Writer's Block

 

A weight on my shoulders

I have rarely suffered from writer's block. More normally, I have the opposite problem, too many ideas chasing to little time. Yet now I struggle to write anything really productive. The ideas and words won't flow.

I know that part of the problem is that I'm over-extended, a perennial problem that I can normally manage to some degree at least. It's partly that I have been pushing too hard, building frustration with myself. But beyond these two things lies a simple fact, my reading has collapsed. 

I don't know about you, but many of my ideas and some of my language comes from others. I pick up some ideas through personal interaction, more through books. 

Inevitably, a fair proportion of my reading is professional. Most recently, this has been strongly connected with my main history project, the history of New England, something I will write about on my history blog in my part completed annual review. This reading feeds into the community activities I have added since I returned to Armidale. I value these, I have objectives to achieve, but they do take time.

The reading outside that I have to do is the area of collapse. I used to read widely in what I call my train reading. This began with a conscious effort to pick books at random off my shelves that I had not read to read on the train. There were two rules: I had to finish the book and then write something about it. I found it very stimulating, forcing me in new directions. 

Many of the books were much older, some now 150 years old. I am not talking "classics" here, although some were. Rather, they were a varied range often inherited from my father or grandfather, most now long disposed of in the skips used by libraries to clear books considered as irrelevant or out of date. As I read the memoirs of a long dead foreign correspondent or a pioneering study of the classical world or an analysis of Chinese history, I absorbed "new" old ideas as well as new ways of writing. English style changes, but change does not always mean improvement. 

In truth, my train reading declined after I stopped travelling to Parramatta. It is one thing to read stuck on a train or bus, a second to allocate time in the morning or afternoon to read things not relevant to one's immediate concerns. Then the thought that you should really be doing other, more "relevant" things, constantly intrudes. However, I did retain other reading for a period. Most recently, that has dropped too, as have my general writing notes.   

I need to address this. Sitting in front of a computer trying to research and especially write when neither ideas or words will flow is not especially helpful. After a point, it becomes totally unproductive. Somehow I have to re-learn just how to read for pleasure without specific objective no matter what else I should be doing! 

         

  

Train Reading - Introducing John Buchan's Memory Hold-the-Door, Nevil Shute's Slide Rule

John Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door

I fear that my reading has become sadly truncated. I blame covid-19, but in truth it happened much earlier. I suppose that it was associated with a broader ennui.

I have never, perhaps rarely, read individual books because I must. When told to do so, I find myself in rebellion, Sometimes, David Copperfield is an example, the book stays with me later. Mostly, they drift into the vacuum of my mind, there to be lost.

My train reading began because I had large bookcases of unread books on one side, a longish bus and train rde both ways on the other, The rules were simple: I had to select one book that I had not read, finish it whether or not I liked it, and then write a post.

The practice provided a liberal education because my remnant library is a meld of three generations, grandfather, father and mine with books over multiple ages.  I decided that I liked older styles of writing and that older views were not outdated simply by the passage of time and fashion. My knowledge of history also expanded because the older books ask different questions and have different assumptions. This applies to non-history texts as much as history texts.

With time, I started adding modern books that I thought that I should read. This was an error in some ways, diluting the original purpose.  I was no longer forced to address different ideas, some of which I profoundly disagreed  Then I stopped travelling. Drift set in because I was no longer travelling. I tried to create specific time blocks for my train reading, but found a curious thing. Train time had been dead time to be filled as I wished. Now I still had the time, but found that the thought that I should be doing something else productive kept intervening.

I know that this was silly, irrational. My train reading had been interesting, stimulating, valuable, but I couldn't help myself. I blame the whole thing on my protestant background!

A few weeks back I made a determined effort to begin again, plucking two books of my shelves to read in parallel. Both had been purchased from Boobooks here in Armidale. Each had cost the princely sum of $10. Both were autobiographies by prolific writers whose writing I had really enjoyed. Both dealt with the author's life outside writing, although the interconnections between their life experiences and their written work was clear.

The first book was John Buchan's Memory Hold-the-Door completed just before his death in 1940. Born in 1875, Buchan was a prolific writer. publishing 100 works including nearly 30 novels, seven collections of short stories, and biographies of Sir Walter Scott, Caesar Augustus, and Oliver Cromwell. He was also a barrister, colonial administrator and diplomat, a member of parliament and, finally, a very successful Canadian Governor.

Memory Hold-the-Door focuses on aspects of Buchan's personal and public life, including his evolving beliefs. His writing is rarely mentioned. The book includes many vignettes, short biographies of his friends and colleagues, although he consciously chosen to exclude the living.   

Nevil Schute Norway to give him his full name, was born in 1899. As Nevil Schute Norway, he practised as an aeronautical engineer in the foundation days of aircraft production and civil aviation. As Nevil Schute, he published 23 books including On the Beach and A Town like Alice. He chose the shortened form of his name as a pen-name to avoid conflict with his aircraft and aviation activities.

As the name suggests, Slide Rule focuses on Shute's aviation experience. It's a rattling good yarn, to use a phrase both men would have appreciated.

I knew that many of Shute's earlier books had an aviation background including No Highway, Published in 1948, the book's hero is an eccentric boffin at RAE Farnborough who predicts metal fatigue in a new civil airliner but is not believed. Within four years, the de Havilland DH 106 Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner, would experience metal fatigue related crashes, in so doing destroying the hopes of the British aircraft industry.

While I knew of Shute's background, I had no idea just how significant a figure he was in the early days of the aircraft industry as an engineer and businessman.

I will tell you a little more about these men and their autobiographies in later train reading posts.           





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On vanishing down rabbit holes - the case of Arthur Ransome

My family and friends laugh at me because of my ability to find connections between New England and apparently totally disconnected figures.

This is the English children's writer, Arthur Ransome. I really liked his books as a child. My favourite was We didn't mean to go to sea. It was a present from my parents.

Later, I tried to share Ransome with my children, buying Swallows and Amazons. It didn't grab. It was too remote.

Now what has all this to do with vanishing down rabbit holes? Well, I had an email from Cathie L asking me whether a certain homestead near Walcha still existed because it was once owned by Ransome's grandfather.  I had no idea that there was a Ransome connection. That was where the rabbit hole came in, for with info from Cathie I was off on a web search combined with emailing local historians.

 I have a total new story, although I can't write about it yet because I need to clear it with Cathie. But it involves a Dutch battle field, a New England station that carried its name, a squatter and early Australian painter. With the Russian revolution and espionage thrown in.

