Edel Wignell - Writing For Adults

Australian Writer, Compiler and Journalist

WRITING FOR ADULTS

Edel Wignell's articles, short stories and poetry have been published in more than 100 journals, newspapers and collections. Some have won awards. NEW!

NEW! Read Edel's feature, Ann Fraser Bon: Pioneer of Reconciliation, which was awarded Second Prize in the 'Paddy's Post' Journalism Competition, and first published in 'The Dawn' Magazine.

Read Edel's short story The Double Launch, first published in 'Luna' Magazine.

NEW! Read a poem, 'A Go-er in Murtoa', which won First Prize in the Murtoa Big Day Out Poetry Competition – Humour Section, 2009.

ANN FRASER BON: PIONEER OF RECONCILIATION
Edel Wignell ©

Second Prize, 'Paddy's Post' Journalism Competition; first published in 'The Dawn'.

Ann Fraser Bon (1838-1936) was a strong, pioneering woman with advanced ideas in regard to justice for the Koori people, so she was regarded as a nuisance by politicians and bureaucrats. (N.B. Some sources spell Ann Bon's name 'Anne' or 'Annie'. In the Dictionary of Australian Biography it is 'Ann'.)

It is seventy years since the death of Ann Bon at the age of 98, and she is almost forgotten by whites, but not by Kooris in Victoria. For almost 70 years she agitated for justice for Australia's original inhabitants.

'Are they to be driven from place to place like a herd of cattle to make room for the white usurper?' she wrote in 1882. She was called a 'philanthropist' - a polite term for what governments and white landowners regarded as a nuisance and a 'do-gooder'.

Few whites know her name today, but some Victorian Kooris have kept it alive. Norman Hunter, oral historian and former member (with his five brothers) of the Yarra Yarra Dance Group, said that his mother and grandmother often talked about her. His Great-great-grandmother was a sister of William Barak - an elder of the Woiwoorung or Yarra Yarra nation at the time of white settlement in Victoria.

Ann was born Ann Fraser Dougall on 9 April 1838 in Dunning (Perthshire) Scotland. When she married John Bon, thirty-three years her senior, on 12 January 1858, she was a strong, attractive young woman with red hair and a fiery temper.

The couple came to live on his property, 'Wappan', on the Delatite River thirty-two kilometres south of Mansfield, north-eastern Victoria.

Ann brought with her five servants and a cargo which included a piano, bulbs, seeds, shrubs, fruit trees and a lifetime supply of hand-woven linen. John brought two champion animals - a bull and a Clydesdale stallion.

Between 1860 and 1868 three sons and two daughters were born, and Ann Bon began to manage the property - a substantial sheep and cattle station. When John Bon died on 21 November 1868, Ann Bon took over.

She was successful immediately; season after season, her products 'topped the Melbourne markets', wrote Alfred S. Kenyon in The Story of Australia, Its Discoverers and Founders. But it is for her personality and her philanthropy that she is remembered now.

In the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Joan Gillison wrote a vivid portrait of her: 'Devoutly religious, imperious in her manner, a loving but stern mother, an autocrat with her domestic staff and station-hands, Ann Bon held firmly to her course even if it meant defying authority. Lonely and in many ways shy, she made few close friends, but to those in need, especially Aboriginals, she showed compassion and generosity.'

Members of the Taungerong people lived on Wappan, and some gained employment there. All were supplied with food, John Bon killing and sharing two animals each week.

Ann Bon took a special interest in William Barak (1818/22-1903) of the Woiwoorung people. (As a child he had seen the arrival of the whites in the Port Phillip area, and is believed to have been present at the signing of the 'Batman Treaty'.) Ann Bon met Barak when he and his wife lived on Acheron Station.

In the 1860s several groups, including Barak and his people, were resettled at Coranderrk near Healesville, a reserve set up by the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines. Ann Bon visited them there.

From time to time men returned to Wappan for sheep-shearing and other seasonal work (for which they were paid the same wages as whites). They told Ann Bon about maltreatment and the appalling living conditions at Coranderrk.

By the 1880s, planning to close the reserve, the Board was letting it run down. Ill and depressed, the Koori people received no support from the authoritarian manager, Rev. Strickland.

Encouraged by Ann Bon and others, Barak and another elder, Bidarak, led a deputation of protest to the Berry government. Support came from sympathetic whites - employers, philanthropists, parliamentarians and members of the press. Many agreed that the Aboriginal people should be the first to be consulted in regard to their way of living, and a change of management was urgently needed.

