Knowing the Australian sense of humour I can believe it.
(I recall the young Aussie nurse in new Guinea being herdeEveryone says this book is FUNNY????
Knowing the Australian sense of humour I can believe it.
(I recall the young Aussie nurse in new Guinea being herded off with her co-workers to be shot, saying in that laconic offhanded manner: "Trust my Luck to be finished off by a bloody Jap!!")
But at the moment I am having a National Self-Crisis, one of those "Oh-ye-of-little-faith" moments, and wonder how Russell is going to DO it!!! Why??? I know only too too well the horrific treatment the Japanese dished out in Asia to the civilian populations and to captive soldiers and nurses - Australian, Indian, New Zealand, British and American. It is NOT Politically Correct to talk about it now. HOWEVER the problem is that the Japanese have NEVER apologised, even admitted to their gruesome savagery the massacres, death marches, etc unlike the Germans who have had a National and Public struggle to face up to the Holocaust. Unfortunately the civilian population has been kept in ignorance of the ferocity with which their soldiers behaved in Asia. The so-called Rape of Nanking when an entire Chinese city was practically slaughtered has still not been acknowledged by any Japanese government. Only recently elderly Dutch ,English, Korean ,Chinese women were presenting their cases of being forcibly used as comfort women in army brothels for Japanese soldiers in World War Two. They were young women then. A Dutch girl who complained to the Japanese doctor at her brothel was immediately raped by him. She was one of the speakers at the hearing and I have read her autobiography. Come on Russell, make me laugh! Or at least grin.
PS. (added 1/1/2015) I fail to mention TV documentaries of recent years, interviews with elderly Japanese, those involved in rape, murder and massacre at infamous sites as young soldiers, telling how their superiors brutalised and threatened them into barbaric acts ...their guilt and relief at at last speaking out. Their sadness.Tremendously moving. Governments might deny. The man and woman in the street is another matter entirely. Russell Braddon loathed the Japanese well after the war. It was in writing his biographies of Nancy Wake and Cheshire V.C that he found himself able to forgive.
SEE my review of "Proud Australian Boy" by Nigel Starck, a very recent biography of Russell, and an excellent one!!...more
This book was very largely unknown ie. NOT AT ALL !!! when I bought it. Unknown to ME that is, having NEVER heard of its subject or of his supposed ri This book was very largely unknown ie. NOT AT ALL !!! when I bought it. Unknown to ME that is, having NEVER heard of its subject or of his supposed riddle. However his times, his Irish history, his Australian connections and those who peopled it were peripheral to me; big personalities of minor interest and faint echoes in my life. But it had the appeal of a smogasbord...and I was quite prepared to expand my vision and satisfy my appetite.
The book itself is a handsome, solid production by the National Library of Australia with six inserts of intriguing historical photographs, ranging from the 1880's until the subject's tragic accident in 1954 which led to his eventual death. His biographer had been, as a child, a witness to Father Hackett's early days in Australia, but it was over 50 years after his death that she set out to justify to herself the task of the writing of his story and his times.
This justification is presented in the first chapter. A unique device I have never encountered in any biography. Is he worth writing about ??? Another of these minor characters of History who were involved in Major events with Major characters and may have been Major himself and not just by association. We are ALL players on the Stage of Life. But what role we have can be thrust on us, be an accident of birth, can be chosen and moulded largely by ourselves or we may be a witness only. We are here to be a witness to William Hackett, his family, his times, his surroundings ...we will be judges ourselves as Brenda Niall presents her case !!!
We meet his family - parents, three sisters and five brothers - his siblings who all became estranged from the Catholic Church in the early 1890's due to their Father's support of Parnell and his thus falling foul of the Irish Clergy. William himself had decided to become a Jesuit priest. However this never meant any estrangement from his siblings then or later. He was never to see them again after he was sent to Australia in 1922, an event that may have occurred to protect him from his involvement with radical Irish supporters of Home Rule. Many were to be executed in Dublin by the British after his departure. Surviving letters are both moving and brave, grieving and unforgettable. His life in Australia, lived mainly in Melbourne, shows a man who never stopped seeing th ejoys in Life, who always found something to unite him with the huge variety of people he encountered,...for example he knew and befriended 3 consecutive Australian Prime Ministers. What was it about Hackett that inspired such strong, lasting affection?He was generous with his time and his empathy with a huge variety of people and seldom could any differences come between them. And nothing syrupy about him. He lived a passionate life in every facet of it.
