Meet author and gardener Jackie French
It all began with a visit to my office from a member of Canberra Organic Growers. Would we consider interviewing their next guest-speaker on the local ABC radio program I was producing at the time. We did. I knew nothing of Jackie French or her aspirations in the world of fiction and had no idea that a deep and lasting friendship would begin, but I was immediately impressed by her natural warmth, humour and knowledge. We took calls that day and the one I remember clearly was about catching mice in a humane manner. Jackie suggested the lady use chocolate in the homemade trap: “Mice prefer chocolate to cheese,” she said, “and so do I.”
Hundreds if not thousands of radio interviews and talkback sessions have followed over the years, many with me, but you never forget the first one. Chocolate is still listed on her website as one of her four major sources of inspiration, along with music, coffee and walking.
“The perfect wombat verandah. They shelter there during heavy rain and often hide from the cold in winter.”
TV fame followed, but it was only gradually that I became aware of the rapidly mounting pile of her published books. Books filled with practical information, short stories, picture-books and novels, with strings of newspaper and magazine columns to keep them company.
The first books were published in 1991: the Rainstones short story collection and The Roo that Won the Melbourne Cup. Interestingly, the animal featured most prominently in the title story of the first collection is a wombat, now the Australian animal most associated with Jackie. Indeed, as well as writing many books on wombats and sharing a life with them, she is a director of the Wombat Foundation. It is only fitting, then, that these creatures demand frequent and regular feeding from Jackie and her husband — their table manners occasionally rivalling those of Tasmanian devils — and spend much time beneath the bedroom floor. The bedroom is about a metre off the ground, Jackie says, “The perfect wombat verandah. They shelter there during heavy rain and often hide from the cold in winter.” Each one has a name and their characters vary widely, except they’re all always hungry.
Childhood years
A quick web search will reveal the basics of Jackie’s painful formative years: an unhappy childhood with mismatched parents she says should never have married; the attempted rape by various authority figures, including her mother’s boyfriend (note the word “attempted”); sudden homelessness and a string of unsatisfactory jobs.
However, those potentially disastrous beginnings bear one vital resemblance to a Handel concerto: they are underscored with a supporting continuo; not for harpsichord or divided cello but of unexpected kindness, inspiring teachers and, above all, the transforming power of story.
“You can’t buy inspiration”
Jackie had an imaginary friend called Maria from the age of two; Maria told her stories and then showed her how to find her own. If her primary-school class was good, the teacher would allow Jackie to tell stories to fellow students at the end of the day and, at the age of six, her first story, about a haunted horse, was so enjoyed by the headmistress that a copy was printed for every child in the school.
Telling stories to her brothers and sister was part of family life, a way of hiding and protecting them from parental feuds and other unhappiness. Bearing this in mind, you might say Jackie French is an embodiment of the old saying that it isn’t what happens to us that really matters but what we choose to do about it.
All the childhood agony and teenage angst could have turned to anger and bitterness, been channelled into politics or lobbying, or even led to despair and suicide. Instead, it has formed the basis for decades of creativity and inspiring heroes and heroines who achieve against the odds, dare to be different and, in many cases, read, tell or rely on stories for validation and protection. Examples of this can be found in so many of Jackie’s books.
Lyrical prose
The Walking the Boundaries novels are largely about making sense of the present by uncovering the past and learning the stories of ancestors and indigenous Australians. So, too, is Daughter of the Regiment. The eponymous heroine in A Waltz for Matilda relies on a story told by her mother to find her father and sustain her in times of need. When she meets her father he, too, tells her stories. Georg, the protagonist in Pennies for Hitler, uses books, poetry and story-telling to escape, give himself courage and reassure fellow passengers during a terrifying journey from Britain to Australia during World War II. There is even a character called “The Reader” in a short story of the same name who travels between villages telling stories and finally teaching them to others so they may be written down and passed on.
My ultimate favourite and, I think, Jackie’s most beautiful piece of lyrical prose has to be Summerland, where worlds overlap and courage is found through the power of story. Not surprisingly, much of Jackie’s focus as Children’s Laureate is on stories: telling, reading, writing and sharing them, with a strong emphasis on access to stories and literacy for all children everywhere.
Jackie says the stories she told her son when he was growing up were his and his alone. “I only once used one of them in a book, much to his distress. I never did it again.” Although she didn’t test-drive her work on him, he did tell her that the people in her books talked too much — obviously a young lad preferring action over dialogue. He declared that her answers in The Little Book of Big Questions were far too long. Instead of Jackie’s two-page response to, “Do animals feel and think as we do?”, his succinct summary was, “Try asking a duck.”
