The Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction

Memoir of bygone jobs takes top writing prize

6/2/2020

From left, Malcom Brodie (third prize winner), Don Watson (author and guest speaker), Julie Constable (second prize winner), Christine Grayden (first prize winner) and Phyllis Papps (prize sponsor) at The Gurdies winery following the announcement of the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction.

By Catherine Watson

PHILLIP Island writer and historian Christine Grayden has won first prize in the inaugural Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Jobs that no longer exist – a memoir.

Her story relates memories of the various physically hard jobs she did as a young woman with her uncle while spending her holidays and weekends on Phillip Island, and later when living there.

Most of these jobs – handline commercial fishing, chicory drying, and collecting kelp and cuttlefish – were traditional on Phillip Island until the 1980s, but they are no longer done, so the memoir is an invaluable historical record as well as being a fascinating story.

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Jobs that no longer exist - a memoir

4/2/2020

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By Christine Grayden

AN UNCLE and aunt who owned a General Store on Phillip Island and spoiled their nieces and nephew rotten with lollies and great dollops of multi-flavoured ice creams squashed down into cones were definitely adored in my childhood. They both played jokes on us and we all laughed. Uncle Keith's Border Collie dog Kruger carried a tyre in his jaws and taunted us to pull it away from him. Not a chance but it was fun trying. Then, too soon, the visit was over for that year. We piled into our car and drove back to the city to our dysfunctional family life via several pubs on the way.

I came to stay with my grandmother on Phillip Island at my recently divorced uncle's place in the summer holidays of 1968-69 at 15 years old, and assumed I would spend the time with my Nanna, walking, cooking, sewing, swapping letters from family and hearing stories about her siblings and the varied places she had lived and worked. Uncle Keith was then a professional fisherman with a small boat and nets, having lost the store in a messy divorce, and we hardly saw him. When we did he barely grunted and hardly acknowledged me.

Christine Grayden has won first prize in the inaugural Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with Jobs that no longer exist - a memoir. Her story relates memories of the various physically hard jobs the writer did as a young woman with her uncle while spending her holidays and weekends on Phillip Island, and later when living there. Most of these jobs were traditional on Phillip Island until about the 1980s, but are no longer done.

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