'I was too stunned by all I had heard to say anything, so I simply rose from my stool, grasped both her hands, and kisOpening quote added 1 April 2024
'I was too stunned by all I had heard to say anything, so I simply rose from my stool, grasped both her hands, and kissed them. How little we know; I thought, of the people we live amongst.’ (p155) - Anna Frith on hearing Elinor Mompellion’s story
What an astonishing woman is Anna Frith, the heroine of Year of Wonders, the story of a plague ridden village in 1666 choosing to quarantine itself away to contain the pestilence.
Anna is not the only one with heroic qualities, but is by far the most accomplished. Elinor is also heroic in her sweetness, forbearance, egalitarianism and determination even if frail. (view spoiler)[the real love story of Year of Wonders is Anna and Elinor. (hide spoiler)] Despite hostility and ignorance directed towards them Anys Gowdie and her aunt Mem Gowdie, are devoted to helping others with herbal potions and pastes, as well as delivering the village babies. A young woman inheriting a lead mine by default is determined to work it herself knowing it would be a forlorn undertaking. Even the kitchen hand turfed out of Colonel Bradford’s estate shows some pluck as the patrician Colonel flees with his family, the only ones to leave the village.
Anna is a lowly house maid, a servant. She cleans and cooks, but then learns to read and then read in Latin (to learn the ‘physic’) and by dint of hard work and application becomes a proficient, skilled in the production of salves and potions and together with Elinor they sooth the ill and bolster the not yet ill. When Anys and Mem pay dearly for their ‘witchery’ Anna learns midwifery, becoming a giver of life; she goes deep down a lead mine having never done so before to help save the claim for the young girl who now holds it. Anna stands up to her drunken violent father, supports her Rector and saves lives. She can also ride a mighty horse.
All of these talents, skill and capacities, might seem super human in the abstract, but fit seamlessly into this engrossing story by that rarest of creatures, a journalist turned wonderful novelist. Geraldine Brooks is Australian to boot, though like many predecessors from Clive James to Peter Carey has found success overseas rather than here, in Brooks’ case reporting from war zones, especially in the Middle East. Latterly she has lived in the United States. The ending of Year of Wonders, while unexpected, is not nearly as much of a shock as we might think, knowing that Brooks’ had written an earlier astonishing book, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, about her experience associating with a rich variety of Islamic women in the Middle East learning about how they really live their lives.
Among other things Year of Wonders is about faith- or the lack of it. Brooks describes herself as a secular author and as such presents faith in many guises: exemplified by inspirational leadership in deeply troubled times, but also showing that faith can be fractious, intolerant and superstitious, understandable in this era. The plague of 1666 took place at a time when people did not know what caused it or how it was transmitted. There was no laboratory analysis, pharmaceutical production on an industrial scale, vaccines and boosters.
Those of strong faith, like the Rector Michael Mompellion, believe the pestilence is God’s will and responds accordingly, drawing strength from his religion and encouraging others to do likewise. But not all people of faith are equally welcome, the Quakers are isolated and there are references to the earlier battles with the popists. Mompellion specifically encourages a sacrificial burning of furniture as a gesture to cleanse the community spirit, a community which is also beset by believers who punish themselves, engage in flagellation, act in ignorance and with suspicion, take advantage of the unworldly or simply seek to profit during these straightened times. It is bad to punish oneself for ones sins but worse to punish someone else for theirs, in the name of God.
This is a marvellous story, told with complete verisimilitude of language and life in a lead-mining, plague-ridden village in 1666, with characters you can readily see as you read about them, about an horrific time, out of which may come some good, especially for these who might otherwise have remained in their place in the social order, as they might have in more stable times. It is not surprising that Geraldine Brooks would write an historical novel which also says a great deal about faith, tolerance and understanding, especially of difference, and new ways of seeing the world....more
Andrew Mueller has attempted, with some success, to tell the story of Australian Rules football using selected seminal matches played throughout the hAndrew Mueller has attempted, with some success, to tell the story of Australian Rules football using selected seminal matches played throughout the history of the code.
