by Judy Powell
Jim wanted to repay his workmen’s hard work and planned to pay bonuses but Yiannis demurred. Much better, he thought, for a collective celebration, a party to mark the end of an unexpectedly successful season. A long low table was set on the hillside under the olive trees, with bread, salad and lemons laid out in piles. The workmen arrived dressed in neat white shirts and pressed trousers. They lit a fire and, when the charcoal was just right, laid over it a long spit of skewered kebabs. Unfortunately the party coincided with the arrival of the conservator from the museum.
Jim was unwell but came to watch as the conservator placed a frame over Mary Ann and filled it with gypsum. Jim made him promise to take extra care.
‘If you ruin that figure I will shoot you.’
‘Mr Stewart I’ve done hundreds of these’, the conservator assured him as he filled the frame, and then went to help with the kebabs.
The gypsum was left too long, went rock hard and, as the conservator began to lift the frame, poor Mary Ann’s pelvis came away.
‘My God’, Yiannis recalled years later. Jim roared in rage and threw his stick to the ground.
‘You museum people are only good at making kebabs and having glasses of wine and coffees.’
It was the only time Yiannis saw him really furious and for once the workmen went silent.70
Nonetheless the feast was a success. Jim sat opposite Tryphon with Betty and Eve on either side. Betty Hunter-Cowan had brought her guitar and sang to the young man on her left. Someone brought a piano accordion, and when the meal was finished the men danced and sang.
At the end of the season’s work, Jim gloated that Karageorghis ‘rolled over’ when the Karmi finds were divided. Jim and Eve, Betty, Derek and Robert would sail for Australia with over seventy packing cases full of artefacts. Despite his internal jubilation, Jim could be gracious and wrote to Archbishop Makarios from on board the SS Himalaya thanking the government of Cyprus for their kindness and assistance and congratulating him on the efficiency and courtesy of all the government departments they had dealt with. He asked that the Archbishop convey his gratitude to both Dr Dikaios and Dr Karageorghis and noted the important role that the Department of Antiquities played in developing the tourist trade. He expressed optimism for the future of Cyprus.
The group stopped briefly in Egypt where, once again, Jim loaded up with books. To the intense annoyance of the university’s finance people, Jim arranged for the shipment of material from Cyprus (at a cost of £584 in freight) and Egypt (£150) and bought over £920 worth of books in Cairo. None of these costs were approved and on the party’s return to Australia Mr Bongers from the university’s financial area raised the matter with higher authorities. ‘The Vice-Chancellor asked me to say further that he takes a serious view of any staff committing the University to expenditure without the prior approval of the Senate or the Finance Committee or the Vice-Chancellor as laid down by the University By-Laws.’71
Despite his cheerful correspondence written on board SS Himalaya, Jim was desperately unwell. A few days into the voyage he collapsed and was confined to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage. On arrival in Sydney he was immediately hospitalised and spent two further periods in hospitals in Bathurst. At times he was delirious. Tethered to his hospital bed, he dictated letters to friends and colleagues and Eve typed them, propping the typewriter on the edge of his bed. The excavations, so unproductive at first, had succeeded beyond Jim’s expectation and he believed that the discovery of the Kamares cup would mean a complete reassessment of Near Eastern archaeology and history, making its discovery one of the most spectacular of the century! The season was, he told everyone, the natural completion to Flinders Petrie’s work. Often Eve sat beside Jim proofreading his manuscript for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition. Sometimes, reluctantly, she shared the job with Betty.
Everything seemed in order at Mount Pleasant: ‘more sheep than ever before, more turkeys than usual (over 500 of them), but fewer outside cats as several of the older ones have vanished; the Bishop is very much the Senior Cat, very dignified, but quite well even though he is over 12 now.’72 Basil is fairly sure that Callan had shot most of the outside cats.73
But Jim’s father was seriously ill and within a month of their return, Jim travelled to Sydney to be with him. A.A. died in July 1961, aged 90. He was old and had been ill for some time, but it was still a wrench. Jim had grown close to his father.
