Notes

Amy’s father was once a skilled jeweller but he is now an alcoholic who has brought the family to ruin. He is an odd-job man who goes missing for days when he’s ‘on the booze’. The family is barely managing with her mother’s hard work, so thirteen year old Amy goes to live with her aunt and uncle in Dunedin when they offer her a chance to continue her education. At Otago Girls’ High she pursues her dream of becoming an artists like her hero, Frances Hodgkins. All Aunt Delia can talk about is the campaign to get women the vote. But Amy soon finds some girls who need more urgent help. When her friend Mary, who works in a sweatshop, goes missing, she finds herself involved in the darker side of life lurking behind Dunedin’s stately buildings. The backdrop to all this is Amy’s observations of her aunt’s involvement with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the struggle to get women the vote. Includes historical photographs.