Barbara Niven of Australia writes:
Noted Adelaide composer Graeme Koehne (who also spent some time in the US) is working on an operatic version of On the Beach?
The world premiere of the Prelude and Aria is to be performed in Adelaide in November this year. It's mentioned on The Adelaide Independent's web site.
The relevant comments in which Koehne explains his interest in the subject are towards the end of the article.
Editor's Comment: You can read the Adelaide Independent article about the opera at:
www.independentweekly.com.au.
I want to thank Barbara very much for this information but I was annoyed that in the article Graeme condescendingly refers to On The Beach as "not great literature" and then goes on to say "but then whoever said great operas were based on great literature? More often than not they aren't."
Sadly this is another case where everything Shute did well is admired, to the point of someone basing a year or two's work creating an opera based on Shute's novel, but intellectual snobbery about what constitutes "great literature" still insists that Shute then be firmly put down. Graeme further damns On The Beach with faint and dismissive praise by calling it "a great yarn".
Perhaps the problem is that Shute's writing just wasn't obscure, boring or hideously flowery enough for the literati.
Having said all that, I still wish the opera well and Graeme great success.
I hope Graeme may one day come to fully appreciate Shute who, while writing literature that Graeme believed was not great, still managed to inspire him to do something that may turn out to be very good.
I am reminded of the story about Patrick O'Brian whose literary life had, for me, 2 great moments:
At 55 he was still a struggling author and, only at the suggestion of his publisher, he wrote a third historical seafaring novel, Master and Commander, that eventually became a much-loved, critically praised and financially successful 24-book, continuous story.
The story of final and spectacular success after 55 was inspiring enough but what I really enjoyed was something else that Patrick O'Brian himself noted with considerable amusement at the expense of similar literary critics.
O'Brian remarked that 15 years and a dozen novels into the series, although they were still the very same books, his works, which had always been firmly placed in the "Fiction" section of bookshops, had suddenly all been moved into the "Literature" section.
Shute visited the D-Day Normandy invasion beach, Juno (Courseulles) only 10 hours after the invasion began. He then wrote his unpublished essay, Journey into Normandy, about his visit.
Churchill also visited Courseilles but not until June 12, or 6 days after D-Day, so they missed each other.
Click here to read Shute's fascinating account.
(Link removed until copyright dispute is settled.)
While reading it, you can trace his journey using a D-Day photos and maps of Juno Beach (Courseulles).
Don't be confused that the top of the large aerial photo is south while, as usual, the top of the map is north.
You can view this large, slow downloading but well worth it, overhead aerial photo of Juno Beach on D-Day
by clicking here.
A recent map of Courseulles, clearly showing the market and the church, and a blockhouse by the beach
Note the charmingly named Rue de Tennis amongst all the martially renamed streets.
A useful oblique aerial view of Juno Beach / Courseulles taken in 1948
Shute crossed to Juno in LST 517.
1943 photo of this craft on the Mississippi
Shute returned to England in LST 535.
Trucks, dukws, barrage balloons with LST 535 and others beached on busy Juno Beach, possibly on the day Shute left in her.
Another great beach-level view of Juno Beach on D-Day
Juno Beach from a German gun position
Invasion scene at Bernieres Sur Mer, just East of Courseulles. This landing site is also visible on the aerial photograph and the Michelin map.
Wrecked and beached Landing Craft at St Aubin, just East of Berniers Sur Mer
In his essay, Shute records that he took a lot of photos while visiting Juno but we don't currently know where these are and, sadly, we have no photos of him at Juno.
