Scotch College

Literary Dinner a Fitting Festival Finale

In its short history, the Cardinal Pavilion has probably been associated with brawn more than brains, but it made a fine setting for the Literary Dinner on 17 August - a fitting finale to the Literature Festival, a whole week of activities celebrating the creative genius of the human mind.

As MC Campbell McComas pointed out in his introduction, the world of literature is yet another field of endeavour in which

Old Scotch Collegians are well represented, with a roll of honour of Old Boys who have achieved fame and high distinction as writers in many fields including history and biography, fiction and non-fiction.

Dr Donaldson said the Literature Festival had proved to be a most remarkable week as it had provided irrefutable proof to the boys who took part in the life-long value of being able to express yourself in words, regardless of language or culture.

Head of Library, Suzette Boyd, driving force behind the organizing team who put it all together, said she had been enormously rewarded by the enthusiasm and spontaneity of all the participants. It certainly sounded as if the week went a long way toward achieving its objective of elevating writers to the hero status normally attainable only by great sporting heroes.

After some splendid music and singing earlier, the evening's entertainment was a thoroughly engaging 'fireside chat' interview between Campbell McComas and guest of honour Gretel Killeen.

Gretel was introduced as a best-selling author, voice artist, humorist, public speaker and gallivant, who had latterly achieved fame as host of the TV show Big Brother, and was also to be seen on the show Beauty and the Beast. However, she had written eighteen books, so we were assured she knew a bit about literature.

Gretel became a stand-up comic after dropping out of law school, and although Campbell claims he actually passed law at Monash before embarking on his talking career, he told the audience that what he and Gretel had in common was that they both didn't actually grow up until after leaving law school.

(What was different of course was that they achieved fame and fortune by somewhat different routes - Gretel mainly by being herself and Campbell by being more than 1,500 other people as well as himself!)

Some of the audience may have been a trifle alarmed by Gretel pointing out that how the creative gene developed so strongly in some families was still a mystery, although it had been reported that a strong vein of creativity was often found among alcoholics and drug addicts.

But the good news was that there is a strong resurgence of reading as a very enjoyable pastime among the general community, as evidenced by the enormous popularity of reading groups and book clubs, with the ABC Radio National 'Australia Talks Books' programme alone boasting 50,000 regular listener/readers.

So, as usual, Scotch is right on the ball in keeping up with current trends.

Frank Shew