WHARF LABOURER AS NOVELIST

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22419, 4 June 1938, Page 19

WHARF LABOURER AS NOVELIST

Strange Career of Centenary Prize Winner

THE winner of the £250 prize for the best novel in the New South Wales one hundred and fiftieth anniversary literary competitions, Mr Xavier Herbert, received the news while he was giving evidence as a wharf labourer in the Arbitration Court at Darwin. His winning novel, “Capricornia,” was warmly praised by the judges. Thirty-six years of age, Mr Herbert was born in Western Australia. Taking a diploma in chemistry at Perth, he studied medicine for two years at Melbourne University, before becoming a teacher of chemistry at the Sydney Technical College. Since then he has been drover, fettler, swagman, pearl diver, sailor, miner, and superintendent of a native hospital and compound. He lost his last job through quarrelling with the Government, which, he said, is his “sole consistent habit.” L lives on the second floor of a shop in Darwin’s Chinatown. “I became fed up with teaching, and in the long vacation of 1925 I humped my swag through North Queensland to the Gulf Country,”

hj. said. “I rode my horse into the Northern Territory and became a drover and later a stockrider at Alexandria Station, one of the biggest cattle stations in the world. In 1928, I went to the Solomon Islands. It was the time of the rebellion, and I found myself in charge of 750 prisoners. I used to pull the black cap over the heads of condemned men before they were hanged. “I fell out with the authorities, joined a ship as an ordinary seaman, and went back to Sydney, through Suva and the Gilberts. Then I got a job as a dispenser in the Darwin Hospital. I left in 1930, and. instructed by a Japanese friend,, learned to dive, and pick up pearli shell in 20 fathoms. Then I decided to go to Europe. I started off in the West End of London and finished in a doss house in the East End. I kept myself by my pen, writinjf short stories. I .spent two years overseas, and cycled through Western Europe. “Then I returned to Sydney and spent a year writing short stories. It was then I- wrote ‘Capricornia.* It took me six months. I worked for 32 hours on end and slept for 16. But things did not go.right with the publishers, and I went bush. I always go bush when things go wrong. “Now I am lumping down on the wharves for £3 10s for 16 hours, when there’s a boat in. And I have achieved the distinction of becoming returning officer of the Northern Australian Workers’ Union and becoming a member of the waterside section.” Mr Herbert is now writing his second novel to be called “The Old People.” Since publication of “Capricornia” he has had several good offers to leave Darwin, but says: “In Chinatown, Darwin. I am as happy as I could be anywhere.”