.
I love Virginia Woolf’s description of a group of
people arriving at the Pearly Gates. St Peter looks at them, and says, “Oh,
you’re readers. Come straight in.”
At Victoria
University in Wellington, David graduated with MA (Hons) and says that, to his
surprise, he found that literature was fascinating. And useful.
“After four years’ study, I was saturated in
the cadences, images, vocabulary and topics of great writers. I still draw on
them, for a phrase, a rhythm, or an image. It was a wonderful training. So was
high school teaching, which I did and enjoyed for 15 years, in various parts of
New Zealand, and in the United Kingdom for two years. (I taught Princess
Margaret’s two kids!) The need to communicate in a manner which was acceptable
and interesting to teenagers, (along with the classroom events, anecdotes and
personalities) still offers material for me to use as a writer.”
David Hill was a
teacher’s teacher. As a rural high
school teacher in the 1970s and 80s, I took pleasure in reading his book
reviews and articles, and using his text books, such as Introducing Maurice Gee and On
Poetry.
“I found great pleasure and emotional
satisfaction in teaching high school English. To see kids moved by stories; to
watch them silent and enthralled as I told them the story of Beowulf, or to realise
the girls were crying at the end of Romeo and Juliet, and the boys were stirred
and moved by Wilfred Owen and the great English ballads – terrific. And to
watch their pride when THEY had written something and it was heard and admired
by the others. Most satisfying.”
So why did you take the huge step of leaving
teaching to become a professional writer?
“I wanted to write; I’d been doing it in
small amounts (poems first; then short stories, articles; a couple of plays)
for years, ever since my first years of teaching. I knew that if I didn’t try
it fulltime, I’d wonder for the rest of my life what I’d missed. So I took a
year off and wrote fulltime. I did two full-length plays for schools, which got
published. Performances of them still bring me....$25...$31.50....35 years
later!
Then I taught for one more year and we counted our
money. Beth, my dear supportive wife had just returned to teaching Latin and
Classical Studies part-time, so....so off I went.
What a feckless fool!”
“I’d be VERY apprehensive now but it was a buoyant
time then, with a lot of outlets and publishers. Now, with the dwindling
markets, I feel great admiration for young writers who commit themselves. “
“At first I was writing equally for kids and
adults. More plays; radio stories; travel pieces; a lot of book reviewing,
which I still do, and value greatly – because I get paid for sure. (And that matters a lot for a fulltime writer.
You can spend 10 to 14 months on a book and are always aware it may earn you
absolutely nothing.)” I also value the outside writing because it takes my
reading outside my comfort zone; I have to read things I might not choose to.
And it keeps me in touch with what’s being written.”
2017 is the 25th
anniversary of the publication of David Hill’s first Young Adult novel. Today See Ya, Simon is an award-laden
classic, still in print and available in several languages but the manuscript
was initially rejected. All that changed in 1992 when Wellington publisher Ann
Mallinson snapped it up. David
acknowledges that a story about a dying boy in a wheelchair might put
publishers off but he had strong family reasons for writing it.
“I began See
Ya Simon soon after our teenage daughter’s friend died of Duchenne Muscular
Dystrophy, when Helen was just 15. Suddenly, Helen’s world wasn’t safe any
longer. Fear and mortality had stepped right forward. I watched her face the
challenge and accept it, and I was so impressed that I began the novel.”
“I realised that there were all sorts of things I
could try and write novels about for teenagers and younger kids. My whole
writing life changed.”
Humour is usually
a response to serious issues and David Hill certainly hasn’t avoided serious
issues in his writing. In See Ya Simon, Nathan’s best friend
Simon is 14, witty, intelligent and has less than a year to live. Nathan’s
account of Simon’s last months of life is simple and unsentimental but also very
funny. Despite, or perhaps because of, Simon’s impending death, See Ya Simon is one of the funniest
books ever written about life in New Zealand high schools.
“Yes, I do use humour, don’t I? Even in the
sad stories; even in the war stories. Actually, I use humour ESPECIALLY in
those stories; it breaks the tension and provides variety. It’s a risk and I
love the excitement of including it. I think we’ve all got this inner dialogue
going on in our heads constantly in which we see the idiocy, the comedy, the
great/trivial juxtaposition of what we do and what the world is. I very much
enjoy trying to include that.”
You once said that
you enjoy writing about teams because they contain different types of people “so there’s always the chance for unexpected,
brilliant or disastrous things to happen.” In the 1990s, you wrote several
sports novels, including one of my favourites Give It Hoops where a basketball player has only one leg and the
team’s tattooed coach is there as part of his community service sentence.
We also find your
characters teaming-up to work for the environment in Comes Naturally And to survive in the bush in Take It Easy. Your latest war novel, Flight Path uses the same idea of teamwork – a bomber crew’s
continued survival depends on their co-operation and trust. These novels must
have posed research challenges.