The only problem is that none of this was on my writing agenda including this blog. Sigh! this is happening all the time now that I am back on the New England.   

Monday Forum - what are your favourite idioms?

The phrase the curate's egg dates back to England in the 1890s. Today it means not bad in patches, but also dreadful! 

Do you know what phrases, idioms, like the curate's egg, double dutch, jump a rattler, hump a bluey, whistling in the wind, browned off, life's not all beer and skittles, windy or queer the pitch mean? Or indeed, where they come from?

 It will not come as a surprise that I was a bookish child. I suppose that I still am. Well, bookish anyway. I sometimes think that the child part still applies at times! My books came from different times and indeed different countries. I absorbed idioms from those books, but also from life.

I really first became aware of this part of a my language many years ago when a work colleague, a Canadian, asked me what I meant, In this case, I wrote him a one page story using Australian slang, Needless to say, he barely understood a word, so I thin explained!

Years later,  I was standing in the reception area at work when my friend on the desk asked me what something I said meant. She commented on the number of words or phrases that I used that she did not understand. Since I am a writer writing in the present, this was actually a useful corrective! Still, I have many terms that I am not going to give up.

So here is your challenge for this Monday Forum. What phrases do you love and use that may have dropped out of current usage, Feel free, of course,  to go off topic! And for those in other countries, do add in and confuse your Australian readers!

To get you thinking, this site might help - The Phrase Finder. .  . 

Saturday Morning Musings - reflections on the end of a writing contract

On Thursday I finished a part time contract rewriting policies for a community housing organisation. I still have some tidying up to do, but my task is basically over.

Reflecting on the experience,  I realised that this was actually the first contract work where my role was writing. In other cases, its been policy analysis with writing. Does this mean that I have made the jump to writing as a professional? Perhaps it does.

People underestimate,  I underestimate, just how long it takes to write simple. clear English. This is especially true when writing under the pressure of deadlines where the expectation (me included) is that a core part of the task is editing what is. It doesn't quite work like that and for several reasons.

The translation of a piece into a new structure and style takes time. There is a confidence issue - how much can you vary the text and get away with it? There is also a content issue.

Technical writing requires an understanding of the policy and processes that the writing is meant to encapsulate, so a multi-stage approach is required.What are the policy principles and processes? What gaps have to be filled? How should this be expressed in simple terms? Note that where there are gaps, the writer is effectively writing new policy and that requires research and commits the organisation. .

Words count. In writing, I was always conscious that what I was saying would have real effects on the organisation and the lives of people. In asking the question how might this work, I was going beyond the ambit of writer into new policy. Here I was reliant on the client to check what I had developed, to ensure that it was consistent with the organisation's ethos on one side, what had to be done on the other.

I was working for a rather good organisation. Later, when time has passed, I might write something here. To do so now would be a breach of confidence. I would like to write something because there were some fascinating cultural issues that I could compare to other organisations.

During this assignment, I realised how much confidence I had lost in previous contracts within the NSW Government sector.. I do not wish to be rude, but 33 re-writes of a Cabinet minute, 20 rewrites of a single policy statement, is not conducive to confidence, efficiency or, indeed, enthusiasm.

My immediate boss was a delight to work with. Committed to the project and mindful of deadlines, she was kind and also focused on what she could do to help. As an aside, I have noticed this generally in the housing sector, government and community. People are nice, committed.

Our boss was bright, sharp, impressive. This is where the confidence issue came in.

In technical writing, there is always a learning curve involved in learning the style of the particular organisation. Ten years' ago I would just have written what I thought was required, pointing to gaps and problems as I went along.

Now I started by taking what had been written and attempted to turn it into a new style that I was still learning. I thought that there were gaps, things that I didn't understand and also a sometimes authoritarian tone in the old policies that I did not like, but I was taking what was as my core base while I felt my way.

As we went along. my writing focus sharpened. I found that I did not need to rewrite, that my bosses' amendments improved my English, that the more authoritarian elements that I had retained were removed, that her comments on process gaps reflected my own feelings. I became more confident and the process speeded up. I was still running behind schedule because of the time taken in initial writing, some things just take time to write, but the turn-around time was excellent.

I'm not sure how best to capture this for you. Perhaps I could put it this way. Previously. for every week of writing, it might take ten weeks of redrafting to get to final. By the end of this contact, three days' drafting took two hours of re-drafting to get to final.

Initially I was working from home with one day in the office. We realised that this wasn't working and went to three and then four days in the office. Initially I was hot desking, but then I found a home in the legal section of the bigger organisation.

I really liked this. I had to bite my tongue sometimes. With my background, I was able to interpret far more of conversations than people realised. Once I left to go outside for a smoke because I suddenly realised that this was a conversation I should not hear. This is a general problem with open plan offices, even when people are keeping their voices down.

Given my background, it was fun sitting there. in the beginning, we joked about being sent to the naughty corner! By the end. legal had adopted me.  I was very touched when I was included in the legal Easter celebrations. Then I gave them a clue about a possible topic for their legal snippets series - the Anzac biscuit. And right at the end, I gave my neighbour a clue on a legal problem she faced that helped form the base of her advice to housing.

  As I left on Thursday, I made a point of thanking our legal team.

I learned a lot on this assignment.  I think that it has improved my writing. I may or may not work for them again. I did get very stressed at certain points. I did not deliver some things. But my work there will remain a high point. My thanks to them all..

 And I will get back to writing here! 
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When to use the Oxford comma?

Just where do you place, or not place, the comma? Image Madam Grammar

I am not a grammar nerd. I fear the controversy over the Oxford or serial comma escaped my attention for a very long time. Wikipedia defines such a comma in this way: "In English language punctuation, a serial comma or series comma (also called an Oxford comma or a Harvard comma) is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and or or) in a series of three or more terms." In the graphic above from Madam Grammar, you can see the Oxford comma in the second example.

I grew up in a world without Oxford commas. A comma marks a pause as does and, so you don't use them both. Indeed, just last week in editing documents originally written by someone enamoured of the Oxford comma I removed them with a degree of frustration, However, the March 2017 decision of a an Appeal Court in Maine, a decision that I have only just become aware of, made me reflect.

The case involved the question of whether drivers for the Oakhurst dairy in Maine were entitled to get paid overtime for some types of work. Under state law, drivers were supposed to get 1.5 times their normal pay for working overtime (more than 40 hours per week). However, the law provided some exceptions. Specifically in this case, you do not get special overtime pay for the following:

"The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:
1. Agricultural produce;

2. Meat and fish product; and

3. Perishable foods."

The case revolved around the absence of a comma after the word shipment. That missing comma cost Oakhurst $US5 million. You will find the full judgement here. It may appeal if you are a grammar nerd. 