It is a valiant effort. Valiant, but to some extent doomed because of necessary selectivity and the inevitable partiality of the reader. Mueller has chosen 57 important matches to illustrate key issues, events and heroes (plus a few villains, eg Phil Carman). However, over 16,000 matches have been played since 1897; inevitably there are some of us who will be disappointed at the non-inclusions and our interest will be greater for those clashes involving our team, preferably victories. Sadly many of my team’s better efforts are missing and there are several with the Hawks on the receiving end.
No matter. The author brings these games to life, capturing the energy, excitement and spirit of each match with lively and convincing descriptions of play, in many cases relying entirely on contemporary accounts, unless Andrew Mueller is 120 years old.
We have lots of finals, including famous grand finals, for example the bloodbath of 1945 between South Melbourne and Carlton (who won) and the battlefield epic of 1989 (Hawthorn defeating Geelong). There are matches featuring players who found fame in other fields, including fullback Keith Miller, the future Australian cricket all-rounder, holding Bob Pratt to one goal, and poignantly, Bluey Truscott, the World War Two Spitfire ace, making a guest appearance with his old team Melbourne. Overweight and unfit, Truscott is nevertheless accorded a hero’s welcome, in his last match before losing his life in a training exercise off the Western Australian coast in 1943.
Nicky Winmar's raised guernsey, finger pointing to his black skin, is here, and for political content we have former Prime Minister Menzies, following a stroke, at Princes Park in 1972, seated in his Bentley on a raised platform especially built for him to watch his Blues (Carlton)....more
Rachael Flynn lives on a cattle and sheep farm somewhere near Mudgee I believe, creating images and artefacts of Australian rural life. Like some of ARachael Flynn lives on a cattle and sheep farm somewhere near Mudgee I believe, creating images and artefacts of Australian rural life. Like some of Australia’s best artists, say Jeffrey Smart or Fred Williams, she excels at simple.
This charming little book (just the right size), suggests we ponder simple pleasures: ‘Tea with Dad’, (farmer, daughter and chook), and home truths; 'Be Yourself’ (cow, sheep and pig pretending to be chickens). Rachael uses birds and animals in human settings to good effect. Trading as Red Tractor Designs, well worth looking up, she is wise in the way of rural philosophy, tending to the practical, and skilled at depicting farm animals and their mates, especially magpies.
There is one red tractor in the book, (and a blue one or two).
Recommended for anyone living in the city wishing to appreciate the joys of the country and for anyone in the country who already knows them....more
Four stands at the Sydney Cricket Ground are named after cricketers: Victor Trumper, MA Noble, Don Bradman and Bill O’Reilly. Two of the four, BradmanFour stands at the Sydney Cricket Ground are named after cricketers: Victor Trumper, MA Noble, Don Bradman and Bill O’Reilly. Two of the four, Bradman and O’Reilly, feature prominently in this memoir cum autobiography.
To set the scene, Don Bradman is indisputably Australia’s, indeed the world’s, best ever test batsman, averaging 99.94, forty better than anyone else. And Bill O’Reilly is described by Bradman himself as the best bowler he ever saw. In 27 tests from 1931 to 1946,* O’Reilly took 144 wickets at 22.59 each, a stunning return for any bowler let alone a spinner, although O’Reilly was unusually fast, operating around medium pace and regularly opening the attack.
I was already aware of two aspects of O’Reilly’s career; his difficult relationship with Bradman and his reputation as one of the participants in the notorious ‘bodyline’ series against England in 1932-33. But O’Reilly’s entertaining story is bigger than that.