In 2003 we discovered that Sharples in Ruined City was based on Blyth near Newcastle on the northeast coast of England. Regarding this, John Anderson has written:
In the preface to "What Happened to the Corbetts", Shute professed not to think much of the "Northendton" convention i.e. giving fictitious names to locations. However, he used it when it suited him, in particular if he had anything derogatory to say about the place - e.g. using Willstown in ATLA and I suspect that Sharples was another instance. I've just re-read the part in Ruined City relating to Warren's car journey north and his walking route and the transition from real to fictional place names is done quite subtly. Reading this in conjunction with a large-scale road map of the area is interesting. On the car journey all the place names are real - Scotch Corner, Piercebridge, Corbridge etc. The chauffeur drops him off at Greenhead (real) about 20 miles from Carlisle. Warren walks that day to Bellingham (real) where he spends the night. The following night he spends at an inn in an unspecified village and heads off next day towards the coast and is taken ill on the road. The lorry driver who picks him up is going to Burnton (fictional) and ends up taking him to hospital in Sharples (fictional). Heading roughly east from Bellingham would have brought him towards the coast roughly in the area of Blyth.
Editor's Comment:
I have heard from Gordon Smith of The Blyth Historical Society.
Here is an extract from a 1993 document Gordon sent me called Built at Blyth by Bob Balmer:
"At Blyth there was only one shipbuilding firm, the Cowpen Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Company Limited, which by December 1931 had temporarily closed down as a building yard but continued to trade as a ship-repair yard. With the recession having such a marked effect on the shipbuilding industry the government stepped in with help in 1935, by encouraging shipowners to scrap old tonnage and replace it with new. This scheme had the desired effect, in that it gave a boost to the industry and two years later when the government rearmament plans came into effect the output tonnage of the North-East shipyards increased dramatically and yards that had been temporarily closed as building yards were now all working to something like full capacity."
Editor Continues:
As you can see, the similarities are marked. Blyth was also a one-shipyard town that had lost the main trade of its shipyard but was then revived.
In reality it was government policy that pulled them through but the general situation was enough for Shute to then inject his own experiences of managing in an industry that feeds families and his dealing with the temptation to stretch the truth as far as investors were concerned.
Gordon has also kindly sent some photos of Blyth which will be included in the next website photo album update.
Editor's PS:
I was intrigued by Shute's reference to the "Northendton" convention and tried to search it on Google but came up with absolutely zero results. Has anyone ever heard of this expression before?
I assume it is an obscure publishing term for a pseudonym but where did it come from?
Can any of our readers in the publishing or literature fields help?
Mike Meehan and John Anderson are planning a visit to the British Library in mid September to look at the archived correspondence between Nevil Shute and the Society of Authors that was mentioned by Steve Van Dulken in earlier Newsletters. John has been in touch with Steve who works at the British Library as a Curator of Patents and is a keen Shute fan. Steve had previously unearthed several patents with Shute's name on them from R100 and Airspeed. I am sure Mike and John would welcome any assistance from other Shutists.
The Society of Authors folios contain all the Nevil Shute correspondence from 1923, when he joined, up to 1960 when he died. There are about 60 pages of letters. Steve's previous quick look at the papers revealed that Sharples was based on Blyth and also that Shute was impatient with post-war petrol (gas) rationing. Ever anxious to draw a tenuous link between Shute and Churchill, I will digress with a rationing story:
After the war, England continued to ration food into the 1950s. Churchill pressed to have the sugar ration dropped but was advised against it as there was a sugar shortage. Churchill, firmly believing in Supply and Demand, insisted the rationing be dropped and it was. In 6 months there was a glut of sugar.
John Forester of The USA, who says he can remember dishmops in England from as far back as 1937, writes:
The domestic arrangements described in No Highway are quite typical of British conditions at the date of the story, when recovery from WW 2 conditions had not progressed very far.
For example, the laboratory director owns a car, while the scientists appear not to.
Also, the flow of information was much sketchier; I can easily understand how the widowed scientist failed to work out effective dishwashing methods with the then-available tools.
Editor's Comment:
I have always enjoyed Shute's powers of observation and the way he creates such vivid images of life at the time of his novels. This may seem obvious but he was writing contemporary novels and I believe it is much harder to see the vital differences and notable things in contemporary life than it would be if you were researching a historical novel where the differences hit you in the face like wet fish.