Now before going on, Liz Bureman has a rather simple even masterly piece on the Oxford comma that  is worth reading.

I struggled a little with the judgement because it seemed to me that it wasn't just a question of a missing comma, but one of bad drafting that could have been avoided. 

A key thing in good drafting, it's something that lawyers such as Legal Eagle or marcellous have in spades, is the avoidance of ambiguity, the establishment of clarity. I sometimes struggle with that.

Had that clause come before me as an editor, my instinctive reaction would have been to insert commas after packing and distribution, thus reading " storing, packing, for shipment or distribution, of". In this case you have a series of activities which are exempted from overtime if they are being carried out for shipping or distribution. The acts of shipment and distribution would still have attracted overtime. To provide greater clarity still, the comma between storing and packing could have been replaced with and.  

Now say someone had said to me in response, "that's not right, we want to cover shipment and distribution as well. Then the clause would be amended to read "storing, packing, shipment and distribution of", replacing or with and. 

I said that I am not a grammar nerd. I reserve the right to continue to delete the Oxford comma in simple lists because it adds nothing, just detracts from the flow. Where there are ambiguities, then it comes back to the construction that provides the greatest clarity and, in my case, sounds best!  

Saturday Morning Musings - Return of Print

On the way home from lunch, I bought a copy of the Australian. I was barely a quarter of the way through before I left the bus.

Each morning I scan the news across across half a dozen outlets. I can do that in half an hour. I have decided to start buying print papers again.

At Christmas, I went book shopping as I do. My main bookshop was totally crowded. In that shopping center another bookshop has opened. At Eastgardens Pagewood a bookshop has opened. It's not very good, but it's the first for several years.

Globally and in Australia, Buzzfeed is retrenching staff.  In Northern NSW,  Fairfax Regional Media has introduced pay walls on main papers allowing you to access just three stories a month. I am not paid for my history columns, but I did have access to the e-edition of the paper. Then the paper began running my stories in the on-line edition, usually appearing well before the Wednesday Express Extra, the print version for my columns and often on the on-line front page. Then as part of the changes, I lost access to the e-edition and could not access my stories on-line

The limit is three on story access is three. I publish four and also want to check what I have published so I am rather stuffed. I complained to my editor, but there appears to be nothing he can do. He cannot even give me personal on-line access even though a subscription was part of the original deal. He also said that out-of -towners who wanted to read the columns would be okay because they could access three columns without charge.

This view suffers from two problems. Out-of-towners like to read more than three stories when they visit and, in any case, they can't read all my stories because there are more than three in a month. So I can't really promote the columns in the paper. That has to wait until they are on-line on my history blog.

Perhaps the most important problem in all this is the Fairfax pay rule has turned much of Northern NSW, my broader New England, into a news' black-hole so far as those living outside New England are concerned. Note that the News' papers brought from APN also have pay walls.We have an entire area of Australia that has largely become a news black-hole not just for those living outside the area but also for those within who live outside or are interested in more than their immediate area. And that's most.

I will return to this issue later. For the moment, I want to come back to my headline.

The question of on-line v print is not an either or, but one of balance and promotion. In this mix, print is coming back. let me give an example. D E Stevenson's books appeal to a niche. When we just had print, they dropped out of publication. Now, most are back in e-editions that can justify small runs. But as e-publishing has grown, so has print publishing for those who like the physical product. The totality of e and print means that almost all of her books are, once again, available to readers.

     

Reflections on my latest Armidale trip - drought, Airbnb and still more New England writers

I was up country last week. As I topped the mountain, the southern New England was showing traces of green, but the country then got very dry indeed. All the verges along Thunderbolt's Way showed signs of grazing from travelling stock, although this time there were no stock on the road either coming or going.

I kept a wary eye out for roos, there have been a number of accidents with hungry roos crossing roads looking for grazing. but while I saw some roadkill there were no live ones. Just as well. I was a little tired driving in both directions and it was also raining for a lot of the time. Not enough to break the drought, but it should give some greenpick if the frosts hold off.

I was thinking as I drove about the droughts I have known. The grass gets a gray colour, almost transparent.Then there is the blowing dust coming in especially from the west. This drought has attracted a lot of mainstream media attention, that's good, but its not the worst drought I have seen.

Armidale was cold and damp. It's a pretty place, really quite beautiful in spots even at the end of winter, but I was glad to spend some time in my warm motel room, just reading. I had planned to go the week before, but the city was booked out. Last week, too, accommodation was quite limited with most of the motels showing no vacancy signs. In addition to the hotels and motels, Armidale now has 133 Airbnb places. Most of these were booked as well.

Armidale is a funny accommodation marketplace because of its peaks. There is normally plenty of accommodation, but then you have graduation or some other special event that soaks it all up. From the viewpoint of the provider, it's feast or famine.

I have the strong impression that both base load and peak demand has increased. This is where Airbnb has its advantages, for it has effectively double available bed nights.

In February I saw a small heritage cottage listed for sale at $275,000. It was a funny little three bedroom place, then rented for $275 per week. It was proving hard to sell even though that's a good rental yield by Sydney standards because it didn't quite fit the family market. Checking, it finally seems to have sold for $250,000. It's now on Airbnb at $200 per night and seems to be renting quite well.

Looking at the photos, I estimate that the new owners probably spent $50,000 on a new kitchen and other repairs. Even at an average of just two nights per week, and occupancy seems far higher than this, $400 per week is not a bad gross yield.

I know that problems can arise with Airbnb, but for many places outside the high traffic areas it can really add to tourism opportunities. You can't get the visitors without the accommodation, but the accommodation won't come without the visitors. Airbnb acts as something of a circuit breaker.

There is also a ripple effect. Armidale, for example, does have a certain draw-power. Airbnb adds to Armidale's options but also spreads its effects around Armidale, creating new choices.

I mentioned that I spent a fair bit of time reading. I had one of those green shopping bags with me full of new, well mainly new to me, second hand books. Yes, I know that I am meant to be clearing out my collection and it has shrunk a little, but there have been some opportunities to buy some really good stuff cheaply . As you might expect, my new treasures include history and biography with an especial focus on Northern NSW, my broader New England.

