Standing Up and Speaking Well

Enid Lyons: Leading Lady to a Nation,

by Anne Henderson;

Pluto Press, 2008, $29.95.

Anne Henderson is a fine writer. Her article in the Weekend Australian of August 16, “Nation’s Change of Heart” is a crisp, clear and insightful examination of the rise and fall of John Howard. So what on earth is she doing writing:

“She [Enid] was photographed buying clothes—interest had grown as to what she might wear in parliament, a matter she quickly settled by deciding on a couple of black frocks and a number of what she called ‘lace and muslin jabots’. On the day parliament opened, however, she wore ‘Lady Astor’ classic of white blouse and black suit, black brimmed hat and a fur draped over her shoulders, her figure notably trimmed down …”

The style of writing and the unusual focus (at times) on the mundane make for bewildering reading, and the urge to shout out, “Will the real Enid and Joe Lyons please stand up!” Against a background of the turbulent period in Australia’s history between the death of Queen Victoria and the reign of Elizabeth II, the opportunity to capture the life of Dame Enid Lyons with the events surrounding her times seems self-evident. Yet this book appears determined, in places, to seek out the superficial, with a casual Woman’s Day sort of flourish.

With the renewed interest (via Peter Costello’s book) in the influence of a prime minister’s wife (Janette Howard) and the possibility of the first elected “woman of power” floating about the West Wing (Sarah Palin), Anne Henderson’s book had the potential to reveal something of the “oestrogen” side of high politics. But it doesn’t. This, though, may not be entirely the author’s fault. According to Anne Henderson, “Enid had become a whiz at what she called a political ‘game of bridge’, where Joe was her partner”—“I played to his lead and never, so far as I am aware, did I trump his ace!”

For Australia’s first “celebrity political wife” and our first “celebrity female politician”—and a brilliant spin-doctor and media tart (or perhaps media dame is more respectful)—Dame Enid has covered her tracks well. From the mountain of material in the historical record, it is still difficult to resolve the true character of Dame Enid Lyons and, particularly, how she operated behind the political landscape. Was she the dedicated mother, and supportive wife of an “ace” politician, or was she a clever puppeteer? Was she Pollyanna or Lady Macbeth? Or a mixture of both? One suspects she owned a brace of Chinese fans, as no one could be so perfect as our Enid.

Briefly, Enid Lyons (nee Burnell) was born at Duck River in northern Tasmania in 1897, raised by a ferociously dominant mother (Eliza), studied teaching, married Joseph Lyons (a former teacher), and had twelve children. Joseph, a Labor member of the Tasmanian parliament, served as premier, then stood for the federal parliament, becoming a minister in the Scullin Labor government. He then quit and helped form the United Australia Party, and so became a “Labor rat”. He was chosen Prime Minister in 1932 and died in office in 1939. After his death Enid Lyons stood for federal parliament and became a Minister without Portfolio in the Menzies government and, in retirement, a competent journalist, writer, broadcaster and member of the ABC Board.

“Slang to my mother was abhorrent, a sign of a slovenly mind; it showed a deplorable lack of taste. But to my father it was the handmaid of rhetoric, an embellishment to conversation, and an ever-present help in time of trouble when the more usual forms of verbal communication were inadequate for his needs. My mother’s speech was correct and dignified and she early instilled into her children a love of pure English. But the language my father commonly used was rich with evocative colloquialisms, picturesque and exciting, wordful of vivid phrases that stirred the imagination …”

A striking photograph in Anne Henderson’s book is the image of eighteen-year-old Enid Lyons as Pageant Queen of the Public Service during a fund-raising event in Hobart. By her side (as page boy) in this 1915 photograph is a six-year-old Errol Flynn.

The previous April, Enid Burnell, as a seventeen-year-old, had married Joseph Lyons, the thirty-six-year-old Tasmanian Treasurer. Anne Henderson describes the day:

“Enid was beautiful, in a dress of white embroidered voile with a long satin sash. Her train carried monograms, in pale blue, of the bride and groom. Her veil was embroidered with lover’s knots and shamrocks. Around her head a wreath of pale blue flowers, matching her eyes, caught her veil in place. Nell was her bridesmaid, in white silk striped voile over pale pink with a wide pink belt and tassel; Tom Lyons was groomsman.”

We never learn what Tom wore.

The pregnancies, too, go on for years, thirteen in all. At seventeen Enid Lyons converted from Methodism to the Holy Church of Rome, a few months before her wedding—a requirement, as Joe Lyons was a practising Catholic. As Anne Henderson points out, converts to Catholicism are often more devout than those born to the faith. So Enid Lyons had scant interest in birth control.

On four months sick leave from parliament (after a car accident in which the Speaker of the Tasmanian parliament was killed), Joe managed to sire a child while confined to bed, recovering from a smashed leg with an associated gangrene infection. One wag described Joe Lyons as “fertile but futile”. Enid, we learn, liked the comfort of babies, yet seemed to dislike the actual task of raising her children, who always appeared to be cared for by helpers or her elder children. As soon as they were old enough most were sent away to boarding schools.

