From Patagonia to Professor

PROLOGUE

I have a photo on the wall of my office. It shows me in profile, thirty years ago, face to face with a genuine shrunken head. Although smiling in the photo, only minutes before when I first saw it, I had been shaking. I had never before seen a shrunken head. I had no idea that the identity of the owner would be so…present. It was impossible not to be affected by the intimacy of holding a stranger’s head in my hands. Who was this man? He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. He had short white hair, and a white beard stained with what looked like nicotine. He had a bulbous nose on which enlarged pores and broken veins could be clearly seen. His florid colouring suggested he was someone who had been a big drinker. His skin was coarse and mostly rough, and at the back of his neck, where the head had been opened to remove his skull, the skin was rough-cut and felt and looked exactly like leather. I was holding the head of someone who had actually been alive! Before this, I wondered whether shrunken heads were real, but holding this I was certain that sixty to a hundred years ago this man had been alive.

This photo was taken on my very first day in Chile in 1985, at the home of Luis E. Pena Guzman, a well-known entomologist in Chile who was to guide our zoological field trip through Chile and Argentina; the whole trip would include four months in South America followed by three months in London.

Before my husband Peter and I left, we were interviewed by Woman’s Day, which was ‘Australia’s brightest weekly’, according to its tag line. Although conducted weeks before we left in October 1985, the article came out in February 1986, by which stage we had finished the South American leg and were in London. There were three photos in the NewsMaker section on page 43, with a brief accompanying article describing them. Curiously, all three of the female news makers depicted in that issue shared the same first name. Meredyth Judd and Harvey Shore were an Australian couple who made news because they had ‘A Marriage Made In India’, performed at the Taj Mahal. Meredith Allison was a twenty-four-year-old who made news for ‘Dealing With Emotions’ by being a fifth-generation funeral director. Meredith Taylor (me) made news for ‘Roughing It For Science’ and the first part of the article stated,

The possibility that a South American marsupial could be an ancestor of the Australian marsupial is to be explored by Peter Temple-Smith, a reproductive biologist and lecturer in anatomy in Melbourne’s Monash University. Peter will try to establish the link by examining the sperm of a marsupial the natives call Monito del Monte, on a trip to South America with his wife, Meredith.

At the time we were interviewed for the article, I was thirty years old and had been married for four years.

Peter and I had met in 1977 at Monash University’s halls of residence, where we both had after-hours roles as tutors. Peter had grown up in Tasmania. In those days, he was a tall man with sturdy legs and a lush brown beard. He both loved and was comfortable in the bush. He is enthusiastic about everything outdoors – from home-grown vegetables to the call of the spur-winged plover. His great ability to remember interesting facts and communicate science means he is a fascinating companion. He was, and remains, a great conversationalist and a very charming man.

In contrast to Peter, I had no knowledge and almost no experience of the bush, and truthfully, was scared of the dark. I was impressed by the fact that after Peter finished his PhD he had lived in New York for three years, and that he played guitar and had sung in bands as a student. I thought this sign of his creativity complemented my passion for dance. I used to go to dance classes on campus every day, and definitely at the expense of my studies, I spent most of my days hanging out with other members of the Monash Modern Dance Club, planning or rehearsing performances.

In my final year of study, when I wasn’t dancing, I had a part-time job as a research assistant in the Department of Psychology. I was thrilled to be offered this job, which led to the offer of another. Three decades later across a function room I saw the professor who had originally offered me the job. With the confidence of many years of academic work behind me, it occurred to me that I should thank him for nurturing the seeds of my career. I reminded him of who I was, and the experiments I had run for him. I acknowledged that I had not been the best or brightest student in the class, and then I asked if he had seen in me back then some glimmer of academic potential. He gave the matter some thought, and then admitted that he did not recall that I had any aptitude when he offered me the job, it was only that he had a thing for girls with long blonde hair. It’s hard to imagine these days that bleached hair was once considered very suggestive, and I was what was disparagingly called a ‘bottle-blonde’. Perhaps my professor had been a little hopeful that my personality might live up to the reputation of dyed hair? Whatever the reason, it seems my whole academic career was based on a sham!

In many ways, that story sums up the differences between Peter and me. Peter’s curiosity and love of knowledge almost decreed that he would become an academic. My road to academia was accidental, and paved with experiences not entirely of my own making. As a young person I had many dreams but no realistic idea of the direction in which my life might unfold. I loved learning new things and I was, and still am, fascinated by human behaviour. This curiosity may be partly a legacy of having moved homes frequently in my childhood. Being observant about people offered clues about what they liked. I wanted to please people, as it increased the chance of being accepted into their circle.

I had no confidence in my intelligence and was all too aware of the genuine holes in my knowledge. So I was flattered when Peter, seven years my senior and a well-respected junior academic, took an interest in me. When we were married in 1981, I had two goals, neither of which included work. I wanted to have an interesting life, and I wanted to be a mother, goals which were both eventually achieved in unusual ways.

