Local Treasures: The Athel D’Ombrain Collection

Athel D'Ombrain

Day Shift – 15/11/2011 – 02:10 PM – forthcoming
Presenter: Carol Duncan
Interviewee: Gionni Di Gravio, Archivist, Newcastle University

University of Newcastle Archivist Gionni Di Gravio discusses the recent digitisation of the Athel D’Ombrain Collection comprising of over 2,500 negatives, and talks about his life and extraordinary contribution to the Hunter Region.

Broadcast Notes:

The Athel D’Ombrain Collection was deposited with the University of Newcastle Archives in 1982.

The following notes are from an 1981 article in the University News entitled “University Post” (Vol. 7 No. 12 July 1981 p.[3]) supplemented with further notes from a variety of websites. He left an incredible and varied legacy in the wider Regional community. These photographs are an outstanding document of his life’s work and contribution to the natural world,  history, architecture, science and art. They document many historical buildings throughout the Hunter Region, prior to restoration. They also document buildings and structures no longer extant.

The negatives were digitised by Sharon Mee and Michael Sherriff, and both should be congratulated for scanning the two and a half thousand odd negatives that are very challenging to handle. Sharon is currently uploading the negatives to our flickr site here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/sets/72157627892125061/

Here is a selection:

Athel D’Ombrain A.M. (1901-1985) was a photographer, optician, naturalist, author, cricketer, pioneer angler, game fisherman and historian.

He was born in Casterton in the Western District of Victoria in 1901. His father, a general practitioner, was one of the pioneer ornithologists of Australia, and had helped in the formation of the Royal Australian Ornithologists’ Union. It was through his father, and the excursions they shared together, that Athel learnt about the natural world. His interest was further developed by living on the north shore in Sydney at a time when the suburb was sparsly settled and a fine place in which to study birds and animals.

He attended Shore College, Sydney between 1913-18. After being educated at Shore, and realising that his interests were not academic,  he later studied agriculture at Hawkesbury Agricultural College, and worked on the land at Somersby, garnering much success as a citrus-grower. He was part winner of a Wembly Medal and winner of several prizes in local citrus shows.

Athel had also studied optometry and when his brother, Arthur, an opthalmic surgeon, said he should move to Maitland and work with him as a manufacturing optician he said he would. In 1929 he moved to Maitland to work as an optical dispenser at his brother’s practice, and for over 20 years was associated with his brother in Maitland, and later for some years in Newcastle.

Athel was a well respected cricketer with the Northern Suburbs Cricket Club. Known as ‘Dorn’ to his fellow cricketers, his first A Grade season (1929-1930) marked the beginning of an association with the Club that would last over fifty years.

Besides playing, he was also served as Secretary from 1930-36, and later conducted Coaching Classes. In recognition of his long playing and administrative services, he was made a Life Member of the Club in the early sixties and Patron from 1968.

In 1934 he, along with Wallace Fitness, approached the secretary of the Hunter River Agricultural and Horticultural Association Show Society, asking whether they could display some local photographs in the Fine Arts Pavilion at the 1934 annual Maitland Show. The request was accepted, and so was founded the Maitland Salon of Photography.  In 1946 Maitland Salon became an Australian Photographic Society approved Salon and then in 1958 became an International Salon with approval from the Photographic Society of America and finally in 1982 the federation International De L’ Art Photographique granted its patronage.

In February 1936, he married Esma Drew, of Clarencetown, by whom he had a son, Robin, who later became a Technical Officer in Chemical Engineering. Esma died in May 1980.

Around 1950 Athel retired from optometry and became a photographer for The Maitland Mercury. After the 1955 flood hit his home he left the newspaper and established a commercial photographic business in Maitland. Concurrent with these activities he was a “photo-finish operator” at the Maitland Showground and a stringer cameraman.

Through the efforts of Athel and Newman Silverthorne, the Newcastle and Port Stephens Game Fish Club was formed with Headquarters at Bundabah on the northern side of the Port. In 1935 the fishing enthusiasts built a clubhouse at Shoal Bay. “There was not one house at the bay at this time – nothing but bush”, he says. The Fish Club was taken over by the Army in the Second World War, following which it was incorporated into the Country Club Hotel. He was renown as a pioneer angler who adopted a scientific approach to the sport and who was very successful in the post war years. He is credited with devising the now widely accepted tag and release concept for big game fishes, commencing his first experiments in 1938.

