Remember, almost a year back, when I started a project to re-read my childhood books and write a post about each before culling it? I only got two books in, and then was side-tracked with so many other things. So this next book I am featuring was actually many read months ago.
My edition was published by the (UK) Peal Press Reward Library and cost 2 shillings and 6 pence, which dates it before 1966 when Australia introduced decimal currency. My best guess it was published in 1964, when I was nine.
I was astounded as I read this book. To think we were given this fodder as impressionable juveniles. The contents are so dated, and frankly, so offensive in parts, that before posting I went in search of more information about who wrote it.
This is what I sourced from http://www.austlit.edu.au: “Phyllis Power spent her early childhood in Australia, then travelled to Europe. In London, on 1 July 1906, in her Introduction to Two Stories, she wrote ‘Australia is the land of my birth. It is my country … The bush calls ever and anon to me, reminding me that it is Home.’ Power returned to Australia in 1934. She also wrote From These Descended, a history of the ladies of one of Australia’s great pastoral dynasties, the Clarke family, published in 1977, the year of her death.” From another source I learned she was born in 1877 meaning she lived to one hundred! (Phyllis Power was actually born in 1887, as one commenter has kindly brought to my attention.)
Okay, that puts this book in context. Written from a white pastoralist’s viewpoint, it is set on a remote cattle station somewhere in Central Australia’s outback. As best as I can place, it is south-east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, on the edge of the Simpson Desert with the MacDonnell ranges behind. The family running the property is actually named Clarke, so it is probably largely autobiographical. Marion, a young, imaginative, would-be author, lives in a bark-roofed home with Mum, Dad and six sisters, whose “whole thoughts are given to cattle and horses which roam at will across hundreds of square miles”. Nat Clarke, the father, doesn’t own the property, ‘Wander Nella’. He manages it for an English company.
The book offers a valuable historic insight into life where all the supplies have to be carefully ordered, hoarded and kept in good condition because the nearest town is three hundred miles away across a bad stretch of desert and steep ranges, “still infested with hostile or Myall blacks”. (No mention here of the Myall Creek Massacre, where in 1838, white men – convicts assigned to station owners – killed twenty-eight men, women and children from a nearby tribe. In a highly unusual move, they were actually tried for the crime. But it took two trials, and they were only found guilty of the murder of one young child. Their defence was “they were not aware that in destroying the black natives they were violating the law”. (The Bundaberg Mail & Burnett Advertiser, 15 Nov 1911, Page 3)).
The “blacks” feature all through the book, because who else is actually running this station? The house “lubras” take care of the house cooking and cleaning, and the men do the stockwork, but they don’t have quarters in the house. They live in an encampment elsewhere on the station. Bill, the mailman, comes through several times a year, with a couple of black boys and a dozen packhorses. (Apart from them probably doing all the loading of the mail, I’m guessing Bill would get lost in the desert without their help).
Early in the story two men – one white and one black – unexpectedly arrive on camels, with two pack animals following. This turns out to be John Flynn and his companion-guide. This is interesting. The Very Reverend John Flynn, (Flynn of the Inland) born 1880, was a Presbyterian minister and missionary, probably best known for establishing the Royal Flying Doctor Service in the late 1920s. In the book he is explaining to Mrs Clarke how she will be able to put in a radio call and speak to a doctor hundreds of miles away. (The caller powered the radio by peddling as if on a bicycle). So now we have a date in which the book is set.
The younger girls get in to all sorts of scrapes, especially when they team up with the “piccaninnies”. One of the girls speaks Arunda (Arunta – the language of a very significant tribe of Central Australia. The famous artist, Albert Namatjira, for example, was Arrernte, and his watercolour depictions of the MacDonnell ranges are iconic.) Various station hands have to rescue them, for example Ah Lee, the Chinese station cook, has to shoot a python snake that attacks one of them. “Him worth plenty much money” he exclaims as he throws the fifteen foot skin over a bough to dry after having rubbed its inside with salt. Shortly after, a plane buzzes overhead and drops a bundle of newspapers and a tin of sweets. Clearly an open cockpit, probably a bi-plane. “Welly good thing, aeroplane” Ah Lee chuckles.
Later, another plane arrives, bringing VIPs. Sir Charles Gatley, who fans himself with a silk handkerchief, and his wet-behind-the-ears son, Ivor. This is one of the Directors of the English consortium who own the property. Lot of stereotyping going on here, he’s practically too fat to ride a horse, and has difficulty understanding they don’t have any wheeled conveyance as it would get bogged in the sand anyway, but eventually it all ends well. He recognises the homestead needs building improvement, and organises to supply a refrigerator powered by wind-driven electricity and how to get the component parts on site. And Ivor gets left behind to become a man. (The English were good at leaving behind useless people on Aboriginal land).
Ah, there’s so much more: floods, people lost in the desert, attacks by wild pigs, near-death experiences while mustering horses and cattle, more visits by Bill the mailman, wildlife, even a trip to town and a first taste of ice-cream. You can see why this was stirring, adventurous stuff that told us “our” history. But our Indigenous are cast as the side-players. There is no recognition that all this is actually taking place on their land. There is a scene where the girls sneak down to watch a men’s-business corroboree, and another where a rogue (read dispossessed), mutinous gang of disgruntled blacks wage war on the station blacks.