He dwells lovingly on his Irish heritage, opening with the warm reception he received in Ireland during his final tour of England in 1938 (mainly for skittling English batters) and speaks fondly of his wife Molly, of Irish extraction. Sadly, he also reveals something of the simmering tensions between Catholics and Protestants at that time in Australian society, manifesting itself in a cricket context. During the third test of 1936, the Australian Board of Control called in four of the five Catholics in the team: O’Reilly, Stan McCabe, ‘Chuck’ Fleetwood –Smith and Leo O’Brien. Jack Fingleton was not included for unknown reasons. The four were then: 'Accused, it seemed, as representatives of an insubordinate and disloyal team of slackers and boozers.’ (p160) When O’Reilly asked whether the four were being held responsible, the answer was ‘no’. The meeting ended in confusion and embarrassment. Did Bradman instigate this intervention? O’Reilly says Bradman didn’t know. This sounds disingenuous. Or perhaps O’Reilly was being careful in print.
Long after the event with O’Reilly and Fingleton having passed away, Bradman stated that ‘with these fellows out of the way, the loyalty of my 1948 side was a big joy and made a big contribution to the outstanding success of that team.’ (Geoff Armstrong: ESPN Legends of Cricket (2002) at pp17-22). Given that test cricket stopped in 1939 until 1945 because of World War Two and O’Reilly, Fingleton and the others had long gone anyway, the response from Bradman seems spiteful, although my impression is that the group of Catholics may well have been insubordinate and disruptive. The retired O’Reilly is said to have remarked "You have to play under a Protestant to know what it's like.”(reported in Gideon Haigh and David Frith Inside Story. Unlocking Australian Cricket’s Archives (2007).
O’Reilly raises another old grievance – the omission of Clarrie Grimmett after the 1935-36 tour of South Africa, which he lays at the feet of Bradman, who preferred the less talented Frank Ward. Incidentally, O’Reilly regards the aforementioned South African tour as his happiest ever: in this instance led by Vic Richardson, in the absence of Bradman.
O’Reilly addresses his relationship with the Australian captain:
On the cricket field Bradman and I had the greatest respect for each other… but I might as well come straight out with it and let you know that, off the field, we had not much in common. You could say we did not like each other, but it would be closer to the truth to say we chose to have little to do with each other…the product of chemistry arising from our different backgrounds. Don Bradman was a teetotaller, ambitious, conservative and meticulous. I was outspoken and gregarious, an equally ambitious young man of Irish descent. (pp53-54)
While O’Reilly is mellow in some ways (the book was published when he was 80 so he had time for generous reflection), he still fulminates against white ball cricket, the decline of the spinner (he would be gratified now), and the parsimony of administrators towards their cricketers who sacrificed employment and retarded their careers to play for their country.
O’Reilly started out as a primary school teacher at Erskineville Boys, now Erskineville Public, co-incidentally, near where I live. In 1934, while still a teacher, he set sail for England for a nine months tour, including five weeks at sea either end. It’s a long time away from home. He deals authoritatively and insightfully with the actual cricket; his descriptions of matches and individual performances enhance our understanding of what actually occurred. This penetrating analysis adds conviction to his account of the most infamous of his test matches, the ‘Bodyline’ series of 1932-33.
The story is well known. Douglas Jardine, the Captain of the English side, employed ‘leg theory’, fast bowlers aiming bouncers at the batsman’s head and upper body, with a packed leg side field, tactics aimed at curbing Bradman: they worked, halving his career average to a mere 50. But Stan McCabe was undaunted, hooking and pulling fearlessly, while most of the Australian players, Captain Woodfull included, were battered and bruised. O’Reilly puts Bill Woodfull on a high pedestal, for his courage in facing the ’unsportsmanlike’ barrage and his integrity in refusing to retaliate. On that point, O’Reilly is in no doubt at all that that Australia could have returned serve, but Woodfull chose not to and in O’Reilly’s view made the right choice.
This is a book full of vivid description of thirties cricket, society at the time, penetrating insights, a deal of bile, and good stories.
