Now I have been allocated 10 minutes today, which is fine by me; I don’t like talking for too long.

But maybe not so for you because research has shown that people in conferences or listening to speeches tend to drift off after 19 minutes and have a sexual frisson, a sexual thought.

So if you came here today expecting to get your jollies and don’t, please refer to the Editor of Island, David Owen, not me.

And I must say it is a pleasure, if not a sexual one, and an honour to be here in this most beautiful of places again, Tasmania, and also, well certainly if you had spoken about this 10 years ago, a surprise.

Island reaching issue 60 was little short of a miracle back then.

And also back then, a failed sports hack from The Merc, (does it get any worse then that!) I never saw myself involved with what I regard as one of Australia¹s brightest intellectual gems, right up there with my much-loved Radio National.

Let me have the indulgence to tell you how I became a small part of the history of this great institution.

Ten years ago, after all the good efforts of Andrew Sant and Michael Denholm, who set the mag up in 1979, things were pretty grim.

Of course I had no real idea of this when I got a phone call from Richard Flanagan asking me if I would consider coming on to the management committee.

Would I? Hey I’m the failed sport hack from The Mercury and you’re offering me the chance to mix with the literary glitterati of Tasmania!

So I duly turned up to the first meeting in the broom cupboard allocated to us by the University of Tasmania back then.

There I was cheek by jowl with such shining eminences as Flanagan himself, Peter Hay, Margaret Scott. My heroes.

After the acceptance of minutes and other niceties, Margaret Scott announced she was resigning as Madam Chair.

Conned me beautifully

And before I knew it, I was the new chair. That bastard Flanagan. He had conned me beautifully.

And as as the day progressed, I was right there with Paul Lennon: Richard Flanagan you¹re not welcome here!

That was because we then moved on to the finances. I very quickly learned we weren’t just in the red, but in the brown, the poo.

But there were enough hopeless romantics among us to try and save it: Rodney Croome, the wonderful Fiona Cooke, the assistant editor, Margaret, who stayed on the committee, Richard and Peter Hay.

And didn’t these attempts at resuscitation provide some moments.

As well as discovering those brown finances, I quickly learned the mag had a few enemies for whom its death would be the ultimate triumph.

Whether it was coincidental or not, I don’t know, but we were evicted from the broom cupboard by one section of the university, but happily, Professor Pip Hamilton gave us space in the old Vice-Chancellor’s office high above the uni.

We were starving to death, but at least we had a wondrous view of the Derwent. I am pleased to hear from David Owen that the university remains a supporter of Island. It too, is another great Tasmanian institution.

I set out to discover who the enemies might and might not have been. We did a presentation to the Tasmanian arts people and they seemed on our side.

Phew!

I rang the federal people who also financed us and got a pleasant response.

I rang Margaret Mcott, as I did after a lot of these meetings, to tell her I think we¹ve got an ally here.

“Oh that¹s wonderful warwick,” she would say in that raspy voice of hers.

But then came the ballad of the ballard, a typo on the front page – b a l l a rrrrrr d.

The vultures were again hovering overhead. I don’t know what the collective noun for vultures might be but from the way they were carrying on it might be euphoria for them.

We gave poor old Rodney a bit of a hard time over that but we daren’t sack him for fear nobody else would want the bloody job.

Thankfully, in the time of this crisis, Margaret Scott gave one her funniest speeches ever and as well know, her speeches are hilarious.

Island, she said, was proving itself to be at the forefront of world literature by discovering new words.

Ballard was a noun for ringing the Editor’s bloody neck.

But we still knew there were enemies out there.

I asked Philip Adams and Leonie Kramer to endorse the magazine, which they did. I think they found it a bit uncomfortable if not in the same bed, but in the same media release.

A letter full of abuse

But it was duly noted by people holding purse strings that we had brought together two very powerful people from different bits of Australian thinking.

But Phillip got a letter full of abuse for his troubles which he duly forwarded on, noting that things looked “a bit techy down there, Warwick”.

So we needed more positive signs of going forward.

Fiona Cooke came up with the idea of this t-shirt which I am wearing and we also threw in this Island mug if you subscribed to Island.

We didn’t quite get to steak knives, but I can tell you, if it would have saved the magazine, we would.

