AN IRISHMAN IN COLD WATER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 329, 12 October 1945, Page 6

AN IRISHMAN IN COLD WATER

Artist Who Draws In A Diving-Helmet

THE beard you see here and on our cover belongs to Robert Gibbings, author, artist, publisher, travel-ler-and, you think the first time you see him, physical giant. After you have been talking to him for a little the impression of size wears off, but if you ask him about it, he will confess to six feet and nineteen stone ("and lately a little more" ). And what does he talk about? Birds; fishes; water-bugs; the colour of the sea; nature’s tricks in camouflage. For this mountain of a man has spent hours on the bed of the ocean watching, and actually drawing, blue angels and their coral homes. Twenty years ago he established a press for the making of beautiful books, but now prefers to write the books and let someone else make them. He joined the staff of a University because the five-months’ vacation appealed to him. But a few years later he found that five months of freedom were not enough. He wanted 12 months, so built a boat and started floating down rivers and writing down his impressions and thoughts. Then last week-with some assistance from the Department of Internal Affairs-he just walked into our office on his way to Samoa. Of course we gathered round him and began asking questions. she sts . *

"Te begin with, how did you draw these?" We pointed to the drawings he did underwater for Blue Angels and Whales. "Oh, I had xylonite sheets, a kind of stuff not unlike celluloid; and I took the lead out of thick sketching pencils and put it in pieces of rubber tubing, because an ordinary pencil would come unstuck of course. That was ail. You can draw quite well under water that way." "About how deep would’ you be?" . "Twenty-five feet is enough for most people, though William Beebe says 40 feet is possible. I myself found that 25 feet was quite enough, and not to be endured indefinitely." "It was tiring, then?" "Yes. But it’s a funny thing-I found I worked twice as fast down there. Perhaps it was the excitement, the strangeness of it all, but I seemed to work very much faster altogether. And another thing I found-I drew things in the size of their importance to me, rather than in their actual proportions. I would draw an interesting little fish big, and make a big dull fish small.’ He showed what he meant in one of the drawings from Blue Angels and Whales. A fish that looked quite big and important there was really only a little fellow, a couple of inches or so long. "They didn’t scatter when you appeared?" They Bite "No, fish are not afraid of you if you are under the water. They're suspicious of a shadow on the surface, and if you _swere in a boat, they'd disappear. But when I went below in my helmet and » started work I soon had to brush them away from my window -they’d come around to give me a look over! They also come along where you can’t see, and try to nibble-it feels rather like @

mosquito. It’s all right as long as they’re at the front, but they get round behind, too!" "You were not quite at ease down there?" "No, there’s a queer effect under water -things get distorted. You know how it is if you look at an oar in the water. I found it strange. I’d try to catch my rope, and put my hand out, and it wouldn’t be there. And when I was moving, I’d go to step over a piece of coral, put my foot out, try again, and find I had quite a few steps to go before I came to it. "What's it like walking on the oer tom?" : "It’s rather like being a ping-pong ball! (Lest our readers miss the enjoyment of this remark, we repeat that Mr. Gibbings weighs somewhere round 20 stone). "You see, being overweight, I was overbuoyant. I carried about 60Ib. in weights and the helmet weighs about 40lb., but that wasn’t enough, so I took extra in the shape of a piece of lead piping, which I simply pinched round my waist over my hips. It had the advantage that in an emergency I could just put my thumbs under it and wedge it off, and then I’d start to rise. It’s an extraordinarily eerie feeling-like being a ballet dancer-but very pleasant.

