Conserving Frank’s House

Conserving Frank’s House
A key step in the process of turning Frank’s house into a national literary museum is the conservation plan -- recently completed by Richard Bollard, senior heritage consultant with Devonport firm Salmond Reed Architects. The draft plan will go to the Sargeson Trust, the North Shore City Council and the Historic Places Trust for comment. Once comments have been incorporated, the final plan will become the Trust’s reference document for the ongoing care, protection and maintenance of the house. It includes a condition assessment and a list of maintenance and repair recommendations.

Sargeson Archives

The task of tracking down and listing all Sargeson-related material (books, letters, manuscripts, films, scores, plays and personal memorabilia) held in public and academic institutions and by private individuals, both here and overseas, has been undertaken by Auckland City Council archivist and FOSH member James Armstrong. James migrated to New Zealand last year and previously worked at the Lambeth Palace Library and the Tate Gallery. This record will become an important future research tool. If you know of Sargeson treasure we should have on our list please get in touch with James on: Armstrong.jg@googlemail.com

Oral Histories

Oral historian Judith Stratton has recorded the memories of Frank’s longtime Esmonde Road neighbour Kath Tremain and Vanessa Seymour has recorded Pamela Gordon, Janet Frame’s niece and chair of the Janet Frame Literary Trust. Judith is planning to record Sally Tremain. Oral histories will form an important part of the Takapuna Public Library’s Sargeson Collection.

Annual Sargeson Lecture

This year’s Annual Frank Sargeson Memorial Lecture will be given by Graeme Lay at the University of Waikato Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Hamilton on Wednesday 13 August. For more information email: wfass@waikato.ac.nz

Guardians Of Sargeson House

GOSH is a small but very important group, formed in May this year, who are keeping a neighbourly eye on 14a Esmonde Road.

Docents of Sargeson House

Takapuna librarian and FOSH member Vanessa Seymour is co-ordinating the training of a small number of volunteer docents to act as back-ups for the Takapuna library staff who operate the Sargeson House visitor system. If you would like to find out more about becoming a docent please contact Vanessa on: vanessas@shorelibraries.govt.nz