A much-loved literary icon who has been described as one of New Zealand’s national taonga is packing up and moving away from the Wairarapa town she has called home for the past 20 years.
Celebrated children’s writer Joy Cowley has made plans to leave Featherston soon and head south to a new home in Dunedin, close to family and friends there.
Cowley was recently recognised for her local and national contributions to children’s literature and literary events by South Wairarapa District Council, which has named the Featherston children’s playground after her.
She has been a patron of the Featherston Booktown Festival for many years and made extensive contributions to literary events in the town and at the festival itself.
Cowley is over the moon about the council’s decision.
“It makes me feel I’m in love with the playground and all the children in it. It brings back all the memories of the playgrounds I used to play in when I was a child,” she said.
“I can remember the Foxton playground. I used to take my sisters down there, and my little brother. That was a place where if you walked into the toilets you needed to wear gumboots,” she said, laughing.
“Playgrounds have been a part of my life, and part of my children’s lives.
“There is something about me that has never grown up, and I fit a playground beautifully.
“The child in me will never die,” she said.
Cowley is sad to be leaving Featherston but expects to be back frequently and to continue to contribute to the Booktown festival.
“I feel sad, and I plan to come back for certain events. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
She said she has loved living in Featherston and the people there.
“We [Cowley and her former husband] liked Featherston so much. We liked the people, so we sold our apartment in Wellington and moved permanently up here.”
By all accounts, the community loves Cowley as much as she loves them.
“Of all the people who love Joy Cowley, it’s the people of Featherston who love her the best,” Booktown operations manager Mary Biggs said.
“Featherston is a town rich in stories and to have the children’s playground named after the internationally acclaimed queen of children’s stories, Joy Cowley, who is our most famous resident, is so fitting.”
Biggs said the playground honour is an appropriate tribute to Cowley’s extensive contribution to the town and to Booktown.
“Joy Cowley is a dear friend who has been an insightful and inspiring patron of Featherston Booktown,” she said.
“It is just so cool to honour her in this way. Re-naming the children’s playground to the Joy Cowley Children’s Playground has been driven by the Featherston community.”
Cowley said at the age of 87 it is time to make age-appropriate arrangements.
Far from bemoaning the aches and pains of advancing years, she has embraced its quirks, calling it her “second childhood”. She even jokes about how her age appears to some young children.
“I get letters from children,” she said.
“There was a girl from California. She wrote with the usual questions, like ‘How many children have you got’, and ‘What is your favourite food’. And at the end, she wrote ‘Are you still alive?’”
Cowley threw her head back and laughed loudly at the memory.
“That made me look in the mirror,” she said.
She still has major projects underway, including a film adaptation of her 2013 book Holy Days, about a young boy, the three nuns who befriend him, and a special adventure.
Cowley, herself a late convert to Catholicism, speaks about the upcoming film with enthusiasm.
“They’ve been working on the script, and they’ve got it right,” she said.
Well-known actresses are tipped to star in it, including Miriam Margolyes.
“What is very exciting for me is they’ve got very good British actresses for the elderly nuns. She [Margolyes] is a great character, she’s the right age, and she’ll be wonderful.”
Even though one of her many accolades is an OBE [Order of the British Empire], Cowley said the playground is her favourite honour. She was clear she didn’t want any formality in the playground’s name.
“I’m so pleased that this is the Joy Cowley Playground and not the Dame Joy Cowley Playground,” she said.
“If anyone comes up with the suggestion of Dame, I just hope everybody knocks it on the head. Anything that comes between me and the children who use it should not be there.”
Cowley’s other awards include the New Zealand Commemoration Medal, an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Massey University, and winning overall book of the year at the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards three times. In 2018, she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand, and in 2020 she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Award, an accolade that’s limited to 20 living people.
Cowley expects to leave Featherston soon but does not yet have an exact date.
The council approved the playground name change after a recommendation from the Featherston Community board.
“We the Featherston Community Board recommend that we celebrate Joy, our living taonga who lives in and champions our community, by naming the public playground in her honour,” they said.
– NZLDR
Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
