I was born on the ninth of October 1929 and my birth had an immediate impact on the world: the Stock Market crashed and the world entered into deep depression. My father on that day was electioneering on the wharves at Fremantle. He announced my birth and quipped on the contentious subject of immigration: “Don’t do as I say. Do as I do”. The wharfies evidently were not impressed as they did not elect him at the following poll, nor at subsequent elections – one of which he lost by one vote. I vividly remember my future father-in-law ringing the door bell at our house and blurting out “Keith, I forgot to vote!” At that point I was not interested in his daughter but was most impressed with the honesty and integrity of George Cheffins on that day. I wondered what I would have done in a similar position.
Eventually my father was elected to the State Parliament and held the seat for 20 Years. He was knighted in 1968 for “services rendered to the State of Western Australia”. Due to the death of his father, he had left school at fourteen years of age and had risen from Telegram delivery boy to a Knight of the Realm. As the person on the telegraph key at Fremantle, he was the first person in Australia to learn of the end of the First World War and maintained the code of silence until it was officially announced. He educated himself and became an accountant and was respected by any who were bold enough to confront him. On one occasion he instructed Senior Counsel to represent him in a Tax case in the High Court and quietly confided with me that after the case the Barrister (later to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia) had written to him saying how much he had enjoyed working with my father and ended: “Congratulations, Keith. I’m still not sure what it was all about”.
He was a man of great tenacity and at one point took to London a petition for Western Australia to secede from the Australian Federation. The so called “Secession Movement” was largely energized by him and resulted in the highest vote (68%) ever recorded in Australia. I would not have voted for Secession. To me it was an over reaction to the isolation which makes Western Australia one of the most delightful places in the world in which to live. As my father used to say “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Western Australia because everything happens here fifty years later”.
I had the privilege of conducting both my father’s and my mother’s funerals. In my father’s funeral I referred to him as one who feared no-one and would take on the world if his convictions required it. “He reminded me so much of Martin Luther saying ‘Here I stand. I can do no other’ “. In this he was the despair of Party leaders, High Court Judges, and the pragmatists of our society, and, as I look back, I am amazed at how many times he was right and the crowd was wrong. I both loved and respected him and will ever be grateful that through him I came to a deeper understanding of the meaning and significance of life”.
The eulogy at my mother’s funeral was very different “ My mother was a remarkable woman, that is, if you regard love as the all important thing in life. Many do not. They see intelligence, power and achievement as all important. My mother could never be described as a great thinker. My mother was not a powerful person as our society understands it. She was not a great achiever in the sense that the world thinks of it. She was a remarkable person in that she loved deeply – and this is the radically different Christian approach to life. The only question to be asked at the end of life is “How much have we loved?” As St Paul puts it “I may have all knowledge, I may be able to move mountains, but if I have not love, I am nothing”. …. My mother lived and died in the faith… My mother was no theologian – but then you don’t have to be when you can love as she did.”
In summary, in my parents I really had the best of both worlds: a father skilled in the ways of the world and able to use it for pecuniary benefit, and a mother who recognized that without love it wasn’t worth the effort. Into this privileged home I was born. It gave me a start in life second to none.
My sister Moya, who was born three years after me also made a huge contribution to the family. She developed severe scoliosis at an early age with all the organs moving to one side of her chest and resulting in an early death at twenty seven years of age. She was what is commonly called a “hunchback, and died aged 27 years The way she tackled life was an inspiration. We were as close as brother and sister could be and she made a contribution to my life as only a handicapped person can. My father adored her and was humbled by the fact that all the money in the world couldn’t save her. Moya and I enjoyed a very happy childhood and lacked for nothing – even to the extent of having a “maid” to supplement the attention of our mother. One of my earliest memories was to ring the bell at the table for “Dora” to serve the meal. We actually had silver spoons to transfer the food to our mouths, fulfilling the saying reserved for those born into families of wealth. My only childhood regret was that we never went on holidays with my father. It was always with my mother and friends. My father was too busy! It was a lesson well learned by me and in later times I would not let anything come between me and enjoying holidays with my children.
The extent of my ethical instruction as a child was “You want your mother to be proud of you, don’t you”.
The one occasion when my father did take us on a holiday was exceptional in more ways than one. A large wool broking firm in London desired his expertise and he was disinclined to undertake the three week voyage by ship that was the only way of getting to London in those days. The firm then made an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Bring the family. We will pay for them also”. The timing for me was almost perfect. I had just finished my University studies and it enabled me to be a Student Christian Movement delegate to the Third World Conference of Christian Youth in India at no cost to the movement. We had a great sixth months in Europe. Moya was already weakening and it cemented us further as a family. A feature of my childhood that I would be remiss in not noting was the freedom in which I was raised. The extent of my ethical instruction was “You want your mother to be proud of you, don’t you”. I have no idea how this fits in with the child development guides of Dr Spock but it gave us a freedom that is mind boggling in terms of family life today. I remember, with both shame at my ineptitude and admiration of my father’s tolerance, the time when I decided as a teenager to clean the carburetor of my father’s Buick – the status car of that time. I botched the job and had to get the RAC out to repair the vehicle. What my father thought as he saw his pride and joy rendered useless I have no idea. He didn’t say a word! I know of few fathers who would allow such a thing. He himself had no mechanical ability whatsoever, apart from unscrewing the petrol cap. I ended up as quite a reasonable mechanic – thanks to the freedom offered me as a child. My first car was an immobilized Austin Seven which I purchased for $50 and had it going within half an hour.
