Charles Ulm (right) was Charles Kingsford Smith’s co-pilot, business partner and loyal friend

I have just finished reading Charles Ulm by Rick Searle, which is described in its cover copy line as ‘The untold story of one of Australia’s greatest aviation pioneers’.

This statement is, of course, patently incorrect. Charles Ulm’s story was told in 1987 by Ellen Rogers, his long time secretary and friend, in her book, Faith in Australia. And again in 2012 by Michael Molkentin after John Ulm had donated his family archives and memorabilia to the National Library of Australia. While all three published versions of this fascinating story give the facts, figures and historical details, there is so much more to tell. Where is the sense of who Charles Ulm was, as a person? Where are the details of how he felt, the descriptions of what he saw? It is not as if we have no way of knowing these things. The log books he meticulously kept, scribbled in pencil as he sat in the cabin of the bucking, vibrating  Southern Cross throughout the first ever crossing of the Pacific Ocean, give us this sense of Ulm as a human being. Sometimes terrified, sometimes elated, cold, hungry, exhausted. Thanks to John Ulm we can simply go to the National Library and read these unique documents for ourselves. But the National Library is in Canberra and for those of us who don’t live there it is a long and expensive trip to make. We need someone who has made the trip, read the log books, listened to the family stories to do this for us.

‘Somebody has to come along and spin a story around science, so that we can take it into our lives.’ (Richard Powers in The Paris Review)

This quote also applies to history. Books, films, plays can take history to places that empiricism can’t get to. Somebody has to spin a yarn about historical events for the academics, historians, scientists and others to understand the full impact of these events. On Wings of Steel is still, painfully, on ice at the National Library. And the essential vitality is still missing from the story of Charles Ulm.

Refrigerators had not been invented when Clara went out to the new diggings at Fly Flat

It takes a lot of determination to succeed at anything you want to do. But sometimes determination is the very thing that holds you back.

I discovered this while writing my latest novel based on the life of Clara Saunders who, at 14 years of age, was one of only two women among the two thousand men who flocked to the new diggings that would become Coolgardie. Hers is a rare female story among the fascinating, but very ‘blokey’ tall tales, myths and bush ballads that have survived from the gold rush days of the 1890s.

After discovering her ‘Memories’ in the Battye Library early in 2016 I was determined to tell Clara’s  story. In the pages of her transcribed journal, her voice comes through loud and clear. The pages are full of wry humour, passion and a pragmatic acceptance of the incredible hardships endured by all those ordinary people who ventured out into the desert in search of the elusive gold. But in spite of my great admiration for her courage and my burning desire to bring her story out from the shadowy archives, after two years work the manuscript was going nowhere. It was not until Cate Sutherland suggested that I needed to use Clara’s 14 year old voice, not her ‘lady voice’ which was the one she used when she wrote her ‘Memories’ in an old exercise book much later in her long life.

It is now clear to me that everyone has more than one voice! In fact everyone has a number of voices, each one slightly different but still uniquely their own. Thanks Cate.

There are three bearded members of the Chandler family in these pictures, circa 1979

Some years ago I submitted a picture book text about a man shaving off his beard. At the time beards were not in fashion and many of the children in my friend’s Pre Primary class were fascinated by the shaving cream she had introduced to one of her art activities. My friend and I often tossed around new ideas to engage her lively, active group and teach them some science, history, maths etc along the way. Inspired by the children’s interest in shaving cream I went home and wrote a story.

My story was about a 5yr old whose uncle, an archaeologist, had been working in the remote Kimberlys for over a year. When the boys mother heard that her ‘baby’ brother was coming to stay with them for a few days she was very excited. The boy had only rarely seen his uncle and had no memories of him, but he went with the rest of the family to pick him up at the airport. There were the usual delays to heighten the anticipation. Finally his uncle arrived. The boy took one look at the 186cm, re-haired, bushy bearded man embracing his mother, and freaked out. They managed to calm the boy down and when they finally arrived home, the uncle headed straight for the shower. He washed off the red dust, then shaved off his beard. The boy, still tentative but fascinated, was unable to resist peeping around the bathroom door.

In the text the shaving process is graphically described. What the boy doesn’t know is that his uncle can see him in the mirror and decides to have a game with him. With his face half shaven the uncle suddenly turns around and a running, squealing chase through the house and garden ensues. Needless to say the boy and his uncle become friends. When I submitted the story to my publisher, however, one member of the commissioning panel asked, ‘Does Elaine Forrestal have something against men with beards?’ I was gob-smacked! How could a family story about a small boy, scared but fascinated by the shaving process and ending in a fun chase through his house and garden, during which they become friends, possibly be seen as an inditement of men with beards?

The story has never been published, but I’m over my shell-shock now. Once my Clara Saunders story is finished, I might fish Uncle Wilbur out of my bottom drawer.