Much of the point of view and language is offensive today. In the lead up to the confrontation, Mrs Clarke notices not so many of the station hands have gathered this Sunday morning for “Missus sing song yabber”. Marion is pleased when, “My story about the abos”, is printed in the newspaper. “Dad will love to have a white man about the place,” Mrs Clark exclaims when the decision to leave Ivor on the property is made. When Bill the postman tries to come when the river is in flood, there is no sign of the black’s camp because the entire area is underwater. But it doesn’t matter, because they’ve all gone “walkabout” – men, lubras, piccaninnies and dogs. Only the Anglicised Lunelly stays behind. “Him all gone make one big corroboree longa big stones. Silly fella thinkem stone makem plenty yam. Him black fellow business him stupid. Only God gib tucker,” she says, “with a most superior air.” Who was she imitating?
Towards the very end, Phyllis Power redeems herself when she acknowledges the blacks are “awfully clever”, but it’s “when it’s anything about food getting … because if they weren’t, they’d starve”. Is this an acknowledgement that paying them in tea, flour and tobacco was insufficient?
Eventually the English holding company offer to sell the property to Nat Clarke. ” ‘Yes, Wander Nella will really and truly be our very own.’ Dad kept repeating, as if he couldn’t believe the wonderful news himself”.
Grrrr.
I was for throwing the book out, but some author friends suggested I keep it, as the day may come I need to use the dialogue for inspiration. So I’ll hang on to it, but I’ll stick it on the highest shelf where I’ll need my steps to get it down. In other words, I’ll have to really mean to revisit it.
Footnote:
Prior to the 1967 referendum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were not counted towards Australia’s population, with estimates of Aboriginal people made by authorities responsible for native welfare. In December 1976 the federal parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. It was the first legislation in Australia that enabled Indigenous people to claim land rights for country where traditional ownership could be proven. In 2018 Southern and Eastern Arrerente Native Title Rights were recognised. Arrente is spoken by more than 1,800 people who live around Alice Springs.
FOOTNOTE #2 November 2024:
Spurred on by a commenter’s suggestion that I “check my facts”, I went off on further exploration. Phyllis Mary Powers was born Phyllis Mary Clarke on 6 Sep 1887 in Brighton, East Sussex, England. She was the daughter of Sir Rupert Turner Havelock Clarke (1865-1926), 2nd Baronet of Rupertswood in Sunbury, Victoria, who was a pastoralist and entrepreneur. He married Amy (later Aimée) Mary Cumming in 1886 and the marriage produced two daughters before ending in divorce in 1909.
The family descends from the original pioneer to Australia, William John Turner Clarke, M.L.C. (1805 – 1874) who settled in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) in 1829. In time he acquired the reputation of being the richest man in Australia, having acquired extensive pastoral properties in Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and New Zealand.
Phyllis’ father also had extensive property holdings, Australian country estates, houses in Melbourne and Sydney, two in England – Hampshire and Sussex – and a villa in Monte Carlo. There must have been an amount of movement back and forth between Australia and England, as Phyllis was in England by 1906, and yet married Reginald Clive Power in Victoria in 1909. Phyllis died in Toorak, a well-to-do suburb of Melbourne, in 1977.
Her first book, “Two Stories” was published in 1906 earning her a nice little write up in a South Australian newspaper (I guess because she had an uncle there?). These two stories are set in Europe, and presumably the seventeen-year-old Phyllis was living in England at the time. The Austlit database says she remained there for the next three decades, returning to Australia in 1934, aged 47. So maybe she simply “popped back” to marry in 1909.
It transpires that “Under Australian Skies” was published in 1955, earlier than my original estimate. Then I found a 1954 newspaper article announcing an imminent work to be entitled “The Adventures of Two Girls in the Centre“. I can’t find any record of this book, so I assume it was re-titled. In the newspaper account, Phyllis Power states she has never been to Central Australia, so my guess the book was autobiographical is partially incorrect. Phyllis Power gives the family the name of Clarke, as was her own. But, although I can see that her uncles, as well as her father, held many pastoral properties, none of them were in the setting of the book. Here is the link to the newspaper article.
I can find thousands of newspaper articles on Sir Rupert Turner Clarke and his similarly named antecedents and descendants, but nothing that ties he or Phyllis directly to being “a great supporter of the aboriginal people” (as the commenter pointed out) but of course, that is not to say they were not, and/or if they had aboriginal employees on their properties that they treated them kindly and fairly.
My point in this blog was that it is only now, as truth-telling is being demanded and is emerging, that the average non-indigenous Australian has their eyes opened to the real situation for the stockmen and domestic servants of the era in which this book is set.
Aboriginal studies did not exist when I was in school. In the absence of that, books such as this set a false narrative. We cannot rewrite or overturn history, but it is my belief we should acknowledge that it happened.
On reflection then, it is a good idea I keep this book, as others have commented. I am grateful to the ultimate commenter for inspiring me to revisit my first reaction. Sadly, as the comment is anonymous, that person will not be aware of my conclusion.
(Source: Australian Women Writers Challenge https://australianwomenwriters.com/aww-books/1940s/; Australian Dictionary of Biography; Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Rupertswood mansion side angle shot, sourced from Wikimedia Commons, author Tim Wether
Rupertswood is also world famous due to hosting the first ever “Ashes” series between Australia and England. In 1882, the touring English cricket team came to Rupertswood to play a social game of cricket, winning against a local team. Lady Clarke took the bails, burnt them and presented them to the English captain as a trophy. To this day, the Ashes have become one of the most sought-after trophies in sporting history. (Source: https://www.melbournepoint.com.au/attractions/rupertswood-mansion/)
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