Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: A comment
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is a great and entertaining read, as long as you are aware that you are not reading history but a construction of the writer’s imagination.
Thomas Cromwell, the benign and loving family man who merely reads the signs of the times and went with the sociological and theological spirit prevailing, and facilitated the policies of his master, Henry VIII to my mind is a little over the top.
There is very little evidence that the Reformation in England was a popular movement. It was a policy of the King’s imposed on the English people by a monarch to get a divorce and acquire church property. This is borne out by many historians such as James Gairdner, Eamon Duffy.
The false impression is given that significant numbers of the population were hungry for Tyndale’s Bible and were questioning traditional Catholic doctrine and practices. The young boy denying the real presence in the Eucharist is a colourful but unlikely event at the time.
History has painted Thomas Cromwell as a self-serving and efficient administrator but still a complete bastard. Whereas in Mantel’s novel, Thomas More is the objectionable bastard in spite of the positive assessment of scholars like Erasmus and the modern day Anglican and Catholic Churches.
Given all this, I must say, I enjoyed reading the book, so you too also enjoy it, but don’t delude yourself that it’s history.
Interesting inscription in “Somewhere in New Guinea”
Frank Clune, of course, was a distinguished Australian author and Goya Henry was a famous Australian aviator and master of small ships in PNG.
I recently purchased Somewhere in New Guinea with this remarkable dedication from Frank to Goya inside the book.
Clune, Francis Patrick (Frank) (1893 – 1971)
Birth:
27 November 1893,Darlinghurst, Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
Death:
11 March 1971,Darlinghurst, Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
Cultural Heritage:
Religious Influence:
Occupation:
- accountant
- autobiographer/memoirist
- defence forces personnel (other countries)
- historian (general)
- journalist
- radio entertainer
- soldier
- travel writer
Francis Patrick (Frank) Clune (1893 – 1971), by unknown photographer, 1930-33, courtesy of State Library of New South Wales. Original : P1/C (BM) . .
Image Details
CLUNE, FRANCIS PATRICK (1893-1971), author, journalist and accountant, was born on 27 November 1893 at Darlinghurst, Sydney, son of George Clune, a labourer from Ireland, and his Victorian-born wife Theresa Cullen. Educated in Sydney at St Colombkille’s and St Benedict’s Catholic schools, Frank grew up at Redfern and took a job as a newsboy. He left school at 14, and claimed to have worked as a messenger-boy in the government printer’s office, to have run away to become an itinerant bush labourer and to have had twenty-five different jobs by the age of 17. After joining the United States Army in Kansas on 26 October 1911, he subsequently deserted and was a seaman when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 10 May 1915. Serving with the 16th Battalion at Gallipoli from 2 August, he was wounded in both legs five days later and evacuated to a hospital in Cairo; he returned to Sydney in November and was discharged on 29 March 1916. At Woollahra in a civil ceremony on 31 October that year he married a tailoress Maud Elizabeth Roy; they were divorced in 1920.
Employed as a commercial traveller, Clune married a 21-year-old saleswoman Thelma Cecily Smith on 9 May 1923 at the district registrar’s office, Waverley; she was to appear in his columns as ‘Brown Eyes’ and to become the proprietor of an art gallery. At night he studied accountancy and in 1924 established a tax consultancy, registering Clune Accounting Systems Ltd in 1928. He lived at Vaucluse from 1930 and belonged to the New South Wales Golf Club. His adventures at sea, as a trooper in the American cavalry, at Gallipoli, bootlegging in Canada, touring Queensland in the chorus of an opera company, and as a mouse-trap salesman provided the basis of his first book, Try Anything Once (1933). It was an immediate success and sold tens of thousands of copies.
From 1933 to 1936 Clune developed the formula which he was to use for many other books: Rolling Down the Lachlan(1935) and Roaming Round the Darling (1936) were speedily-written accounts of his travels as a tax-consultant in western New South Wales and of an expedition to Coopers Creek, Queensland. His combination of historical detail, narratives of explorers and contemporary political observations found an eager market. Following the example of Ion Idriess, Clune used a rough-and-ready prose style and expressed his sense of nationalism. His travel books, again employing his trusted formula, covered Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, Asia and North America. By 1952 he estimated that his twenty-three books had sold over a half a million copies.