In her final summation, Brenda Niall asks of herself...and of us, the readers who have been exposed too this charming , humorous, passionate, very involved man who ranged across a huge range of people easily, without bias or prejudice, where differences did not get in the way of depth of friendship, lasting friendships. No trace of snobbery or prejudice ever seemed to come between or cast a shadow between himself and anyone with different opinions. He left himself open, looking at the things that united rather than stressing the differences. If only more key figures in history behaved this way. Today , in Australia, people who are our allies, have fled wars which our leaders, largely George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard have initiated using lies and misinformation to initiate. These refugees have been labelled as "illegal" migrants in Australia so that they can be mistreated and imprisoned. No one of the calibre of this book's main character seems to exist in Australia today.Silence has been largely the response of the churches. Father Hackett would be a very Major figure today. In his time he was reduced to a minor player although all the qualities he possessed were those of a Major player had circumstances been different. I feel as if I had missed out myself on this 'hidden' Great Man.
Brenda Niall writes: "I think of the certainty of the beliefs he lived by, allied with tolerance of the uncertainties and unbelief of others. "She then quotes a famous author commenting on one of his own famous creations,a main character...he discerns as having "a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life...an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness which I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again." So wrote Scott Fitzgerald of his character Gatsby. Perhaps such men are more prominent in Fiction. I can assure you that in Australia at the moment our Major players a very minor indeed. 'Opportunists' is the label very often attached to them. And alas they are very factual as are the crimes, injustices and cruelty , prejudice and lies which are part of their daily exercise. ...more
I was lucky to meet Elizabeth Fensham on Summer Hill Railway platform TWICE and again at the launch of this book at the Art Gallery of a Mutual Friend. I was lucky to meet Elizabeth Fensham on Summer Hill Railway platform TWICE and again at the launch of this book at the Art Gallery of a Mutual Friend. Like many creative people she was unassuming, humble and full of interest and we chatted away non-stop.
Like ALL my new books they lie fallow, often for ages, All clamouring TO BE READ!!! And I clamour back "I WANT TO !!!!!" This evening I picked up Elizabeth's book and found suddenly that I had already reached Chapter Nine !!!! GOOD , I declared, I'm Hooked and this will Get Finished !!! And I can write to Elizabeth and tell her so !!!! Until then I can immerse myself in this story which flows like a stream, with bumpy bits that ground you in hard realities.
MORE TO COME !!
Finished in 3/4 days...couldn't put it down. But WHY ??? This story of a Growing Friendship between an elderly woman and three children, siblings. The varied characters and their interactions.Their Ups and Downs. The challenges, the changes, the losses and gains. But so lucidly put. Was it because it was written for Young Adults!!?
If I'm enjoying a book, who it may have been written for doesn't enter my mind, the story telling is all that matters. I have read all Beatrix Potter's books in recent years;and Kenneth Grahame's "Wind In the Willows", several times in my life. It has had illustrations ADDED which has enhanced it, notably, for me, by E.H.Shepard, Eric Kincaid and Inga Moore; and Chapters REMOVED from it and Criminally so - namely "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", as if it might infect young readers with a type of Paganism perhaps, or just be plain 'beyond' them - but often "Dulce Domum" and/or "Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears" are dumped as well. "OUTRAGEOUS" is the only word for it, as there is no denying that people grow with a book on every Reread - often it is because a person grows in age, or maturity, or wisdom, or reads correctly the second or third time, or with increasing insight. But I guarantee books 'change' because we do. To decide that certain chapters MUST GO, because of some publisher's cherished beliefs, was certainly not Kenneth Grahame's plan or he never would have written them. These books are Classics and only Time will tell with Elizabeth's , and not even then, since many Classics are never recognised except in Private. We ALL have our Favourites, no ? At the moment Elizabeth's is one of mine and I fail to put "why it is so' adequately into words. Sorry !!!!!
All I can say is that I delighted in it. And almost as soon as finished, wiping away the tears, sat down and wrote to Elizabeth immediately, forgetting I had recorded the idea here. Wrote because I was so moved by the story and grateful to Elizabeth. It is something one would like to be able to do more often : enjoy a book and let the author know. ...more
While reading this book I noted the deaths of three survivors of Changi CI'm just eating up this book.
