Can a great book be made into a very good film? On Chesil Beach

I had good reasons for seeing the 2017 film On Chesil Beach. Firstly Ian McEwan is one of the most intriguing modern novelists I have read, espec­ial­ly his 2007 novella of the same name! Secondly the brilliant film Atone­ment was based on Ian McEwan's 2001 novella Atonement and starred, amongst others, Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan. Thirdly Chesil Beach was set in 1962, an intriguing time that came just before my personal “Golden Era” of 1965-1970. Finally the book was quite rightly shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007, my best guide for selecting novels to read every year.

Author McEwan did the screenplay adaptation, and the film was dir­ected by Dominic Cooke.

The newlywed stars on their honeymoon were both anxious virgins. The new wife was Florence Ponting, a talented and ambitious viol­inist, and the new husband was Edward Mayhew. I remember my grand mother talking about the dangers of sex before marriage, but who discussed the terror of sexual intimacy after marriage?

Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle, the young stars of Chesil Beach

I assumed “Chesil Beach” was a fanciful location for the film's honeymoon hotel .. because I had never heard the name outside McEwan's novel. Now it turns out that the 18 miles of protected pebble beach along the Dorset coast is real. And famous! What an appropriate and moody location for a brief marriage that ended after a night of disast­rous non-sex. Florence and Edward Mayhew, who came from dif­f­erent backgrounds, had an idyllic courtship. But they never got to consum­mate their marriage, breaking up in tears before doing the deed.

Saoirse Ronan (born 1994) was an inspired Florence, daughter of a wealthy but icy cold family. The Irish act­ress knew how to express an innocence and repress­ion, while rem­aining outwardly charming. The actress herself expl­ained that she had been too young to read McEwan’s book when it had first been released. She was also too young to deal with this very intimate topic and acknowledged that it had to be told in a delic­ate way. Perhaps Ronan didn’t even know about the societal pressure that could accompany physical intimacy back in 1962.

Theatre actor Billy Howle (born 1989) played a character whose work­ing class father was a teacher, while his mother was damaged in an accident; their home was more informal and closer to nature than Florence’s posher background. Edward was a recent university grad­uate (in history) and had decided to become an author. 

Looking down from Abbotsbury Hill onto Chesil Beach, Dorset

Photo credit: The Guardian

Transmission gives a synopsis with extra information that I could not have elucidated myself.  It was a gripping, heart-rending account of a loving relationship battered by outside forces and influences first formed in child­hood, in a society with inflexible rules about uniformity & respectability. They married as virgins: two very different people, but deeply in love. Only hours after their wedding they found themselves at their dull, formal honeymoon hotel on the Dor­set coast at Chesil Beach. They dined in their room, and their conversation became stilted and nervous. 

The consummation of their marriage was fast approaching, and while Edward welcomed the prosp­ect of sexual intimacy, Florence was scared by it. The tension between them boiled over into a heated argument as Florence tried to repel Edward’s advances. She dashed from the room, out of the hotel and on to Chesil Beach, with Edward in pursuit. On a remote part of the beach they had a blazing argument about the profound differences between them. One of them made a startling decision that would have life-long consequences for them both.

But as often happened in the film world, it took a long time for the book to make the transition to the big screen. Yet producer Elizabeth Karlsen had been interested in a film adaptation of the beaut­ifully written novel, even before the On Chesil Beach book was first published.

She noted the simplicity of narrative and the clarity of emot­ion that was already visible. Finding Dominic Cooke, one of Britain’s most eminent theatre directors, Artistic Director at the Royal Court and Associate Director at the National Theatre, was inspired. Cooke was impressed by how the film conveyed the importance of how people talk, or don’t talk about sex, and how people are affected by their upbringings.

Ian McEwan and some of his most famous novels,

Wall St Journal

In 2008, after weeks of concentrating on the job at hand, I created a list of my most loved novels. If I was asked to re-create a favourite list a decade later, it probably would not be very different. But I would certainly have included an Ian McEwan novel or two.

And yes, great books can be made into very good films!

The late Thelma Webberley, a very fine journalist

Thelma Komesaroff (1923-2015) was a student at University High, a selective school in Melbourne that encouraged its students to stay at school, even throughout the Great Depression and the 1939-45 World War. At a time when most girls and some boys were encouraged to leave school at the minimum legal age, Thelma finished Matricul­ation and was offered a place in the prestigious University of Melbourne. Her passion was English and Russian Literature.

