Author(s): Heather Heberley

NZ Non Fiction

Young Heather Heberley, coming as a bride from Auckland to a remote bay in the Marlborough Sounds, did not realise how much the words, Weather Permitting, were to rule her life. Sea tragedies, the sinking of the Mikhail Lermontov, her husband Joe's role in search and rescues, where the rescuers' own lives were at risk - all these are detailed alongside the often funny, sometimes tragic aspects of the Heberley's farming and fishing life. Heather Heberley's unassuming but robust story shows how she grows into a mother, mechanic, plumber, teacher, farmer, nurse, woolclasser and licensed skipper. She changes from a young townie into a confident, capable woman. This is a love story. The mutual love and respect of her family nourishes her capacity to learn, and to shape, laugh at and enjoy her own life. More than a million people each year pass the South Island's isolated 'first house on the right' on Arapawa Island, just inside Tory Channel. Heather's marriage into the well-known Heberley clan and her arrival, in 1963, at their bay, have given her the fascinating and formative experiences that make up this compelling autobiography.