Ardmore Teachers' College (1954) In his letters Rowley often discussed books he was reading or had read, and, in the last few months of his life, it was a great sadness to him to have lost the ability to retain what he was reading. ...the same for Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, set in a North of England coal mining town recognisably like my Oruanui timber-mill settlement; more so, as I had just set my mind on a writing career, it gave me hope that a writer could come from a working-class background - a humble, isolated settlement. ...I was reduced to going up to our rubbish dump where they've recently started recycling, and although they did get the odd portable, no they didn't have any at the moment. Interview The self-portrait on the cover of Pikipiko Blues and The Raw Men: Selected Poems I drew either when I was at Ardmore Teachers College or not long after I left in 1954, the year I began writing. ...I'd been bitten by the writing bug, my creative gift had manifested itself in drawing, painting etc.