  

Thelma and Les, post retirement

The University did not close during the war, but students whose husbands, fiancés and fathers were recruited into the Armed Serv­ic­es felt obligated to get paying jobs. Thelma married Lieutenant Les Webb­erley (1922-2015) in 1945; she continued working in a city bookshop when Les returned to University after demobilisation, to finish his engine­er­ing deg­ree. 

Once their babies were out of napp­ies, Thelma bec­ame a journalist at The Australian Jewish Herald, pub­lished weekly in Melbourne. After 18 years of columns on music, the arts, travel and community organisations, Thelma took the opport­un­ity to go back to Melbourne University, this time to earn a deg­ree in Journalism. And this time with her daughter (me) on the same campus!

I have already documented Thelma’s community work. Courage to Care offered workshops, presentations, exhibition viewing and facil­it­at­ed discussions designed for high school students. And one section of Bnai Brith Victoria provided scholarships for teach­ers to travel to Israel and to learn in in-depth teaching programmes.

But I have not discussed the rest of Thelma's professional career, intended to be spent as a journalist in tertiary educational institutions.  Only one mid-career move was a surprise, still as a journalist but not in a tertiary educational institution. Thelma was given 3 years to write a history of the Victorian Chamber of Manu­fact­urers in Melbourne, starting in the 1870s in Melbourne. In August 1881 it became the Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers/VCM. It remained an unincorpor­ated association until 1922, when it was incorporated under the Victorian Companies Act. VCM played a role in Australian industrial relations and within a couple of years the Australian Chamber of Manufactur­ers formed the Manufacturing Grocers' Section.

The VCM wanted a book that could be published in time for the cent­ury anniversary of the organisation. The final version of the book ENTERPRISE, 100 Years of the VCM was written by Thelma Webberley, edited by CF Sullivan and published in 1979.

The Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers

across the state of Victoria

Book Orphanage says the book is a hard­cover, 10½" x 7½", with dark-blue cloth-bound boards with gold title to spine, 218 pages, photo­graphs and a foreword by the Premier of Victoria. This book traces the first century of the VCM, which started in one hotel room and, at the time of writing, had 6,000 members and wide influence in industrial matters in Victoria.

Now to the book launch itself. Printed sheets were added inside the book saying Many people contributed to the preparation of this history of the first 100 years of The Victorian Chamber of Manu­factures. Among the members of VCM staff who cont­rib­­ut­ed to the production of the History, were Mr CF Sullivan and Mrs T Webberley. Mr Sullivan was resp­onsible for guiding the com­pilation of the material included in this work while Mrs Webb­erley, in writing the text, did so with great enthusiasm and dedication.

The Foreword was written by the Premier of Victoria, the Honourable RJ Hamer. I was particularly interested to hear the premier say inter alia that the Chamber was interested in technical education, being part of the Administrative Staff College, Council of Public Education, Council of Melbourne University and its Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Victorian Institute of Secondary Education, Victorian University and Schools Education Board.

There are 17 chapters in the book, covering the era of the first men with the first visions (eg Robert Harper, the Chamb­er’s first president) until the completion of the Chamber’s an­n­iversary and its plans for the future. My personal favour­ites were the chapters set in the post-war years and the 1950s, discus­s­ing the Prime Min­is­t­er, The Right Honourable Mr Chifley, socialism, unions and indust­rial­isation. This was a very influential era for my family, and for the primary schools we all went to. 

After the formal speeches in front of Victoria’s dignitaries at the book launch, Thelma Webberley gave the best speech of her profess­ional career. And no time before or since had she ever had three State Ministers shaken her hand on one day!

A separate letter to Thelma Webberley was written directly from Brian Powell, Director of the VCM. Mr Powell’s inv­it­ation to the function on 2nd May 1980 was to thank Thelma in front of the VCM staff, for her writing of the book. That function would mark the internal release of the VCM history “Enterprise”.

The books, printed sheets acknowledging the authorship and editor­ship, and the Director’s personal invitation to Thelma all came to me in my late mother’s library. They are treasured items. Plus I was delighted to find a Victorian Chamber of Manuf­acturers’ Certificate of Membership at the National Wool Museum in Geelong.