The return to Australia should have been triumphant. The excavations had proved successful and Jim was returning to an enlarged department. Max Mallowan had recommended Judy Birmingham as a Near Eastern lecturer and Vincent Megaw would teach European prehistory. He was Peter’s nephew, recommendation enough. Jim had suggested Alexander Cambitoglou for the Classical Archaeology position and Dale Trendall, now at the Australian National University, agreed. Derek Howlett was not his first choice for the technical position, but under Eve’s guidance should manage. He hoped the university would soon appoint a ‘Quaternary’ person.
But much had changed. In Kyrenia Jim had received Basil’s telegram with news of his decision to leave Sydney University and enrol in postgraduate studies at Oxford. Jim could do little about it and with great sadness, accepted the resignation. Tears were shed. They were as close as father and son could be, with all the friction that such relationships engender. Jim felt he had let Basil down and said so. ‘On the contrary,’ Basil said, ‘You’ve set me up to succeed.’74
Another fracture line finally cracked. Robert was the only student in 1959 to complete an Honours year, but Jim seemed determined to prevent him obtaining a First, even if this meant manipulating both exam and result. On the ship sailing home a final rupture occurred and by July, Robert confirmed that he could not—and would not—work at The Mount and his offers to fulfil his duties from the university store room at the Golden Grove in Sydney were met with antagonism. They argued on the telephone but the break was complete.75
‘You work according to my instructions’, Jim had demanded. ‘And when I ask you to do a thing I expect it to be done unless there is a very good reason. I will have some influence on your life for the next twenty-five years if you wish to continue Archaeology,’ he warned, and made good this threat when asked to write a reference for a Commonwealth Scholarship. While his report to the Institute of Archaeology where Robert Merrillees planned to enrol in postgraduate study was measured, the reference was vicious. Jim wrote to his bank withdrawing support for a personal overdraft to Robert. A wealthy man, Jim used money to curry favour and manipulate. Eve had predicted for some time that Robert would want to make his own way, but Jim was blind and refused to see.
Eve had long since made her peace with both Basil and Robert—the role of mediator came more naturally to her, as she had demonstrated with the Cypriot workmen at Karmi. More than anything though, she was glad that Jim had finally made peace with the only real son he had. Jim’s stepmother Hope negotiated a meeting and, at fifteen, Peter Stewart finally met the father he had never known. Peter was a young man with a passion for the country and a single-minded determination to become a farmer. If Jim had ever had any doubt about his paternity, these doubts disappeared when he met his son, who was sandy-haired with a complexion like his father’s that would freckle and redden outdoors. There was certainly no doubting the physical similarities between them and Jim was delighted to at last meet him. Friends and family urged him to move slowly. In September and again over the New Year, Peter visited Mount Pleasant, and shot rabbits, which Maroulla stewed in red wine.76 Jim’s good friend John Ouvrier told Eve how wonderful it was to see Jim’s delight in his son. In his turn Peter ‘assured me, after a bottle of vin rose that he too had had a wonderful time’.77
For the rest of the year, Jim lurched between desperate ill health and extravagant plans for the future. Writing to Vassos Karageorghis he let slip that the doctors had thought he might die, but he and Eve still found time to send a ‘consignment of bears’ to Vassos’s children for Christmas. Karageo
rghis reminded Jim, gently but increasingly firmly, that his manuscript had been with them for some time, also taking the opportunity to urge Jim to fulfil his obligations to publish his Cypriot finds.
Meanwhile Eve failed to finalise her father’s estate on Cyprus and Tom’s property in Egypt remained to be sorted. To her great relief Mrs Duckworth had at last left Tjiklos but the estate became impossible to administer from long distance. One property, Aspenden, had water problems and when her tenant drew water, the nearby town ran dry. Another of her tenants was unemployed and unable to make payments. Repairs to the houses seemed never-ending. Tenants fought over their access to carobs and olives and the property had not yet been transferred to Eve. Until that happened, all repairs were charged to her lawyer’s personal accounts but this could not continue indefinitely. Her legacy was becoming more of a worry than a source of income.
