Author

Anne Skyvington

Londinium

Tonight: Despite our best-laid plans, our travel was initially upset by the Qantas engineers’ “requirements” (strike). We were bused to the Ibis Hotel in Darling Harbour in Sydney to spend our first night, instead of in Singapore.

Once we got to Singapore, we managed to grab six hours’ “horizontal time” at the Traders’ Hotel, before getting on the Qantas flight for London at 2 am the next morning.

Flying over London at 7 am in fine weather was breathtaking. The first landmark that was pointed out to me on the edge of the Thames was “The London Eye,” as it has become known: the highest ferris wheel in the world. Then I saw the Tower Bridge and felt like I was really in London. Londoners believe it to be the most famous bridge in the world, and yet most outsiders don’t even know its name: “Isn’t it London Bridge?” they ask.

Trafalgar Square

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Memoir

A Country College Residence for Women

Armidale Teachers’ College in the New England Tablelands, was an impressive building where we went for courses each day during the week. We trudged up the hill with a group of friends from Smith House, situated in Barney Street near the town centre, to the college at the top.

At the College, we were joined by our male counterparts, who had trudged, similarly to us, from their lodgings at Newling House and in the town, to take part in courses.

Many of us, like Heather, Daphne and me, were from country regions; others were from “the big smoke” of Sydney, like my roommate, Julie.

We were studying to become primary and infants school teachers, or some of us secondary, at the time. A few of us, like myself, left for overseas, as soon as we had completed the obligatory three years, and I did not return to full-time primary school teaching.

But the education we received at ATC will never be forgotten, in some ways not surpassed. And then there were the friends we met, like the young women with me in the photo of us back then, my Smith House companions, known as “The Southall Girls”. We went to a Photo studio in Armidale in 1961, to have our group and individual photos taken. Dianne Short (married name, Gallaghar) was not able to be present, so her photo was superimposed into the photo top left.

Top: Dianne, Sandy, Heather, Jill, Marnie, Julie, Daphne. Bottom left: Anne, Leonie.

We lived in one wing of Smith House called Southall, a Victorian era building with lace trimmings on the balconies. It was actually a separate section joined to the rest of Smith House for convenience sake.

Our names were like our hairdos, a signal of the times: Dianne, Sandy, Heather, Jill, Marnie, Julie, Daphne, Anne and Leonie or Lee.

I recently learnt of a doctor who had lived in our building at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and who had shot himself in one of the bedrooms, accidentally, under strange circumstances. In hindsight, this sent a shiver up my spine. Yes, I’m a little superstitious! I thought back to the seance that we had conducted using an ouiji board in, quite possibly, that very room. I would be interested to know what the name, or first letter, was that we conjured up together that night with our hands on the pointer. The final word that the pointer arrived at was ‘Elysian Fields’. Daphne, in the far right of the photo, above, was a bright, funny girl I’d first met at primary school in Grafton. She claimed later on, that she had forced the pointer to spell out the letters, E-L-Y-S-I-A-N, so we’ll never know if there was a ghost willing to be contacted in that room that night.

Despite the fact that I did not really want to teach children, and despite the strictures placed on us at Smith House, my memory of this time in this group is one that I treasure. We all seemed to complement one another with our different names and personalities, some “bigger”, some “meeker”, like our different hairdos. But all contributed in some way to the group dynamics.

I was shocked that first evening when Miss Dulcie Lindsay, the “head warden”, as she was called, in her mannish grey suits and black shoes, made her first speech, and told us we would have to sign in and out by 9 pm every week night and 11 pm on weekends. She acknowledged that we would want to “try out our wings” which made it worse, for I had had enough of this at home, and I wanted to take off. I found my way to the University of New England the next day, to see if there was any chance of enrolling there. Of course, there wasn’t, and how could I have afforded it, in any case?

Most of us remained immature and innocent during those two years. I remember thinking how “bad” the girls from Sydney were, always climbing in and out of windows and balconies after hours. But they knew how to look after themselves and never got caught!

