Coogee Media

Cleary's family was hit heavily by the effects of the 1930s Depression. His education at Marcellin Marist Brothers College, Randwick was cut short by financial constraints, forcing him to leave school at the tender age of 14. These early struggles shaped his perspective and fueled his determination.

The Path to Writing
Jon’s artistic journey began unexpectedly. In 1938, at the request of a journalist friend of his father, he penned his first story - an exploration of unemployment. Although he initially considered it self-pitying and left it unfinished, the process of writing intrigued him.

By 1940, when he was then 22 years old, he was able to write, produce and paint the scenery for a revue called Gone with the Breeze for the Soldiers Sons and Daughters Club staged in the Memorial Hall at Randwick Coogee RSL Club, in Carr Street Coogee. Reviews called it a "sparkling" presentation.

War Service
In 1940, Jon enlisted in the Australian army, serving in the Middle East and later in New Guinea. Amidst the challenges of wartime, he continued to write, selling his first story in 1940. His talent caught the attention of American agent Paul Reynolds, who successfully placed Jon’s short stories in prestigious magazines like Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post. Additionally, Jon’s radio play, “Safe Horizon,” won equal first prize in a competition for the ABC in 1945.

Overseas Work - 1940s
On a ship voyage to the United Kingdom in 1946, Cleary met and fell in love with Joy Lucas from Melbourne who was on her way to England to become a nurse. While overseas he worked as a journalist for the Australian News and Information Service, at the same time working on a number of novels. They lived in the UK for three years, where he wrote You Can's See Round Corners, and after a spell in Europe, moved to the United States for three years, living on Long Island in New York. Here he wrote the acclaimed The Sundowners (typed by his wife!) before returning to Australia in 1953.

Once the family had caught up with his mother, still living in Coogee, Jon Cleary set about preparing to take his family to the Kimberleys, the setting for another noved called Justin Bayard.

Jon Cleary and his family on their return to Australia in 1953

Coogee Novel - Just Let Me Be
During he sojourn overseas, Cleary had also completed a novel set soley in Coogee in 1947 titled Just Let Me Be. Chapter One starts with the fictional Joe Brennan and his brother stopping on the corner of Carr and Brook Streets to admire the view down towards the surf at the beach, and then continuing along Brook Street, turning into Oberon Street and then right into Arden Street to arrive at their home. Had this been real life, Jon Cleary would have been arriving at his family home at 344 Arden Street Coogee demonstrating the semi-autobiographical nature of the novel. He goes onto describe the house:

It was a narrow, semi-detached, red-brick cottage with a tiled veranda fronted by a low stone wall. Three steps led down to a tiled path that separated the two small patches of lawn and ran down to the front gate. The gate and fence and woodwork of the house were painted a bright cream, offset with green, and an enamel plate beside the front door proclaimed the house name: Haere Ma.

This sounds not unlike the house as it appears today. It then goes on to descibe the appearance of a boy about eleven carrying a school case and dressed in a dark, short-panted suit, his neck circled by a cerise and blue strip tie with a school cap in his hand. Cleary is describing the uniform of the Marist Marcellifn College at nearby Randwick, Cleary's own Alma Mater.

The Plot
Much of the plot of Just Let Me Be happens in the the few blocks described in the opening chapter and on nearby Coogee Beach. Joe Brennen is a tough World War Two ex-commando who aim is to just get on with a peaceful life, doing his job as milk deliveryman with a horse and cart, and marrying his sweetheart Connie Marshall. Fate, however, gets in the way.

Map of parts of Coogee showing where events in Jon Cleary's novel Just Let Me be happened

Accidentally Kills Man Defending Himself
On one early morning as usual, Joe starts his work at the fictional Seager's Dairy. (Cleary is a bit vague about where the dairy is located, but my best guess is that it was accessed from in laneway that runs off Brook Street near the south-eastern corner of Coogee Bay Road). There is very unstable weather and by the time he gets to Carr and Dudley Streets on his delivery route, a violent storm breaks out. It is here that he discovers a young Corisican born standover man, Rino Ricci, attempting to rob and assualt an acquaintance and smal] time criminal, Bill Peppers. Joe, with his Army training, steps in to break up the fight but in defending himself against a violent attack by Rino Ricci, accidentially kills the man.

