Dr Eric Willmot AM was, for many years, an authority on the life and times of Pemulwuy. He wrote the novel, Pemulwuy: The Rainbow Warrior, which was a landmark publication, a bestseller, and has been included in secondary and tertiary education curricula across Australia. He passed away in 2019.
Brio Books, Booktopia’s publishing arm, is honoured to be bringing a new edition of Pemulwuy to the next generation of Australian readers. In honour of the new edition, we invited Eric’s daughter, Haidi Willmot, onto the blog to share her perspective on Eric’s incredible life. Read on!
The Fantastic Voyager
My late father, Eric Willmot, is the author of Pemulwuy: The Rainbow Warrior. He wrote the novel to break a ‘conspiracy of silence’ about the British invasion of Australia. He was determined to reveal the hidden truth of armed resistance to British settlement, to tell the story of one of Australia’s first heroes, and in doing so return to generations of Australians ‘a heritage as important, as tragic and as heroic as any other nation on earth.’
He was intrigued by Pemulwuy, around whom a special kind of mythology had grown in both legend and history. Pemulwuy was a mysterious man, who it was believed traversed the supernatural and could not be killed by British firearms. He was a charismatic leader, who unified several Indigenous groups and attracted a motley crew of escaped convicts and bushrangers to his cause. Pemulwuy was a man who fought a fierce war of survival and gave his life in pursuit of freedom for his people. He was both feared and respected by the British. When Governor King sent Pemulwuy’s severed and preserved head to England, it was accompanied by a note, which read: ‘although a terrible pest to the colony, he was a brave and independent character.’
Like Pemulwuy, my father was an extraordinary man. Like Pemulwuy, he was a visionary, a leader and a fighter. Like Pemulwuy, he was enigmatic and charismatic. People were drawn to him, to his causes, and to his storytelling. He had a special connection with his protagonist, one that seemed to stretch through the hundreds of years that separated them.
My father was a polymath, a true Renaissance Man. In addition to being a writer, painter and musician, he was also a mathematician, engineer, and inventor. In another chapter of his life, he was a scholar and senior civil servant, and in his youth had been a stockman and rodeo rider. However, the thing he loved most was sailing, he was happiest on our boat, Island of Somewhere.
Despite preferring animals to people, Dad was incredibly warm and popular. He could be disarmingly charming, extremely rude, and was completely unapologetic about any of it. He was one of the most unaffected and egalitarian people I have known. Dad had no time for ‘bullshit,’ and was unimpressed by wealth, rank or celebrity. Being the creator of his own destiny, he had no respect for ‘the establishment’ or anyone who came from it. He liked people who had character and an interesting story to tell.
When I was young, I would often come home to Dad holding someone in thrall in our loungeroom, always well into a bottle of scotch. It could be anyone, from a senior politician or aboriginal activist, to a film star or the local electrician’s apprentice.
‘Dad had no time for ‘bullshit,’ and was unimpressed by wealth, rank or celebrity. Being the creator of his own destiny, he had no respect for ‘the establishment’ or anyone who came from it. He liked people who had character and an interesting story to tell.’
Dad was born in Queensland in 1936, at a time when Australia was rough, unpredictable and exciting. He suited that kind of world. He was a true romantic and a dreamer, forever chasing the next adventure.
His maternal grandmother was a great story-teller. She shared with him tales and wisdom that he carried throughout his life. She also shared with him the secrets of his Indigenous heritage that many of his family chose to forget.
Dad left home at sixteen and headed into the bush. Much of his formative years was spent on horseback, droving cattle across Australia. Sleeping on the earth by campfires, Dad forged a fundamental bond with the land, and a love of the bush and its people.
In between droves, Dad was in town rodeo riding. He was a good rider, and it earned him decent cash, but a bad fall caused a serious ankle injury that sent him to hospital for an extended stay, and caused a lifelong limp. The ongoing pain he experienced led him to become a self-described ‘bloody pain in the arse’.
Banged up and stuck in hospital, Dad decided to study for his matriculation, which later took him on to university. He then settled in Newcastle, became a maths and science teacher, and married his first wife, with whom he had four children.
Young, restless and ever the explorer, in the early 1970s Dad took off to the wilds of New Guinea. There he taught at Lae High School, and had a side gig as an armed escort to remote sites in the Highlands. There he also fell in love with my mother, who he saved from a crocodile while she was sunbaking at the mouth of the Markham river.
It is in PNG that Dad comes into focus for me. It was there that he developed a deep and abiding passion for the Pacific islands. Vanuatu became my family’s heart place, the place we returned to every year. My fondest and most vivid memory is of Dad in Vanuatu; trade winds gently blowing, a glass of scotch in his hand, looking into the middle distance and thinking. ‘Ah Bushy Baby,’ he would say, and roughly draw me under one arm before sharing his thoughts.
Eventually Dad and Mum returned to Australia where he took up senior leadership positions in academia and civil service. During this time he was very active on Indigenous education, working vigorously to increase the number of Indigenous university graduates and teachers. Work for which he received an AM. Dad believed in education as the great equalizer. Education was something sacred in our house. When I wanted to leave high school to become a professional ballerina, he forbade it. Many years later as I graduated from Cambridge University, I was grateful for his obstinance.
In the 1990s Dad retired from public service and reinvented himself once again. This time he returned to his roots in maths and science.
Throughout my life, Dad was often ‘in the shed’ working on an invention. He would consistently come in for dinner covered in grease. I remember the smell clearly. One year at Christmas, Mum asked him to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven. An hour later she came into the kitchen to find the uncooked turkey sitting on the bench, and Dad in the workshop building a helical skewer that would make sewing up a turkey so much easier and more efficient than the straight variety. She was cross. But every Christmas I use that skewer, and it really is amazing.
Dad was a brilliant engineer and prolific inventor. Over 90 international patents exist in his name. He was awarded Australian Inventor of the Year, and twice won the Médaille d’Or Genève of the Salon des Inventions in Geneva, Switzerland. Unfortunately, he was not a business man, so few of his inventions ever made it to market.
When he wasn’t droving cattle, reforming Australian education policy or inventing an infinitely variable ratio gearbox, Dad was writing. It was something he did during evenings and weekends. He had a wonderful imagination and a flare for language. It was his joy, his passion, and his escape. Dad’s novel, Pemulwuy: The Rainbow Warrior, was first published in 1987, followed in 1991 by Below the Line. The manuscripts of his many other works sit in my book case.
In addition to all his achievements, Eric Willmot was just my dad. He protected me, loved me, and inspired me. His incredible mind meant that our dinner table conversation ranged from quantum physics, across global politics, to Russian literature, all in the one sitting. His incredible imagination meant that my world was fantastical. His adventurous spirit meant that I thought I could do anything with my life and so cut my own path. My dad taught me to think and question, to challenge received wisdom, and fight for what I believe. He encouraged me to dream big and do something with my life that really mattered. For all of these gifts I am forever grateful.
Like Pemulwuy, Eric Willmot was an extraordinary man, who lived an extraordinary life.
—Haidi Willmot
Pemulwuy: The Rainbow Warrior by Eric Willmot (Brio Books) is out now.
Pemulwuy
The Rainbow Warrior
This is the story of one of Australia's first true heroes, Pemulwuy. A proud and feared Aboriginal warrior, Pemulwuy leads an uncompromising twelve-year war against British colonial oppression and makes the supreme sacrifice in order to guide his people to safety.
Many histories of Australia start with the First Fleet and the hard times the colonists had with the climate and unruly convicts. Very few mention what really happened, or the blood that was spilled in the wars rarely spoken of...
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