Bruno Scarfe – Notes for an autobiography

There is evidence to show I was born in Wigan, but as I was whisked away when just a few weeks old, there are no memories. Glasgow was home for the following years and has left some vivid marks: the thud of bombs, a horizon in flames, and a pram flight out of town. There are memories of games on Botanic crescent with Morna and Raine, of trips to Arran and the sea where I was saved from drowning by Gaby – a spirited friend of my Mother’s, of playing by a muddy duck pond while my Mother stood in endless farm queues for jam fruits, and a special one of kissing a girl with cheeks like peaches – for which the headmistress strapped my hands, which were innocent.

* * *

I remember more about my years at New College Choir School, Oxford, at the
Benedictine public school of Ampleforth in Yorkshire, and at Pembroke College,
Oxford. I was blessed with impressive teachers at both schools, and at University. Education at the first, together with my Father’s influence at home – he taught me to pun, and lived to regret it – must have contributed happily to my fascination with English, and language; at the second – and at Oxford – to my love for Spain.

The first school, inadvertently, led me to question both Anglicanism and British supremacy – for I spent my pocket money on the Eagle, whose lively illustrations of the feats of Cortes and Pizarro, and natural disasters which wrecked much of the Spanish Armada, supplemented more orthodox fare. Spaniards did not match the stereo-types promoted by the Establishment: there was no lack of courage, enterprise, nor plain common sense, in that reportedly backward nation of idol-worshippers. While still at school I caught polio, following holidays with my parents in northern France. And at some stage I was taken to hospital, unconscious, with asthma. The nurses were kind, and one brought me fish and chips after lights out.

Soon after, I became a Catholic, and asked to be sent to a Catholic school, as a boarder if possible. Here, paradoxically, I began to question aspects of that very Catholicism. On one occasion I was reported for eating jugged hare in York, on a school holiday falling on a Friday. I was reminded I had committed a mortal sin, and unless I repented, I would go to hell. Who was I to wonder aloud why murder met with the same punishment? This emphasis on external observances, and this classification of vice and virtue, did not convince me, though I could see that institutional life might call for them. Attitudes to other denominations and religions also troubled me, for there seemed to be double standards and a question of charity.

In the main, however, both schools were a success. A broad range of subjects was taught with dedication at New College Choir School, as was the motto ‘Manners Makyth Man’ of William of Wykeham, founder of school and college. The staff, a disparate assortment which included some remarkable individuals, functioned well. At Ampleforth, Spanish teaching was exemplary: enlightened, ambitious and efficient, it invited almost unlimited study around and into the subject. When it appeared my path to Oxford might be blocked because of failure in mathematics, the Prior put me through a crash course in biology – a permitted alternative – and I not only passed, but developed a lifelong fascination with the subject. And I remember Dom Basil Hume discussing study courses with my Father, giving great classes on French drama, and pacing the corridors in near mystical meditation. He became the much beloved Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, honoured by Her Majesty – Head of the Church of England.

Ampleforth, in spite of the discipline, became a home away from home. Though many of the boys had been together for years at Gilling Castle – the school’s preparatory division – and in Junior House, and it was hard for a newcomer to establish close friendships, I enjoyed many group activities as well as life as a loner. I did not mind cadets, often enjoyed the rugby, and saw daunting cross-country runs in rain, mud, or snow and through ice-filled creeks, as a challenge which would end in a hot shower, dry clothes, and plenty of appetite at afternoon tea. There was inspiration and occasionally time for poetry; there were newspapers and magazines for adults; library facilities abounded and, when I became a senior, I had my own study. I got enormous mileage from free Wednesday afternoons. Sometimes I went down to the school lakes and sailed, or helped the scouts fry their eggs and sausages, or made myself scarce and explored the wild land around, marvelling at the gigantic flowering rhododendrons and the beauty of secluded waters frozen over, white, windswept. Sometimes I went further and pondered on the remains of England’s Catholic heritage: the building complex which had been Fountains Abbey, or the elegant gothic columns and arches at Rievaulx. If it was a full day’s holiday I might bus to York and wander through the Shambles, checking for old books – I have still a beautifully bound Milton – or coins. It added up to a very full life, with just one important ingredient missing: Sara first, and later Ingrid, in Oxford.