***
Bill Woodfull was a teacher with the Victorian Education Department. One of his early placements was at Williamstown High School, my old school, where from time to time he had a bat with the students. No-one could get him out. One day, it is reported, he smote a ball clear out of the yard, over the neighbouring railway lines and into the grounds of the local hospital, a distance of at least 70 metres. One of my fellow students during my time at Williamstown HS was the extremely fast bowler, Alan Hurst, who went on to play for Australia.
* Cricket was suspended during World War Two; no tests were played between 1939 and 1945. Reilly fronted up for a final game against New Zealand in 1946 in a side led by Bill Brown in Bradman’s absence. The match, which was won by Australia was later designated a test....more
‘Our march to freedom is irreversible.’ – Nelson Mandela on his release from prison, 11 February 1990
This is a worthy book by Australian teacher and a‘Our march to freedom is irreversible.’ – Nelson Mandela on his release from prison, 11 February 1990
This is a worthy book by Australian teacher and author Alan J Whiticker containing many famous and not so famous speeches of varying interest and importance.
On the whole an entertaining and informative read, from which we can pick and choose. I have a number of quibbles, but I we will get to them later because the speeches are what the book is about.
In 1917 Woodrow Wilson successfully asks Congress to declare war with Germany, saying: ‘we have no quarrel with the German people…it was a way determined upon in the old unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers’ (p41). It is interesting that Wilson makes the distinction between Germany’s rulers and the people themselves. He is also required to have the decision to go to war made by Congress, not the White House. I hope that is still the case.
In his inauguration speech of 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, famously asserted his ‘firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ (p67) as he sought to lead the country out of the Depression. I would have thought that the President’s ‘A date that will live in infamy’ would have got a guernsey, but it does not. For the record it goes: ‘Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan....’ The President was speaking to a joint Session of Congress the day after Pearl Harbor. Congress shortly thereafter declared a state of war. These events echoed Wilson’s speech a generation earlier. But we don’t get this speech in the book. We do get, however, an intriguing entry just days before Pearl Harbor, a speech by Japanese Prime Minister General Tojo, celebrating the East Asia co-prosperity sphere and warning the US and Britain not to ‘fish in the troubled waters of East Asia’ (p117), but with no hint of what was to come; the attack on Pearl Harbor was planned in 1940 and approved in September a year later.
Of great interest to me is Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence which gained momentum as the war progressed. On August 8, 1942 in a speech to the All India Congress Committee Gandhi made his case for independence from Britain, indeed any colonial or imperial rule, to be achieved through non-violence. There is no mention of ‘Quit India’ in the speech and indeed it is rambling and not all that coherent, but it did the trick: ‘That freedom, if it is to come, must come today.’ (p122)
Having visited Hiroshima, the city destroyed by an atomic bomb on 6 August 1945, I was surprised to learn the Americans planned to bomb a military target, not women and children. In his radio broadcast of 9 August 1945, President Harry Truman said, ‘The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base’ (p130) failing to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in that city and Nagasaki.
Prior to the war we have aviator hero Charles Lindbergh urging American neutrality and after the war Senator Joseph McCarthy’s disgusting ‘Wheeling’ speech full of unsubstantiated allegations against individuals in the state department.
There are speeches relating to human rights, segregation, independence movements and moments of personal reflection or outright regret are given a public airing. So it’s not all war and politics, but a lot of the content is about conflict.
So to the quibbles. The book was published in 2005 so it becomes historic itself; there are only two speeches after 2000. That’s OK, the book is devoted to the twentieth century, but the author has constricted himself by selecting eight examples from each decade of the twentieth century, even though some decades are more speech worthy than others.
There is a preponderance of American speakers: half of the 66 speeches are by Americans, including 13 by presidents even though the most famous of them all, Roosevelt’s ‘infamy’ speech was not included. Other national leaders come in at 17, although Golda Meir was speaking in 1948, at the time of the birth of Israel, long before she became Prime Minister.
