Last night David and I watched the old Australian movie 'Wherever She Goes'.
Made in Sydney at the Ealing Studios in 1951, this was a biopic tale of the early life of famous Australian pianist Eileen Joyce. Typical of Australian movies made during this time, it is a bit rough round the edges but the acting is full of nostalgic Aussie charm. The lead actress, Suzanne Parrett, is naturally graceful and believable as she skips through the Australian bush and then manages to maintain her optimism as the family moves to the harsh environment of the Australian outback. She is entirely unaware of her family's penury until she discovers her passion for music and more specifically, the piano.
The story finishes abruptly as Eileen says goodbye to her family and boards a train to follow her dream at the conservatorium in Perth. Wanting to know more about this remarkable woman I was hoping for a sequel but unfortunately the film ends here. Before we saw 'Wherever She Goes' I'd never heard of Eileen Joyce but now I'm fascinated.
She was born into abject poverty, never having worn a pair of shoes. Her clothes were truly 'Sound of Music', with her mother making her dresses from old curtains. Set in Tasmania where Eileen was born, early scenes were filmed in the Blue Mountains where the bush revealed scenic vistas and was full of exotic wildlife. The vibrant mountains contrasted with the ugly desert town of Kalgoorli where her father moved in his search for gold. Kalgoorlie was home to an army of riff raff miners and larrikin adventurers whose favourite pass times of gold digging, drinking and two up games reflected another era in the Australian psyche, of mateship, swaggies and gold digging dreamers.
Environmental degradation caused by mining is surprisingly obvious even in this early depiction of an outback mining town. I wonder what the workers and miners from the early 20th Century would make of more recent mines, with city sized holes in the earth and monstrous trucks with wheels the size of houses.
The kindness of strangers and pure, serendipitous luck combined with Eileen's extraordinary, innate gift and obsession, under extremely unlikely circumstances, created one of Australia's best loved and world acclaimed musicians.
What makes this story even more remarkable, is that she was born in a time when expectations of women were vastly different to today. Women were not expected to leave the home to excel at anything, other than perhaps nursing, typing and maybe teaching. it seems hard to believe now that in those times and even until the 1960's, women were asked to leave their professions when they married.
Eileen Joyce at St.Joseph's, Boulder.
Eileen Joyce's full story should be told. In these 'hard nosed', mean spirited economic times, Australia could do with some education on the possible life changing effects that being generous, looking out for neighbours and performing small acts of kindness every day can have on children and families. Such actions can have life enhancing consequences on those around us, as demonstrated by this forgotten Australian classic.
Life was desperately hard for the miners of Boulder and elsewhere in Australia, yet they were aware of and encouraged and supported this talented young girl. Despite our hardships, when we focus on our shared humanity, notice the little things and pull together in community, we all benefit and it especially benefits our children.
Something must also be said about the nuns of the outback. The sisters travelled to remote places and set up schools for the bedraggled populations of these mining towns in the middle of the desert. Thanks to those nuns, the miner's children were educated and Eileen Joyce learnt to play her beloved piano.
Joyce, Eileen Alannah (1908–1991)
The Australian pianist Eileen Joyce, who died in England on March 25,
rose from poverty-stricken obscurity to become one of this century's
most famous concert stars.
She was one of the four children of Irish immigrants, Joseph and Alice
Joyce, and she was born in a tent at Zeehan, Tasmania, in 1912. She
spent most of her childhood in Boulder, Western Australia, where her
father worked as a miner.
The family lived opposite a miners' saloon run by a relative and it was
there that Eileen first began experimenting at the keyboard, tinkering
on a battered old piano in the bar. Her love of music was encouraged by
nuns at the local convent school and when she was about 10 they
recommended that she be sent to develop her talents at a larger convent
in Perth.
She was never to forget her father's embarrassment when he was forced
to admit that he could neither read nor write when enrolling her at the
city school.
When Percy Grainger was invited to the convent to hear her play, he
pronounced her "the most transcendentally gifted child" he had ever met.
Another visitor, the touring German pianist Wilhelm Backhaus, insisted
that she be sent to further her studies in Leipzig. The miners of
Boulder passed the hat around to help her parents pay her fare and
expenses.
Years later, during an interview, she recalled her long, lonely sea
voyage to Europe, and her arrival in Leipzig in the 1920s, "a homesick
waif and stray without warm knickers". The reception party, she said,
was disappointed to find she was not an Aborigine.