Ann Bon was persuasive with words. An indefatigable letter-writer, she campaigned for reform by writing to Board members, politicians and clergymen, demanding an investigation into the administration of Coranderrk.

'They are capable of feeling joy and sorrow as well as we, and I believe their attachments are much stronger than ours,' she wrote to Mr Wilson (Under Secretary of the Chief Secretary's Department) in a letter dated 29 May 1882.

'They have held possession for 20 years, and why punish them for the bad management of their "Protectors". They are neither paupers, lunatics nor criminals - then why treat them as such!...

'They are an affectionate, grateful and teachable people, and feel the cruel treatment they receive very keenly. Upon the smallest pretext the assistance of the police is called in, they are taken to court, but no counsel is provided for them, and they stand undefended. The Aboriginal belongs to the British community, but is denied that justice to which every British subject is entitled.'

When an inquiry was set up in 1881, Ann Bon was appointed as a member. She rode a wagon from Wappan to Melbourne for its hearings. Its findings, published in 1882, led to a reversal of Board policy, and improvements at Corankerrk.

In the following years, Ann Bon continued to agitate and, at last, in 1904 after years of opposition from officialdom, she gained membership of the Board - its only woman. She served for 32 years - until her death.

Many years after Barak died, the Healesville Branch of the Australian Natives Association decided to erect a monument to his memory. Ann Bon donated the marble for it, and the memorial was erected by public subscription in 1934.

The local people objected to its location in the main street and, when vandals pushed it over, it was stored in the council yard. In 1955, the Melbourne Bread and Cheese Club had it placed in the cemetery at Coranderrk where it can be seen today. Its inscription states that it was 're-erected over Barak’s grave, surrounded by 300 of his race'.

Ann Bon's charitable and church interests were ecumenical and diverse, but her greatest commitment was to the Aboriginal people. Like many whites of the time, she believed that they were 'dying out', victims of white man's vices and diseases. She regularly visited Aboriginal patients in Melbourne hospitals and, wrote Joan Gillison, 'maintained a voluminous correspondence with Aboriginals all over Victoria, remaining uniquely responsible to them'.

She owned a home in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, and this became a refuge for the sick and the destitute, and a haven for Aboriginal people.

When the State Government bought Wappan in 1929 to flood as Sugar Loaf Weir and Lake Eildon, Ann Bon retired to a suite at the Hotel Windsor. She spent her last days in seclusion, seeing few people except her son William and members of the clergy.

In old age she remained alert, agitating until her death. Three times - in 1921, 1923 and even in her last year, 1936 - she protested to the Minister that decisions by members of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines had caused hardship or injustice. Each time she was reprimanded for disloyalty.

Ann Fraser Bon died on 5 June 1936, aged 98, leaving £60,000 to charity. She was survived by two sons. This simple notice appeared in the Melbourne Argus, 8 June, after Ann Fraser Bon's funeral at Kew cemetery:

BON On the 5th June Anne Fraser Bon in her ninety-ninth year.
Privately interred June 6.

Throughout her long life she constantly worked for those less-fortunate than herself. Most remarkable was her commitment to the Aboriginal people, best expressed in her actions, and in the memorable words that she wrote in 1882:

'The greatest crime of which they have been guilty is having been the original owners of the soil.'

Side Bar 1

NEWS OF THE DAY

The following petition has been drawn up by the adult natives at Coranderrk, and was yesterday presented to the Chief Secretary by Barak and Punch, two of the oldest blacks on the station:

'Sir, We wish to ask for our wishes, that is, could we get our freedom to go away shearing and harvesting, and come home when we wish, and also go for the good of our health when we need it; and we aboriginals all wish and hope to have freedom, not to be bound down by the protection of the board as it says in the bill (clause 5), but we would be free like the white population. There is only few blacks now remaining in Victoria. We are all dying away now, and we blacks of aboriginal blood wish to have our freedom for all our lifetime, for the population is small, and the increase is slow. For why does the board seek in these latter days more stronger authority over us aborigines than it has yet been. For there is only 21 aborigines on the station at Coranderrk, including men and women.'

Mrs. Bon, who has for some years taken a great interest in the welfare of the aborigines, and Mr. Zox M.L.A., subsequently discussed the question with Mr Deakin, who said that he greatly sympathized with the feelings expressed by the natives of Coranderrk, and promised to bring their request before the Cabinet for consideration. ('The Age', 22 September 1886)

Side Bar 2

The wind in the trees,
The birds on the wing,
The rain as it falls,
Sad tidings they bring,
BARAK is gone - is gone.

Written by Ann Bon on the death of William Barak in 1903.

