My Account
Chances are either you or your children have read a book written or published by Avelyn Davidson at some stage in your life. Now retired and living in Warkworth, she talks to Karyn Scherer about books, boats and being brave.
My life has been books. That’s what our numberplate says: BOOKS1. Books won over teaching. I fell into publishing by accident, really. I started as a primary school teacher at Atiamuri in 1960. My class was a mixed bunch of children of Italian and Dutch immigrants, and local pakeha and Maori children. The Janet and John books in vogue at the time had little relevance for them, so I used to make my own books.
By 1983 I was principal at Te Papapa School. I was the third woman to become a principal in Auckland. The motto at Te Papapa was “nothing great is easily won” and that became the motto of my life.
I became involved with publisher Wendy Pye, who was then with Shortland Publications, because I was doing a lot of math work with the training college and teachers. She asked me to put together a teachers’ resource, Understanding Mathematics, which is still used in schools today. Wendy also wanted someone to go up to the States, so I took a year off from my teaching position. Then she was moved into managing NZ Woman’s Weekly and I was asked if I’d like to run Shortland Publications. I took a leap of faith and said “Yes”.
I was suddenly thrown into the corporate world in the 80s, which was all waterfalls in the foyers, flash leather couches, expensive artwork, and fancy dinners. It was totally different from the staffroom at Te Papapa! I got together with Joy Cowley and Margaret Mahy and one of the first series we did was Jellybeans which was an enormous hit. I was soon selling them around the world under different brands.
When Michael Horton bought us in the late 80s, we had an overdraft of $800,000, but he came to refer to us as “the jewel in the crown”. I was the first woman manager of a Wilson & Horton company and the thing that helped me tremendously was Michael’s wife, Rosie. I remember, when instead of being the only woman at the managers’ lunch held before the AGM, I opted to go to “the wives luncheon”. I was told: “You have any trouble with our husbands, just come to us.”
As well as publishing books, I spent long periods in the States working in school districts and speaking at conferences. One time I was keynote speaker for over 2000 people in Rochester. I’d decided that I would include a twin projector slide presentation, but unfortunately the dual voltage projectors carried carefully from NZ went up in a puff of smoke when we plugged them in. And for some reason they were expecting a man, and had set up the podium for someone six foot tall. I was just this little talking head. I think it was the most embarrassing moment of my life.
When Tony O’Reilly’s INM bought Wilson & Horton in 1998, he encouraged us into the South African market. Apartheid had not long ended and it was an incredibly challenging time that brought us into contact with many interesting people. I often had a sense of unreality sitting around the table with some of these people. At one dinner, Tony’s wife Chrissie handed around her diamond ring for us to try on. It had been Jackie Onassis’ engagement ring.
INM ended up selling Shortland Publications to the Tribune group for $80 million. They were good years and we used to have fabulous conferences in New York. One year Michael Bloomberg was the visiting speaker. He spoke of a revolution in advertising – the internet. He talked about online banner advertising and how newspaper companies would be affected. This was before it ever happened.
Over the past 26 years I’ve managed companies for five publishing corporations including McGraw Hill, Chicago Tribune and Bonnier Publishing. By 2008 smartboards were making their appearance in classrooms and the publishing we were doing was becoming more and more digital. I think books will continue to have their place but there’s no question that in educational publishing it’s going more and more interactive. Smartboards are fabulous if teachers get the right material for them. But it’s often expensive for schools, and teachers – particularly at primary level – aren’t always up with the technology.
It’s sad to see the demise of so many well-known publishers in NZ. We have great writers and illustrators in this country and it is getting harder for them to find publishers. NZ is such a small market that to be successful you must also be able to sell your product into international markets.
The other great loves in our life have been sailing and skiing. In 2007 my second husband Ian and I did the ARC, which is the big cruising race that goes across the Atlantic. That was an exciting experience. Every year we used to attend the book fairs in Frankfurt, Bologna, Mexico and London, plus the American reading conferences, and we’d always tie in a sailing or skiing trip. We’d meet up with Australian friends to go sailing and I’d do books along the way. I’ve published books set in Turkey, Italy, France and Egypt. We’d take photographs and if we met interesting people I’d ask them to tell their story. We also worked with a lot of international photographers. We saw one of the guys we started in publishing, Buck Wilde, on TV the other night. He was in Alaska doing a programme on bears with Billy Connolly. He used to be in the Secret Service. There were so many fabulous characters like that.
I had a great upbringing. As kids, we spent a lot of our holidays at Algies Bay. My great-grandparents were Jemima and Alexander Algie. My grandparents instilled in me a great love of nature. We were encouraged to be risk-takers. My brother and I used to go sailing by ourselves around Waiheke and Ponui and our parents never seemed to worry. From when I was about 12 I used to ride my horse from Mt Roskill to Maraetai every holidays. It’s important for children to be able to stretch themselves — you need to learn how to pick yourself up when things go wrong; to calculate a risk and be brave. By wrapping kids in cotton wool we take away a lot of the things that are important for learning about life.
Ian and I between us have three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. For the last 17 years our main home was in Taupo. We had alpacas, ponies and chooks and developed a huge country garden. But I had back surgery and I also had breast cancer — once in each breast — so I was finding that I was seeing the weeds, not smelling the roses. We’ve always loved this area and said if we left Taupo we’d come up here. We’re enjoying the lifestyle, but would like to contribute more to the community. In Taupo I was involved with fundraising for hospice and helped with Riding for the Disabled. I’d enjoy a new challenge. I’ve also contemplated writing a novel. I read a lot but whether I ever get around to writing something remains to be seen.
