Bony at Bermagui , livre ebook

ETT Imprint - Arthur W. Upfield

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53 pages

English

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On a signboard at Cobargo I read the magic word 'Bermagui'. "That's the place Zane Grey wrote about," remarked my son. "That's the place I'm looking for," I decided. And what a place! Oh, what a place. The air like wine and as cool as that in the green ferntree depths of the gully beside my mountain home! The surf everlastingly playing its music on the sand beach before the town, and the great rocky headland to seaward…

Arthur Upfield was Australia's first international crime writer when he first stayed at Bermagui around the time of Zane Grey's visit there in 1936. This book holds a previously unknown Bony story set in Bermagui, The Fish That Danced on its Tail, an unpublished story on Big Game Fishing, and stories on Marlin and Swordfish that Upfield wrote only for the Bermagui Anglers Club. Also included are a chapter from his classic Bony novel, The Mystery of Swordfish Reef, and the only other Bony story - A Wisp of Wool and Disk of Silver and many photographs from the Upfield family archives.

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Historical

Lettres et linguistique

Biography

Autobiography

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Publié par	ETT Imprint
Date de parution	01 juin 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781922698216
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay in 2022 Copyright © William Upfield 2022
Compiled by Tom Thompson

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher, or through the official Upfield website on www.arthurupfield.com

ETT IMPRINT PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225 Australia

ISBN 978-1-922698-42-1 (LimEd)
ISBN 978-1-922698-20-9 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-922698-21-6 (ebook)

Design by Tom Thompson
The Publisher would like to thank both William and Francesca Upfield, for their help in getting materials for this book.
CONTENTS

Introduction
1. A Tale of Bermagui
2. The Fish that danced on its Tail
3. Marlin, King of Gamefish
4. With his Majesty the Swordfish at Bermagui
5. Big Game Fishing in Australia
6. A Clue Among Fish
7. A Wisp of Wool and Disk of Silver
Acknowledgements
Arthur Upfield and his wife Ann Upfield, Bermagui 1938.
INTRODUCTION
Tom Thompson
BERMAGUI was a quiet coastal village in southern New South Wales until 1936, thanks to the visit by Zane Grey, writer and noted angler, brought it international prominence in the world of big game fishing. Later that year Grey’s Australian film White Death was produced and his memoir of fishing the waters off Bermagui, An American Angler in Australia was published world-wide in 1937.
Arthur Upfield, already well-known internationally as a writer through the success of his Bony crime novels, first went to Bermagui in 1937, prompted by his only son James. Upfield quickly charmed the locals, and was made a Life Member of the Bermagui Big Game Angler’s Club (BBGAC) that year: which he agreed to, “so that there will be plenty of temptation to desert the work for the fishing.” He offered His Majesty the Swordfish to the Anglers Club, and it was published in 1938.
The Upfields were living at ‘Oliver Lodge’, in Kalorama, Mount Dandenong from 1935, and this first visit was revived in A Tale of Bermagui , written for the BBGAC’s Annual Magazine, published in early 1939. Upfield was already a keen fisherman from his days at Lake Victoria in the 1920s, but spurred on by his family’s enthusiasm, they were regular visitors in 1938, when he completed the 7th Bony novel, The Mystery of Swordfish Reef , published in Australia in 1939.
While several critics have noted that Upfield based his story on an historical Bermagui Mystery – when four men vanished without a trace on October 10 1880 on Bermagui’s south beach, leaving only a bullet-riddled boat; it is a typical example of the author’s chasing down a story from original sources, as popular version of the tale did not appear in the Australian magazine Famous Detective Stories till 1947.
Arthur Upfield lived at ‘Oliver Lodge’, Mount Dandenong till 1946, when he moved to join Jessica Hawke at Yarra Junction. Ann Upfield stayed on at Oliver Lodge till 1963.
Upfield moved to Airey’s Inlet with Hawke from 1951 to 1954, then to Bermagui South, where he lived at the Hotel Bermagui from March 23. Upfield noted in his diary for April 11 1954: “This is a lovely place…. Fishing everywhere… Nearest just across the road.” They purchased land that month, and began building the house ‘Tarlallin’ there. He addressed the angling club at the Hotel Bermagui on April 26. The house was “renovated” with new furniture from Sydney in July, and Upfield received copies of two Bonys published in Italian by Garzanti, and Venom House and Murder Must Wait were contracted with German publisher Goldman Verlang. Sinister Stones appeared in the USA and The Death of a Lake arrived from his London publishers.
In December 1954 Upfield wrote to the Post-Master General about the poor radio reception at Bermagui only to find that 2BA ABC Bega would be in operation in early 1955. The Battling Prophet was serialised in World's News Weekly and the UK edition of Cake in a Hatbox was published in August 1955. Importantly for Upfield as a local, on 16 July 1955 he became Vice President and Treasurer of the BBGAC.
The sea air spurred Upfield to write several Bony novels in Bermagui - The Battling Prophet, Man of Two Tribes (which he notes in his diary as “Nearly finished” on August 23 and Bony Buys a Woman / The Bushman Who Came Back (noted as with his N.Y. publishers on August 29). Both the UK and US editions were published in 1957, when he promptly purchased a Daimler.
Upfield was happy to announce his love of fishing in a long article in the Adelaide Advertiser on May 4 1957, and in his diary noted: “Living Bermagui South… Deep Sea Fishing Favourite Sport.”