However, Shute, writing what were for him contemporary novels, is discovered on reading them 50 or 60 years later, to have also been writing excellent and closely observed historical novels at the same time.
Shute was adamant that an author should look to the near future and not at the past and derided the historical novel so I am not sure what he would think of my praise of him as a great historical novelist.
Julian Stargardt of Hong Kong writes:
I recently had the pleasure of meeting through these pages a delightful American couple planning their first visit to Hong Kong.
I very much enjoyed the encounter and learnt a lot through it, as I hope they did too.
I also had, sometime ago, the good fortune to re-meet an old friend who re-located to Canada and found me through this site.
Ave Shutists or should it be Shutists Reunited?
Editor's Comment: Anyone who is planning to travel is welcome to announce their trip in the newsletter. Then anyone in or near their destination who wants to can contact them for a mini Shute conference at the nearest Starbucks. (I mention Starbucks only because I am a huge fan of their iced chocolate drinks - and consequently I am getting huge-er)
Simon Allen, one of the Shutists who took photos of Shute's 2nd home at 26 Corfton Rd, Ealing, writes:
I think it's important to say that Ealing is now one of THE most sought after places around London. The town was always that - a town - outside of London and separate to it.
London has expanded in the post war years to engulf Ealing and it is now part of 'greater London' as the conurbation is known. However, it still has a very distinct feel of being a separate place.
Because these are big suburban houses with gardens and yet still connected by the Underground (the Tube) system, their value is of the highest. For example, you can take the Central Line direct from Ealing in the financial district (The City) in 33 minutes (Tube info site) and that means that any house in this street will have been expanded, redeveloped, extended and ANYTHING to make it bigger!! These houses are almost in the Million Pound bracket. (=US$1.9 Million or Aud$2.5 Million) This place is heaving with money!
Regarding Shute's parents home around 1919, in Oakwood Court, Simon writes:
It is amusing that you ask about Oakwood Court. In a small way, as I used to live near by and know the buildings from the outside. In a larger way - because my grandparents used to live in Oakwood Court!
My mother was (I think) a teenager there but only much later during the second war. You can be assured that the Court does look like it used to. The gardens may be a bit different but the buildings are unchanged.
Oakwood Court is in the London suburb called "The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea" it is Royal because it contains Kensington Palace, which is where a number of the 'minor' Royals live there and, in her last years as a single woman, did Diana.
This is what my mother said:
We [her parents, herself and younger brother] all moved to Oakwood Court soon after the end of the war, late 1945 or early 1946. I married from there in 1949. I have a photo of my parents, me, Michael and Paul Bashford sitting in the private gardens in the middle of the square which were only for Oakwood Court residents.
They were what were called 'mansion flats' and very big - four bedrooms including a 'servant's room' off the huge kitchen!
Jack L Calaway writes:
Here's an amazing resource new to the web: worldcat.org
Andrew Banta writes:
I was poking around a used bookstore in the Denver, Colorado area and came across The Airship: Its Design, History, Operation and Future by Christopher Sprigg. The book was published by Samson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd, London. I can't find a date anywhere in the book but, reading carefully, it was written after the R101 disaster and before the decision to scrap the R100.
The thing I found most interesting is the discussion of how these large ships were actually flown. The description of mooring them is particularly interesting. The book also discusses how navigation was done in the 1930s. The chapter on economic analysis of commercial operation of large airships reads like an undergraduate report - albeit an A or A- report - but it is still interesting. Copies are available on the internet for about $40.
During another trip to the California coast I was looking a sailing ship models and commented that I had no real interest in ship models. Then it occurred to me it might be nice to have a model of the Runagate. I assume someone has built such a model. I would be interested in hearing about how it was done.
Editor's Comment:
You can find the airship book that Andy mentions on the Internet for around US$35.
I am unaware of the existence of any models of Runagate.
Anyone wishing to build one can contact me. I have some photos and general specifications.