The challenge of dyslexia
The other important thing to know about Jackie is that she has dyslexia: an umbrella term for a whole host of learning difficulties. As she points out, though, “Having dyslexia does not mean I’m dumb.” It does mean she has difficulty with handwriting, filling in forms and spelling — though not vocabulary. She also battles with maps, especially distinguishing left from right; but such a problem is by no means restricted to people with dyslexia and not all people with dyslexia struggle with it. The condition makes Jackie more sympathetic and receptive towards those students who grapple with literacy difficulties.
Animals & the land
Many of Jackie’s books feature animals and her love of them shines through. She told me she could not have written The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded had the donkey not survived ANZAC Cove. Along with her love of animals, books, reading and stories, Jackie’s work is also redolent of her passion for Australian history and traditions, indigenous culture and, perhaps above all, the land itself. Her very first works, both fact and fiction, demonstrate this clearly. Natural pest control in house and garden in her original Canberra Times columns later developed into various books, and saving the land, wildlife and natural history from drought, development, ignorance and professional greed all feature in stories in the Rainstones collection.
It’s Jackie’s love of the land that brought her to prominence for non-literary reasons in 2011, with her public opposition to possible errors and inadequacies in the assessments for the proposed goldmine in her area.
Much more recently, Jackie’s treatise Let the Land Speak traces the history of the land and its inextricable links with the growth and development of the Australia we know today. Books on reading, a whole series of history books and novels containing many or all these elements affirm dedication to shedding light on these topics while promoting empathy and understanding between cultures and people in general.
It’s Jackie’s love of the land that brought her to prominence for non-literary reasons in 2011, with her public opposition to possible errors and inadequacies in the assessments for the proposed goldmine in her area. Contrary to popular misconception, it was never a straightforward case of yes or no. Members of the community were not against the mine per se, but were disturbed by the process, unanswered questions and data-collection methods. The area is home to 30 rare, endangered and vulnerable species along with other wildlife that has survived in the valley while vanishing from the rest of the world. It was for them — the community, the water supply and water table — that questions were asked.
When I asked Jackie in January 2014 how she feels about the mine today, she said: “It is very hard to see animals die, but the lack of response has been even harder. It is hard but necessary to forgive those who trespass against you. It is harder to forgive those who trespass against the Earth and the animals I love. But that, too, is necessary.”
Sources of inspiration
As for the inspirations listed earlier, don’t take them too literally. “You can’t buy inspiration,” she tells all who ask. What the quoted sources of inspiration do is help clarify ideas that may have been brewing for years, especially walking and music. When I asked if she listens to music while writing, the reply was emphatic: “No. otherwise I’d be listening instead of writing.” She does listen to music from the time in which the current book is set, though; it helps her get a feel for the period.
She and her friends sang hymns as they built her original house, since extended. The morning walks are the time for a mental review of whatever was written yesterday, when not taking in the glorious views of the valley or stepping over stray snakes. She can also see and hear the valley from her study window and it is a constant source of inspiration.
Jackie lives in a beautiful valley within a valley in southern New South Wales. It’s often draped in rainbows. The creek flowing through it is where the family sometimes swim and it is blessed with a working waterwheel designed and constructed by her practical partner. The valley is home to brush wallabies, quolls, lyrebirds, Powerful Owls, Wonga Pigeons, frogs and many other species both common and rare. There is a flock of hardy Australorp hens presided over by a strutting white Leghorn rooster; an orchard of both common and rare fruit trees (Jackie makes scrumptious jam and rich, dark marmalade!) and a productive vegetable garden.
I have been fortunate to visit her there on a handful of occasions, often when it’s raining and difficult to negotiate without a four-wheel drive, and it really is a haven and hideaway. My dog is always made welcome, even though she must remain on a lead, and there are always treats for her as well as for us.
When Jackie told me in 2007 that all her books relate to the valley in some way I found it hard to understand. After all, settings for her work are as far-flung as London, Germany, war-torn France, Tudor England and the Middle East, to name but some, as well as imaginary places and rural Australia past and present. Once you start to read, though, the resemblance and parallels are clear. It reminds me of the famous Golden Valley in Herefordshire, beloved of CS Lewis, which formed the basis for the landscape of Narnia.
Jackie has faced major health demons, principally heart and thyroid. Before air-conditioning was installed for health reasons she would sit writing at her desk with her feet in a bucket of cold water. She says one of the most important assets for any writer is a good application of “bum glue”. She adores emails from children and offers encouragement to writers of all ages and abilities, including this one.
As for the friendship mentioned earlier, for the past 13 years we have exchanged multiple emails daily. What do we write about? Everything. Food, gardens, animals, books, current writing — “I’ve just blown up a hospital tent”, “Should dogs have constant access to food?” — dreams, television, spirituality, health and glorious trivia. We exchange care packages during times of illness and make much of birthdays and Christmas. Isn’t that what friends do?
For more details, visit childrenslaureate.org.au and jackiefrench.com.
