by Stuart Kells
Nothing much happened from then until the following Wednesday, when I caught the 7.45am to London. There I visited Lancaster Gate, Vigo Street, Brewer Street; obtained a driving licence and renewed Allen’s motorcycle registration form; and left London on the motorbike about 5.30pm. It was raining, cold, and the roads slippery. I had not ridden a motorbike for near four years and getting on a strange machine under these conditions and starting off at the busiest time of the day, straight into London traffic, was an experience I do not wish to repeat.
At 9 o’clock I was only as far as Slough, so I stayed there for the night at the Crown and Kings Arms (or some such name). I arrived home at 2 o’clock on Thursday, my route being Slough, Maidenhead and straight through to Bath, via Newbury and so on, to Bristol. I went along the cut Hotwell Road, Bridge Valley Road, Sea Walls, Westbury and so on, to Coombe Dingle.
John and I had intended going to Hartland for the burial of Uncle John’s ashes but, owing to Allen’s illness, Auntie thought this not advisable. But, about 7 o’clock on Friday night, a wire arrived from her saying that she would like us to be present. We all debated the question and finally it was decided that I should go by myself. So, at 4.30am the next morning I rose and dressed and drove Allen’s bike down to the station. Leaving it in the garage, I caught the 6.20am and arrived at Barnstaple at 9.45am. Father, in the meantime, had phoned up Mr Manning of that town and asked him if he would take me in his car as far as Hartland. Allen knew them, and Auntie had mentioned in one of her letters that they were going. They agreed, and when I arrived there they were expecting me.
It was a perfect day and the twenty mile drive was most enjoyable. We arrived at Hartland half an hour before the service commenced and Mr Manning and I walked around the church and precincts. The service was very simple and very effective, and I was very pleased I was among the little band of admirers who had come together to pay respect as the ashes of the late Mr John Lane were lowered into the little grave. Later the tablet was unveiled by Mr De Courcy Ireland, and he also delivered a short personal talk and character sketch of Uncle.
After it was all over I had lunch at the local inn and later walked up to Fosfelle where Mr Chope lives. He was a great friend of Uncle, and he very kindly asked me to stay there for the weekend. I did so and enjoyed myself very much. He keeps exceptionally good sherry. On Sunday we all went to church – Auntie, Mr Chope and myself – and after the service motored on to Hartland Quay. In the afternoon we motored to Clovelly and, the weather being good, it was a most enjoyable little trip. On Monday, Auntie and I motored into Bideford. She going on to spend a few days with the de Courey Irelands, and Costin and I going on together as far as Taunton. Then he for London and I for Bristol. Picking up the motorbike at the garage, I drove on home and have been here ever since. On Thursday or Friday last, Auntie Annie sold a few books. Twelve chapters in the author’s handwriting of A Pair of Blue Eyes fetched £1,500, and sundry other books £1,000.
This evening Father and Mother went for a walk and, on returning, said that they had seen a hawthorn tree in flower. How’s that for an early spring. Now I must away to my little bed.
EPILOGUE
Samuel and Camilla Williams-Lane proudly shared extracts from Richard’s Barwell diary with a journalist from Bristol’s Western Daily Press. When Richard returned to England he was a local celebrity. This is what the newspaper said on 20 February 1925 about the ‘Bristol Boy in Australia’:
During the early part of September, a Bristol lad, with his father, called at this office. The boy had had the courage to decide upon trying his fortune in the Colonies, and was about to sail for Australia. Knowing the writer to be interested in Australia with many friends in that far-off country, father and son called here. Memory brings to mind a lad with a courageous outlook on life; one who was not afraid to leave a comfortable, happy home and loving parents for the hazard of fortune in the Colonies. These things are recalled because the father brought a manuscript book to the office a few days ago. It was the son’s diary; a day to day record of the new life in Australia, and the last to read it before it came to Baldwin Street was the late Mr John Lane, of Bodley Head, the famous publisher, whose death was recorded quite recently – a relative of the diarist. It was this gentleman’s intention to have the diary published, and it is easy to see why. Here is something new in literature; the impressions of a young man engaged in the uphill job of making good in a country which has much to offer to those who, like the writer of the diary, are thoroughly in earnest in working out their own salvation. As a rule, the foothills of a successful life are forgotten. Some day, perhaps, if this Bristol lad reaches, as no doubt he will, the summit of material well-being, this record of the journey will be of inestimable interest and value.