The trip to South America involved four months of data collection in South America, followed by three months at Regent’s Park Zoo in London, where Peter was to work with colleagues on related research.

My memory of our arrival in London is still sharp. After months of speaking beginner Spanish, it had been such a relief to arrive somewhere which seemed more like home and where it took no effort to communicate. It was a crisp cold Friday in January 1986, but the sun was shining, the cabbie was friendly and the traffic flowed smoothly as we made our way to Regent’s Park Zoo. We felt relaxed and happy to be starting on the second stage of Peter’s study leave, particularly given the success of the field trip in Patagonia.

My memory is that we pulled up outside the zoo at the Institute of Zoology near a doorman’s booth. We unloaded two suitcases and two carry-ons, as well as a small backpack (his) and a shoulder bag (mine). Peter needed to collect a front door key from his colleague who had offered to put us up until we found accommodation for our three months stay. When we realised the colleague’s office was on the first floor, and that there were no lifts, we discussed what to do. I offered to stay with the bags, but Peter really wanted me to go with him to meet his colleague. We decided to leave the bags next to the doorman's booth. The doorman was on the phone, but he seemed to understand our gesticulations and nodded when we indicated we would be back in five minutes.

When we returned fifteen minutes later, my carry-on bag was gone. The doorman said he had seen nothing, and almost seemed not to believe that there had been another bag. He offered to more carefully mind our other luggage while we frantically ran around in every direction that would be open to a traveller on foot, looking for any signs of the theft. When we found a nearby path that led over a small canal our hearts sank, as we realised that anything thrown into that water would be likely lost forever.

We took a cab to the police station to report the loss. While they were somewhat sympathetic about the loss of the beautiful blue lapis lazuli necklace destined for my mother, and my thick and detailed diary in which I had recorded every day of the field trip, it was not until we mentioned the bones that their interest was piqued. We had stored the tiny bones in tissue paper in a cardboard box for safe keeping, which just happened to have the word ‘radioactive’ printed on it. Actually, it had once contained cards which detected radioactivity, so in reality the box itself was perfectly safe. But perhaps a thief might feel concerned at the potential exposure and hand it in? By this time it was mid-afternoon, and the early winter dusk was falling. With mixed feelings, we took a cab to the house in Golders Green where we were to stay. Although we tried to be optimistic that the bag would be found, already our enthusiasm for this stay in London, so long happily anticipated, had been dampened.

Frustratingly, two days later on the following Monday morning, Peter’s colleague told us that the zoo switchboard had taken a call from someone who said they had found some papers with my name on them and some diaries when walking their dog in Primrose Hill. (I pictured a large green hill, dotted with trees circled by primroses, and the eager dog owner following a trail of paperwork to the box with the bones.) When we heard this news, we were so excited, but our hopes were quickly dashed when we heard that the switchboard operator who took the call did not know we had arrived in London yet and suggested the caller call back in a few days. Despite our daily anxious queries, there were no more calls.

We contacted the local newspaper, hoping an article might prompt either the caller to return the papers, or the thief to return the bones. But the thief was unconcerned or illiterate. Despite an article with a scary headline about the box marked ‘radioactive’ imploring the thief to seek health information, the bones remained missing.

When all of this took place in 1986, there were no mobile phones, and no personal computers, and to have a social network meant something completely different. I have spent many nights awake, wondering whether someone might remember something about this incident that occurred over thirty years ago. The doorman, the thief, the dog-walker, the switchboard operator…could any of them now could help locate the diaries or the bones?

When I wrote the diaries, I imagined reading and rereading them throughout my life to remind me of all of the details of that momentous journey. Even more importantly, I remember that I wrote all kinds of observations about myself. In the intervening years, there have been so many events, the raising of three amazing children, the completion of a DHSc, several job moves, an eventually amicable divorce, the deaths of my parents, the editing and/or writing of five books, and holidays, friends, disasters, pleasures; the stuff of everyday life. Now, with some of my life’s achievements behind me, I find myself thinking often of the trip. I long to know whether it provides any clues to explain the surprising path in life I appear to have chosen, or which chose me. I long to read what I wrote in 1985, to see if there are glimmers of the me of today.

So I called Peter and asked him if he could remember whether we ever kept a copy of the police record or the article in the paper. (Even if he did, it could be a quest to locate it. Being academics, we both have houses completely full of books and papers, and it is a miracle we can find anything!)

However, he did lay his hands on three important items: his diary of a field trip in South America that he undertook with close friend and colleague Dr Tom Grant in September 1983, some of which covered places we visited in 1985; an exercise book of field notes, including many in my handwriting, which recorded details of animals which we kept for a little while, their measurements and weights, and observations of their behaviour while they were in captivity; and his trapping notes, which recorded the details of every animal trapped, most of which were immediately released, once identified.