* * *

Oxford was an intense experience. Tutorials, on a one to one or one to two basis, came close to perfection, though the requirement of two or three assignments per fortnight was frustrating. I have the most satisfactory memories of relations with my Spanish tutors, who were encouraging and meticulous. They were, besides, kind and supportive, taking an active role in polemics arising from marrying Eve while still an undergraduate, and from my Finals examination results. Social life included the pleasure of dining in Hall, involvement with university and college magazines, punting, and the exertions of rugby and rowing. It could mean climbing the walls if locked out after midnight on staying too long at Lady Margaret Hall, keeping on the right side of your scout, and minding the Master’s cat. After marrying, and when I lived out of College, there were walks by the Isis and picking wild fruit for jam. Life at University was rich and stimulating, but asthma and hay-fever made for stress.

* * *

A year later I had settled in Perth, Western Australia. I taught French mainly, English language and literature, some music, Marx and the Papal encyclicals at Aquinas, a Christian Brothers College within the local ‘Public Schools’ system. I helped train the rugby team. I often rowed from home to school and back, defying the Fremantle Doctor (the afternoon wind off the ‘Indonesian’ Ocean, as Sukarno called it), and comments from the students. At night I taught Spanish, and added preparation of Spanish teaching materials to school corrections. They were hard years, even with Eve’s help. But they were years of peace too, in which I landscaped our garden and designed fish ponds, explored bush and billabong for their flowers, and led family trips to the white sands and turquoise seas at Yanchep. Eternal blue skies with a brilliant sun, sprinklers hard at work, a vine, lemon trees, a pomegranate bush, poinsettias and hibiscus, a sprightly cape lilac, and – of course – banksia and eucalypts and … goannas: these form the setting to a wealth of memories. Mind you, there were mosquitoes, flies and ants, and the occasional … snake. Such a contrast with what I had left behind! those grey skies, so much dark green, all that heavy brown! and the cold? the wet? They were rare now.

I got on well with Headmaster and staff at Aquinas, and had become known outside for my successful innovations in language teaching, but I grew disenchanted with a programme which could not include a Spanish component. I changed jobs. A stint with a publishing firm in Munich between finishing at school and going to Salamanca and then Oxford, plus my reputation, brought work as an editorial assistant with the University Press. There I acquired my own office in the Tower, overlooking the elegant Mediterranean style administration buildings and gardens. But this did not last. Previous and ongoing applications for a Spanish teaching post in the Antipodes – I had been on the lookout ever since leaving Oxford – suddenly bore fruit, and I was offered lectureships at La Trobe University (Melbourne) and at Auckland University in the same week. So, with great regret, I left Perth and the West – in the interests of an academic career, and its illusions.

* * *

Auckland, City of Volcanoes, offered me my first full-time Spanish teaching – but with a sting in the tail. Within a week, the charming and widely experienced lecturer-in-charge of the Spanish section – a Mexican – left. It was ironic that my wish to work under him had added weight to the decision to prefer Auckland to La Trobe. Now here I was, saddled with courses, some outside my experience, and no trained staff to assist: courses included first, second and third year levels, and a hundred or more students. My wife, who had completed two-thirds of her studies at Oxford before being ‘sent down’ for marrying, was employed part-time. But we had three children, and this was not a good recipe. We left after two years, accelerated promotion notwithstanding, and went to La Trobe. It had renewed the offer made earlier, which I had turned down on accepting – first – the Auckland post.

