CHRISTOBEL MATTINGLEY WRITES:
I was born on 26 October 1931 at Brighton, a seaside suburb of Adelaide, South Australia and for the first eight years of my life the sand hills and the beach were my playground, where I learned to swim and to love and respect the sea. When my family moved to Sydney in New South Wales for my father’s work as an engineer, the big garden around our old house and the bush at the end of our road became my special places.
I began to keep a diary, describing the birds and insects and plants I observed, and by the time I was ten my first pieces had been published in the children’s pages of the Sydney Morning Herald and the nature magazine Wild Life. I also wrote poems on the coloured pages of the album in which my mother collected recipes. When my poems were rejected by the school magazine, I produced my own magazine on an ancient typewriter a friend had given to my sister and me. Nest Egg: A Clutch of Poems was published many years later in 2005.
I was 21 when my first feature article was published in the main section of Wild Life magazine. Since then many of my 50 books have been inspired by my love of nature and have been about animals, birds or plants. The feelings for Windmill at Magpie Creek (1971) arose when I was seven and was swooped by magpies protecting their nest – a scary experience. Much later my efforts to save a historic gum tree led to writing The Battle of the Galah Trees (1974). Chelonia Green, Champion of Turtles (2008) was written on an island off the Queensland coast where the turtles which have come for centuries to lay their eggs are now seriously threatened by marine pollution.
In Sydney my father was construction engineer building the first road bridge across the great Hawkesbury River, and its bush and golden sandstone cliffs became another special place for me. There were Aboriginal rock carvings and caves in the sandstone, and I used to sit in one of the caves imagining I was Aboriginal, wondering what life had been like for those Aboriginal people before Europeans came and occupied their country.
I saved my pocket money and bought books about Aboriginal art and language and culture from the Australian Museum, and used to read the lists of beautiful Aboriginal place names which were like music, before I went to sleep. And so the seeds were sown for the books I was to write much later on behalf of and at the request of the First Peoples of Australia – Survival in Our Own Land (1988) and Maralinga the Anangu Story (2009), both recounting history in South Australia since European settlement, and Daniel’s Secret (1997), about rock carvings in Tasmania. I wrote Tucker’s Mob (1992) after staying in an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory and it has the rare distinction of being translated into four Aboriginal languages.
When I was 14 our family moved to Tasmania, again because of my father’s work, Now he was building dams for hydro electricity and I became very aware of human impact on the environment and the need to live in harmony with nature. So I have been a long-time supporter of many conservation organisations in Australia and beyond.
This second uprooting and my work at the Department of Immigration after graduating from the University of Tasmania with First Class Honours in German, assisting the post-WW2 stream of displaced persons from Europe, developed my empathy with refugees and migrants.
Again, without my then realising, feelings were aroused which led to New Patches for Old (1977), an adolescent novel about an English migrant girl; The Angel with a Mouth Organ (1984), about a Latvian refugee family, and the trilogy about a Bosnian family: No Gun for Asmir (1993), Asmir in Vienna (1995), and Escape from Sarajevo (1996). All these books were sparked by people whom I came to know.
As a schoolgirl in 1945, seeing the first photos of the mushroom clouds from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the newspaper proved to be the beginning of two books on the effects of nuclear weapons on innocent people. When our daughter was a post-graduate student in Japan we visited her in 1981 and went to Nagasaki for Christmas, as it was the place where Christianity was introduced. After seeing the little museum with its sobering remnants of the devastation, and the trees in the Epicentre Park bright with thousands of strings of paper cranes, I found myself on Christmas night sitting on a bunk in the youth hostel writing The Miracle Tree (1985) in an old exam book my teacher husband David had used to detail our travel arrangements.
When the war in Iraq began, his experiences as a Lancaster pilot in WW2 and our strong feelings about the effects of war on those on active service as well as civilians, led to Battle Order 204 (2007).
In 2001 after attending the Yepperenye Festival in Alice Springs in the centre of Australia where people from all the First Nations came together to celebrate survival, I had the idea of helping the survivors of the ten years of British nuclear testing on their traditional lands to tell their experiences. Anangu women worked with me sharing their stories and painting pictures of their life and land, and Maralinga the Anangu Story was published in 2009. It was my 48th book.
