Missing victim

Dear Editor,

Kerryn Goldsworthy’s review of the revised edition of K.S. Inglis’s The Stuart Case (ABR, February 2003) was an even-handed appraisal of a very thorough book about a shocking crime. Whether the Aboriginal Max Stuart actually raped and murdered the nine-year-old Mary Hattam was a bitterly fought issue, but, as Goldsworthy rightly notes, it seemed that the victim was ‘barely seen for the dust’.

I researched the case for the screenplay of Black and White. I interviewed most of the survivors, including Don Dunstan and Detective Turner (both now dead), as well as lawyers and relatives. I went to Ceduna and made the walk that Stuart made on that fateful day. I became convinced of two things. Firstly, the chronology of Stuart’s walk was very much in keeping with the prosecution’s allegations that it was possible for it to fit into the times many witnesses gave. Secondly, after all the evidence I heard and read (admittedly some of it not allowed in a court of law), I came to the conclusion that there had to be some doubt about Stuart’s innocence. My producer and director had a different view, hence the two versions of the brutal violation in the movie. But I also thought that presenting the two versions was probably a good idea, as they reflected the divided views of the community at the time. The irony of the whole case was that, if Stuart hadn’t been Aboriginal, he would certainly have been executed.

What began to prey on my mind was that Mary Hattam had been overlooked. It was a hideous and obscene crime. For many drafts of the screenplay, I opened the story with Mary Hattam’s voice and closed it with her voice, because I didn’t want her to be forgotten. My producer and director didn’t like this idea and the scenes were tossed out (as was their right to do so), something I regret to this day, as I do Robert Carlyle’s dismal performance.

Louis Nowra, Elizabeth Bay, NSW

Spooky

Dear Editor,

Despite Angus Trumble’s mystification, no supernatural power was involved in the airborne opening of Ann Galbally’s book Charles Conder (ABR, March 2003) – just the laws of physics. All paper these days is machine-made, which means that the wood fibres tend to line up more in the longitudinal plane than the transverse one in the process. That’s why it is easier to tear a newspaper down the page than across it. Books are printed with the paper orientated so that the grain is vertical, meaning that the pages bend most easily in the plane parallel to the spine. Sometimes the printer gets it wrong, so that after the book is bound the pages are stressed. The pages won’t turn over easily and tend to become convex or concave in the vertical plane, which means they fan out.

My guess is that your reviewer had such a book. The pages were controllable in the sea-level humidity, but when they became dry at high altitudes they fanned out like a porcupine’s quills – a physico-chemical reaction that proved to be perfectly reversible.

Richard Travers, South Yarra, Vic.