by Jill Roe
21Although the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was not established until 1949, data was gathered before then by several Commonwealth departments such as Defence and as in the case of Australia First, state authorities undertook political surveillance.
22PD, 14/10/1947 (re John Franklin).
23Dan Clyne to SMF, 15/5/1947, FP vol. 22. Clive Raleigh Evatt, MLA (1900–84), barrister, was state Labor member for Hurstville 1939–59 (ADB vol. 17); his brother Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, MHR (1894–1965), was federal Labor member for Barton, 1940–58, ADB vol. 14.
24SMF to Emma Pischel, 6/5/1947, FP vol. 15, and Vida Goldstein to SMF, 22/12/1947, FP vol. 10.*
25SMF to Anne Barnard, 1/8/1947, FP vol. 40;* Eileen Geddes Barnard-Kettle (d. 1986) was associated with Quaker peace groups.
26‘The War Comes to Jones Street’, ML MSS 6035/15, annotation.
27Graeme Davison, ‘The Exodists: Miles Franklin, Jill Roe and “the Drift to the Metropolis”’, HA, 2004, vol. 2, no. 2; ‘High Valley’ by George and Charmian Johnston [sic] was awarded first prize in the Herald competition.
28 Newcastle Morning Herald, 2/9/1947, p. 2 (death of Bentley).
29Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1964, pp. 450–5; Roderick, Miles Franklin, p. 170.
30FP vol. 104, p. 189.
31‘Difficulties of Australian Writing’, ML MSS 445/37, and ‘Problems of Writing Today’, Book News, Feb. 1948, p. 439, SMF one of five lecturers on Australian literature at Sydney Teachers College; SMF to Leonora Pease, 26/1/1948, FP vol. 13.
32FP vol. 4/5, repr. Diaries, p. 198. Jean Devanny was expelled from the Party in 1940, rejoined 1944, and left for good in 1950 (ADB vol. 8 and Carole Ferrier, Jean Devanny: Romantic Revolutionary, Melbourne Univ. Press, Carlton, 1999, p. 254).
33Diaries, p. 203; SMF to KSP, 9/4/1948, FP vol. 21, repr. Ferrier, As Good as a Yarn with You.
34SMF to KSP, 9/4/1948, and KSP to SMF, 4/5/1948, FP vol. 21, both repr. Ferrier, As Good as a Yarn with You; Fox, Dream at a Graveside, Appendix.
35Dymphna Cusack to Florence James, 24/10/1948, FP vol. 30, repr. North, Yarn Spinners; SMF to KSP, n.d., 1948, FP vol. 21, repr. Ferrier, As Good as a Yarn with You, p. 201; SMF to Australian Russian Society, 1/8/1948, FP vol. 41. UNESCO commenced in 1946.
36PD, 31/3/1948; SMF’s will, probate no. 42952, repr. North, Yarn Spinners. ‘Edwin’ Graham was registered at birth as Edward John Mervyn Graham, NSW BMD indexes.
37Ian Hamilton, Keepers of the Flame: Literary Estates and the Rise of Biography, Hutchinson, London, 1992, has case studies from John Donne to Sylvia Plath and Philip Larkin.
38Jalland, Changing Ways of Death in Twentieth-century Australia, p. 128, ch. 6 (drinking by airmen to cope with stress); PD, 21/1/1948. ‘War neurosis’ is a term dating from World War I, devised to describe various psychological disorders suffered by soldiers. The Woomera rocket range, a joint UK–Australia missile testing facility, was under construction by 1948.
39SMF to Leonora Pease, 20/2/1948, FP vol. 13; ‘Sixteen Airmen Killed’, SMH, 20/2/1948, p. 1; Dymphna Cusack to Florence James, 8/3/1948, in North, Yarn Spinners, p. 172.
40SMF to Frank Ryland, 2/2/1948, FP vol. 37.*
41SMF to St John Ervine, 12/5/1948, FP vol. 14;* Lenore Layman & Julian Godard, Organise! A Visual Record of the Labour Movement in Western Australia, Trades and Labor Council of WA, E. Perth, WA, 1988, p. 243, and West Australian, 10/8/1948, p. 8; Annette Bain, ‘“Brighter Days?”: Challenges to Live Theatre in the Thirties’, Twentieth Century Sydney, ed. Jill Roe, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1980, p. 45; SMF to Sumner Locke Elliott, 31/10/1948, FP vol. 41.* (Dame) Doris Fitton (1897–1985), ADB vol. 17. (Baron) Laurence Olivier (1907–89) and Vivien Leigh (Lady Olivier) (1913–67), ODNB; Sumner Locke Elliott (1915–91) left for New York before the first production (OCAL); his play was censored for swear words such as ‘bloody’.
