By Virginia Winder

For 15 months, only Howard Wilson's bedroom was free of harrier history.

"I had books and everything all over the house," says the New Plymouth man, who written a 206-page history of the New Plymouth Harrier Club.

"The whole house was taken over except my bedroom. People had to pick their way through here. It was a most inefficient way of doing it," he chides himself.

The words were all pen-written by Howard, who spent up to 10 hours a day piecing together the past 75 years of cross-country and road-running races.

"It's all hand-carved," he says, hefting a carton full of documents on to a chair. "There's the book in a box."

Book in a Box: This carton is filled with Howard Wilson's hand-written history of the harriers.

The retired Marfell School principal is a life member of the club, which celebrated three-quarters of a century in July this year.

About 200 harriers from now and then registered for the festivities, which included a race for past members. This was won by Howard's son, Ross. The club also held its longest-running race, the Graham Cup. This was first run in 1925 – three years before the harriers broke away from the New Plymouth Athletics Club, taking the event with them.

At last year's annual meeting, Howard expressed his beliefs in capturing the past. "Do you realise how important history is?" he asked.

"The present has been built on the past. We owe everything to the people who preceded us."

Afterwards, he received a letter asking him to write the club's history. He agreed, but only on his terms. "I set the ground rules," he says.

Howard told the committee: "I'm not prepared to do it unless I can do it properly. I'm not interested in a pamphlet. Fifteen months later, I have finished."

He flicks the pages over. "It's all in here," a sentence much repeated as he verbally retells the history in brief.

His research though, was lengthy. First he went to the club records, setting a few straight on the way. "I had to update our trophies. I found some terrible mistakes. I found a joker on the Waitara shield who never even ran the race. So I have corrected all those."

He borrowed scrapbooks, photographs, went to the library, museum (now Puke Ariki), talked to people and assembled the piles of information that filled his home

The hand-written tales were all typed into a computer by Sarah Cochrane then sent back to Howard to be proof-read. Next step, they were put into book form, with the prepared pages again sent back to the meticulous writer/researcher for further proof-reading.

So is he pleased with the book? "Yes and no. I'm pretty critical of myself."

Since it went to print, he has learnt of more facts to add, but these changes and any further updates will have to wait another 25 years – that's when the club turns 100.

In the meantime, Howard has more pressing jobs ...

"I've got a year's housework to do," he says. "I need to catch up with the garden, take my dinner out of the oven and I might do some reading now."

For the record, the harriers' history is his third book on the past. He has written Marfell School, the first 35 years (1961-1996) and co-wrote The Inside Story – the Mercy Jenkins Salvation Army Boys' Home (1909-1954). These are both available in the Taranaki Research Centre at Puke Ariki.