The original drawing for this engraving of a tropical fish was made 25 feet under water

"When they were testing me out with the helmet at first they told me to go into a sandy hole just to see how I got on. I went down and then tried to get up, but I Couldn’t get any grip on the sides. I got out by using my sheet of xylonite as a fin! Afterwards they told me I needed more weights to-hold me on | to the bottom." "How well can you see under water?" "Just as clearly as in this room, for 25 or 30 feet, then things begin to get blurred. It’s as if your world were a sphere, and as you move, it moves with you. Then you get occasional glimpses of a further-away world, when the light comes through. An Eerie Feeling "The only trouble is, you never know if there’s. anything behind. And you can’t just turn vour head round every now

and then to take a look, You have to make a slow turn of the whole body. And then. unfortunately, if there was ‘anything there in the first. place, it’s probably gone round the front by the time you’ve turned round! So you never really know, and that’s an eerie feeling. Because no matter how reassuring the diving experts are to you before you go down, you still have a very vivid imagination. "Once one of them came down to give me some message that had been forgotten." He simply dived down behind me and I knew nothing until he gripped both my shoulders in his hands! I understand I made a phenomenal jump! "Another time I began to hear a sound of heavy breathing. It seemed to get louder. I began to imagine walruses, all sorts of things. I was quite frightened. Of course it didn’t occur to me that if there was anything actually breathing, P certainly wouldn’t hear it. It was my own breathing inside the helmet."

"I believe groper are quite nasty, too. They say a groper will stalk you for a whole day before he takes a bite and goes off with it. And the jaws of a sixfeet groper can be enormous." — A Pullover for Warmth! , "Will you be doing this. kind of thing when you get to Samoa?" we asked. "T don’t: expect they'll have a helmet for me there, but I'll take goggles." We asked about the temperature under the surface in tropical waters: "Very cold. In the Red Sea I found there are three distinct levels, and at the third the water was completely ‘chilled. I used to wear a pullover!" This was not a joke. Mr. Gibbings explained that wearing a pullover was a help in retaining the warmth of the body for as long as possible. If he raised an arm to brush away a fish he would get an icy draught down under his shoulder.

"T got so cold down there that afterwards I sat in the tropical sun and drank whisky, and still it was ages before I felt warm again. It freezes your gizzard. I had to limit myself to a couple of dives in the morning and then give up for the day." Our own knowledge of the colours of¢ tropical fish was almost wholly derived from copies of the National Geographic in dentists’ waiting rooms.. Wé asked Mr. Gibbings whether the colours there were true to life. "Yes, they’re pretty good, I think. But the trouble is, the things change colour all the time." "They change colour if you bring them to the surface, don’t they?" "They change colour any time at all. Quite a number of them develop vertical stripes the moment they come to restcamouflage effect. I’ve seen one browsing about in front of me and ‘changing colour as fast as we can blush!" (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) "Was he blushing, do you think?" "He may have been! It could have been nervousness, I suppose." "Do they ever actually rest on the bottom?" Fishes Have Memory "Some do; perhaps only the tip of the tail touches, but some seem actually to rest on the ground. Some even yawn! What astonishes me, though, is that fish can come to rest so suddenly. They are going along quite fast and then suddenly they stop quite still. Fish have a memory for colour, by the way. That's been proved by a man who did some experiments throwing them sardines, then . giving them coloured ones with cayenne . pepper inside them. In time they learnt to reject the coloured ones." "They never shut their eyes, do they?" "No, they have no eyelids, but rock-- ’ fish hate to get out of the shade..They like the shade, and their eyes are affected if you take them out and put them in a tank." "Do such fish keep to their own small . areas, then, or do you think they move about from place to place?" .

"They keep to their own areas. Of course I’ve no proof, but I think it’s pretty certain. In Tahiti certain fish are edible in one bay and poisonous in another bay where they get different food, so that looks rather like proof, doesn’t it?"

"When were you last in Tahiti?" "Fifteen years ago-quite some time now." Echoes of Gauguin "Of course you picked up echoes of the Gauguin legend?" "Oh yes, there are Gauguin descendants around the island. It’s rather funny, they have one road right round the island, and a man’s address is simply * given in kilometres. There were some. Smiths, and one was ‘Five Kilometre ‘Smith,’ another ‘Twelve Kilometre Smith’ and so on, and you’d ask ‘Has anyone reen Five Kilometre Smith here to-day?’ I never met one of them, but I understood that if you go a certain number of kilometres then stand and shout ‘Gauguin’ out will come one of Gauguin’s sons, "There was one funny story I heard about Gauguin. He evidently used to aid and abet them in brewing — and drinking-a fermented orange drink which was forbidden. And eventually he was caught and fined 100 francs for it. After his appearance in court he went round to the barber’s. There was only one barber, and-only one chair. When Gauguin had been in the chair a little while,

