“Winning is a state of mind that embraces everything you do.”

Bryce Courtenay

This week I had planned to introduce you to an English poet renowned for one of the most popular nursery rhymes in history, but sadly, I learned the news on Friday that Bryce Courtenay had passed away.  So this week’s blog is a tribute to the legend responsible for The Power of One. 

Bryce was born on the 14^th of August 1933 in Johannesburg. After studying in London, he moved to Australia with his future wife and they married in 1959 making their home in Sydney.  As a journalist, Courtenay had many successful ad campaigns, but it was his books that drew me to him. 

When I first read The Power of One, I didn’t think it would be the type of story that I would enjoy, but I was wrong and I found that it was the kind of book that you tell your friends to read.  I guess though, my favourite Courtenay novel is April Fool’s Day.  I received this book as a gift in a work Kris Kringle one year and as I read the book, I found it harder and harder to put it down. The story is about Damon Courtenay and his struggle with AIDS which he contracted through a blood transfusion.  It’s difficult to imagine the pain that the family went through during that time and it was probably just as difficult to put into words. As I read page after page of revealing text, I imagined the heart ache for the Courtenays as they faced the day to day challenges of the situation.  It’s a must if you like biographies, and who better to write one than a member of the family.

My favourite of his books

 

As I think of the work that Bryce Courtenay was responsible for, I am reminded of the books that were made into movies and although I prefer the book, I sometimes like to sit through a movie adaption to see if it measures up.  I did this with The Power of One and it wasn’t a disappointment. The lifestyle and situations in Courtenay’s novels seem as real as the pages they’re written on and I’m sure I’m not alone in shedding a tear or two whilst bidding farewell to such a profound writer.

The passing of Bryce Courtenay is a blow to the world of literature, but his work will keep him in our lives forever and so I end this tribute by saying that Once upon a time in Canberra, we lost the man who told us that, ‘when men can be made to hope, they can be made to win.’

Rest In Peace Bryce Courtenay 1933-2012

The Monkey’s Paw – W  W Jacobs

When I was in high school, I had an English text that was a short story book called Stories to Enjoy which was put together by Ned Hoopes.  I noticed the same book in a classroom scene in the movie The Sixth Sense and it prompted me to revisit the book. The collection included a story called The Monkey’s Paw by W W Jacobs.  The story is a typical lesson in what goes wrong when a couple get their hands on a lucky monkey’s paw that gives them three wishes. I always remembered this story as I always wanted something like that to happen to me.  I thought it might be fun to be able to just wish for something and have it appear in some way.  Of course, in these types of stories, the wishes usually backfire in some way, shape, or form.

William Wymark Jacobs

The author of The Monkey’s Paw, W W Jacobs ,was born in Wapping, London in 1863. William Wymark Jacobs, was educated at a private school in London and then later at Birbeck College. He worked for a while at the Post Office Savings Bank but was published by 1885.  Jacobs was financially secure enough to leave the Post Office in 1899. After marrying in 1900, he lived in Essex. His wife was a militant suffragette and although there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of information available on Jacobs, his stories are intense enough to gain him interest.

Jacobs died in Islington in 1943, but his legacy suggests that the grass isn’t always greener and although this week’s blog isn’t very long, it’s sufficient to tell you that Once upon a time in London, a story was written which reminds us to be careful what we wish for.

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/mnkyspaw.htm

I have nothing to declare except my genius!

Oscar Wilde

I’ve said on several occasions that if I ever formed a heavy metal band, that I would call it Faustian Pact.  The name suggests a deal with the Devil in exchange for your soul and if it is at all possible, it must cross the mind at least once in a lifetime.

In the novel A Picture of Dorian Gray, there is such a deal made, but indirectly.  Dorian Gray is the subject of a painting which he inadvertently wishes to age and bear the sins of his life and that’s exactly what happens. The author is none other than Oscar Wilde.

Wilde began his life in Dublin on the 16^th of October 1854. The second of three children, Oscar was educated at home until he was nine. He first attended Portora Royal School where he was eventually offered a scholarship to read classics at Trinity College.  He was encouraged to compete for a demyship (a form of a Magdalen scholarship) to Magdalen, Oxford which he won easily. Oscar Wilde was somewhat ‘different’ than the usual and Oxford was where he truly started to create himself. In 1878 he graduated with a rare double first in his chosen field which astonished the Dons as Wilde was known as a bad boy.

The plaque in Tite St Chelsea

Wilde set himself up as a bachelor in London and over the next six years he travelled the UK, France and USA where he lectured. Oscar married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and they had two sons together. During the marriage, he consorted on a regular basis with Lord Alfred Douglas who introduced Wilde to the Victorian underground of gay prostitution.  This in fact led to his arrest and conviction for gross indecency in 1895. Prison was Wilde’s downfall and his health declined. After his release in 1897, he spent the last three years of his life tragically in a penniless exile.

Monument reads, We are all in the gutter
but some of us are looking at the stars.

 

Dorian Gray locked his picture away so that nobody could see the evil transforming it over the years.  We all have skeletons in our closets and I suppose that as time goes by, they just stay locked away and are in the end, another part of the mystique of one’s persona. Oscar Wilde on the other hand paid for his shame publicly where his life was an open book which tells us that, Once upon a time in Dublin, a man with everything to live for told us to live the wonderful life within us. After all, he did.

 

‘Four’s the nicest age to be, two and two and one and three…’

E Nesbit

If ever I had a favourite story of courage then it would be The Railway Children written by Edith Nesbit in 1906. If waving red flannel petticoats to stop a train doesn’t win you an engraved watch, then nothing should and although it was said that the story was plagiarised from the plot of The House by the Railway by Ada J Graves, it’s still one of my all-time favourites.

Nesbit was born in 1858 in Kennington Surrey, which isn’t too far from where I live. She was the daughter of a chemist who passed away before she was four and due to her sisters ill health, the family moved around quite a bit. They spent time in Europe where Edith was educated and on their return to the UK opted instead of London, for the countryside and their home in Hallstead, Kent was apparently the inspiration for The Railway Children although, there are some who believe it to have been the town of New Mills in Derbyshire.

Edith married her first husband Hubert Bland when she was seven months pregnant with his child.  It turns out though that she wasn’t the only one and her friend Alice Hoatson who lived with them was also pregnant to Hubert. Edith adopted the child as her own however Alice and Bland had another child together thirteen years later which Edith also adopted as her own. Nesbit did this to please her husband who threatened to leave her if she evicted Hoatson. When Bland passed away, Edith married Thomas Tucker and they lived out their final years in East Kent.  

The plaque in Well Hall Pleasaunce in her honour

Well Hall House in Eltham where Edith and Hubert lived for quite some time no longer stands, but the grounds, Well Hall Pleasaunce, are lovely and the old Tudor Mill there has been transformed into a restaurant.  There is a blue plaque in her honour on a house in Lewisham, but I resisted pursuing that because the gardens in Eltham are much nicer and along the side of the park, there is also a walk dedicated to her.

The walk at Eltham dedicated to Edith Nesbit

Nesbit’s work included over 50 novels including 11 novels for adults and 4 collections of horror stories. Nesbit was a pioneer of sorts and she combined the realistic with a fantasy world and paved the way for writers such as P L Travers and C S Lewis and also for me to say that Once upon a time just a short train ride away, a woman turned children to heroes to *make the story end just right – in the way it’s best for us.

*The Railway Children

 www.wellhall.org.uk