Description

It was 1974. Neville Peat was a young newspaper editor from Dunedin seeking a Pacific assignment, and the Kingdom of Tonga was a thousand-year-old monarchy with a new king. Volunteer Service Abroad connected Neville with a job at the Tonga Chronicle, and he found himself behind a typewriter in Nuku‘alofa for a year.
Neville travelled with the king on a tour of some of the
170 islands of the archipelago, joined a survey to the
deserted island of ‘Ata, and met Tongan society from
palace to church to kava clubs. He was even selected to trial for the national rugby team. Tales of Tonga is Neville’s last book. The stories are marked by the curiosity and passion for the environment that sustained his life and are a window on a fascinating time and place.