Clune (and his supporters) took his writing seriously, seeing it as an expression of simple Australian virtues and unvarnished Australian speech. Others were more sceptical. Kenneth Slessor met him in Cairo in 1942 and wryly noted that Clune, although an honorary commissioner of the Australian Comforts Fund, spent most of his time arranging free travel and collecting guide books as sources for Tobruk to Turkey (1943); Clune donated the royalties (£750) to the fund. He ‘left a very bad impression’ on General Sir Thomas Blamey—as much for his self-conferred rank of major as for his ‘irregular methods and indiscreet utterances’ about the British ‘only playing at war’. Blamey ensured that Clune was subject to military censorship and, when Clune managed to get to New Guinea in 1943 through the help of the U.S. Army, had him smartly returned to Australia.
With a strong sense of his public, Clune did not confine his enthusiasm for travel, adventure and history to books. When he had been auditioned, officials of the Australian Broadcasting Commission found that his ‘voice is not all good’, but from 1936 he badgered (Sir) Charles Moses (on a golf course) to arrange for him to give a series of radio talks. Clune wrote for newspapers and magazines, including Smith’s Weekly and the A.B.C. Weekly, and continued to broadcast; his regular show on the A.B.C., ‘Roaming Round Australia’ (1945-57), boasted an audience of one million.
There were more critical responses to Clune’s apparent insouciance with evidence when he wrote what purported to be orthodox history rather than travelogue. Starting with Dig (1937), an account of Burke and Wills, he worked his way through Australian history, writing accounts of bushrangers, ‘crooks’ and other romantic figures. The Viking of Van Diemen’s Land (1954), its narrative full of action and dialogue, was thought to have more in common with historical novels than history; Clune and his collaborator P. R. Stephensen were taken to task for passing off conjecture as fact in the life of Jorgen Jorgenson. The book had come from notes which Clune had made over eighteen years and from the work of researchers employed on contract, and was written up in a dramatic manner. With its impressive bibliography, it illustrates Clune’s strengths and weaknesses: an ability to ferret out information, but a desire to embroider it. Nevertheless, in books such as Dig and Wild Colonial Boys (1948), where he took care, he handled complex narrative and evidence comparatively well.
While his defects as a historian and a literary stylist are obvious, Clune’s readability and his capacity to sound like an enthusiastic representative of the ordinary traveller brought him wide popularity. He wrote in a pre-television era when men, in particular, read for entertainment and vicarious adventure. As he said in the first number of his short-lived Frank Clune’s Adventure Magazine (1948), ‘We don’t want stories of snoopy sex, written by anaemic lounge lizards and pub-crawlers. Action is the password to these pages. This is reading for men with red blood in their arteries’.
Although his fifty-ninth (and last) book appeared in 1968, he had continued to practise as a tax consultant, in partnership with his elder son from about 1959. (Sir) William Dargie and (Sir) William Dobell painted portraits of Frank Clune and he bought examples of their work, as well as paintings by other artists. Dobell’s portrait emphasizes the bluff, steel-coloured, short-cropped hair, and the energy, confidence and humour in his eyes. Clune was appointed O.B.E. in 1967. Survived by his wife and two sons, he died on 11 March 1971 at St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst, and was buried with Catholic rites in South Head cemetery. The travel books remain valuable social records and the histories, although contentious, gave rise to some Australian mythologizing; Jimmy Governor (1959) was the inspiration for Thomas Keneally’s novel, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972). The portraits of Clune are held by the family.