I read very little current fiction. It's partly time, but it's also true that I am put off by the now many writers' festivals. I don't attend, but I hear a fair bit about them including multiple festival sessions repeated on ABC Radio National. Maybe I'm just getting old, but as the festivals search for audience they go more and more into particular types of niche areas that target elements in the audience that do go. And I'm not interested.

I have the same reaction to ABC Radio National's Hub on Books. I have never been very keen on arts or cultural programs. I tell myself I should be, but then I find myself turning the radio or TV off, retreating into silence and my own thoughts. There is so much produced now, so little that I am interested in, that I find myself submerged. I can't process it all. I am out of their frames. I am also tired of angst.

The things that I am most interested in, the stories that I want to tell, relate to my own life and, more importantly, my own area.

On Wednesday I visited Boobooks (on Facebook) and the Readers Companion (on Facebook). These two nearby stores in the Armidale Mall really compliment each other.

Boobooks has taken over the artdeco banking chambers built for the Commonwealth Bank. Now the bank that I knew as a child is the home to 70,000 second hand books. Happiness.

Reader's Companion is a new book shop. It's not easy making money today from a bookshop. Reader's Companion has responded by making the store a centre for new releases and writer activities, including the ever-increasing range of local publications. They also have a Kombi van that takes new books to all the surroundinf centres that lack bookshops.

I sat in the coffee shop across the Mall from Boobooks to review my latest treasures. It was just too cold to sit outside as I normally do,

From Boobooks, I had a signed copy of Zeny Giles' Caught in the Light: A Celebration of Newcastle.  I hadn't heard of Zeny, so many people I haven't heard of!, but she is quite a well known writer.The book was published by Newcastle's Catchfire Press, another small publisher that I did not know.

From Reader's Companion, I bought Jimmy Barnes' Working Class Man, the second volume in his autobiography. Now I here I found myself caught in cross-links between recent purchases.

Jimmy Barnes' first chapter is headed I was a serial runner and is subtitled  On the way to Armidale, 1974. The first 32 pages are a picture of hippy Armidale in the mid 1970s.

I have previously mentioned the New England writer Shirley Walker. Recently. I was able to buy her memoir, Roundabout at Bangalow: an intimate chronicle which includes details of her life on the North Coast and in Armidale. It was Shirley's son, singer and song writer Don Walker, who brought Jimmy Barnes to Armidale when Don decided to do postgraduate studies at the University of New England.

The hippy connection linked to another of my recent purchases, Judy Cassab's Diaries. I first read the diaries because I was interested in Judy Cassab as a painter. There I found that son John had become involved in the counter-culture movement on the North Coast in its early days, so the diaries include references directly relevant to my historical interests. Here the social change that took place in the 1960s and 1970s is part of my story, personal as well as historical.

The copy of the diaries  I was reading belonged to a friend. It's only in the last four week's that I have been able to acquire my own copy.

As so often happens, I drove back from Armidale with more to write about. On the way, I sat in the cafe cum general store and post office at Barrington and tried to gather my thoughts. So much to think about, so much to say. How was I too manage? I still don't have an answer!  

Why everyone can (and should be) a writer

Back in Armidale on a visit, I went down to the Newie (Armidale’s New England Hotel) for a Friday night drink with Uncle Ron and some of his country mates.

The stories flowed, some of them very entertaining indeed.

“Why don’t you write them down”, I said. Everybody suddenly got very self-conscious. “We’re not writers”, they said. This is a not unusual reaction. The problem, I think, is that we have mystified writers and writing, turning it from a simple process into a capitalised art form. This is compounded by school experiences that have taught us not that we should write but that we must write in a particular way, that focus on the mistakes we make in writing.

I am not being critical when I say this, nor am I downplaying the importance of grammar and spelling. Schools need to teach people to read and write effectively, to communicate in a variety of ways. However, I am concerned when school experiences create a barrier that stops people doing things. The reality is, as our politicians would say, that most people write and are therefore writers. In fact, with the internet, I think that there is more writing (and writers) now than at any previous time in human history.

To illustrate.There has been a proliferation of special interest groups across the internet. On Facebook, for example, the Armidale Families Past and Present group has 2,246 members.Not everybody contributes, but hundreds do, exchanging reminiscences and information in threads that can run for pages. Some members of the group had to leave school at twelve, others rebelled at formal schooling. In this friendly, supportive atmosphere, nobody critiques spelling or grammar. What is important is what is said, not how it is said.

We also live in the age of the family historian as more and more seek to discover details of their past. Many are older, seeking to preserve family details for their own interest and in the hope that what they discover will be of interest to younger generations when they choose to become interested. All these people write and are, by definition, writers.

At this point I need to plead a special interest. As a regional historian, all these things are
gold to me. They stimulate me, they tell me about the past and provide the evidence I need
for my own writing.

I don’t think people realise just how important their own stories are. I also think they don’t fully understand just how good some of their writing is. A turn of phrase, an interesting anecdote, grabs my attention and cause me to chortle with laughter. This can be dangerous in the evening if I have just taken a sip of wine! So I wish to encourage all writers and writing regardless.
.
I am sometimes asked how people might improve their writing. I have one simple
suggestion.

Keep a pen and notepad. This needs to be small enough to fit in you bag or pocket. Date each page and jot down things that are important to you from shopping lists to turns of phrase to random thoughts.

The audience is yourself. You will be surprised as you look back at how much you remember, at the increasing value of those notebooks.

This piece appeared in the August edition of the New England Writers' Centre newsletter, The New England Muse.

Reflections in my latest Armidale visit - a mix of travel, history, the town: a mixed bag

Just back from Armidale where I delivered a paper on Friday (13 April 2018) in the University of New England's humanities seminar series 'New England travels: journeys through space and time".The paper was described in this way in the blurb:

 This paper explores key themes across 30,000 years of the history of Australia's broad New England region, the Tablelands and surrounding valleys, showing how the interaction of geography and events has moulded life and culture from the arrival of the Aboriginal peoples to the end of the twentieth century. 

An historian and economist by profession, Jim Belshaw is writing a history of the broader new state New England from Aboriginal times to the end of the twentieth century. Jim, an alumnus of UNE, also writes the weekly history column for the Armidale Express.

It had been several years since I last spoke. These papers take a fair bit of effort in preparation and then there is the trip itself. I normally treat the trip part as a mix of professional, social and holiday, but this time it was harder work, partly because I was very tired when I drove out.

As always, I came back with things to do. This includes completing the footnotes so that I can provide copies to the people who have requested it. I will write up some elements in posts here and on the New England blogs; this post reflects on the trip. itself, sort of an aide memoir.

