The Last of the Apple Blossom

by Mary-Lou Stephens

  Angela took the microphone over to the keyboard and slotted it into the stand. She played a few notes and, once happy with the sound, turned back to the crowd who immediately became silent. ‘This is the title track of the album, and my father’s most famous song though he never recorded a version of it himself. You might notice a few little changes, including the title, but I’ve recorded it the way my father originally wrote it.’

  Catherine didn’t bother to stop the tears from falling. Annie stood close to her on one side and Sarah on the other, her arm tight around her mother, with Izzy and Stardust behind her.

  Angela looked right at her with those golden eyes. ‘She was Miss Turner, then Mrs Davis, and Auntie Catherine to me for many years, but she was always her own woman. An inspiration indeed, in many ways. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Catherine’s Song”.’

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I grew up in Tasmania, but not on an apple orchard – not even in the country. I’m a girl from the suburbs of Hobart. Before writing this novel, the only time I’d spent in orchards was during primary school excursions and a trip to the north of the state to stay with friends of the family when I was a child. But I do remember the bushfires. I was six years old and a student at Sandy Bay Infant School where The Last of the Apple Blossom begins. I remember the frightening sky, the huge alien sun, and lying on the linoleum of the classroom floor in my underwear alongside my classmates, trying to keep cool. I remember arriving home to our house at the bottom of Mount Nelson and the lounge room being full of children whose fathers were up the hill trying to save their homes. I also remember going on Sunday drives with my family and seeing, even years later, the decaying chimneys of houses that had been burnt and abandoned. The legacy of that day lingered on for decades.

  Ironically it was a very rainy day when the idea for this story landed inside my heart. I had interviewed Monica McInerney for a literary event in the morning, and in the course of the interview we talked about grief and how it informed her writing. That afternoon the premise for this novel revealed itself to me. I found the idea terrifying. It was too big, too daunting and so very sad.

  I emailed Monica the next day to tell her about the idea and added, ‘It’s your fault. It was all that talk about grief.’ She very generously replied that she could take none of the credit and that I must write the book even though it terrified me. In a wonderful turn of events, after I had overcome my fear and written many drafts, Monica became my mentor and guided me through the final drafts before I submitted to publishers.

  When I began the research for The Last of the Apple Blossom I realised I was right. The job before me was daunting. The events and aftermath of the fires were horrific and the drawn-out demise of the apple industry in the Huon Valley heartbreaking. I knew I needed to be respectful as many people were still traumatised by the fires that roared through Tasmania over fifty years ago. I also needed to do justice to the struggles of the orchardists, many of whom, despite being the ones who created the Apple Isle, considered that they’d worked their entire lives for nothing.

  With the fiftieth anniversary of the fires in 2017 there were many resources available for research purposes. The Mercury newspaper published a five-part magazine series, Black Tuesday 50th Anniversary, featuring archival images, retrospective articles and interviews with people who lived through the disaster. Libraries Tasmania, through the records of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, collated police reports, photographs, film and handwritten accounts for a website called The Fire of ’67. And ’67 Bushfires Storymap was a commemorative project by the Bushfire-Ready Neighbourhoods of Tasmania Fire Service. As part of the storymap, Hugo Connor’s story ‘Country Week Let’s Bat On!’, about how he made it from Hobart to Cygnet on the afternoon of 7 February, inspired Catherine and Tim’s dash to Wattle Grove. Trove and ABC Hobart were also valuable sources of information, as was Burn: The Epic Story of Bushfire in Australia by Paul Collins (2009).

  However, when it came to the finer details of fire relief efforts, the long-term consequences on the community and the ongoing efforts to recover, I was stymied. After a long search I finally found the missing piece, Bushfire Disaster: an Australian Community in Crisis by RL Wettenhall (1975). The book, which uses the 1967 fires as a case study, was long out of print and hard to get hold of. I paid handsomely, but happily, for a copy. The detail in Wettenhall’s book on matters of insurance, politics, policies, tourism and even the restructuring of the apple industry is extraordinary. On the back cover there is a frightening quote from one of Australia’s leading fire experts at the time, AG Macarthur: ‘The energy release at the height of conflagration far exceeded the energy of several atomic explosions.’

  While researching apple growing in Tasmania I drew on many resources. The National Library of Australia’s Apples and Pears Oral History Project is a rich source of history and knowledge in this area. To hear the orchardists, many since passed away, talk about their personal experiences of working their orchards through the seasons and the years, and the battles they encountered, brought the history of the Huon Valley to life for me. Nathalie Norris’s account was inspirational, as she was the only female orchardist of her time. In Brian Clark’s interview he praised his daughter’s effort to keep the family orchard afloat. It was only after spending time with Naomie Clark-Port, my Apple Angel, that I realised she was the daughter he’d admired so much. He died a few years ago and Naomie wasn’t aware that he’d recorded the interview. I have thanked Naomie in the acknowledgements. This novel would have been lacking in many respects without her generosity and her introductions to old orchardists from the area.