Select Bibliography
B. Adamson, Frank Clune (Melb, 1943); K. Slessor, The War Diaries of Kenneth Slessor (Brisb, 1985); ABC Weekly, 23 Dec 1939, p 8; People (Sydney), 12 Apr 1950, p 21; Walkabout, 1 Mar 1953, p 40; Papers and Proceedings (Tasmanian Historical Research Association), 3, nos 2 and 3, 1954, pp 28, 52; Biblionews, 8, no 2, Feb 1955, p 4, no 4, Apr 1955, p 11, no 7, July 1955, p 22; Clune papers (National Library of Australia); Clune files, especially SP 1558/2/0 box 36 and 244/1/463 (National Archives of Australia); F. Clune, manuscripts and working papers of several unfinished books (University of New South Wales Library); private information. More on the resources
Author: Julian Croft
Print Publication Details: Julian Croft, ‘Clune, Francis Patrick (Frank) (1893 – 1971)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, Melbourne University Press, 1993, pp 447-448.
Henry, Henry Goya (1901 – 1974)
Birth:
17 June 1901, Grafton,New South Wales,Australia
Death:
14 July 1974, Manly, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation:
HENRY, HENRY GOYA (1901-1974), aviator and shipmaster, was born on 17 June 1901 at Grafton, New South Wales, third son of Thomas James Henry, medical practitioner, and his wife Emily, née Stephen, a great-granddaughter of John Stephen. Known as Goya, Henry was educated at Grafton High School. He made one voyage in a sailing ship; hoping to transfer later to medicine, he studied science at the University of Sydney in 1922-23. At St Matthew’s Church, Windsor, on 11 April 1925 he married Marjory Alison Pursehouse, schoolteacher. He worked as a clerk.
Qualifying for a private flying licence on 28 January 1928, Henry was issued with a commercial licence on 6 June 1929, which he used principally in a barnstorming venture. On 6 July 1930, flying a Junkers Junior monoplane, he was caught in bad weather and crashed at Manly, killing his passenger and losing much of one leg. With a successful artificial leg, he eventually regained his commercial licence in 1932 and was employed by Air Taxi Ltd. About 1934 he bought a Genairco biplane, decorated it with a ‘Jolly Roger’ and used it for joy-rides.
In September 1934 Henry’s licence was suspended for a fortnight for breaches of the air navigation regulations. Considering the sentence unjust, he defied the order: his licence was suspended indefinitely and he was prosecuted. Henry’s brother Alfred Stephen, a solicitor, launched proceedings in the High Court of Australia in October 1934 for an order nisi. While judgment was pending Henry was charged with further offences, his licence was suspended again and he was forbidden to enter any aerodrome. The Henry brothers appealed again to the High Court for an injunction. In 1936 the High Court ruled in respect of the action of October 1934 that the Commonwealth had a right to regulate flights but only in conformity with international conventions on the subject; the court considered that the regulations in dispute did not accord with those conventions. The parties then agreed out of court that on the payment of damages by the Commonwealth, the injunction application would be struck out. Charged by a flight controller at Mascot during the ensuing temporary confusion with flying below the prescribed height, Henry appealed, this time unsuccessfully to the High Court.
After a verdict against him in the District Court, arising from a collision while taking off from Mascot, Henry was bankrupted in October 1938 and was not discharged until September 1940. Debarred by his artificial leg from the Royal Australian Air Force at the start of World War II, he joined the small ships unit of the United States Army in 1943 and sailed a small work boat around New Guinea. After the war he worked for the Papua-New Guinea division of the Directorate of Shipping as mate on the Kelanoa plying between Rabaul and Kavieng, and as master of the Matoko in 1950-51. When the shipping service was taken over by the administration of Papua-New Guinea, he became master of the Thetis sailing up and down the Sepik River. He retired about 1963 and returned to Sydney; although his flying licence had lapsed he tried to revive contact with aviation. He died childless at Manly of arteriosclerosis on 14 July 1974 and was cremated.
Short, fair, straight-backed and nimble in spite of his disability, Henry became a New Guinea character. He had collected and sold snakes for many years, thereby reinforcing his reputation as a daredevil. In later years he suffered from some alcoholic excess.