Athel was an expert naturalist especially on Port Stephens and its flora and fauna. For example, he visited Cabbage Tree Island regularly for 44 years observing and banding the sea bird called Gould’s Petrel. The island is the only known nesting place of the species.

He also enjoyed looking at the birds in the wetlands at Hexham as he travelled between Maitland and Newcastle in the train. Previously he had contributed several articles to the Newcastle Morning Herald. In 1965 he wrote a piece about the birds at Hexham, which came under the notice of the Herald’s Editor at the time, Mr E.K. Lingard, who liked the story so much he asked Athel to write a weekly column. For some time he became a Saturday correspondent for The Herald. He also authored a number of published books, ‘Game Fishing Off the Australian Coast’ and ‘Fish Tales’, and an unpublished account of Gould’s Petrel, called ‘North East of Toomaree’, and an unpublished autobiography

His newspaper articles and books contributed a great deal to the unfolding of the wonders of nature. Moreover, he was continually identifying specimens found in the bush and backyards for individuals.

On the 9 June 1975, in recognition of his service to photography and the study of nature, he was awarded Member of the Order of Australia.

In 1981 he was invited to become a Convocation Visiting Scholar at the University of Newcastle, the third to hold the position since its inception in 1977.

As a result of his photographic work over many years, he amassed a monumental collection of photographs relating to the Hunter Valley. One of his roles as Convocation Visiting Scholar was to work in association with Denis Rowe (University Archivist) in the Archives in the Auchmuty Library, cataloguing his photographs and organising the articles about nature that he had written for the Newcastle Herald.

He continued to write his columns up until a few months prior to his death at age 83 in 1985. According to his son, Mr Robin D’Ombrain, he wrote a total of 995 articles for the Newcastle Herald.

He was a member of the Royal Australian Orthnologist’s Union, an Associate of the Australian Museum and a Member of the Order of Australia.

Welcoming the Scott Sisters Home to Newcastle

Plate 1 from the Australian Lepidoptera (1864)

To celebrate the recent purchases of three original Scott Sisters works through the University’s Reta Light Memorial Trust and Vera Deacon Regional History Fund Cultural Collections in the Auchuty Library is launching a Welcoming the Scott Sisters back to Newcastle Exhibition dedicated to their legacy in the service of science and art.

When: Tuesday 20 September 2011, 10am – 12pm
Where: Cultural Collections Auchmuty Library, University of Newcastle (Under the Mirror Ball)
Guest Speaker: Dr Anne Llewellyn
Cost: Free

The Exhibition will feature the three recently purchased Scott Sisters works, and printed illustrations from the books. In addition we will display the work of the University’s Nature Illustration students, along with life size models, and the ongoing restorative work of the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project that have been working on Ash Island, the original home of the Scott Sisters, over the past 18 years.

View the set of plates on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/sets/72157627585881887/

In so bringing the Scott Sisters back the Newcastle the University of Newcastle:

- brings into its custody the exceptional scientific achievements of the entomologist and entrepreneur Alexander Walker Scott (1800-1883), and his talented daughters Harriet (1830-1907) and Helena (1832-1910), artists and naturalists, who were educated and worked on Ash Island documenting Australian plants, animals and insects. This is of immense Local, National and International significance.

Scott's Australian Lepidoptera Plate 4

- actively supports the historical legacy of this environmental and scientific education in our students, especially those particularly enrolled in Dr Anne Llewellyn’s Natural History Illustration Course, the only course of its kind in an Australian University, and one of a handful worldwide, as well as those in environmental sciences and history. This interdisciplinary course is testament to the continuing legacy of the superb work of the Scott Sisters.

Plate 11 - Scott's Australian Lepidoptera (1864)

- promotes and supports the work of the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project and their University partners and volunteers, such as the Tom Farrell Institute for the Environment, that is actively rehabilitating natural landscapes and ecosystems that have been destroyed over the past 200 years of industrial development.

