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Writers corner

This month- pages from the Pacific.

When I began my first real job I had the Pacific in my ears and eyes. I had read Grimble’s, “A Pattern of Islands” many times. I recall daydreaming at High School of visiting mystical Palmyra Island, that beautiful legendary atoll and wondered how the Syrian Palmyra known as the “bride of the desert” with its wreckage of an ancient history had become renamed in an isolated place mid Pacific. Maybe the commonality is isolation. Or sand.
I never (yet) got to Palmyra but fail to see what could be more beautiful than Aitutaki atoll. Even much maligned Madang is beautiful and still has a touch of the “old” Pacific about it.

The other day I picked up “South Sea Bubbles “ by the Earl and the Doctor (Richard Bentley and Son, 1895) and reading it made me realise that the lure of the Pacific was not only the domain of schoolboys who dream and of Cook’s sailors who found Tahiti so alluring but was also the domain of the travelling intelligentsia of Victorian England. The Earl and the Doctor (actually the Earl of Pembroke and Dr Kingley) were coy about their identity because in the preface Pembroke (anonymously) says that although any young girl would not be the worst for reading the book it was never intended for their perusal. You can read it however as it’s now in stock, one copy only. Hhhmm. Well it is frank and it does talk about sex. So I guess that’s what that preface was about. The book itself, written as it were from a superior person’s visage, is actually refreshingly honest and frank.

When I began that first job (in Suva as a cadet journalist) I had been interviewed by the famous R.W. Robson who owned the South Pacific Post in Port Moresby as well as the Fiji Times and Herald in Suva. There I was, 17 years old and in Suva. Breathtaking! I could feel the air around me thick and moist, I could see the breakers smashing on the reef. I could interview the last of the Fijian cannibals…the love affair began.
Reading R.W. Robson’s “Queen Emma” (Pacific Publications 1973) and much came back, a case of deja vu all over again eh! I had heard of Queen Emma when travelling the Pacific from Apia, Rarotonga to Rabaul. And what a fantastic story of a life…all Pacific, larger than life and full to the brim.
The reminiscences has caused me peruse the Pacific material we have for sale, for, including the books named above; we have a good deal of Pacific based material.

One of my favourites is “Pirates of the Pacific” by A. Grove-Day (Merideth Press, 1968). Did you know the first Englishman to stand on Australian soil was essentially a privateer, a pirate? Indeed it was, for William Dampier was that and much more. It is difficult to obtain material on Dampier but we have a copy “Dampier’s Voyages” by A.E.M Bayliss (Harrap, 1945) in stock. If you like adventure stories this is for you.
Another book that has the touch of the pirate about it is about John Fraser who sought gold in Fiji. His story “Gold Dish and Kava Bowl” (Dent and Sons 1954) is simply fantastic.

A good history of the Pacific is “The Southwest Pacific since 1900’. It charts the economy and political history of the Pacific…. not Grimble for sure but interesting nevertheless.
I always include PNG and Northern Australia into my circle of the Pacific so any books I can source on those areas I gather up. We have, for example, Gavin Souters “The Last Unknown” on the history of European exploration in PNG.and J.P. Sinclair’s “Behind the Ranges” about patrolling in PNG. Both superb stories.

I must not forget Tom Cole’s “The Last Paradise” in which Tom recalls his PNG crocodile hunting days, which began, after his Northern Territory adventure was over.
Another not to be missed is James Sinclair’s story about Jack Hides in Papua; it is called “The Outside Man”. I must check to see if there is any connection between Jack Hides and Hides Hotel in Cairns

I like Frank Flynn’s “Northern Gateway” for a view of the North of Australia, which is not swashbuckling but has honesty and justice at is core.
Douglas Lockwood’s “Crocodiles and Other People’ (1974 Rigby) is to my mind one of the better historical stories along with Tom Cole’s more adventurous books about Northern Australia such as “Hell West and Crooked”
I got used to thinking of Banfield as writing “Confessions of a Beachcomber” only but the famous beachcomber of Dunk Island wrote other books. We have a rare copy of “Last Leaves from Dunk Island” (1925, Angus and Robertson) and “Tropic Days” (Fisher Unwin Ltd 1918.). They indicate what a hard working ‘beachcomber” Banfield really was.

My beloved “Journals of Cooks Voyage 1776-1780” have been sold I sadly report. I hid them away for a long time but an astute Cook researcher found them.
Well its Christmas time again and what more to say but thanks for sticking with us and make sure you let Christmas wash over you like the Palmyra surf…have a good one.

Until next time.

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