In 2021, the Braemar Charitable Trust celebrated its 50th birthday, a milestone that was highlighted by the completion of a book written about the Trust by Waikato journalist, Kingsley Field.
Kingsley has had a long career in Waikato journalism and newspaper, having worked for the Waikato Times as chief subeditor. He was also the Waikato news-bureau chief for the New Zealand Herald for eight years. Later he went on to freelance work from 1999.
He had been contacted before about writing books for private families or organizations, so when he was approached in 2019 by the Braemar Charitable Trust, he was immediately interested.
Having spent the last 2 years working on the publication, he has in that time uncovered several interesting insights.
Kingsley believes in the need to record our community’s history, regardless of how small a story may be. Some “fabulous details and histories are too good not to be recorded” he claims, many of which have been found at Braemar and will be featured in the published edition.
The key theme for Kingsley, is the prevalence of the ‘Braemar Way’, an “unwritten code for everybody in Braemar” from CEOs to surgeons to anesthetists to caterers. This code entails a great care and consideration for patients and colleagues, a unique standard of behavior that separates Braemar from other private hospitals.