- promotes our Region’s story and place in the context of the ‘Beauty from Nature’ National Exhibition currently underway in the Australian Museum highlighting the work of the Scott Sisters, where all their original plates, archives, manuscripts and scientific and artistic tools and specimens are held. See http://australianmuseum.net.au/Scott-Sisters-Butterfly-and-Moth-Drawings

Plate 19 - Scott's Australian Lepidoptera (1864)

- promotes a greater respect and awareness for the pre-colonial, indigenous natural environment and the knowledge and sustainable practices of the Aboriginal people who lived on the Islands for thousands of years prior to the arrival of European peoples.

Frontispiece - Scott's Australian Lepidoptera Volume 2 showing the original pier and entrance to Scott's house and farm from the River

In addition copies of the (hot of the press) Butterflies and Bushland The illustrated guide to Ash Island Butterflies by Rosie Heritage and Julian Brougham will also be available for sale with a selection of twenty three (23) beautiful original paintings by Rosie Heritage, the illustrations used in the book ‘Butterflies and Bushland’, on display.

The book was made possible through a Department of Environment and Sustainability and Climate Change Caring for Our Country Grant, and continues the legacy of the work of Alexander Walker Scott and his two talented daughters Helena and Harriet, who, through their mastery of science and art, captured the flora and Lepidoptera of Ash Island, transforming it “into a place of scientific interest world wide.” Ash Island is gradually re-establishing its former splendor, after years of industrial degradation, through the work of the Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority and the volunteers of the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project.  This book is the field guide to the environmental re-birth of this magical place and its butterflies.

I hope you can join us in welcoming the Scott Sisters back to Newcastle and celebrating their continuing legacy through the University and community.

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist

The Scott Sisters on Ash Island.

Text of the speech delivered by Dr Anne Llewellyn on the occasion of the Launch of the Exhibition

Harriet and Helena Scott are currently being celebrated in an exhibition at the Australian Museum.  Their work has remained largely unrecognized for 150 years since they lived and worked on Ash Island researching and illustrating the plants, insects and animals that inspired them.  Marion Ord’s 1988 publication that included reproductions of the plants and butterflies of the island reintroduced the world to the work of the Scott’s and reminded us of a world on Ash Island that has been largely lost as a result of heavy industry that used the Island as a dumping ground.

Tutored and guided by their father Alexander Walker Scott, a noted entrepreneur and entomologist, Harriet and Helena enjoyed the beautiful natural environment of Ash Island for a period of twenty years faithfully recording and documenting the wildlife around them.  The 2560 acres of land on the island was originally granted to AW Scott in 1829 but it wasn’t until 1846 after his marriage to Harriet Calcott that the family took up residency on Ash Island.  The home they moved into was modest described as being ‘ a simple house with a verandah, sheltered by pines and a huge Moreton Bay fig tree, with a plantation of orange trees behind a modest garden’.  The Scott’s oranges were reputed to be the best in the colony and were sent to the Sydney market.
Harriet and Helena then aged 16 and 14 mixed with prominent scientists and artists and the Island was often visited by memorable guests such as, Ludwig Leichhardt, the artist Conrad Martens and the ornithologist John Gould likely also visited.  Walker Scott is acknowledged by Gould in the 1865 publication of Birds of Australia as having shown him a brood of Grey Goshawks. The Scotts welcomed and entertained the colonies and visiting rich, famous and most interesting characters.

As a member of the Entomology Society of New South Wales and as a trustee of the Australian Museum, AW Scott was in a good position to introduce his talented daughters to the scientific elite. Harriet and Helena had some obvious advantages over their contemporaries in having this close contact with the scientific community that enabled them to seek advice and close scrutiny of their artwork.  As a result of their work on Lepidoptera, the sisters were made honorary members of the Entomological Society of NSW, a rare tribute for women of their day.

The Australian Museum collection of Scott papers, which largely covers the Lepidoptera, indicates that their research was meticulous and included written descriptions, notes and illustrations of each species.  Two notebooks contain numbered observations that align to numbers on the field sketches and when viewed together, each provides a comprehensive description of the colour, patterns and size of each specimen and their associated chrysalis. The notes also include descriptions of transparency and how the insect moves. The Scotts also collected and bred specimens to inform their work.  This collection, which includes a number of type specimens, has been dispersed across the Australian Museum collection but they remain excellent examples of scientifically significant colonial collecting.

