Two sides to frontier life

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 21

Two sides to frontier life

The Letters of Rachel Henning. Edited by David Adams. Illustrations by Norman Lindsay. Penguin, 1985. 289 pp. $14.95 (paperback). A Useless Young Man? An Autobiography of Life in Australia, 1849-64. By George Theodore Blakers. Penguin, 1986. 210 pp. $10.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Ruth Zanker) Some fascinating recollections of life in early Australia are being reprinted as the bicentenary celebrations approach. Both these books were written by Europeans who emigrated to Australia in the middle of last century, and both were written solely for their family members. Their viewpoints are very different. Rachel Henning’s collection of letters “home” from Queensland are part of a familiar genre. We share the viewpoint of an English Lady, sensitive to the social niceties of county England, who relaxes as she begins to enjoy the new freedoms of station life and the beauty of the bush. (Letters ' of Charlotte Godley in Canterbury are brought to mind.) Rachel Henning never forgot her

position as a caste-conscious land owner in a raw frontier society. The letters were written between 1853-82 and were first published in “The Bulletin” in 1951 with introduction and amusing illustrations by Norman Lindsay. Both are wisely reproduced in this edition. “A Useless Young Man?” was written by Blakers for his descendants. He arrived in Sydney from Germany aged 21 in 1849, and in the first 15 years moved round and tried his hand at many jobs. His autobiography describes ship-board life, goldfield adventures .(and disappointments), hard work timber-cutting, and the strange life of a colonial trooper; mateship, brutality and all. Blakers made no fortune, but eventually gained secure, respectable employment as a school-teacher. These books illustrate, from opposite social viewpoints, how class and privilege were entrenched in frontier life in Australia. New Zealanders will find much to interest them in these closely shared colonial experiences.