‘[John Hepworth] turned death into an art form …Theatrical by inclination, he was determined to die in his own bed with his hat on… Hepworth was splendid while dying. Dressed in a magnificent nightshirt, and wearing a Victorian smoking cap, he entertained the friends who had come to say goodbye.’

The Age, November 1994

https://honourbrightbooks.com.au/index.php/john-hepworth-1921-1995/

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING WRITING BY JOHN HEPWORTH IS SATIRICAL. 

How to self destruct without really dying

Suicide is a thing for all seasons and indeed is growing in appeal as a pastime in Australia (as in other lands) as more and more often it may occur to one or other of us that — for the moment at least — the whole business of living has become quite ridiculous and impossible.

The ancient Greeks did a lot or pondering about man's — and woman’s — circumstances on the earth and one of their conclusions was, as Sophocles so neatly remarked, that "not to be born were best”.

Now this is a matter over which we have little if any control — our entrances, so to speak, are thrust upon us. But surely no one will begrudge, since we were put upon in the matter of entrance, we should find pardonable comfort in the idea that, with any luck, we might have some say about the nature and timing of our exit.

A great number of people seem to be claiming the right anyway. This week we hear news that Australian Mss are knocking themselves off at three times the rate they were doing it ten or fifteen years ago.

I don't know that I can altogether approve of that. Not that I'm claiming for a moment that Australian Mss haven't got the same right as Australian male chauvinist pigs to put their heads in gas ovens or gulp down a handful of sleeping tablets. It's just that I think there ought to be more Australian Mss around, not less. I think they do a discourtesy by leaving us so abruptly.

Of course there's always a problem in doing oneself in. One would like to do it with a certain flair such as George Sanders showed when he recently self shuffled off the mortal: leaving a sardonic note to explain that wasn't so much that the world was ratshit but that it bored him — and emphasising his point by leaving them to find his carcass with bare bum disdainfully in the air.

Back in Athenian days old Socrates did it well, too. Admittedly it wasn’t exactly the time he himself would have chosen to go: but when they put the black on him on some trumped up charge of corrupting Athenian youth (and generally being a bloody nuisance round the place), he took his cup of hemlock with the greatest goodwill in the world and quaffed it off with relish.

He was, of course, an earbasher of no mean note (which was probably one of the main reasons why the city fathers decided that it was time for him to do himself in) and an earbasher he remained to the end.

He had his friends about him — which is a good enough way for anyone to go — and out of deference to his unique circumstances they were a captive audience (which must have pleased the old fellow greatly).

There was the boy who'd had to hand him the hemlock blubbing away quietly and trying to explain to anyone who'd listen that he was just doing his duty. There were all Socrates' friends (“Socka" they used to call him) gathered around with manly tears in their eyes muttering phrases of broken Greek.

He just kept on talking and thoroughly enjoying himself — even as the numbness crept up his legs to his loins and the cold clutch of the poison was on his heart, it only slightly thickened his undauntedly garrulous tongue.

And when it became clear even to Socrates that he'd just about had the richard, he came good with a punchline, like the thorough pro he was. “The time to depart." he informed his colleagues, "has arrived, and we go our way — I to die and you to live.”

Now, normally that would have been a good enough line for most people to go out on — but not for “Socka". He capped it with an observation that really got down to the whole nub when he added: "Which is better, God alone knows.”

Indeed, I have often pondered that same conundrum. It is a question that becomes particularly pertinent to me at this time of year, because this weekend marks the occasion of my suicide part. It is an annual event, though I must confess that last year I had two — promoted by an uneasy feeling that some misadventure might befall me and I might not get enough of them in before I die

The date. which arbitrarily some years ago. is meant to commemorate what I consider mv most successful suicide.

I do not count the occasion on which I ate thirty six free sample packets of aspirin and only succeeded in making myself sick. I don't consider the occasion on which I went to drown myself in the Swan river but absentmindedly walked through the shallows for two miles and only succeeded in getting wet up to the crutch. Nor do I consider as among my best efforts the time I self defenestrated from a third floor window and landed on top of a Baby Austin — with no damage (to myself) except a certain loss of social poise. (I suppose I lacked savoir faire in those callow days.)

But the suicide I most fondly remember was the one that occurred at about the same time as that other occasion of some note, the outbreak of world war two.

Looking back on it, I can't recall any specific incident at the time that would now provoke me to the extent. Admittedly I was broke. I didn't have a job, there were various heartbreaking complications with varIous admirable Mss, the world was exploding into what would almost certainly be Armageddon — but, really, there was nothing one need feel low spirited about.