Unfortunately the idyllic lifestyle on Ash Island did not last indefinitely and AW Scott was declared bankrupt in 1866. His wife died earlier in the same year and the remaining family moved back to Sydney.  Helena had married Edward Forde in 1864 but Edward also died in 1866 as a result of fever while conducting a survey of the Darling River.  Helena had planned a publication on Flora of the Darling based on specimens she had collected while accompanying her husband on the Darling trip.  His death saw the collection passed onto Rev William Woolls who included them in his 1867 publication Contribution to the flora of Australia.

The sisters continued to draw and paint commercially for the rest of their lives. Harriet drew botanical illustrations for the 1879, 1884 and 1886 editions of the Railway Guide to New South Wales, and they both executed designs for Australian Christmas cards. Her embarrassment at being forced into being paid for her illustration work led Helena to write in a letter to Edward Ramsay:

‘above all … let nobody know you are paying me for doing them for you … I should be sorry that anybody else should know and Papa would be mad’.

The illustrations of Harriet and Helena are represented in a number of notable publications including the landmark 1864 Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations,  J C Cox’s 1868 Monograph of Australian Land Shells, Gerard Kreft’s 1869 Snakes of Australia and 1871 Mammals of Australia.

The University of Newcastle has generously brought home to Newcastle some of this important cultural heritage in the books we see today.  As is the case with much of the natural and cultural history of Newcastle and the Hunter region, our ability to research and enjoy it is limited to museums and galleries out of the region.  Though some of this information is being reproduced electronically, the opportunities for Novocastrians to turn the pages and be delighted by the original published work of Harriet and Helena and the many other artists who have documented the rich history of the region has been limited to major national or international libraries or museums.  I am delighted that the University through funding from the Rita Light memorial trust and also the Vera Deacon regional history fund recognizes the important and significant contribution of the Scott family in recording the natural wealth of this area.

Over the last 20 years, the legacy of the Scott’s research and illustrations has informed the rehabilitation of Ash Island.  Peggy Svoboda and a team of volunteers have established thousands of plants including orchids catalogued in the Scott collection.  Hopefully it won’t be too long before the Island will again boast the sentiment expressed by Ludwig Leichhardt whilst a guest of AW Scott in 1842:

..it is a remarkably fine place, not only to enjoy the beauty of nature, a broad shining river, a luxuriant vegetation, a tasteful comfortable cottage with a plantation of orange trees, but to collect a great number of plants which I have never seen before.
(M. Aurousseau (ed. And translation) Letters of F.W. Leichhardt, Vol. 2, Cambridge 1968

The accompanying exhibition of Natural history illustration, is the work of current research higher degree students from the University’s school of Design Communication and Information Technology who are carrying on the tradition of Harriet and Helena.  As their work demonstrates, the Hunter remains a focal point for the observation and visual interpretation of nature some 145 years after the Scotts left Ash Island.  The physical natural environment of the area remains a rich resource for staff and students of the Natural History Illustration program unique in Australia to Newcastle. Through meticulous field observation, recording and research, this exhibition exemplifies the best practice established and executed by the Scotts on Ash Island and puts Newcastle and the University on the map internationally as a focus for excellence in this field of endeavour.  I thank the RHD candidates represented in this exhibition for contributing work for the exhibition and congratulate them on their commitment to the elucidation of science and contribution to knowledge. The world sorely needs such advocates at this time of global warming, habitat destruction and projected sea level change.

