Hannah Bulloch (author)
On Thursday 27 November, we launched Overland to the Island: New Zealand to Skye with six kids in a homemade house-truck by Hannah Bulloch. A massive thank you to the University Book Shop Otago for hosting us in their lovely space.
We had some amazing speeches, including from author Hannah Bulloch and Hannah’s uncle, Alan MacLeod (Ginger). And Vanessa Manhire did a fantastic job of launching the book for us. Here’s her speech from the evening:
Kia ora koutou. I was delighted when Hannah got in touch and asked if I’d say a few words at the launch of this fantastic book, and it’s a real honour to be speaking about it this evening. It’s one I’ve been itching to read for a while now, and it’s really great to see it out in the world.
Hannah was the inaugural University Book Shop Summer Writer in Residence in early 2017 – a partnership with the Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust which offers an emerging writer time and space to work on a project. When Phillippa and Bronwyn from UBS announced Hannah’s selection for that first summer residency, I thought the description of her project sounded both bonkers and brilliant – and being of McLeod stock myself, I was intrigued by the subject matter.
At the end of her residency Hannah took part in an event organised by the bookshop, and read a short excerpt from her work in progress. It had me hooked on the spot – and when I heard that the oldest of the six children on the trip was 15-year-old Marilyn, I realised that Hannah’s mother was my own mother’s soundalike schoolmate at Kaikorai Valley High School (as Marilyn MacLeod and Marion McLeod, they were next to each other in the roll and often mixed up).
Rachel Scott, then OUP publisher, was also at that reading and was likewise impressed by Hannah’s work, so when Hannah came back to Dunedin for a second residency at the Robert Lord Cottage, we made sure to get in touch and ask her to send us the manuscript. Rachel ended up editing the book, and she’s written a message for me to read to you now…
I was co-publisher of Otago University Press with Vanessa when we first heard about Hannah’s book project. Vanessa was quick to chase her down and extract a proposal from her.
I mean, what was not to like about a book chronicling the epic adventures of a Dunedin couple in the 1960s who took it into their heads to pile their 6 children into a homemade house-truck and head for the other side of the world? What could possibly go wrong?
A farming family, they were particularly well equipped at least physically for the journey ahead. In addition to 200 tins of meat they killed and canned themselves, and vast quantities of other provisions, they packed so much milk and cheese they needed a dairy export licence.
The Kiwi joker at the centre of proceedings was of course Hannah’s grandfather, Alan MacLeod. And Hannah’s mother, Marilyn, was the oldest of the six children. It really was the most extraordinary adventure, and Hannah has turned it into a gripping read.
When the manuscript was submitted, after Vanessa and I had left the building, I was delighted when current OUP publisher Sue Wootton asked me to edit it. It was a thoroughly enjoyable job.
I’m sorry I cannot be there tonight to join in the celebration, but I wish Hannah every success with her extraordinary achievement.
And now to the book itself. As Rachel says, this is an extraordinary achievement. It is a gorgeous object, with excellent maps that help the reader visualise the sheer scale of this journey, as well as a range of photos and some beautiful watercolours Marilyn painted on their travels.
Alan MacLeod
Hannah takes us all along on her family’s wild ride around the world. She weaves into the narrative her mother Marilyn’s diaries, which are an amazing resource in themselves, as well as her grandfather Alan’s wartime journal and her aunt Flora’s diaries from their time in Spain.
In a letter to his lawyer in June 1963, written from “somewhere in Scotland,” Alan MacLeod says “We have covered a fair bit of ground. Had a fair quota of interesting things happening…” That’s an understatement if ever there was one. There’s a Forrest Gump sort of element to this journey, with the MacLeods driving through revolution in Turkey, hearing news of JFK’s assassination, being pulled over for questioning after the Great Train Robbery, and dodging danger on more than one occasion. If this were fiction, an editor might say it was too much for readers to suspend disbelief.
But as well as these bigger plot points, and all the breakdowns and crashes and repairs to Holdfast and its passengers, this is also a story of a family and relationships and human nature, and friendships made (and in Alan’s case, rekindled) all over the world.
This book was a real page turner – I kept stopping and saying to my husband “Listen to this” and reading him snippets, or commenting out loud so much that he’d ask what had happened – usually that was when Malcolm had gone missing, in Wellington, or Thailand, or India…
It’s great that so many of Hannah’s aunts and uncles are here tonight – and keep an eye on Malcolm, he’s a flight risk.
This book has had a rockier road to publication than most. In the process Hannah has dealt with an international move, a global pandemic, and serious illness – a journey every bit as arduous and impressive as the journey from Dunedin to Skye.
Overland to the Island is every bit as bonkers and as brilliant as that first description promised. Huge congratulations to you, Hannah, on the launch of this wonderful book.