Auckland has left memories of intense academic pressures and frustration, but also of academics, undergraduates and others – who were a joy. I remember them, often on outings with my family. I remember vistas of shining mudflats, beaches of black sand, dunes with gleaming obsidian and jasper artefacts. I remember pohutukawas, and semi-tropical jungle draped with lianas, broken by towering kauris, thronged with head-high ferns, and the rich dark mulch. There were birds, large and ungainly, in the tops, and tiny kiwis darting at ground-level. At night there was the haunting call of the mawpawks. We won’t discuss the city’s pollution.

* * *

La Trobe signalled a new reality on the work front. The Department rejected, for material reasons, the cultural values still taken for granted in British and New Zealand educational establishments. Expressed concisely, the Department felt the need to put and keep ‘bums on seats’, thereby guaranteeing revenue. It sought to achieve and justify this by claiming to satisfy society’s current priority: education must be job-oriented. So everything the Department did, had to have a business relevance. Novels, short stories, plays, poetry – literature – were on the syllabus as vehicles for imparting Spanish language skills … and to reflect academic credibility. Students who had studied Spanish for a few months were expected not only to read García Lorca, Cela, and modern plays in Spanish – which I endorsed – but to discuss them and write about them in Spanish. It was a policy which did violence to cultural sensibility and debased ‘education’. There was no compromise. The Department was more suggestive of a technical college, than a university.

I had studied Spanish at school for several years. After Munich, I had spent an academic year at Salamanca University. I had then gone up to Oxford, where I completed my Spanish studies. I had had poetry published in Spanish, and had held a university post as lecturer-in-charge of Spanish for two years: yet I felt put upon, and felt for students with literary sensibilities and potential. For example, my research work on Spanish theatre funded by the University and from outside, was termed ‘not really Spanish’ by my superior, because I published in English and used British bibliographical conventions.

I found solace during these years in my academic research. And I grew plants from seed – callistemons and cootamundras for example, designed fishponds, wrote poetry, developed friendships outside the Department. Free moments allowed for trips to hill and river, weekends and vacations for visits to Wilson’s Promontory National Park. The fauna and flora still fascinated: always that contrast with the Midlands, and Yorkshire! And though the light lacked the brilliance to be found in the West, and there was a dearth of obvious volcanoes, there were dunes with workings dating far beyond the arrival of the white man. Currawongs and magpies carolled, gang-gangs creaked and grated, kangaroos danced across the plains, wombats and echidnas sniffed and shuffled, snakes slid silently away. You might surprise a platypus. Once, with my students, I found a perfect nautilus shell on a beach at Wilson’s Promontory.

After twelve years I resigned – to the shock of colleagues in other departments who could not envisage abdicating a job with tenure, the abrupt end to a superannuation scheme, and a willingness to create my own work opportunities.

* * *

I embarked on a series of ‘missionary’ projects, taking books to the outback: well, not exactly the Outback – to the country. I had a small bookshop built near Wilson’s Promontory, and went into the new books business. I made a point of carrying the kind of literature I believed in – including works on archaeology, art, history and travel, English and other classics, and poetry. I made a feature of books on local history, fauna and flora, and Nature in general. I did not forget culinary ‘art’, traditional crafts, or children. I found the effort rewarding, and the returns adequate for a simple life in the countryside. At last I had managed to escape from the city! and at last I could set my own agendas and live by their consequences. But research was frozen: there was no longer the time, nor funds.

I walked to work, and back to our former holiday home a mile out of Foster, twice a day. I chopped and sawed wood till there was none left and I had to order mill-ends. I cooked on the cottage’s rusty range, which helped warm part of the building over the winter months. There were sheds, and a shady yard where I made mud bricks, surrounded by clucking hen, watchful rooster, and chicks, a couple of friendly ducks and continually evolving ducklings. There were old and new tanks on stands, and a pump which raised water from the winding, bubbling, creek which made the place almost into an island. One neighbour’s cattle, and another neighbour’s sheep, used to invade when the water level fell enough to make the creek fordable – so there could be company on the ‘island’. I was adopted by an outsized black and white cat, ‘Toby’, which used to perch on the gatepost by the roadside in anticipation of my return from the shop. As for the delights of the old and quaint little orchard, with peaches, pears and plums, apples and quinces, cherries and nectarines, figs, lemons, loquats … and garlic! There was fruit enough to give away, but not always time or energy to pick it. In the town I had friends with interests in music, pottery and poetry, and there were friends from the neighbouring hills, from the Promontory, and from Melbourne. I explored the extensive tidal lagoon nearby, and the shores it shared with town and national park. On one occasion, imagine my surprise when I came on a stretch of shore which gleamed: it was red, with garnets. I took out my kayak, criss-crossing the lagoon, exploring the inlets, noting the fish and crabs and birds, enjoying the seclusion of the channels and the mysteries of the mangroves, swimming and wading in the warm waters. In the colder months I did much the same, but had to brace myself against the Gippsland gales.