42FP vol. 41 (SMF–Collinson corres.). Laurence Collinson (1925–86), who was English-born and returned to England in 1964, wrote numerous plays, mostly unpublished (ADB vol. 17, OCAL).
43Letty Fox: Her Luck, and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, were both published in 1946. SMF to Margery Currey, 13/7/1948 and 24/11/1948, FP vol. 22; SMF to Beatrice Davis, 11/11/1948, FP vol. 38.*
44SMF to Frank Ryland, 11/1/1948, FP vol. 37 (Japan); SMF to Leonora Pease, 28/5/1948, FP vol. 13; SMF to Emmy Lawson, 3/6/1948, FP vol. 39. ABC Weekly, 1/5/1948 (‘Reflections on an atomic age’, Oliphant), 2/6/1948 (‘Social Security and Freedom’, Beveridge), SMH, 6/5/1948, p. 1 (‘Warning on World Food Crops’, Orr). (Sir) John Boyd Orr (1880–1971) had just resigned as director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization; (Sir) William Beveridge (1879–1963) visited Australasia in 1948; (Sir) Marcus Oliphant (1901–2000) later became governor of South Australia (all ODNB).
45SMF to Emmy Lawson, 3/6/1948, FP vol. 39. The prelates were en route to the centenary of the Melbourne archdiocese, SMH, 29/4/1948, 1/5/1948, p. 5. Bulletin, 19/5/1948, p. 10 (re) Francis Joseph Spellman (1889–1967) was created a cardinal in 1946; Fulton John Sheen (1895–1979) became auxiliary bishop of New York in 1951 and was America’s first successful television preacher (both ANB).
46SMF to J. K. Moir, 29/12/1948, J. K. Moir Colln.* Spinner was finally published by William Heinemann. Unfortunately the dedication is omitted from the 1990 edition, though Florence James does refer to it in her introduction.
47SMF to J. K. Moir, 29/12/1948, J. K. Moir Colln.* See http://www.austlit.edu.au for an up-to-date listing of editions of Swagger.
48John Franklin certificate of service and discharge, FP vol. 113X.
49SMF to My dear little Enid [Norvill], 23/12/1949, FP vol. 46.
50SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 18/7/1949, FP vol. 30 (Roderick); Beatrice Davis to Brent of Bin Bin, 16/9/1948, Angus & Robertson Corres., ML MSS 3269, vol. 274, p. 229; FP vol. 86.
51A Gregarious Culture, pp. 218–20, has the full text (source, ABC Archives).
52SMF to Beatrice Davis, 12/4/1949, Angus & Robertson Corres., ML MSS 3269, vol. 274; PD, 12 and 17/4/1949.
53Angus & Robertson to SMF, 19/5/1949, and page of Blackwood contract, Angus & Robertson Corres., ML MSS 3269, vol. 274, p. 477. Miles nominated as Brent’s rep. in Jan. 1949: cited Beatrice Davis to SMF, 19/5/1949, FP vol. 86, but the letter does not seem to survive.
54Kent, A Certain Style, pp. 106, 112; Neil James and Elizabeth Webby, ‘Canon around the Hub: Angus & Robertson and the Post-war Literary Canon’, Southerly, 1997, vol. 57, no. 3. Beatrice Davis, ‘An Enigmatic Woman’, Overland, 1983, no. 91, p. 26 (‘it says a lot for her personality and persuasiveness that any sensible publisher should have agreed to such madness’). See n. 47 above re editions of Swagger.
55PD, 27 and 31/7/1949.
56Beatrice Davis to SMF, 20/10/1949 and 26/10/1949, Angus & Robertson Corres., ML MSS 3269, vol. 274, pp. 271–3.
57Allan Edwards to SMF, 16/1/1950, FP vol. 89; Registrar, Univ. of Tasmania to SMF, 20/5/1947, 12/6/1947, and SMF’s reply, 23/5/1947, FP vol. 92. William Allan Edwards (1909–95) was professor of English, Univ. of Western Australia, 1941–74/5
58Tom Shapcott, The Literature Board: A Brief History, Univ. of Qld Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1988, pp. 262–4 (the scheme operated 1940–64); Allan Edwards,16/1/1950, FP vol. 89.
59V-C Currie to SMF, 6/4/1950, and reply SMF to Currie, 11/4/1950, Univ. of WA Archives, FP vol. 89; Allan Edwards to SMF, 23/1/1950, and SMF to Allan Edwards, 18/1/1950, 4/2/1950, ibid. (Sir) George Alexander Currie (1896–1984) was vice-chancellor of Univ. of WA 1940–52 (ADB vol. 17).
