Along for the Ride: A New Book from Tony Simpson

“At the age of five I went along to school fully prepared to cooperate with the authorities; at three o’clock I came home with a lifelong hatred of oppressive government.” So begins Tony Simpson’s political memoir; that day also marked the beginning of a nearly seventy year battle with the authorities and their biblical precept: thou shalt not!

In the course of this warfare he was expelled from one school, initially denied access to university, and told he had no future as an historian. Along the way he had several confrontations with Muldoon, observed at close hand the rise of Margaret Thatcher, survived the 1981 Springbok Tour, and was outraged by the disaster of the Lange government. Despite this, after further twists and turns he ended up  as a senior advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton. Somehow he retained his wry sense of humour which shines through this book and throws light on some very murky goings on.

About the author

Tony Simpson is one of New Zealand’s leading social and cultural historians. This new book brings the total of his published books to seventeen of which the award winning The Sugarbag Years, an oral history of the Great Depression of the thirties, is the best known. He has recently retired from an almost fifty year career as a public servant, journalist, and industrial advocate and is now writing full time, as well as running a small Wellington publishing company, the Blythswood Press.

RRP $48.00  -  Blythswood Press