To read more on the work of the Scott family the following link to Beauty from Nature: art of the Scott Sisters exhibition currently on show at the Australian Museum
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Beauty-from-Nature-art-of-the-Scott-Sisters/

Media Links

Great Scott’s Ash Island home restored (Newcastle Star 21 September 2011)

Live: Talented Newcastle sisters celebrated (Newcastle Star 21 September 2011)

Sisters’ 1840s botanical paintings open gallery (Newcastle Herald 27 August 2011)

Butterflies of Ash Island (ABC 1233 Interview with Julia Brougham and Rosie Heritage)

Professor Godfrey Tanner – The Man They Want To Hang

Professor Godfrey Tanner Portrait by Michael Legge-Wilkinson

Day Shift – 17/05/2011 – 02:10 PM
Presenter: Carol Duncan
Interviewee: Gionni Di Gravio, Archivist, Newcastle University

University of Newcastle Archivist Gionni Di Gravio discusses the recent occasion of the unveiling of the portrait of the late Emeritus Professor of Classics Godfrey Tanner in the GT Bar of the Union.

The portrait of Godfrey is by esteemed Australian artist Michael Legge-Wilkinson, who painted the piece in 1993 when he was a student studying at the University of Newcastle.

Today’s broadcast explores Professor Tanner’s  virtual afterlife on You Tube through the Godfrey Tanner Society (http://godfreytanner.wordpress.com/) and an exciting new project of the Humanities Research Institute called ‘Radical Newcastle’ (http://radicalnewcastle.wordpress.com/).

Towards UoN50

Newcastle University Establishment Group inspects proposed site for the University, early 1960s.

The University of Newcastle has a rich history. In 2011 we will launch a major project for staff, students and the community that captures our unique past. Towards UoN50 will chronicle and celebrate the milestones, as well as the little known facts, that have made the University what it is today.

The Website is here: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/about/UoN50.html

As we approach our 50th anniversary in 2015 we want to work with students, staff, alumni, volunteer and support groups, and the community who have all had a hand in shaping the institution.

We want to hear your stories.

Towards UoN50 will be celebrated in many ways. There will be permanent and temporary displays across campuses of historical objects and photographs that showcase the University. All current schools and divisions will be involved and can nominate key people, achievements and objects that they consider are an important part of their history.

A working party, chaired by Emeritus Professor Adrian Page, has been established to guide the project. In addition to the on-campus displays, the Working Party will commission a writer to document the past 50 years. The Herald will also regularly feature highlights from Towards UoN50.

Soon you will see Towards UoN50 taking shape with displays in our libraries, and in the School of Education and the School of Environmental and Life Sciences.

Take a look at some of the early photographs on Flickr photo sharing application where over 10,000 images related to the University have been uploaded by Peter Longworth, who volunteers with the Cultural Collections. The Conferring of Degree (Graduation) Booklets (1959-2009) , the University Gazette (1966 to 1988) and University News (1970 to 1974) have been digitised and are also available online.

This is an exciting and important project for the University and the community. We need your ideas and feedback to make it a success so please contact the team at UoN50@newcastle.edu.au

Francis de Witt Batty

History Seminar Series

School of Humanities and Social Science,
The University of Newcastle

2010, Semester 2

 

Held in the Cultural Collections (near the Information Desk)
Level 2, Auchmuty Library, Callaghan Campus
10am- 11am, followed by morning tea

29^th October: Troy Duncan, University of Newcastle

“Francis de Witt Batty: advocate of the Middle Way and custodian of Empire”

This paper examines the contribution made to national political debates by Francis de Witt Batty during the twenty-seven years he served as Bishop of Newcastle from 1931. A graduate of Balliol College Oxford and a convinced imperialist connected to the Round Table Movement, Batty used his position as bishop of one of the more important non-metropolitan dioceses to strengthen ties between Australia and the empire both before and after World War Two. While Batty had deep reservations about the political activism of Bishop Burgmann and argued that it was not the church’s duty to devise specific programs of social reform, he nevertheless came during the Depression of the 1930s to accept certain elements of the Social Gospel. In the 1940s, Batty hosted a series of interdenominational “Religion and Life” conferences in Newcastle which encouraged debate among church members about such issues as the creation of the Welfare State.

