This selection includes the following publications.
- ‘The Life and Times of King George VI’ [1895-1952] [pub. 1950s], and, Royalty Annual, No. 5 [pub circa 1956/57];
- Watsonia: A Writing Life by Don Watson [2020];
- The Ghosts of August, by Peter Watt [2024]; and,
- On the Beach’ by Nevil Shute [1957].
January
This month, a couple of royalty books that have been sitting on my book shelves for decades, so I finally decided to have a proper read, whilst trying to maintain a touch of fitness on the exercise bike!!
‘The Life and Times of King George VI’ [1895-1952], 160 pages, and up to 200 black & white photographs, set up and printed in Australia by The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. The year of publication is uncertain, although I’m assuming it was in the middle to late 1950’s following the King’s death and the succession of Queen Elizabeth, his eldest daughter to the throne.
I can’t recall how I came across this book which I’ve had in my possession for many years. I can only assume it was passed down to me at some stage by my grandmother prior to her death in 1980. The book was actually a gift to one of the sisters of her father – Mrs Alice Rodgers [nee Jenkin] from a Howard Reed. Alice died at the age of 96 years, in 1969, so obviously she received the book most likely in the 1950s/1960s period. I’ve been unable to find reference to this precise book on the internet, but basically, it is described as a pictorial record of the years of one who was a much-loved monarch in his time. Within the 160 pages, every phase of the King’s life over 56 momentous years, is mirrored with nearly 200 vivid, photographs which were supplemented by descriptive captions. One Internet Archive I came across, which appears to have the same ‘Appreciation’ of 6 pages at the beginning of the book, suggest it was published in 1946, which cannot of course be correct, with the King’s death and funeral in 1952 fully covered. I was not yet 6 years of age at that time, and cannot admit to any recalled knowledge of those events.
In any case after the section entitled ‘An Appreciation’ written by a Malcom Thomson, the book is then introduced by a tribute by the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, The Rt Hon. Winston S. Churchill, O.M, C.H., M.P.
The book cover leaflet provides the following description.
‘Here are scenes from King George’s childhood and early manhood, his years as Duke of York, world traveller, sportsman, devoted husband and father, happy Royal family pictures, memories of the funeral of King George V, the Coronation, Royal tour of Canada and USA, the war years, visits to blitzed cities, visits to war zones, Victory celebrations, Royal tour of South Africa, Princess Elizabeth’s wedding, Royal Silver Wedding, the Royal grandchildren, opening of the Festival of Britain. Finally, there are the impressive scenes of the lying in State and of the Royal funeral, including some of the most remarkable camera studies of our day. It is, in truth, a book to treasure for a lifetime’.
So this book has lasted in my possession for a large part of my lifetime, and I can only hope that someone following me will regard it in that way, basically as a family treasure. I have a few books of that nature, including of course the Family Bible passed down through my grandmother’s family, and I do admittedly have concerns as to what will become of that and others of similar nature!!
Royalty Annual No. 5: published in 1957: a gift from my father’s sister back in the 1950’s or thereabouts, the British Royal family of that time being much more highly regarded than is the case in 2024. This was apparently the 5th such annual published since the start of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II in February 1952, basically a summary of royal occasions, family life etc during that period of around July 1955 to June 1956, filled with news about the British royal family, Queen Elizabeth, in particular, and the first chapter is titled, “Christmas at Sandringham.
The copy I have consist of 128 pages, with an original dust jacket, which is slightly damaged, though otherwise, the book is in good condition, the cover printed in Red cloth material with gilt lettering. It contains black and white photographic plates, and has detailed summaries of the many Royal activities, ceremonies, family lives and individuals over the period referred to. It was written and produced by Godfrey Talbot and Wynford Vaughan Thomas and printed by London Andrews Dakers Ltd. This particular edition is currently available on many of the relevant sites for around $AUS42.00.
Amongst some of the topics covered are:
- Homes and hobbies and historic public engagements of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and their relatives;
- Tour of Nigeria & other travels;
- Royal theatre-going, film and book tastes, and fashions;
- The great houses of Windsor, Osborne and Sandringham;
- Princess Margaret;
- Trooping the Colour;
- Royal Wales;
- Educating Prince Charles;
- Queen and Parliament;
- Europe’s Royal families;
- Her Majesty’s horses;
- A Royal Duke at home; and so much more.
The introductory paragraph on page 3 reads as follows.