REFERENCES

'The Age', 22 September 1886
'The Argus', 20 May 1882, 8 June 1936
Bon, Ann Fraser, Correspondence, Public Record Office files, Laverton, Victoria
Buggy, Hugh and Stephens, Ron, 'What Goes On? A Melbourne News Diary' in 'The Argus' 10 January 1951
Christie, M. F., Aborigines in Colonial Victoria 1835-86, Sydney University Press, 1979
Norman Hunter - phone conversation, January 1994
Kenyon, Alfred S., The Story of Australia: Its Discoverers and Founders, self published, 1936
Massola, Aldo, 'Painting by Berak' in The Victorian Naturalist, Vol 76, No. 10, February 1960
The Messenger, The Presbyterian Missionary Women's Union, 16 February 1951
Morrison, P. Crosbie, 'The Widow of Wappan' in 'The Argus', 13 June 1936
Nairn, Bede and Serle, Geoffrey (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne University Press, Vol. 7, Melbourne, 1979
Ten Victorian Women 1854-1895, Public Record Office, Victoria, 1983
Wiencke, Shirley W., When the Wattles Bloom Again, self published, Woori Yallock, 1984 (photograph of Ann Bon, p. 94)

THE DOUBLE LAUNCH
A short story first published in 'Luna Magazine'
Edel Wignell ©

On a morning in mid-February the phone rang and I picked up the receiver - numb, blank, still holding the letter from Browning Press.

'St Anne's Hospital here. Sister Grey speaking. Is that Elizabeth Winter?'

I was with-it immediately. 'Yes! The baby's arrived?'

'Yes Ms Winter. Penny East asked me to say, "Can you come in straight away?".'

'Yes, I'll come straight away. Boy or girl?'

'Boy, but...'

'Tell Penny I'll be there in twenty minutes.'

I hung up the receiver and stood for a few moments, the awful truth shrouding.

Penny and I had shared a flat for five years - long enough to know each other's thoughts, for our body rhythms to cycle together. The only other person who was... close... was Allan, the father of Penny's baby.

Penny planned to marry Allan; Allan planned to marry Penny; neither of them planned the baby. Six months ago, when Penny knew she was pregnant, she couldn't go through with the finality of marriage. So I shared Penny's pregnancy - though Allan often called in, had a meal and spent evenings with us several times a week.

Penny's a fashion designer with her own fashion house, so she's free to come and go as she pleases. She never really stopped working - just worked at home more and more in the last month to avoid the exhaustion of travelling.

I've been freelancing at home for the last couple of years, and it's been odd having Penny around lately. But we've got a workable arrangement. We both like to concentrate in long bursts of creativity, then stop to eat and talk.

The baby - its progress and birth mid-April - has been our main topic lately. I was sure it was a girl - like swinging Penny, full of energy and enthusiasm. Penny insisted it was a boy - an athletic baby like its father. She named it Jaxon, and designed a unisex wardrobe. I couldn't understand why she hadn't wanted to know its gender when tests were done.

I had started writing my first novel three years ago when I was a journalist on a newspaper. Working nights and weekends, I thought it would never be finished. Penny and I discussed it endlessly. There's a lot of Penny in it: dialogue, ideas, insights...

Browning Press accepted it in October nearly eighteen months ago, with publication to be in October last year. Then, in September, they said, 'Sorry, another six months. Financial difficulties - limited cash flow.' Other writers said, 'Never mind. It always takes longer than they say.' 'Always add six months to the release date they give you.'

The only person who understood my frustration was Penny. Like me, she'd agonized over The Icing on the Cake, and argued about characterization, motivation, satiric edge...But she was pleased about the delay. 'Mid-April! That's marvellous! Jaxon's due at the same time. We'll have a Double Launch - book and baby.'

The Double Launch became a goal for us and our friends. But soon the baby was so interesting, everyone forgot the book. Penny read about pregnancy and birth and bringing up a child. We discussed our own upbringings, and Penny determined that it would all happen differently for Jaxon.

Allan joined in, encouraged by Penny. Jaxon would know his father. Allan wanted to play a patriarchal role, but that wasn't what Penny wanted. 'Until he understands, I won't marry him.'

Her mother despaired. 'Such a nice, upstanding, responsible man, good-looking, steady job, interesting conversation, beautiful manners.'

'Just the sort of man Mum wanted to marry, but didn't,' said Penny, who appreciated her father.

When Allan came to dinner, he brought flowers for Penny, or chocolates (until the doctor said, 'No sweets!') and treated her like a delicate flower.