in came the judge who had just fined him. ‘So when the barber had finished the haircut, Gauguin otdered a shave, and after that a shampoo, and so on right through the whole list, until the judge stamped out. Then Gauguin said, ‘Well that’s the best 100 francs’ worth I’ve had for a long time!’ "T also heard that Gauguin had a most marvellous W.C., beautifully carved, the seat and all, with the most delightful decorations. But an .American woman bought it and had it burnt, because she thought it was indecent. "I saw some original letters and papers of Gauguin’s in Tahiti, but there was nothing anyone could publish because

many of the people referred to were still living. Actually they weren’t very interesting." , Ireland and the Irish From the South Sea Islands, we switched the conversation to Ireland in as much time as it takes to put down Blue’ Angels. and Whales and pick up Lovely is the Lee, the fruit of the time Mr. Gibbings spent coming down. the river Lee, taking sketches for woodcuts and gathering material for word sketches of the Irish people he met. Mr. Gibbings is himself an Irishman, and laughed when we repeated: the saying that.all the best modern English writers are Irishmen. "Is there now free intercourse between Ireland and England? Friendly intercourse? Would you have been as weil received if you had not been born in Cork?" : "They're perfectly friendly. If you meet them as equals and put on no side at all you'll get a marvellous welcome. They're very*happy. Even when they are very poor by our standards, they don’t feel poor. ‘We have the faith,’ one of them said to me. ‘We're the richest people in the world.’ " "What about politics?" Jokes and Money "They'll get excited if you work them up, but I don’t really think it goes very

deep. You’ll hear English people criticise the Irish, but it’s often because they think they’re not ‘good Englishmen.’ Of course they’re not. They’re good Irishmen. They have a totally different standard of values. A joke is worth far more than a five-pound note in the country parts. I met a man at a party, and he told me to come to another part of the country and stay at a certain hotel. ‘You'll get a great welcome there,’ he said. I went and found he was the proprietor. But when I came to pay my bill, he told me to go to hell. I remember another time when I was leaving a

hotel, and the bill was £4/18/-.. The proprietor overheard the clerk telling me, and said ‘Knock off those 18/- — we'll not have shillings between us.’" "But you were one of them in the first place?" "Oh yes, but they all knew I didn’t live in Ireland, and they alleknew I was a Protestant, and that made no difference. I found their generosity very touching indeed." "Who owns the land now?" _ "The land is going back to the people gradually. Ireland was planted in Elizabeth’s time with English landlords, including my ancestors. The original Gibbings had three sons who all fought for Cromwell, and they got huge tracts of land. I’m not proud of that of course, though all that land has now returned to Irish owners. "Do they still have large families?" "In general, yes. When they can they matry very young. On the other hand there may be years of waiting before the sons are economically free to marry. There’s a saying there that an Irish farmer spends the first half of his life wondering whom he’ll marry and the

second half wondering who'll marry him. De Valera is trying to do something about this, I think. However, longevity is the rule among the farming people. Seventy is young, 80 or 90 is getting on! One man I wrote of in that book, Batty Kitt was his name, told me he wore no shoes at all till he was 14, and when he got his first pair his mother had ‘had to walk 20 miles to get them and 20 miles back the same day. He’s 76 now and slightly deaf, but very much alive, keen, and full of fun. That man’s diet when young would be largely potatoes and buttermilk." "They have no cinema in their country towns?" To-And-From "Oh no. Entertainment for them consists chiefly in going |

from cottage to cottage. Two rooms are thrown open, for cards in one and dancing in the other, and they visit a different cottage each evening. The music is just a concertina -they call it a ‘to-and-from,’ They have no radios, except an occasional battery set, and that’s only used for the news, because the battery has to go a long way to be charged. Their lighting is candles and- oil lamps. ; "But their life is full of fun and jokes, and their hearts are of gold. No other section in the British Isles is more moral,"