1959 registered at the G.P.O., Perth, for transmission by post as a periodical. TWO SHILLINGS EVERYTHING NEEDED in the Drawing Office • . Alliance sensitized materials, Ebonax-dyeline, Ferazo-semi dry blueprinit, Pherax-wet process blue, Trutolyne-ammonia, and linens, also trans­ parent papers and linens. Alliaince drawing materials, instruments, and equipment. The largest selection of plan reproduction equipment in Australia. Distributors of New Alliance Draft­ ing Machines, Edge Binding Machines, etc., and all Rondon products. and Art Studio . The widest selection of Artists' Oil and Water Colours, poster colours, brushes, painting easels, cartridge and water colour papers, drawing blocks, graphite, coloured and carbon pencils, Conte crayons, black sanguine and white pastels and coloured inks, wood carving and line tools. HARDING & HALDEN Pty. Ltd. DYLINE, BLUEPRINT, PHOTOSTAT AND BARCRO SPECIALISTS 537 WELLINGTON STREET, PERTH Branches all States. Phone 21 6680. westerly PUBLISHED THREE TIMES A YEAR BY THE ARTS UNION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA contents no. 1, 1959 STORIES CUTTING PLUG Max Brown 3 THE LIE A. E. Sturges 16 POETRY ONCE I RODE \\'irH CLANCY ... Dorothy Hewett 2 THE CATS Francis King 7 As YOUNG AS I WAS Griffith Watkins 15 I PITY THE VIRGIN PHYLLIS John O'Brien 1.5 FROM THE LOVE SONGS OF WILLIAM Ross translated by Hugh Laing 19 "RALLAD" John O'Brien 19 ARTICLES THE BIG LEAP FORWARD Dymphna Cusack 5 THE STAMP OF GREATNESS Jeana Bradley S 100 YEARS OF DARWINISM N. H. Brittan 11 U'YBURN Katharine Susannah Prichard 14 NOTES 20 REVIEWS PENGUIN ROOK OF AUSTRALIAN VERSE Alec King 22 SEVEN EMUS (Herbert) Peter Abotomey 23 ANTIPODES IN SHOES (Button) David Bradley 24 SPAN David Hutchison 26 VERSE IN AUSTRALIA, 1958 Gaye Tennent 27 ARTISTS Judith Charsley (cover), John Wilson, Cedric Baxter BUSINESS MANAGER Diana Robinson EDITOR Bruce Lawson WESTERLY 1 once I rode with Clancy... NCE I rode with Clancy through the wet hills of Wickcpin, O By Kunjin and Corrigin with moonlight on the roofs. And the iron shone faint and ghostly on the lonely moonlit siding And the salt earth ranfi like crystal underneath our flying hoofs. # « # O once I rode with Clancy when my white flesh was tender, And my hair a golden cloud along the wind. Among the hills of ^^'ickepin, the dry salt plains of Corrigin, Where all my Quaker forbears strove and sinned. # « # Their black hats- \\'ent bobbing through the Kunjin churchyard, With great rapacious noses, sombre-eyed, Ringbarked gums and planted pine trees, built a raw church In a clearing, made it consecrated ground because tliey died. » * * From this seed I spring—the dour, sardonic Quaker men, The women with hooked noses, baking bread. Breeding, hymning, sowing, fencing off the stony earth, That salts tlieir bones for thanksgiving when they're dead. # # » It's a country full of old men, with thumbscrews on their hunger. Their crosses leaning sideways in the scrub. My cousins spit to wind\\ard, great noses blue with moonlight. Their shoulders propping up the Kunjin pub. ONCE I rode with Clancy through the wet hills of Wickepin, O By Kunjin and Corrigin with moonlight on the roofs. And the iron shone faint and ghostly on the lonely, moonlit siding And the salt earth rang like crystal underneath our flying hoofs. .\nd the old men rose muttering and cursed us from the graveyard Mlien they saw our wild white hoofs go flashing b>'. For I rode with landless Clancy and their prayers were at my back, They could shout out strings of curses on the sky. # # <t B\' \Vickepin, by Corrigin, by Kunjin's Hinty hills. On wild white hoofs that kindle into flame. The ri^•e^ is my mirror, the wattle tree our roof. b^ Dorothr Heweli Adrift across our bed like golden rain. The old men clack and mutter and their dead eyes run with rain. I hear the crack of doom across the scrub. For though I ride with Clancy there is much of me remains. In the moonlit dust outside the Kunjin pub. # * « My golden hair has faded, my tender flesh is dark, -My voice has learned a; wet and windy sigh And I lean above the creekbed, catch my breath upon a ghost. With a great rapacious nose and sombre e>e. DOHOIHY HEWETT: for biographical detail see Xotes. 