* * *

Severe health problems stemming from the asthma which had been with me since I was two years old, forced me to reappraise the situation. I left Foster, and all it stood for, and designed and commissioned the building of a bookshop in Omeo, in the Victorian Alps. I had reasoned that my only asthma-free periods had been while in Spain, on the meseta, at a good elevation above sea level.

Once installed in Omeo, I continued with my bookshop mission, and lifestyle. Though the township boasted a mere 400 inhabitants, some similar settlements lay close to the south, there was substantial hinterland of sheep and cattle farming communities, and there was – tourism. Here, also, the tourist was drawn by the neighbouring national park, but there were substantial differences. The sea was replaced by seasonal snow. There were river sports which included white-water rafting, kayaking, and fly-fishing for trout. There was gold panning, and the lure of High Country horseback trail rides lasting hours or even days. So I adapted my trading recipes to the new circumstances, but otherwise my policies were the same.

At this stage a number of critical changes occurred.

Firstly. The search for a cure for asthma, unimproved by the high altitude, was ended by a lady from over the mountain using techniques combining physical, psychological and spiritual elements. The cure, which she insisted had been effected by me and not by her, cost almost nothing. “Asthma can’t be cured” and “it can’t have been asthma”, the doctors said, denying the results of tests in England, New Zealand and Australia – tests applied by many specialists. Observations on being admitted unconscious to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and later almost unconscious to the hospital in York, were invalidated, as were the results of years of breathing studies. Recently, I had been warned I was functioning on a quarter of my lung capacity, and would need cortizone: something against which my Father had advised.

Then, there was the matter of my search for meaning beyond myself, this life and this world, which had probably begun within an Anglican framework not of my choosing. It had continued within a Catholic one indeed of my choosing, until soon after the end of my teaching time at Aquinas. It came to a head now with a series of visits to an Indian ashram near Bangalore. There, Sai Baba treated the Christian tradition with profound respect, as he did others. He encouraged continuing but discriminating observance of one’s traditional belief system, woven so closely into one’s cultural makeup. If this proved too difficult, he pointed out that traditional systems were there to help, but were neither all-inclusive nor exclusive. Just as God could not be bound by man’s choice of a name for Him, ultimate truths lay beyond man’s defining. The search, then, should be directed within, to the indwelling spirit, to God – inside. This was the path, I felt, for my situation.

Finally, there was the matter of my relationship with Eve. Marriage, into which we had been pushed by circumstances and my wish to please, had been in trouble since Auckland. It had failed. We had lived apart for years, ‘doing our own thing’, in her case socio-political work in El Salvador and Guatemala. Visits were rare. It seemed proper to end things, particularly as a serious friendship was forming.

* * *

I went on with the book business for another five or six years, but on premises able to accommodate my partner, Win, and her interests. We bought a former gold-rush period bank – quite grand once, had essential work done, and renovated the more recent outbuildings which lay at the back. We could now offer an alternative health centre, bed and breakfast (or long stay) facilities, and the bookshop. I moved the Information Centre, an unpaid service I had been asked to do by the regional tourism body on starting in Omeo, from my first premises. It caused controversy.