Thoughts of Home
To make extracts from this diary seems like sacrilege: so much of it is the outpouring of a young soul overflowing with tender memories of a far-off home. ‘Last night,’ he writes, ‘I went to the house of a friend. He is the proud possessor of a pianola. We had some music. Nothing affects me more than music. The first piece played was “We’ve come up from Somerset”. This, of course, awakened memories of Long Ashton, the cider apples, the cider house, the days I spent there; of ’Erb W–, the foreman; the feats of strength he used to perform; of Jack and Bill, Cecil, Purren, Sweet William, and the Professor! Then came another song which brought memories of home; a Sunday evening, mother at the piano, the rest of us grouped around singing … I put my hand in my pocket, and pulled out a packet of cigarettes: on the packet is the name of W.D. and H.O. Wills. Bristol again. Sir Frank Wills, Lord Mayor; the Lord Mayor’s Chapel; a service there, a procession; gowns lined with ermine; silver mace, gold chain. Whenever I think of St Mark’s I recall a beautiful hymn, I heard there for the first time – “Hark, hark my soul.” And I think of my last Sunday at home; of St Mary Redcliff Church, my favourite church in Bristol, in England, in the whole world; we all went to the evening service there that night.’
The Fruit Trade
What a treasure this book must be to the parents and the friends of this lad. What strength of character and high ideals and steadfastness of purpose are revealed in the pages, written at odd moments on a fruit farm in Australia. We hear now and then glowing prospects of the Australian fruit industry. There is another side to the picture culled from this Bristol boy’s diary: ‘The price the packing sheds are giving the growers this year is £10 below the cost of production. For every ton of dried sultanas you raise you lose £10. The Government is helping to ease the situation by a loan which is to be paid back next year if the price obtained for sultanas is over the cost of production … Most growers have lost money on their blocks for the last three years. They have run up an overdraft at the bank, and they now find that if they were to sell their block they would not get enough to wipe off their overdraft. I should think 90 per cent of the growers are in this position. They would like to get out of it, but they cannot … Very soon, I am afraid we shall be taking in each other’s washing.’ From this it will be seen that even in Australia fortunes are not easily made. A rather quaint story is related. ‘I was talking to an Australian,’ the writer states, ‘when I happened to mention something about W.D. and H.O. Wills’ place at Bristol. He looked surprised for a moment, and then said “Oh, they have a branch in England, have they?”’ The writer of this diary is Mr Dick Lane; his father is a respected member of the City Valuer’s staff.
*
In the course of our research, my co-editors and I have learned the following facts about the people and places mentioned in the diary.
Soon after T.H. Rowlands passed away in 1933, ‘Millamolong’ was sold to the Ashton family. The property is now owned by Mike and Frances Retallack. The original homestead still exists, and looks largely as it did in the 1920s.
Esme Rowlands married Frank Whitney and lived at ‘Werribee’ at Waugoola, near Woodstock, New South Wales. Their homestead was a Cobb & Co. staging post. Frank Whitney
’s family was originally Canadian and brought Cobb & Co. to Australia. I have spoken to Esme’s daughter Margaret Baker and sent her a copy of the photograph of her mother that was in my father’s diary. Esme passed away in 1984.
Arnold Brown sold ‘Bective’ in 1926 and bought ‘Mow Rock’, a wheat and wool-growing property in the same district. In the early 1930s he was vice-president of the Coonabarabran branch of the RSL, president of the town’s branch of the Sane Democracy League, and a zone commander of the New Guard. At the 1931 federal election he contested, unsuccessfully, the seat of Gwydir as a Country Party candidate. In 1938 he was a foundation member of the National Defence League. Early in the Second World War he rejoined the AIF and was posted to the 2nd/1st Pioneer Battalion. He assumed command in December and was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 9 March 1941 in Libya. From April to September the battalion provided infantry defence of Tobruk. Brown was mentioned in dispatches and appointed OBE for services in Cyrenaica. He then commanded the 36th Battalion in Papua, before returning to his old unit in New Guinea. Immediately after the war he presided over military courts in Darwin. He died at Batemans Bay in 1960.