I remember my teenage years as great ones with every opportunity being afforded to me. We had a tennis court in the backyard of our half acre home in Nedlands where I played with and against the famous (Lang Hancock) and the not so famous (my friends). The block across the road was vacant and it afforded us a great view of the river. I later discovered that my father had bought it precisely for that purpose.
Notwithstanding the wealth and love given by my parents I apparently did not perform well scholastically as, after a year in kindergarten, it was recommended that I repeat the year at the august institution. The only photos I have of me at kindergarten portray an anaemic looking child with his shirt hanging out. The decision to have me repeat the Kindergarten year changed my life. It mean’t that when I eventually got to Nedlands State School, I was out of kilter age wise. In those days the six years of primary school was centred upon entrance to Perth Modern School. Because I fell outside the age requirements I was of no concern to the teachers whose reputation depended upon how many entrances they could gain to Perth Modern School. The net result was that in my final years I and one other calendar misfit ended up digging the slit trenches at the school. I sometimes wonder what became of my fellow trench digger, Kevin Stacey. As a “persona non grata” within the educational system, I was also chief letter writer for the Headmaster who because of the exigencies of war was without a secretary.
The exigencies of war also manifested themselves in my secondary schooling at Wesley College, where most of the good teachers had been drafted for military service. We largely educated ourselves. I was interested to read fifty years later in a school magazine a reference to “Rev Nev”. Something must have been brewing at that time for them to write about it.
If it was, it was due to my involvement in the Nedlands Methodist Church – a community I attended with my mother from an early age and to whom I will be forever grateful. It was Liberal in theological terms and I was saved the trauma of having to deal with the appalling naivete of Fundamentalism. We had at that Church a vital and alive Youth Group – one of whom became the CEO of the largest oil company in Australia, and one who became a mass murderer. Who says that the Church doesn’t deal with the realities of life? It was also in the Church that I met the delightful Margaret Cheffins whom as my wife has suffered my idiosyncrasies over sixty years and has instilled into me any human characteristics I may possess.
At some time during my teens I developed an antipathy for things Military and things Royal – probably because of my trench digging days at primary school! This evidenced itself in being ejected from the School Cadets. The occasion was when a fellow student , who had risen to the august rank of Lance Corporal, was being tested for further promotion. The test was to explain the nature of the Bren Gun to we assembled Privates. I, somewhat derisively, pointed out that the cocking handle was in a different position to that indicated by him. The Commanding Officer, who had been standing behind the group, took a dim view of my insubordination and strongly suggested that I should leave the junior division of Her Majesty’s Forces. I did so and became a member of a discussion group of three or four other dissidents. One became Australia’s foremost historian, another a BBC producer, and another a renowned actor. I was the only one of the group who failed to achieve distinction!
The antipathy to things Royal also evidenced itself when as a callow youth, and to the consternation of my esteemed father, I refused to stand when Her Majesty entered St George’s Cathedral. I like to think I was muttering something like “I stand for no-one in the house of God”. Another occasion was when I declined an invitation to the Royal Garden Party on the grounds that “I had a previous engagement”. The matter came to a head when my father rang me up to tell me he was about to become a Knight of the Realm. I was surprised, even horrified, and remember asking with baited breath “Is it hereditary?” When assured that it was not, I was able to relax and join in the pleasure it engendered for him. I never, however, became accustomed to my parents being referred to as Sir Keith and Lady Watson. The only comforting thing was that I must have really stirred up the Queen to do this to me! I have nothing against her personally. It is the concept of power and privilege by birth that concerns me. The thought that someone could come to a position of significance merely by birth was, and is, obnoxious to me. I am not unaware, of course, that in holding such a view I am in fact railing against myself and pointing up the truth of the saying “Beware in yourself of that which most annoys you in others”. I have Her Majesty to perpetually remind me of this and the condition of the poor, the disadvantaged and the voiceless. It was what would lead me eventually to think about ministry in the Methodist Church.
Before that event materialized I developed an ambition to be “the first honest lawyer”. I suspect that the latter part of such ambition was instilled by my father, who had always wanted to be a lawyer but was frustrated by lack of opportunity, and the former part by my mother who was more concerned with things spiritual.