  ABC Radio National made an evocative radio documentary for Hindsight in 2006, Huon Valley Apple: a short trip down the periscope of history, produced by Trish Fox. It’s on the ABC website if you’d like to step into the shoes of those who lived and worked on the orchards.

  Other material that I pored over, underlined, highlighted and wrote notes on, included ‘Apples of the Huon’ by Beth Hall (Tasmanian Geographic, 2014), Full and Plenty: an oral history of apple growing in the Huon Valley by Catherine Watson (1987), The History and Heritage of the Tasmanian Apple Industry, a profile by Anne McConnell and Nathalie Servant (1999) and The Australian Apple Recipe Book (1982), which not only has recipes, many of which I’ve made, but also includes an orchard calendar, photographs of orchards in the Huon Valley and details on apple varieties.

  In the Hobart Reading Room at the State Library of Tasmania (Libraries Tasmania) I read the Apple and Pear Growers Association submission to the Senate Review of Australia’s Quarantine Function which includes a history of the Tasmanian industry, Shaping the Apple Industry: report of the Apple and Pear Marketing Advisory Committee by A Hocking and others (1978) and The Tasmanian Apple and Pear Industry 1966–81: a study for the Interim Primary Products Marketing Council and the Tasmanian Apple and Pear Marketing Authority by A Hocking (1982). For an overview of the changing times and major events of the era The Tasmanian Year Book from 1967 onwards provided salient details. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs Anzac Portal was my main source for information on the Vietnam War, along with newspaper and magazine accounts. I also studied the Tree Pull Scheme using correspondence and reports from the Department of Agriculture, the Rural Reconstruction Board, the Apple and Pear Growers Federation of Tasmania, the Agricultural Bank, newspaper articles, and letters from the growers themselves. Many of them told a heartbreaking story.

  As I researched the book I realised how hard it would be to find any kind of happy ending for my characters. But I felt driven to do the best I could for those who’d worked so hard on the land to eke out a living despite everything nature and bureaucracy threw at them. I knew I wanted to include the hippies or the ‘new settlers’ who came to the Huon Valley in the 1970s. As such, I needed Catherine’s orchard to be close to Cygnet, which was a magnet for many who wanted to live on the land and get back to nature – a strange concept for those who’d lived on th
e land and with nature all of their lives. I thought if I was going to have any chance of a happy ending the hippies would need to be involved somehow. A Brief History of Cygnet by Jean Cockerill (1987), Mary Street, Cygnet: a history of life on the main road in a Tasmanian country town by David Coad (2016) and the Cygnet Area School journal helped me understand more about the town. At the Living History Museum at Cygnet, I found transcripts of interviews with orchardists, locals and the new arrivals. The accounts provided by the hippies were fascinating to read and the photographs of their dwellings and lifestyle were illuminating. The Core of the Matter: Organic Apple Growing in Tasmania by Chris and Paula Steenholdt (1998) provided the inspiration for many of Stardust’s techniques. In the end though, Stardust, Izzy and their friends were only part of the happy ending I came up with while on a silent ten-day meditation retreat. It was the ingenuity and sheer hard work of Catherine, Annie, Dave and Mark that saved their orchards and their livelihoods.

  I hope I have done the growers of the Huon Valley justice, those who worked hard all their lives through disasters and hardships so severe it would make most of us give up in despair. I have an enormous respect for them and enormous gratitude. Their grit and tenacity has touched my life deeply and I’m honoured to have been given this story to share with you.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Just as with an orchard, it takes time and work to create a book, and many hands to nurture it, prune it and make it productive. I am deeply grateful to all of those who assisted in shaping The Last of the Apple Blossom, and to those who helped it bloom.

  My heartfelt thanks to Naomie Clark-Port, my Apple Angel. Naomie is an orchardist in the Huon Valley, tending the orchard that has been in her family for many generations. I called her, out of the blue, with three pages of questions about apple growing. Even though I was a complete stranger to her, she responded with overwhelming warmth and generosity right from the start. Her helpfulness extended to a private tour of her orchard, cool room and old packing shed, and a guided drive through the Huon Valley. Naomie also set up interviews with some of the orchardists from the area who lived through the times described in this novel. And to top it all off, she agreed to read and fact check a draft of The Last of the Apple Blossom. (Any mistakes are my own and certainly not Naomie’s.) If you’re in the Huon Valley make sure to drop in to Frank’s Cider House and Cafe in Franklin and try some of Naomie’s award-winning cider.

  A soul-felt thank you to Monica McInerney, who mentored me through many drafts of The Last of the Apple Blossom as part of the ASA’s Mentorship Program. Monica was a hard taskmistress but a loving one, and a constant source of wisdom, warmth and support. Thank you, Monica, this novel would not be the book it is without you. I will never forget your kindness.