Jim was keen to advertise his recent success and wrote a report on the Kamares ware cup for Antiquity, where Glyn Daniel, a fellow student at Cambridge, was now editor. Daniel rejected the article—after many delays—as too technical.
Reluctantly we have come to the conclusion that, as it stands, your article is a straightforward and fairly difficult excavation report with an inventory, and that it is not really what we are aiming at in Antiquity … I feel that for this journal we have to get articles of wide general interest signalising [sic] an important discovery or setting a discovery in its widest contexts, or giving accounts of a new synthesis.
Daniel concluded by saying that
it is not space that crowds you out, but that your article is—let’s face it—pure archaeological primary scholarship with no concessions to the general reader (presumably a mythical figure but he subscribes to Antiquity).78
Paul Åström agreed to publish the report in Opuscula Athiensiou.
Jim and Eve had yet to provide a short report to the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus, still waiting for details of their earlier 1955 work, although Eve had finalised the proofs of the volume for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, but Jim worried about the number of corrections needed.79 He returned the manuscript at the end of 1961 and in January 1962 expressed concern that they had not received the second set of proofs.80 Now a professor, he felt able to address Gjerstad by his Christian name and asked Einar to do the same.81 Each letter to Gjerstad included a request for stamps to add to Eve’s collection.
Amongst all these worries—establishing new staff in the department, the emotional turmoil of farewelling Basil and seeing Robert go, of losing a father and gaining a son, of illness and worry, of requests for publication and of promises not kept—Jim and Eve had to answer regular requests from people wanting to visit. In August the year before they had to remind people that ‘Mount Pleasant is a private house and not a museum, a fallacy which, despite denials by himself and Mrs Stewart, does not seem to die in Bathurst’.82 Would no one leave them be?
Eve had few friends and none she could lean on. Ann Baldwin, the wife of the coin dealer Albert Baldwin, was one of the few who understood and to whom she could confide.
I, too, had ample warning, & learnt to lie from day to day; Sept. of last year, for instance, I got Jim an ‘advance’ Xmas present (a transistor radio, to try and keep him amused when he was restless, but didn’t feel up to doing any work) as at that stage I didn’t think he’d hang on till Xmas … I felt so powerless to help him … that’s why, last Jan., I insisted on introducing a trained nurse into the household, to try & combat Betty C’s influence … But I think the worst part is having to keep one’s knowledge to oneself. Once or twice Jim started crying because he was so tired of always feeling ill, & he didn’t want to die—what could I say to comfort him when I knew it was inevitable?83
As Jim’s health failed Eve saw it as her duty to protect him. Writing to the Vice-Chancellor, she asked that Alexander Cambitoglou be allowed to make decisions on Jim’s behalf and worried that Betty—staying frequently at The Mount—brought Jim work even before breakfast.
Jim’s failure to separate the personal and professional spheres of his life had disadvantages. Caught between two competing women, Jim had enjoyed the jealous tension in Cyprus but now bridled at their bitchiness. Eve shrank when she remembered the day he lashed out at both of them, flinging papers across the room.84
Eve clung desperately to Jim and reached for support. Derek Howlett’s girlfriend Sonja had arrived from England and was a trained nurse. Eve asked for her help and the couple moved to The Mount so that Sonja could nurse Jim. She argued with Betty, who insisted on keeping him awake, talking and drinking, after she had administered medications.85
Through it all, Eve maintained her obligations, posting Christmas cards and making sure she had presents for friends in Cyprus and England, and continuing to field requests. Vassos needed a report on the 1961 excavations. Could she find work for a recently arrived Cypriot woman? How was the editing of Vassos’s thesis progressing? Where would she find the money for death duties payable on Tjiklos?
On Wednesday 31 January Jim was admitted for the last time to St Vincent’s Hospital in Bathurst and died on the 6 February. The death certificate listed hypertension and cardiac failure, but four years of imprisonment, alcohol and cigarettes surely played a part.
