When arse-grass came to Livinton Hall
21 January 2025
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
Crown Lane: A rural boomer’s tale by Robert Forster, UK Book Publishing, Whitley Bay, 2024. Available from Amazon Australia for $21.99 plus postage
TUMBY BAY - Although born in the heart of it, I’ve never been able to truly fathom the feudal but still very much extant English class system.
From the bone-headed parasites and inbreeds in the royal family to the lowliest members of the working class the existence of the archaic system and its acceptance by both its beneficiaries and victims is truly mystifying.
It has also perennially mystified many writers, even while providing them with abundant literary grist and fodder.
George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier springs to mind as does Victor Canning’s Everyman’s England. So too does the more recent English Pastoral by James Rebanks.
For an interesting twist, however, you could also try Robert Forster’s new book Crown Lane.
Robert was born in the north of England in 1947. He worked in Papua New Guinea between 1968 and 1975, firstly as a British overseas volunteer and then as a kiap.
When he returned to England he began a career in agricultural journalism. A memoir of his work in Papua New Guinea, The Northumbrian Kiap, was published in 2018
But Crown Lane is a work of pure fiction.
In The Northumbrian Kiap Robert sheds some light on the not-so-wonderful aspects of the kiap system, particularly in its fading years.
In this new book he casts a more sympathetic eye over the multi-faceted weirdness of the British class system, adding a couple of twists of his own.
Among other things, he manages to introduce an unlikely Melanesian element; not just as the usual colourful background but as a key component in the narrative.
This element, although very distinctively Papua New Guinean in nature, is attributed to a fictional country north of Australia called Pamaga.
The arse-grass and feathered headdresses are a dead giveaway however.
Central to the narrative is how a troupe of singsing Highlanders comes to the rescue of a ragged English toff and Lord of the Manor.
We are introduced to Jonathon Beltingham-Norris-d’Antilles and his under-siege estate, Livinton Hall.
If that intrigues you, so will all the adventures of the main character, the humbly born farmer, Ben Robson, as he navigates life in the post-war years in Britain, Australia and Pamaga/Papua New Guinea.
Apart from the story line, the extreme minimalist style of the narrative is also interesting. It consists of short sentences and short, non-segueing, paragraphs that flash by with little time to fully absorb leaving one with the sense that the gaps between the paragraphs need backfilling.
Most stylised narratives tend to taper off after a while; even Hemingway couldn’t keep it up all the way through his novels.
This doesn’t happen with this book, which maintains its staccato style throughout.
However, as many of the ancillary characters fall away, it becomes possible to concentrate on the central character, Ben Robson.
Ben is very interesting. He is someone with aspirations who exists in a class dominated world whose elements he finds not only curious but often uncomfortable.
Towards the end of the book Ben’s story gets bogged down somewhat when some detailed and sometimes difficult-to-follow agricultural matters begin to pile up in a sort of chronicle of historical woes, mad cow disease and so on.
A bump in the book’s road that readers need to navigate as best they can.
The overall message I took away from the book is that, for most of us, our basic sense of self evolves through our relationships, starting with parents and family and then adapting through experience as we age and become individual social beings.
In that sense, the book is simply about one man’s journey through life – with the help of a bunch of arse-grassed highlanders along the way.
Those highlanders make the book worth reading, especially by Australians who worked in Papua New Guinea and by Papua New Guineans themselves.
Masta Dunlop, g'day long yu.
Oiyo, Tok Pisin senis moa yet nau. If you can get my recent 'tukopi' book 'Resis Long KSSP (Komonwelt Sot Stori Prais), you will see that even writing Tok Pisin has changed so much and is evolving so fast that letters have dropped out from some words, eg wanpela would be written as wanpla and bilong become blo etc.
I said 'koble' has got centre stage to infer money and wasa and wanlus now for one kina and loose cigarattes.
However words like ass-grass and ass tangent with the drawn out stress on the 'ss' remain in circulation because of their place in swearing.