Len King enlisted in the 10th Battalion (23 August 1915). After being wounded in France (27 July 1916), he returned to Australia and was discharged as medically unfit (29 January 1917). He died in 1952 at Glossop in South Australia. William (Billy) Askwith died in 1983. Douglas Kenneth (Mac) McMinn died in South Australia in 2005.
Richard Lane’s brother, John Lane, visited Australia in the early 1930s. He travelled overland in a taxicab between Melbourne and Perth, and in regional Victoria he stayed with the Purbrick family at their winery, Chateau Tahbilk. Interestingly, their granddaughter Hayley Purbrick went to school with Richard Lane’s grand-daughter Louise Paton. To help sell their wine, John called on every hotel within fifty miles of the winery. He also went to Renmark, stating that his purpose was to ‘get the low down’ on his brother’s Barwell experiences there. John reported back to his family about this research: ‘As far as I can make out, he broke more hearts than anyone has ever done before or since in South Australia (including myself!!).’ John discovered that Mr Withers had given up on fruit growing and opened a pub.
Richard Lane met Betty Snow in 1948 while sailing from England to Australia, not on the Bendigo as part of a cargo-load of Barwell Boys, but on the Orient Line’s stylish, air-conditioned, wide-decked Orion. Betty Snow, aged twenty-seven, was the daughter of Sir Sydney Snow KBE and Lady Snow, the owners of Snow’s Department Stores. As a member of a Voluntary Aid Detachment, Betty had spent the war in Sydney’s hospitals caring for wounded soldiers. At war’s end she joined the crew of HMS Glory, collecting former prisoners of war from Singapore and other Pacific ports. After delivering British and Canadian soldiers to Vancouver, Betty and the Glory brought the Australian servicemen home. Then, with her uncle Fred Davis, she travelled to Europe on Snows’ first post-war buying trip. Richard met Betty during the return journey; she was wearing Dior’s ‘New Look’. Richard and Betty were married in 1948 at St Mark’s Church, Darling Point. They honeymooned on the New South Wales coast, and at Renmark. Stuart Kells describes the Renmark visit thus:
Richard had left the Witherses’ block in 1925, hoping ‘never to return’. But now he was determined to share with his new bride his old stomping ground, so that she could see for herself the remote Australian places that had shaped his youth. In the middle of winter they walked down to the banks of the Murray at Renmark. Betty took Richard’s word about the hot summers, but she saw first hand how quickly the land dried out away from the river red gums. The couple picked a few oranges and Richard was momentarily overtaken by a memory of cutting apricots.
In November 1952, Betty Lane gave birth to a daughter, me. Penguin and the Lane Brothers details much of my life with my parents.
Elizabeth Lane
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the many people who helped make this book a reality. With minor updates to spelling and grammar and under the careful editing eye of Fiona Kells, these ninety-year-old diaries tell of an important time in Australia’s history and that of the character-forming years of a Penguin Books founder. It has been a remarkable journey to see my father’s evocative handwritten words shine through on these pages and tell first-hand the experiences of a long-ago era.
My daughter Louise Paton shares my passion for this story. She spent many hours editing the photographs, proofreading and indexing the manuscript, and getting to know the grandfather she did not have the good fortune to meet.
Fiona and Stuart Kells had the same passion and, like Louise, helped in many tangible and intangible ways to guide the book into existence. Thanks to Fiona’s textual editing, the newly rendered diaries are beautifully presented. Fiona and Louise travelled to the Penguin Books archives in Bristol to research the Lane family. Later, they journeyed to South Australia to collect the Barwell diary from the State Library of South Australia. To Fiona and to Stuart, whose suggestion it was to publish this book: I am immensely grateful for your guidance and help.
