Playwright Roger Hall recalls writing to the Oamaru Borough Council years ago, saying Janet Frame's childhood home in Eden St should be bought by the council as a literary site.
‘‘As I recall, they thought it was a stupid idea,'' Hall said yesterday during to a visit to Oamaru.
At the time, Hall could see that the house where the Frame family lived from 1931 to 1944 would become an attraction for visitors.
Now owned by the Janet Frame Eden St Trust, the house is a popular drawcard both with national and international visitors.
Trust chairwoman Carol Berry said some people visited the town especially to see the house, which has been refurbished appropriate to the era when the Frame family lived there.
It was lovely to have some board members, such as Hall, living in different parts of New Zealand, because the house was very much for the country, not just Oamaru people, Mrs Berry said.
Hall said that, thanks to other people's hard work, the house was now all he ever hoped it could be, and he hoped it was a good example for other places of what could be done.
Literary figures such as Frame should be recognised, he said.
Hall, who lives at Takapuna Beach, and fellow writer Owen Marshall are running writing workshops at Waitaki Girls High School today. The workshops have attracted 24 people, aged from 18 to 80.
Tonight in the auditorium at Waitaki Boys High School, Hall, who turns 70 next year, will give a talk entitled ‘‘Fifteen Years to be an Overnight Success''.
It will cover his years of writing before he established himself with the launch of his first stage play, Glide Time.