 ENTERPRISE, 100 Years of the VCM

    

A Decade of Achievement: Phillip Ins­tit­ute of Tech­nol­ogy

As I said, Thelma intended to spent the rest of her career as a journalist in tertiary education. And she did! Phillip Institute offered Arts, Commerce, Business, Engineering, Social Work and Youth Work. Readers can enjoy Thelma’s career at PIT in Brian Car­r­oll’s A Decade of Achievement: Phillip Ins­tit­ute of Tech­nol­ogy. Starting his history in 1982, Carroll documented the important contributions made by Thelma's closest colleagues Professor Don Edgar, Betty Churcher (Head of the School of Art and Design) and Henry Talbot (Senior Lecturer in Photography). Carroll highlighted the quarterly magazine Upfront that was written by Thelma, the means by which the Institute reached out to the local community and northern suburban newspapers.

Later Thelma worked with students and wrote journal artic­l­es, books and newspaper columns at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technol­ogy (now RMIT University). In preparation for RMIT's School of Media and Communication to be developed within the College of Design and Social Context, the journalists and publishers had to work very hard. The School event­ually hosted advertising, audio-visual, communic­ation, creative writing, editing and publishing, film and television, journalism, music industry, photography and public relations.

Bruges, a perfectly preserved medieval Belgian city

Bruges (pop 120,000) was founded in the north of Belgium in the C9th by Vikings who settled locally. A town developed around the fort­ress that the Counts of Flanders built in the area and the young settle­ment worked hard to acquire city rights. In fact a very prot­ective city wall was built around Bruges, with solid gates.

The settle­ment very quickly became an imp­or­tant har­bour close to the North Sea. Inside the city, the river and canals became the vital communic­ation links. By the C14th Bruges was the starting point of a commercial transport road to the Rhineland; traders from all over came to sell their pro­ducts and to buy Flemish cloth.

Markt Place, outdoor coffee shops and sculpture (top)

The Beguinage  (second photo)

Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the Ger­man Hans­eatic League dominated Baltic maritime trade for three cent­ur­ies along the Northern European coast. Bruges bec­ame a port of even greater importance when it joined the Hanseatic League.

St Saviour’s Church was founded in C10th and added to later eg the high alt­ar is C17th. Serious fires may have been the result of wars, accidents or iconoclastic de­struct­ion. But some lovel­y part of this church still stand: C15th choir stalls with the Knights of the Golden Fleece’s arms, or­g­an, clois­ters and treasury.

The Beguinage was founded by Margaret of Constantinople, countess of Fl­an­ders in the mid C13th. Some women were the bereft widows or daughters of knights killed in the Holy Crusades, women who did not want to be secluded nuns but who wanted to do good works. The Beguinage is still a green space and lovely white­washed hous­es; the Beguine Museum enables visitors to feel the C13th.

Markt Place is a central, large square used for all social and political act­iv­it­ies. On one side, the med­ieval bel­fry looms 272' over Markt Place, the proud symbol of the wealth of Bruges since 1282. And there were renovations added during C15th glory days. Inside the belfry, see the trea­s­­ury room; then up 366 steps, past the C18th car­il­l­­on and onto the roof. The 47 bells chime each day.

On the east side of the square is the neo-Gothic Provincial Palace. From 1850, it was used to house the provin­cial govern­ment meetings. Then it became a government meet­ing hall and now a ceremonial building-exhibition space.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood (mid C12th) was built on the site that the First Count of Flan­d­ers built his fort. It did­n't become a chapel until the bones of St Basil the Great AND Holy Blood of Jesus Christ were brought from the Holy Land or Constant­inople (C12th). The ground floor of this double church has its original darkish Romanesque character, while the upper chapel is a totally Gothic storey built in the C15th.

The relic of the Holy Blood is always in the upper chapel, in a tiny cryst­al phial with a golden stopper hung with silver chains. Only on May’s Ascension Day does it move around the town in proud process­ion. The re­l­ic is the respon­s­ib­il­ities of the Con­frat­­ernity of the Precious Blood, town worth­ies celebrated in Pieter Pourbus’ Triptych of the Broth­erhood.