In the last year, medical research had advanced enormously in the field of diet and lifestyle for pregnant women - or so it seemed. Penny discovered that coffee and peanuts would harm the baby, so she gave them up. She cut out fats and soft drinks. The doctor put her on a strict diet to keep her weight down, and Penny made her own rules, too, according to the alarms of each month.

I went along with her. Whatever she cut out, I cut out. I'm fairly health-minded, and I figured that if something wasn't good for a pregnant woman, it probably wasn't good for me. Wine and cigarettes were banished early.

'No cigarettes, Penny,' said Allan, lighting up the day after the pregnancy was confirmed. 'Constricts the baby's blood flow, leads to an accumulation of toxic wastes.'

'It's a passive smoker already,' said Penny, fanning the air and opening a window. She had given up cigarettes twelve hours before, and already her temper was short.

As usual, Allan had brought wine. He poured.

'Drink by yourself,' said Penny. 'The baby's not allowed to have wine.'

'You'll have some with me, Elizabeth?' said Allan.

Penny answered quickly. 'No! She's given it up, too.' I remembered the soup, and hurried into the kitchen. Allan drank alone.

I learnt Penny's exercises and special breathing patterns in preparation for the birth. It was interesting and fun. I'd always done some kind of exercise, and cursed myself when I was lazy. Sitting at a desk all day, I knew I had to make an effort to be fit. Now there was an extra goal for fitness.

Penny taunted Allan. If she'd married him, the pregnancy would have been hers - the special diet, the abstinence, the exercise, the breathing: 'all alone, prettily pregnant up on a pedestal'.

I wondered why Allan still couldn't comprehend Penny's unwillingness to marry him.

'He'll never change,' said Penny. 'He's dense.'

'You could teach him,' I said. 'He adores you. He'd be willing to learn.'

'He should know.'

It was easy for me to be generous to Allan. Penny and I were enjoying our pregnancy.

Allan was resentful. 'If you're so good at this parenting business,' he taunted, 'why don't you have a baby? A woman isn't really fulfilled without one, you know.'

'I'm a late maturer,' I said - stock answer to anyone who wondered about my singleness - untruthful, but it got me off the hook.

My writing is my child - always will be.

I laughed, keeping my options open.

'Your book, my baby,' I said to Penny.

'Your baby, my book,' Penny agreed.

Our private joke.

Then, after several false alarms, she was hospitalized three days ago, two months early.

I had been going to phone Penny when the letter arrived from Browning Press. I read it, then Sister Grey phoned. I put the letter into my bag and roared off, driving too fast, mind in turmoil.

At the desk, the team was different from last night's. 'She wants to tell you herself.'

'Of course.'

Meaningful looks are exchanged from behind the desk. Two women. I ignore, and rush down the corridor.

Ward 9 - one occupant: Penny - white, eyes glazed.

'Elizabeth!' - reaching out, enfolding.

'Jaxon was dead. They call it "spontaneous abortion".' Tears flow so fast for several minutes, there's no room for words.

My tears.

Oh my baby! My baby, my baby, my baby!

'Oh, my baby!' cries Penny. 'My darling little Jaxon. Why was he dead?'

My grief is so great, I can't speak.

I've waited so long. It can't be true.

'Seven months,' sobs Penny. 'He was perfect...' Her tears soak through my T-shirt and burn my shoulder.

I hold her tightly, overwhelmed by my own grief - the morning's numbness gone - feeling the pain, tasting despair.

'Elizabeth what would I do without you?'

She thinks my tears are for her, but most of them are for me - dammed back when I read the letter.

No one will cry for me. No one will understand or care. They'll mouth a few words, 'Bad luck,' 'Try again,' and dismiss me. But they'll empathise with Penny for a few weeks with words of comfort and love.

A tray appears with two pots of tea, accompanied by a voice, firm and sympathetic, 'Come on girls - tea! Milk and sugar?'

'I'll pour, thanks!' I dry my eyes and pour - a dismissal.

We sip.

'They're testing. They'll tell me why he died.'

The letter's in my bag. They've told me why it died.

Then Allan is at the door with roses - love and concern on his handsome face.

Allan! How did he know?

'I let Allan know, too.'

Penny - pink face (matching nightie) and welcoming arms - a flower in sudden sunshine. 'Allan!'

I slip away, sit on a seat in the garden and stare into a black pool where waterlilies float - a grave.

You could teach him. He adores you. He'd be willing to learn. I've said it so many times.

Suddenly I know it's the end. Penny will go to his flat and they will marry and follow friends' advice to 'try again'. ('We didn't try the first time!')