Arthur Upfield's photograph of big game fisherman at Bermagui South docks.

Upfield's portrait from his time in Bermagui (top); E.V. Whyte's photograph of the days catch on Victoria Lake in 1924, when he worked with Upfield at nearby Albermarle station.
On May 16 1957, Upfield and his partner Jessica Hawke were guests of honour at the South Australian Hotel in Adelaide to celebrate his "biography" Follow My Dust , and his notes for the launch were thus: “One Spur Dick / Paroo Ted / Bob the Card / The Hangman / Snivelling Harry… The Stormbird / Bikeman Bill / The Black Bastard” – the great characters he met during his wanderings in the bush. Upfield had written an alternate autobiography at the time, Beyond the Mirage , which featured these characters extensively, but this manuscript remained unpublished till 2020.
With the publication of Follow My Dust , and with the Far West solidly in his mind, Arthur Upfield and Jessica Hawke left Bermagui South in late 1957 and purchased 3 Jasmine Street, Bowral which they named 'Albermarle', after the station in far west New South Wales where he had worked regularly in the 1920s. But Bowral is another story...

1.
A TALE OF BERMAGUI
Three years ago, after a prolonged illness, with my wife and son I set out on a long holiday buoyed by the hope that somewhere along the coast of south-eastern Australia would be found a fisherman's paradise comparable with Shark's Bay, Western Australia. When I was young I fished along the Barrier Reef, but the Barrier Reef is almost as far away as Shark's Bay.
Lakes Entrance was not enticing from a big game fishing view-point. Malacoota Inlet provided only little tiddlers and but few of them. Other places were ill served with launches and accommodation. Yet others were too un-get-at-able. And on a signboard at Cobargo I read the magic word 'Bermagui'. "That's the place Zane Grey wrote about," remarked my son. "That's the place I'm looking for," I decided. And what a place! Oh, what a place! The air like wine and as cool as that in the green ferntree depths of the gully beside my mountain home!
The surf everlastingly playing its music on the sand beach before the town, and the great rocky headland to seaward which will remind one of Sirens and Andromeda, with the cloud-crowned Dromedary Mountain looking like the Pillar of Cloud guiding the Israelites to the Promised Land.
What a place! Is there any other where a man can catch fish off the jetty, off the sandbeach, off the rocks: catch fish standing up or lying down or standing on his head? If there be such a place other than Bermagui with Bermagui's get-at-able-ness and facilities then it is not anywhere on the coast of Australia.

The Bridge to Wallace Lake, about 1935.
The wharf at Bermagui in 1937.
There is nothing difficult about Bermagui — difficulty with launch hiring, difficulty with launchmen, difficulty with accommodation, other than the damned hard difficulty of leaving it. There are at Bermagui no canny launchmen eager to take you to where the fish are not, or any such tomfoolery as is to be fought against at other fishing resorts I have visited. One of Bermagui’s attractions is the teamwork evinced by the launchmen, the Anglers' Club officials, and the Hotel staff to provide contact between the angler and fish.
I regard two things, each in itself a serious business, to be accepted seriously, to be conducted seriously. They are writing a book and capturing a swordfish. A good book, like a good play, ought to reveal its characters against a brilliant background; which is why R.L.S. and Conrad leave we moderns standing at the post. I am unable to remember the names of the characters in Typhoon , but I remember every incident of that terrific storm.
A background brilliantly drawn cannot be achieved by an author unless and until he has become soaked, like blotting paper in ink, in the background before which he intends that his characters shall play. Two visits to Bermagui, plus the unstinted assistance of Mr. Fred Sissons, plus an inherited passion for fishing, has provided me with a background for what I think is my best mystery story to date — The Mystery of Swordfish Reef .
There are certain rules governing the writing of a mystery story which cannot be disregarded. The effects of a certain cause must first be placed before the reader, the cause being presented only in the last chapter. The effects must comply with the cause, but in a work of this kind cause and effect is reversed in order of presentation.
The Mystery of Swordfish Reef begins with the disappearance of a launch and three men one very calm day when there is a slight mist at sea. At sea this same day are several other launches from Bermagui, a trawler working down off Bunga Head, and the R.M.S. Orcades which passes up the coast to Sydney. This first effect was followed by the failure of a sea and coastal search for wreckage. No wreckage is found: but a launch picks up at sea a thermos flask belonging to the Hotel and known to have been placed in the angler's lunch-basket. The next effect is the discovery of the angler's head with fish and debris in the trawler's net, and this relic