2 WESTERLY cutting plug b y M a X B r o w n HE REV. JOHN FERGUSON, the full What's he got his eye on me for this time? mature six foot of him, dimbed into the thought Davie as his father settled in at his T sulky. Then young Davie Ferguson flip­ side. The old beggar's always got his eye on ped the reins on Nigger's flanks and the somebody. Even in church when he's pray­ brown mare, neat and 17 hands, broke into ing, he's seeing who's looking and who's not, a smart trot. and what kids is up to mischief. By Jingo, he can wallop with that new riding crop he's MAX BROWN i.s a short story writer nnd novelist at i)i'esent got behind the pantry door. Out of the working on the literary staff of the West Australian, the corner of his eye, Davie could see his father Perth daily morning newspaper. Two of his books are Australian Son and Wild Turkey. searching, his coat pockets. First he tried the WESTERLY right, tlien the left. He wants his pipe, Tell him a lie? Tell him he didn't have thought Davie. a pipe when ten to one the old man knew His father searched his trouser pockets, lie had and the pipe and half a plug of Vic­ then slapped both coat pockets loudly. What tory were bloody-near burning a hole in his now? thought Davie. He'll be telling me to pants pocket? Davie remembered the crop turn back and well never get to Guildford. and shuddered again at the memory of the lash of it and the power of his father's big At last, John Ferguson spoke while Davie lean Presbyterian body. looked up at his stern l:)ulk. The old man's e\'e was a trifle too bright for his liking. He coughed and took the reins in his left hand and fished in his pocket with his right. Well Davie, bless my very soid if I haven't And let me have the use of your tobacco left my pipe on the dresser. Lend me yours tohile you are at it. so I can enjoy the ride this fine spring morn­ ing. So he knew he had tobacco too. As Davie reached deeper in his pocket, the sulky Young Davie drojaped his eyes and swal­ drummed onto the timber of the river bridge lowed. Now how did the old geezer know and the clip-clop from Nigger's hooves rattled he had a pipe? Somebody had snitched on against the green sides of the gully and a him; somebody must have seen him and magpie carolled among the yellow wattles. Charlie Fisher. They had been smoking pretty solid for a week now and smoking Davie looked in his father's face as the real stuff too. And somebody must have straight as he could and handed up a small snitched. clay pipe with broken stem and his plug with its little plate of tin, stamped Victory. One day he would leave home for that look in his father's eye. Thank you nv son. What a convenience ;T COAST to have in the family a young whipper- snapper who imagines himself a grown nmn. At that, John Ferguson's big hand closed A West Australian anthology on the pipe and the plug, his big arm made selected by an imperial gesture towards the ranges and H. Drake-Brockman the pipe arched through the spring air and hit the water of the Helena River with Stories by writers from the West, including scarcely a splash. such famous names as Murdoch, Prichard, Then John Ferguson slipped his hand into Casey, as well as monj' notable younger writers. his coat picket and fished out his browned A most interesting, indeed an impressive meerschaum pipe and placed it in his mouth collection. (The West Australian.) to hold between his strong teeth with quiet satisfaction. Then John Ferguson fished in his trouser AT ALL BOOKSELLERS pocket and pulled out a horn-handled knife and opened the blade with the strong nail of his right thumb. Published by This done, he looked straight ahead along Angus and Robertson Ltd., Sydney. his earthly path. He didn't have to watch when he was cutting plug. WESTERLY China today the big leap forward dare walk at night; Plongkong with its "beware of by Dymphna Cusack pickpockets" notices, its touts, its pimps, its pros­ titutes in every doorway, its beggars on every foot­ path; its Chinese with faces closed against us. While here, we were the subject of a welcoming curiosity. Peking—surrounded by drought-stricken country HE moment I stepped back on Chinese soil after —was leajiing as fast as anywhere else. Everywhere si\ months in Australia, I knew that something you saw the symbol: sometimes it was a horse strid­ T extraordinary was in the air. ing proudly across the clouds; sometimes a dragon '"So you've some back to see our Da Yueh Jin," breasting the waves. Every wall in Peking and the they said to me at the border. I hastily translated surrounding countryside overniglit it seemed bloss­ the words in my mind, for it was a phrase I hadn't omed in colour and life.