Lynne says she used to let them in a lot, as she had the room at the front of Smith House. And she, herself, got caught as luck—or misfortune—would have it.

As for us, we made our own fun together, and we had lots of it. Who knows if it would have been better or not to have had more freedom?

Looking back from the College balcony towards the town in 2011

September 27, 2012 6 comments

Memoir

My Brother Donny

My brother Donny was brave. He could climb the tallest trees in the valley where we grew up. I was three and afraid of the dark. Dad sent me back to my room in the middle of the night. He wanted Mum all to himself. I climbed in next to Donny and felt the flip of his penis like a lizard, as he moved in his sleep to make room for me. Donny wasn’t afraid of snakes or frogs or anything.

We rode Midge bareback and did circus tricks upon his rump. Donny got blamed for everything. The scapegoat. In biblical times he was sent out into the desert for the sins of his brethren.

He even got blamed for putting water in the rain gauge. I did it to punish Uncle Eric for scaring me. He scared me with his gruffness. He ran Grandma’s farm like the Godfather. His red face, loud mouth and jerky hands on the reins.

When my brother went off to school, I was sad and angry. He didn’t notice me when he came home from school on that first day. The longest day of my life. Only now do I realise it was a case of unrequited love on my part. No one knew. Not even Donny.

Mum and Grandma laughed when I said the words, Say you love me, Donny. At the end of the longest day.

I like ya, he replied. Part of the male tribe now.

I might have shouted out bad words after that: I hate you, I hate you. Down by the gum trees on the farm next to the swamps. That’s where I went to escape, bareback on Midge.

One day Midge reared up and crushed Donny’s skull. I felt guilty, as if it was my fault. Donny wasn’t good at school. Not like Billy, the cuckoo in the nest. Mum said he was a genius. When he listened to the ‘Chickabidees of the Air’. He was only two or three.

‘There’s a thin line between genius and madness!’ Grandma said to her.

Donny found birds’ eggs and blew the muck out of them through a tiny hole. He put a speck of red wax on the hole and placed them in a glass-lidded box.

Once he caught a sparrow on the farm next door, and showed it to Old Ned. He took it from him, raised the axe slowly and deliberately, and smashed its head upon a block.

Don’s head has been asleep for a long time now. It’s time for me to go to him in the nursing home. It’s time to whisper in his ear. The same words of love I cried out that day long ago. He’s in a dark place and afraid to let go. Time now to fly and soar like an eagle high up in the sky.

Fly, Brother Eagle, fly!

eagle-soaring

September 27, 2012 6 comments

Book Reviews Books Writing

Tirra Lirra By The River by Jessica Anderson

Where does the title of this book come from?

In 1978, Jessica Anderson won the the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her fourth novel, Tirra Lirra by the River, published by Macmillan. It has rarely been out of print since.

Yet many readers are unaware of the origin of the title. It comes from a romantic poem, The Lady of Shalott, by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1842; it is his most tragic one.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed;
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

The story of the poem: (Thanks to Jane Gleeson-white for her excellent summary of the poem’s plot in her 2010 Overland article “Farewell Jessica Anderson—1916-2010—and Thanks”)

“The title Tirra Lirra by the River comes from one of Tennyson’s most popular and tragic poems, ‘The Lady of Shalott’. It is about a woman, the Lady of Shalott, who is confined in a tower on an island in a river that flows to Camelot. She is cursed to sit alone and to see the bustling world of Camelot below only through its reflection in her mirror. And so she spends her time sitting by her window, watching the reflected world in her mirror, recording it with her needle and thread in tapestry”.

“One day the Lady of Shalott sees in her mirror a dark-haired man riding by. It is Sir Lancelot: ‘“Tirra lirra,” by the river / Sang Sir Lancelot.’ She rushes to her window and looks straight at the world below, the unreflected world, as she is forbidden to do. The curse is triggered, her life must end. The Lady of Shalott goes down to the river where she finds a boat. After writing ‘The Lady of Shalott’ on its prow she lies down and, singing, floats toward Camelot. And she dies with the unfinished song on her lips.”

