The story of Douglas Stewart's first twenty-five years until chance and literary ambition conspire to take him to Sydney.

'Who would want to live in a country town?' asks the poet Elizabeth Riddell, who, like myself, left New Zealand for Sydney in youth...Well, I for one would. Of course you have to leave it when you reach your twenties and you are restless or energetic or ambitious...

Capturing the nostalgia of springtime - picnics, dances, the drama of first love-this gentle autobiography tells the story of Douglas Stewart's youth in a New Zealand country town, 'an almost invisible speck on the map about two hundred miles north of the great glittering metropolis of Wellington'.

Brimful with mischievous humour and rejoicing of nature, Douglas Stewart offers us a fascinating portrait of the artist as a young man, of leaving home and a world of innocence long past.