top of page

Your KS #47: A Telegram About Beatrice


Last month, a builder renovating Katharine Susannah Prichard’s writing cabin found this telegram which had been hidden for decades. It’s a wondrous thing for Katharine’s Place to yield a document relating to Katharine all these years later. The telegram is addressed to Mrs Throssell—Katharine’s married name—of Greenmount, with M[idland] J[u]nct[io]n the nearest post office for receiving telegrams. ‘Beatrice getting on splendidly’, it reads, signed ‘Patten’. Beatrice Bridge (1892-1976) was Katharine’s youngest sibling, with a gap of nine years between her and Katharine and two brothers in between. When Katharine left suddenly to work in London in 1910, Beatrice was still at school. The sisters didn’t see each other again until 1915 when Katharine stayed with Beatrice at the plantation she ran with her new husband, Patten, in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

The sisters were close despite their differences in politics and very different lifestyles. Katharine looked after Beatrice’s two children when they were sent to Perth to attend boarding school in the 1920s and 1930s. In about 1934, Beatrice and Patten retired to a hobby farm they named ‘Kirinaran’ in Frankston on the outskirts of Melbourne. Over the following decades, Kirinaran was to be a second home for Katharine ‘a rambling old weatherboard house with endless rooms and corridors’ with spectacular views over the bay and crammed with Ceylon memorabilia, including a python skin hanging on the wall. Katharine would stay with them whenever she was in Melbourne, and argue about politics with the conservative Patten. The date has fallen off the telegram, so it’s hard to know just when it was sent, but probably after Beatrice had moved back to Melbourne.

Beatrice had an important part in Katharine’s life, though no letters between them have survived that I’m aware of, meaning the detail of their relationship is largely lost. There is one moment between them that I think about a lot. Katharine had just turned thirty-three when she visited Beatrice in Ceylon and there’s both loneliness and sisterly love in a poem she wrote called “Ceylon 1915: A Thought For Bee”.

The fallen flowers of jessamine lay on

the steps before your door, dear,

That night we came uphill through the

twilight together.

You went into the dark house of your love.

I stayed in the twilight—at sight

Of the flowers thrown there on your threshold

As before a shrine.

Reference

‘a rambling old’: Simon Bridge to KSP Writers Centre, email, 21 November 2005.

“Ceylon 1915”: Papers of KSP, National Library of Australia, MS6201/5.

- More about Katharine on Nathan’s blog at https://nathanhobby.com.

Recent Posts

Join our mailing list

Name

Email

shire.jpg
Black_RGB_Horizontal..png
Little Black Dress Productions.jpg
c911e7d2-dragonfly-publishing-logo-high-res.png
Writers United W.A. Logo. Visit the KSP website for more information. KSP 2021
ACT-BELONG-COMMIT-MHWA_Logo_Contained_CMYK_R.jpg
Registered Charity Logo. Visit the KSP website for more information. KSP 2021

Katharine's Place
11 Old York Road
Greenmount WA 6056
Western Australia

E: office@kspwriterscentre.com
Ph: +61 (08) 9294 1872
 

  • Black Facebook Icon
  • Black Instagram Icon
  • Linkedin

KSP Writers' Centre - A Support Hub for Writers

 

 

 

 

 

KSP WRITERS' CENTRE ACKNOWLEDGES THE SHIRE OF MUNDARING

AND OUR MANY SPONSORS FOR THEIR MUCH-APPRECIATED SUPPORT

 

The KSP Foundation management team respect and honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past, present and future. We acknowledge the stories, traditions and living cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on this land and commit to building a brighter future together.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website may contain images, voices and names of deceased persons.

https://www.kspwriterscentre.com/carusowriterinresidenceprogram2025
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

bottom of page