Abridged article outlining Glenville Pike's extensive contribution to North Australian history, publishing and encouragement of writers and poets , which first appeared in the Magnetic Island publication Magnetic Times when he was 79 years of age .
Writer Glenville Pike , whose
contribution to North Australia is
little known ,
is still pounding out
yarns about the
North on a manual typewriter. Of particular note is the
fact that under
the byline Sundowner
he has
been writing Around
the Campfire column for
57 years in
the North Queensland Register . Recently he wrote
a guide to
the history of Mareeba, the town founded by John Atherton, for the
new Mareeba Heritage
Museum.
In l954
he launched the above
trail blazing
magazine, the North Australian Monthly (NAM) ,
which championed the
cause of a large ,
neglected part of
the nation . As
Pike explained, the publication chronicled
news about the
North, an area
about which people
in the south
knew almost nothing .
It also included,
poetry, history and
outback yarns. Run on the smell
of a proverbial
oil rag , it was
printed by the
Townsville firm of T.
Willmett and Sons
Ltd . NAM had
a print run
of 3500 , a
year’s subscription costing 30
shillings ( $3) . A
full- page advertisement cost
a mere
eight pound ($16) , a
smaller display advert
one pound ($2)
per column inch.
Readers were scattered
around the nation
and overseas, including Australia House,
London , where
its exotic contents were
avidly read by
intending migrants.
During its
life NAM
attracted a stable of diverse contributors - pioneering
men and women ,
ex-Northern Territory mounted
policemen , pilots, drovers,
station owners, missionaries, adventurers,
poets, short story writers
, journalists and
J.K. Moir , founder of the
Melbourne literary organisation the Bread
and Cheese Club , who
was also an
avid collector of
early Australian literature.
A young postman , James G.
Porter, in the
Northern Territory town of Larrimah
, contributed to
NAM, later came
to the island
and wrote the
book Discovering Magnetic Island ,
first published l983.
NAM
advertised for articles
up to l500
words in length and this
attracted a torrent
of Australiana from
people in far
flung places , including overseas. Former
NT mounted policemen Ted
Morey and Vic Hall
wrote for the magazine.
A plantation manager
living in New Guinea ,
Fred Archer , provided vivid
articles about his
early life in outback
WA. The well-known
author Clem Lack ,
employed by Queensland
Premier Nicklin, was one
of the talented
people who backed NAM
with their literary
skills. Henry G. Lamond, born
in the Gulf country
in the l880s , provided many great yarns about
the outback . Pike
pointed out that
Lamond had to get
his books published in
Britain , where he had
a big following , because Australian
publishers were not
interested.
A former
Charters Towers resident ,
Albert Morcom , renowned
as one of
the so–called “ Borroloola hermits” in
the Gulf of
Carpentaria , penned
articles for NAM and also wrote for the Northern Territory News in Darwin .
Pike visited Morcom
in Darwin Hospital in
l964 shortly before
he died. At
the time of the
visit , Morcom complained bitterly
about the hospital
having shaved off
his beard.
Nature
notes were provided
by John Orrell ;
a haughty Englishman , he also wrote
a provocative article about
attitudes to “New Australians ” in the l950s.
There were recollections of
early days in the
Torres Strait , crocodile shooting
,“ the Cattle King ” Sir Sidney Kidman and
a l961 “ bushie’s”
plea to stop the
remorseless felling of
trees in Queensland
with a warning that the state could end
up like the
Sahara Desert.
There
was a lively
regular column dealing
with the North Queensland
sugar industry written
by Clive Morton
who in one
edition blamed the
Pentagon for the
low US intake
of Australian sugar .
Michael
Terry , who had trekked through Central Australia in the
l930s by camel
, provided well-read features .
Then there was
Michael Sawtell , a drover’s
boy on the
Birdsville Track in
l901, who was
an avid reader of
and contributor to
NAM. Sawtell campaigned strongly to
have rivers turned
inland , a call
taken up again in
recent times due
to the prolonged drought.
He wrote about
riding from Darwin to
Derby in WA in l908 , a journey of some
2200 kilometres in
the wet, during
which he swam four
large rivers - “ better than
Chips Rafferty” ( the actor )
- and never met a
person along the way .
In l959 Sawtell
was living in
Sydney’s bohemian King’s
Cross which he said was
filled with coffee lounges
and few Dinkum
Aussies . Many
people , including Prime
Minister Menzies, according
to Sawtell , did
not know that the
North of Australia existed
.
In another
article, Sawtell said he
went to all the
leading clubs and churches
in NSW as
a “ prophet in my own country ”
, trying to arouse his
own countrymen to know
and love Terra Australis.
He wrote : “ Some day
I will fill Lake
Eyre from the
sea to improve
the rainfall and
climate . Ten thousand
square miles of that
basin are below
sea level . The future
possibilities of our
mighty inland are
staggering .”
Moves for a
new state in North Queensland were
covered in the magazine.
Pike editorialised against
the Commonwealth government’s inadequate
expenditure on the
North , its failure
to build the
railway line to
Darwin , poor
outback roads and
the need for
defence bases in
North Australia .
The magazine chronicled current
developments in places
like Darwin , Katherine , Tennant Creek ,
Alice Springs , Bowen
, Cairns , Mt
Isa , Charters Towers ,
Townsville and the
Kimberley . It closed
down in December l965.
The Australian Encyclopedia commissioned him to write
biographical details of North Queensland explorers.
Over the years
Pike has been responsible
for the erection
of six monuments
honouring North Queensland pioneers . When
publishers were not
interested in Australian
books, he started
his own publishing
venture and was responsible for
the production of
33 outback books , many
of them printed
in Hong Kong.
In addition ,
he wrote 26 books
himself about North
Australia which have
sold more than
l50,000 copies.
While his
books are on
sale in many
places in Queensland , Cooktown, Cape York
Peninsula, is now
his best outlet
for four books
still in print .
It seems that
city dwellers from
south, particularly restless
baby boomers who
trek to the historic
town in four wheel
drives , like his books, especially
his latest -Unsung
Heroes of the
Queensland
Wilderness-Pioneering our remote Far North
l870-l914.
His deep
interest in Australian
history saw him
retrace the footsteps
of explorers and
pioneers on horseback.
On one such trip
in l948 he found three marked
trees near the
junction of the
Hodgkinson and Mitchell Rivers thought
to have been connected with
the tragic Kennedy
expedition . One of
the trees bore the letter K and
carried the date
September l5, l848. This
prompted Pike to write
a paper for
the Queensland
History Society.
The fate of
explorer Ludwig Leichhardt who
disappeared in l848
also interested Pike.
Information he gathered about
the Leichhardt expedition
and its possible
end was included
in the book Queensland Frontier. After
reading Pike’s conjecture on
the ill- fated Leichhardt
expedition , the late Dr Colin
Roderick, Professor of English at
James Cook University and an authority on Henry Lawson, congratulated him
on his research.
Roderick, who reviewed
the book, told
Pike his material
and the conclusions about
the expedition which
vanished attempting to
cross from Moreton
Bay in Queensland to Perth in WA
were the best
he had read.-(Peter Simon )