The Journey

I know the road very well after all this time. You can always tell Armidale locals because they know the shortest route. Going north it's up the Paciifc express way. This stretch is pretty boring, but its generally fast unless clogged by holiday traffic. 14k past Raymond Terrace you turn left onto Bucketts Way. This runs in a north westerly direction through Stroud, a historic AA (Australian Agricultural Company) town to Gloucester. . It's quite pretty country with lots to explore. .

At  Gloucester, you turn left onto Thunderbolt's Way following the Walcha signs. The road passes through the little town of Barrington where I usually stop for coffee at the little post office cum general store cum petrol station cum restaraunt. It's a good little earner. Coming back this time tired, that Barrington stop was very welcome. I sat on the verandah savouring my cappuccino writing up my trip notes.

Just past Barrington, the road turns hard right passing through the the headwaters of the Manning River. This is a pretty road that meanders up and down, constantly swinging back and forth over the ridges and along the streams.  Near the Bretti Nature Reserve, the road climbs quickly up the escarpment. This road did not exist when I was growing up. The New England Highway was the only route to Sydney. The road was cut through in 1961 but was not greatly used until tared. I didn't really start using it until after we moved to Sydney in 1996.

Driving habits have changed. I grew up driving on country roads, often dirt. While I do like to get from point A to point B quickly, I enjoy variety, don't mind curves and am philosophical about delays including being stuck behind timber jinkers and cattle trucks. Drivers trained on city roads and expressways find it more challenging. That road, a friend said! It's a very popular road with motorcyclists.

At the top of the mountain the little village of Nowendoc lies to the right just off Thunderbolt's Way. There is a little reserve with a hall and toilet.where I often  stop This is fugitive country country. Most recently, the hall was the centre for the ultimately successful police search for Malcolm Naden. Returning to the main road, New England Cheese can be found a little further on to the left.  I had one of their little freezer bags to return, but the gate was shut, so I drove on.

Often I find small adventures on this road (Sunday Essay - early morning on a New England road, Curious cows Walcha-Nowendoc Road). Again I had to stop for stock! I also spotted through the trees some homesteads that I had not noticed before.That was not wise, I wobbled dangerously. I didn't have time to stop, but you really have to if you are to investigate.You have to walk the ground.

Running north from Nowendoc you enter what is called the Three Falls Country where the head waters of three major coastal rivers - the Manning, the Hastings and the Macleay are co-located. Geoff Blomfield’s “Baal Belbora: the end of the dancing” explores the frontier wars in this country. This is also an area where a number of Aboriginal language groups overlap.

Coming into Walcha, I noticed that some new pieces had been added to the Walcha sculpture streetscape but did not have time to stop.From Walcha, the road continues  to Uralla.

Julia Griffin, Rain on the Uralla Road, one of my favourite paintings. Fortunately, this drive was dry. 

At Uralla, we leave Thunderbolt's Way, turning right to join the New England Highway for the last short stretch into Armidale.

Around Armidale

I was very glad to get to my motel to unwind. Accommodation had been a real issue, as it had been five years before when my delivery of a paper coincided with graduation. I described this a visit at the time in a photo essay. The beauty of Armidale & UNE. This time it was worse because the TAS (The Armidale School) junior (under 12) rugby carnival was on. .

This is the largest carnival of its type in the country. This year it brought together 44 teams from 21 schools and 16 clubs from across three states with 108 games of rugby. It also brought national coach Michael Cheika to town.

Reporting in advance of the carnival,  the Canberra Times' the Cauliflower Column  ( Folau fallout continues as Cheika) said in the context of the problems that have been facing Australian rugby::

The school will welcome an estimated 950 children from as far as Dalby, the Sunshine Coast, the Southern Highlands and even the Perth-based Western Spirit. It will be a rousing statement, particularly on the back of some flat participation numbers revealed in the 2017 Annual Report this week.

This must be the first positive story about Armidale to appear in that paper for quite some time!

I drove past the school grounds on my way home on Saturday just to look. It was a busy colorful  scene with the multiple parked buses, multiple little tents and games, Sadly I could not stop.

While many of the players themselves were accommodated in school boarding houses, the teams also came with officials and parents adding to accommodation pressures associated with graduation. All motels in the immediate area were booked out as were Armidale's 128+ Airbnbs some able to accommodate as many as six people plus the caravan park. There were also "luxury" tents (their phrase) at the showground, although these were too pricey for me in any case! I managed a motel room for the Thursday night and the last available Airbnb room for the Friday night, a simple room in a two bedroom flat. .

I don't know the final visitor numbers, but the town really was packed. The TAS rugby carnival alone brought in an estimated $1.6 million in visitor spend. I went for a walk on the Thursday night past all the motels with their no vacancy signs to buy some takeaway food. All the takeaway places had queues.

As I drove out to the university on Friday morning, I wondered how many people I might get, given graduation. In the end, there were about 45-50 people, A lot were older and from town attracted by the topic as well as my role as a public historian, but I did attract some staff as well including Martin Gibbs, professor of archaeology. Nicholas Fuller, the Armidale Express' newly appointed
arts and culture reporter, also came.
.
The questions were helpful in refining my views. Later over coffee in the staff room I was able to catch up with people including finding out out some of the latest research. Because I work so much outside the academy, I was a little nervous in talking. I form my own views, develop my own syntheses. I do expose this through the blogs and in the columns, but there is still a degree of caution when I come in contact with others with their own particular expertise. I think in practice I probably get more feedback and have greater freedom and more time for thought than those burdened by KPIs and growing teaching loads.  .

Part of my mission is to try to create interest in New England history. I found the conversations with Martin particularly because it gave my new ideas, but also helped me understand the problems he faces in attracting students to archaeology in general and New England studies in particular. There is also a growing problem in getting approvals to dig from Aboriginal communities, something others including John Mulvaney have talked about.  .

I will write more on this later, as well as the ideas that I picked up.I have already been sent two papers containing work that I had not seen before.

After the seminar I wandered around town a bit, sitting in Central Park for a bit to write up notes. It was quiet and beautiful.  One thing I noticed there and elsewhere were the number of older people just sitting. This is a feature of an aging population. Again, thoughts came to mind for later writing.