My final quibble may seem perverse for someone committed to touting Australia in this forum. There are three contributions relating to the land of Vegemite, although the first is from an English aristocrat opening the first federal parliament, which conveniently for this book came at the very beginning of the twentieth century. Incidentally the Australian parliament sat in Melbourne for the first 27 years of the Federation, before moving to Canberra, a fact often forgotten by people from New South Wales (I know I live in Sydney, but I was brought up in Melbourne).
The other two entries come from two Titans of the Australian Labour movement, Gough Whitlam, who was sacked by the Governor–General, (we have his speech to the crowd gathered in front of Parliament House that day), but he also led one of the most innovative and progressive administration in our history, but also the most chaotic. Paul Keating’s Redfern speech, celebrating native title is included. He was one time the ‘world’s greatest treasurer’ and famous for telling us that we were having ‘the recession we need to have’ and he was labelled the ‘Lizard of Oz’ by the British press for putting his hand on the back of the Queen during an official walk to guide her along. All three Australian entries, while important to us, do not quite fit the international ‘shaped the world’ character of the book. Perhaps we should have a separate volume of great Australian speeches; might be a short book, but it would be a good one. Malcolm Fraser once said: ‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy.’ And what about Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech, now that did ripple around the world:
I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man; I will not.....If he [Tony Abbott – the Leader of the Opposition] wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror. That's what he needs.
This tale reads like an extended scenario of characters back stories with a central motif – the gift of speed. Speed in several different forms: pace This tale reads like an extended scenario of characters back stories with a central motif – the gift of speed. Speed in several different forms: pace at the bowling crease, decisiveness in business and by way of contrast a lack of speed in relationships.
The following contains spoilers.
Unfortunately what could have been an interesting meditation turns into a series of hermetically sealed episodes with insufficient interaction between the protagonists. Even when they do occur they tend to be one–off occurrences, for instance when the teenage central character, Michael discovers a businessman with his secret E-type Jaguar and is implicitly sworn to silence, nothing develops from the encounter.
Michael is trying to bowl fast, hurling countless deliveries against the back fence. Ultimately he hurts himself in his first big match as he realizes some people naturally have the gift of speed, others do not. At least he learns from the experience, unlike the businessman, who fangs his E-type once too often.
The young man’s injury is partly caused by wearing the wrong boots, batsman’s boots rather than bowlers, purchased from the Lindsay Hassett Sports Store in Melbourne, despite the advice of the great ‘Puck’ himself. I myself have visited the Lindsay Hassett Sports Store as a very young boy, in the company of my father. We were lucky enough to spot the man himself sitting at his desk in his office. I had no idea who he was, but I soon learned, which leads me to some aspects of the story which were disappointing. First off, Lindsay Hassett was famous for his irresistible sense of humour, but not here, Carroll misses an opportunity, I feel.
Apart from one chilling character who makes a most memorable l first appearance but then disappears completely, one irritating decision is the deliberate anonymising of the specific location of the action - always the author refers, somewhat awkwardly to 'the suburb’. The events take place during the 1960-61 tour of Australia by the West Indies cricket team led by Frank Worrall, an epic series with several of the most thrilling test matches ever played. They exist here as background only with a number of standalone moments with Worrall as he faces the loneliness of command. This is strange as he has in his team the fearsome and charismatic Winston Wesley Hall, extreme fast bowler and an obvious choice when the subject is the gift of speed. But we just get a lot of Worrall alone in his room.
By way of contrast with the speed issue is the slow death of the boy’s parents relationship and much sweeter, a nice moment of adolescent attraction between the boy and an orphan girl, where restraint serves them rather better than haste....more
This is the most engaging story I have read for some time: imaginative, pleasingly specific (I cite a reference to KT26s) and including well-drawn chaThis is the most engaging story I have read for some time: imaginative, pleasingly specific (I cite a reference to KT26s) and including well-drawn characters impossible to forget, for example: Darren Deng, the juvenile Vietnamese drug thug; monstrous Titus Broz, the pallid drug overlord with an obsession for limbs and their digits; imagine Mr Burns with an even meaner steaks.