I'm writing 'tukopi', so watch for more of my writings for Tok Pisin stories and inserts.
Posted by: Baka Bina | 22 January 2025 at 03:42 PM
"As" is a Tok Pisin term meaning "buttocks, bottom, stump, underlying cause, place of origin, underside, rear etc."
"Arse", as in "arse grass" is an old colloquial term used primarily by expatriates to describe "a rustling bustle of leaves to cover his backside". It was in common currency in PNG prior to independence. It never struck me a particulary derogatory term but it probably offends people today.
"As" shouldn't be confused with "ass", which is an English colloquial term for a donkey - "donki" in Tok Pisin. A mule, which is a cross between a donkey and a horse and with which older Papua New Guineans might be familiar is called an "esel" in Tok Pisin.
A "Tanket" (or "tanget") is a particular plant (Cordyline fruiticosa) once favoured by male highlanders as a cover for their posteriors. It vaguely looks like grass (gras).
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 22 January 2025 at 01:43 PM
G'Day Baka Bina - Arse o As, emi no Ass olsem jackass or donkey. Na dingleberry emi stap long wanem hap?
My Pidgin's a tad rusty since I learned it in Lae and Chimbu in 1967-1971.
Posted by: William Dunlop | 22 January 2025 at 12:29 PM
Masta Bob, tenk yu. I'd say, it could not be Birds of Paradise and ass-grass if its not peacock's plumes and with names like Chins or Tongs.
Where else can you find names as exotic as Kunjin, Ongil and Komun and with a 'rusting bustle of leaves to cover the posterior' and a description of bilum malo - knocking at the ankles, all implicit of ass-grass and ass-tangets.
They are all intrinsic even across in Irian Jaya.
Your PNG incursion was appreciated and it shows through here very badly.
Glad for your book though, I might get a copy.
Posted by: Baka Bina | 22 January 2025 at 12:16 PM
Pagamba is very like PNG but in many ways it is not.
Pidgin English, as spoken in in PNG, is not in its language repetoire and "arse-grass" or "tanket" are words that do not feature in its national vocabulary.
When Ben Robson first sees Kunjin, who was Hilda's father, in traditional dress it is described as follows:
"Kunjin had exchanged his shirt and shorts for a feather headress, a shell necklace, a woven loin cover and a rusting bustle of leaves to cover his backside."
That is clearly what men from the Ongil clan in Pagamba wore when they dressed traditionally. There is no mention of arse-grass or astanget.
Much later when his son, Dr Kit Kunjin, strides out of Livinton Hall in Northern England in traditional dress, "Bird of Parasdise plumes danced on his head, the multi-leaved bustle over his backside rustled, and a long woven loin cover flapped against his ankles."
No arse-grass. No tankets.
Kit is Hilda's sister and together he, Hilda, Ben Robson and his father Kunjin had founded a pig rearing company called Hilbenkunpit.
If Baka wants to learn more about Hilda, Ben, Pita, Kunjin and Hilbenkunpit I suggest that he, and anyone alse who is interested buy the book.
As Phil emphasises in his review the Ongil clan from Komun close to the Bondan River play a principal part in the narrative.
At Livinton Hall, 27 of them dance in front of Britain's Top Princess and then take her into the castle's kitchen for a much needed break.
Posted by: Robert Forster | 22 January 2025 at 09:46 AM
Thank you Keith. You too are becoming too PC. Here in the woods, we say it and write it with two 'ss' in the arse.
This English spelling of arse is alien so it is straight up ass-grass and ass-tanget. Ass-grass if any can be seen growing and ass-tanget when tanget leaves are propped on at the back for ascetics.
_______
Not PC, my good friend, just old-fashioned - KJ
Posted by: Baka Bina | 22 January 2025 at 09:00 AM
Very English to be arse-grassed. Could have been better with a straight up asgras and 'with a bunch of astangeted highlanders'.
Posted by: Baka Bina | 21 January 2025 at 05:53 PM