After lunch I went into the Express to do an interview with Nicholas Fuller. He also took photos of me standing next to the iron lacework outside the Armidale Folk Museum. We talked about his role, but also about the changes taking place in the newspaper world. I have written a little about this, but the discussion helped me extend my thinking

After seeing Nicholas I went out to see Bill Oates, head of the Heritage Centre. I then walked around the old Teachers' College building. This was managed by the University but was recently handled back to the State Government. I found this a profoundly depressing experience for reasons I won't go into here beyond mentioning that one side effect is the need to re-house or throw out archival records, books, newspapers previously stored at in the College building. The lack of periodic maintenance on the College building was clear to see. At a purely personal level, my intention to give key family papers to the archives may prove impossible.      

Again, I may write something more when I have had a chance to process it all.

After seeing Bill, I went into town to look at the display at the Council community consultation centre and then back to my room to have some food and continue writing up my notes. Driving back the next morning I was generally pleased with trip, if still depressed about what I had seen at the old Teachers' College. I wondered what might be done to rectify the position without coming to a firm views.  .      .

Niko Ghika, John Craxton, and Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor and the allure of Greece - British Museum exhibition

John Craxton, Still life with three sailors 1980-1985 (detail) Tempera on canvass

I am still bogged down with other writing. Hopefully that is easing.

Interesting piece in Artdaily 21 March 2018, Exhibition explores the influence of Greece on the lives and work of three artists on a new exhibition at the British Museum this European spring. ,
Charmed lives in Greece: Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor explores the influence of modern Greece on the lives and work of three influential artists, the Greek painter Niko Ghika, British painter John Craxton, and British writer Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor. The three met at the end of the Second World War and became enduring friends who all made their homes in Greece. The show brings together their artworks, photographs, letters and personal possessions in the UK for the first time.

It sounds like an interesting show about interesting subjects. I have given you the links to the Artdaily piece above and then the Wikipedia links to each of the three. If you are interested, I suggest you start with Artdaily and then go to the Wikipedia entries. From there, you can easily sidetrack into multiple directions!

 I have wondered before about the enduring love for Greece and the Greek Islands especially for writers and artists. In popular fiction, for example, Mary Stewart's thrillers The Moon-Spinners and My Brother Michael. The last includes a description of a hostel at Delphi occupied by archaeologists, artists and writers. The Australian writers George Johnson and Charmian Clift lived on the Greek island of Hydra for several years attracted by the low prices and other writers and artists. Johnson's Clean Straw for Nothing tells the story of a journalist (David Meredith) who relocates to a Greek island, but fails to find the answers he seeks after even 13 years.  

From my own trip, cheap wine, cheap cigarettes, cheap food, cheap rent, nice views and weather all provide  a possible answer. It's more than that, of course, for the romantic ideal of Greece is deeply entrenched in Western thinking.

Saturday Morning Musings - cleaning out my library

It is almost two months since my last report (Writing preoccupations - Vikings, History awards, Native Title, Roman villas and New England architecture) on my current reading and writing preoccupations. I thought that I should provide you with an update, recognising that my blogging continues to be a little irregular. I also thought that it might be a break from some of the current political preoccupations.

I have been cleaning out my books. Those books are the joy of my life as well as a key professional resource, but I am probably moving and cannot take them all with me. While my library is well down from its peak, I had the best part of 10,000 books, it is still very substantial in multiple bookcases and book boxes. Many of those books have been badly damaged in multiple moves, but they are still precious.

Have I read all those books? No, but that's also been part of the fun. Many of the books are older, some quite old, because they come from my father's and grandfather's libraries. There is a lot of fiction, but the collection is mainly non-fiction, a melange of authors and topics spread over two hundred years. Both topics and writing styles vary enormously, reflecting the interests and cultures at the time of publication. In some cases, I can take a single topic and compare attitudes and writing at multiple points in time over time.

My train reading series of posts began because I was picking books from my shelves at random that I had not read and then making myself finish them, The finishing part was important. I had to do that even when I disagreed with the ideas or found the writing boring because it was part of the game. The result was something of an education, an increase in tolerance, an understanding of difference.

In my current book sort, I have been putting books in piles for possible throw-out. One was Wing Commander Asher Lee's Blitz on Britain, a second Oluf Reed-Olsen's Two Eggs on My Plate.

Blitz on Britain (Four Square paperback, 1960) was published to coincide with the telemovie of the same name. The photo shows pilots running to their plans.

I almost put this book into the bin without re-reading, but then thought that I should read it. I am glad I did. Asher Lee know his stuff!

 The tone of the book is reasonably unsentimental. The writer's sentiments are clear, but the dedication shows that he could stand aside from some of the emotion that surrounds the events of the time.

This book is dedicated to the pilots of both air forces, those of the German Air Force and those of the Royal Air Force. On different days and in different ways they fought against odds with skill, courage and devotion.  

I found the book interesting Lee is able to show events in context on both sides of the Channel. He includes statistical data on things like relative aircraft production. Perhaps the most unexpected message is that the Battle of Britain was by no means the uneven fight, a triumph against overwhelming odds, as conventionally presented.

On the German side, the Germans had to bring their air force up to newly created bases in occupied territory to allow sustained attacks on Britain. This took time. The Luftwaffe was also involved on several fronts, making it more difficult to concentrate resources, a difficulty compounded by strategic confusions. The total number of German planes was substantial, but these were spread across multiple types meaning that the number of a particular type was limited.

The feared Stuka Dive bomber with its iconic siren was used to effect early in the war but suffered from a major weakness, its slow speed compared to fighters. It was used over Britain, but high losses meant that it had to be defended by fighters. This lead to its withdrawal from service in that theatre, reducing the number of available German planes.

On the British side, British military aircraft production had been increasing to the point that it was matching German production. The British also developed air defence systems that allowed them to track in-coming German planes. The big initial problem was shortage of trained pilots. Planes could be replaced, experienced pilots were in short supply.

Here Lee makes a very interesting point about the German experience. The Luftwaffe began with a larger solid cadre of experienced pilots. As the war proceeded, accumulating pilot losses began to degrade the Luftwaffe's offensive capacity quite quickly.

I put Lee's book in the bin.  I was glad that I had read it, but could always borrow it.            

Oluf Reed-Olsen's Two Eggs on My Plate is a more personal story, a story of a Norwegian resistance fighter during the Second World War. The title comes from the habit of giving people who where about to go on mission from England into occupied Europe two eggs on their plate at the final meal. Eggs were in short supply, so this was seen as a signal and reward.

I had read this book many times, but many years before. I read it again with enjoyment (it's a boys own style yarn) and then put it in the bin.

Reading both books reminded me of two things in particular. The first was the passage of time.

