The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 17

5 'August 1990 aftlM The Sunday Age was an Idea that seemed ludicrous at first glance. Why would ordinary people, going about their business, choose to wear red plastic noses for a day, even If it was all in a good cause? But wear them they did, In their hundreds. They even bought them for their cars. Some people couldn't bear to part with their peculiar proboscises when the first and second Red-Nose Days were over, and drive around with them on their vehicles all year round. This year you can buy red noses for everything from your own nose ($1.50) to your skyscraper ($500, but there are only three left).

Already the city buildings of Shell, the Southern Cross, Ansett, Qantas and the Hyatt are sporting two-metre-wide red noses. Red-Nose Days originated in England, where the noses were sold to raise money for disadvantaged children. They came to Australia about two years ago when the National Sudden Infant Death Research Foundation was in need of a brilliant fund-raising campaign. So now August in Australia is Red-Nose month, with the campaign reaching a peak on Red-Nose Day, the 31st. The campaign raised $1.3 million nationally for SIDS in the first year, $3.1 million in the second and it is expected to bring in $5 million this year.

The organiser of the Victorian Red Nose Campaign, Ms Natalie van Wetering, said some parents of SIDS babies at first thought the red noses too lighthearted for such a serious Issue. But two Red-Nose Balls, red-nose tee-cream fetes, red-nose barriers between wearers and raising awareness about SIDS. "They are like wearing a mask," says Ms van Wetering. "Everyone looks the same. They make people have a laugh." No doubt they will provide a great opportunity for the public to have a giggle at red noses on well-known faces on 31 August.

Of course, you could be radical by painting yours a different color (great conversation starter). Or else try the "I'm too chicken to wear a red nose" badge also on sale from the SIDS council. Nose prices: car nose $3, bus nose $25, truck nose $5, "chicken" badge $2. Many retailers sell tbem. For information 882 7022.

LmII FaHdiMf Doug Aiton film-maker Paul Cox Page 7 Fear goes cruising Page 3 Rich woman, poor woman Page 5 drinks sessions and assorted other red-nose events later, the noses are accepted as a great way of breaking down social ffl -C VWjU lWjsw wfc WpVOai found on a loose sheet among Charles Buckmaster's books. A Death Of Poet -npyii' 1 i Charles Buckmaster's Melbourne was a vibrant, bohemian place. But when the young poet died tragically, part of an era died too. Larry Schwartz profiles the poet, whose work is winning new acclaim. at the then Amalgamated Engineering Union.

It was a time of strong opposition to Australia's participation in the Vietnam War, a vigorous counterculture challenge to conservatism, an optimism that youth culture could change the world for the better, a naive belief in the effectiveness of "mind-expanding" drugs and a shared joy In rock music. The poetry of this era was strongly influenced by literary movements In response to the frigidity of Cold War America. Country boy Charles Buckmaster arrived In the city, finding a first job as laboratory assistant, at a time when bonds between young Australians were strengthened by lame resistance could understand absolutely why he did It. Absolutely. This guy was being destroyed from inside.

It was agony to watch. Absolute agony." Buckmaster was a "skyrocket" which exploded, John Jenkins said. The lifestyle he chose epitomised an era to such an extent he became one of Its icons. "He was so much a product of his own era. He was unable to transcend It.

He became a victim of it." The young poet's death coincided with the end of a period of extraordinary creativity among younger writers in Melbourne, railing against a perceived literary stagnation and general conservatism. The late 1960s had seen a frenzy of DIRT road rises and falls alongside orchards, dams and sheep in the hilly farmland where locals wave to strang A 1 5" 3r' Gruyere is being cleared of its forest the mountains become pastures and carved wastes and the subdivisions come within five miles. Small farmers die my mother and father cheated exhausted There is no dream and death is close and complete. From: 'An End to Myth', circa 1970 Penguins' magazine decades earlier. Hemensley's wife, Retta, remembers the scepticism she and Kris shared after reading the "terrible scrawl" of a first letter from a high school student called Charles Buck-master.