To plot or not to plot…

Jessica Anderson, the author of one of my favourite books of all time, died on 9th July, 2010 at ninety-three years of age. Her funeral was held at the South Chapel in Malabar, and many literary notables were present including David Malouf, who gave the tribute. She went quietly, her passing being largely unnoticed, which was typical of the woman and of her life. She won the Miles Franklin Award for this novel, written at a time when there was a dearth of fiction by women writers in Australia. She wrote several more novels, one of which, The Impersonaters also won awards. Later on, she made a conscious decision that she would write no more fiction.

The content

The book is written in the first person from the viewpoint of an elderly woman, and describes the character’s life in Queensland, then in London, and on board the ship that took her there, as well as events unfolding when she returned to Australia. It is written with such spirit, that readers have assumed that the elderly woman was Jessica Anderson, who was, however, in her forties when she wrote the book.

The structure

Tirra Lirra has never been made into a film, partly because much of it is in flash-back mode, which means that the forward movement necessary for action and good cinematography is missing. As someone once said: “Nothing happens in the novel.” In an Australian Book Review article, Kerryn Goldsworthy writes:

“It is a book about the inner life: about memory, imagination, and the still, silent workings of one person’s mind. The novel’s external time frame is not much more than a month or so, while Nora is almost immobilised by illness. But the story is essentially one long act of remembering, covering almost seventy years, punctuated by short forays into the present day when things happen to jog her memory further. There is very little action, except within the frame of her memories. And yet this book has been widely read, widely praised and widely loved by two or three generations of Australians”. https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/reading-australia/jessica-anderson/tirra-lirra-by-the-river-by-jessica-anderson

Plot versus character

The men in my life seem to have no trouble in imagining storylines. I have received help from my brother, whose storyline ideas for me were imaginative and full of surprises. And he reiterated what I already knew myself, that I had to write fiction, not memoir, to escape from the bind of “facts” or “truth”. Whether writing in the first or third person, I can become “me but not me” or try to escape totally from the “I” of the narrator. Fiction is more liberating.

This leads me to postulate the possibility that plotting is a “male skill”, whereas female writers often tend to write more in segments and rearrange these into a workable plot afterwards. Aristotle believed that plot/story were more important than characterisation. Women friends and writers often show a preference for characterisation. I realise that this is akin to saying that men are more rational and women are more emotional: a terrible stereotype!

However, traditional “maculine virtues”, such as heroism, strength and war, can easily be seen as linked to plot lines; and strengths, such as being in touch with deep feelings correlate well with femaleness. Thus: characterisation. That is not to say that men and women fall strictly into either category. For, as a devoted Jungian, I know that each one of us is composed of both female and male qualities in differing degrees: the animus/anima archetype.

Favourite writers who may fit the stereotype

A favourite male writer is the American, Paul Auster, who manages to write interesting stories with male characters. He is that rare breed of writer who is also drawn to experimenting with form in his novels. His memoir-based novel The Invention of Solitude throws some light on his obsession with male characters. At the beginning of many of his novels, the characters are often dying, old, blind, or linked to death and sickness. The plot is probably the dominant feature in the books that I have read: Man in the Dark, The Brooklyn Follies, The New York Trilogy, Invisible, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and The Music of Chance.

His wife, Siri Hustvedt, probably also fits the stereotype, in that her novels stress the emotional through her characters. The plot lines are strong, but the focus is more on vibrant characters. Books of hers that I have read and loved: The Sorrows of an American, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, and What I Loved.

The answer to plotting or writing in segments…

I have come to realise through my own writings that, no matter how or where you start off, you will almost certainly need to explore the opposite pole of the plot/character continuum, at some stage during the writing or re-writing of your novel or short story.

September 27, 2012 1 comment

Memoir Writing

Water Memories

My very first water experience is in my mother’s womb. I’m safe, secure, warm. I swim, mermaid-like, do somersaults and swallow the magic fluid. I imagine that I’ll never leave this watery place.

