Janet Frame's Writing Desk Provenance

Janet Frame's writing desk, Janet frame moved to Avondale, Auckland, in November 1995. In Michael King's biography of Janet frame (Wrestling with the angel) he notes, on page 513, that her home in Avondale had her living room 'taken up almost entirely with a full-sized pool table around which frame and her guests had to edge their way to chairs (she soon swapped it for a large desk).' that desk is the subject of this provenance statement., Janet did not want to keep her full size slate billiard table, especially as she had no writing desk in Auckland. She was at the home of her friends, Puna and Robin McConnell, in Greenhithe, March 4 1996, for a family birthday, and expressed her concern at having no writing desk but she did have an obstructive billiard table!, in the McConnell garage, that day, when Janet was looking at the 'Penny desk', penny and kit McConnell commented, 'Dad has always wanted a billiard table, Janet, and you want a writing desk so why not swap the two?' (that desk had been a gift to Robert (Bob) McConnell when he retired from the transport Department head office, in Wellington, then kept for his grand-daughter, penny McConnell.), Janet was delighted! on the day before the swapping date in June 1996, she inscribed a copy of 'To the Is-Land', the first volume of her autobiography, for Robin & Puna & penny and kit with love from Janet. June 1996, Friday., the day of the Weed-Eater & the day before the desk arrival., She was delighted when her desk arrived, after being anxious Graham Rudd (who had done an outstanding job of restoring the desk) arriving late with the desk!, in March 1996 Janet received a medal from the Chilean government. Michael King noted that 'The month that the Chilean award was announced came news of the large and ugly Landfall desk, which she had offloaded on neighbours in Levin and hoped never to see again. Now she heard, Victoria University in Wellington had acquired it ? still in two pieces, its leatherette surface frayed and ripped, its amputated legs still wobbling. It had taken on the status of a precious literary artefact. The university asked frame to verify its provenance...' P.314., in March 1997, at her home, Janet talked with Robin her Landfall desk at Victoria University and found a poem she had written the desk in Menton, France, when she had the Literary Fellowship there. She read the poem aloud at the table and said she would write one the 'Penny desk' that she now used for her writing. She wrote a number of poems using the desk., Janet wished to leave her writing desk to penny, when she died. However, after living in Avondale and browns bay and a very brief spell in a retirement village in mount Albert she eventually moved back to Dunedin from Auckland at the end of 1997. She asked if she could give her 'Penny writing desk' to penny and Robin McConnell, who were delighted to receive it., it is not clear what writing Janet did in using her 'Penny' writing desk as her next publications were posthumous after her death in early 2004. In 1996 in spending time with Michael King, her biographer, with papers piled on her desk and in June 1997 she used the desk when she wrote the foreword for Robin McConnell's first collection of poetry, nothing is as physical as a poem (Pohutukawa press 1997)., Janet and her close friends shared a deep interest in words. When Janet learned of the archaic English colloquial word 'Firkytoodling' with its meaning of sexual caressing, foreplay or congress she was delighted! She intended to use the word in her next story as a message of what she thought would be a shared humorous memory of the discovery! She thought the desk would like that being shared!, a twist now comes into this story. Robin and Puna McConnell, in possession of the slate billiard table that had been swapped for the desk lent the billiard table to the Maori Anglican church in Grafton at the end of 2002 as they were moving to Northern Ireland to the University of Ulster. Puna McConn