A newspaper report on writer and poet Michael Dugan had alerted the country schoolboy to the fresh literary activity in the city. The Hemens-leys corresponded with him only after being assured by Dugan both Buck-master and Gruyere were "for Despite early scepticism and that scrawl, Buckmaster, whose earliest influences Included Donne, Blake and Owen, was quick to Impress. He has left his mark on Australian letters despite his brief career and even though he burned much of his work, including the manuscript for a novel and poems said to be as good as his best, before he died. His early death robbed the country of one of its most promising literary figures. He Is remembered as a poet of considerable talent who wrote several exceptional poems, his potential for major literary achievement frustrated because his death came when his career was in Its Infancy.

''1 ti A 'i fit "i poetry In roneoed poetry magazines and readings centred on what came to be known as the La Mama Poetry Workshop by a new generation of writers, influenced by the innovations of American poets such as Charles Olson, Robert Creeley and Allen Ginsberg. "There was terrific excitement," said Retta Hemensley, who, with Kris, organised the first readings at La Mama. "Something was happening in this city that had been dead for so Retta Hemensley smiles mischievously when she recalls secretly running off copies of the magazine, 'Our Glass', edited by Kris, while doing secretarial work for Laurie Carmichael from their elders. Retta Hemensley recalls the cries of "cut your hair, Moses" her husband endured on the streets of Melbourne. It was a time of clumsy censorship, raids on theatres with controversial plays.

She recalls acting in a play at a local theatre which was interrupted at each performance by a member of the vice squad in the audience threatening to declare the theatre a "bawdy For Buckmaster and his friends, Faraday Street, Carlton, where the first reading at La Mama on 3 September 1968 attracted 17 people, was a focal point for budding writers. Continued AGENDA 2 Vi 1 i 'He was in such pain. This guy was being destroyed from the inside. It was agony to watch.5 .,1 ers in passing cars. This Is Gruyere, a small farming community near Lily-dale, where almost two decades ago a muffled shot late one night punctuated the quiet, rustic setting.

Is the farm house and attached bungalow in which a mother found the shotgun the following morning beside the body of her beloved youngest son. That was 26 November 1972, Just over four years after the youth, stifled by the idyll of the tiny community, left for the city, wearing a new suit and clutching a suitcase and a handful of poems. -A diagnosed schizophrenic, Charles Buckmaster was to finally succumb to the agonising mental Illness when he re-enacted the suicide of an older brother, taking bis own life with his brother's gun, at just 21. "There was a lot of pain and there still Is a lot of pain," says a relative of the dead poet "You put it away and you deal with it but you never forget" fifth child (youngest by eight years) of a taciturn farmer who worked hard at his cherry and peach orchards, Buckmaster wrote of "silent desperation waiting for life to He finally turned his back on the farming community established by his Swiss forebears, quitting school midway through his matriculation year in 1968 rather than heed an instruction to cut his hair. Eric Penfold, a teacher at tilydale High School at the time, remembers Buckmaster as "a bit of a wild "I don't think Charles was a real conformist" he said.

"When I was young, people thought me a strange and moody kid," Buck-master once said. "Often I felt myself a stranger among people I'd known all my life my wanting to get out, which I wanted desperately, was something my parents knew they couldn't fight." But the lure of Gruyere was strong. Buckmaster, who travelled extensively around Australia, was to return home often, sometimes accompanied by friends for fruit-picking, and his childhood surroundings featured prominently in the poetry of the young rebel some said bore a strong physical resemblance to the ill-fated Jim Morrison of The Doors. As the forests were cleared for subdivisions, he agonised over the vulnerability of small farmers, such as his parents, to land developers and Gru-yeres future as the city sprawled outwards. "The cities will merge," he warned In a poem called 'An End to Myth'.