“Indeed,
any team, group or crew is a promising area for diversity – and it comes with
the problem of trying to make all the members somehow diverse and distinctive.
There’s always one or two about whom you find yourself fretting “What can I do
to make this one stand out??” I find different hair colours and favourite foods
or songs help. I do like the dynamics among a group; it allows for such a
range of moods and registers.”
I wondered how a writer
who produced a steady stream of books, articles, radio talks, reviews, columns,
and broadcasts organised his time. All authors are asked about their writing
habits but you must be the only one to share your working space with a washing
machine.
“As a teacher, I’d been used to timetables.
When I went writing fulltime, it seemed natural to make a timetable and follow
it. I still do. I write Monday-to-Friday, 8.30 am to 1 pm (roughly). I do about
an hour in the afternoon. (I’ve never been a stay-up-all-night writer.) The
days go by; the pages go by. Working to a timetable takes a lot of pressure off
me.”
“I’ve always liked to write where I’m in touch with
the rest of the house, but slightly detached. For the last 21 years, I’ve
written in a room between the kitchen and the back porch. I share it with the
washing machine and hot water cylinder. It’s an open plan sort of (old)
cottage, so I can see in all directions and talk to people as they pass
through. I like that. I talk to Beth about what I’m writing, how we did at the Pub
Quiz and where I put my car keys. I like that, too.”
David Hill can
take dull questions about the mechanics of writing and magically transform his
answer into something fresh and exciting:
“I can hardly ever say when an idea “comes
from”. I find it’s there; it’s been there for a while. It’s a kernel; now I
have to sit down and....what does one do with a kernel? Should I say I develop
it? Grow it? Bake it? Anyway, I start taking enormous
numbers of notes about it: settings, characters, possible events, historical
details. I could research for ever. I put the first draft off as long as
possible. I begin that draft with great enthusiasm. After five chapters, I know
it’s the most boring thing I’ve ever written. I trudge on, doing everything I
can to make it move. (My first drafts are still pen on paper, by the way; there
IS a link between the nerves of the wrist and the nerves of the frontal cortex,
i reckon....) As the final chapters approach, I often get that wonderful
feeling of the book picking itself up and heading for the end. I write the
final sentence, slash a diagonal line underneath, and shout “Yes!” (I do!) Then
I leave it for a couple of weeks, start transferring it to the computer, and
I’m editing, editing, editing for the next 4 or 5 months.”
You dedicated Flight Path to New Zealand writers,
Fleur Beale and Norman Bilbrough, as ‘staunch
writing friends.’ I take it their support has been important to you?
“I never feel confident that a book will be
accepted. I’m encouraged and comforted by writing friends, who understand the
apprehensions and pleasures. Yes, two whom I particularly value are Fleur Beale
and Norman Bilbrough, to whom I can talk about all aspects of the job, and who
always say sensible and positive things.
I’ll also mention Elizabeth Smither, NZ poet and
novelist, who lives in our town of New Plymouth. Elizabeth has written just two
kids’ stories in her illustrious writing life, but it’s grand to have her near.
Again, you’re sharing frustrations, concerns, pleasures with a fellow
tradesperson. In an essentially solitary occupation (solo violin, please)
that’s a wonderful help.”
Young Adult novels
(like young adults) often enter controversial areas. Your treatment of sexual
abuse in Kick Back is caring and
thought-provoking. You treat such topics as depression and self-harming in Right Where It Hurts. Racial issues and
sporting pressures appear in The Name of
the Game. Teenage pregnancy is a
major issue in Duet. In my opinion
you handled these issues well and offered a range of voices. Yet I believe you
have been criticised for placing serious issues before young readers.
Is this a problem
for Young Adult writers?
“The pleasures of writing for YA or younger
readers include the fact that they’re encountering certain ideas or topics or
techniques for the first time, so there’s a wonderful freshness to their
responses. They’re also severe critics; they don’t have the patience with dull
or bad writing that adult readers do. They have a built-in bullshit
detector. You have to be on your toes.
Another issue is that while writers for adults usually
are judged on literary grounds only, YA and children’s writers are judged both
on literary and ethical grounds. I’ve been accused of being
“subversive.....coarse....preaching promiscuity.....using foul language.....mocking
decent values”. It startles me; I actually think I’m a wimp as a writer. Note
that ALL these accusations come from adults, usually adults with religious,
political or social agendas.
Kids just get on with the book.”
Your recent historical
novels, all with a military theme, are enthralling and thought-provoking. (These
are the ones that John McIntyre puts among David Hill’s ‘very best work.’) Brave Company explores New Zealand’s
naval contribution to the Korean War. Enemy
Camp is about a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Featherston, while Flight Path gives a bomb-aimer’s view
of the World War 2 air war over Europe.
My Brother’s War is a vivid
portrayal of the philosophical dilemma of war. The routines of imprisonment and
punishment for conscientious objectors in the Great War are contrasted with the
routines of military training and trench warfare. It is grim stuff,
controversial in its day and still powerful.