“Our fifth Royalty Annual appears in the fifth year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. In our first edition we reflected the confidence of the nation that our new Sovereign would maintain the tradition of devoted service to the State which was the driving force in the life of her father, King George VI. The whole world now knows how nobly the nation’s hopes have been fulfilled. Her Majesty has not been content merely to continue in the paths already laid down for her – admirable though they be. She has struck out on her own policy and made a fresh appraisal of the relationship between the Crown and the People……She has travelled more widely and more swiftly than any other ruler in our history. She has put the stamp of her own vigorous personality on the new Elizabethan Age. That age now appears as one of speedy and exciting social and constitutional change….:
22nd January
‘Watsonia: A Writing Life’ by Don Watson [published in 2020 a Black Inc pub], 561 pages.
This book was a collection of essays, columns, op-eds, and occasional addresses by Don Watson, basically over the 40 years from 1980. Indeed, a wide Range of topics and subject matters included in quite an extensive collection. I purchased the book recently from a second-hand bookshop in Daylesford, Central Victoria.
As Black Inc relate:
Watsonia gathers the fruits of a writing life. It covers everything from Australian humour to America gone berserk; from Don Bradman to Oscar Wilde; from birds and horses to history and politics. Wherever Don Watson turns his incisive gaze, the results are as illuminating as they are enjoyable.
Watsonia displays the many sides of Don Watson: historian, speechwriter, social critic, humourist, biographer and lover of nature and sports. Replete with wit, wisdom and diverse pleasures, this comprehensive collection includes a wide-ranging introduction by the author and several previously unpublished pieces. No other writer has journeyed further into the soul of Australia and returned to tell the tale.
Rather ironic that one of the major articles [in fact a Quarterly Essay contribution] dealing with politics in the USA was discussing the pre-election campaigning for the 2016 election [Trump versus Hilary Clinton], ironic because we have just seen Trump re-elected, in 2025.
The collection also included a very interesting piece about the US writer, Mark Twain.
Artfully arranged, Watsonia showcases the many sides of Don Watson- historian, speechwriter, commentator, humourist, nature writer and biographer. It also features, as mentioned, several previously unpublished lectures and a wide-ranging introduction by the author. This comprehensive anthology – replete with wit, wisdom and diverse pleasures – is essential reading [for a small minority I guess, I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of subjects in any case!!]
Don Watson is the author of many acclaimed books, including Caledonia Australia, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, American Journeys, The Bush, Watsonia and The Story of Australia.
28th January 2025
‘The Ghosts of August’ by Peter Watt, published in 2024, 401 pages, another great contribution from Watt, at times a very moving and almost, emotional piece of reading! This was another inspiring and fast-moving contribution by Watt who has been publishing since about 1999, and who personally signed for me, one of his releases in 2008 at the Sunbury Library. The story [an ongoing one of the generations of the Steele family] is centred around the years of World War I, an historical novel, with fictional characters in the main, involved in factual events.
Watt reminds us that while most attention on WWI for Australia revolves around Gallipoli or the Charge of the Light Horse Brigade at Beersheba, he, through his novels draws attention to events generally overlooked or forgotten aspects of our military history. As he writes in his notes for example “…most are ignorant that a mere matter of weeks after war was declared in August 1914, we also undertook a coastal landing to our north. It was not a campaign on behalf of the British Empire but a pre-emptive strike to defend our own eastern shores against the possibility of a German naval bombardment, as outlined in a prewar operational plan by the German Imperial Navy…..I have attempted to briefly describe what might be considered a skirmish, but it did cost the lives of Australian soldiers and sailors and the loss of an Australian submarine, the AE1, which was only recently discovered with its crew still entombed”.
And further he writes: “An overlooked campaign fought in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine by the Australian Light Horse in company with the New Zealand Mounted Infantry and the British Yeomanry mounted troopers was critical to the eventual victory by the Allied forces, and yet most Australians only know about a charge at Beersheba”.
Certainly, this book reminds us of the horrors of war as fought at Gallipoli, the western front, and in the deserts, and often doesn’t make for pleasant reading, as I guess the truth seldom does!. Peter Watt, amongst other sources, uses the direct experiences of Australian author Ion Idriess [whose many books I inherited from my late father] where Idriess recorded his personal experiences at Gallipoli and Palestine in his book ‘The Desert Column’, and Watt uses these experiences as told through the lives of his fictional characters. Incidentally, Ion Idriess was wounded twice, once at Gallipoli and again in Palestine before he was discharged after the war.
30th January
Probably, as an after-thought, I should have avoided doing so, but I followed Watt’s book up with a quick read of Nevil Shute’s 1957 classic ‘On the Beach’ [a paperback edition by Pan Books of 267 pages] which was subsequently made into a movie in 1959, principally centred in Melbourne, and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins and directed by Stanley Kramer.