Bill Leslie travelled with me through South Australia to follow my father’s footsteps. First to the State Library of South Australia to look at their records and deliver the diary to them for scanning. We then drove to Moorook and Renmark, though this time on a paved highway, not a bush track! What a fun and at times emotional journey we have had. We later visited ‘Millamolong’ at Mandurama, and were fortunate to be able to see the original homestead. Thank you to Mike Retallack, the current owner, for allowing us to visit.
Professor Geoffrey Blainey kindly offered to write the foreword; I thank him for this, his interest in the book and his contribution in general to Australian history.
Thank you also to my children Alexandra and Richard for your support and interest, and to my Lane and Williams cousins, Richard Bird, Phillipa Laurie, Clare Morpurgo, Christine Teale, Anna Lane, Caroline Flegg, Roger Porkess and Jill Yates. I hope you enjoy reading more about our family.
The highly professional team at Black Inc. – particularly Chris Feik, Sophy Williams, Julian Welch, Jessica Pearce and Peter Long – have been terrific collaborators. Sheila Drummond has proven again that she is a literary agent par excellence. Greg Harbour from Matter Group did a fabulous job on yet another Lane bookplate.
The diaries and working papers are soon to find a new and hopefully final home, this time with The University of Melbourne Library. I am grateful to Philip Kent and his team for seeing the significance of the diary and the Lane Family Archive in Melbourne.
The following may be of further interest:
The Lane Press: www.thelanepress.com.au
SA Migration Museum: migration.history.sa.gov.au
State Library of South Australia: www.slsa.sa.gov.au
Elizabeth Lane’s website: www.elizabethlane.com.au
Barwell Boys Facebook page: www.facebook.com/BarwellBoys Penguin Archive, Special Collections, at the University of Bristol.
Elizabeth Lane
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Elizabeth Lane was born in England into a family of book lovers. Her father, Richard Lane, along with his two brothers, founded Penguin Books. Her great uncle owned The Bodley Head. She now lives in Melbourne. In between raising a family, Elizabeth has archived her extensive collection of Penguin books and memorabilia, and has been very involved with the recent publication of Penguin and the Lane Brothers by Stuart Kells. Elizabeth and her daughter, Louise Paton, are founders of The Lane Press.
Fiona Kells studied art history at the University of Melbourne. She is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers and edits the association’s journal, Bookfare. She lives in Melbourne with her husband, Stuart, and daughter, Thea.
With a Media and Communications degree from the University of Melbourne, Louise Paton has worked in digital advertising and strategy at Clemenger BBDO and, later, Responsys. She started The Lane Press with her mother, Elizabeth Lane, in 2015; the move
to publishing and family history was prompted by her love of books and fascination with watching the biography of her grandfather (the late Richard Lane, a founder of Penguin Books),
Penguin and the Lane Brothers, be told through research, interviews and memoirs.
Stuart Kells wrote Penguin and the Lane Brothers (2015) and Rare (2011), a biography of Kay Craddock. With his wife, Fiona, and daughter, Thea, he runs Books of Kells and has published numerous books about books, including Australian Book Collectors, Australian Bookends, Australian Book Auction Records and (with Oak Knoll Press and Bernard Quaritch) Colin Franklin’s memoir, Obsessions and Confessions of a Book Life. He has degrees from the University of Melbourne and a Law PhD from Monash University. He is a member of several arts and community boards, and is currently writing about Shakespeare.
INDEX
Adams, Bill, 163–164, 166, 168, 180, 182, 188, 205–206
Adelaide, xi, xiii, xix, 3, 31, 34, 38, 44, 50, 52–53, 59, 62, 66–67, 69, 73–74, 80, 82, 84, 92, 105, 114, 119–120, 122, 129, 132, 134–138, 140–141, 147, 149, 152–154, 156–158, 160, 165–166, 168–171, 175, 177–178, 182–188, 190, 193, 196, 200–201, 203, 205, 208–209, 212–214, 225–227, 230, 237–238, 244–245, 247, 256, 259–260, 267, 275, 277–278, 281, 289, 291, 296, 300, 309, 321, 323, 340, 348, 364, 367, 396
Adelaide Motors Ltd, 140
Arundel Castle, R.M.S., 15
Askwith, William (Billie), 11–12, 32, 34–35, 42, 44–46, 50, 55