60SMF to KSP, 24/4/1950, FP vol. 21;* SMF to Allan Edwards, 5/6/1950, FP vol. 89, attachment.
61The following account is based on PD entries.
62Garton, Medicine and Madness, p. 169 (patients often died during the initial course of ECT, i.e. electroconvulsive therapy). With the medicalisation of mental problems, ‘schizophrenia’ replaced ‘mania’ in clinical usage.
&n
bsp; 63SMF to Mabel Singleton, 29/5/1949, FP vol. 25 (blames the air force); Garton, Medicine and Madness, p. 165. Apparently the legal maximum time for committal to an asylum on the grounds of inebriation was six months (SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 27/9/1950, FP vol. 30).
64Henrietta Drake-Brockman, ‘Miles Franklin’, Walkabout, 1/3/1951, pp. 8–9. Sylvia (Silvia) Pallot, née Furphy (1875–1967), Barnes, The Order of Things, WA BMD Indexes.
65SMF to Allan Edwards, 5/6/1950, FP vol. 89 (page of notes attached); ‘D.S.’ [possibly Donald Stewart], ‘A Gifted Australian Writer’, West Australian, 5/8/1950; ‘Interview with Miles Franklin’, Pelican, 4/8/1950, p. 7. Geoffrey Bolton, AO, (1931–2015) (OCAH).
66SMF to Pallots, 8/8/1950, FP vol. 43;* All That Swagger, inscription, Irene Greenwood Book Collection, Murdoch Univ. Archives. Mary Louisa (Mollie) Skinner (1876–1955), ADB vol. 11. Irene Greenwood (1898–1992), Australian Femininst Studies, 1993, vol. 17, no. 104.
67FP vols 90 and 92 (payments); ‘The Australian Theatre’, West Australian, 23/9/1950, p. 21, repr. A Gregarious Culture.
68Allan Edwards, ‘Report of Miss Miles Franklin’s visit as Australian Commonwealth Fund Lecturer’, 15/8/1950, Univ. of WA Archives, cited Roderick, Guard Book 10, Roderick Papers, pp. 21–3. (Dame) Alexandra Hasluck (1908–93) later published numerous distinguished works of history and biography (OCAL).
69KSP to SMF, 8/8/1950, FP vol. 21; ‘Parade of Australian Fiction’, West Australian, 15/7/1950, p. 19 (review of Roderick).
70Angus & Robertson to SMF, 6/6/1950, FP vol. 90 (promotions in Perth); Beatrice Davis to SMF, 14/8/1950, and SMF to Beatrice Davis, Sunday night, FP vol. 38; Beatrice Davis to SMF, 25/8/1950, FP vol. 86, and Sydney Sun about the Authorship of the Brent of Bin Bin Books?’, 12/8/1950, p. 5, ‘Remember the Controversy.
71FP vol. 5/11 and draft entry, ‘Notes on Australian Fiction’, by ‘Bunyip’, Commonwealth Literary Jubilee Literary Competition brochure, FP vol. 89, p. 115.
72Laughter, Not for a Cage, p. 230.
73KSP to SMF, Christmas Eve, 1950, FP vol. 21;* Henrietta Drake-Brockman, 18/8/1950, FP vol. 33; ‘D. E.’ [John Edward Webb], SMH, 23/12/1950, p. 6; ‘Miss Bronte’, ‘No Applause for Brent’, DT, 25/11/1950, p. 19 [‘Miss Bronte’ was a pen-name of editor Brian Penton] and SMF to C. B. Christesen, 4/3/1951, MA (‘spiteful’); Sun, 25/11/1950, p. 4; Argus, 7/4/1951, p. 16; SMF to David Martin, 22/11/1950, FP vol. 41. A review by H. M. Green (‘misguided’ according to Miles) appeared in Southerly, 1951, no. 4, pp. 182–9.
74SMF to David Martin, 22/11/1950, FP vol. 41; David Martin, Meanjin, 1951, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 187, 189.
75Jean Hamilton to SMF, 29/12/1951, FP vol. 26.
Chapter 14 — ‘Shall I Pull Through?’
1SMF to Tom Ronan, 13/2/1953, FP vol. 44.*
2Joe Salter (1917–2003) was a poet who worked as a locomotive fireman (AustLit and Ryerson Index). Allan John Dalziel (1908–69) was a social reformer and political secretary (ADB vol. 13). Arthur Cross (1904–1974) and Delys Cross (1910–1993) were originally from Western Australia.