In his last days in hospital Jim had spoken with his local politician and expressed the wish that Sydney University might eventually own his property, his library, and his collections. Mr Bernard Deane, MLA, made representation to the university but the Registrar replied coldly: ‘As you no doubt know, Professor Stewart died yesterday. It seems therefore that there is no need for further action or discussion about his estate.’86
Eve hoped for a small private funeral, but this was not to be. Jim’s was never a private life. Not wanting a fuss, she asked Alexander Cambitoglou not to come, but he could hardly object to members of staff attending if they wished. Betty and Mary Ann wanted to attend at all costs. On the morning of 8 February, cars drove up the range from Sydney. Mary Ann brought Eleanor and Peter, but Peter attended the funeral without his mother.
Within two days Eve would host a visit by Alexander Cambitoglou. Professor Roberts and his wife arrived for lunch. Judy Birmingham came to use the library. Plans began for a memorial exhibition. Betty was asked to leave Mount Pleasant. Derek and Sonja stayed. Never happy with the Australian habit of boisterous matey banter, Eve felt more comfortable with a conservative English couple who were similarly reserved and careful.
When everyone had finally left, a freshly dug mound and small wooden white cross in the front garden were the only reminders of what had happened. Jim had asked to be buried in his orchard. Later visitors were aghast but Eve liked it. She told Paul Åström: ‘it helps me to feel that he is still here’, adding that she wished Paul were in Australia.87 She had so few friends to lean on.
Eve sent out notification of Jim’s death. Every day brought more letters to be answered. The more difficult ones she set aside. Formal letters of condolence arrived—General Nasser wrote from Egypt, Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus—as well as professional expressions of sadness and of regret for the loss to the archaeology of Cyprus. Many of the writers had never met Jim but had corresponded regularly and enjoyed the personality that shone through his letters. Porphyrios was shocked; he knew Jim’s health was poor, but had no idea the end was so near. He sent a copy of the formal communiqué from the Department of Antiquities.
Virginia Grace from the American School of Classical Studies in Athens had known Jim since before the war and she had visited them in Kyrenia during the Karmi excavations. She was pleased now to have done so, and told Eve:
Glad not just for meeting once more, but for knowing you, and seeing how he was looked after, and with what tact as well as tenderness. It was wonderful that this season was such a climax in rare finds, for his satisfaction, though I am afraid this added to the load. I hope you have been able to get a little rested, and that you may have the strengths and desire to deal with his unfinished
work so it can take its final shape and immortality.88
Reynold Higgins, a fellow POW, had also known Jim
under the most trying of circumstances, and was always impressed by his refusal to give in. I don’t think he ever really recovered from Germany.89
Eve spilt ash on the letter from Jim’s Cambridge tutor and it burnt two small brown holes in the thin blue aerogramme, but she scarcely noticed.
Although not overtly religious, Eve had been raised in a religious household. One of the letters of condolence came from an old friend, Launcelot Flemming, now Bishop of Norwich. Flemming had recently lost his mother and enclosed a copy of the diocesan letter in which he tried to explain his feelings of loss.
In Eve’s reply, words and abbreviations tumbled over themselves as she poured her heart out.90
Dear Launcelot
I have read, & re-read, your personal letter of 10th Mar. & the copy of your letter to Norwich Churchman, many times; often I have been on / point of writing to you, but I hesitated: why sh’ld I bother you? I’m muddling along all right—& I know what a burden even one more letter in mail can be.
Besides, I’m not quite clear exactly what I want to say to you; I’m not a thinker like Jim. That’s why I was able to help him in his work: he was a scholar & I concentrated on practical things like drawing pots & proof reading; in that way we made a good team. But in other ways I failed him utterly. An only child, selfish & self-centred, I didn’t attempt to understand him, I expected to be the only pebble on the beach. So if he sinned, it was because I drove him to it; it’s my fault that a shadow came between us, so that in the last 2 or 3 years I didn’t give him all love I sh’ld have done. When we are re-united, I hope I shall have more understanding.
And now it’s too late for regrets! As I realised when my mother died, while visiting us here, 6 years ago (I could so easily have made her happier).