Shakespeare at Sea

As a child I would curiously flick through my mum and dad’s photo albums looking at the sepia and black and white memories my parents had accumulated before I had been added to the drooping branches of our family tree.

One of my favourite images was of mum at around age 3, pictured with her best friend Dorothy Leonard [nee Timmins]. Dorothy, with her adorably chubby cheeks, is smiling happily, but mum seems less sure of the situation. Perhaps due to the fact that she’d been made to wear what appears to be a medieval, cardinal’s skull cap. Mum is bookended in the picture by another friend Joan Ferguson, who appears to be just holding the top half of a doll. Given the picture was taken in the midst of the Great Depression, it’s possible that the bottom half of the doll was given to her sister so that they both had something with which to play.

(Katheleen Purcell, Dorothy Timmins & Joan Ferguson circa 1929/1930)

Amongst the images of my austere looking forebears staring emotionlessly at the camera in studio sittings, one portrait used to stand out for the warmth and kindness it projected. The photo was of Ordinary Seaman Richard Southey Hookins. There was something about this smiling, beguiling stranger in full naval uniform, that always intrigued me.

(Ordinary Seaman Richard Southey Hookins)

Once in adulthood, I was going through the albums with mum and she was in fine form, filling in the finer details of spinster aunts, rogue uncles and her irregular, childhood headwear. On this day, the page turned over to the picture of Dick, as he was better known, and she sat back reflectively. I could tell she wanted to tell me more of his story, but she broke. She cried like I’d rarely seen her.

They were teenage sweethearts: Dick 2 years her senior. My Aunty Margaret told me that Dick ‘was very easy on the eye’ and well-favoured by all the girls in the parish at Sacred Heart in Preston.

On October 21st, 1944 his ship, HMAS Australia, was engaged in the Battle of Leyte Gulf as part Macarthur’s Philippines invasion force. Just after dawn, in what is believed to be one of the first attacks of its kind, a kamikaze plane hit the bridge of the Australia. Captain Dechaineux and 28 other officers and ratings were killed. Dick survived. However, when he came out of his induced coma a week later, such was the extent of his burns, he died of shock. He was 18 and half.

In my mother’s 1946 diary, which is the subject of my current touring, solo show Double Feature, there is a one sentence entry on April 25^th, 1946 …

“I went to Sacred Heart and lit a candle for Dick.”

Dick had always just been a face in a photo until I read this line in mum’s diary. Knowing that she carried his grief, gave me a deeper sense of the loss that she and his family would have felt. Margaret told me that news of the death of this popular young man rocked the Sacred Heart community.

Margaret, who at age 90, could easily run the country as long as she didn’t have to do the Parliament House stairs, came to see the show for a second time this week. She gave me the loveliest review I’ve ever received when she said … ‘I felt like Kathleen was sitting next to me.’

However, she also gave me another gift that almost took my breath way. After the show, she presented me with mum’s autograph book. She had recently come across the small leather bound notebook when going through her glorybox, and decided that I should have it.

The book was gifted to mum for Christmas in 1938, by her dear friend Dorothy. The entries in the book are non-linear and feature friend’s signatures, heartfelt messages, literary quotes and the odd photo. As Margaret ceremoniously handed over the book, she whispered to me that I should start by reading the first entry. I flicked the book open to page one

‘Every time you hear that name,

Please think awhile of me

For 10 to 1 I’m seasick,

Somewhere out at sea’

7/4/1944

Richard S(hakespeare) Hookins

This was Dick’s farewell missive to Kathleen before he went to a war, from which he would never return.

Margaret & I hugged and cried. For the first time, I heard Dick’s voice and saw that the man in the photo had a sense of humour. That smile now has even more meaning now, as do mums tears that day.

As Anzac Day 2023 approaches here in Australia, I’ll be thinking of you Richard S(hakespeare) Hookins.

(The author with Margaret Anderson during the emotional autograph book presentation at the Malthouse Theatre)

(The author & family just after the presentation. From left - Leanne, Eliza, Steve, Margaret, Damian & Zillah)

If you’d like to catch Double Feature on stage in 2023/2024, you can see where the show is playing in my gig guide.

Damian Callinan's Gig Guide