Their joint influence eventually found me enrolled in the Law School at the University of W.A. where I enjoyed a somewhat unique experience. This was because at the end of the war, the Commonwealth Government instituted scholarships to facilitate the rehabilitation of those who had their education interrupted by military service. My first year at Uni co-incided with the first year of the “Rehabs”. As an eighteen year old I was surrounded by mature persons who had experienced far more of life than I. They didn’t speak of their military experiences – few do except when seeking solace – but the experience had brought them face to face with the realities of life. From the Law School of my time there emerged a number of Judges, leaders of political parties and a Prime Minister of Australia. None of the fripperies of life for them at Law School. They were serious about equipping themselves for life’s journey, and I will forever be grateful for the synchronicity that connected me with this group of students. They accelerated my consideration of the realities of life by about twenty years.
The extra curricular activities at Uni were also important – the foremost being The Student Christian Movement, headed up in turn by two students who became respectively a High Court Judge and an Anglican Bishop. When they had graduated, the position of President became not only vacant but impressively vacant. Into that august office I was eventually persuaded, and subsequently into a round of gatherings and conferences where I met the intelligentsia of the faith and those with a keen sense of social justice. One of the conferences was “The Third World Conference of Christian Youth” in southern India. On my way home from the family holiday in Europe I disembarked at Ceylon and made my way to Calcutta where I worked with the Quakers for three months. I spent the following three months to the conference date backpacking around India. It was a very formative time for me and provided one of my “conversion experiences”. I was travelling in a fourth class railway carriage (no seats!) and was sitting on the floor alongside a frail elderly Indian whose sole baggage was wrapped in a piece of cloth he carried. In the paltry Hindi I had learned and his very basic English, we learned about each other’s lives. At the end of hours of discussion, he unwrapped the piece of cloth he was carrying and revealed his meal for the day: two small scones. He offered me one of the scones. I was gob smacked and to this day can visualize him offering to me what was basic to his existence. To my everlasting regret, I declined the offer, mumbling something about his need being greater than mine. What an idiot I was! It taught me one of the great lessons of life: never refuse the gift the poor have to give to us. That day in an Indian train was for me a conversion experience – a turning around! I arrived at Tambaram with high expectations – only to have them shattered.
The conference began with a lavish and luxurious garden party while at the gate sat beggars in rags. I was appalled as was another delegate, Bob Hawke, subsequently the Prime Minister of Australia. We walked out of the garden party and went to a political meeting down the road. Bob relates the story of him offering his coat to the naked beggar at the gate. I have no memory of this but as an apocryphal story it portrayed our concerns. Bob’s faith was lost at that moment; mine was radicalized.
The conference itself was unremarkable except that one of the speakers was Mollie Batten , the former secretary of Nye Bevan who was responsible for the introduction of the Welfare State in the UK. Thirteen years later I was to study under her at the William Temple College at Rugby. She was as round as a barrel and my lasting memory was of her hiking up her skirt to sit down, lighting her pipe and us setting right the woes of the world. Her Doctor had warned her off cigarettes so she started smoking a pipe. Thanks to the devotion of my wife, and my opportunism, I was able to enjoy Mollie Batten for three months. Margaret lived in a campervan at Stratford, and, when frustrated by my theological concerns, she uses it (rightfully) as a reminder of who brought up the children. I am thankful she did!
My stated theological concerns came to a head in 1953 after I had graduated and had worked for eighteen months as an articled clerk in a Perth legal firm. I brought with me into the firm a considerable amount of my father’s business dealings and was heavily involved in them. I remembered on one occasion buying a poultry farm in Myaree on which to put British steel buildings left over after the war. I remember also acting for one of the mining magnates of the developing North West. He was so miserable that he borrowed my glasses to sign the contract. The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot recalls that when he was training in the seminary for the priesthood a friend told him that they couldn’t meet because he had to finalise a multi million dollar contract. Abbot asked himself “What am I doing here?” and terminated his application for the priesthood. My story is the exact opposite. I was dealing with multi million contracts and asked myself “What am I doing here?”
I can still vividly remember the occasion when I conveyed my intentions to the family. We were gathered around the breakfast table when I announced that I was going to become a Methodist Minister. My sister gulped over her porridge, my mother looked towards my father and he in turn turned an ashen white. He had established an empire for his son to take over and here he was throwing it all away! He left the table without saying a word, my sister walked around the table and gave me a hug, and my mother, torn between two people she loved dearly, didn’t know what to do. It really was a moment of high drama. That afternoon my father collapsed and was taken to hospital. The Doctor asked him whether he had recently been under stress and my father poured out the terrible tale of his prodigal son. The tension was eased somewhat when talking to Ron Wilson, a friend of long standing. He offered the suggestion of completing my articles and being admitted as a practitioner of the Supreme Court of Western Australia. In my enthusiasm I remember being reluctant to do so, and in my wisdom following his advice. It turned out to be some of the best advice I have ever received and for many years the resulting piece of paper enabled me to stand in court and say “I act for the Defendant”. It resulted in many hilarious situations, not the least of them being when I appeared for the Church in a Royal Commission on SP Betting. The other lawyers were the top counsel in West Australia and twice my age. One by one they asked for permission to appear. When I did so, the Judge looked down over the top of his spectacles and asked “You are Counsel?” I assured him that such was the case. Needless to say, my impact on the Commission was about as significant as a leaf falling in a forest.
