For over a week, almost from the moment I learnt that I was to be presented
with a
plaque at the Fellowship of Australian Writers' National Literary Awards Dinner,
I kept
saying to myself "I must not get up in front of all those distinguished people and
say
'Does this plaque cause mental decay?'" As the dinner began I tried to rehearse
gracious
platitudes and gentle quips of a literary nature. Andrew Lemon, joint winner of
the local-history
prize for his excellent The Northcote Side of the River, made a gracious
acceptance speech between the soup and the main course, and I was thinking
That's the
style, forget the puns, when I heard him saying that last year he had been on last
and
had drunk enough to make what everyone apparently regarded as a quite
scintillating
speech. Earlier I thought I'd heard Jim Hamilton tell Lloyd Robson that he
would be on
last, so when Andrew finished I said to Lloyd "OK, Robson, you've got to
scintillate!" "Fair enough," he said, "but what do I do after 8?" God, I thought,
I'll bet he
gets up and says that, and when everyone groans he'll say it was my joke. I'd
better tell it
and blame him. Later I saw him writing notes. "Scintillate", I thought, I'll bet
that's what
he is writing. Maybe I'd better write some notes too. Say nothing about
pearls of
wit rejected by Access Age. Plaque -- no! Be gracious: remember thank
FAW, Jim,
Eileen, Robson, Oxford. Mention sad plight editors, always forgotten, except for
this
award? No, bit political, remember be gracious. Alan Marshall Award, Con
Weickhardt
Award, C.J. Dennis Award, Mary Grant Bruce Award, Shell Award, Bendigo
Advertiser
Award, Anne Elder Award, Wilke Award, Christopher Brennan Award, Shaw
Neilson
Award. Anyone not got an award yet? State of Victoria Awards, FAW
Young
Writers Award . . . can't be many to go now . . . "the FAW Barbara Ramsden
Award,
named in honor of . . ." Damn! My pulse is racing, bloody unfair, I haven't been
nervous
all night. ". . . for A History of Tasmania, volume one: Lloyd Robson!"
So I am on
last. Pulse subsides. Lloyd very amusing, as always. Much applause. ". . . the
publisher's
editor: John Bangsund." Polite applause. I walk to the lectern, look at my notes
("scintillate", "literary cricketism" -- is that all?), look at the plaque, look at the
audience,
pause, then: "Does this plaque cause mental decay?" Wild applause! I
love
them! I tell them all about Access Age and how I'd rather be a poet than an
editor and
it's puns all the way and the worse they get the more they seem to like them and
I forget
entirely to be graciously grateful to FAW, Jim, Eileen, Oxford, wife, Nigel my
budgie, and
end up saying that while I have books like this to work on, and authors like
Lloyd to
work with, I don't really mind being an editor at all. Suddenly it's over, and
Gerald
Murnane is saying "You pompous bastard, Bangsund" but in a nice sort of way
and
Stephen Murray-Smith is beaming at me and a couple of kids who turn out to be
science
fiction fans ask for my autograph and it's compliments and flattery and smiles
and all
too much all the way.
 The
Barbara
Ramsden Award is unique among Australian literary prizes in that it honors the
editor
as well as the author of "a book of quality writing in any field of literature", or to
be exact,
the one judged by the FAW to be book of the year. It is named after one of the
great book
editors, the late Barbara Ramsden of Melbourne University Press. Not uniquely
among
Australian literary prizes, no cash accompanies it: the award is in the form of a
beautiful
little bronze plaque by Andor Meszaros depicting "the Origin of Art, showing
the creator
at work and a figure representing the forces that ensure its effective
communication".
The plaque is mounted on an elegant piece of timber. It could serve as a very
superior
cheese-board.
I
am immensely
proud of this award. If I don't deserve it for editing, I deserve it for being lucky
enough to
win it, so my mind is at rest about that.
The Society of Editors Newsletter, April 1984
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