Christopher P. Tobin

I work as a news journalist part-time. I have been the editor of several newspapers and a media communications advisor. I enjoy writing in my spare time and have covered several genres.

Sport has always been a strong interest with me. I have written books on the world heavyweight boxing champion, Bob Fitzsimmons, Olympic Games gold medal winning runner, Jack Lovelock, and one on the first team to be called the All Blacks.

This was the team known as 'The Originals,' the New Zealand rugby team which toured Britain, France and the United States in 1905, astounding crowds with their superlative play.

I also wrote a book on one of the players in that team, Duncan McGregor, who was a controversial figure. I titled the book: Rugby Rebel.

When younger, I represented New Zealand as a runner, competing at two World Cross Country Running Championships and winning national titles.

This interest resulted in a two volume history of New Zealand middle and long distance running titled Runners in Black.

The great period for New Zealand was in the early 1960s when two athletes Peter Snell and Murray Halberg, won Olympic Games gold medals. Their story is fully told in Runners in Black (volume 2)

I have also written books on military history - Gone to Gallipoli was a history of soldiers from South Canterbury in New Zealand (I grew up in Timaru, South Canterbury) who served in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during 1915.Many South Canterbury soldiers died in this campaign which was a disaster.

Later, I edited and wrote a book based on the recollections of an officer who served at Gallipoli, Lieutenant Spencer Westmacott He was seriously wounded and had an arm amputated on the first day of the campaign.

More recently I wrote a book titled "The Caly Ghosts." This was the history of the South Canterbury Caledonian Society's Highland Games that ran for nearly 130 years in Timaru, NZ, before folding. At their peak, the games were the premier sporting carnival in New Zealand,

After all that non-fiction writing I thought I would explore something a little different and so wrote a short novel on Herbert Augustus Slade, otherwise known as "Maori Slade." I wrote a non-fiction book on him earlier.

The novel is titled "Maori Slade," and tells of his Maori origins and how early in 1883 he came to the United States to fight John L. Sullivan for the world heavyweight boxing championship. It's a lively tale and a central theme is how white society treated him. His trip from San Francisco to New York after his arrival caused a sensation. And the New York he came to was not far removed from the days of "The Gangs of New York," which Martin Scorcese's movie of the same name, graphically depicted..

I have recently written, a second novel, titled "Humphrey Bogart and Hell Spit Corner." I had fun writing this book which is a mystery thriller with a strong nostalgia feel to it.

The nostalgia centers around old style movie theatres. When writing it I had in mind Frank Capra's great movie starring James Stewart, It's A Wonderful Life.

And most recently I have published two children's books done in collaboration with an acclaimed New Zealand children's book illustrator, Bob Darroch..

The first of these, Our School is a Team, aims to explain to kids all the wonderful things they can achieve at school in their early years - how to read and write, do math, make friends, how they will learn to get along with other people etc. If they do all this, then, as the book says at the end, "you are on our team!"

The second children's book, Barking Barney, is a hilarious story of a little, friendly, happy little dog called Barney. The thing about Barney is, he has a horrendously loud bark and it gets him into all sorts of trouble.

It's a book to make kids (and adults) laugh.

These latter books - Maori Slade, Humphrey Bogart and Hell Spit Corner, Barking Barney and Our School is a Team, are all available on Amazon KDP.

(I also have a few others under a pen name Christopher Patrick).

If whoever reads this, buys one of my books, I will greatly appreciate it (especially if you leave a favorable review). Thank you for reading this.

Happy reading!