A Life By Design

by Siobhan O'Brien

  Amazingly, through all of this, Florence and her performing arts peers were still a going concern. When a British division of 12 000 men, commanded by Major General John Duncan, set sail for China in January 1927—with the task of defending British Nationals in Shanghai—Florence was responsible for entertaining the troops with a band of artists calling themselves the Frothblowers. On 24 May 1927, she performed at the Lyceum Theatre for Empire Day where the bands from the defence force also played. As Florence said in an interview she gave on returning to Australia, ‘There is no doubt, that the timely arrival of British troops at Shanghai saved the situation as far as foreigners in China were concerned.’

  But there was more to come. In March 1927, Nationalist armies took control of Shanghai and Nanking. A strike led by communists in Shanghai aroused fears that the Chinese might seize the International Settlement, now barricaded with barbed wire and machine guns and guarded by a large international force. And on 12 April, in a bloody and brutal showdown, thousands of communists were executed by Nationalist troops.

  The end of Shanghai’s golden age captured world headlines and by July 1927 Florence had had enough. She left the memories of Wallingford Tate to the dance halls and clubs of Asia; she left the Broadhurst Academy in the hands of associates, and returned back home to Australia.

  When Florence left, Wallingford knew he wanted to make a change. He did not want to return home to Australia so he did a stint with the Bandman Theatrical Company, touring through countries such as Gibraltar, Egypt, Ceylon and India. Later, he was with the army and did repatriation work during World War II. It didn’t take long, however, before he returned to his first love—performing. He toured the east with the London Comedy Company and while travelling with this company in India Wallingford contracted typhoid and passed away. His obituary read:

  Mr Wallingford Tate dead. Simla, 26th July.

  The London Comedy Company, which is playing before crowded houses in Simla has sustained a severe loss in the untimely death of Mr Wallingford Tate at the age of 39. Mr Tate was seriously ill with enteric fever when the company were in Ootacamund. He left hospital three weeks ago. On Saturday evening he became ill and an operation was immediately performed. He died on Sunday evening. For many years he travelled the East and at one time was a prominent figure in the Bandman Company. During the war he served in Hodson’s House. The funeral took place in Simla this afternoon, a large gathering being present, among which were officers of the deceased’s late regiment.

  When Florence returned to Australia, she described China in an interview with the Bundaberg Daily News and Mail as simply ‘a country seething with bloodshed and tumultuous discontent’.

  RETURN HOME

  1927

  ‘Florence Broadhurst is a woman who tossed the dice of fate in those far-flung lands across the watery plains.’

  BUNDABERG DAILY NEWS AND MAIL, JULY 1927

  A local scribe from the Bundaberg Daily News and Mail accosted Florence the moment she stepped from the Brisbane mail train onto the Mount Perry platform for the glamorous redhead was now famous. She had travelled, she had been successful and she had returned.

  For an Australian woman to be newsworthy in the twenties she had to either get married, have a baby, organise a charity event or die—and even then these so-called milestones would only be written into her obituary. ‘Ladies’ interests’ columns in newspapers sought to teach women what to cook (from cauliflower fritters to apple batter pudding and rainbow cakes) and what to wear (fur neck muffs, boneless girdles and blonde court shoes), kept them well versed on the art of etiquette (‘don’t fall into the old mistake that it’s good to keep him waiting’) and all things bridal (‘the floral scheme is hardly less important than the frocks’).

  Unlike her apron-strung contemporaries, the article about Florence when she returned home from abroad filled an entire page of the Bundaberg Daily News and Mail. It described her grandiosely as a woman who had ‘tossed the dice of fate in those far-flung lands across the watery plains’. In the article, Florence voiced her opinions on everything from irrigation methods in Java, whisky-soaked missionaries trying in vain to save souls, and Chinese riots, to the caste system in India and the ‘peculiar characteristics of the yellow races’. Her escapades were described as ‘a harvest of experiences, some of which were not untinged with danger, most, for a great part, capable of arousing in her listeners feelings, perhaps of envy, certainly of considerable romantic interest’.

  We know that Florence got more out of her travels than a girls-own-adventure to tell the local newspaper. Her four-and-half years in the orient would emerge not only in her wallpaper designs and her artwork, but would impact on her fashion-sense and personal style.

  When she launched her wallpaper venture in 1959 her designs recalled the mood of China, India and Japan with themes that ranged from oriental filigree, fans, calligraphy, woodcarving, peacock feathers, bamboo and blossoms. There was also the influence of the buildings she had seen (Italian, Spanish, French, Greek) and the interiors she had frequented (Roman classic, Baroque, Rococo, Islamic and Renaissance). Her time on stage and the personality she had assumed also provided the impetus for a personal style that followed a ‘more is more’ mantra: more makeup, more colour, more jewellery, more layers, more fur. After her return from Shanghai, Florence always acted (and looked) as if she were on stage. She transformed herself to encapsulate the spirit of every era she lived through. The vamp of the twenties became the femme fatale in sleek dinner suits and silver fox fur wraps in the thirties; the forties saw her in military-style clothing—dramatic capes and pillbox hats; in the fifties her wardrobe was filled with corsets, trumpet skirts and pearls; in the sixties (when she herself was sixty) she wore pop-art mini-skirts and beehives; and in the seventies, despite Sydney’s humidity and heat, she donned full-length mink coats and knee-high leather boots. Florence was invariably the dressiest woman in any room.