Stuart Wier writes:
Can you tell me anything about Shute's schooner in England?
Is his English home open to the public?
Editor's Comment: Runagate was a 40-foot Hillyard Schooner built in 1939. There are pictures on the website. My most recent information is that Shutist Joost Meulenbroek has traced Runagate's ownership to about 3 years ago but we don't yet know where she is now.
Pond Head is a private house and not open to the public.
Charles D of The USA writes:
I just happened to look at the endorsements in the 1966 Perennial Library edition of On the Beach :I haven't been the same since I read it. It is a book everyone in America should read.... I have talked more about this book, since I read it, than any book in years...." -- Ernest K. Gann
Roger Harris writes:
If you enjoyed Fate is the Hunter, you might also like Gann's 'other' autobiographical work, A Hostage To Fortune (1978).
Dan Telfair of The Land Of Enchantment writes:
In response to your question "Were any American readers actually inspired to read more Shute because they were forced to read him as a school text?", and the several negative comments regarding the effect that OTB may have had on youthful readers, I will offer a second opinion.
I cannot claim to have been forced to read OTB as an impressionable high school student. By the time it was published, I had already been a high school dropout for several years. However, I did read it shortly after publication, and it was the impetus for all future involvement in Nevil's writing and work.
I was a product of THE ATOMIC AGE, and the GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION, learning to read for pleasure in the late forties to mid fifties; cutting my teeth on Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, et al. When OTB came out, it was listed as science fiction (British future fiction). When I read it, I thought I had discovered a new science fiction master, and immediately began searching for all his other books. Obviously, it turned out that he wasn't exactly a science fiction author, but it also turned out that he was the greatest storyteller I had ever read.
As an aside, the genre of Science Fiction was usually paired with "Fantasy", as in the venerable magazine Science Fiction and Fantasy. Fantasy usually included stories of mental telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, time travel, spiritual transmigration, etc. If you included all of those areas of fiction, Nevil fit right in with An Old Captivity, In The Wet, and The Rainbow and the Rose. Also, Science Fiction of the era was replete with end of the world stories, either from atomic self-annihilation, or being overwhelmed with BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters) from outer space. Nevil's story of a relatively peaceful end in Australia was almost a breath of fresh air - certainly nothing to be alarmed about.
In any event, OTB was my introduction to Nevil, the beginning of my collection, the original impetus for the Centennial and all gatherings since, the Foundation, etc. Let's give the devil its due.
Charles D of The USA writes:
I was one of the students who was introduced to On the Beach in movie form at school. I can't remember the context. I believe it must have been promoted by rightwing anti-communist interests because we lived in that kind of town, in that time of the century. I don't believe it was shown in the local commercial theatre. And we saw it pretty early in its release. I'm pretty certain that our teachers would not have been promoting pacifism. They wouldn't have dared. It may have had the desired effect on some, more military preparedness to deter Soviets. And to build anti-communist sentiment. I suppose it might even have helped Kennedy win, with his hoked up "missile gap".
I do believe that the idea of stocking individual backyard bomb shelters began to seem silly. But "Civil Defense" bomb shelters were maintained in many public buildings, with survival rations and etc. stored away for the coming cataclysm. These were finally emptied out just a few years ago. [I guess the Mormons still have them.] My first Nevil Shute book was The Legacy, (A Town Like Alice). I read that before On the Beach was published. I actually think that I put off reading On the Beach until I had read all the other Shute Novels. (Except the play, which I still haven't gotten past a few pages without putting it back.)
As it happens, the Public Library had a surplus book sale a few years ago, and I now own the very book that I first read in about 1957.
I often read Kevin Drum's blog at washingtonmonthly.com.
This below was posted by: John A. Knox on August 4, 2006 at 9:23 PMThe most realistic portrayal of a scientist I may have ever seen in film was by... Jimmy Stewart (!), in No Highway in the Sky (1951, based on a Nevil Shute novel). He plays a Rhodes Scholar engineer, and Stewart's got all the traits of the scientist/engineer down pat, from the peculiar, brisk hunched walk to the only-a-scientist-would-do-it practicality of cracking a walnut in a doorjamb!
