Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland are both Australian national treasures. You’ve probably read more by Park than Niland as she lived longer but both were equally good. Somehow they could take the quintessential Australian and put them into words. Niland’s The Shiralee is incredibly reminiscent of the Australian outback life, he spent much time observing these people while he was sheep shearing. Park was born in NZ but we won’t hold that against her and instead have adopted her as our own as she also writes very much about Australians. You’ve probably read Playing Beattie Bow or The Muddle Headed Wombat or even A Harp in the South which won her an award becoming her first published novel and shooting her to fame.

The Drums Go Bang is five years in the life of both Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland. During this time they got married, spent time working in the outback; sheep shearing, cooking and just generally observing people. They also decided they would try to make a living out of writing so you get their trials and errors, their ups and downs and find out how many words they wrote per week. They had one typewriter between them so would alternate typing things up and writing on paper, I’m in awe of the amount of writing they did with just one typewriter.

Just to give you some idea of their writing before you click on the links below and buy their books to read (thereby giving me small amounts of commission) here is an extract from their book. Niland had a Webster’s dictionary he had great reverence for and carried it hither and yon, this extract gives you some idea of how he felt about it. Through this book Niland is referred to as ‘Evans’ while Park is ‘Tiger’ and his brother is ‘Gus’, we see a lot of his brother as they all live together for quite some time.

But Webster was really an ailing old man. Evans rescued him from a fate worse than the Old Tomes’ Home when he was invalided out of the Daily Telegraph reading-room. A parvenu Webster, all shiny and new, was procured, and Evans, then a copyholder, besought the head reader to let him take away the aged Webster and make the old gentleman’s last days more comfortable. At home, with glue, thread, and transparent paper he performed a surgical operation on the decrepit tatterdemalion, straightening his lordosis, healing the multiple lacerations, un-dogging his ears, and outfitting him with a new jacket. It was a week’s work carried out with infinite patience. Even so, the old boy was still not feeling the best, wobbly on his pins and a bit queer about the sacro-iliac. He had to take it easy, gentle handling was the thing. Any rough stuff and he was liable to have a breakdown. Evens trusted this lexicographic member of the walking wounded with no one.

I quite like how much care has been taken with Webster and how he’s been looked after as if he’s human. Note the style of writing, this is the way it is throughout the book with both authors being referred to in the third person so unless you read all their works carefully and do a thorough examination you won’t know who has written what.

Now, to the links. This book must be hard to find, it has my Dad’s name in the front so I suspect he had it as new and I’m struggling to find a new copy. Instead, here is The Shiralee and The Harp in the South, I’ve tried to choose cheap editions for you.