3Nancy Keesing, Riding the Elephant, Allen & Unwin Australia, 1972, pp. 71–3; Rex Ingamells to SMF, 16/8/1951, FP vol. 40,* and SMF to Rex Ingamells, 24/12/1951, Rex Ingamells Colln. Nancy Keesing, AM (1923–1993) was a Sydney writer active in literary affairs for many years (OCAL).
4Sale notice, Franklin Estate, SMH, 22/11/1961, p. 7, lists furniture.
5A Hoover electric washing machine cost as much as £43/10/– in 1951 (Australian Women’s Weekly, 21/1/1951), i.e. approximately a third of SMF’s annual income.
6SMF to Magdalen Dalloz, 28/12/1953, FP vol. 41; Ron Rathbone, pers. comm., 24/5/2006 (paper boy in 1942); Dymphna Cusack to SMF, 14/1/1951, FP vol. 30.
7SMF to Theo Lampe, 21/1/1950, FP vol. 49; PD, 20/11/1951; SMF to Ethel Nielsen, 29/11/1951, FP vol. 21.
8Dymphna Cusack to SMF, 8/10/1950, SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 2/11/1950, FP vol. 30, repr. North, Yarn Spinners. Corres. with William Farquhar Fraser (1898–1979) between 1951 and 1953 is at FP vol. 44 (NSW BMD, Medical Directories); Fraser’s uncle Alex McFarlane, from the Clarence River region, was a fan of Miles Franklin.
9SMF to Bruce Graham, 12/2/1951, and Bruce Graham to SMF, 22/3/1951, FP vol. 43.
10SMH, 2/6/1951, p. 9, and 4/6/1951, p. 2; SMF to Arnold Dresden, 8/7/1951, FP vol. 35; Raymond Fitzpatrick (1909–67), ADB vol. 14. Ronald Fogarty, Catholic Education in Australia 1806–1950, Melbourne Univ. Press, Carlton, Vic, 1959, vol. 2, p. 449. For Howard Mowll (1890–1958) and Daniel Mannix (1864–1963) see ADB vols 15, 10.
11PD, 13/9/1951, 22/9/1951, 24/11/1951. In NSW, 53% voted ‘No’ at the referendum on wider Commonwealth powers to combat communism, the highest of any state (overall, 50.56%).
12SMF to KSP, 25/5/1951, FP vol. 21, repr. Ferrier, As Good as a Yarn with You; P. and M. Meggitt, 10/12/1951, FP vol. 39; Dymphna Cusack to SMF, 14/2/1951, repr. North, Yarn Spinners, and SMF to Florence James, 27/2/1951, FP vol. 30 (peace movement ‘commo dominated’); Barbara Curthoys and Audrey McDonald, More than a Hat and Coat Brigade: The Story of the Union of Australian Women, Bookpress, Sydney, 1996, p. 70. Re communist dominance of the peace movement in Australia: John McLaren, ‘Peace Wars: The 1959 ANZ Peace Congress’, Labour History, 2002, no. 82, and Barbara Carter, ‘The Peace Movement in the 1950s’, in Ann Curthoys and John Merritt eds, Better Dead than Red: Australia’s First Cold War 1945–1959, vol. 2, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1986, p. 65.
13Miles Franklin ASIO Files, NAA, CT 64/165 MF 4734:75; ‘[Sydney] Conference attack on Red Bill’, SMH, 29/5/1950, p. 9; Fiona Capp, Writers Defiled: Security Surveillance of Australian Authors, McPhee Gribble, Ringwood, Vic, 1993, p. 45. Of Russian descent, railway worker Alexander Bookluck (?–1967) was a long-serving treasurer of the FAW from 1938. Frank Hardy (1917–94), Victorian-born writer who joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1939, wrote Power Without Glory (1950), a section of which was allegedly based on the life of Melbourne underworld figure John Wren (OCAL).
14R. G. Howarth to H. S. Temby, 13/10/1950, NAA CLF files, A 463/34; SMF to H. S. Temby, 25/2/1951, and Temby’s file note, ibid., 1968/4178; SMF to Marjorie Pizer, 15/2/1951, FP vol. 39.
15‘Famous Women in Australian History: Rose Scott’, to air 23/1/1951, ABC Weekly, 17/2/1951; ‘The Dead Must Not Return’, ML MSS 445/26, and FP vol. 88, also ML MSS 6035 (pseud. ‘Field Hospital Orderly’).