Huldah Turner’s Writings

Publications and Other Writings by Huldah M Turner

Huldah Turner

• An analytical survey through character of Graham Greene’s ‘The power and the glory’ / Huldah M. Turner
  Kotara, N.S.W. : Newtex Productions, [196-]
  Cultural Coll/RB STAFF 823.912 GREE-2 TURN
• The background to the history of costume / by Huldah M. Turner. Book 1. The ancient world
  [Charlestown, N.S.W.] : [H.M. Turner], [1973]
  Cultural Coll/RB STAFF Q391.009 TURN
• Edouard Dujardin, James Joyce, and the “interior monologue”, from an M.A. thesis submitted to Sydney University in 1943-4 [manuscript] / by Huldah M. Turner 1944
  Cultural Coll/RB STAFF Q823.9/J89/12

NB: A copy of the entire thesis has been kindly donated to the University Library by the Turner family and is held in Archives.

Mootwingie : snake cave / Huldah Turner
[New Lambton. N.S.W. : Nimrod, 1994]
Cultural Coll/RB STAFF PamA821.3 TURN-1 MOOT 1994

“Landscape near Madura, Western Australia” In Lines from a lakeside city : poems selected for the 1994 Roland Robinson Literary Award / edited by Betty Roe
Boolaroo, N.S.W.] : Lake Macquarie City Council, 1994
Cultural Coll/RB   A821.3 ROE 1994

“Joe Fanatomy” In“Speaking of Union Street…” Reminiscences of Newcastle Teachers’ College 1949-1973 3.12 Mb PDF file.
Archives Shelf Location A7460 (v)

‘Address’ from Huldah Turner to Dr Douglas Huxley. 4th March 1992  Reminiscences of Newcastle Teachers’ College. Click here for the Original Recording [2.20 MB mp3 file]
Archives Shelf Location A7460 (v)

Huldah Turner’s Poetry

Huldah Turner

Selections of Poetry by Huldah M Turner

Huldah Turner was a talented poet, winning the third prize in the Roland Robinson Literary Award for Poetry in 1994.  Some samples of her work are reproduced here with the permission of her family.

• Mootwingie – Snake Cave (Cultural Coll/RB Staff PamA821.3 TURN-1 MOOT 1994)
• Landscape near Madura, Western Australia in Lines from a lakeside city : poems selected for the 1994 Roland Robinson Literary Award / edited by Betty Roe[Boolaroo, N.S.W.] : Lake Macquarie City Council, 1994  (Cultural Coll/RB A821.3 ROE 1994)
• A Late Love Song (excerpt from poem, on the death of her beloved husband)
• A stanza from Elegy
• What am I crying for? (on approaching blindness)

Mootwingie - Snake Cave

Mootwingie – Snake Cave

I

THE WAY

You will find the place.

Leave the level plain
with furrowed shallow dunes,
sand-smoothed wind-blown gibbers
and speckling clumps of salt-bush
baked to brittle hardness
by the desert suns

Walk into a long and narrow valley
carved out man million years ago
from steeply tilted beds
of the Bynguano Range.

Dry crevices and crumbling edges
feed hungry roots
of prickly wattles,
wilga trees
and stunted cypress pines.

Through this lowly scrub
a curving line of river-gums
will mark the way —
creamy trunks,
twisted, gnarled,
deeply slashed with dyes
of purple, grey and indigo,
rise imperially
from roots thrust down
to moister sand below.

Follow the dry creek-bed
till the loose red sand
washes the feet
of wind-scalloped rocks;
climb past the seven terraced pools,
sandstone-paved,
gouged by cataracts from sudden rains,
now mystery-still,
mirroring weathered tessellations
and slabs of hard blue sky.

Above the seventh pool
a level time-crazed ledge spreads out,
fretted, pitted,
worn to dull mosaic
by water, wind and rain.

II

THE CAVE

Your feet now tread that ancient ground
where once the Wilyakali men
held secret, solemn rites.
Walls of jagged rock
stand sentinel
around the sacred crouching Cave,
arched majestically,
enormously
across the sky.

Over the concave fire-abraded wall
the dreamtime Rainbow serpent coils;
dusky-red
it weaves a way
through upturned ochre-stencilled hands.
Etched and carved
from base to arch,
on a painted web of lore and ritual,
warriors hold high
long spears in battle victory,
hunters triumphantly
bringing home the kill —
kangaroo and euro,
reptile, bird and dingo.

III

THE VISION

If you listen to the quiet
you may chance to hear
an eerie bird call —
message to the living from the dead —
slicing sheer through time and silence.