And the supply was easy enough to find, there were hundreds of them in our backs.

I was an admirer of Gwen Harwood who like me had discovered Tasmania, rather than being born here, and had been won over by it.

She, of course, wrote about her converion far more evocatively than I but there was some doubt about whose side she might be on.

I sent her a note asking if we could name a poetry prize after her.

She sent back the most precious letter saying it would be an honour.

I remember ringing Margaret Scott and saying, “i think she¹s one of us.”

“Oh good Warwick, that’s wonderful,” she rasped.

Sadly, that letter was mis-placed. I would have loved to read it to you today because it was the most beautiful ringing endorsement of Island.

Now, 10 years on, we celebrate the Gwen Harwood Memorial Poetry Prize as one of the most presitigous in Australia.

Island is back where it belongs – the new management committee are obviously doing the most magnificent job and all strength to them.

It must be nice to have a meeting without blood all over the floor.

I should thank some of the people from 10 years ago who all did so much to ensure we have these moments to celebrate today.

Rodney Croome, the Editor, who took a pay cut, and I think he did that before we ballarded him!

Fiona Cooke, who quite often bled for the magazine.

Ian Ross, the accountant on the committee who should have been struck off. He always developed temporary deafness when the accounts were being read out and never offered us the advice that he should have – that we were insolvent and declare ourselves so.

Peter Hay, Haysie, who rang up all his mates, and a lot of his enemies, and got them to put up $100 each towards saving the magazine.

Lynda Warner, the designer who with Rodney, gave us the new Island shape.

It many ways, it represents Tasmania, beautifully compact but full to overflowing with so much that is good in a world where so much is bad.

I am sure there were plenty more and when you name some, you risk missing others.

Other people from different eras would know about the many no doubt hundreds of volunteers who kept the magazine going through other harsh times.

The first edition put out by Santie and Denholm was an all volunteer effort.

It might rile the hell out of the suits who have philsophically opposite ideas to those put forward in Island and who have huge salaries, too, that people are prepared to do so much for very little in places like Island.

I have looked at the 100th edition, so lovingly put together by David Owen.

I first read it on my computer screen. It is a much more beautiful thing in the flesh. I was pleased to get to Hobart and to feel it and smell it when I found a copy in my hotel room.

Greatest hits

I see works by Sarah Day and Stephen Edgar, two more people who fought the good fight and from whom we are going to hear after I’ve finished.

And there are pieces by Peter Hay and Richard Flanagan, Margaret Scott, Santie.

What David Owen has done is put together an Island greatest hits, a double cd.

I half expected to find something by John Lennon and Paul McCartney: “Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door”. Eleanor Rigby was pretty good poetry.

Island remains a ground-breaking publication, full of contemplative thought.

Though its articles are not as widely read as say those in the Woman’s Day, which means Kerry Packer won’t be making a takeover offer, they do have the power to influence.

It reminds me of what Neil Finn, the songwriter from Crowded House, once told me about his songs after I borrowed a line of his for my play “An itch too sensitive to scrach”.

Neil said “you write the little suckers, put them out there and they get a life of their own”.

That happens with articles in Island. They are carefully and thoughtfully written and the ideas are read in the first instance in small numbers, but then slowly they creep into mainstream thought and sometimes, even become government policy.

So another songwriter helps us with the allusion to greatest hits.

This can also refer to cricket … Greatest hits.

And cricket features in this 100th edition.

In his screenplay Richard Flanagan uses it as a metaphor for all that is good and moral. No argument from me on that.

Margaret Scott tells the story of mothers on holiday at the seaside in England rolling up their skirts and becoming demon bowlers.

So if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me as we launch the 100th edition.

These days it¹s customary upon scoring a century for a player to kiss the kangaroo and emu on his Baggy Green cap, run down the wicket while punching a hole in the sky and to hold up his bat to the appreciative crowd.

For the purpose of this little exercise, you will be the appreciative crowd while I kiss the 100th edition, hold it up before you and launch the 100th edition of Island.

Journalism legend Warwick Hadfield was chair of the Island management committee from 1995 until 1997. This is his speech delivered in The Crystal Palace, Parliament House lawns, Monday, April 4, to launch Island 100

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