Life seemed to get busier and busier. I gave tourism matters increasing thought. I helped restart the local tourism body, chairing it. Trees for the main street, better road signs, plaques for historical buildings … items of concern to both locals and tourists filled the agenda. More importantly, I used the cartographical knowledge acquired in Foster and Omeo, not only to sell maps or offer free advice to travellers – fishermen, bush walkers, prospectors, 4 wheel drive enthusiasts, cross-country skiers, rafters and kayakers … but to document requests to State and Federal Government for support in developing this remote but increasingly popular area. I queried both the conditions and status of parts of the road system, and pointed out shortcomings in what were, generally, model maps. Some suggestions were acted on during my time in Omeo, others after I had left. Though appreciation was shown, it became clear, particularly to my partner, that it was time to move – there was feeling in the town. An incident illustrates this well. Friends had invited me to join the Lodge or, if memory deceives me, had responded positively to interest I had shown. But it was not to be. One man blackballed me, allegedly because I had criticised a large artillery piece being stationed in the diminutive memorial park beside my first bookshop (it was admitted, much later, that Omeo had received the wrong gun, a smaller one having been agreed to). Friends from the Lodge, and members with whom I had had contact through renovation work, shop, or matters involving tourism, came to express regret. I was upset, although I tried to make light of it. Perhaps, as well as being an outsider, I had become a ‘tall poppy’.

Though leisure hours – rarely whole days – were counted, they were well used. With my new partner there were drives down the ‘mountain’ to Bairnsdale, where we shopped and had lunch – maybe gourmet, or collected a treat of a sandwich and drove to a secluded beach for sun and a dip. Sometimes we went further along the coast to Metung, Paynesville or even Lakes Entrance: each town was distinctive. Or we crossed the mountain and followed the hairpin road past stunning views of snow-covered crests, ‘range upon range’, to pretty Bright, and perhaps on to Beechworth, where I replenished my supply of Anís ‘La castellana’. We explored the High Country logging tracks and roads which followed the dry local ridges, before plunging into dank and ghostly gullies. We had picnics, with wine and the wood-fuelled barbecue, on the banks of the cold and lively Mitta Mitta, where I swam. We used free moments to swim in Omeo’s black Oriental Claims catchment basin and maybe sight a water rat, pick lush asparagus growing wild, blackberries and sloes there and elsewhere, or outsize mushrooms which sprang up unpredictably on the shores of ‘Lake Omeo’ – misnomer for the flat and dusty plain bordering Benambra. Sometimes I slipped into my leathers – such as they were – and rode off on Siegfried’s motorbike (bought from him, and sold back when I left), doing the local circuits, sealed or gravel, dust covered or icy, and immersed myself in the bush.

* * *

As I had no brothers or sisters, pitiful calls from my Mother in Oxford had an ever more disturbing effect. She was in her nineties, lived alone, and was no longer very mobile. She was dependent on a neighbour, and a ‘gardener’ who doubled as odd-jobs man. Both caused me apprehension. My Mother swung between eulogising and condemning them, and I did not doubt she was becoming ever less able to cope. The changing social climate in Omeo, coupled with one particularly heart-rending call early one morning, hastened the decision to sell and move back to England – though only for as long as it might take to keep an eye on my Mother till her demise.

After a most disappointing sale by auction, and warehousing all the goods and chattels we were not giving away, we flew off. My partner heaved a sigh of relief at leaving Omeo, and looked forward to seeing something of the world. I had mixed feelings. My relationship with my Mother had very rarely been a happy one, and never relaxed. I trusted that age and illness would make for a better atmosphere.

But we were not welcome. The neighbour, meaningfully, attributed this to my not having come sooner, and refused to relinquish her role as my Mother’s ‘carer’ and confidante. My Mother was unclean, her clothes dirty, her diet monotonous and poor. The once fine house stank. The kitchen and garage smelled – of tobacco and whisky. The garden had begun its decline into jungle. The ‘gardener’, too, clung to his role, paid. My Mother was ambivalent, blew hot and cold in dealings with me, and made public her disapproval of my unmarried partner, only a nurse. We had made it clear while in Australia that we would not be living there, and after a few weeks were relieved to move to a small flat. It was in North Oxford and just a few minutes walk from my Mother’s. We grew quite fond of it, in spite of its size and the absence of all our belongings, but the rental stuck in our throats.