But she also recalled the magnificent musical education she received in
Leipzig, where her tutors included "the emperor" of pianists, Artur
Schnabel.
From Leipzig she went to London. She was then about 20 and not only an
exceptionally gifted young musician, but an extremely beautiful,
red-haired young woman. Throughout her career she was to be admired
almost as much for her beauty as her performances.
She made her London debut at a Proms Concert conducted by Henry Wood.
Shortly after, the resourceful young pianist made a recording in London,
at her own expense, and sent copies to all the leading conductors of
the day. Offers of engagements with top orchestras followed.
In 1936 she made her first ABC tour of Australia. During that visit her
proud father asked her to play his favourite Irish air, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.
By then she knew dozens of concertos and sonatas by heart, but she had
to admit she did not know the score of her father's favourite song.
"Then all your schooling's been wasted," he furiously complained at a
reception in her honour. She quickly learned the piece to please him.
Although she left Australia in her early teens and never returned to
make her home here, she always made a point of expressing her pride in
Australia and its people overseas and she never attempted to gloss over
her own humble beginnings.
Perhaps that is why she was regarded with such affection by her Australian contemporaries.
She was certainly never a victim of the tall poppy syndrome. In fact,
throughout her glittering international career Australia constantly held
her up as "a magnificent ambassadress" and a fine example to young
Australians.
Following her return to London after her 1936 ABC tour she married an
Englishman, Douglas Legh Barratt, and gave birth to their son, John.
But her first husband was killed while on active service during World
War II; in 1945 she married again, this time to the immensely wealthy
British film magnate Christopher Mann.
The same year she was featured playing on the sound track of two major British films, The Seventh Veil, starring Ann Todd, and the classic, Brief Encounter, directed by David Lean.
A children's book about her early life was published in 1949 by the
English writer Clare Hoskyns-Abahall, who described the miners of
"Boulder City" as"cowboys" in sombreros and chaps and reported that
Eileen had often roamed in the hills of "West Australia" leading her pet
kangaroo Twink by a chain attached to his "beautifullystudded collar".
But although the book provoked plenty of guffaws in Australia, it inspired the extremely popular 1951 film, Wherever She Goes, which consolidated Joyce's reputation as a first-rate ambassador.
It starred Suzanne Parrett as the young Eileen, and the famous pianist
appeared as her herself, the grown-up star, in the final reel.
In addition to constant reports in the Australian media about her
triumphs at Carnegie Hall and other famous concert venues, there were
lavishly illustrated magazine articles about her increasingly glamorous
lifestyle.
But even accounts of her Mayfair apartment, her seven grand pianos, her
country home, Chartwell Farm ("right next door to Sir Winston
Churchill's Chartwell Manor") and her concert gowns designed by the
leading couturiers of the day failed to provoke widespread envy or acid
media comment.
Australia always seemed of the opinion that the daughter of the battling Boulder miner had earned her place in the sun.
She ended her career in Aberdeen in 1960 by closing the lid of the
piano after a recital and announcing that she was in pain from muscular
problems in her shoulders and "utterly exhausted" after a lifetime of
extensive touring.
There was talk of a comeback following her brief, dazzling guest
appearance at a charity concert in London in 1967, but she thought
better of it.
In 1971 she received an honorary doctorate of music from Cambridge
University and in 1979 a doctorate from the University of Western
Australia. In 1981 she was created a Companion of the Order of St.
Michael and St. George.
The same year she visited Australia to adjudicate at the Sydney
International Piano Competition and to attend the official opening of
the Eileen Joyce Studio at the University of Western Australia.
She donated the $110,000 cost of the studio as a tribute to her
parents, but during that trip she confessed that she had virtually lost
touch with her siblings over the years.
She also attended the 1985 Sydney International Piano Competition and
made her last trip home to Australia in 1989 when she attended an ABC
concert in her honour at Sydney Town Hall.
Following the death of her husband, Christopher Mann, in 1983, she made
her home at White Hart Lodge, a converted 14th-century monastery in
Limpsfield, Surrey.
It was there that she suffered a fall on March 24. She died the
following day in hospital. She had been in poor health for several years
and friends report that she was particularly distressed by the
increasing loss of her short-term memory. "Mummy's going dottie", she
frequently complained during her last trip to Australia.
Her funeral was held yesterday in Limpsfield. She is survived by her
son, John, her daughter-in-law, Rebecca and her grandson, Alexander.
A studio at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's new headquarters at Ultimo is to be dedicated to her memory.
Original publication
- Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 1991, p 14