By C14th, Bruges, Ghent and Ypres were the three centres of Belg­ium's amazing cloth trade, using first class raw English wool, ideally suited for weaving Flanders’ lux­ury cloth. Banking and mer­ch­ant houses from all over Europe thrived in Brug­es. The population boomed!

Joined to the Holy Blood Basilica is the old Town Hall. It was built from light cream sand­stone in the Gothic style in the late C14th. The facade has octagonal tur­rets, arched and ribbed windows, and statues of all the counts of Flanders. The Gothic Hall above has stunning mur­als depicting the major events in Brug­es’ history.

Basilica of the Holy Blood, exterior (top) and 

Gothic upper chapel with blood relic (below)

Next door is the more cl­ass­ic­al Palace of Justice. Except for the Magistrates’ Hall, the first building was destroy­ed. The Palace was rebuilt in the 1528-81 per­iod. Other buildings in Burg Square are the Prov­ost's House and the Old Recorder's House, a fine renais­s­ance building topped with statues repres­ent­ing justice.

And see the Church of Notre Dame. Work began on the nave and aisles in c1230 but, typically, more changes were made in the 14th and C15th. The huge tower is 122ms high! Inside Notre Dame Ch­urch is Michelangelo's only known scul­p­tural piece in Belgium, Virgin and Child 1504 in marble. It was brought from Tuscany by a Flemish merchant.

Opposite Our Lady Church is St John’s Hospital, founded in 1188 and one of the oldest in Europe. It still funct­ions as a hospital tod­ay, but a dispensar­y and an old ward have been fitted out as they were back then. In one of the hosp­ital’s old chapels the Hans Mem­ling Museum is located. This artist spent most of his career in Bruges.

Among the amazing coll­ection of Mem­ling paint­ings to be found in Bruges is the altar­piece called The Mys­tic Marriage of St Cath­erine 1479, painted for the Hospi­tal of St John chapel, as was the Mad­onna and Child 1487 and the Hospitallers of St John. The wood­en Rel­iqu­ary of St Urs­ula 1489 is a portable Gothic shrine to Ursula’s 11,000 martyred virgins, covered with exquisite panels.

Bruges was THE creative centre for many of the great Flemish paint­ers, especially when Duke Philip the Good (ruled 1419-67) was com­miss­ion­ing art. Hans Memling, plus Jan van Eyck painted his stun­­n­ing al­tar­piece Adora­t­ion of the Mystic Lamb in Brug­es (1432). Hugo van der Goes (1440-82) also worked in Bruges and left his Portarini Al­tar­piece c1475, paint­ed for a rich Italian banker working in Bruges. Groen­in­ge Museum is a 1930 build­ing with a fine collec­t­ion of Flemish Old Masters: Jan van Eyck, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, Pet­rus Christus, David Gerard, Pieter Pourbus and Hieronymus Bosch. And some C17th Dutch art.

St John's Hospital and Memling Museum along one of the canals

St John Altarpiece by Hans Memling

The decline of Bruges' wealth started in C15th: terrible silt­ing up of the Zwin meant that ships could no longer transport goods to and from Bruges. Plus competition with the bigger harbour of Antwerp resulted in less comm­ercial act­iv­ity. Sadly the coun­try's wealth­iest merchants left Br­ug­es and took their business to An­twerp. The only building flourish were houses and ware­houses with step­ped gables that were built along the canals throughout the C17th.

Today this economic failure to thrive has had an ir­on­ic effect. Bruges was snap-frozen in time and is the best preserved medieval city in western Europe. Even the solid medieval town walls were only torn down in the mid C19th.

The C20th has brought new life because tourists love the medieval heritage, and chocolate. The new harbour of Zeebrugge, 16ks from the city, also brought new industries. Bruges is also home to many interesting art galleries eg The Absolute Art Gallery which promotes the artwork of young and talented Belgian artists, and of international artists - paintings, sculptures, installations and photographs. But the greatest modern fame came from the film, In Bruges (2008), that starred two Irish hit­men, filmed across the city’s iconic cityscape.

The Bruges Triennial 2018 | Liquid City will gather artists and architects from around the world  to leave their mark on the city's public space. From May-September 2018, impressive constructions of contemporary artists and architects will appear in the historic heart of the city.