I open the letter and read:

Dear Ms Winter,
It is with deepest regret that I write to inform you that the publishing project which included your novel, "The Icing on the Cake", has been abandoned.

Financial difficulties have forced us to sell Browning Press to Overwhelm Books, and they are not interested in the novels that we contracted to publish.

You can keep your advance on royalties, of course, and we are returning the ms and page proofs with our best wishes for your success in placing the novel with another publisher.

Pain flows in waves. Thee years - lost. Grief for a dead child. There's no one to tell - not even Penny.

'Well, after all... It's only a book.' The words echo in my head.

The sun rises higher, drying the wet patch. Penny - quick to tears of laughter, regret, pain; her tears have evaporated now.

I'm alone. The pain and rage ease a little. I lift my face to the sun, composed: a waterlily - roots reaching into the black depths.

In a daze I drive to the Post Office and buy a padded post bag and return postage. At home, I prepare the ms for a new publisher, then go out and post it.

Returning, I realize I'm starving. I open the fridge and stand uncertainly. Salad? Salad for lunch, always. No, I crave cake. Laughter comes - a sob catching.

The cake specially made by Penny for the Double Launch - double fruit, double nuts, double cherries, double sherry - maturing for two months now - rich!

The Double Launch will be forgotten, the book mentioned casually, perhaps - an afterthought.

'Did The Icing on the Cake come on time?'

'More financial problems. Tried another publisher.' Taking my cue - casual.

'Good on you!'

I remember our plans for decorations as I lift the cake out of the container. Taking the largest knife, I cut it across the centre - diagonally - hearing Penny's voice, 'Diagonals are dramatic!' A parallel cut yields an enormous slice.

The cake will never be iced. With this craving, I won't be able to make it last more than a week. And then I'll crave something else. Pate? Avocadoes? Oysters? Feeding creativity - abstinence, exercise, balanced diet forgotten.

I take a huge bite, sit at my pc and type the title of my new novel - a sequel - watching the words appear on the screen.

You can eat it, too.

Winner, First Prize in the Murtoa Big Day Out Poetry Competition – Humour Section, 2009

Note: The Murtoa Stick Shed, built in 1942 to house bulk wheat, is a heritage listed building. Inside, the atmosphere is like that of a cathedral.

A city girl named Jess was tired of city life.
'I'll find a country town and a man who wants a wife.
Murtoa will do,' she said. 'I'm tired of getting hurt.
While I'm not seeking fame, I'd still like to flirt.'
'No more hurt, hurt, hurt-o-a,
Soon I'll flirt, flirt in Murtoa.'

A local on a farm was yearning for a bride.
The girls had made their choices, and he had missed the ride.
'Soon I'll search afar,' said our plucky hero Bert.
He set off in his ute, sporting a red-checked shirt.
Flash in his shirt, shirt, shirt-o-a,
Arrival of Bert, Bert in Murtoa.

Young Jess soon found a job: assistant in the store
Where the Wife had given birth to Child Number Four.
When Bert walked in, Shopkeeper said, 'Meet a new skirt!'
'G'day! My first in Murtoa!' said Jess, ever so pert.
Flirty and pert, pert, pert-o-a!
Jess, the new skirt, skirt in Murtoa.

It was far too sudden for Bert; he was senseless - knocked off his feet.
Every rule he had learnt, he forgot when it came time to greet.
'G'day! I didn't expect - um...' he began to blurt.
'Wouldja like to come for a drive sometime – out in the dirt?'
Out in the dirt, dirt, dirt-o-a!
Bert's awkward blurt, blurt in Murtoa.

'It's quiet now,' Shopkeeper said. 'Show her around.'
The apron was flung and Jess reached the door in an almighty bound.
'The Stick Shed,' said Bert. 'You'll like it for sure – I know, it's a cert.
Once, with grain it was full – the most wonderful shed in the dirt.'
'Sure! A cert, cert, cert-o-a,
Shed in the dirt, dirt in Murtoa.'

Bert's tongue soon loosened with measurements large. 'Shed's not a toy.'
A cathedral Jess saw, and her voice rose high in a chorus of joy.
'Halle-lu-jah! Halle-lu-jah! Halle-lu-jah!' To the echo, Bert was alert.
Said Jess, 'Oh the thrill of this place! It's like eating a scrumptious dessert.'
     Bert was alert, alert, alert-o-a!
     Jess - his dessert, dessert in Murtoa.
          AND
     You'll be glad to know, know, know-a!
     That the match was a go-er in Murtoa.