Altogether I have written 50 books, 45 for children and five adult books of biography and history, as well as short stories, poetry, articles and film scripts. My 51st book, My Father’s Islands, to be published in 2012 by the National Library of Australia, is about that remarkable Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman and his amazing voyages of discovery around Australia and the South Pacific, told from his daughter’s point of view.
My husband and I have travelled to many places, camping in many parts of Australia with our daughter and two sons, later visiting them where they lived in Europe, Japan, USA, India, South Africa and New Zealand, and I discovered that I was a writer not just in Australia, but wherever I was. We have lived in England, where I wrote Rummage (1981), Munich in Germany, where I wrote Lexl and the Lion Party (1982) and The Magic Saddle(1983), and began writing Ghost Sitter(1984) on the back of a chocolate wrapper in a train in the Bavarian mountains. We were in Vienna in Austria where I found myself unexpectedly having spinal surgery and writing No Gun for Asmir (1993) in hospital.
As a writer I have spent time in every state of Australia visiting schools, going on camps, giving lectures, speaking at conferences, sometimes a writer in residence, and doing research. I have also done a month-long lecture tour in New Zealand (McGruer and the Goat (1987), travelled in Papua New Guinea, Korea and Bangladesh living with local families, and visited Canada. I am so fortunate to have countless friends across the world, many I know, many more among people who have read my books, either in my own words or in translations in Danish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Basque or Catalan.
To be a writer is to be rich, not necessarily in money – few writers are – but to be rich in sharing and reaching out across the world, touching hearts and minds, making friends, knowing that my books are threads in the fabric of other peoples’ lives.
Thank you, dear readers!
And where do I write now? you may be wondering. I live in the foothills of Adelaide and my study overlooks our garden visited by many birds – flocks of brilliantly plumed parrots and lorikeets feasting on our plums and crab apples and the nectar of our yellow gum blossoms and scarlet bottlebrush, magpies bringing their young to carol on our terrace, kookaburras laughing at dawn and sunset, and sometimes a boobook owl or a pair of mopokes calling in the night. Often I can see a koala in the gum trees and always on sunny days, as we walk up the garden path to the compost bins, little lizards skitter and dart away at our approach.
If you want to contact me you can do it through my publisher Allen & Unwin, at 406 Albert Street, East Melbourne, Victoria 3002. They are very good at sending on letters and emails. Their email address is info@allenandunwin.com. I do try to answer every letter I receive. But you may have to wait a while if I am writing another book and it has a publisher’s deadline. Or maybe I could be travelling again, far from home and certainly not checking my email!
Your friend through writing, books and reading
Christobel Mattingley
Hello Christobel. I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed your wonderful book about Deny King, ” King of the Wilderness”.
I met you many years ago when you visited the library in Geraldton, where I was City Librarian for 20 years. I retired in 2001 and think that is why I was unaware of the publication of the book, as I was busy being a Councillor!
I now live in South Perth ( which will be known to you through the writing awards) and found the book on the library shelves there recently.
When we lived in the Pilbara I was a member of the Hamersley Range Bushwalkers Club, which you mentioned as having visited Melaleuca and helping with one of the huts. We have a picture of that event. We had a most wonderful walk along the SW track and I have re-lived it through your book.
Your wonderful descriptions of the bird life and the King family’s joys and trials have given me much joy, what an amazing man he was, the family too. I was interested of course, to find out that Janet is a librarian and cooperated on the South West Book, which I remember among our collections. I must now search for a copy of that.
I look forward to the publication of your book about Janszoon, I am sure it will be just as fascinating.
With very best wishes for health and happiness.
Pat Gallaher
Dear Pat
Thank you for your message. I remember well my visit to Geraldton and the North West and the hospitality I received. So glad you have enjoyed King of the Wilderness and that it brought back such good memories of your time in South West Tasmania. Among other projects which have been keeping me busy (ie not answering letters), I have been doing an entry for Deny King for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The next A-K volume is scheduled to appear on line at the end of 2013. I hope by now you have found a copy of My Father’s Islands. Abel Tasman certainly was a courageous man and a great seafarer.
You might also enjoy my other books published by the National Library of Australia, based on treasures in their collection: For the Love of Nature: E.E.Gostelow’s Birds and Flowers; and A Brilliant Touch:Adam Forster’s Wildflower Paintings. Gostelow was a teacher in 36 schools across NSW over 50 years and encouraged his students to observe their surroundings by drawing the local birds and flowers in coloured chalks on the blackboard – truly an environmental educator, before the term was even thought of. Adam Forster did the exquisite wildflower paintings ten years before Thistle Harris wrote the text for the classic Wildflowers of Australia. Both books feature many of their paintings.