We looked for jobs, and became aware that at our age this would be difficult. My partner was reasonably lucky, for I’d found her a job in her old nursing rôle within the month. But she found the work stressful, conditions at times primitive, and attitudes towards a ‘colonial’ often prejudiced. I struggled for seven or eight months, before securing a sales job on basic pay at Allders department store. I regretted that my attempts to gain employment with language schools, at bookshops, with the University Press and libraries, had failed, and that employment agencies were lukewarm in helping someone my age. University departments, my former college Pembroke, academics – now retired, and both old and new friends were unable to assist.

My work, also, was physically demanding. I grew thin, my back – possibly weakened by the polio fifty years earlier – hurt, and I kept spraining my ankles, perhaps from too much time spent on ladders. But I battled on, knowing there was no alternative. I managed to keep receiving pay rises and won awards for ‘ideas’ and the successful promotion of Allders through the medium of ‘store cards’. Finally, however, I had to have an emergency operation for an inguinal hernia, brought on by shifting heavy loads on my own.

My Mother, too, was having her ups and downs, often in the form of infections which had her at death’s door. On one occasion she pleaded with us to return and help her recover. We surrendered our lease, and moved back. She had made various promises so as to secure our assent, and for a few days all was fine. But once she was better, the promises were forgotten or ignored, and we were being directed and called upon at every hour of the day and night. As we still had our jobs, the stress became unbearable. Fortunately, our flat had not yet been re-let, but there were substantial charges for having relinquished and resumed tenancy.

While recovering from my operation, depressed, I decided I was not living the life I wanted. With my partner’s blessing, perhaps at her instigation, I decided to give up my job and move to Cadiz, Spain, and look for work there – perhaps teaching English, or translating or interpreting: something would turn up … we thought. A professor in the Arts Faculty had shown convincing interest in my research … it could lead somewhere. Cadiz seemed a cheerful place, with sea, blue skies, gentle climate, and a low cost of living. It had both modern and historic quarters, and was typically Spanish. Tourism had not spoiled it.

We bought a small flat at a price very low by Oxford standards, with white marble floors, built-in wardrobes, three bedrooms and everything else needed. I gave notice at Allders and – surprise – decided that, after eleven years knowing Win and seven of them together, it was the moment to ask my partner if she was still interested in marrying. We were married within weeks. Mo – a courteous colleague with a twinkle in his eyes (a Nigerian marking time in the U.K. while tribal matters resolved themselves), and Mercedes – a spirited and psychically gifted friend and sales woman at Allders (Spanish, as the name might suggest, in love with England and marking time there for family reasons), were best man and woman. My wife prepared to relinquish the lease and move into hospital accommodation. She would hold on to her job, and agreed to keep an eye on my Mother and continue with the improvements begun there: mainly the proper organization of professional workers to supplement the attentions of neighbour and ‘gardener’. My Mother decided, all of a sudden, that my ‘wife’ was alright. Besides, she was a nurse … The local pressure group began to lose control. I took temporary leave of my wife, and of my Mother, and moved to Spain.

