Robin Dudding

While still a reporter, Dudding fell in with the Auckland literary set, whose gatherings revolved around the Queen’s Ferry pub in the central city.

Contributions to Mate 2 included Barry Crump’s first published story,[2] as well as writing by Maurice Gee, Frank Sargeson and Ireland.

Mate was produced from Dudding’s home in Torbay on Auckland’s North Shore, and he supported his unpaid literary endeavours and his growing family with full-time work as a reporter, and later teacher.

In 1966 Dudding moved to Christchurch to take over the editorship of literary journal Landfall from founder Charles Brasch, and to be general editor of the Caxton Press.

[4] In 1976, an issue of Islands was devoted to the Ian Wedde novel Dick Seddon’s Great Dive, which won the 1977 Book Award for Fiction.