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Kay Brown Remembers Jean Devanny

1987; Springer International Publishing; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0311-4198

K.J. Brown,

Australian History and Society

Perhaps I'd better start early on, just telling it as if I were writing. I heard of Jean Devanny before I ever met her, and that was because of a very bookish background I had in Melbourne in the old days, the period about 1926-7. I had this passionate desire to write; being young and untried, I was busy living instead of writing -- but that all comes good later. If you went in the Booklovers' library of those days, it was like a club; artists and writers and people who were concerned with events, which were very bad in Europe then because it wasn't being admitted how bad it was, how the totalitarian viciousness and vileness was spreading.Anyway, I remember the Cuthbertsons recommending to me a store of volumes, including Jean's short stories. Margaret Cuthbertson saw to it that I also got a read of the banned book, The Butcher Shop -- there was a really dreadful atmosphere then, jackboots of our own we were having; they censored things, and didn't let us read, but of course there were people who always did. My background was a very different one to Jean's and this made it very hard sometimes for me to understand, but I was learning. (I grew to know it when I married a worker.) That time (about 1928 I think), I took this book up to the mountains with me and read it -- and of course you get a thrill because you've been allowed to read something that's banned. I couldn't really assess it then.Jean came to Australia at the end of 1929. I had gone to Sydney with some family friends, very musical people, who had come from New Zealand. I was only with them because one didn't go anywhere unchaperoned, and I was invited to this wedding in Sydney; I was in their care and we were staying at the Hotel Sydney. Anyway, we went to the wedding, and then they told me they were going out to Darlinghurst Town Hall to listen to a speaker whom they knew. it wasn't until we got there, that they told me the speaker was Jean Devanny. This was exciting; someone who had been banned. Well, we couldn't get a seat in the hall, we were there after the interval, of course, and we stood along the wall in our wedding regalia, very smart autumn tones. My first impression of Jean was of her vitality -- in all that's been printed of late I don't think there's one line that describes the vital, live, impressive personality she had. loveable and caring when you got to know her, too. She always reminded me of a knight at arms galloping to a crusade, and her crusade was her passionate love of Communism (though everybody had that on their lips in those days, particularly if they were studying or writing). She was such a vivid person, very good bones and a very good speaking voice and it came right from the guts, so to speak; it was deeply felt, what she had to say, always humorous, and good repartee. But on the stage, she had the quality that in the green room crowd we would call `gets over the footlights'; it would now be called charisma. I could have seen her in a lot of theatrical parts, but that wasn't her lean. When the speaking was over, a lot of people got up and called to her, and then the people I was with said they'd go back to the green room -- I don't know if you called it that at Paddo Town Hall, where you went round the back to meet them.There was a big crush as many wanted words with this and that politician present that night, and of course Jean, too, had a faithful following. I stood back against the wall (being young and a bit shy) while my friends went to her. They all talked excitedly, and then I was presented. I had been going over in my head what words I'd say to this published and banned writer. I was so thrilled at it all. I said: Miss Devanny, I've read your book, The Butcher Shop. Have you indeed, child, she gave me her lovely smile. And I've just been told you designed and made your dress. She chatted about clothes, and I was struck dumb at meeting a writer who didn't choose to talk about self or work. …