It was a different situation when, in my first appointment as the Minister of Mullewa, I appeared for an aboriginal man who had been charged with some minor offence. The Justices of the Peace before whom the trial was held almost collapsed when I appeared and said I was acting for the accused. After argument which they barely understood, they took the line of least resistance and found the accused “not guilty”. The aboriginal man had even less understanding of the proceedings and his question at the end of the trial was “What happened, boss?” It was the first of my many occasions in court for indigenous people. The Aboriginal Legal Service had not been established at that point, despite the obvious need – as indicated by the defendant’s response.
Mullewa was my first appointment as a candidate for Ordination. It went by the somewhat quaint title of Home Mission Station and began with the Director of Home Missions asking “Can you take a beating?” My answer was “As much as anyone else”. His response was “Right, you are off to Mullewa for twelve months.” It appeared that two families had taken over the Church and dominated the scene, and that the previous Minister had suffered a complete nervous breakdown. I duly arrived in Mullewa and had a wonderful time living myself into the community as a whole, notwithstanding the opposition of those whom I referred to as “the exclusive brethren”. The Director of Home Missions was perceptive in his assessment of the situation and when the time for my departure arrived the Superintendant Minister from Geraldton chaired the final Leader’s Meeting. At the end he said “This is the final meeting Neville will be with us. Would anyone like to say something?” There was no response and the meeting concluded with polite handshakes. The nexus, however, had been broken and the next appointee was able to draw the pieces together into a live and active Church.
I was then sent to the University of Queensland for theological studies. The selection of Queensland vis a vis Victoria was on the basis of cost to the Church and on this faulty premise I became acquainted with a theological lecturer who had just returned from three years study under Paul Tillich. It was a great time and I took to Tillich’ s idea of God as “the ground of our being” like a duck to water. Tillich gave me the language to express what I already believed, that God was at the heart of life and not in some distant heaven. Another of my lecturers had recently arrived from the UK and lectured in Philosophy of Religion. He gave me a distinction for my work and I became the protégé of one who was later tried for heresy in New Zealand, where Lloyd Geering still stirs the pot today.
Three parishes followed my receiving a Bachelor of Divinity (with conceded passes in Greek and Hebrew!) after which I asked to be left without pastoral charge and become the self appointed Director of a Lay Training Centre at Faversham House in the town of York. The Church was against the move and only relented when they learned I would be supporting myself. Along with the three progressive conferences (‘The Twentieth Century Christian”) we sought to emulate the Lay Academies of Europe that brought together conflicting parties to consider matters of social concern. I remember one gathering in particular where employers, union leaders, politicians and members of the general public talked long into the night on a matter on which they were at loggerheads. At another conference on indigenous concerns, an aboriginal leader travelled three hundred of miles to give a twenty minute input. When questioned about this he said that I had helped him at one point and the Nungyars lived by the “pay back” principle. It was a great five years and far more successful than we could ever have hoped for. The Church which had originally “disapproved” of the venture ended up congratulating its work and acknowledging its impact. The document heralding its winding up was entitled “Free to Fail”, an attitude and approach that is all too rare these days.
My time at Faversham ended with growing requests to appear for aboriginal people in the Courts. The round trip from Faversham House to the Courts and home was one hundred and twenty miles and made things very difficult. The first case after moving to Faversham House is well remembered. The then called Department of Aboriginal Affairs rang and said that they were in a terrible mess concerning a court case where an aboriginal person had been charged with robbery with violence and wondered whether I could help, the allegation being that he had attacked and robbed an elderly white person outside a hotel. When in court, I sensed that the elderly guy had drunk the money said to be stolen and in anticipation of an angry wife had laid charges against the aboriginal guy. The case collapsed when I was able to prove that the aboriginal person was in fact in goal when the offence occurred! The Magistrate hearing the case was incensed and attacked the integrity of the Police. They said that they would appeal, and I said “Be my guest”. They, of course, never did.