Last year I was at
the funeral of a man who had been imprisoned as a conscientious objector. He
had chosen a passage from My Brother’s
War as one of the readings. This is the true power of the storyteller –
taking people’s experiences and putting them into words that resonate with
readers.
Why have your most
recent novels been set in the past?
“I’m being asked a lot recently about why I’m
writing war / historical novels. Simple – I can’t write convincingly about
contemporary children’s lives any more. Why not? Technology. It suffuses their
lives. It’s not just an add-on, which I could try to research and include very
carefully. Cellphones, tablets, all the things whose names I don’t know; they
affect almost everything kids do – their movements, language, communication,
comprehension, thinking. I don’t know it; it’s a different world.”
“It would be futile and disrespectful of me
to try and show it from an uninformed older person’s limited viewpoint. So I
have three choices: I can write fantasy (which I’m no good at). I can put
contemporary kids in a situation where the electronics aren’t available
(possible). I can write about the past – and that’s what is occupying me very
contentedly just now.”
“Actually, the book I’m working on just now
(and I confidently expect it to win me an award as Most Boring YA Novel of the
Millennium) is about 130 years of two families in a New Zealand valley. I’ve
got about SIX historical periods! I am re-hashing an interminable number of
stories from my own childhood. I’m having a great time.”
Those unaware of
the merits of David’s book reviews can find his review of Jennifer Beck’s picture book Torty and the Soldier on The Sapling website. [www.thesapling.co.nz],
One sentence will
do:
“W. H. Auden reckoned that the three rules of
good writing were: 'BE BRIEF. BE BLUNT. BE GONE'. Add to those: 'BE WARM. BE
MISCHIEVOUS', and you're getting the tone of top-level children's writing and
illustrating which distinguishes a work like this.”
The illustrator of
that book, Torty and the Soldier, is Fifi Colston, which allows me to segue to David’s recent flurry of
picture books:
“About 5 years back, Scholastic NZ asked me
to write a World War I picture book. They gave me free rein. It was HARD!! I
wrote far too much, was far too discursive and tried too many clever tricks. I
realised I had to cut and cut and cut, AND leave the pictures to do a lot of
the work. Every picture book writer has known this for years; it was a
late-life revelation for me.
Then Fifi Colston came up with these beautiful images for
The Red Poppy, which made my mouth
flop open. The same with young Phoebe Morris’s illustrations for the Famous
New Zealanders series (Edmund Hillary in First to
the Top; Burt Munro the motorcyclist in Speed King; Jean Batten the aviator – due in August; Peter Blake
the yachtsman and environmentalist – due next year.)
I find it fascinating to have to DISTILL so much into
so few words. And I’m sincere when I say that I feel privileged to see my words
set against these beautiful, often genuinely magic images.
Advice to illustrators? I wouldn’t dare. But I
know that Phoebe doodles and scribbles and drafts ALL the time. That’s always
been my advice re writing – write, write, write; put in the mileage; keep
everything. And in the case of illustrators, know the technology.
FINALLY
Because I’ll stop there, if you don’t
mind, Trevor. I do like your “What question would you like an
interviewer to ask?” I’d like them to ask
“Are you happy to be a writer?” I’d
reply “Hell, yes’ (You may vary the words, Trevor). “And hugely privileged”.
"Hope that’s some use. Best of Luck with
the article. And, good sir, my thanks to you for all you do for us writers.
David”
*****************************************
A Selection of Riches
25 Books by David Hill:
See Ya, Simon 1992
Fat, Four-Eyed and
Useless, 1997
Give It Hoops,
1997
Boots ‘n’ All,
1997
Time Out, 1999
Afterwards, 2000
The High Wind
Blows 2001
The Name of the
Game, 2001
The Sleeper Wakes,
2001
Right Where It
Hurts, 2002
No Big Deal, 2003
No Safe Harbour,
2003
Journey to
Tangiwai, 2003
Coming Back, 2004
Duet, 2007
The River Runs,
2008
Fire on High, 2009
Sinking, 2013
Brave Company,
2013
My Brother’s War,
2012
The Red Poppy, ill
Fifi Colston, 2012
Enemy Camp, 2016
First to the Top
(Edmund Hillary) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2015
Speed King (Bert
Munro) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2016
Flight Path, 2017
Sky High (Jean
Batten) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2017
*********************
Some more recent
riches since 2017:
Finding, 2018
Hero of the Sea
(Peter Blake) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2018
Dinosaur Hunter (Joan
Wiffen) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2019
Taking the Lead (Jacinda
Ardern) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2020
Three Scoops:
Stories, 2021
Coast Watcher,
2021
Below, 2023
Mother of the
Nation (Whina Cooper) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2025
Giant Heart (Jonah
Lomu) ill. Phoebe Morris, 2026
