Frances Letters
Author of
The Surprising Asians
and
People of Shiva
I was born in the Australian country town of Armidale NSW in 1944, the youngest of four sisters. Ours was a strongly Catholic family. Our father, FJH (Frank) Letters, previously a barrister, had been founding lecturer in English and Classics at the University of New England. He was a renowned Classical scholar, a poet, essayist, linguist, and Papal Knight.
Our mother, Kathleen Logue Letters, was an inspired violinist, and quite a good landscape painter.
I was educated at St Ursula’s College, Armidale, and graduated BA from the University of New England in 1965.
So I was drawn into three movements: anti-Vietnam war, Women’s Liberation and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. It was the third of these causes—the need to work against racism—that came to dominate my being. Every other injustice seemed one step above the rock-bottom evil of race prejudice.
Leafletting, lecturing, demonstrating, arrest: the battle against the apartheid regime in South Africa was a full-time job.
Pose of a martyr! Arrest at South African surf lifesavers demo, Coogee Beach 1971. Meredith Burgmann grapples valiantly with the reel.
Having grown up in a conservative Australian country town, I'd never questioned the political status quo: but what I learned in Vietnam during the war began to force my eyes open.
In 1968 I received an offer from ASIO to work undercover in the Mekong Delta—but it was too late. I'd already come to suspect that some hidden machinery of power and wealth keeps the world's powerless and poor in their place—and I wanted no part of it.
In Madrid I learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. Through it I found a new peace and well-being, and new understanding of the unity of all humankind.
Wanting to be part of the good this international movement was doing, in 1975-76 I studied in Switzerland to become a TM teacher. For the next four years I taught meditation full-time in Barcelona. TM is a key part of my life.
In the 1996 and 1998 Australian Federal elections I stood as a candidate for the Natural Law Party, whose aim was to foster harmony in Australian society and politics.
As one of the course leaders (centre) for a Transcendental Meditation Teacher Training course, Spain 1979.
(Foreground photos: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement, and his Master, Guru Dev, Brahmananda Saraswati.)
It sold some 40,000 copies, and was studied by some quarter of a million students.
The Surprising Asians has often been cited as one of the first influences that turned young Australians' eyes towards Asia.
I spent 1969 travelling in India, and wrote People of Shiva (Angus & Robertson, 1971).
I worked as a journalist on The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald. In the mid 1960s women, clearly lacking the gravitas to cover news, were restricted to "the social pages", so I saw a lot of the more frivolous side of society. Later I worked for Women's Day.
For most of the 1970s I lived in Spain. I'd had to escape from England, where I'd been gathering material for a book on racism. Caught up in real violence, I'd truly feared for my life. (See 'Current Writing'.)
Collecting the daily water in Rajasthan
Over the years I've done many jobs: freelance writer, editor and proofreader; factory hand, Portobello Road market stallholder, women's refuge worker, minutes secretary.
I used to sing and play the guitar for my own folksong program on local radio, sing with a jazz band, and busk in London.
While studying to be a TM teacher I worked for 2 years in Switzerland as cook, kitchen hand and cleaner.
Reading, drawing, painting, listening to music, mainly classical, with friends. Politics, Aboriginal rights, refugees, social justice, the environment and the possibility of world peace.
Back from SE Asia, hitch-hiking to Sydney
Unexpectedly, it was through my studies in TM that I discovered science. It had never crossed my mind to study physics or chemistry at university: in those days few women did. But luckily my son did choose that path. Since he has a gift for bringing even the driest topic to life, over the years his learning has helped nurture my layman's interest.
I'm now back living in Armidale NSW, and have been working full-time on Wrestling the reptile: bigotry in dangerous times, about prejudice and racism.
I have one son, a much-loved daughter-in-law, a good friend in my Spanish ex-husband, a large and loving extended family, my world-wide TM family, and dear friends. A truly lucky life.
BIOGRAPHY
After a year's hitch-hiking round South-East Asia, including wartime South Vietnam, I wrote and illustrated The Surprising Asians (Angus & Robertson, 1968). It was later set as a text for NSW School Certificate English.
INTERESTS
OTHER WORK
MEDITATION
TRANSCENDENTAL
POLITICISATION