Select Bibliography
Pacific Islands Monthly, Sept 1966, p 130; Aircraft (Melbourne), Dec 1936, p 8, 1 Apr 1937, p 17; Commonwealth Law Reports, 1955, p 608, 695, 1961, p 634; Australian Flying, Sept 1974; Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 1930, 11 Nov 1936, 17, 18 Sept 1940, 21 July 1974; Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 21 Nov 1936; bankruptcy file 249/1938, Federal Court of Australia (State Records New South Wales); service record, (National Personnel Records Center, St Louis, Mo, USA); A518 DB112/5, A432 34/1802, MP274/6 FL3918 (National Archives of Australia).
Author: H. J. Gibbney
Print Publication Details: H. J. Gibbney, ‘Henry, Henry Goya (1901 – 1974)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, Melbourne University Press, 1983, pp 265-266.
We are no longer all British!
Today a couple of young Englishmen called in doing a survey for GOGREEN, and I got talking to them. First saying I detected their Southern English accents and they told me they were from London.
I asked them were they visitors or residents and they said they were here for a year and hoped to stay longer but there could be difficulties. I mentioned that my forebears come from Shepherd’s Bush in London and one said that was where he came from. I then went on to say that when I first visited England in the fifties, we were all considered to be British and went through the barriers as such, but alas, the Empire is no longer and as Australians coming to the UK now we are considered aliens, the same as the poor old Brits coming into Australia.
I then went on to tell them about a friend, a Battle of Britain pilot with a DFC, upon entering Britain he was told that he had to go through the barrier at customs for aliens, and he refused, and made such a fuss along the lines that he fought for this country and there was no way he was going to enter as an alien. Eventually the authorities relinquished and let hin through the citizens’ gate.
I must admit that I did embellish the story a bit. The pilot was not actually a friend, and whether he had a DFC or not, I don’t know, but I did hear this story from someone as being something that did actually happen to a Battle of Britain pilot and his reaction.
The point of this little tale is that some of us might feel we are British, and like St Paul of old be proud of Roman Citizenship, but a fat lot of good this will do Englishmen or Australians. On reflection I suppose it didn’t do St Paul much good, but then again, I suppose it’s better to have your head cut off than to be crucified.
Yangtze Sepik Swim
“At the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the Chinese press reported that Chairman Mao Zedong (then age 73) swam across the Yangtze River at Wuhan. The story was intended to quash rumors that Mao was either gravely ill or dead.” WuhanTravel Guide
When did the Birdman swim across the Sepik?
“Now the Birdman, it was when Trueman was building the club toilets etc. I can’t recall the year, but I distinctly remember that it was between smokes!”
Peter Johnson (Former Secretary of the Angoram Club)
I would say from memory that Adrian Birb swam the Sepik River in 1969.
The Chairman’s swim, in a sense, ushered in the Cultural Revolution and the Birdman’s swim coincided with revolutionary changes in the social and political life in Angoram.
Adrian Bird, the Birdman, was a master builder who was initially employed by Geoff King, the Manager of the Angoram Hotel, to carry out hotel renovations. When these were finished, Kevin Trueman, entrepreneur and builder, decided to retain the Birdman to start and complete a contract he had with the Angoram Club.
The swim was a perilous achievement as the current of the mighty river almost carried him away. On reaching the bank he was heard to say: “I need a smoke.”
I think the dangers that Adrian faced were greater than those faced by the Chairman. Whether, of course, the enormous political implications were as great for the Birdman as for Mao is a matter for debate.
Both were significant revolutionary figures.
The Sepik Solution
Keram River
It has come to my notice that a prominent East Sepik Province businessman, Mr Peter Johnson, C.B.E., has approached the Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, for authorization to offer his estate, Yip, on the Keram River, to the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd as a haven for asylum seekers on their way to Australia.
He is just awaiting Sir Michael’s approval and the OK from Mr Rudd to embark on a massive building program to accommodate the refugees.
It has been further speculated that Mr John Pasquarelli is considering a return to the Sepik to manage the Yip establishment. Senator Barnaby Joyce is said to be enthusiastic about the Yip idea and of Mr Pasquarelli running it.