POST-READ:
Totally consumed and happily digested.
While reading this book I noted the deaths of three survivors of Changi Camp as well as the notorious Burma Railway, both run by the Japanese with a sickening brutality justified utterly in their eyes and culture, by their contempt for soldiers who surrendered. One death was that of Ronald Searle, creator of those savage St Trinian's Schoolgirls, whose vicious mischiefs were often based on the cruelties of his Japanese torturers on the building of the aforementioned railway. It is ALL relative. One Japanese guard actually wrote to Russell asking if he could play himself if ever a film were to be made of Russell's best-seller account of his captivity in "The Naked Island", so proud was he of his contribution to the construction of the railway on which tens of thousands of Asian, British, Indian and Dutch prisoners died through starvation,disease and physical brutality. More relativity.
The list of Russell Braddon's achievements, one of which was his surviving the slave-construction of the Burma Railway as a young man in his early 20's, are listed on the back cover of this wonderful book. But it is ultimately hollow, this list, except for its last line: "This biography investigates those many challenges and achievements."
Those challenges were surviving his captivity through detachment from himself and his surroundings, through compassionate involvement with his fellow prisoners, his sense of humour and hatred for his captors. The latter, his understandable hatred, became a liability when he had to survive surviving. And he also had to survive living in an intolerant heterosexual world. In the camp it was totally ignored.
It wasn't easy but he did it very well. He tried suicide first and then a stint in a psychiatric ward where he had to survive captivity all over again. But his personality, belief in himself and his creativity were to gain him entry to a star-studded world. But these celebrities were solid and realistic people who had just come out of a dreadful war.
Finally freed, he left Sydney for London, and immediately almost, found himself with n Ausie Changi mate and his wife on the London stage doing the Mind-Reading act they had worked up in Changi. It travelled the world,English-speaking bits. A book about the act led him to "The Naked Island" still in print after 60 years and 2 million copies sold. And solid fame. Ronald Searle contributed powerful illustrations to this memoir.
Now came biographies of the Famous and most Humble and most Down-to-Earth Celebrities - Fellow-Aussie Joan Sutherland - La Stupenda of the Opera World but always a Mate to all; New Zealander/Aussie Nancy Wake, French resistance leader, a killer who hated violence and harboured no hatred for the Germans as also did Leonard Cheshire VC. Russell learned from all of these encounters. Russell was always a private person, as homosexuals of this era had to be, but his two partners can now speak openly, which they do with honesty and with gratitude for a good friend.
This is just the beginning of a happy, extraordinary and tortured life, as all good lives should be; and all resolved finally, as all good lives hopefully are.
Russell died in Sydney in 1995 in his early 70's. He refused treatment for his cancer, choosing a Slow Euthanasia, free of pharmacists. He was over familiar with death and accepted it as a reality of life.
FUTURE READING: This biography may be difficult to get, but Russell's biographies of Joan Sutherland and Nancy Wake, and his best selling memoir, "The Naked Island" are still in print.All together he wrote 15 novels and 14 non/fiction works. Russell's great-great aunt was Mary Elizabeth Braddon, author of the famous and infamous "Lady Audley's Secret" which is also STILL in print, a Victorian potboiler if ever there was one!!!
Fortunately or Not, but certainly VERY Interestingly, this book contains TWO accounts of the story of William Buckley (1780 A WARNING BEFORE READING -
Fortunately or Not, but certainly VERY Interestingly, this book contains TWO accounts of the story of William Buckley (1780 - 1856). Both of these books were written with HIS assistance...BUT (here is that Topsy-Turvey word !!! ) the two accounts were written 14 to 17 years apart under widely different circumstances and from totally different motives. Buckley is known to have lied during his long life, some critics have pointed out, and I must say I was very glad to hear about this, because it means he was a typical member of the Human Race to which I happen to belong as well - yes, I too have lied !! - but his aforementioned critics had their prejeudices! (I caught a lovely and funny dog I knew very well lying once...believe it or not !!!)
Tim Flannery, who wrote the 46 page Introduction to the Two Tales, concludes it with a WARNING, which he sees as a bit of a challenge :
"Now it is time to take up with William Buckley in his travels and adventures. It is as well to keep your eyes open and your wits about you as you do."
