Seven Lives on Salt River returns in New Zealand Classics facsimile edition

Seven Lives on Salt River

Dick Scott

Second in New Zealand Classics series reissues innovative local history that won 1988 NZ Book Award for non-fiction

‘Scott proves it is possible to hold history in the palm of your hand.’ —   Fiona Kidman 

First published in 1987 and here in its third edition, Seven Lives on Salt River is a local history that transcends its boundaries along the northern Kaipara Harbour around Pahi to be a universal story of how European arrivals adapted to life among Māori in a new land. 

Dick Scott was renowned for bringing the suppressed history of Parihaka to light in Ask That Mountain, and like that earlier work, Seven Lives has become a classic of popular storytelling. 

The book portrays seven European families central to settlement in the area — the Blackwells, Coates, de Labrosses, Jackmans, Pooks, Scotlands and Stevens — with local Ngāti Whātua and other settlers.

Interwoven with stories and photos of the community are lives both ordinary and outstanding, including Gordon Coates, the first New Zealand-born prime minister; Jane Mander, renowned author of The Story of a New Zealand River; and Henry Scotland, a father of the peace movement and champion of Māori land rights. 

Beyond their legacies, it is the detail of how these families fitted in and the spectacular illustrations that gives this highly illustrated book its enduring fascination. 

This facsimile edition, printed locally, takes its place in Oratia’s New Zealand Classic series, bringing key works of our history back into print.

The author

Prime Minister David Lange (left) with Dick Scott at the launch of
Seven Lives on Salt River in 1987

Dick Scott (born 1923) was a fearless and often peerless popular historian whose works included the ground-breaking 151 Days, Ask That Mountain and Would a Good Man Die? He stumbled on Pahi while researching the early vineyards of Northland, and later had a holiday home on the peninsula. Dick passed away on New Year’s Day 2020.

Publication: 11 October 2021  |  RRP $39.99  |  ISBN:  978-1-99-004210-2

Facsimile paperback, 250 x 182 mm, 160 pages, b&w

Remembering the irrepressible Dick Scott

Dick Scott, who passed away on 1 January, was a courageous voice for justice and righting historical wrongs throughout a long and original writing career. 

It was Dick who first brought to light the appalling treatment of the Parihaka community led by Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, in The Parihaka Story in 1954. 

That book was later published as Ask That Mountain, widely regarded as among the most important New Zealand books of the twentieth century. 

Dick on the Kaipara Harbour during the Seven Lives on Salt River project

It was in working on a revision of that book in 1998 for Reed Publishing that I came to meet Dick, and we formed a strong friendship through two other new editions (his seminal works 151 Days and Seven Lives on Salt River) and his autobiography Dick Scott: A Radical Writer's Life. 

The latter was his last book, and Dick happily retired in this eighties to pursue his varied interests and spend time with his wife Sue. 

Not only an historian, Dick was also a publisher of note, having a hand in his own books through his Southern Cross Books and founding the country's first wine journal, Wine Review. 

A collection of his writings with photography by Marti Friedlander, whom Dick had employed early in her career, made up another Reed book, Pioneers of New Zealand Wine.

Dick recalled that winemakers on occasion paid for ads in early editions of the Review in kind, with crates of wine delivered to his home office. 

Consuming what was often not the highest-quality vintage had its hazards, but Dick survived and thrived. 

He lived to be 96 and received honours including the Prime Ministers Award for Literary Achievement and an honorary doctorate from Massey University. 

- Peter Dowling

Click here for the New Zealand Herald's item about Dick.