Oxford – what was I to miss? On the employment front, teamwork at Allders was exhilarating, providing an experience absent for twenty years. It was vitalising to have to be active, and to face challenges set by a management, and to be heard when the occasion arose. It was educative to have to learn new skills, and to meet a different kind of public – in a different country. On the leisure front, if you allowed for population density and its consequences, there were still opportunities to enjoy city and countryside. I took pleasure walking with Win up the grand approaches to the centre, St. Giles and the High, or down the quieter, gracious Broad Street, or along a dozen cobbled streets and alleys. I guided her through the many ancient colleges, with their quadrangles, dining halls, chapels and, sometimes, splendid gardens. Everywhere you looked there were spires and gargoyles, towers and gateways. And the sound of bells, at St. Mary the Virgin’s and from Old Tom! All that might be classed ‘Gown’. ‘Town’ was different, and disappointing. Further out, we punted on the Cherwell, where I often swam. We walked on Port Meadow, that ancient stretch of common land bordering the Isis or Thames, talked to geese and horses, and picked mushrooms. We walked to the Perch and Binsey Poplars – picking blackberries and sloes – then on to the Trout. At Woodstock, we admired the geese and kept an eye out for the pheasants in the famous park of Blenheim Palace. Going further still, there were quick trips to Bath and Ludlow, and in York Minster we were delighted to hear the Abbot of Ampleforth delivering the sermon. We went often to London. One weekend was spent in Paris, and when holidays came we went frequently to Spain. We even managed Havana.

* * *

In Cadiz I set to work on the university contact I had made while flat hunting. An informal encounter seemed to indicate continuing interest, but when I followed this up in writing, I was met with silence. Attendance at a series of university lectures open to the public allowed me twice to meet the staff member responsible for these. They related to my work. He told me he would ring, but the follow-up never took place. I was baffled. However, while attending the lectures, I met an academic working from Murcia who also expressed an interest, and requested more details. To satisfy him, I gradually reissued work in progress prepared twenty-five years earlier. I revised some, incorporated material which had never been described, and developed new ideas. After repeated requests for more, he ended by begging me not to overwork him, at the reading end. This all went on for some six months.

Over these months I thought it prudent to cover myself against further disappointments at university level. I renewed enquiries on teaching in academies and schools, but encountered vague promises or unsatisfactory terms. I even sat an exam for advertised jobs at the new Cadiz Corte inglés, and failed.

Gradually, I discovered that the academic based in Murcia was negotiating on my behalf with the Andalusian regional government – the Junta. He passed on a not unreasonable offer of employment, but with a condition which was not acceptable.

My research, which had begun at La Trobe University 25 years earlier, grew from a discovery in Madrid. At the corner of Ballesta was an old antiquarian book-shop I frequented. I used to ask the owner for Spanish plays. He always said he had none. One day, however, he asked if I was interested in … Spanish plays. A few days later he had a bundle of papers tied with a rope brought down from the attic. They were dusty, some stained, some beginning to fall apart. They were plays, but not presented as I knew them: they were (obras) sueltas and desglosadas. The first were single works issued as paperbacks, the latter were single works separated long ago from sets of a dozen in volumes. There were few plays with a cover. Though many had had a wrapper added, many were simply sets of folded sheets, some uncollated. I was stunned to find, among the first papers examined, a Lope de Vega play dated 1604. So I was quick to tell the owner I was in no position to buy such papers – they would be too expensive. I apologised for the trouble I had caused. I wished I had never made the discovery, and felt sick with depression. But the owner insisted on receiving an offer. I refused to make one. Finally, he told me to select a hundred, after which he would come up with a price himself. It seemed pointless, but he was insistent and I had no alternative. I picked out one hundred and hoped I would forget what I had seen. I despaired of the outcome.

I can’t remember the price he set, but it was such that I was able to ask him to have all the remainder brought down from the attic. I went on to select one copy of each title, a copy of each variant edition of a title, and then – as the price was so good, duplicates. The selection came to about 2000 items, of which duplicates formed about a third. The plays ranged from 1604 (or earlier?) to 1900, covered all sorts of subjects: social, religious, historical, political … and covered virtually the whole spectrum of dramatic sub-genres produced over that period. There were hundreds of authors represented, and hundreds of printers from presses in Spain, as well as Lisbon, and Havana. It took a week, standing at the old counter, to make the choices, and I went back to my lodgings twice a day to remove the grime on my hands and face, get warm, and rest my feet. I rang my (then) wife in Australia, had her transfer the equivalent of some hundreds of pounds, and the deal was concluded.