Down the Back

At Waterview the humid scorching air engulfs us; the heat, ruthless, tears at our skin and sends us kids scurrying towards water. My brothers swing Tarzan-like from overhanging scribbly gums, and jump into the creek on Dad’s bush paddock. Launching ourselves from tree roots embedded in the banks, we dive and bomb one another scattering tiny snakes and tree frogs that hide in the depths. I jump in and feel the clay squelchy and squidgy between my toes.

I try to hide my fears of the depths and copy my brothers in derring do. Yellow belly fear, like the bloated green tree frogs with bulging eyes staring down from the rafters of the outhouse, ready to pounce, gobble me up; green waters swirling; amphibian annihilation.

I don’t know where it came from, the fear. My elder brother went off to school at four and found a solid niche for himself within his intellect. Donny, the second brother, was fearless as a warrior. As soon as he could run, he climbed tall trees in search of birds’ eggs, rode bareback and played the clown at school.

I am Minny-Ha-Ha to his Hiawatha the Brave.

Often I was afraid of the dark. One time I screamed out in the middle of the night:

“Monsters. Big black bogey man…under the bed…”

Dad races into the kids’ bedroom and flashes a torch underneath my bed. I want to crawl in between him and Mum in their double bed, but it’s out of bounds. I crawl in with Donny instead, snuggle up to his naked body; feel the flip of his penis like a lizard as he moves over to let me in; I fall into a deep sleep o contentment.

~~~

Early memories are bathed in warmth. I am sitting in a pink tub on the old wooden table in the kitchen next to the fuel stove. It is dusk. A golden ball of light sinks into the hills to the west. The warm water soothes my body. I splash my hands in it and crow.

Mummy laughs and rubs me all over with Lifebuoy soap, pours the water over my dark brown hair that is just like hers. The kitchen is bathed in a soft hazy glow. Mummy is listening for the jeep to pull up at the front. I listen too. We will hear him opening the wire gate and driving through into the back yard.

Mummy is laughing now at the black stallion through the window as it frisks and plays with the piebald and bay mares. Her laugh is the laugh of a naughty child. I don’t know what she is laughing at.

The kitchen is warm, warm from the heat of the stove and the last rays of the sun dropping in the west. And I sit in the tin tub waiting for the sound of Daddy’s footsteps.

He bursts in, eyes twinkling and red-cheeked from a beer at the pub, and goes straight to me, picking me up in those strong sun-browned arms and calling me his ‘Little Angie-Pangie’, tossing me up into the air and showering me with kisses. Mummy watches us.

~~~

One very early memory is of tombstone-like coldness. A nurse places my skinny body in a hot tub. I have Scarlet Fever. I’m hallucinating. A large black bull chasing me.

“Put her in hospital or you’ll carry her out in a box!” the doctor says.

It’s when the fear, the frozenness, first enters me. I’m taken away from my mother. They put me in a sterile ward in the hospital. It’s opposite the Grafton Gaol.

Daddy brings a tiny rabbit to the windowpane of the children’s ward where I am quarantined. It reminds me that goodness, gentleness still exist the coldness and trauma.

At the end of three weeks, just before Mummy comes to take me home, a nurse places me in a tub of hot water. The sensation of my body afloat in salving water, remains with me to this day.

Not long after this, Daddy drives Mummy and me to Moree. I am the littlest princess. Billy and Donny, five and six, are left at Grandma’s farm, directly across the Highway from our house.

There is one tourist attraction at Moree: the public baths. They’re not just any baths, but ones formed from natural salt springs hidden beneath the ground. Discovered when an engineer sank a drill in search of oil, the hot salt water spurted up like a miracle, an offering from the gods.

