Dear Dot gathers nearly 600 pages of young people telling their stories.
For more than a decade, Child, Youth and Family has tried to establish an annual celebration of our tamariki. Although substantial government funding has gone towards the promotion of “Children’s Day”, the adult world has shown little interest in a day given to children, without commercial gain. If we put this apathy alongside our dismal record of child abuse and neglect, it is not surprising the child’s voice in history has been largely ignored until now.
Keith Scott has gathered children’s letters to “Dot” originally published in the Otago Witness, the weekly magazine of the Otago Daily Times. The result is nearly 600 pages of authentic voices, young people telling their stories without adult adjustment. To compile the material both chronologically and thematically must have been a huge task and the result is untidy. This, however, adds to its fresh appeal. It is a work that invites us to let go of the critical big person and allow the child in us to wander with past generations.
The ODT was not the only New Zealand paper to produce a column for children, but it was probably one of the first, announcing in 1876, its Silver Jubilee year: “With the object of making the Witness a more complete family paper than ever before, we add a new feature, a column devoted to subjects interesting to the young.”
For the next couple of years, the column consisted of material written by adults, to amuse, instruct and guide young readers. There were also competitions judged as much for neat handwriting as for correct answers, but there was no Dot as such until 1886, when English migrant Louisa Baker was employed to run “The Ladies Page” of the Witness, and the column titled “Our Little Folks”. Under a nom-de-plume formed from the initials of the ODT, Louisa encouraged children to write to her. She was a mixture of strict teacher and kindly mother, correcting and cajoling:
Dear Dot, I have an awful tease of a brother. He comes home from work and teases us all. Could you give me a cure for him? – Jessie
Laugh at your brother when he is teasing you and don’t get angry. The angrier you get, the more he will tease. – Dot
Letters from country children were often about long hours of work on the land. Ten-year-old Charlie Hamilton spent the winter holidays digging ditches with his father: “It is raining here just now. It is very tough work. I cut the soil with the hay knife first, and then father shovels it out. There is a lot of water in the ditch just now. There are spiders and lizards in it. It is about 40 yards long, 3ft wide and 2ft deep … We stop every day at 4 o’clock. Then we have to feed the cattle and sheep with straw and turnips.”
Children also wrote heated letters on adult issues – rugby, racing, smoking, riding side-saddle, women in Parliament. In 1902, when a 450-word limit was placed on letters, a child reacted:
We do not ask for impossible things, we do not want the whole Witness, but we certainly want our fair share of it, and what is more, we intend to have it. I don’t wish to threaten the editor, but … if we don’t get better treated by way of space, then things will happen. – Laddie
In 1894, when Louisa Baker left, Witness editor William Fenwick became Dot, until his death in 1906, when his niece Linda Fenwick took over. Others followed her, but because the identity of Dot was always kept secret they could form one personality that remained amazingly constant.
As far as I know, Dear Dot is the first historical work to honour the voices of our children. Let’s hope it is not the last.
DEAR DOT I MUST TELL YOU: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS, by Keith Scott (Activity Press, $59.99).
The omnibus edition of Joy Cowley’s Stories of the Wild West Gang was one of the Listener’s 50 Best Children’s Books of 2011.