Bet Briggs

[ This concludes an interview Bikwil began in Issue 31 (May 2002). ]

Bet Briggs: I’ve never thought of myself as a people person really. I do like to be with people I care about and love. And it’s always good to be able to share pleasures and confidences with a friend. Generally I don’t feel comfortable in large groups of people, especially huge crowds. I avoid them if I can. The only times I’ll join one — and even then it’s not easy — is if it’s for a cause I feel very strongly about.

Years ago I marched with other like-minded people against our participation in the Vietnam War and against Apartheid in South Africa. And recently I walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of Aboriginal Reconciliation. That was quite an uplifting experience. The mood of the people and the goodwill among us was palpable. I felt good in myself about being part of it.

I suppose I could sum your question up by saying I like and love many people as individuals, but I’m also a bit of a loner, too, and I love solitude. It gives me time to think and reflect and try to keep myself together.

And I need it to write.

BB: Humour, like music and the beauty of nature, helps me keep balance in my inner life, helps me maintain a sense of proportion about me and the world out there, especially when I feel dispirited. And I do feel that way more often, now that I’m closer to the end of my life than I am to the beginning. Old anxieties surface — unresolved anguish I call them — and I can’t know what new ones are ahead. But something humorous that lets me laugh at myself and that I can share with others, well, that’s a tonic.

If I didn’t have humour, and music and poetry and nature and my family and close friends in my life, I might as well be pushing up daisies or a gum tree.

BB: In the strict sense of the word, Tony, I’d have to say “No”. I don’t belong to any faith. I don’t go to church and I was never christened. But I was brought up to follow the Christian principles of helping neighbours, doing unto others, respecting others and believing thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal and so on. I went to Sunday School, too. In fact I tried out most of the Protestant churches in New Lambton, and I remember going to choir practice in a city church in Newcastle.

At High School we had a period for religious instruction held in the Assembly Hall. I remember vividly one day the Minister taking the class said, “Stand up all those girls who are Christians.” Every girl except me stood up. I got some strange looks and my face burned. But in conscience I couldn’t have stood up and appeared to be something I wasn’t.

That happening must have stirred me to think about my religious identity or lack of it. But I didn’t do anything serious about it, like getting christened or joining a church. I was in my early teens. The world was at war and such terrible things were happening. I thought a lot about life and death and souls and wondered as I always had, what it was all about. I still had a notion of God or a supreme being or a force. Some of my early poems reflect these thoughts. At some stage I thought of myself as an agnostic without really understanding what the word meant. Later when I studied Philosophy for three years for my degree and did another year of it in Aesthetics, that shaped my thinking and the way I conduct my life.

I feel that life, the universe and how it all began is a mystery. I’m part of it. Living, being is a wonderful experience. I can’t give it adequate expression. Music can say it better. In rare moments I’ve had a strange experience where “it”, whatever “it” is, is known absolutely. Everything comes together. I feel I know what it’s all about. I feel I’ve touched the heart of the mystery. But the moment goes and what I thought I knew goes with it.

I believe in the nature-nurture connection. I’m part of nature. When I die I hope my nature is the nurture of some new being. I say it in my poem Cliff Walk.

BB: The opposite of it, of course, is the reality. I won’t live forever. I won’t see how it all turns out. But in moments of euphoria and optimism I’d probably say it again. Let me tell you about another statement I heard years before you heard mine. A child was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and the child replied, “Everything!” The feeling of exuberance, the joy of being alive, the enthusiasm and the hope that that child expressed in one word, I’d like to think I expressed in mine.

I have dreams and hopes. I’d like to be around to see people reconciled, to see people at peace with one another and the planet. I’d like us to find difference interesting rather than being afraid of it. I’d like us to care more for each other and practise co-operation. There are people already trying hard to live this way, while others are trying just as hard to go in the opposite direction. So much of what we see and hear daily on television and radio is ambiguous and horrifying. We’re told things are getting better but the pictures tell the opposite story. Like the poet Robert D. Fitzgerald who regretted he wouldn’t be around to stand on Mars, I regret I won’t be around to see my hopes fulfilled. But I’ll keep on hoping and get on with the life I have for however long I have it.