Golden Hope (70 page)

In this fictional small, eccentric community, historical figures have taken on legendary status in the national memory: Madame Nellie Melba; tragic bush poet Henry Lawson, son of Louisa Lawson, the nation's first woman newspaper proprietor and editor of
Dawn
; Harley Tarrant, a pioneer of the Australian automobile industry;
Vida Goldstein, lifelong champion of women's rights. Her belief that ‘Nothing was more degrading than for a woman to have to marry for a home. Love should be the sole reason' is a statement contemporary women accept as their birthright – but was only achieved by women who fought to give them their rights.

I suspect no country loves its legendary ‘villains' more than Australians do and those who have left their mark on Hoffnung include: bushrangers Ned Kelly and Captain Moonlite; the notorious dancer and courtesan Lola Montez, who horsewhipped newspaper editor Henry Seekamp down the main street of Ballarat for defaming her performance for the gold-diggers. Among the legendary heroes are the Salvation Army's pioneer film-maker Brigadier Joseph Perry; Aboriginal circus star Billy Jones; Probasco and Mahomet the Talking Horse; and Blondin, ‘The Hero of Niagara'.

I thank my father, comedy-writer and author, Fred Parsons, for inspiring my childhood with his stories of early Australian circuses and the fledgling Australian film industry. The Hart family's circus dynasty is fictional but inspired by circus ‘royal families'. I pay special tribute to Sydney's Powerhouse Museum for its splendid historical Circus Exhibition, and to Mark St Leon, author of
Circus, The Australian Story,
a gem of a book with wonderful insight into the lives of circus children like Clytie and Tiche.

Key historical figures on the South African landscape include Lord Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Forces; Major-General S.B. Beatson and Major Morris; Australians Major W. McKnight, Captain S. Sherlock, Troopers Steele, Richards and Parry; Boer Generals Ben Viljoen, Cronje, Botha, De la Rey, De Wet, and Muller; South African poet and journalist J.P. Toerien, who wrote
Sarie Marais,
with new words set to an old American folksong.

Never to be forgotten is English humanitarian Emily Hobhouse's crusade on behalf of Boer women and children prisoners of war, who called her ‘Angel of Love'.

I am indebted to the wonderful cooperation from many South African sources including Elmarie Malherbe of the Anglo-Boer Museum, Bloemfontein, and Mrs Joan Marsh, of
Die Suid-Afrikaanse Krygshistoriese Vereniging.

Hoffnung is an isolated community whose loyalties, bias and
reactions to world events are channelled through the wealth of Australian newspapers of the era, hindered by the time lag and often the loss of letters from South Africa.
Golden Hope
is
not
a judgement of the rights and wrongs of a tragic conflict fought between peoples whose rivalry today is thankfully largely confined to international football grand finals, cricket Test Matches and the Olympic Games.

Among the era's largely unsung heroes and heroines are the doctors, nurses, ambulance wagon drivers and medical orderlies on both sides of the war. Nursing Sister Heather ‘Kiwi' Macqueen is fictional, but she represents the remarkable band of volunteer Australian and New Zealand nurses whose contribution is only beginning to be recognised.

I want to underline that all the historical choices I made (including Women's Suffrage, Wilmansrust, Army court martials and local Coroner's inquest, etc.) were influenced by the diverse backgrounds of my characters and their reactions to events that were contemporary to them – free from the influences, albeit fascinating, of historical hindsight.

An interesting footnote to Wilmansrust is the report in the
Adelaide Advertiser,
October 7
^th
1901, page 5, headed ‘A Brigadier Superseded. London Oct 5.' which states that Brigadier-General S.B. Beatson had been replaced in the command of the British column in the southern part of the Cape Colony by Major-General T.E. Stephenson. It goes on to remind its readers of Beatson's reported reference to the Victorian 5
^th
Contingent as ‘white-livered curs', etc.

My choice of some terms almost drove me to flip a coin. I chose Afrikander rather than the emerging definition of Afrikaner, because General Ben Viljoen used Afrikander in his fascinating memoir,
My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War.
Similarly I was faced with the spelling of Romany/Romani, noting that the Roma use both spellings. The beautiful city of Ballarat for many decades used the dual spelling of Balla'arat and I must confess I am attracted to this original Aboriginal word, said to be derived from ‘bent elbow,' an evocative image for ‘a resting place'. Both spellings were in use in the period covered in
Golden Hope.

In no small measure I want to thank several people concerning the extraordinary background of the pioneers of the Australian film
industry. Anthony Buckley, M.A., gave me unstinting help and invaluable contacts. Film historian and oral historian Graham Shirley's stories of the birth of our film industry also fired my early research into the era of
Golden Hope.

My sincere thanks to Lindsay Cox, Territorial Archivist of the Salvation Army, Melbourne, who sent me wonderful archival material about their Biorama team headed by pioneer film-maker, Salvation Army Brigadier Joseph Perry.

I would personally nominate the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia as one of Australia's great National Treasures. They gave me generous access to early films including Perry's astonishing body of work.

I am indebted to Robert Nash, editor of the wonderfully evocative book
The Hidden Thread – Huguenot Families in Australia
for his suggestions about the Huguenots' role in the many countries which gave them refuge. I thank my Huguenot-descent friend John Arbouw for firing my imagination with stories of his ancestors.