The movie isn't great, but Stewart's performance is spot-on. He reminded me powerfully of a meteorologist friend from my Ph.D. days at the University of Wisconsin, who looks absolutely nothing like Stewart.
Re: admirability, the plot has Stewart trying to save lives by halting the flight of a plane near the point of metal fatigue failure (a very real concern back in the early days of aviation, and even now). So the film captures not just what a scientist/engineer is like in everyday life, but also (in somewhat exaggerated form) the crusading aspect many scientists exhibit in various forms in real life.
"Apollo 13" is the best engineering film I've ever seen, hands-down. No Highway in the Sky has a somewhat different character because Stewart is a lone-wolf researcher, more in the mould of an independent scientist than a member of a team of engineers on a big project.
Editor's Comment: Although many are annoyed by Stewart being cast in
No Highway
because it seemed to Hollywood-ize and internationalise the main character in what should have been an essentially British film about a man who didn't get out much, it is interesting to see his performance being assessed from a complete outsiders (non-Shute-fan) point of view.
Regardless of whether you believe his casting was true to the character in the book, and I don't, it is clear that Stewart, once cast, did his very best to make his character in the film work.
Alexandra Kingman writes:
I am researching my SHUTE ancestry and would be interested to know how the SHUTE name related to Nevil Shute Norway.
My SHUTE ancestors were born in London, Christchurch, Surrey and one branch moved to Chilvers Coton, in Nuneaton Warwickshire.
Editor's Comment: In another example of Shute inspired coincidences, I had just received the above email and was lamenting that we seem to have lost contact with Bruce McDonald who was tracing Shute's ancestors when I received this next email below.
Bill Johnson of The UK writes:
I am the researcher at Bodmin Jail in Cornwall, England and have recently written and published a book, The History of Bodmin Jail (ISBN 0-9549913-1-1).
Since then I have been studying some of the famous cases connected with the jail, including the murder of Nevill Norway.
As part of a jail exhibit, I have made a partial family tree of the Norway's from about 1750 to 1900; this of course, includes both Nevill Norway, who was murdered in 1840, and Neville Shute.
On your website, Shute's daughter Shirley states that Nevill (1840) had a wife named Jean. In fact, Nevill Norway married his cousin, Sarah and they had at least six children. (Sarah died of 'disease of the hart' (sic) also in 1840.) The children were cared for by Maria Norway, Sarah's sister, who later married Edmond Norway (Nevill's brother). (This is the man who had the dream about the murder, not John as stated in Shirley's presentation.) See 'Cornish Characters and Strange Events' by S. Baring-Gould.
The eldest child of Nevill and Sarah, Arthur Stanbury Norway (1831-1886) later married Georgina Shute and their second child was Arthur Hamilton Norway, father of Neville Shute. This makes Neville Shute the great-grandson of the murdered Nevill Norway.
If you would like a hard copy of the exhibit in the Jail, together with notes and dates, for background information or publication on your website, I would be happy to provide it.
Editor's Comment: Bill has since sent me the documents and I have thanked Bill profusely for his generosity and hard work. The documents which will go on the website at the next update.
Julian Stargardt of Hong Kong writes:
I've been reading Alexander Frater's whimsical account of his 1986(?) re-tracing of Imperial Airway's UK - Australia route. It should appeal to Shutists and I thoroughly recommend it.
Shutists might be interested in pages 107 - 108 (Penguin edition) where Frater tells the tale of Freddy Bosworth and the beginnings of Gulf Air based in Bahrain, a remarkably similar story to the tale in Round the Bend with the development of the fictional Bahrain based airline.
Editor's Comment: Clear similarities between fiction and reality can be read on Gulf Air's website that says: "Gulf Air has come a long way since it launched services in 1950 as Gulf Aviation Company. Owned by the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Sultanate of Oman the airline started as a small scale commuter service, serving the oil fields of the Gulf and some regional customers."