Thank you again, Pat, for your response. I shall forward it to Deny’s daughter Janet, who will be delighted also.
Hoping we may meet again some time. Do you ever come to Adelaide?
Best wishes
Christobel
I love your books
Were doing a project on you at school
Thank you for your comment. I’m glad you enjoyed my books, and I hope you did well with your project.
[…] My Father’s Islands by Christobel Mattingley […]
Thank you for letting me know that My Father’s Islands is on the list to vote for at http://www.wayrba.org.au.
Hello Christobel
My daughter, editor for the Australian Antarctic Magazine recently sent me “King of the Wilderness”, which evoked a few memories. In January 1960, as a 21 year old geological student I was given summer vacation work by Terry Hughes, Chief Geologist for the Tasmanian Mines Department. I was to work with 60 year old Pete Pituley, a Polish prospector, hired to look for interesting minerals We were driven down, probably to somewhere near Glen Huon, where the track ended and then walked in and spent a week camped by the Weld River. Fortunately we did not get into the horizontal scrub mentioned in the book.
Following this we were joined by senior geologist Steve Stefanski, also from Poland and were flown by helicopter from Southport into the Ironbound Ranges with three weeks food supply. As the helicopter came in to pick us up, one of our tents, used to cover the supplies from the rain, lifted up and collided with the main rotor. The tent was destroyed but the rotor was not damaged. It was a memorable flight for other reasons too as I had never been in a helicopter before and we flew close to the spectacular Precipitous Bluff and the scars from recent landslides.
My companions made an interesting couple. Steve had escaped from Poland before the German army marched in and he found a job as a professor of geology at an Indian University, but Pete, who owned Iron ore mines in Poland, stayed to protect his interests. Pete once asked me if his nightmares, so bad that he would call out, kept me awake as he was jailed, tortured and saw some terrible sights. He and Steve would argue heatedly in Polish about the rocks they were mapping and one or the other would turn to me in exasperation and say “Is not that right Bob”.
We had some terrible weather and my diary notes showed that it rained two days in every three, during which Steve stayed in his tent and Pete and I explored. Pete smoked a pipe and one day used a whole box of matches trying to light it in the gale force winds. After two weeks in the ranges we loaded up our gear and walked out to Cox Bight. It was a 12 hour marathon and we left Pete behind on the trail, arriving just off the beach in the dark. That was a frustrating moment as we could not get onto the beach, the stunted scrub was simply impenetrable. We slashed our way in the next morning.
This was a marvellous beach for watching the antics of seagulls but the sand fleas and March flies were in attack mode and getting a tan was not an option. In the rock pools you could wade in and pick up undersize crayfish, which were quite plentiful. If you put them on a rock while searching for a larger specimen they would just sit there. We did not get to see Denny’s tin mine but Steve often mentioned him as their paths had frequently crossed.
On one day trip with full back pack I followed Steve across a button grass plain. The grass clumps are so close together that it is often not possible to get a foot flat on the ground, while Steve sailed through with ease, I fell over every third step─no joke with a heavy back pack. I still vividly recall my absolute rage and frustration knowing I was going to keep doing this until I got to the end of the plain. You don’t mention leeches in the book but we found plenty on occasions. Pete liked to put the leech on a log and smack it with a hammer.
In January 1961 I joined them again. This time we were flown by helicopter in to Port Davy where a party of surveyors had a camp. The helicopter was to be used by us to ferry us into various places in the South West Cape Ranges and Steve had split our supplies and made four food drops, duly noted on his air photos. As you noted in the book, the helicopter crashed so we had to walk everywhere instead, and as also noted in the book, we were one of the parties that could not find a food drop. We lost a week’s supply─a great way to lose a few kilos. Luckily we had much better weather. In all those weeks of tramping the ranges we did not see one walker but we came cross the blazed track occasionally.
Many years later I also visited Edie Creek to write up a prospectus. If Deny could have been there when the incredibly rich alluvial gold was discovered in 1922 he would not have bothered with tin.
Thank you for a great read.
Robert Pyper