Genevieve Willoughby, whose family has a close association with Mt Cook, was born in Christchurch. Having graduated from the Christchurch school of nursing, she worked in London, Wellington and Sydney. Commencing as a theatre sister, she then took up clinical education before joining the University of Sydney as a lecturer, tutor and examiner for the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery. Genevieve returned to New Zealand in 2006 and lives in Lincoln. She was a garden writer for the Press and had articles published in The Gardeners’ Journal. She writes: ‘As a child, my sister and I spent many school holidays staying at Mt Cook where my father was one of the first pilots to fly for Mt Cook Airlines. The idea for this book came from attending a wedding at Mt Cook. There I met many people who had lived at Mt Cook, and had colourful tales to tell. I realised these stories should be recorded, so I decided I should write a book about the social history of Aoraki-Mt Cook’.