JUNGLE DRUM: 'It's Raining in Mango' (apologies to Thea Astley) and it is about to pour
LAWRENCE MASON COLUMN
I am known to occasionally say 'It’s Raining in Mango' to a usually bewildered listener, or randomly post on social media these words.
To me, when reading Astley's book, I imagined 'Mango' was Cape Tribulation and of course the protest here in the early '80s no doubt inspired the author. It's a short book, and inevitably as a reader you fill in the gaps, because it covers 100 years of fictional history.
Fictional it may be, but the issues that the book covers are very much fact. Immigrants to Australia who dream of riches, and instead find indigenous people being slaughtered amid their own hardship.
Some of them like Cornelius are different, and of course the different ones end up going against the grain and it's no surprise that they end up generations later in the Daintree.
'It's raining in Mango' really does cover a lot of FNQ history and much of it relates to our region. We may not be 'Reeftown' or 'Mango' but we do have a population made up of people who have a deep love of the land, be they indigenous or otherwise. And our protesters were just as indignant as Astley's.
Today I feel like we have lived the hundred years in her book in a similar way. We have had the gold rushes, grown the sugar, fought our race battles, had the protests, been to war and back and learnt to live together. And many of us like the fictional family have deep connections with First Nations people that did not necessarily begin respectfully all those generations ago.
But Astley's book is ripe for a sequel. COVID showed us how fragile Tourism can be. If war breaks out in Europe, we will wish we had it back, trust me. It is with a pang of sadness that I say that I think Sugar Cane is done. At the very least it is a crisis and while JFK told us (incorrectly) that the Chinese call a crisis a mix of danger and opportunity, that trope accurately describes our situation. Let's hope opportunity wins....
Something Mango never had was a tedious slow bureaucracy. Astley wrote her book in the days of powerful local members who were mostly supported by the autocratic and all-powerful Joh.
Telecom banged phones into the Daintree in less than a year. The Noah Range new road was built quicker than we can move a landslide these days. The Bloomfield Track went in - in months. Even the later upgrades at Donovan’s only took around six months.
In those days big bulldozers were used and Geo-techs were unheard of. The Noah Range new road foreman told me recently that he only lost his hair later in his career when this field of work appeared!
Councillors came and sat with my family in our front room and nutted out a land tenure issue in one morning. The Shire Clerk and a couple of surveyors we paid for sealed the deal. But the system was not perfect and I guess at times corrupt. Thus, we now have so many rules it takes forever to get something done.
The sequel 'It's Pouring in Mango' will have new characters and problems. There must be at least one Geo-tech added. One of Cornelius's descendants must be a traffic controller. There must be many bureaucrats. Maybe an Indigenous Cane Farmer to round it out.
Wish I had the time and ability to write the sequel! Perhaps it begins with a 'Connie' losing consciousness as a Cyclone Jasper flood enters her house? Anyone inspired? Bill?
*Lawrence Mason has lived at Cape Tribulation all his life, and has been involved in farming, timber and tourism. He is a former board member of Tourism Port Douglas Daintree, founding Chair of Daintree Marketing Co-operative, and has been a member of both Alexandra Bay and Mossman State High School P&C. He is also a member of the Douglas Chamber of Commerce and has a keen interest in local issues.
- The opinions and views in this column are those of the author and author only and do not reflect the Newsport editor or staff.