Ian Richards - To Bed at Noon

TO BED AT NOON

T HE L IFE AND A RT OF M AURICE D UGGAN

Ian Richards

First published 1997
This ebook edition 2013

Auckland University Press
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland 1142
www.press.auckland.ac.nz

Ian Richards 1997

This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior permission of Auckland University Press.

eISBN 978 1 86940 695 0

Publication is assisted by

For Kako,
on this and every other page

No, I dont know much about serenity. But I am inclined to think that, though we never achieve them, it is only our goals that distinguish us. And I am not to be blamed for being a little optimistic, surely; having been taught to be the reverse.

Maurice Duggan, letter to Paula Auld, 8 March 1973

I must gratefully acknowledge the help of Barbara Duggan, Nick Duggan and Marie Shaw, the widow, son and sister respectively of the late Maurice Duggan, for their encouragement and co-operation in this biography.

I am also particularly indebted to Dr William Broughton and the late Kendrick Smithyman, both of whom read this book several times in manuscript and made many contributions and suggestions. Their help was invaluable. Andrew Mason provided careful and finely judged assistance as editor, and Michael Gifkins, as my literary agent, gave me helpful advice and encouragement.

An early version of this biography was presented as a PhD thesis at Massey University in 1995.

This book was written with the generous assistance of funding from Creative New Zealand.

Other help gratefully acknowledged includes:

Dr Anna Benes; Prof. Richard Corballis; Dr Reiner Heigl; Dr Michael King; Judy Lawrence; Elizabeth Lee-Johnson; Father Gerard Mills; Dr John Muirhead; Dr Keith Ovenden; Dr John Ross; the staff of the Manuscripts and Archives section of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Artificial Limb Centre, Auckland; Auckland Area Heath Board; Auckland Public Library; Auckland University Library; Department of Internal Affairs; Harpers Bazaar; Hocken Library, University of Otago; Ministry of Defence; National Archives, Auckland; National Archives, Wellington; Radio New Zealand Sound Archive, Timaru; Representative Church Body Library, Dublin; Roehampton Hospital, London; St Josephs School, Paeroa; St Leos School, Auckland; University of Otago Archives; Vermont Street Catholic School, Auckland; Victoria University of Wellington Library.

All medical and psychiatric records relating to Maurice Duggan are used with the permission of the Duggan family and Auckland Area Healthcare Services, Ltd.

Frank Sargesons letters are quoted with the kind permission of the Sargeson Trust, Dan Davins with the kind permission of Brigid Sandford Smith, and Charles Braschs with the kind permission of Dr Alan Roddick and the Brasch Estate. The papers of R. W. Lowry are quoted with the kind permission of the Lowry family, the poetry of Fleur Adcock with the kind permission of the poet, the poetry of Kendrick Smithyman with the kind permission of Margaret Edgcumbe, and the poetry and drama of James K. Baxter with the kind permission of Jacquie Baxter.

Fleur Adcock; Estelle Baker; Jean Bartlett; Jacquie Baxter; Sir James Belich; Graham Billing; John Buckley; Alistair Campbell; Andrew Campbell; Noeline Chapman; Prof. Robert Chapman; John Chappell; Lillian Chrystall; Christine Cole Catley; Brian Couldrey; Brian Crosby; the late Winnie Davin; Marilyn Duckworth; Robin Dudding; Laurie Enting; Dr Martyn Finlay; Janet Frame; Marti Friedlander; the late Dr Erich Geiringer; Olive Gibson; John Goldwater; Honey Haigh; Eileen Hamilton; George Haydn; Ronald Holloway; Prof. E. A. Horsman; Edie Kirker; William Kirker; Jack Lasenby; the late Eric Lee-Johnson; Vanya Lowry; the late Dr E. H. McCormick; Ian McCorquodale; the late Dr Fraser McDonald; Colin McKeown; A. L. Marchant; Dr Keith Maslen; Phoebe Meikle; O. E. Middleton; Felix Millar; Trevor Nugent; Dame Janet Paul; Dr W. H. Pearson; Belenaise Rautahi; Delys Reed; Brother Maurice Russell; Brigid Sandford Smith; Maurice Shadbolt; Dorothy Simpson; the late Sir Keith Sinclair; Mary Sinclair; Stephen Sinclair; the late Kendrick Smithyman; Prof. C. K. Stead; Kay Stead; Margaret Thompson; Quin Thompson; Prof. Albert Wendt; Russell Wilson; Jane Winiata. Two further interviewees, Sylvia and Mark, are to remain anonymous.

The late Dorothy Ballantyne; Ian Cross; the late Barry Crump; the late M. H. Holcroft; Elsie Locke; Priscilla Thompson; Greville Wiggs.

Duggans papers, referred to in footnotes as personal papers, are located in the Duggan collection at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington [MS-Group-1760].

Unless otherwise stated in footnotes, Duggans letters to and from John Reece Cole [Duggan and Cole collections (MS-Group-4648)], Dan and Winnie Davin [Duggan and Davin collections (MS-Group-319)], Eric Godley [Godley collection (MS-Group-2376)], Frank Sargeson [Duggan and Sargeson collections (MS-Group-71)] and Greville Texidor [Duggan collection] are located at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Some letters to Greville Texidor are located at the Auckland University Library [Acquisition number A-198]. These have been indicated in footnotes.

Duggans letters to and from Charles Brasch are located at the Hocken Library, Dunedin [Landfall collection, MS 996].

Duggans letters to Fleur Adcock, Christine Cole Catley, Nick Duggan, Jack Lasenby, Eric Lee-Johnson, Keith Sinclair, Kendrick Smithyman and C. K. Stead are in the possession of the recipients or of their estates, and are quoted with permission.

Other miscellaneous letters to and from Duggan which are not sourced in their footnotes are among the Duggan papers at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

Ellipses by Duggan in his writing, marked as , have been reproduced. Ellipses by the writer indicating a cut in a quotation have been marked between square brackets as [].

Throughout the footnotes all references to Collected Stories: Maurice Duggan, ed. C. K. Stead, Auckland, Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1981, have been named only as Collected Stories. All other titles have been named in full. Throughout the text, page numbers in brackets are references to Collected Stories: Maurice Duggan, or to Duggans childrens books Falter Tom and the Water Boy and The Fabulous McFanes and Other Childrens Stories (see Bibliography).

Something of myself, we must come to it, obliquely. I cant hold back forever, whatever the ecstasy. I too have too small a history.

Over the weekend of 17 and 18 October 1970, in a prolonged fit of alcohol-induced rage, Maurice Duggan burned every scrap of paper relating to literature that he had produced since he began writing twenty-five years earlier. The drafts and typescripts of his famous stories, the verse he had written, copies of letters by him and even to him, all of which had lain until that time in cardboard beer cartons in his study, he fed into the incinerator in the backyard of his Auckland section. Begun impulsively, the destructive task seemed endless. Duggans wife and son watched from the house as he repeatedly staggered out with further clusters of paper and stirred the blaze. He was careless of the fierce heat the paper generated, so that he singed most of the hair off the back of his hands and arms. The final load of material, exercise books which were too tightly wadded to burn, he took to the office of his company the following Monday and dumped into a rubbish bag. The only papers which Duggan could not bring himself to incinerate even at this, one of the lowest points in his life, were folders of letters from early mentors Frank Sargeson and Greville Texidor, and a parcel containing the drafts of his unfinished novel, The Burning Miss Bratby. These omissions suggest there were limits to what was plainly an attempt by Duggan to obliterate himself, but it would be two more gruelling years before his alcoholism reached its point of crisis.