I grew up in an era when the Second World War was very close. War stories were common and popular. Now the war has receded into history and become the subject of nostalgia pieces such as ITV's Home Fires, Foyle's War and The Halcyon. Perhaps nostalgia is the wrong word, but you know what I mean,

There is something a little odd in the way that so many of the decades from the forties on have progressively become the subject of nostalgia. Nostalgia for particular periods is not new, but we do seem to make a welter of it today. Is it just because populations are aging in many countries, creating a desire to reach back?

The second thing thing was the extent and nature of changing sensibilities. I chose that now old fashioned word quite deliberately. It has two almost contrasted meanings. One is the quality of being able to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences; sensitivity. The second encapsulated in that Jane Austen title Sense and Sensibility is a quality of delicate sensitivity that makes one liable to be offended or shocked..

Each generation has its own sensibilities using both meanings.Each generation assumes that its sensibilities are correct, an assumption challenged by subsequent social and cultural changes. The current age is one of high and complex sensibilities with an especial focus on the second meaning. There are just so many things that offend or shock us. .
       
My type of reading forces me to confront differing sensibilities. The sensibilities displayed by Asher Lee or Oluf Reed-Olsen are familiar, if different from today's. J L Myres' The Dawn of History is a little different.

The book was first published in 1911 and proved very popular. My copy, a Home University Library edition from 1933, is the tenth reprint. The first page shows it was a second hand book originally owned by M Broadhurst  and sold for 1/6. The writing on the first page in my father's hand says J Belshaw, NEUC (New England University College), Armidale NSW Sept 38.  So it was purchased by my father in his first year in Armidale and just one year before the Second World War broke out.

I had not heard of J L Myres and therefore had to look him up.

Wikipedia records that Sir John Linton Myres (1969-1954) was a British archaeologist who conducted excavations in Cyprus in 1904. In 1910 he became the first Wykeham Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford, having been Gladstone Professor of Greek and Lecturer in Ancient Geography, University of Liverpool from 1907. At Oxford, he highly influenced the British-Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe.  In addition to his academic writings, he contributed to the British Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series that was published during the Second World War.

I almost gave this book up in Chapter One. "We have only to glance at a globe or a general map", Myres wrote, "to realise that as matter of fact almost all historians have confined their attention to a few quite small regions of the world "  Very large areas have little or not historical literature. The reason for this, Myres suggests, "is obvious; there is little or nothing there in the way of human achievement for the historian to write about." Myres then presents a stylised version of cultural types - hunter gatherer, pastoral and agricultural/industrial; civilisation begins, history dawns, with the last beginning in the Middle East. Myres is a geographical determinism and a believer in the big man school of history. He also uses racial descriptors.    

Most current readers would have put the book aside at this point as I was tempted to do. I still use the now old fashioned term prehistory to distinguish between history based primarily on written records and that based primarily on other sources where written records are not available, but this is a methodological distinction.

In my own writing on the history of New England, the first part of the draft book deals with Aboriginal New England up to 1788. In evidence terms, this relies particularly on archaeological evidence supplemented by the ethnographic record. In my mind, this is just as much history as later sections. However,  in writing, I do use the term prehistory at spots where it has particular relevance to the previous study of New England history.    

I digress. I think that part of the reason I objected so strongly to some of Professor Myres' early remarks is that simplistic models of human society are still around and deeply embedded, including especially ideas about the "primitive' nature of hunter gather societies  Like Childe and indeed me, Myres is a synthesizer and model builder. This aids interpretation and the asking of new questions, but in the end new evidence makes fools of us all.

Take this review by  Kambiz Kamrani in Anthropology,net, Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.  In 2009 the first DNA was extracted from the bone of a Neanderthal, In the eight years since, everything we thought we knew about the human past has been turned on ts head. A line has been drawn in fire though multiple compendiums of human thought and belief.

I kept reading because I had to, my rules required it, and in the end was glad that I did. This was partly because my reactions reflected my own sensibilities. Take the racial categorisations. So far at least, they appear to be used as descriptors that reflect prevailing views, but without any overlays of superiority or inferiority. More importantly, Myles' focus on geography and on relationships between groups is in some ways quite modern and creates clear pictures that I found interesting and helpful.

I will reread earlier sections of the book because I am interested in changing thought patterns. However, I want to look again at the way he approaches geography  I am not a geographic or environmental determinist. However, geography is important, and I have been wrestling with the question of the best way of bringing it alive, of integrating it into the narrative in a way that makes it part of the story for readers who know nothing about the area I am writing about. Given all this, I have added the book to the keep pile, at least for the moment.  .  
    

Barry Stone's Secret Army, a real story about the original Stalky from Kipling's Stalky& Co

Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co was one of my favourite books when I  was at school and remains so today.

Episodic in form, it is set at an unnamed boys boarding school referred to College or the Coll based on the United Services College (photo) in Devon which Kipling attended. Founded especially to educate the sons of military officers, it had a focus on preparing pupils for military service, many going on to Sandhurst and Dartmouth.

The books three central characters are Beetle partly based on Kipling himself, the charismatic leader Stalky based on Lionel Dunsterville and M'Turk, based on George Charles Beresford. The three form a team and engage in various exploits, often at the expense of Mr King, the master of a rival house. While they did respect the headmaster and indeed the padre, they had a very cynical attitude to life and very little respect for formal authority or indeed rules. This is not a gentle book. When the padre asked them to help a younger boy whom he suspected was being badly bullied, they did so by applying the same techniques to the bullies that had been used by them, techniques that would now attract a significant prison sentence.

I wasn't especially happy at school when I read the book for the first time. I identified at once. The broad patterns of life were familiar so I could understand, and I really identified with their escapades and their successes.

The school sergeant who knew they were up to no good was not fooled when they sauntered out one day. He knew that they planned to break bounds. I followed with them as they burrowed through the gorse to find the little clearing on the top of the cliff overlooking the sea where they could have a quiet smoke. The sergeant's attempts, binoculars in hand,  to find them were quite funny and would ultimately lead to total defeat in a very funny scene indeed.

I mention all this because of a newsletter from Allen and Unwin referring to a new book by  Barry Stone, Secret Army,  subtitled "An elite force, a secret mission, a fleet of Model-T Fords, a far flung corner of WWI".

This is a real life story of that Stalky from Stalky & Co, Lionel Dunsterville, the story of 'Dunsterforce'.

The publishes have kindly put up a sample chapter on ScribD. It's.a story that somehow fits exactly with the image I had formed of him from the original book.

Postscript

In a comment, Sue pointed me to this English blog To the Manor Born by Lucy Fisher on the English class system. She had just been reading an interesting post on it about boarding schools and thought I might find the whole blog entertaining. I did.

