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The keen actor was forced to give up teaching and directing Playbox Theatre when she developed stress-related Meniere's disease. It was the spur she needed to begin writing, her books including Several Things Are Alive and Well and Living in Alfred Brown's Head, Stonelight, Duckat and Above Suspicion. She lived in Waitetuna for several years before shifting to Auckland in 1993.
Gaelyn Gordon had a huge family.
Apart from her husband Peter and children Edward and Kate, her stories were read by thousands of children worldwide.
The former Hamilton teacher died in Auckland on Saturday, aged 57. In 11 years as a writer she produced 20 children's books, five adult novels, a play and several short stories.
Born Gaelyn Hughes in Hawera in 1939, she was educated at New Plymouth Girls' High, Canterbury University and Christchurch Teachers' College before becoming an English and drama teacher.
She later taught at a south London secondary school, relieving a teacher who had been hospitalised with stab wounds -- inflicted by one of her students. Each day she was escorted to and from school by a police officer and received half-a-crown (25 cents) danger money. When she returned to New Zealand she taught at Hamilton's Melville, Girls' High and Sacred Heart secondary schools.
The keen actor was forced to give up teaching and directing Playbox Theatre when she developed stress-related Meniere's disease. It was the spur she needed to begin writing, her books including Several Things Are Alive and Well and Living in Alfred Brown's Head, Stonelight, Duckat and Above Suspicion. She lived in Waitetuna for several years before shifting to Auckland in 1993.
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CAPTION: STORY TELLER: Gaelyn Gordon, who died on Saturday, with some of the books she wrote in 1991.
Copyright Independent Newspapers, Ltd. May 21, 1997