The review of Ans Westra: A Life in Photography (Books, May 11) records that the Minister of Education demanded the withdrawal from all schools of Westra's Washday at the Pa image in a 1964 School Journal, as it had become deeply controversial.
When the bulletin was issued to schools, my wife and then two infant children were with me as sole teacher at a remote Māori school in north Hokianga.
There was no road access and communication with the outside world was by boat across the Hokianga harbour, which we called “The River”. There were several social constraints in such an isolated community, including at the school house, where cooking was by a fuel range and laundry-washing by water heated by fire under a copper.
I was appalled on receiving the directive from the minister recalling all issues of Washday, so much so that I ignored it.
It has been a pleasure to have just re-viewed Westra’s photographs and re-read her text in the one remaining copy of the 1964 publication I