Here we have a small airline serving the oil fields being invested in by the local royalty.
Andy Burgess of The UK has found Shute's birthplace using Google Earth and writes:
For those who cannot get there in person you can view Shute's birthplace (from above at least) Simply type:
51 30 29.68 N 0 18 55.79 W
in the search box and click on GO.
I have tried this myself and it works.
In fact it is quite spooky how it slowly zeros in on the house!
You must not put in any 'degrees' symbols as they don't work.
For further info you can go to the 'Help' menu.
Alternatively if you zoom in on Ealing you can manoeuvre the pointer and watch the co-ordinates in the bottom left of the screen until they line up.
Editor's Comment:
Readers who don't have Google earth can download it for free from
earth.google.com
To go to the locations, make sure you copy the coordinates exactly as written here (use cut and paste) or it might not work.
Google earth will then take you straight to Shute's birthplace, the intellectual and literary centre of the earth.
(well, for me anyway - sort of, - that is, if you don't count my house)
To fly to Alice Springs, the venue for the next conference, go to:
23 42' S, 133 52' E
I believe I have found Shute's address at the corner of Robertson Road in Langwarrin in Australia. It looks like it in all respects except the outbuildings don't quite look right but that may be the effect of looking at it from directly above. Go to:
38 11 39.72 S, 145 12 51.95 E
To fly to my house in Sydney, Australia go to:
33 53 01.59 S, 151 13 20.72 E
Gene Scribner writes:
Beyond the Black Stump is one of my favourites. It is a fascinating story about people with different cultures, climate, and beliefs etc. interacting in interesting and I think realistic ways. I am reading it for the third time simply because it never crossed my mind that it might be anti-American and I wanted to see what caused that impression. I think that many of the characters are anti-American and reasonably so, but that does not make Nevil Shute or the book anti-American! If one looks at what is said and done from the local people's point of view there judgments are just and reasonable.
As the old Nevil Shute dust jackets and book covers website has vanished and doesn't look like returning, I have decided to start collecting covers.
Ideally we will end up with a new page for the website.
If anyone wants to assist me, please contact me.
If you find covers on the Internet, just paste them into an email and send them to me.
If you scan covers, please do so at only 72dpi so the files don't get too huge.
Charles D. of Mississippi, The USA, has started me off with a rare and rather sexy Round The Bend paperback cover from the good old days when a paperback only cost 35 cents.
Please check the website www.atlanticgb.co.uk/alice/ for periodic updates. Our conference numbers are climbing. The more, the merrier! If you haven't already done so, please contact me at lauraschneider1@aol.com to let me know if you're joining us.
...To Alison's Mastermind Questions.
The Answers are those given by Alison.
The Comments in brackets are by the question master.
With this issue I have now been editing the newsletter for 3 years.
The newsletter is a continuing pleasure for me and I am honoured that so many of you actually read it.
Naturally I want to thank Nevil Shute most of all for giving us all so much to think about.
Richard Michalak
richardmichalak@primusonline.com.au
Nevil Shute Foundation Newsletter Editor and Historian
Write in if you want your name listed and would like to get together with other Shutists in your vicinity.
Jim Wells
lives in Lindfield, Sydney
Richard Michalak
lives in Paddington, Sydney
Ruth Pearson
lives in Adelaide
Neil Wynes Morse
lives in Canberra
Bruce A Clarke lives in Bangkok
Jim & Kristi Woodward
live in Broken Arrow (east of Tulsa), Oklahoma, USA.
Priscilla Pruitt
lives near Bellingham, Washington State
(Priscilla will move to Thousand Oaks near LA in 2006)
Bill McCandless
lives in Joliet near Chicago.
Joy Hogg, Harrietta Michigan (northern lower Michigan, near Traverse City and Cadillac)
Copyright 2006 � Nevil Shute Foundation