While these two are extremely colourful habitués, the slightly more ordinary people in the tale are beautifully depicted, from our central character, Eli Bell, his slightly older brother, August, in self-imposed mute mode, to their estranged parents Robert, isolated in a bizarre mix of literature and urine, and Frances, trying to bring up her boys and kick a serious drug habit at the same time.
Oddly enough, two of the less satisfactory characters are types Trent Dalton would know only too well. Brian the scenery chewing Editor of the Courier–Mail and his crime reporter the clunkily-named Caroline Spies, weaker characters, more stereotyped, although not fatally.
The strength of the book is Eli’s relationship with his mum, brother (they have an unspoken bond which is a motif of the tale, including imaginative fantasies), stepfather Lyle, too ambitious for his own good, later his father, Robert and the aforementioned psychopath Darren Deng. The key dynamic is provided by Eli’s association with Slim Halliday, the ‘Houdini of Bogo Road’ a real life prisoner famous for his daring escapes. As a child, Dalton knew Slim and this provides much of the authenticity of the book, especially concerning life in prison, prisoners, the drug trade and the behaviours of those participating in it. One of the valuable lessons for Eli as he negotiates this world is that there is good and bad in everyone whatever their formal relationship with crime itself.
Much has been made of the books ‘first novel’ status, which is a little curious. A novel should be judged on its quality, whether first, last or somewhere in between. In any event, Dalton is a seasoned writer and editor who has a created an entertaining and fairly plausible fantastic tale with a rare achievement - we come to care quite a lot for Eli and his brother and his family, and hope they survive....more
A surprisingly enjoyable book, thoughtful and considered, unpretentious and truthful, insofar as such productions are usually designed to entertain raA surprisingly enjoyable book, thoughtful and considered, unpretentious and truthful, insofar as such productions are usually designed to entertain rather than court controversy.
Hughes opens well with his observations about David Boon; unflappable, deaf to opponent’s taunts, scared of fast bowling but coping with it. As you would expect there is one story concerning heavy post-match celebrations, when Boon appears naked in a hotel lobby.
Interestingly, Hughes includes several champions from well before his own time, like Keith Miller and Warwick Armstrong, of whom he was unaware until well into his own career, as he learns the history of the game. It is not co-incidental that both Miller and Armstrong were characters who enjoyed the game for its own sake, and had run ins with authority.
Of the bowlers, he has a special place growing up for Michael Holding (as you would) and his West Indian teammates. Later his abiding recollection of playing against Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose: ‘I can’t remember ever being sledged by a West Indian bowler.’ (p268)
He also includes some bios of lesser known coaches and mentors who helped him along the way, which is nice....more
Mr Badger is a badger. He works at the Boubles Grand Hotel. He is the Special Events Manager. Never mind that everyone else in the story is human.
WelMr Badger is a badger. He works at the Boubles Grand Hotel. He is the Special Events Manager. Never mind that everyone else in the story is human.
Well, with one exception, Algernon the giant ape, housed in a glass case in the hotel foyer and a perennially popular attraction for guests and visitors.
Until one day Algernon disappears, prompting a thorough investigation by Mr Badger, who knows most of the nooks, crannies and secret passages of Boubles Grand Hotel, and finds more of them as he discovers an old secret of the founder Sir Cecil Smithers-Carruthers, kept from Lady Celia and especially from their annoying granddaughter Sylvia.
As ever the story is beautifully illustrated with Leigh’s scratchy pen sketches, vibrating with life.
No-one ever thinks there is anything unusual about a badger holding down the job of Special Events Manager at a London Hotel, which is part of the charm of the story and the series....more
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