However in mv wilful boyish way I declared myself absolute for death on the very reasonable grounds that choosing life a man would choose a thing that none but fools would have. And I decided that I would go with a certain theatrical insouciance — I would swim in the dark of night out into the middle of Sydney harbor and be torn to pieces by a shark, no less!

There was of course some slight delay while I composed my suicide poem, but pretty rips stuff it was, as l remember, when I'd finally polished the stanzas to my liking.

Deepsea and green shall my death’s kingdom be

And let my death be swift and free.

Wild and white and swift and free

By clean cold fang with savagery, driven…

Any Ms would have had to be pretty stonyhearted not to have been affected by it. I was a trifle affected by it myself. “That great talent,” I thought. "What a loss!"

Actually. I made rather a cockup of the suicide poem because the two Mss who found it (both of whom later to their regret became, at different times, my wife), found eight other copies of it addressed to different birds in a suitcase along with the two pairs of silk pyjamas which were the only trousseau then had in the world. They were not amused.

But I set off from our Paddington pad bravely and alone into the night. According to the plan I had thoughtfully drawn for them I stripped my gear off and cached it in a little sort of cave I'd found on the foreshore somewhere around the Elizabeth Bay area (which is a very prestigious area indeed for anyone thinking of knocking themselves off).

I kept my shoes on because the beach seemed to be a bit rocky and made my way to the water's edge — prepared to swim out and meet my destiny.

But you wouldn't want to know! The water was cold — in fact it was bloody cold. Somewhat disconcerted, I wandered starkers (except for shoes) as a Nederlands ballet dancer along the shore and in some exclusive washhouse or other found a pair of trousers that someone had been using to do a fairish bit of blood-and-bone gardening in, an old shirt that had apparently been used as a duster and a jacket that must have belonged to a twelve year old midget.

Not that I flinched from my rendezvous with shark. but it was blood cold and somehow or other I found myself kipping down in the Domain overnight waiting for a propitious change in the weather.

Came the dawn of course, the whole thing had to be postponed. The script called clearly for the thing to be done by dead of night. Whoever heard of anyone swimming out into the middle of Sydney harbor to be torn to pieces by a shark in daylight. You'd look a right Charlie.

As it happened, wandering along waiting for the friendly darkness to come again, I happened to pass a little sort of shed and I went in. A fellow said: "Wanta enlist?"' I nodded and mumbled something amiable. “Army?” he said. I nodded and mumbled again. "Sign here," he said. I seized the shaky pen and wrote in a firm schoolboy hand John Hale Davidson.

John Hale Davidson? Who the hell was John Hale Davidson? I'd never even heard of a John Hale Davidson. It took three weeks of being screamed at and harried by brutal sergeants before I realised that I was John Hale Davidson — and that's who I was for the rest of the war. God help them.

As a matter of fact, a good fifty percent of the blokes in the mob I was with were lurking under aliases of various kinds. With a sense of common comradely decency we never talked about it much, but it seemed that most of them were seeking refuge from wives, mothers (their own or their girl’s), bailiffs or wallopers. In a way I suppose we were all refugees from the shark in some form or other.

Wehn [sic] I turned up at the Paddington pad some considerable time later, shyly sunbronzed in my slouch hat, one of the Ms who later became one of my wives opened the door and expressed absolutely no surprise at the phantom figure before her. “Hmm," she said in what seemed to me to be a needlessly offhand manner. "Back from the dead. eh?"

That was about the only reaction I got, except for the touching emotion (as I learned later) shown by a male friend when told that I had gone off to commit suicide. The Mss urged him that he must take the map I had left and go hotfoot down to the little cave I had indicated and see whether in fact my clothes were there, whether in fact I was dead. "Jesus Christ,” he whined reluctantly. "Do I have to? I was going to go to the pictures this afternoon."

So that's why I have mv suicide party. And another reason I have it every year (and may have two or even three this year) is because of that question posed by Socrates back in 399 BC — to live or die: which is the better, God only knows.

One or these suicide parties I might really pull a gag on my ever loving guests and check up on the answer to that question. But what the hell, they'd only finish the booze and go home.

Come to think of it, I remember another friend who, on attending my suicide party for the first time, rang me early next morning and said in a voice husk with emotion: “John, have you done it yet?"

"No Patrick " I said. "As a matter of fact. I haven't."

"Thank God " he said. "Don't bother. I'll do it for you.”

That's one of the nicest things, one of the most heartwarming things that anyone's ever said to me. It's the sort of thing that makes you think maybe the answer to Socrates' conundrum doesn't really matter. Let's all just stay here and have a party.

JOHN HEPWORTH (1921-1995)

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.