The simplest aspect of my research consisted in organising the Collection. Was it to be by author? dramatic sub-genre? subject? period? I was no librarian, and such questions perplexed me. Each approach had advantages, and disadvantages. The Collection was organized, eventually, by title and in modern alphabetical sequence. A harder aspect consisted in identifying authors and place and date of printing, in the hundreds of cases where these critical details were not given. Harder still, was the business of detecting incorrect information, and maybe setting it to rights. I realize, now, that these two last aspects offer a challenge which may never be settled. Finally, there was the task of describing the Collection. There would have to be a quasi-facsimile catalogue distinguishing between similar editions, and between these and editions elsewhere which I could not see, and were not fully described.

It had been my wish to donate the Collection, in return for a salary and relevant expenses. These would cover me while I revised the descriptive catalogue and prepared everything for publication – which should not be a charge on me. The whole process, I thought, might take between three and five years.

The offer pending from the Junta of Andalusia sounded modest but not to be dismissed out of hand. Yet there was some ambiguity about publication, some ambiguity about the salary – my academic contact suggested I might like to settle for less than the proposed amount, and a final bombshell: he would like to have most of the duplicates – as his fee, I supposed. But the ‘duplicates’ came in varying conditions, some had wrappers and some not, and in the long term it would be necessary for scholars to inspect them all in case of undetected variations of text, spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. I put these views to him, indicating that the ‘duplicates’ could not be separated from the Collection. There followed – silence.

Having failed with Cadiz, and the Junta, I approached the Library at Barcelona University. A friend had broached the subject 20 years earlier, but nothing had come of it. I proposed a donation along the lines above. When there was interest shown, I went to Barcelona – at my expense – but received just a token and short-term offer of pay. They would undertake only electronic publication of the catalogue, and thought the Collection of little value. Could I prove otherwise?

So I changed tack. I decided to sell the Collection, on condition the purchaser publish the catalogue. I would work on it for the time it took to complete, at no charge. I contacted academics and universities in Australia, Germany, Ireland, the U.K. and the US.A. A letter from an academic with whom I had collaborated, gave me an opinion on the value of the Collection. It was to prove most helpful.

My Mother, meanwhile, moved to a nursing home in Cadiz. In her last months she received daily medical attention, and was decently dressed and washed. She admired the furnishings, and was impressed with the food. She had company, so absent in her own home in Oxford where she was bed-ridden for several years, and in her Oxford nursing home. I visited, and helped feed her. She was appreciative and kind. She died at almost 99 and was cremated at the necropolis near Chiclana. I scattered her ashes over the grave in Oxford where she had once wished to rest with her husband. I discovered, from the medical authorisation given for her to move from Oxford to Cadiz, that she was suffering from senile dementia. I wondered how different everything might have been in Oxford, had this diagnosis been made known sooner. After all, the symptoms had been there for at least seven years.

The Collection? Various parties, mainly in the U.S.A., were interested, but in the end the terms of purchase were negotiated with Glasgow University, which I had not approached. The price was acceptable. Ironically, due to the nature of the valuation and sale procedures, the Library obtained the duplicates for nothing, in a sense ‘donated’. I am still in Cadiz, now in an 1850’s house – once a brothel – with atmosphere, finalising the catalogue, which could take five years. My position with the University, that of ‘Honorary Research Fellow’, relates directly to this work, and carries the expectation I can be called upon to advise about the Collection and offer the occasional talk. I am pleased at the overall outcome. And I am bemused by this return to Glasgow.

* * *

There have been, and will continue to be, periods when I can move away from a research work which I find fascinating – even though the Collection no longer belongs to me – and get back to …. poetry. The last three years have seen more poems completed than at any stage since Salamanca or Oxford, though drafts in abundance were produced during the years in Australia. Age, for all its physical drawbacks, has brought insights and patience, and the richness of a lifetime, on which to draw. Cadiz, too, is kind, with every opportunity for rest, or stimulation.