  In 1927, Florence’s alluring, theatrical and slightly scary appearance would have been nothing short of a shock to Mount Perry locals, whose idea of getting dressed up was to comb through some Brylcreem or pull on a pair of stockings. The memory the people of Mount Perry had of Florence and the Florence who returned from Shanghai were two different people. She could not have looked less like the girlish aspirant who had won eisteddfods and performed in Toowoomba’s Smart Set Diggers. But as Florence saw things, it was in her heart and mind that the biggest changes had taken place.

  Her self-esteem and self-assuredness were strong and they were assets that would remain constant throughout her life. Gone was the innocent wide-eyed youth who yearned for escape and adventure and in her place was a tough, wise and resilient woman who had had a bittersweet taste of the world. Not only was the trauma of war permanently etched on her mind, but she had achieved considerable success under sometimes dangerous and trying conditions—as a performer and as a businesswoman. Never again could she be satisfied by life in a sleepy, rural town.

  From her adventures, including her possible affair with Wallingford Tate, Florence now understood what she wanted from herself, from life and from others around her. She had caught a glimpse of her potential, of what was possible and what she could turn herself into.

  Florence’s family and friends had not ventured far beyond the realms of Mount Perry during her absence, but there had been a few changes. Her sister May was now a teacher at the Drummer’s Creek School and, with her boyfriend, Bill, she had taken over residency at The Pines, the grandiose home and property purchased by the Broadhursts in 1930. Fassifern had settled down with a local girl and they had four children. Priscilla would have to wait another two years before she would walk down the aisle. Her marriage to Robert Hudson failed after only twelve months but spawned Priscilla’s only child, Barbara.

  Life for Florence’s mother and father had also changed. They had, for the time being, abandoned cattle husbandry for hospitality. In 1923, Bill Broadhurst had signed the licence for the bustling Gra
nd Hotel located in the heart of Mount Perry. Living there was an exciting, fast-paced lifestyle that suited Bill and they remained the licensees of the hotel for fifteen years.

  The hotel, an imposing, colonial building that boasted two levels and wide wooden verandas that fronted a busy, dusty street, was also their new home. Built to accommodate thirty guests (today the new Grand Hotel in Mount Perry has only three rooms) the original hotel cast shadows over nearby businesses and the local council buildings. In the evening miners and farmers gathered there to drink and play billiards. Behind the bar, hotel maids in neck-to-ankle dresses, knee-high boots and hair rolled high in a bun, served the customers.

  Florence helped her sister Priscilla behind the bar at the hotel. According to family friend Ted Bettiens it wasn’t just the customers who were doing the drinking: ‘When Florence and Priscilla worked behind the bar they drank as much as they served.’

  During 1927 Florence’s many old friends and acquaintances dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat at the hotel. Some of them had qualified as nurses and teachers or worked at the local council. Others had married or moved away to Bundaberg or Brisbane. Very few of them had even left Queensland, let alone travelled abroad. Listening to Florence’s tales of her intrepid adventures perhaps left them wondering at their own lives.

  Soon Florence grew bored with the local chitchat, society musical evenings, dinner parties and playing tennis with May and Priscilla. She had made up her mind that she was going to London in October, but she hadn’t yet decided what she was going to do when she got there. She vacillated between studying music and singing or undertaking a course in interior design. Her brief stay at home was precisely the medicine she needed. She had time to gather her strength without the pressure of a business to run or an atmosphere fraught with tension.

  •

  Florence had probably had something to drink on 31 July 1927, the day she took her father’s brand new Studebaker car out for a spin. Two friends came along for the joy ride when Florence took the wheel. She had only just turned up Main Street when horrified onlookers saw the car sway about the road. In her panic, Florence put her foot on the accelerator instead of the brake and the car became airborne and turned two complete somersaults, throwing Florence violently out of the car. Her two companions escaped with ‘a severe shaking’.

  Florence’s condition was considered serious. Not only did she sustain a fracture at the base of her skull, but she was covered in cuts and bruises. The wheels of the upturned car were still spinning when they whisked Florence away to the hospital. The car, whose radiator, windshield and hood were ‘smashed in’ was ‘righted and put under the Federal Hall’ (Bundaberg Daily News and Mail, 1927). The press covered the incident extensively. The headlines read, ‘Mt Perry Sensation. Miss F. Broadhurst injured. Medical Aid from Bundaberg’; ‘Queensland Actress Seriously Injured’; and ‘Miss Broadhurst, In a Serious Motor Crash. Suffers Fractured Skull’. In a photo published in the Bundaberg Daily News and Mail on 31 July 1927, Florence’s pale cat-like eyes peer out from underneath an elegant floral scarf pinning her hair down. The caption reads ‘…not long home from world wandering, [Florence] met with disaster at the week-end through the overturning of the newly purchased car’.

