The Taranaki historian who started researching street names and wrote a book

Written by Catherine Groenestein | This article was originally published in Taranaki Daily News and on Stuff

An unexpected wedding photo of a mayor’s daughter nearly brought Taranaki historian Brian Beer to tears.

Beer, who works part-time at the Taranaki Research Centre, has just completed a book about the Tayler family of Eltham, which has taken him several years.

He was inspired to write the book after penning a Word on the Street story for the Taranaki Daily News, about the street named after George Washington Tayler, and found himself learning about a branch of his own family, as Tayler was Beer’s grandfather’s uncle.

“I was quite shocked at what I found, and that led to the book,” he said.

Taranaki historian and author Brian Beer has just finished his fourth book, More Sad Blows than Usually Fall: the Taylers of Eltham.

The book’s title, More Sad Blows than Usually Fall: The Taylers of Eltham, came from a phrase used by the editor of the Eltham Argus in a story about the tragedies in the family.

Tayler's eldest son, named after him, fought and died at Gallipoli. His daughter Gladys was bludgeoned to death in a murder-suicide by her husband of less than a year, and another daughter, Minnie, died in childbirth.

He discovered the wedding photo of Gladys, known as Glad, and her husband Percy Owen, while away researching the family’s Golden Bay connection.

“I like to go to places and have a look myself. I almost burst into tears when I found a picture of the couple,” he said.

More Sad Blows than Usually Fall: the Taylers of Eltham is the fourth book Brian Beer has written.

Although a good amount of research could be done by reading digitised records, including Papers Past online and using email, meeting face-to-face with people was still the most rewarding.

“I found after you research something, you know what happened, but it’s not until you write about it, see the threads of their lives, that you understand what happened,” he said.

Percy had come back from WWI, and life back on the family farm on Fraser Rd, near Eltham, was tough, with a demanding father, and the dire economic conditions of the era.

“The pressure got too much, nobody recognised it, and he snapped one morning,” he said.

He was quite shocked at how candid the newspaper reports of the time were about the case.

“They would never write like that today. It was very pointed and blunt.”

Beer, who was a property investor, first started writing aged 49, but had been a voracious reader all his life, and said he’d probably gained the ability to tell a story by osmosis.

After deciding he’d like to write a book, it took him eight years to choose a topic he wouldn't get bored with – a history of the New Plymouth Old Boys Cricket Club and Western Park.

He spent so much time looking up cricket articles in the Taranaki Research Centre at Puke Ariki that they offered him a part-time job.

He would launch the Tayler book at the Taranaki Research Centre on Wednesday at 5.30pm, and would also be speaking about the process of self-publishing.

Beer was now working on his fifth book, about boxer Tommy Donovan, who was known as the Taranaki Tornado.

Written by Catherine Groenestein | This article was originally published in Taranaki Daily News and on Stuff