Now I’m floating in the warm salt waters of the baths. Mummy and Daddy are holding me up in their arms. It’s heaven. Just the three of us. Floating there. On the surface barely a ripple. h hot waters holding us all up, the three of us, just floating there, on the surface, all is well with my world

~~~

On the way back home to Waterview, I spy through the window of our car, a host of tiny snowflake white lambs dotted all around the fields with their mothers.

“Daddy, Daddy! I wan’ one! Pleease can I have one!”

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong, for cris’sake?”

“I want a baby lamb! Daddy, Pleeease can I?”

Mum laughs. Dad stops the car and lets me take a closer look, but it does not assuage the terrible want, the aching hole like hunger, like unquenchabe thirst. I yearn to hold one of the babies in my arms, not merely drink it in through my eyes. In fact, the stopover makes me covet it all the more strongly and urgently, and I whine and cry for a lamb for the rest of the trip.

Mum is a bit deaf by this stage. “Just ignore her, Will,” she says. “She will stop after a while.”

“I wan’ one… I wan’ one…”

“Here, have a lolly to suck on…” and she reaches into the back and sticks it in my mouth.

“I wan’ one!” my voice slobbery now, as well as whining, through the dribbles from the sticky crunchy peppermint stuck to my teeth.

For once my father, who rarely gave into our pleadings for things, seemed to consider the possibility.

“When I have time, I’ll make enquiries. Just give us some peace will you, Angie?”

And that is exactly what he did when we got back home. It was quite a sturdy beast, not the soft toy-like babies of the tablelands, but it was the gesture that counted. I wonder now, whether it touched a chord in him, something to do with his secret yearnings. “All I ever wanted was a mate to share my life with,” he told me once. Much later on.

But it’s the Moree baths I remember most of all.

moree-baths

September 27, 2012 4 comments

Writing

Keeping It Real

An editor at a recent workshop stressed the importance of “keeping it real”, when writing fiction. That is, at least partly, why I started off on the writing journey with memoir. From there I moved on to writing memoir using fictional techniques of characterisation and events. From this sort of creative memoir, I graduated to writing fiction.

In the beginning, I felt that non-fiction equalled “realness”, authenticity. And I feared that I would fall prey to artificiality, if I used my sole imagination in writing fiction. My fiction would come across as unbelievable, the opposite of the French word ‘vraisemblable’.

I have now come to the realisation that this is not entirely true. Many writers seem to cut loose from memoir and use their imagination when writing fiction. However, even if the connection is unconscious or tenuous, writers will always draw from what they know.

And one needs to employ fictional or creative techniques in writing non-fiction, too. That is if you want it to be good or accessible to the reader.

So the trick is to write about what you know, while at the same time employing the literary devices, such as narrative techniques, characterisation, dialogue and imagery.

Photomontage – Composite of 16 different photos which have been digitally manipulated to give the impression that it is a real landscape. Software used: Adobe Photoshop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is usually obvious to a reader when a writer of fiction is going “over the top” in terms of language, plot or descriptions. Of course, sometimes this is warranted by the genre or the type of writing, however in general it is best to conjure up the appearance of reality by choice of words. Relying on sensationalism is usually not a good idea. Nor is the overkill of too many adjectives and adverbs.

Our editor friend explained the situation by saying that richness in content is OK, but not wordiness in style. For example, a very painful experience in someone’s life does not become more powerful through the use of many adjectives. It is better to choose one apt or original one, rather than to lay them on thick like jam. So the need to cut and tighten are often paramount when it comes to a writer’s first manuscript. And sometimes it will be a whole paragraph, or a whole scene, that are causing the flab, or are wasteful.

Editors and publishers are also looking for honesty and originality. So write about what you know. If you are uncomfortable, or “haven’t faced up to your demons” it may be better to not go there yet, as you can’t pull back once you have started on a particular pathway.

The session ended on a positive note with the call to list what you know, as you don’t always know what you know.

Many of the ideas here are gleaned from the presentation given to our group by Catherine Hammond, a freelance editor with valuable experience in the publishing area, whose input is always appreciated.

My photo of Sydney Harbour is only slightly air-brushed using Photoshop, which I am trialling at the moment. If I made too many changes, it would result in something verging on artificial. Like the hyperbolical texts referred to above. I see my creative writing and photography going hand-in-hand, as I enjoy the challenge of improving in both areas.

