‘Pacific Frigate Bird7

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30823, 7 August 1965, Page 5

‘Pacific Frigate Bird 7

(By JAMES CUNNINGHAM in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” Reprinted by arrangement.) pACING the carpet, Mr Olaf Ruhen was pretending to be a humped-back whale. He stood erect, his right arm held aloft. “The fin is like this,” he said. “It is enormous. When you see it soaring above you, higher than the mast, you feel very small.” Mr Ruhen, sandalled, greysweatered. spun like a dancer. His hands were now together. He dived towards the lower row of books that lined the room. He was still a man dreaming that he was a whale. Presently he straightened un and came back. “When they go like that you can be in bloody trouble.” he said. Mr Ruhen is a big, solid man who stands in a suburban room as though he were balancing on the tilting bridge of a ship. Meeting him is rather like being exposed to a sharp mid-ocean squall. His face is tanned. His hands are firm with an old knowledge of rope and fish and weapons. Love Of The Sea Mr Ruhen’s hands are, however, currently occupied in gentler and more lucrative tasks. They tap out on a typewriter novels and stories that have made him one of Australia’s most successful writers. His books have been translated into half a dozen languages. Dollars, in extremely gratifying qualities, flow in from the United States. He is a valued contributor to the Taxation Department. “I suppose,” said Mr Ruhen, thoughtfully “that 1 could live and work nearly anywhere. A writer is fortunate in this respect.” Mr Ruhen is a New Zealander. He has travelled the

world. Why, then, does he choose to live in a red-brick bungalow in Cross street, Mosman, high above Sydney Harbour.

He stirred the log fire that blazed in the grate of his cosy study. “I have always felt the Pacific to be my area,” he said. “This great ocean fascinates me. I would not want to live away from it.” So strong, indeed, are Mr Ruhen’s feelings for the sea that surges over the rocks below him that in it he has, in a strange way, lost his sense of belonging to any particular country. “No, I don't look on myself as having changed countries in coming here from New Zealand,” he said. "Instead I feel that I have come closer to the centre of my world, which is the South Pacific.” Where To Live On the question where it is best for a man to live Mr Ruhen speaks with some authority. He ranged widely before he settled in Sydney. He was born in Dunedin 54 years ago, but left there at the age of 17 to work on back-country sheep stations. Then he became a professional deer-shooter and, a couple of years later, a fisherman. Mr Ruhen stared into the fire. “That was a decisive moment,” he said. “You know, I discovered that a man can have a home on the sea as well as on the land.” For some time after he took to the sea, “home” for Mr Ruhen was a 60-ton steam trawler named Silver Crest. In her he fished the coastal waters of New Zealand. And afterwards he fell in love with Alice, a graceful schooner, “I thought she was extremely beautiful,” he said. “So I bought her and we were very happy together.” Sadly, this romantic affair had a tempestuous ending. Alice was wrecked in a gale.

Mr Ruhen found a home on land once more—and work in a timber yard. Soon afterwards he took off for the Second World War as pilot of a Lancaster bomber.

“I wanted to fight in the Pacific,” he said. “Even then I felt that this was my place in the world. But they sent me to England.” After the war Mr Ruhen came to Sydney, “now I cannot think myself living anywhere else,” he said. "There are times when I feel drawn to New Zealand and I have been back for visits. But I wouldn’t want to live there permanently. Stimulating Sydney “A city like Sydney is a good place for a writer. I find it stimulates me and, of course, there is the sea.” Mr Ruhen has now produced seven books and scores of stories in his house in Cross street. His latest novel, “The Broken Wing.” which deals with the R.A.F. at war, comes out in England in September. He has become widely known as a writer in America and in Europe. Yet in his own suburb his life is quiet, unobtrusive. He is a member of a nearby club. Occasionally he drops into the local hotel for a drink. But for the most part he and his wife, Madeleine, entertain friends at home. Last year they travelled together to Tonga where Mr Ruhen gathered material for a book —and went whaling in an open boat. “For nearly an hour we were towed over the ocean by a hump-backed whale which weighed about 60 tons,” he said. “Finally we lost the whale, but it was the

most exciting thing that has ever happended to me.” After watching Mr Ruhen describe the chase this is not difficult to believe. Mr Ruhen is, of course, a celebrated figure in Tonga. In 1963 he published “Minerva Reef,” the story of the wreck of the Tongan vessel Tuaikaipau and the astonishing survival of her crew. And on his last visit he was given a Tongan title by 3 member of the Royal household a grandson of Queen Salote. Mr Ruhen’s Tongan name is Manusiu Oe Pasifik, which means “Frigate Bird of the Pacific.” For a man who so loves the sea it is an apt title. Mr Ruhen will be leaving Australia early next year. He goes once again to Tonga where he will sail around the islands in a small boat. “1 want to try some fishing, flying a kite to carry the line as they do in some parts of the Pacific,” he said. “But I shall he coming back to Sydney. This is my home now. Perhaps it would be exciting to live in New York as I have been invited to do. But Mosman satisfies me. “I won’t stay away for long.”