It was not always as easy as this. On one occasion I was defending a group of protesters (myself included!) who had been arrested for refusing to leave an aboriginal Sacred Site that was up for development. There was a loophole in the Prosecution’s case and I was able to take advantage of it. The first three charges were dismissed. The Prosecution then applied to have the charge amended. I objected on the ground that you can’t change the goal posts in the middle of a football match. The Magistrate allowed the charge to be amended, whereupon I said to the one I was defending (who happened to be my son, and who was directly responsible for me being at the Sacred Site ) that it was useless defending the charge and we may as well change the plea to that of guilty. I informed the Magistrate of this, ending with words that I thought had a nice Roman ring to them. “If injustice is to be done, let it be done quickly”. The Magistrate didn’t appreciate the literary merit of the words and stormed out of the Court saying he would give me five minutes to consider a suitable response or I would be reported to the Barrister’s Board. The other lawyers in the Court advised me to apologise as the Magistrate was renowned for not only taking umbrage but taking complaints to the Board. I decided not to take their advice and when the Magistrate returned he was advised that the statement stood. The Magistrate said he would report the matter to the Board and proceeded to impose penalties on the rest of the group I was representing. They, of course, enjoyed every minute of it. I have no idea whether the Magistrate actually reported the matter. If he did, the Board must have agreed with me because it was the last I heard of the matter.
One other occasion in court that is worth mentioning is the time when I created legal history. I was defending a young aboriginal guy who was charged with unlawful possession of a motor vehicle. His story, which I believed, was that a white chap, who was out at the camp for reasons that can only be described as “carnal”, loaned him the car to go into town. The police story was that when they went to the camp, there was no sign of any white guy. When it came to court the police were very evasive about their enquiries about “the white guy”. I was able to establish under cross examination that the guy was in jail and that the police hadn’t even interviewed him. The Magistrate, who happened to have gone through Law School with me, asked whether I wanted an adjournment to call the white guy who was in prison. This I thought would be unnecessary as a material doubt had been established and the Magistrate would have picked it. I was amazed when at the conclusion of the trial, he said that, on the evidence before the Court, he found my guy guilty as charged, and sentenced him to a considerable time in prison.
I didn’t sleep well that night and in the morning consulted a friend about the possibility of an appeal. He said that there were no grounds on which to appeal. For the next week I researched this and eventually found an obscure English ground of appeal that “no person should be prejudiced by the incompetency of his counsel”. I took this to my friend who said that the appeal had never been used and it would open me to ridicule. Being accustomed to such, I decided to appeal. The appeal was heard and lost. To this day I can hear the Judge’s final words . “Inexperienced perhaps, Mr Watson, but incompetent, never!” It was cold comfort to my aboriginal friend who was taken off to prison to serve his time.
To ease the time and trouble of travelling to Perth to appear in an increasing number of court hearings we moved from Faversham to the metropolitan area, where the all important question was “With what Church shall we link ourselves?” Being left without Pastoral charge (and without income from the Church) was of no great concern as my father died in 1972 and left me to administer the empire which he had designated as being for my benefit and the children of my children’s children. What he had not been able to do in life, he did in death! My father incidentally had long changed his initial reaction to my becoming a Minister. Once it was apparent that I knew what I was doing, and was doing what I really wanted to do, he backed me all the way. My sister Moya died without a will and, my father in administering the estate used the funds to furnish Faversham House as a Lay Training Centre. We also had become very close as he became frailer and weaker with his words invariably being “You arrange it Son”. It was the same with my mother and I was privileged to be close to them when they died. I have never had much trouble in administering and building the empire. Maybe the entrepreneurial genes are deeply embedded within me. It has also been of enormous assistance to me in “following the call”. When engaged with peace activists in war zones, I felt for them in that they had to organize fund raising drives to keep them there. All I had to do was write a cheque – a privilege I have never regarded lightly.
The Church we chose to link up with was the Uniting Church at Wembley Downs – a decision which Margaret and I have never regretted and for which we are very thankful. There is an openness and breadth to its life that has been most fulfilling and the support they have given to us is immeasurable. It has indeed been for us “The Community of Christ”. We have been part of its life and purpose for over forty years and never once have we considered going elsewhere.
When we arrived there it was organized on the basis of “Ministries” – a term that has been purloined by the politicians. I became “the Minister for External Affairs” and for many years headed up a food development programme in Timor. It was in Timor that I had another of my “conversion experiences”, one that I hesitate to record for reasons that will become obvious. I was in a photography shop in Kupang buying film when I noticed a disheveled Timorese man taking an interest in me. The person serving me also noticed and with a circular motion to the head indicated that the guy was mentally ill and could not speak. To my continuing shame I left the shop without acknowledging him. That night in the hotel, it struck me like a rocket : “Christ incognito! How could I have been so stupid?” The next morning in the street I chanced upon the guy and was so excited that I raced up and embraced him. He turned to me and said in perfect English “Thank you my brother” and disappeared into the crowd, never to be seen again. I was astounded! Like MacAfee Brown “ My life had been singularly devoid of voice or visions”. Did I imagine the words? Had I mistaken the person? I will never know, but it certainly turned me around as far as my attitude to others was concerned. They became brothers and sisters in Christ.
Back home, I became heavily involved in the aboriginal settlement in the Swan Valley – pastorally, politically and with the occasional appearance in court. The Aboriginal Legal Service had been established in the early nineteen seventies and my involvement was technically no longer necessary. One of the residents at Saunders Street asked me to appear for him and I informed him that the Aboriginal Legal Service had better lawyers than me. His response was “That may be true but they do not understand us”. I learned much from the Saunders Street mob, not all of it positive!