  LONDON

  1927–1949

  ‘Whatever the hour of the occasion, you could never be safer than in a Pellier creation.’

  ADVERTISEMENT FOR MADAM PELLIER’ S MAYFAIR DRESS SALON

  Florence spent two-and-a-half long months recovering from the car accident and was lucky she didn’t die. But that didn’t change her plans to travel to London. Florence booked her ticket under her stage name, Bobby Broadhurst, and departed from the New Farm Wharf in Brisbane on 17 October 1927. It would be three weeks before the pint-sized ship, The Orvieto, finally left Australia’s shores because it had more adventurers to collect from Sydney (where passengers from New Zealand joined the ship), Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle. It was from this Western Australian port on 7 November that the ship’s captain finally navigated The Orvieto offshore on a 13 000-mile (about a 12 000-kilometre), six-week voyage that included such exotic ports as Ceylon, Port Said, Naples, Toulon, Gibraltar and Plymouth.

  Florence’s first-class cabin was in a handy spot, close to the main public rooms on the upper deck. Although it was sixty pounds more expensive than the third-class fee it was still basic: furnished with a bed, washstand, seat, wardrobe and not much else. But Florence didn’t waste time rattling around in her constrained quarters. She preferred to occupy the lounge, the music room, the first-class smoking saloon or stroll along the promenade deck where there were frequent games of cricket, lawn tennis, quoits, bowls and hop-scotch to enjoy. The lounge—where passengers met to play the piano, read or eat—was typically Georgian, decorated in muted tones of grey and white, while French prints and Indian rugs provided theatrical sparks of colour. Here and there clusters of Italian walnut chairs and tables and richly upholstered sofas lit with opal globes provided a cosy retreat from the harsh winds that blew off the ocean. It was a space where passengers met—to an exacting routine—for meals four times daily. Colourful diversions to this schedule were provided with shore excursions to markets, museums, galleries, local restaurants, Sunday church choirs and theatrical evenings.

  By the time Florence arrived in Britain in December 1928, the grey, bleak streets were banked with snow. When it wasn’t snowing it was raining, and when it wasn’t raining, low-hanging clouds were threatening to burst. For Florence, gone were the moderne Shangainese women with their exaggerated makeup. Londoners had to brave the elements by dressing stylishly in high collars, long capes, coats and gloves. It was a look (incomplete without trompe-l’oeil epaulettes, flares, layers, buttons, zips, pillbox hats and false eyelashes) that was elitist and sophisticated, influenced by screen divas such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Ginger Rogers.

  The twenties was a decade of visual change in Britain: there was a shift in style right across the arts, from fashion, to painting and architecture. Modernism, with its conflicting aesthetics, had arrived. Craftsmanship remained a strong ideal, but so was the trend to experiment (particularly in the realm of mass production) with new techniques and materials.

  Conflicting visual aesthetics was not the only change taking place in Britain between the wars; this period also conjured up conflicting emotions. While women had discovered a new freedom in office jobs, factories and the like, many returning soldiers—despite the rhetoric of victory—were unemployed, bitter and uncertain about what lay ahead. And although many aspects of British life had started to crumble, the rigid class structure, with the educated middle and upper classes believing in their own moral and cultural superiority over the working classes, was still intact. Life in Britain was an improved version of the social divide between the haves and have-nots that Florence got used to while living in Shanghai.

  Florence found a place to live at 22 Upper Gloucester Place, Dorset Square. At twenty-eight years of age, it was considered odd that she was unmarried and scandalous that she should travel across the globe by herself. But Florence cared little about social constraints and convention and her arrival in London marked a period of profound soul-searching. She developed an unquenchable thirst for philosophy, religion and ideology. Alex Graf, a friend from Kent, sent this letter to Florence which provides a glimpse of her new passion.

  Dear Florence, What new philosophy have you adopted? You always had unusual ideas and an unusual way of expressing them—this is our affinity. I am terribly fed up with our hypocritical society and forever platitude blabbering politicians and churchmen. Everyone is brainwashed and conditioned, everyone is a conformist, individualism is tabu, and he who looks to the left while everyone is looking to the right is out of step, a misfit, a traitor. I realize that all I experience is my own projection—and in order to change the world I have to change myself. I do believe that all we are is the result of what we have thought and all that we shall be is the result of wha
t we are thinking now. At least that gives us the chance to change the future to our liking. It is never too late and nothing is impossible, always Alex.

  P.S. I found a lot of enlightenment in books by Krishnamurti and books about Zen.

  Florence threw herself into her new interests with abandon. She filled scrapbooks, notebooks and diaries with newspaper clippings and quotes by evangelists, reverends, philosophers, scientists and novelists on themes that ranged from health and nature to faith. She was particularly enamoured with the writings of poet Patience Strong, whose favourite aphorism was ‘Nothing’s true unless you’ve lived it’ and whose obituary claimed ‘many a British serviceman perished with a cutting of a Patience Strong poem in the pocket of his battledress’ (Daily Telegraph, 1990).