BOOKMAN BEATTIE, IRISH SENTIMENTALIST

My paternal grandfather. David Alexander Geddes Beattie, emigrated from Northern Ireland to New Zealand in the early years of the 20th century where he later married Chrissie Louise White the daughter of English immigrants. They had five sons one of whom was my Dad. I guess that makes me one quarter Irish which may account for my sentimetal nature and my frequent inability to talk fondly about family and friends without becoming tearful. It also manifests itself in my reluctance to remove the names of friends from my e-mail address book after their deaths.

But I have decided that I should really face up to this now, be strong and remove their names. There are half a dozen or so, all fine folk who became friends through our common interest in books.
At the time I remove their names, over the next month or two, I am going to give them a mention on the blog as a sort of fond farewell.

The first one then is Robin Dudding, an extraordinary editor, a more than useful distance runner and gardener, and a man for whom I held great affection and admiration.
After his death in 2008 Tom McWilliams wrote a wonderful tribute to him in The Listener part of which appears below and the rest of which can be read in The Listener archives.

I should also mention that in his Janet Frame Memorial Lecture, 2008 Greg O'Brien reflected on New Zealand arts and letters and dedicated his lecture to the memory of Robin Dudding.


Above all, delight
by Tom McWilliams
writing in The Listener May 17-23, 2008

Robin Dudding was a shy man. He could seem fierce, cantankerous, his silences threatening, his questions disconcerting. He was also the kindest of men, a nurturer – of tomatoes, chooks and writers – and one of the great New Zealand editors.

Just two days before he was to be recognised with an honorary doctorate from the University of Auckland, Robin Nelson Dudding died.
It was the kind of grim twist of fate he would have laughed at, saying he didn’t know if he wanted to attend anyway, but that it was important for the family. He had six children – five daughters and a son – and 15 grandchildren.

Dudding, 72, never was one for the limelight, but achieved greatness. He made his mark not as an academic or writer but as a publisher/editor with idealistic goals. He did write, of course, and well, but rarely at length. Typically, his prose was concise, clear and – deceptive.
For Best New Zealand Poems 2003, which he edited, he supplied this biographical note: “Robin Dudding edited Landfall, 1966-72 (nos 81-101) and published and edited Mate, 1958-66 (nos 2-14) and Islands, 1972-87 (nos 1-38). At the same and other times he worked as a journalist on the Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune and the Auckland Star, taught at primary schools, edited and published books and, most recently, wrote the Bookmarks column for the New Zealand Listener.”

That’s the bones of his achievement, all right, the reason for his doctorate. All you need to know, really. But, for those in the know, that terse description has a sharp tang. The words only hint at the story behind the numbers.
Landfall leads the list of literary magazines because it is the best known and the one he was paid to edit.

Mate and Islands were quite different. Mate was a “little magazine”. Many of these popped up in New Zealand, but few lasted long. Whereas Landfall was part of Caxton Press, with secure funding under Charles Brasch, Mate was made possible by its subscription list and small grants from the Government literary fund. There was no capital. That lovely phrase “At the same and other times he worked” is a way of saying that, for all the Mate and Islands years, he struggled to support a family.

Tom McWilliam's full tribute can be read here.
And here is his obituary from The Dominion Post.

Footnote:
Thanks Robin, for the memories of course but also for all you did for NZ writers and for literature and literacy in NZ. Gone from the address book old friend but not forgotten.