My introduction to the community was noteworthy. A friend asked if I could transport a group from the community to a workshop in the hills where they could make furniture and toys. One of the group was a fourteen year old called Shirley. Towards the end of the day she asked me if I could help her assemble a toy. It was late in the afternoon and I suggested that she put it away for next week. Her comment was “But you won’t be here next week, will you Neville?” I was staggered by it. In one sentence she had expressed her despair and my priorities! I looked at the calendar when I returned home and found that on the day next week I had arranged an important property settlement of a building in the Perth CBD. The gauntlet was then well and truly thrown down! In the end I informed the people concerned that I had double booked the date and I would be unavailable. They were not happy! On the due date I drove out to Saunders street to transport the group and – you guessed it – Shirley was nowhere to be seen. She was otherwise engaged!
Prisons became a significant factor at this time. At one stage, as a part of a Prison Ministry Team, I went to jail once a week for a number of years. We worked with sex offenders and the modus operandi was to establish a relationship with the prisoners when they were in jail, and then to provide housing and continue the relationship after they had been discharged from prison. It worked well and, although we had a few spectacular failures, our recidivism rate was about five per cent whereas the government rate was in the range of sixty to seventy per cent. My experience was that most of the offenders with whom I was involved had missed out on their childhood. With one exception, all of the offenders I related to had been the subject of abuse as a child. What goes around obviously comes around!
I have also experienced prison life from the inside and spent my sixty fifth birthday in the Perth lockup after being arrested at a demonstration. My record is quite an extensive one, ranging from occupying offices of two Ministers of the Crown and upsetting the organizers of an Arms Bazaar in Canberra – each of which had its hilarious moments. The extent of my “record” became apparent when I recently had to get a Police clearance to work with children. The Constable in charge, obviously concerned about my half a page of offences, advised me that, due to the passage of time, it was possible for me to have my record “expunged”. I remember the word he used because it has such a delightful ring about it, almost as if it come from the scriptures. My response was quick and to the point. “Don’t you dare touch them. They are among the most precious possessions I have.” The confused constable gave me my clearance and opened the door for one whom he saw as even more confused.
As far as being sentenced to jail, there was only one occasion on which I “did time” – and the length of the time was, I am ashamed to say, only four days. It was so short that Margaret had to re-organise her busy schedule to avoid the possible admonition that I was in jail and she did not visit me. It was a memorable time and started with one of my fellow offenders having difficulty in finding an appropriate prison shirt. They were evidently unaccustomed to imprisoning portly middle-aged citizens. Eventually, one of the officers found a shirt and Peter politely said “Thanks mate” to which there was an explosive response. “ My name is Mr Robertson and if you can’t remember that just call me Boss”. The third member of our prison gang looked at me incredulously and to everyone’s embarrassment we burst into a fit of laughter reminiscent of the proverbial giggling schoolgirls. The incident ended with the officer giving directions to his underlings to “separate these troublemakers”. This they did and it wasn’t until the evening meal that we met again. Our entry into the dining room was another memorable moment as some of the aboriginal prisoners rose to their feet and said “Here come de Christians”. It was among the finest accolades I have ever been afforded. It was also of practical importance as I sat in the chair of one of the prison “heavies” and was directed by one of the aboriginal men to a place more befitting my lowly status. Our jail sentence continued in like manner for the four days. Margaret and the family duly visited me on the Sunday, thus fulfilling all righteousness, and on the Monday we were unceremoniously discharged at the gate. We had to ring Margaret to pick us up. She maintained that they did not let her know of our discharge. I suspect it was because the scriptures speak only of visiting and not picking up!
In all fairness to her, I must add that on another occasion when, after being arrested at an anti war demonstration, it looked as if I would be transferred to Police Headquarters. Margaret braved the peak football traffic to get there, only to be told that I had talked my way out of the local police station and was back at the protest. On her return, one of my fellow protesters remarked “I don’t think she is very happy Nev!” It was a gross understatement! It was quite sad really because when she had been arrested she had made the quip of the year. The constable at the desk asked “Colour of hair?” and she replied “Clairol 43”. The constable was not amused. Later when we appeared in Court, she delivered an eloquent address on why a grandmother had felt it necessary to walk out on the beach as Her Majesty’s forces demonstrated their landing skills to the assembled thousands. The Magistrate was evidently impressed and because of her and the sign we carried (“War Kills Kids”) he discharged us without conviction. I sometimes wonder whether her passionate address to the bench was because she was tired of picking me up from prison. I think I preached that Sunday on the death of John the Baptist and how it was representative of those days when you confronted the Crown and cultural conditioning – with a note of thankfulness that the consequences today aren’t quite as drastic as in those days.