For the valuable insight into the experiences of the volunteers returning from the Boer War, I want to register my thanks to Lieutenant-Colonel David Deasey RFD (ret), Chairman New South Wales Committee, National Boer War Memorial Association, Building 96, Victoria Barracks, Paddington, New South Wales. He reminds us that in Australian eyes the Boer War is largely ‘a forgotten war' with little recognition of the roles played by the 23,000 Australian men and women (16,000 in Official Australian Contingents) who served in the Second Boer War – our first war as a nation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Deasey's committee is dedicated to commemorating these soldiers in a National Memorial in Canberra in which four larger-than-life-sized bronze statues will represent an Australian patrol on the veldt. The memorial is scheduled for dedication on May 31
^st
2017. Those wishing to contribute can contact him at the above address or online at http://bwm.org.au/fund/

Space prevents me listing all the historians and archivists who enriched my research but I would like to make special mention of Bendigo, Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, Walhalla, and the wonderful ‘living' museums at Sovereign Hill, Gulgong and Bendigo, including its Chinese Joss House; Dr Michele Matthews, Archives Officer of the
Bendigo Regional Archives Centre; Keira Lochyer for her research suggestions; Merle Alexander, the Warehouse-Clunes Team Leader at Hepburn Shire Council and researcher Betty Duncan for material about the architectural gem of Clunes Town Hall's theatre that was the inspiration for Bitternbird's Town Hall.

I am indebted to many national and international research sources. These include: Trove, the National Library of Australia's magnificent free, online database; the wealth of Australian newspapers of the era; the State Library of Victoria; the Special Collections section of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales; Australian and Victorian Government databases; Leichhardt and Balmain Municipal Libraries; and the historical treasure trove of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

Johanna Nicholls

Sydney 2016

Golden Hope
is the fourth in my series of stand-alone Australian historical novels – after
Ironbark, Ghost Gum Valley
and
The Lace Balcony –
and it is a timely reminder of the network of invaluable support I have had from my family and friends-for-all-seasons.

My husband and friend, author Brian Nicholls, the actors in our family, son Nicholas Cassim, daughter-in-law Nikki Owen; our extended family in every State.

I was deeply touched when my young grandchildren Eadie and Gus Cassim and great-niece Taleah Rowse carried our heavy books to school for ‘show and tell' because they were proud of having authors in the family. They remind me of the key reason I choose to write historical novels – in the hope people will never forget the earlier generations of Australians who struggled to make our country the land we have inherited.

My agent and friend, Selwa Anthony, has given me unswerving support and straight-talking since before
Ironbark
was born; as has Bastian Schlück, my valued champion in Germany; to Linda Anthony my thanks for her help above and beyond the call of duty.

I want to thank my publishers Simon and Schuster (Aust.) and especially the sensitive insight and advice of Managing Editor Roberta Ivers and copy editor Janet Hutchinson. My Western Australian historian friend Anne Robinson has been the first person to read all my manuscripts prior to publication – her formidable historical knowledge is equalled by her insight into characters. I thank Jan Wood for taking time from the production of her TV series to read
Golden Hope
and give me valuable suggestions about women's issues in the Federation era.

I was blessed to inherit my father Fred Parsons's younger ‘band of brothers': a true legend in radio and TV, Philip Brady; comedy-writer and author Mike McColl Jones; and author and Ned Kelly historian Ian Jones. Thank you more than I can say.

My loyal network of friends and extended family understand why for months I kept disappearing under a ‘research cloud', with one
foot planted in the nineteenth century, the other in the twenty-first. You all cheered me on to the finish line to deliver
Golden Hope.

Here and now I must record my special thanks to Dr Stephen Shumach, Professor Peter Bye and Dr Jane Novotny, for their continuous support over four books during which they were peppered with my medical queries.

Special thanks to special people for their long-term interest: Emeritus Professor John Ramsland and Dr Marie Ramsland; Emeritus Professor Suzanne Rutland; Roger Selby, Honorary Secretary of NAJEX; Philip Moses of AJHS; The Independent Scholars Association of Australia; Bill Owen of
Wydidya,
North Star, New South Wales, for suggesting Slim Dusty's evocative song,
The Pearl of Them All,
when I was writing about Rom's horse; Kiwi friend Lyn White for my New Zealand queries; Edna Wilson who found out-of-print books; and Tim Moroney, ever alert for historical reference books.

I was offered rare insight into South Africa by a group of highly creative South African-born Australian women whose ancestors fought on both sides of the conflict; Sibyl Smuskowitz's husband Chaim entrusted me with his books, including
To the Bitter End
, a remarkable photographic history of the Boer War by Emanoel Lee that gave me a visual passport into the Boers' perspective of the war.

I trust my own ancestors will accept the fact I have borrowed some of their names for my fictional characters to avoid accidental overlap with real people.

Above all I thank you, my readers, for the loveliest phrase any author can hear: ‘I love your books – I can't wait for the next one!'

Johanna Nicholls comes from a theatrical family. She was a journalist and magazine feature writer in Sydney, Melbourne and London. In television she worked as a researcher/writer and Head Script Editor of TV Drama at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Born in Melbourne, Johanna has lived in England, Italy and Greece, and her home is an 1830s convict-built sandstone cottage in Birchgrove, Sydney. Her first saga,
Ironbark
, was published by Simon and Schuster in Australia and New Zealand in 2009 and 2010.
Ghost Gum Valley
was published in 2012 and 2013, and
The Lace Balcony
was published in 2014. Johanna's novels have been translated into German and published in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She is currently writing her fifth Australian historical novel as well as the film adaptation of one of her published novels.

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Also by Johanna Nicholls

The Lace Balcony

Ghost Gum Valley

Ironbark