Mr Pasquarelli sees himself as an Australian with courage “to become [a flag-bearer] in these challenging times.”
In this brilliant concept there would be winners everywhere: Christmas Island will not become overcrowded. The Australian navy would benefit by improving their navigational skills by collecting refugees wherever and shipping them up the Sepik and Keram Rivers. The asylum seekers would be well-housed in the palatial accommodation planned by Mr Johnson and managed by Mr Pasquarelli. PNG would get wanted revenue. Mr Rudd would stop the boats coming to Australia and would not be embarrassed by adopting a Pacific Solution, for this would be the Sepik Solution. In accordance with United Nations regulations, Mr Pasquarelli promises a quick turnover of the bona fides of the asylum seekers – good looking females, of course – will be given preferential treatment, which is only fair, given we are thinking of future generations in Australia.
So, my advice to you, Mr Rudd, would be “take it,” for: On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.
Do Atheists Exist? by Ralf Stüttgen
Three sages: Dave, Ralf, Pete, in a reflective disposition
- Ralf Stüttgen
People who call themselves atheists say, “God does not exist.” But, do atheists exist? – a matter of definition. If you define God as existence, the reality in which we live, as truth, love, justice, helpfulness, honesty, logic, as a set of general concepts, then there are probably no atheists. Not many people doubt the reality around themselves. However, if you imagine God as a picture-book god, with a white beard and long robes, parked above the clouds, you are right in rejecting such an image. It is the same as not believing in Santa Claus.
Yet, there is a meaning of atheist, that is very real. This is, in traditional terminology, the sinner , the person who objects to the truth, who opposes love, who does not want to obey his or her conscience, who would like to insist on a lie. And this type of atheist is everyone of us.
See: http://deberigny.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/ralf-stuttgen/#respond
Ralf Stuttgen’s Views and Perceptions
On my recent visit to Papua New Guinea I had some far-reaching discussions with my friend, Ralf Stuttgen. Ralf has many interesting and discerning points of view which are worth airing in the hope that they can be commented on and further discussed by others.
Our conversations ranged over theological, philosophical, educational and environmental questions and were tackled uniquely and insightfully by Ralf.
Here are his views:
Who and what is God? Any definition of God cannot be divorced from our material existence and humanity’s system of values. Fundamentally God is love and with this concept in mind no one with values is essentially an atheistic according to Ralf. By a stretch of the imagination most, I guess, could accept a principal power and reality in the universe named God or something else. Theological definitions must continually be refined and explained in modern terms. Objective truth is not just a question of what is right and what is wrong.
Symbol and myth reveal and divulge theological and ethical truths. Virginity is a symbol of divine wisdom and life is like the rising dawn. There is no doubt in Ralf’s mind that the essence of the Christian message is fundamentally sound, but the interpretation of the message needs to be refined and updated.
Ralf looks at sin and an appropriate definition; Sin is any act where the damage is greater than the advantages. I suppose in a sense the end justifies the means. All acts have good and bad potentials. Untruths and lies are always involved with sin and the suppression of information. An ill-informed conscience cannot be an arbitrator of good and evil.
Science fiction can be a useful tool for awakening future generations to development possibilities for in this genre humankind looks at the desirable and the possible.
On the broad question of the economy, education and development Ralf continually stresses the primary importance of quality education. Any country without an educated population is doomed to a state of undevelopment. Even a state without abundant natural resources but with an educated population has the capacity for significant economic development, look at the South Korean economic miracle and compare this with Papua New Guinea, a country with vast natural resources and a seemingly inability to lift the standard of living for its population. Over the past thirty years or so South Korea has put in place a vibrant education and training programme throughout the country, whereas in PNG the state of education at all levels: primary, secondary, tertiary and technical training is at best poor and only available to a small percent of the population. The result being that South Korea exports the products of a technically advanced economy with vast returns to its educated and well governed population, whereas PNG is increasingly becoming a land that is largely being exploited for its resources by others. The country is plagued with inappropriate and destructive resource exploitation with little return to its people in general. One need only look at the logging and mining industries and the environmental hazards they are creating. Corrupt officials and politicians and overseas companies get their rewards but the uneducated masses get comparatively nothing. One example of poor governance and supervision in PNG is that 60% of the gold extracted from the country is exported illegally. This means that the state gets nothing for this valuable resource.