The local Church was also heavily involved in refugee work. We purchased the house next door to ours and over a number of years provided housing for over seventy boat people and their families. We met some great people and still occasionally see them.
We also ran for a number of years a weekly gathering in a warehouse – appropriately named the Warehouse Church. Its promo sheet described it as “A place for radicals to worship and a place for radical worship”. It was a place that gathered up the radicals from various churches and pushed the envelope in all directions. We worshipped together, protested together and went to jail together. One of its offshoots operated for many years as a Catholic Worker type community house, and is now a “Haven” for the poor, homeless and hungry of Victoria Park.
Where did the inspiration for this work emerge? Much of it was from the Church of the Saviour in Washington DC. I first came into contact with it in the 1960s when I attended worship there and the preacher, in speaking about “call”, said “Find out what you want to do, and do it, because nothing else is worth doing”. I was impressed and even more so when at a another service he said “Being precedes Doing” – and this from a Church that at one point had about five drug rehabilitation buildings operating, as well as an employment agency, a home for those suffering from Aids, a coffee shop, and accommodation for the poor. Gordon Cosby became a mentor for me and every two years or so I would visit the Church of the Saviour for inspiration.
In the nineties and the noughties, my antipathy towards things military came to a head. It started when I was living at a property we purchased next to the Saunder’s Street Aboriginal settlement with the intention of giving new understanding to the phrase “love your neighbour”. Margaret rang and said that she had heard on the radio of a peace camp being organized concerning the Gulf War and confessed that she had considered not ringing me. Within twenty four hours I had contacted the group and learned that the group was complete and that there was no room for one such as me. Little did they know my determination when roused! I eventually made my own way to Iraq and the Peace camp on the Saudi Arabian border. It was badly conceived and organized. The idea was that we would stand in the way of troops coming over the border. They simply came over at a different point! We retreated to Baghdad and there came under some bombing. The real benefit of the Peace Camp was that I met some wonderful people – one of them being Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness. In the years following I was involved in the Bosnian war and the Interfada in Palestine. Our moment of truth came however with the Iraq war. Kathy and I were appalled at the duplicity of the preparations for war, both as to cause and intention, and decided to establish a group to be with the people of Iraq during the war. We spent time in Baghdad and our home countries doing all we could to prevent the war and then when it became imminent the Wembley Downs Church gave me a candle and said “Go and be our man in Baghdad”. A group of fifteen from all parts of the world went to Baghdad to be with the people of Baghdad during the Shock and Awe bombing. It was shocking and it was awful with the casualties amongst the civilian population being far in excess of the figures given by those bombing the country. I kept a journal during our time there and self published a booklet. It isn’t anything brilliant but it does give some idea of the event and its significance. It is available on request. Let me here then simply try and answer the question that I must have been asked a hundred times: “Why did you go to Iraq?”
I have always found it difficult to answer that question. The reason is that my motivation was religious and our society is largely illiterate on religious matters. I do not say that in an unkind or judgmental way but simply to explain why I have difficulty in answering the question. To me religion is about being responsive to the Spirit of Life seeking to bring love and peace to us and our world – and my “call” (to use religious language) at that time was to be in Iraq with those who were going to suffer.
My ten year old grandchild probably gave the best explanation of why I went. She was asked on returning to school after holidays to write about something that happened during the vacation. She wrote “My Grandpa has gone to Iraq to comfort the Iraqi people while the Americans bomb them”. The dear child went on to say “Poor Grandma will have to live on her own for six weeks and maybe forever. I love Grandpa very much and I hope he will return”. I remember reading it with a tear in my eye and saying : “So do I, Jessie dear, So do I.” Martyrdom certainly played no part in my going!
What then was the essential motivation. It was simply to just be there. Presence was what it was all about – the type of thing we sing of in the hymn that says: “For the creed and colour and the name don’t matter. Were you there?” Presence is about perceiving and responding to what actually is. Presence is about being real with the real. It means disconnecting oneself from all judgments, intentions and understanding and just being there. And when this happens, when there is only presence, then you actually experience the other person’s suffering. You may also experience their anger as they identify you with the cause of their suffering. Wendy Wright sums it up for me “We can become contemplatives in the sense that we become sensitised to the unspeakable grandeur of a mountain sunrise…… But beware! We may also come suddenly upon the unimaginable desecration of God’s creation in the face of war. We may become initiates into a more total perception that links us with the destinies of all God’s children, so that other’s pain may be recognised as our own. And perhaps we may experience that pain as also being God’s”. God was weeping over Baghdad, and, just as the best place to view a war is the target area, so the best place to know the compassion of God is where the tears are falling – and that for me at that moment was Baghdad. And that is in essence why I went there.