While it's tangential to this post, I thought that I would add the link here because other readers might find it interesting. .

Bogged down in writing

I have been bogged down on my major historical writing projects.

Back in November 2015 when Clare B and I reviewed my writing targets, we agreed that one simple way of getting a book ready quickly would be to consolidate and then edit the collected Belshaw's World columns written for the Armidale Express over the period 2009-2012. On 22 December 2015 I reported on Facebook:

I completed the consolidation process in the early hours of this morning, giving me a first draft of 120,000 words. A fair bit of editing is required to consolidate, improve English, add explanatory material etc. Writing a weekly column under deadlines does not always make for good English, while some columns would be far too obscure for general reading.. Still, this type of editing is a process I quite enjoy.

 So far so good, but I then became dissatisfied. I didn't think that the draft was of the right standard and required far more editing than I had expected. I still hadn't given up on the project, but ended putting it aside for the moment, returning to my two main writing projects.

The first is the history of Northern New South Wales, the broader New England, over the last 50,000 years. This is broken into four parts: an introduction to set the scene and to help integrate the entire book; Aboriginal New England up to 1788; Colonial New England; and then New England in the Twentieth Century.

Those who have followed my blogs will know from the occasional references to this project that it seems to have stretched on and on. I accept that I lack discipline, but I keep finding new topics, new themes, that demand to be included. I also keep finding gaps in my knowledge that I wasn't aware of and which now need to be filled.

The final book will, I hope, be all the better for all this. Certainly it will be very different from the original work as envisaged. The first outline had a strong political focus with the 150+ year fight for self-government as the unifying theme in the last two sections of the book. That's still there, but the book has become much more a social and cultural history.

One particular difficulty is the way the present keeps intruding on the past, forcing me to ask new questions, to decide on new questions of balance. One example here is the concern with child sexual abuse, for many of the issues raised at the Royal Commission relate to the Hunter and Northern Rivers, but came to light after my cut-off date.  A second example is the stolen generation. This had become a major issue by 2000 following the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report, but has continued to run since.

I need to reference both and especially the second, but how much to say, how much extra work to do? I could just reference the later work, but I have a particular problem with the stolen generation that makes me reluctant to do so because it is part of and indeed conflicts to a degree with a theme I already have in draft. I need to understand what has happened and I can't just rely on the report for that. The photo is of the Kinchela Boys' Home outide kempsey. .  

The second major project is New England Travels: journeys through space and time. I announced this project at the end of May 2014 -  New England Travels – journeys through space and time. I described the project in this way:

The working title is New England Travels – journeys through space and time. Part autobiographical memoir, part travel story, part history, my story meanders wherever it will take me. New England provides the unifying element, the frame if you like, but I am not restricted to that; the sands of Arabia, Lugard’s Nigeria, spying in Japan, boxing and boxing tents, life and death on the frontier, the rise and fall of dynasties and the strange by-ways of family life are already there, sketched on the canvas I have created; my choice now is to select. 

I am not being too ambitious. For the moment, I have an income to earn, other things to write. My writing target is 300 words per day. So far I am sticking to it, although it’s very early days. For the present at least, I am finding the process liberating, an anodyne to other frustrations that bedevil me. I know that the draft will change greatly as I write. Even now it has changed several times as I strive to capture the right words, to achieve the balance I want.

Mmmm. What I hadn't properly realised was the extent of new research required to deliver the project as defined. I was, in fact, trying to research two major if somewhat overlapping book projects at the same time. I simply couldn't achieve 300 original words a day.

It was this realisation that finally led to the decision to go for Belshaw's World as a way of  getting something out the door. Then after I put that project on hold at the first draft stage, an intense work period intervened, so I just jogged along trying to do some blogging while also pushing forward with some research on the history. As part of this, I actually developed a somewhat better research approach, if still a tad inefficient.

My weekly history column provided the next building block. A number of people suggested to me that I should publish the columns. Even though I already had the words for a book, I didn't think that was sensible because the columns were only 500 words. I thought that the result would be too bitsy. I was truly a puzzled panda.

In writing the columns, I had begun to experiment with series, groups of up to eight or nine columns grouped around a theme or story. Initially I just fell into the approach, but when I started to get good reader feedback I adopted it as a practice. There were some good stories too such as Camp Victory and the Casino Boys.

At this point things began to gell a little. I was doing research that could be used for both projects so long as I recorded the sources for the main history project. New England Travels emerged from the mists as a book of 90 to 100,000 words made up of a mix of short and longer pieces roughly grouped around themes combining existing and new material. Once I had a basic draft in place, then I could edit and rewrite to make it interesting to a general audience, not just those with an interest in New England history. Which brings me back to my opening graphic!

Its taken quite a while to get to this point and I am hesitant about attaching firm public deadlines to the project.

I am fortunate at this point that I have been given a window to write full time. Mind you, I am finding this quite challenging. Sitting there for extended periods with no direct human contact tends to send me quite stir crazy.

Still, I mustn't complain. I am making progress even if my regular blogging is down as a consequence.

.  

 

Am I really Bingo Little?!

I have always liked the writing of P G Wodehouse, so when an opportunity came up to do one of those on-line tests to determine which Wodehouse character I was I could not resist.  But did I have to be Bingo Little?

I quote:

"You're a lovesick loon, always having your head turned by the latest pretty young thing. Some might think you flighty, but you're just a hopeless romantic, alas! What ho, Bingo, what ho!"

Now our blogging friend Ramana did much better, scoring Jeeves. Again I quote:

You are the quintessential gentleman’s personal gentleman — always shimmering into a room with the solution to a tough nut. You are well read, well bred and look good in a uniform. What ho, Jeeves, what ho!”

Now in Ramana's case, I can see a fit, as least so far as the problem solving characteristics are concerned. But why oh why couldn't I have been Psmith? That's Smith with a P.

I first came across Psmith while in London on a trip when I found a complete set of the Psmith books. I was immediately attracted to him by his attitude and ability to get out of scrapes.

Now in reality, I am not quite a Psmith type beyond an unfortunate tendency to smoke, the sometimes adoption of flowery language, a liking for the better things of life and even the very occasional adoption of dandyism. I wish those who know me would stop laughing at the last! It does happen, sometimes!

But I do admire his style. I would much prefer to be Psmith than a lovesick loon or hopeless romantic. And "what ho?" Mind you, on the last, one of my early nick names at secondary school was "Tally ho the foxes". But that's another story.