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Well, I thought I’d throw in a piece about myself, just so you could know what sort of person would put up a site like this! My name is Michael Biggs, and I’m a 23yr old with a BA majoring in History. I work full time at the City Council Archives. Been interested in forts for a fair amount of time. Probably since I was 10 or 11. I remember my father telling me about how he used to play in these old forts from the war, and my interest sort of kicked off from there. From this point I collected any information that I could get. At first it consisted mainly of magazine/newspaper articles and pieces from books. As my interest in the subject increased, I sought out more information and started using National Archives (now Archives New Zealand) and the National Library. I currently hold a fair amount of material covering all the forts of Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton.......and to a lesser extent Dunedin. Many articles that deal with the Russian Scare and its effects on NZ defence policy. Also information on the weapons installed, pill boxes and anti-aircraft defences. This site is in part transferring my collection onto the web for anyone interested in Wellington forts. Much of the site articles are pieced together from books, my own observations of the sites, and historical photos. In part due to this site, I now have a reasonably comprehensive collection of photos of most of the old coastal defence sites. I am also slowly collecting together a set of photos of forts in other areas outside Wellington. |
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