Peg Cummins is a writer. And she's become a writer fairly fast.

Originally a primary school teacher, Peg had been teaching for about 40 years and retired when she turned 65 – and she says she'll be turning 80 next year.

But she's kept herself busy in that 14 years.

'I have virtually been writing books ever since.”

Peg is a bit of a local history buff – she's written eight local history books since retiring.

Her books cover Welcome Bay, Kawhia, Tirau, and Ardmore – just to list a few.

But how did she get into it?

'It was more of an opportunist thing really. My cousin was giving all my grandfather's diaries to Kawhia Museum and I went over with him when he did that and I thought: ‘Oh I'll grab one of these and have a look at it'.”

'When I read it I realised there was a huge amount of very interesting and important information in there because he'd written diaries from 1899 until about 1968 so there was a lot of information.”

Meeting people and talking to them about their history are some of her favourite parts of the book process.

'It gets me out and I meet lots and lots of people and that's something that I enjoy doing.

'People have been very generous in the way that they've helped me – with advice and with information and so on.”

But Peg is a woman of many interests. When she's not writing, you'll probably find her doing needlework, archiving, or active in the community.

'If I haven't got something like that to do then I get a bit fidgety and start looking for something else to do.

'I'm retired and I like to have a project so [the books have] been a godsend to me in lots of ways because it's meant that I've never been bored.”

The money from book sales tends to go towards charities or local projects, says Peg.

She self-published her most recent history book – focusing on Welcome Bay – and says she did keep the money from those sales.

'I did have to take money for that because I had to pay for the printing, but I didn't want to make a huge amount of money.”

And Peg says the money from the Kawhia book went to the local museum, which allowed them to add two new rooms.

'To me, this was far more important than money in my bank.”

And the moment that she finds most satisfying? The answer might surprise you.

'When they send me the proof and say: ‘Now do the index' then once that's done I think: ‘Oh wow that's great'.”

'You simply must never publish a non-fiction book without an index; I learned that very early on.”

She refuses to use a computer to do the index, and says her experience with digital indexing has been negative.

'It turned out to be an absolute disaster. I'll never do that again, you've got to sit down with the book and go page-by-page.”

An index can take several days, Peg says. 'If I keep at it!”