Corner of Brook & Dudley Streets, Coogee
where (fictionally) the struggle between Joe and Rino Ricci
resulted in the later's death.

Asher Street, Coogee
where Joe dumped Rino Ricci's body
and where he encountered
and killed the elder Ricci brother.

Rather than alerting the police, Joe is persuaded by Peppers to disguise the circumstances of the man's death and move the body around the corner to Asher Street. In theory, no one could then connect them to the death, but unfortunately Joe's brother, Harry, finds the body and calls the police.

The Police are suspicious, and Rino Ricci's brother Lou (another standover man) is suspicious. They both put Harry in the frame for the man's murder, and so Joe eventually has to take steps to safeguard his brother. Joe finds himself once again fighting off the violent attack of one of the Ricci brothers, and once again accidentally kills the man near the same spot where the first body had been dumped. This time Joe does the honourable thing and informs the police - which is where Cleary leaves the story to end. We don't quite know what becomes of our anti-hero Joe Brennan.

British Television Adaptation, 1957
The novel was adapted for British television in 1957 under the title Knife in the Family. for the ITV network. It did not gain popular acclaim with the The Liverpool Echo saying of it: "there was nothing to hold the interest of even the most tolerant viewer."

I have not been able to find a copy of the film, or much about the production including about where it was set. It did feature a number of Australian, London-based actors. It was the first acting job in England for Australian actor Rodney Howe (1926 - 1961) who arrived in England seven months previously who played the lead role of Joe Brennan. Other London-based Australian actors included: Joan Gadson (1923 - 2003) playing the lead female role of Connie Marshall; Brenda Dunrich (1918- 1977), playing Flo Brennan; Frank Leighton (2908-1962) playing Inspector Talbot; and Joss Ambler (1900 - 1959) playing Bill Duppa. When British actor Peter Dolphin (1935 -20) got the part playing Harry Brennan, because he had spent time in Australia, he could meet the producers' need for an Australian accent.

This would seem to indicate that he was set in Australia and filmed in Britain. I don't know if it was set in Coogee.

Catherine Gaskin
In the his novel, Cleary alludes to a knowledge of another famous Coogee author, Catherine Gaskin, when he mentions that Joe Brennan, while walking down Arden Street to the the Beach, passes the house of a schoolgirl who had just had a best selling novel published, which would have been This Other Eden. Catherine Gaskin and her family lived at 328 Arden Street Coogee in 1947, just a block from the Cleary household at 344 Arden Street. Did Cleary and Gaskin know each other while they lived in Coogee? Or did Cleary meet Gaskin when the two were in London? You can read more about Catherine Gaskin here.

Later Life
Cleary returned to Australia with his family in 1968 to settle, eventually in Kirribilli, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Cleary went on to become one of the most popular Australian authors. Though his works were not considered great works of literature, they were always well researched and well crafted. As a mature author, once he published, he could be certain of sales of at least 250,000 copies. He published 55 novels in all, including The High Commissioner, (1966), the first of a long series of popular detective fiction works featuring Sydney Police Inspector Scobie Malone. Seven of his novel were made into movies. He won many awards including the 1950 Australian Literary Society Gold Medal, the 1974 Edgar Prize as regional winner in a world contest for best crime novel and, in 1995, the Ned Kelly Awards Lifelong Contribution to the Crime, Mystery and Detective Genres.

Cleary's older daughter, Jane, died of cancer in 1987 and Joy succumbed to Alzheimer's in 2003. He died 19 July 2010, after a long illness.

Coogee would be mentioned often in other novels, including those of Jon Cleary, but Julst Let Me Be is the only major work set solely in Coogee and where Coogee features so prominently.

References