Rest then beside the Mushroom Rock,
close your mind against the day,
surrender will until the Snake spell
takes you back into the Dreaming;
till your pace throbs to the measure
of the pulse of other days;
till the ashes of Wilyakali
rise before you
from the mists of Dreamtime.

You will see
angularly dark against the night
naked dancers leaping all together
in ritual corroboree;
awesome complex shadows
flung in quivering patterns
intricately moving
over watching walls;
the coiling Snake
flickering life-like in the light
of flame-coloured smoke.

You will hear
Bargundji words
uttering tribal incantations,
initiating tribal laws,
teaching tribal myths and legends
to the young men and children;
you will hear
voices raised in singing exultation,
dark feet beating
in the steady rhythm
of warrior dance.

You will smell
the smoke of campfire —
sharp scent of eucalypt
from crackling leaves and twigs —
and pungent burning flesh
of hunting spoil.

You will feel
abysses at the edge of being,
time like water flowing,
distance rolled out endlessly;
you will know
the bonds of sacred tribal rites
through the tapping out in unison
of dancing rhythms
with the clacking beating sticks;
you will touch,
hands carefully exploring,
mystic carvings,
tribal totems,
cut into the cave-face —
incised texts of ripened wisdom,
books in stone,
lore for all Wilyakali generations.

Here they learned the yearly promise
in the seasons and the stars,
in the spring sap of the eucalypt,
in the flight of a bird
winging to water,
in the ripple of sand-dunes
lipped by the wandering winds,
in creek-beds gently flowing
then soon drying after rain,
in sullen rivers snaking
sluggish over sand-bars
to sink into an inland salt-sand sea.

IV

THE RETURN

The vision passes —
day and sun return.

You will go back
the way you came,
past the pools
and river-gums,
past salt-bush,
gibber
and the dunes,
numbed by a dimension
not known to those you know.

You will make your way
weighted by sadness
and scape-goat shame;
on pilgrim shoulders you will carry
the crime-burden of desecration:
alien crashing into Dreaming,
insolent probing into sacred mysteries,
wanton carving of level boundless vistas
into finite crude divisions,
idle parcelling of smooth timelessness
into crisp hour-glass precisions,
into ticking clock-wedges,
brutal shredding with uncaring hands
of the oldest, longest, wisest
childhood of the earth.

In still moments
you will see again
the Cave and coiling Serpent:
into the quiet of a falling dusk,
into a sleepless hour of the dawn,
guilt-torn wondering will come.
Can the Wilyakali
ever know again
the mellow flow of time,
the singing freedom of the Dreamtime,
the vintage wisdom of their fathers,
the peace and wholeness
of a people living
one-ness with the earth?

Landscape near Madura, Western Australia

No Gruner landscape this.
White sharp-edged rocks and fossil-shells spill
steeply down the long escarpment:
mid-day haze blurs lazy clumps
of squatting summer-dusted salt-bush -
ink-daubs on a crescent canvas
stretched taut and dry
between the escarpment and the ocean.
Sand-whipped by winds from the south
low bushes bend in twisted nakedness
or wear old wigs of matted leaves
in dusky green and olive.
All lean to the north.
Out where white scalloped dunes
fold in the land
a thin pure line of emerald sea
pencils off untainted blue of sky
streaked with one wisp of sleepy cloud.
That is the landscape now.
A fossil-shell
once live and free on the ocean floor
now choked with alien sand
no longer sings into my ear
its legend of wild waters:
but deep beneath my feet I think I hear
the muffled pulse of a kinder earth
and the faint surge of forgotten seas.

Winner of the Third Prize in the 1994 Roland Robinson Literary Award for Poetry.

---

A Late Love Song

(excerpt from poem, on the death of her beloved husband) by Huldah M Turner aged 93

Our bright day closes in:
The long night will soon begin.
Then you and I, separate handfuls of a remnant dust,
swept by the uncaring flow
of ceaseless rhythms of earth and sea and sky,
inert, unaware must
sleep through time.