Tim seems to have cottoned on that finding 'lies' may merely mean having a sort of Game trying to spot where a minor 'hiccup' may have occurred; or perhaps where putting the emphasis on one thing rather than another may arise; or a sign of a weakening memory discovered, because William was about 72 years old when the second book about his Extraordinary Life was finally published in 1852. His uniqueness had not helped him to get any Government support for all he had done to assist both the settlers and his Indigenous family. In fact, by 1853, there were only 34 members of the Wothowurong tribe who had cared for Buckley for 32 years remaining, with only one under 10 years old. In 1836, there had been 173 of them, but the whites had already started killing them. And they were ALL dead by 1885.
Tim, a scientist, archaeologist and antropologist also lectures at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, has most probably lied sometimes, but I would not think in any of his many publications. His telling the Truth has, however, got him into much trouble, particularly with the unliberal Liberal Party Government, because he has been warning Us All here about Climate Change for several decades now. I think William Buckley may have had similar experiences. He probably just told the truth Too Often !
William Buckley was in a unique position in the Australian White Society of 1803 !!! He knew MORE about the indigenous people, or certainly a particular group of them , because they were divided into thousands of Language Groups, he knew more than any other white person AND he was prepared to speak on their behalf and even in their Defence. Many White settlers hated him IMMEDIATELY they realised this, and later, after they had killed his horse, he feared they would soon kill him. They had already started killing the Aborigines about property, and Buckley's main tribe,the Wothowurong, were now being murdered as well, because it irritated the founding settlers of Melbourne,that these blacks were living where they wanted to graze their sheep. In England, where killing other English people was against the Law of the Land, the Peasant Class who had got in the way of the Sheep Graziers, just as the Indigenous people were now doing in European Colonies, but had been dealt with by getting the British Government to privatize their lands and then the Establishment of the Enclosure System meant that fencing off the land soon made it obvious to the Peasants that their class of people were now required to work in and support the Industrial Revolution by moving to where the factories were. And mines ! Fewer were needed on the Land. This led to the Rise of the Working Class and the Chartist Movements where the Rights of these people were finally won and which are now still being gradually undone and abolished by Governments as we move into the 21st century. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) wrote about this AMAZING takeover in his poem "The Deserted Village". And in the 19th Century, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1806-1861) wrote a famous poem,"The Cry of the Children", about the very young children who had to work in Factories and Coal Mines, a much more practical alternative to genocide.)
Buckley is NOT listed among "Australia's Famous Men and Women".
Does THAT surprise YOU ? Those we choose to imitate and hold up as Icons say MUCH about our values.
His face appears on no coin or paper note or nor does any statue exist that I know of. But there are expressions such as " You have Buckley's Luck /Hope /Chance of that happening" acknowledges that Buckley's Luck was Rare; and several places in Melbourne bear his name, where he was known to have lived his Native Life of 32 years. Here he had lived and enjoyed mostly an alternative valid existence, where disease was rare, food was plentiful and no gods spoilt one's peace of mind. Spirits had a history - they had shaped the land; and many had been transformed into the Native Animals which were now taken as Guardians, one special animal for each person. But the Land, the Trees, the Rivers, the Animals and the Peoples...all were to suffer Terrible Loss at the Hands of the Newcomers. They suffer still. No White Invader really seemed to acknowledge that these apparently primitive, uncivilised Black People might have untapped depths, hold keys, Keys to Secrets, Keys of Knowledge. Did they ever think to ask or observe or get an opinion? Native Food was scorned; customs ignored, scorned and abandoned. To Our Detriment. Bushfires once prevented now occur and kill Every Summer; rivers turn salty; erosion is rampant; reefs diminish as does Everything. Some few did learn..and Buckley would have been one of the First. Why is he not remembered and generously? Can we admit to our Great Failure, to the Wrong Turnings we made and whose paths we persist in still following? What do Ned Kelly and Burke and Wills offer us except staggering failures. Burke and Wills died where Native Peoples had survived for centuries. It did not take them long to perish. It is not taking long for us either.
My Vision I have long contemplated is when we in our boats set off seeking refuge in nearby Asia leaving the Original Peoples behind, will they assist us, wave us a Fond Farewell from Sydney's clifftops or will they be too busy preparing a Corroboree of Joy and wondering can the Land now cure itself with their aid?
These Two Tales of Buckley are precious beyond Price. Another which reads more easily and blends many other facts together is "Buckley's Hope" by Craig Robertson which was published in 1980. I've heard it has never been out of print.
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