Winners & Losers: Blues for Miss Laverty

It's all right Mr Mooney, you can relax. I'm not after anything you know; not your money or your life. I could hardly help knowing you're a family man, could I?

– An awkward conversation between Mary Laverty (Yvonne Lawley) and Mr Mooney (Russell Duncan)

I'm just a rather broken down teacher of music, fed up to the teeth with her own company...I'm not asking for anything, just a little human warmth.

– Mary Laverty (Yvonne Lawley) laments to Mr Mooney (Russell Duncan)

Blues for Miss Laverty seemed to be one of the most beautifully written stories of the ones we went through to select our six. It was a very concise little story about loneliness. It was laid out very clearly, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it was a situation that everybody could identify with. It treated teh subject of loneliness without preaching.

– Directors Ian Mune and Roger Donaldson, in 1993 booklet Blues for Miss Laverty - Teachers' Notes and Film Script

...our finest poet writing in prose.

– James K Baxter on writer Maurice Duggan