---

A stanza from Elegy

The spirit has slit its drab cocoon
to shed the clinging web of flesh.
Wearied and bruised, it rests; awaits,
fragile, alone, but free,
the drift on a mounting tide
that will ferry it down through a silent tunnel of dark
to radiant birth
in the blinding shock of perpetual light.

---

What am I crying for?

(on approaching blindness)

I cry for the sheen that has gone from the day
for sharp slant of sun and soft silver moon
for diamond night canopy spread on the sky
nuances of light.

I cry for colour washed out of the world
for scarlet poinsettias riding the breeze
for heaped saffron sunset clouds slashed with vermilion
blue of the sky.

I cry for loveliness misted and blurred
for intricate tracery veining a leaf
for rhythm and dance of a branch blowing high in the wind
bird on the wing.

I cry for song-words singing now lost on the page
for music of phrase flowing over the mind
for notes on a stave starting echoes and dreaming
sounds from the deep.

I cry for gentleness clouded in haze
for dark of your hair on the pillow beside me
for tenderness welling in grieving grey eyes
curve of your smile.

That is why I am crying.

Huldah M Turner

Huldah Turner

Huldah Mary Turner

(1906 – 2006)

Huldah Mary Turner, former Vice Principal and Acting Principal of Newcastle Teachers’ College, was the first woman in NSW to become Vice Principal and Acting Principal of a Teachers’ College. She was also the first woman on the Council of the University of Newcastle.

These pages are a tribute to her.

• Biography
• Poetry
• Other writings

Biography of Huldah Turner

Huldah Sneddon

Huldah M Turner
(1906 – 2006)

Early Life

Huldah Mary Turner was born in 1906, the daughter of Alfred and Esther Sneddon. She grew up in the Tamworth district with a younger sister.

She was educated in bush schools in the area and gained a bursary as a boarder at a Dominican high school. It was during this time that the nuns gave her a thorough grounding in, and appreciation of literature, art and music.

Further Education

With honours in her Leaving Certificate, Huldah was awarded an Exhibition to do medicine at Sydney University. Unfortunately her monetary situation prevented her pursuing it. Instead she studied Arts, which included among other subjects, philosophy, oriental religion and psychology. She was one of the few women to gain a degree from Sydney University in the 1920s. She obtained her Dip Ed and received her masters degree with a thesis on James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. She also gained a Licentiate Art of Speech. A copy of her thesis was kindly donated by her family and is held in Cultural Collections.

Teaching

It was while she was studying Finnegans Wake that she was employed as a teacher at North Sydney Girls’ High School. She taught a range of subjects which included Art, Latin, Music, Maths, Cultural Geography, French and PE. She also served as a Teacher/Librarian, School counsellor and Careers Advisor.

Throughout her career Huldah was disadvantaged for being a woman. Men were moved or promoted over her and received more pay. She couldn’t marry or she would have lost her job.

Professional Positions

Eventually she was recognized for her integrity and excellence. She became subject mistress at North Sydney Girls’ High School. Later she joined the staff at Newcastle Teachers’ college. Huldah was the first woman in NSW to become Vice Principal and Acting Principal of a teachers’ College. She was also the first woman on the Council of the University of Newcastle.

Joe and Huldah Turner

Married life

At the age of 52 Huldah married Joseph Turner, a widower with four children. They were married for 41 years. During their travels throughout Australia she was inspired to write poems  which were published in a book in 1997.

Huldah was a fine violinist and played chamber music in Newcastle for many years. She was a foundation member of one of the earliest book clubs established in the city. She mastered skills in screen-printing, pottery, sketching, needlework and knitting.

Huldah Turner passed away on 30 March 2006.

Bibliography

2006. Pioneer scholar brought joys of Joyce to many. Sydney Morning Herald 16 June

Opening of the Flowers Room (Auchmuty Library)

Vice-Chancellor Professor Nicholas Saunders introduces Pat and Ted Flowers at the Opening Ceremony of the Flowers Room, Auchmuty Library held on Friday 4 September 2009 at 10am. Mr Greg Anderson, University Librarian provides a background to the refurbishment and thanks to all involved. Mrs Patricia Flowers was Senior Librarian in charge of the original University College Library. After the University gained autonomy in 1965 Dr Ted Flowers was its first University Librarian.