Basically, as per the novel, in 1964, World War III has devastated the Northern Hemisphere, killing all humans there. Air currents are slowly carrying the radio-active fallout to the Southern Hemisphere where the occupants of Melbourne, Australia, will be the last major city on Earth to perish. The story covers the final few months in the lives of five people in particular as the final weeks and days are counted down. As suggested, in retrospect, in view of current world conflicts, etc, it might have been wiser to put this book aside, as the very nature of the topic was somewhat depressing, though not unexpected as I have watched the movie on a few occasions.
A Wikipedia summary of the ‘film’ plot [in which there are subtle differences to the book, and my bracketed comments refer to some of those discrepancies] – however, this summary is a fairly succinct outline of the story, so I’ve copied that version here.
The American nuclear submarine USS Sawfish, commanded by Capt. Dwight Towers, arrives in Melbourne and is placed under Royal Australian Navy command. Peter Holmes, a young Australian Naval officer with a wife and infant child, is assigned to be Towers’ liaison. Holmes invites Towers to his home for a party, where Towers meets Julian Osborn, a depressive nuclear scientist who helped build the bombs, and Moira Davidson, a lonely alcoholic with whom Towers develops a tentative attraction. Although Davidson falls in love with Towers, he finds himself unable to return her feelings, because he can’t bring himself to admit his wife and children in the United States are dead.
Meanwhile, a new scientific theory postulates that radiation levels in the Northern Hemisphere might have fallen faster than anticipated, suggesting radiation may disperse before reaching the Southern Hemisphere, or at least leaving Antarctica habitable [this theory is quickly discounted as misleading in the book version]. Soon after, the Australians also detect an incomprehensible continuous Morse code signal coming from the West Coast of the United States, where there should be nobody alive to send it. Towers is ordered to take the Sawfish, with Peter and Julian, to investigate.
Arriving at Point Barrow, Alaska, the sub crew discovers that the radiation levels are not only highly lethal but higher than in the mid-Pacific Ocean, meaning the dispersal theory is incorrect. There will be no salvation from the radiation. Stopping next in San Francisco, Sawfish finds the city devoid of life. A crew member with family in the city deserts and swims ashore, so he can die at home.
The submarine next stops at a refinery near San Diego, which has been pinpointed as the source of the mysterious Morse signals. A crew member discovers the power source is still running on automatic control. Nearby, a telegraph key has become entangled in a window shade’s pull cord and a half-full Coca-Cola bottle, and is being randomly pulled by an ocean breeze, causing the radio signals.
Sawfish returns to Australia to await the inevitable. Towers is reunited with Davidson at her father’s farm. He learns that all US Navy personnel in Brisbane are dead and he has been given command of all remaining US Naval forces. Osborn, having bought the fastest Ferrari in Australia, wins the Australian Grand Prix [during the final weekend as the radiation begins to infiltrate the Melbourne area] in which many racers, with nothing left to lose, die in fiery crashes.
Fulfilling Towers’ wish, Davidson has used her connections to get the trout season opened early. Towers and Davidson go on a fishing trip to the country. As drunken revelers sing “Waltzing Matilda” in the hotel bar, Towers and Davidson make love in their room [a bit of film levity here, with the book revealing no true intimacy between the two, as Towers remains true to his US family to the end , intending to ‘return home, and having purchased gifts for his wife and children with the support of Davidson]. ’Returning to Melbourne, Towers learns the first of his crew members has radiation sickness. There is little time left. Towers takes a vote among his crew [some of whom] decide they want to ‘ return to the United States’ to die. Osborn shuts himself in a garage with his Ferrari and starts the engine, to end his life by carbon monoxide poisoning. Others queue to receive government-issued suicide pills. Before they take their pills, Peter and Mary reminisce about the day they met, “on the beach.”
Towers says farewell to Davidson at the docks. Choosing duty over love, he takes the Sawfish back to sea. Heartbroken, Davidson watches from a cliff as the Sawfish submerges. It is implied that Towers and Davidson ended their lives shortly afterward, although their deaths are not depicted onscreen. [In fact, Towers intends to sink Sawfish in Bass Strait just beyond the Heads, taking himself and his willing crew members down with the ship, while Davidson has driven at breakneck speed to reach the clifftops at Barwon Heads so that she can ‘be with Towers’ and ‘die with him’ – he had earlier refused her request to go with him on the Sawfish because it was against naval regulations].
Within a few days, the streets of Melbourne are empty, silent, desolate and without any sign of motor vehicles, animal or human life. A Salvation Army street banner, seen several times before in the film, reads: “There is still time .. Brother”.
[Bill Kirk 31/1/2025]
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