The Clay Dreaming (66 page)

The spark of inspiration for
The Clay
Dreaming
came from an article in my local paper: ‘Not over for Cole’, by Ivor Watkins (
East End Life, 7
–13 October 1996). That spark was then fanned into flame by a second article in the same ‘Eastend History’ series, appearing almost a year to the day later, called ‘From Limehouse Lad to Maori chief’, by John Rennie (
East End Life
, 6–12 October 1997). The first article concerned the Aboriginal cricketer King Cole; the second was about a Greenwich Pensioner – the Royal Naval equivalent to a Chelsea Pensioner – named Joseph Druce, a man who had led a most extraordinary life and lived just long enough to tell the tale.

Here on the one hand was a native of Australia, remembered only for playing the very English sport of cricket, and on the other, an English boy deported for his crimes to the crown colony of Australia: a rogue adventurer who subsequently came to live among the Maori of New Zealand, as one of them, the rank of Chief conferred on him in 1806 – the very first of the
Pakeha Maori
, literally ‘European Maoris’. It seemed to me as if their lives and lifestyles had – in the most simplistic of senses – somehow crossed over, or been exchanged: black for white; between northern and southern hemispheres; Old World for New. My imagination went into overdrive, wondering how there might be a connection or connections made between the two of them.

What brought the disparate and obscure life stories of these two men home for me, as a housing co-op tenant living in Mile End, in London’s East End, was the discovery that King Cole (aka Brippoki, aka
Bripumyarrimin
), an Australian Aborigine, was buried only a short distance away from my house. Joseph Druce, buried just across the river Thames in Greenwich, had been born a roughly equal distance away from where I lived, in fact just to the south of me in the neighbouring Tower Hamlet of Stepney.

It took the every-now-and-then labour of some years for me to locate the grave of King Cole. I searched for it around the wide green spaces and most obscure corners of vast and leafy Victoria Park, having read that he had been interred within the grounds there. All the while the truth was hidden in plain sight. He was buried in nearby Meath Gardens, Bethnal Green – once a portion of that same great park, but separated since by a few major roads. There’s no telling the exact spot; the graveyard itself disappeared long ago. The small park is now open space. In commemoration of him a single, simple stone block rests in the ground, arbitrarily placed beside a pathway and beneath a twisting Eucalypt. The burial plaque reads:

In memory of

King Cole, Aboriginal cricketer,

who died on the 24th June 1868 

Your Aboriginal dreamtime home. Wish you peace.

Nyuntu Anangu Tjukapa Wiltja Nga Palya Nga

Eucalyptus pauciflora
donated to the Aboriginal Cricket Association by Hillier Nurseries Ltd.

Planted on Sunday 26th June 1988

Of only 46 words comprising this brief dedication, my own family name is among them. I cannot overstate the shock of this discovery. That sealed it. I just had to write this novel. Thereafter, Brippoki’s grave marker (I prefer to think of him by that name, even though, and ironically, it is as much of a given name as ‘King Cole’ ever was) became something of a literal touchstone for me in the creation of this book. I felt (and feel) a certain responsibility to tell his untold story – to flesh out the bare (and now misplaced) bones of the man who travelled such a long way only to die here. I like to pay him a visit every now and again, pull up the
boree
log, sit down, and have a chat. I feel that he has on many occasions encouraged me to persevere in the learning of my craft and, ultimately, to see the writing of this book safely through to its completion. That, and to dare envision an Aboriginal experience of Victorian London, something which I felt couldn’t help but be compelling…

Winkling out record of Joseph Druce, his lifetime and achievements, proved no less protracted and troublesome. Although the original 1997 newspaper article had tipped me off to the existence of his
Life of a Greenwich Pensioner
, I couldn’t find trace of it anywhere. Once again, the solution to the riddle was right under my nose. The very excellent Local History Library in Bancroft Road, Mile End, furnished me with photocopies of a piece from the East London Record No.4 (1981). The excerpted article – by a Mr Ralph Bodle, from Kaukapakapa, New Zealand – was entitled ‘The Road to Transportation’. He had been engaged in researching Madame Isabelle de Montolieu, author of a French translation of
The Swiss Family Robinson
; a lady who had also, by curious happenstance, written a play, which she added to the second edition, published in 1816, wherein ‘she created a character based on a newspaper report she had read about George Bruce, whose real name was Joseph Druce’. I read (and for some time thereafter still somehow managed to overlook) this vital clue: he’d changed his name!