I also found a piece of paper folded inside this book, which was the start of an article I had written. So many pictures come flooding back. I grasp them tightly and start to piece together the story of my travel…

SOUTH AMERICA 1985: THE BEETLE MAN

Luis, affectionately known as Lucho, was a famous entomologist with a special interest in coleoptera – the study of beetles – and he contributed many thousands of beetle and other insect samples to natural history museums around the world. He had discovered many new species throughout South America. When not studying and collecting insects in the wild, Lucho lived and worked in a compound of several houses owned by relatives and co-workers at La Cantera, just north of Santiago. His open-plan house was on the top of a hill, and was made of wood and concrete – architect-designed – to ensure plenty of space for his collections of insects and the many artefacts from his trips. The shrunken head I held on my first day in Chile was one of two owned by Lucho. The other was that of a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years of age, with long black hair and colouring suggestive of Amazonian Indian origin.

Lucho had once had a traditional academic position at a university, but he loved fieldwork too much to be trapped inside a lecture theatre. He often assisted international scientists to travel in Chile and other countries in South America, by being the guide and provisioner for their field trips. He was planning to use our trip to collect beetles and butterflies, while Peter and I set traps to catch a tiny marsupial affectionately called the little monkey of the forest – monito del monte – to test a theory Peter had about the origin of Australian marsupials. We were also going to search for Lestodelphys halli, the Patagonian opossum. The only previous evidence of this species had been five individuals caught by the naturalist Budin in 1935. Peter hoped to find more living specimens and record more of their biology.

Lucho had apparently been hesitant and unenthusiastic when he learnt that I was to accompany Peter on the field trip. This made me feel very uncomfortable when I found out after I arrived in Santiago. When Peter told me, I resolved to prove to Lucho that his fears of taking me were unfounded. He later told me that he had only once or twice taken women on field trips, and he had not found it an easy experience. Once we had left civilisation far behind, the reasons for this became very clear, as the fieldwork took precedence over everything else, including basic hygiene, as you will see. Lucho said on the one occasion he took a woman and a baby on an overnight fieldwork trip he was horrified to find that the woman changed the baby’s nappy inside the van! That comment encapsulated Lucho’s eccentricity and level of dedication to his work, as hundreds of insects, dead and alive, alongside cyanide and other chemicals, covered all the food preparation surfaces inside the van, including at mealtimes.

I was very excited to go on the field trip, and although I loved the idea of being intrepid, I was not at all brave and had had very little experience even of camping. Peter, in contrast, had had a childhood in Tasmania which sounded like it was set in a Boy’s Own Annual from the 1950s: getting up early and leaving his parents a note saying ‘Gone fishing’; rowing out to rocky outcrops to observe birds; climbing mountains; swimming on beaches with no lifeguards. I was the kind of child who ran away from shallow waves as they came into shore. My only childhood experience with walking through the bush was going between road and sea to access Melbourne’s beaches in the summer, and wending my way through patches of bush soon destined to make way for housing developments near where we lived. After Peter and I got together in the 1970s, I had more exposure to camping. But there were some things I still found challenging. He preferred not to use lanterns or torches but to allow his own vision to adjust to the dark. I hated the dark. I especially disliked having to go outside the tent a night and dig a toilet hole, do your business and then cover it up. But I accepted that being married to a zoologist would mean that I either needed to have long periods of time without him while he was in the field, or else I would need to find aspects of fieldwork rewarding in some way so that we could spend time together. In the Women’s Weekly article ‘Roughing It For Science’, the paragraph briefly describing our quest finishes with the words

In a land where women are kept in the background, Meredith, who has been learning Spanish, will dress like a man and cover her blonde hair with a scarf. She will also undertake her own project, studying animal behaviour.

Of course I don’t recall actually saying anything to the reporter about my planned wardrobe. My past experience of dressing like a man on an Australian field trip had not gone well. Following a weekend at Braidwood in New South Wales, camped by the river trapping platypus, we headed home. I had very short hair and was dressed in woollen khaki army surplus trousers, stout leather boots, and a blue checked woollen shirt; perfect for protecting the skin from insects and scratches when walking through the bush. On the way home, we stopped at a small town to use the public toilets. As I was walking into the ladies’ facilities, I noticed several older women reboarding a nearby bus. Once inside, I had to wait for a free toilet. When an old lady eventually emerged from the cubicle she said, "You’re in the wrong toilet, sonny!’ I tried to remonstrate but when I did, she hit me several times with her handbag. I ran outside. When I told Peter what had happened, he laughed and put his arms around me, undoubtedly further horrifying any other short-sighted bus passengers, as public interactions between same-sex couples were rare in those days. While my short haircut may have contributed on that occasion to a mistaken identity, I am quite sure that covering my, by this stage, shoulder-length bleached hair with a scarf would not fool any South Americans even with poor eyesight!

However, the reporter was right in saying I planned