Ralf is emphatic in his assertion that education is the solution to all the world’s problems.
Doing it right – Success Doing it wrong – No Success
Education will improve public health. The most common cause of death is stupidity.
Education will protect the environment, stupidity leads to the killing of wildlife and even over-population. Governments must improve their education systems before they improve their health services. In British India the health services were better than the education services; result over-population.
Education, Research and the Future
Our biological, genetic and evolutionary future is tied up with education and new ideas.Let us look at some problems with new insights: Is Western Agriculture appropriate in undeveloped countries? Not always as it requires deforestation; more research is needed into methods of growing food. Humankind should be able to live off trees. The whole world could be covered with trees. Trees are a great source of starch and more research is needed to fully utilize them as food. Sensible conservation will protect the jungles of the world. In the past in PNG when the kunai grasslands were protected from burning it was noticed that the jungle trees come back. It is true to say our scientists need a broader education.
General reflections
Who does the Development Bank develop? Answer: The Development Bank. Only take out a loan when land and labour are there with future prospects to guarantee success. Look at the bind the West New Britain oil palm small holders are in trying to repay the Development Bank.
Indigenous people at least should be guaranteed health, fresh air and natural conditions.The reality is that indigenous people must adapt or vanish.The laws of evolution are there. In North America some indigenous people were known as little heads because of their small brain size. Presumably the evolutionary process had past them by. We must face the fact that some genes become outdated Will we in the future condone and allow some form of genetic engineering?
What was the principal cause of the fall of the Roman Empire? The Roman State did not have a Department of Education as an institution preserving and passing on knowledge to future generations.
Global warming has been going on for years, markedly since AD 400. Development and education are historically intertwined with changes of climate.
We must all learn to manage our health. Sleep is the most important anti-malarial. In the future humankind must learn to eat different foods.
The attempt to commercialize the production of sago in the Sepik will be a disaster. The keeping of cattle and wet rice growing are inappropriate as agricultural ventures in PNG as tasks associated with these endeavours are foreign to the people.
Managing rubbish is a problem for PNG towns and cities.
What is a Jew? Ralf looks at this broadly: There are ethnic Jews and theological Jews. Ethic Jews are those with a racial connection to Israel and theological Jews are all people of good will. This is in accord with God’s promise to Abraham:
Your descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in heaven. Your descendants will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore.
The ideas of a better world are not exclusively Jewish but also come from other ancient people such as the Persians and Egyptians. The big question was and is just how to achieve a better world? The answer will come from the chosen people who are all people of good will.
Catholics in conservative parties
December 2, 2009 at 3:56 am (Barnaby Joyce, Catholic Church, Commentary, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull, National Parties, Riverview, Sectarianism in Australia, St Aloysius' College, Tony Abbott)
Australian Catholics of past generations would find it hard to believe that the three recent candidates for Liberal Party leadership were Catholics: Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott.
It was generally assumed up until the late 1960s that Catholics had no political future in conservative politics in Australia. The first slight breach in this came with the emergence of Philip Lynch as a Minister in the Gorton and McMahon governments in the late 1960s and early 70s.
If you include Barnaby Joyce, the National Party leader in the Senate, with Abbott and Hockey, it is interesting to note that they all come from Jesuit schools – Abbott and Joyce from Riverview and Hockey from St Aloysius.
When Nick Greiner (an old boy of Riverview) became NSW Premier in 1988 it was an event for the school almost like the Second Coming.
Catholics coming into their own in conservative parties in Australia raise a number of interesting questions about the demise of the Anglican Presbyterian ascendancy, or perhaps the general indifference by Australians to denominational considerations and sectarianism, or then again, just an apathy towards religion.
Whatever answers we come up with one thing is for sure our fathers and grandfathers would be amazed.
Permalink Leave a Comment