Enid Lyons was constantly living out of a suitcase—she could never stay in one place for long, at least during the political life she and Joe Lyons shared, from their marriage in 1915 until his death in 1939. Indeed, even though The Lodge in Canberra was the Prime Minister’s official residence, and their home, the longest Enid Lyons ever stayed there at one time between 1932 to 1939 was five weeks. Which brings us to what should be the centrepiece of this intriguing life-story—the politically active Enid Lyons.

Eliza was both pushy and critical of her daughter—at one stage criticising Enid for being too precocious. Enid played the organ, sang at recitals, performed in school plays and appeared to hold her own in adult conversation. At fifteen she was in Hobart at teachers’ college, being courted by her boss, then Tasmanian Minister for Education, Joe Lyons. At seventeen she was married and by twenty-one Enid Lyons was, politically, up and running.

As Anne Henderson points out:

“It was Enid, the girl Eliza rebuked for being too precocious in the limelight, who had to be pushed onto the stage at the Deloraine Town Hall on the night of the Armistice but made her political husband ‘burst with pride’ by being able to lead the singing of ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag’ and ‘Keep the home fires burning’.”

(The first song seemed to apply to the Lyons, the second certainly didn’t.) What was extraordinary was this young politician’s wife, not just sitting quietly on the podium with her husband, but either getting in and warming up the crowd, or later taking on the crowd in heated debate. And not just taking on her husband’s rallying-calls, but having political ideas of her own.

Anne Henderson writes:

“At five months pregnant with their second child Enid accompanied Joe to the May 1918 state Labor conference in Hobart where she successfully had a motion amended that committed Tasmanian Labor to putting to the federal conference a policy, ‘that no action be taken in any future wars without the approval of the electors as expressed by means of a referendum … unless Australia was directly attacked’.”

Two decades years later she is still at it, travelling with Joe, drumming up support for his new United Australia Party. In Adelaide she drew a crowd of 6500 at the Exhibition Hall then travelled by car to address meetings at Aldgate, Ambleside, Mount Barker and Murray Bridge before boarding a train for Melbourne.

Today it seems almost unbelievable that a wife of an Australian prime minister could hold a Melbourne audience of 3000 for two hours. And this was in the age of the “live-theatre of politics” where one slip and you got “Sit down, yer mug!” from the local lads. Hecklers, apparently, held no fear for Enid Lyons.

An example of her political nous was reported in Argus after she addressed a rally in Ballarat:

“‘Who is the best financier in Australia?’ Mrs Lyons asked. ‘Is it Mr Scullin? I think not. Is it Mr Theodore? Scarcely.’ (Laughter) ‘Or is it Mr Lyons? Decidedly not.’ (Renewed laughter) ‘It is the mother of a family. If a mother raises a family on a small wage—a wage that many a young man spends entirely on himself—she is engaged in high finance!’”

Anne Henderson records that Robert Menzies said that Enid “could make him weep at the state of a railway track”.

Pacifism was to be Enid Lyons’ most enduring interest, an interest she had no hesitation in inflicting upon her prime minister husband and his cabinet colleagues. But in looking at her constant involvement in Joe Lyons’ political activities, we can only guess at her influence—and interference—in the daily workings of his government. We are not privy to the pillow talk.

Eliza lived long enough to see her efforts and dreams for her daughter reach almost impossible heights. On her slow climb up the social ladder Enid Lyons ran out of rungs. At the time of her mother’s death, in 1941, her little girl from Cooee, Tasmania, had dined with and been entertained by two kings of England, the President of the United States, two prime ministers of Great Britain—met Pope Pius XI and confided with Eleanor Roosevelt and mixed with the likes of the Queen of Norway and the Sultan of Johore. And she had become Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire.

By 1939 the United Australia Party was dying, but the power brokers within the UAP saw no alternative but to keep Joseph Lyons as leader. Both Joe and Enid wanted retirement, as he was physically exhausted, but the party elders insisted that he hang on. At 11 a.m. on April 7, 1939, Joe Lyons died at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital after suffering a number of heart attacks.

The man who had started his political career pedalling a bicycle around the towns and villages of northern Tasmania, a dedicated pacifist, returned home to Devonport in a coffin aboard a warship—a destroyer—HMAS Vendetta.

Within four years of Joe Lyons’ death, Enid was elected to the House of Representatives. In her maiden speech she said:

“It would be strange indeed were I not tonight deeply conscious of the fact, and not a little awed by the knowledge, that on my shoulders rests a great weight of responsibility; because this is the first occasion a woman has addressed this house.”

The back cover of this book carries a rather twee announcement: “In researching Dame Enid’s family background, Anne Henderson also uncovers new and intriguing information about a ‘family secret’.” The “family secret” turns out to be scuttlebutt and conjecture about whether William Burnell was Enid’s real father. Details of the informer can only be revealed after the informer’s death. Oh dear!