"Gruyere is dying The grerfn walls dissolve." It was there he returned to end his life. "He seemed to be a prodigy, sprung from the ground!" the poet and close frieid, Kris Hemensley, wrote Id the last! Issue of "The Age Monthly Review'. "No one believed he really hailed front a place called Gruyere. And no one believed Gruyere existed Melbourne's young writers of the time hnaithought this might be a hoax "to EMPMalley their Hemensley said, alluding to the fictional poet at the centre of the now-famaus literary hoax created to eraplrrass the editors of the 'Angry Now in store -the best comfort collection of 0 OF GERMANY Nar the end: Charles Buckmaster and Kate Veitch at a friend's wedding In 197 1 not long before they separated. "Often I felt myself a stranger among people I'd known all my life," he once said.

Though Charles Buckmaster left behind a small body of poetry, his work had "the best urgency of the new the poet Thomas Shapcott has said. He produced a core of work quite remarkable for so young a poet Michael Dugan wrote in the most recent Issue of 'Overland'. "What he might have achieved if he had not been cut down by the cruel disease of schizophrenia can only be guessed at" Now, almost 20 years after his death, the recent publication of his collected works and extensive articles In literary publications 'Overland' and The Age Monthly Review', have highlighted his place In Australian literature and Impact of the generation of writers he epitomised. The case for Buckmaster Is perhaps most forcefully put by a friend and writer, John Jenkins, who believes that had the collected poems appeared sooner it would have "put on the map" not only his own work but a stream within Australian poetry that emerged during the tumultuous tion from the conservatism of the '50s. Jenkins says during the 1970s and much of the '80s Australian literature had been dominated by conservative elements.

Only now that It was not "too hot to handle" could a collection by Buckmaster, published late last year, be released. He sees the work as still "very con- Come choose from the finest and widest range of Sioux men's and women's shoes. Enjoy walking-on-air luxury with the unique Sioux built-in arch support. EjTjcsoorjDtillsjciOo A tradition of quality and service since 1886 VICTORIA Melbourne: 205 Bourke Street 3000 650 3456 Camberwell: 753 Burke Road 3124 882 1050 Kew: 10 Cotham Road 3101 861 7482 South Yarra: 210 Toorak Road 3141 241 7153 Toorak: 484 Toorak Road 3142 826 3444 SIOUX 561390 scattered among friends around the country, for the delay In publication. He said he had taken upon himself the task of editing because of his strong feeling for his friend and had at one stage even set up an Independent publishing company to release It He said he now felt he had at last done his duty to his friend.

BUCKMASTER'S book with its many previously unpublished poems, has helped friends In Melbourne literary circles finally come to terms with bis death. The family kept the funeral private and some close friends did not know he had died until after his cremation. They have long planned to get together to remember him and the times they shared. "We cried In December 1972 when the news of Charles Buckmaster's sui particularly in the preoccupation with the environment and the plight of Australian Aborigines. While few of the known poems have been widely anthologlsed and despite two slim volumes of his poems published when he was alive, much remained out of print until publication of the University of Queensland Press collection, part of a series which Includes another ill-fated poet of that era, Michael Dransfteld.

The publishers say though poetry Is generally a poor seller, both Dransfleld's and Buckmaster's collections were selling better than expected, the latter less so but heartening at up to 500 of the 1500 printed. The book's editor, Simon MacDon-iald, also a friend of Buckmaster, cited financial and other constraints Including the difficulty In obtaining poems cide was telephoned through but the tears hardly constituted a wake," Kris Hemensley wrote. "Only now, It seems to me, with the 'Collected Poems' in hand, can he return to us In his life and death, our youngest poet, our dear and youngest His friends remember the good times his humor and warmth along with the bad of a vigorous young man who loved life but was dragged down by his demons, fighting for survival all the way. Michael Dugan describes the change from "sunny personality" to manic highs and lows, bouts of self-destructlveness, severe depression. So that the collected poems "remind us of the essential beauty and value of a friend destroyed by circumstances beyond his "He was In such pain," said Buck-master's girlfriend, Kate Veitch, "such emotional and mental pain.

I.