16‘Herald Novel Awards’, SMH, 5/5/1951, p. 1; FP vol. 88, pp. 401, 425, 419 and 407 (entries); ‘A Bun for the Playwrights’, Bulletin, 14/11/1951, p. 6; Henrietta Drake-Brockman to SMF, 16/8/1951, FP vol. 33; James Crawford (1908–73), journalist and playwright (ADB S); SMF to Keith Macartney, 7/4/1951, FP vol. 42 (states the play was ‘noncompetition’), and Henrietta Drake-Brockman to SMF, 7/1/1951, FP vol. 33; Fred Robinson to SMF, 28/12/1951, FP vol. 39. Keith Lamont Macartney (1903–71), ADB vol. 15. On Frederick Walter Robinson (1888–1971) and his scholarly aspirations for the emerging field of Australian literature, see Leigh Dale, The English Men: Professing Literature in Australian Universities, Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Univ. of Southern Qld, 1997, pp. 148–9 and ADB vol. 11.
17Eleanor Witcombe to SMF, 18/3/1951, FP vol. 43,* and SMF to Eleanor Witcombe, 7/4/1951 and [15]/5/1951, FP vol. 43; SMF to Warwick Fairfax, 3/8/1951, FP vol. 44* and Warwick Fairfax to SMF, 7/8/1951, FP vol. 44; SMF to KSP, 30/3/1951, FP vol. 21, repr. Ferrier, As Good as a Yarn with You and Ric Throssell to SMF, 23/5/1951, FP vol. 41; SMF to Sumner Locke Elliott, 3/10/1951,* and Sumner Locke Elliott to SMF, 26/11/––[?] FP vol. 41. Eleanor Witcombe (b. 1923) is a Sydney playwright and author with a particular interest in the life of Daisy Bates. (Sir) Warwick Fairfax, see ADB vol. 17.
18SMF to Margery Currey, 6/6/1951, FP vol. 22.
19SMF to Eleanor Witcombe, 7/4/1951, FP vol. 43. Jean Campbell (1901–84), ADB vol. 17, who mainly wrote light novels, dismissed ‘The Dead Must Not Return’ as a complete failure and hackneyed (Jean Campbell to SMF, 9/3/1952, FP vol. 44); PD, 13/10/1951 (‘shocking’), a
nd LN, FP vol. 3, pp. 523–4 (Thornford).
20Bulletin, 16/5/1951, p. 18; SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 27/5/1951, FP vol. 30; PD, 9/5/1951, 21/9/1951.
21‘Bunyip’: an imaginary creature of Aboriginal legend said to haunt swamps and billabongs: an impostor (MD); FP vol. 89, p. 115 (brochure). SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 9/5/1952, FP vol. 30 (the awards).
22SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 10/11/1951, FP vol. 30 (re Swagger); Brent royalty statements, Angus & Robertson, FP vol. 86.
23PD, 2/6/1951. Bulletin 11/7/1951, p. 35, ad. (‘a spirited Australian novel of adventure, humour and hardihood’, price 6 shillings). Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis) (1868–1935), ADB vol. 8.
24Beatrice Davis to SMF, 4/6/1951 and 29/6/1951, FP vol. 86.
25Dymphna Cusack to SMF, 21/4/1951, FP vol. 30; ‘Comparing the Critics’, Austrovert, 1951, no. 1, p. 7; Bulletin, 18/7/1951, ‘Red Page’; Age, 7/7/1951, p. 9.
26Eng. Ass. Annual Dinner, Union Recorder, 29/11/1951, p. 237, p. 30; SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 1/5/1951, FP vol. 30; ML MSS 3659/1 (card). Bruce Sutherland (1904–70), AustLit.
27J. K. Moir to SMF, 25/11/1951, FP vol. 34; SMF to Mabel Singleton, 1/4/1952, FP vol. 25 (*in part); on Moir, ‘Knight Grand Cheese’, People, 23/4/1952, and see ch. 12, n. 20.
28SMF to Mabel Singleton, 1/4/1952, FP vol. 25.*
29Argus, 27/2/1928, p. 8. Roland Robinson, Nancy Keesing and the Holburns were leading Lyre-Bird Writers. Freda Irving (1903–84), ADB vol. 17.
30Clem Christesen to SMF, 15/5/1952, MA (his invitation); SMF to Arthur Phillips, 28/1/1952, FP vol. 44; SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 15/3/1952, FP vol. 30;* Bruce Muirden, cited Mathew, Miles Franklin, p. 35. Arthur Phillips (1900–85), Bruce Muirden (1928–91), AustLit.
31Everill Annie Venman (1907–c.80), who came to Melbourne c.1948 from Brisbane, resided at South Yarra and worked at Myer dispensary (Kristin Ashman, A Tribute to Jack Venman: In Honour of a True Bushman, Kristin Ashman, Qld, 1988, pp. 93–5).