Michelle is returning to Stratford next week to give a talk at Stratford Library about her latest book, Vanishing Points, in which Stratford is mentioned.
One of the poems in the book, New Moon in the Old Moon's Arms, contains lines recalling visits to Stratford to visit her grandmother on Brecon Rd and stopping to look at the mountain.
Michelle was born at the Avon Maternity Hospital in 1956 and says the family lived on Cordelia St for the first few years of her life.
The house, number 115, was the first of several houses her father built, she says.
The family then moved to Urenui and then on again to New Plymouth.
"We kept circling back to Stratford to visit my grandmother in Brecon Rd and my uncle and aunt in Antonio St," says Michelle.
Michelle's family links to Stratford date back to 1884, when her great-grandparents Edward and Elizabeth Evans came to the town. Edward was the headmaster of Stratford School until he died aged 40 in 1891.
Her grandfather Edward (Argoyd) married her grandmother Claribel May Evans in Stratford in 1920.
"Argoyd established E D Evans Furnishers in the early 1920s and the business passed to his sons Jack, Maurice and Vernon after his death in 1948."
Michelle's mother Dulcie Evans married Henry John (Jock) Leggott in Stratford in 1951 and Jock set up a joinery business at the southern end of Broadway.
Michelle is also speaking at Puke Ariki and Inglewood Library.
Puke Ariki Level One, December 6: 5.30pm-6.30pm
Inglewood Library, December 7: 10am-11am.
Stratford Library, December 7: 12.30pm.