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Writing

Creative Nonfiction: a modern genre

I have finally purchased a Kindle. Amazon had just released this bigger model (9″ diagonal) that suited me well, since I was wearing reading glasses at the time, and often suffered from tired eyes.

Today, in 2018, they have slick new 6″ ones that my partner has just purchased.

I love the pictures in the traditional ones, focusing on famous literary figures of the past, like the one of “Sybilla”, that appears on the screen when you turn it off. Note the famous Rossetti oil painting of Sybilla below.

the-art-of-creative-nonfiction I am just starting to learn about the main features, of which there are many, and am already nearly through my first downloaded book: The Art of Creative Nonfiction by Lee Gutkind. He’s a great writer and an excellent teacher. This is a good one to start with, as it contains excerpts of creative nonfiction essays in the appendix.

Like the good academic that he is, Gutkind defines the term “creative nonfiction” in the beginning, as “true stories well told”.

He then proceeds to give examples of the two aspects.

Firstly, Creative Features, that is, just like in fiction, the importance of Theme, Scenes, Dialogue, Framing, Imagery, Characterisation.

Secondly, the Nonfiction Aspect, i.e. the story or content, which Lee Gutkind likes to think of as the teaching part.

During his discussions, he uses examples from his own writings and places them in the context of his “immersion” technique that involves merging with the lives of the people he is depicting, such as at the transplant hospital, the Mayo Clinic, in his own city of Pittsburgh. And in the appendix there is a lot of important information for new writers, admittedly focusing on American input, but also applicable in general.

What I think I will download next is his book that presents more examples of this genre of writing: The Best Creative Nonfiction.

Sybilla by Rossetti

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Writing

Organising a Book Launch

I have been very busy these last few weeks and months, assisting with the organising of the “Bondi Tides” Anthology. We have had to make decisions on the venue; food and drink; readings; invitations; publicity; flyers; the person to launch the book; sale of books; and protocol.

The editor of the anthology, Carol Chandler has had experience with book launches before, and has been instrumental in making final choices. We in the BWG are are all excited about this coming event, which is to be held on St Patrick’s Day, 17th March, at the Waverley Library in Bondi Junction. We might even pick up some of the many Irish backpackers who inhabit Bondi Beach. The Mayor of Waverley John Wakefield, has agreed to attend, along with the president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW, Trevar Langlands.

Bondi Writers had long been part of the Fellowship, and sponsored and supported by them, as well as by the Waverley Library.

The Fellowship of Australian Writers was launched in Sydney in 1928 by a group including Mary Gilmore, and has fostered the skills of well-known writers, such as Miles Franklin, down through the years. The Bondi Writers Group was the Eastern suburbs branch of the Fellowship, and was founded in 2004. Members have had success in competitions, been published in literary magazines and anthologies, and had books published. The NSW Fellowship quarterly bulletin “Writers Voice” contained competitions and information from the branches, of which there are more than twenty in all.

Other Commitments of the last four weeks: I have nursed my partner after an ankle replacement; assisted my daughter with a newborn baby and toddler; presided over Bondi Writers’ Group blog; started adding content to a new website; tried to keep writing creatively; attended an uncle’s funeral; and took part in family get-togethers with extended families from places as far afield as Sydney, Darwin, Mullumbimby and the Hunter Valley. Enough excuses for neglecting my blogs …

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Book Reviews Books Writing

A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette

Cynthia Rowe was a long-term member of Bondi Writers Group. She was President of the group for nearly four years and is currently the Editor of ‘Haiku Australia’. Cynthia is a successful writer of fiction and poetry. See her website at http//cynthiarowe.com.au. My review of her book follows:

This is the latest book in the Genna Perrier series, following on from Our Hollow Sofa, Ants in My Dreadlocks, and Stinger in a Sugar Jar.

I must admit to thoroughly enjoying this latest one in the Genna series from so many points of view. It has an exciting plotline to picque the interest of any young adult (and young-at-heart oldie!). Other interesting elements include: mystery, romance, humour, strong characters, and New Caledonian cultural, political and linguistic references.

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Anne Skyvington

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