  Thank you to the orchardists who allowed me to pick their brains over cups of tea and cake: John Marshall at Ranelagh, and Phil Cawthorne and Frank Clark (no relation to Naomie) at Wattle Grove. Their stories were always fascinating, often funny and sometimes heartbreaking.

  My husband and I got chatting with Tony Evans at the Summer Kitchen Bakery in Ranelagh. When we discovered he knew a lot about apples, we invited Tony to our Airbnb (a converted apple shed no less) for dinner. Tony regaled us with tales of working on his family’s orchard as well as the larger orchards in the Huon Valley.

  Moya Fyfe wrote a haunting essay for the Griffith Review, ‘When the Apple Cart Tipped’, about her childhood growing up on an orchard and her memories of the orchard being bulldozed into the ground as part of the Tree Pull Scheme. Moya met with me to expand on those memories and painted a vivid picture of what it was like being a kid during those times.

  A cheeky thanks to Tony Rice whose description of being a nine-year-old boy at the time of the fires gave me an insight into how Annie’s boys would have reacted. He also gave me the delicious detail of the apple trucks wiping out every guidepost along the Huon Highway.

  Max and Dawn Oates’s memories of surviving the 1967 bushfires in the Huon Valley gave me goosebumps. My sister, Katy, and her husband, Tony, introduced me to Max and Dawn in Crabtree and also to Tony Rice. Thank you, my darling sister, for the introductions and for lending me your car when I needed to make yet another dash down the Huon Valley.

  The Living History Museum in Cygnet is a treasure trove of information about the area, the apple industry and the locals. Thank you to the volunteers who keep it running. The information on the ‘new settlers’ was especially fascinating and useful.

  To Associate Professor Anne-Marie Williams, Tasmanian School of Medicine, Forensic Anthropologist, thank you for your expert advice on the limits of pathology in the late 1960s.

  A big thank you to the librarians in the Hobart Reading Room at the State Library of Tasmania, for your enthusiasm, patience and helpfulness. I loved the hours I spent there poring over Tree Pull Scheme applications, Cygnet school records, Apple and Pear Marketing Authority reports, Department of Agriculture information and Rural Reconstruction Board correspondence.

  The idea for this novel was niggling away at me for some time before it finally took root, watered by tears and fertilised with determination, at a Writing in Paradise retreat led by the dynamic Shelley Kenigsberg and ably assisted by David Leser. Some of those first handwritten words made it into the finished book. Thank you for bringing them into the light.

  I couldn’t have spent as much time in Tasmania or the Huon Valley without the generosity of my beautiful friend Penny McDonald. Thank you for all that you did for me, Penny. This novel would have been a lot harder to research without your support. My thanks also to Vicky McDonald for her hospitality.

  There are two women who’ve aided and abetted my writing ambitions since 2008. Together we have laughed, cried, sworn and celebrated our writing and our lives. This journey would be a lot lonelier and a lot less fun without Sue Goldstiver and Jodie Miller travelling alongside me. And an extra special hug (I know you love them, really) to Sue, for a sterling edit along the way.

  To my darling Christine Evans, thank you for your unwavering belief in this novel and for your informed and thoughtful writerly advice. You have always been a true friend and a spectacularly talented writer. And thank you to Rachel Baily, another talented writer, for synopsis advice and for holding my hand when the offers came in.

  Thank you to Fiona McIntosh for her excellent fiction writing Masterclass. The ongoing support and camaraderie from Fiona and the entire Masterclass community has been a blessing.

  The 2020 RWA Conference organisers did a mighty job creating a virtual conference during the ever-changing conditions of that year. Much gratitude to the volunteers who organised it and to those who facilitated the online pitches. It was because of my pitch to Nicola Robinson from Harlequin that you hold this book in your hands.

  Which brings me to a massive acknowledgment to Nicola Robinson herself. Thank you for believing in The Last of the Apple Blossom and for your thorough structural edit. I do love research, but the book is so much better without all the ‘bog’. Annabel Blay took charge of the manuscript for the next edits and in her kind and generous hands the novel was polished to a beautiful shine. Thank you for your heartfelt and encouraging comments, Annabel, you are a joy to work with. And a grateful thanks to Annabel Adair for her eagle-eyed proofreading skills.

  The beautiful cover was designed by the talented Christine Armstrong. The image is the perfect blend of warmth and wistfulness, while the ghostly apple blossom reminds me of the days long gone when the Huon Valley was covered in a blanket of pink and white.

  Thank you to everyone at Harlequin and HarperCollins, especially Jo Munroe for her marketing panache and Natika Palka for her fabulous publicity prowess.

  Deep gratitude and love to my husband, Ken, who learnt almost as much about apple orchards as I did during the research process. Thank you for your support, your patience and for making me smile when times were tough.

  ISBN: 9781867226444

  TITLE: THE LAST OF THE APPLE BLOSSOM />
  First Australian Publication 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by Mary-Lou Stephens

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