
Gilbert Palmer Mant (20 July 1902 – 16 February 1997) was an Australian journalist and author.
Life and career
Gilbert Mant was born in
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
.
His mother was the granddaughter of the English-Australian painter and diarist
Georgiana McCrae
Georgiana Huntly McCrae (15 March 1804 – 24 May 1890) was an English-Australian painter and diarist.
Early life
Born in London, McCrae was the illegitimate daughter of George Gordon, the Marquess of Huntly, son and heir to Alexander, 4th Du ...
. After some years as a
jackaroo he returned to Sydney and wrote as a freelance journalist in the early 1920s, often on literary topics. He worked for the Sydney ''
Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...
'' from 1925 to 1930 and subsequently worked for
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
in Australia, Britain and Canada.
[
Mant married Marion Carroll in Melbourne in March 1933. The couple went straight to New Zealand, where Mant was covering the tour of the ]English cricket team
The England men's cricket team represents cricket in England, England and cricket in Wales, Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Maryleb ...
. He had been covering the Australian leg of the tour, and intended to write a book about it, but Reuters refused him permission to do so when he told them he would be critical of the bodyline
Bodyline, also known as fast leg theory bowling, was a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33, 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia. It was designed to combat the extraordinar ...
tactics of the English captain Douglas Jardine
Douglas Robert Jardine ( 1900 – 1958) was a Scottish cricketer who played 22 Test matches for England, captaining the side in 15 of those matches between 1931 and 1934. A right-handed batsman, he is best known for captaining the English ...
.[ He also accompanied the next English team on its tour of Australia in 1936–37 as the Reuters correspondent.
Mant joined the Second AIF in July 1940 and served in ]Malaya
Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia:
Political entities
* British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...
until September 1941, when he was discharged and became a war correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories first-hand from a war, war zone.
War correspondence stands as one of journalism's most important and impactful forms. War correspondents operate in the most conflict-ridden parts of the wor ...
for Reuters.[ He returned to Malaya for Reuters, escaping from Singapore in a British destroyer when Singapore fell to Japanese forces. He wrote the books ''Grim Glory'' (1942) and ''You'll Be Sorry'' (1944) about his experiences.][ His wife, who had accompanied him on many of his journalistic travels, replaced him as acting news editor of Reuters in Sydney when he enlisted. They had a daughter and a son.
Mant left Reuters in mid-1942 and became State Publicity Censor for ]South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
. This position was responsible for monitoring newspapers and radio broadcasts to ensure they did not endanger wartime security. He stayed in the position until the end of the war.
Beginning in October 1945, Mant's weekly column "The Way I See It" appeared in the Sydney ''Sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
'' and its successor ''The Sun-Herald
''The Sun-Herald'' is an Australian newspaper published in tabloid or compact format on Sundays in Sydney by Nine Entertainment. It is the Sunday counterpart of the ''Sydney Morning Herald''. In the six months to September 2005, ''The Sun-H ...
'' until 1956. Covering current topics and prominent figures, and illustrated with drawings, it at first occupied a full page of the Sunday edition, then later two columns of a page.['']Wisden
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...
'' 1998, p. 1436.
In 1956 Mant became the public relations manager for the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales
The Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales was founded on 5 July 1822, when a group of Sydney's leading citizens formed the Agricultural Society of NSW, and is "a not-for-profit organisation committed to supporting agricultural developmen ...
. He retired in 1969 and moved to Port Macquarie
Port Macquarie, sometimes shortened to Port Mac and commonly locally nicknamed Port, is a coastal city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, north of Sydney, and south of Brisbane, on the Tasman Sea coast at the mouth of the ...
, where he worked part-time for '' The Land'', mostly covering agricultural show
An agricultural show is a public event exhibiting the equipment, animals, sports and recreation associated with agriculture and animal husbandry. The largest comprise a livestock show (a judged event or display in which selective breeding, bree ...
s in northern New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
. He married a second time in 1963, to Yvonne Hawes.[Mant, ''The 20th Century Off the Record'', pp. 7–9.]
Books
*''Holy Terror and Other Stories and Verse'' (stories, verse and sketches, 1923)
*''Glamour Brat'' (novel, 1941)
*''Grim Glory'' (war reporting, 1942)
*''You'll Be Sorry'' (war reporting, 1944)
*''Gone Tomorrow'' (novel, 1946)
*''Buttercup'' (for children, 1969)
*''The Big Show'' (history of the Sydney Royal Easter Show
The Sydney Royal Easter Show, commonly shortened to The Easter Show or The Show, is an annual show held in Sydney, Australia over two weeks around the Easter period. First held in 1823, it comprises an agricultural show, an amusement park and a ...
, 1972)
*''A Town Called Port: A Port Macquarie-Hastings Valley Walkabout'' (history, 1986, with John Moyes)
*''The Singapore Surrender'' (''Grim Glory'' and ''You'll Be Sorry'', published as one book, 1992)
*''A Cuckoo on the Bodyline
Bodyline, also known as fast leg theory bowling, was a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33, 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia. It was designed to combat the extraordinar ...
Nest'' (cricket history, 1992)
*''Soldier Boy: The Letters of Gunner W. J. Duffell, 1915–18'' (edited, 1992)
*''The 20th Century Off the Record'' (memoir, 1994)
*''Massacre at Parit Sulong'' (war history, 1995)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mant, Gilbert
1902 births
1997 deaths
20th-century Australian journalists
20th-century Australian novelists
Journalists from Sydney
Australian war correspondents
Australian Army personnel of World War II
Australian columnists
20th-century Australian historians
Australian Army soldiers
Military personnel from Sydney