For Ralph Bodle, the discovery of Druce’s
Life
had been a happy by-product of his own researches. As revealed in a footnote to his brief article, the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, had acquired the original manuscript, and there it nowadays resides. The Greenwich Pensioner had eventually found his way back to Australia!

‘Soon after being admitted to Greenwich Hospital in 1817,’ the article said, ‘he produced a 19,000 word manuscript known as
The Life of a Greenwich Pensioner
[…] presented to John Dyer, secretary of the Hospital, possibly before Druce’s death in February 1819.’ And so, in 2002, with the help of my old mucker Mr Eddie Campbell (formerly of Glasgow, Scotland; currently of
Brisbane, Australia), I was able to establish contact with the trustees of the Mitchell Library, and arranged to be sent a photocopy, taken from a microfiche recording of the object itself.

That was a Holy Grail moment. Finally, I held a facsimile of Druce’s
manuscript
in my hands – accurately reproduced down to the marbled cover, and with every scratch and slip of the pen. Entirely handwritten, the work appeared to be the work of diverse hands, and was therefore most likely dictated by an illiterate Druce to various of his fellow inmates, most of them barely any more literate than he. While painstakingly decoding passages of intense detail concerning the man’s earliest experiences and humble origins, early thrills soon gave way to doubt and dismay, as the storyline gradually dissolved into fitful raving and endless imprecations to God, ‘the Almighty Disposer of Events’. Diamonds, certainly, glittered in the rough, but you could hear the man dying, there on the page, via his feverish ramblings.

Once I realised the full significance of Druce’s change of name, of course, it proved the key to unlocking an entire cabinet of curiosities. As soon as I started looking instead for ‘George Bruce’, the evidence piled up. The British Library furnished me with the 1810
Memoirs
(of Mr George Bruce). He was mentioned by that name in the Australian Dictionary of Biography; J. A. Turnbull’s
A Voyage Round the World; Barrington’s History of New South Wales
; MacNab’s
From Tasman to Marsden
. The Historical Records of Australia included some of his Memorial correspondence. Each entry threw up more pieces for the puzzle, and led on to further discoveries.

Moving on into the twentieth century,
The HOME
, a swish periodical somewhat resembling
Vogue
, included Bruce among its article series of
Picturesque Rascals
by C. H. Bertie (issue for 1 March 1935). Trips to the Public Record Office in Richmond produced ships’ logs and musters, Pensioners’ admission papers, Burial Registers, and more…

Perhaps none of this revelation would ever have been possible without reference to that 1981 article by Mr Bodle. I have not been able to trace his present whereabouts; but wherever you are, sir, I salute you – ‘
sucali
’.

Finally able to locate and read the Druce manuscript for myself, I subsequently gained permission for its co-option and usage within my own storyline, very kindly granted by its current owners, the Mitchell Library. It appears to have come into their possession via the good graces of Thomas Whitley of Blackheath (South Australia, not South London), in November 1898. How it might have made its way there from Greenwich, well…I provide one possibility. I have sprinkled the actual text of Druce’s
Life
liberally throughout my own storyline, intervening at some length in order to edit down some of its excesses of religiosity, and where necessary improve slightly the narrative sense of it. Still, it is Druce’s life experience expressed in the man’s own words – and what, after all, could be better? 

FACTS INTO FICTION…

Without either Brippoki or Druce, there could be no story. This book then, most of all, is for them, and to both gentlemen, my sincere and eternal gratitude; I hope to have done you some little justice in our sharing of stories, conveying an idea of your struggles and at least a little of your pain.