The kangaroo in WW1 - nationalist pride and homesickness

As shown in the photo below,  a toy kangaroo, made of brown velvet and with movable legs, was dated between 1914 and 1918. Pinned to it was a coll­ection of World War I fundraising badges made of mat­er­ials such as brass, enamel and glass. Some of the badges were first issued when the Australian Government wanted to identify and thank the nearest female relatives of members of the Aust­ral­ian forces on active service. Separate badges were issued to signify relatives serving in the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Imperial Force.

Funds went to the repatriation and rehabilitation of sold­iers, the erection of war memorials, and to children and fam­ilies affected by the war in France & Belgium. At school, children learned about Empire, citizenship, national pride and duty. The war rein­forced their lessons and inspired them to contribute.

Australian diggers (soldiers) and a kangaroo, 

Mena Camp in Cairo, Dec 1914

Photo credit: Australian Geographic

Visitors can see this velvet kangaroo at the National Museum of Australia’s Terence Lane Collection, amassed by the former Senior Curator of Australian Art. With 180 objects of Australiana, pred­om­in­antly featuring the kangaroo, this is considered the best collection of kangaroo theme items in Australia and is therefore of important cultural value.

The kangaroo has long been a patriotic symbol, and one used widely in wartime. But not only toy kangaroo were popular. In the shadows of the great pyramids and amid kitbags and Lee-Enfield rifles, an Aust­ralian Imperial Force infantryman encounters a kangaroo. Skippy was on permanent shore leave at Mena Camp, the British Empire's training ground in Egypt. Members of the 9th and 10th Battalions smuggled these "mas­cots" from home aboard transport ships. The first Australian troops to arrive in Egypt in 1914 were proud to be serving the British Empire, and some men took kangaroos and wallabies aboard ship when they left home. Apparently they were a common sight in the Australian camps at Mena, Heliopolis and Ma'adi in 1914-15. There were at least a dozen, and they were mentioned frequently in soldiers' letters home.

These men had just signed up, voluntarily, for war. They were young, with not a lot of thought for the future. The soldier in the photo treat­ed the marsupial expat with tenderness and homesickness. It is be­lieved it ate the same food as the British force's horses and don­keys, a hay and chaff mix. In March 1915, after three months of milit­ary training, the men left Mena bound for Gal­lip­oli, bequeathing their mascot to the care of the Cairo Zoological Garden.

Velvet kangaroo and war badges 1914-8

National Museum of Australia

In 1915 recruiting committees were formed in nearly every sizeable town in Australia. In the central west of New South Wales a movement began under the leadership of Captain Bill Hitchen; 20 rural men enlisted and started to march to Syd­ney on the Kangaroo or Coo-ee March. Gath­ering other recruits along the way, they numbered about 300 by the time they reached the capital city. Their example was soon followed by other marches from around New South Wales and Queensland, includ­ing the Waratahs, Kangaroos, Wallabies, Men from Snowy Riv­er, Kook­aburras and Boomerangs.

The total number of  recruiters was only 1,500 but the marchers relied on the support of the towns they passed through, which was often enthusiastic. They attracted wide publicity, encouraging fund-raising and enlistment. The longest was the Kangaroo March in Dec 1915, going to Wagga Wagga, Junee, Cootamundra, Yass, Goulburn, Moss Vale, Campbelltown and ending at The Domain, Sydney.

Posters were used for various government propaganda campaigns over the course of WWI, most significantly to encourage enlistment, but also to raise money for war charities, to encourage saving and frugality and to rally the home front.

"Australia has promised Britain 50,000 more men. Will YOU help us keep that promise"
1916, lithograph, recruitment poster.

Australian War Memorial

**

World War One Love & Sorrow was an exhibition in the Melbourne Museum in Carlton back in 2014. It explored the enormous impact of the war on Australians. A shared experience in towns and cities across Australia was the worry of having loved ones serving overseas. Newspapers were searched for announcements of deaths and injuries. The sight of a minister or telegraph messenger approaching a family's front door could fill the family with dread. Many of the objects in this exhibition relate to WW1 in one street: Normanby Ave Caulfield, a typical street where almost everyone was touched by war.

Millions of letters were posted around the world during WWI; letters and cards were the only ways most people kept in touch.

Australian Christmas card 1916

posted home by servicemen and women. 

World War One Love & Sorrow exhibition