It was not, moreover, a hasty decision. I have long believed in the old adage that “Where you stand determines what you see”. It probably started in Bosnia which for most people is but a vague memory. For me it will always be linked with the deaths of young people. I visited a church where seventeen of their young people had just been killed in the war. And as I walked through the freshly dug graves I had tears in my eyes. They asked me to preach at their service. What do you say to a group of people with so much grief within them? I cannot remember exactly what I said but I know I concluded with the words “My brothers and sisters. I grieve with you at this time and look forward to the day when war shall be no more .” It was probably the shortest sermon I have ever preached. The Church incidentally was in the Rama district of Bosnia – a name linked with Herod’s massacre of the innocents. “A voice was heard in Rama – Rachel weeping for her children….”. In Iraq I moved on to the next stage in the massacre of the innocents.
It wasn’t my first trip to Iraq. I had spent a couple of months there with Kathy Kelly’s “Voices in the Wilderness” trying to do something about the sanctions. The situation was ridiculous with the sewage of Baghdad being put into the river and the untreated water being pumped into the city’s water supply because chlorine was a prohibited import. The child mortality rate was horrific. When I left Baghdad to return home two young Iraqis had said “You will come back again, Neville?” and I had answered “Yeah, I’ll come back again”.
I did go back again, along with a small wooden cross. It is a travelling and much travelled cross. I used in during the Gulf War and was interested in the comment of the video journo on that occasion. He said. “Of all the footage I took at that Camp, one scene stands out in my memory. It was of you and the Buddhist monk praying at dawn; you with your candle and cross and the Buddhist monk with his drum”. And then he made this comment. “It seemed as if you two were holding the world together”. The words are so profound that I am still not sure I understand the meaning; and, if you knew the journo who said it, you would be all the more amazed.
I used the cross again in Baghdad and when I placed my candle in front of it, the shadow of the cross fell over Iraq. I spent many hours in its shadow. I used it in conjunction with the words and music from the Phantom of the Opera. “In this darkness which you know you cannot fight let your eyes start a journey through a strange new world; leave all thoughts of the world you knew before, let your soul take you where you long to be, only then can you belong to me.” The answer to the question of “Why did you go to Iraq? Is quite simply answered: “I felt I could do no other”.
Let me conclude this bio by saying that today I am more than ever convinced that Jesus of Nazareth is the man from God’s tomorrow. The rest of the book presents my reasons for so thinking. They are not, however, as Studdert Kennedy says, “the coldly calculated formulae of thought divorced from feeling. They are true, too true for that…… I bet my life on beauty, truth and love, not abstract but incarnate truth, not beauty’s passing shadow but itself, its very self made flesh, love realized.” (Studdert Kennedy “The Unutterable Beauty”)
I am now in my ninetieth year of “living and partly living”, and as I move towards death I am filled with a deep sense of gratitude. As I stand on Morris West’s ridge, and contemplate moving into the valley, I have remarkably few regrets. Sure I would like to start off where I finished but that is part and parcel of the evolutionary invitation to fullness of life. The regret of unfulfilled opportunity is always with us. I would have liked to have had more depth relationships based on mutual concern and respect, and I would have liked an earlier appreciation of the importance of Contemplative Prayer.
This account would not be complete without reference to Margaret, my wife and soul mate who accompanied me on the journey with gracious understanding and commitment. She loved with a love that was quite remarkable. She raised the children while I saved the world – her kitchen at Faversham House being a converted shower recess. She endured long periods of loneliness as I tilted at windmills and went to war. At home she became a well known figure protesting the cause of peace in silence outside the U.S. Embassy, and in the newspapers and the Law Courts she was acknowledged as “the grandmother” concerned about peace. In her own right she was a skilled practitioner of Clinical Pastoral Education and more than once went into situations of grief and tragedy that would have set my knees trembling. In those situations she listened and supported and absorbed with love and understanding – as she did with her wayward husband and father of her children. She did, indeed, “make it all possible”.
Margaret died suddenly in 2018 from a massive stroke aged eighty four years. I was devastated. One moment she was here, the next she was gone. The only consolation was the number of people who recognized her for the person she was and the extent of my loss. Without them I would have been utterly distraught.
When she died I started a new journal entitled “Life after Death” – not the fictional life in heaven after death but life for me after Maggie’s death, which is of primary concern to me. Over the decades I have found journalling of immense value. It is the way where you can let it all hang out and discharge the tension of your feelings. I have included on this website an edited version of my journal to give some idea of what it is like – and the type of person my beloved wife for over sixty years was recognized as and is now honoured.
And for what am I most grateful? It is that I learned the importance of downward mobility early on. Having been born into a wealthy family, I could have easily been seduced into the mirage of high society and the pursuit of possessions. For me it is a case of “been there, done that” – and it really isn’t worth the effort! I find it quite amazing that so many people are hooked on the celebrity syndrome and possessions, and have so little appreciation of self worth.
All in all, I have lived my life and I have found it very satisfying. I am deeply grateful to have experienced “The Spirit of Life” and the one who personified it. I have at heart that experience for others and if this account can in any way further this, I will rest content.
December 2018