As far as possible, the roles assigned to each of them in this otherwise fictional story accord with what few facts are known about their actual lives and essential character, although very little exists in the case of King Cole – not much more than the dates of his death and burial. However, identity and motives have been embroidered or invented for the purposes of turning their lives into a work of historical fiction (the weighty tome you are at this minute most likely struggling to hold within your hands). With regard to Joseph Druce, the novel, as I say, incorporates portions of the unpublished manuscript that he dictated during the last years of his life, and which is, wherever possible – within bounds of relevance and comprehension – quoted verbatim. Druce is also, however, reinvented here (a miracle he himself performed more than once within his lifetime…). As some readers may have gathered, there is more going on here between the lines, and in the blurring of fact and fiction; but that is perhaps for another book, and for another time.

Thus, this historical fiction is based on real lives. Evidence of those lives persists all around. If you’d like to read details of the boy Druce’s actual criminal trial, the Proceedings of the Old Bailey for 1674–1834 can be found at www.oldbaileyonline.org. Not for the last time the crafty weasel lied about his name, so you’ll be wanting William Druce, theft: burglary, 13 Apr 1791 (ref: t17910413-7). And to see the record of Druce’s sentence of death commuted to transportation for life – lest we forget, for the theft of two (actually nine) silk handkerchiefs – see 14 Sept 1791, ref: o17910914-1, under the name now of Joseph Druce. Fascinating stuff. (One Saturday in March 2004, I was in the Tower Hamlets Local History Library on Bancroft Road, busy with my researches, when a juvenile gang was spotted stripping down my pedal bike, outside. Trailing them unnoticed, I managed to trap them inside their own garage. When the police eventually turned up, the door was opened for them to be arrested and cautioned. I got my wheel back. Nor did the irony escape me – time changes little. But they should consider themselves lucky to have got off so lightly.)

Druce’s many letters to the press, and articles written about him, can be found in the newspapers of the time. His own 1810
Memoirs
, 1813 Memorial and other documents are often unofficial compilations of material that first appeared in the Calcutta journals and Sydney press. I’ve discovered more of his correspondence since finishing the novel, and I’m sure there’s more out there yet to be unearthed. His associations with prominent early colonial figures such as Matthew Flinders, Captain Bligh and Dr Caley are likely to throw up further documentary evidence of his activities – although under what name is anyone’s guess.

Certain other related objects might also still survive somewhere, their
significance
long since forgotten. In Rotherham, in August 1868, the remainder of the Aboriginal team signed a cricket ball – a prize lurking in someone’s loft perhaps, the names scrawled upon it a mystery to the current owner, awaiting rediscovery. If you live up that way, please do have a look, eh? The portrait of Druce’s tattooed face by the ‘King’s miniaturist’ may also be out there. That the painter was John Downman is my own conceit, but I chose him not only to reinforce the Malling connection, but also because, given their relative and depleted circumstances at the time, it is entirely possible that it was indeed Downman that painted Druce’s portrait. The painting was made, that much is certain, probably destined to become a curio in some drinking establishment. A
moko
tattoo on the face of a white man would make it hard to miss. I’m keeping a lookout.

‘George Bruce’ also left behind a living relation in his daughter with Aetockoe, a trail I intend to explore further. So far any attempt to trace living descendants has met with failure. Even so, I’m confident that they exist. If that’s you, get in touch.

Another key resource in my research was
Cricket Walkabout,
by John Mulvaney and Rex Harcourt, an excellent handbook detailing the various Aboriginal Australian Eleven tours, culminating in their trip to England in 1868. My portrayal of Charles Lawrence and co. was largely based on the wealth of archive material referenced within this work, which often led me back to the original newspaper articles. In various ways many of my researches were also extrapolated from there. The plot of
The Clay Dreaming
itself works like a filter, through which I have sifted a wealth of found material, most of it contemporary and much of it out of copyright, wonder-stuff that might not otherwise be seen but which is the best expression of the times, then and now. Incorporated are articles of news, commentary, reportage and crucially, whenever possible,
vox populi
(eyewitness accounts): the sights and sounds of the living streets recorded word for word, for the accents, the vocabulary and the intonation.