Journalist and author Paul
Stanley Baker who died on 1 March 2019 believed in looking forward.
Born on 1 January 1940, Paul
ascribed to the saying: “Once you make the decision to move on, don’t look back
your destiny will never be found in the rare view mirror.”
Paul grew up in Lower Hutt and
attended Ngaengae College where he excelled in mathematics.
He started his working life as
a cadet at the then Post Office, where he worked in the toll exchange, as a welfare
officer and supervisor.During his time
with the Post Office he built Marram Trust cottages, which were designed to
provide holiday homes and accommodation to employees who needed to convalesce
and re-establish their lives in New Zealand following World War Two.
After the Post Office was
corporatised in the mid-1980s, Paul moved to Masterton, where he spent many
years, working first with the Wairarapa Times Age and later with Wairarapa
Stuff after changes in news media ownership.
His time in the Wairarapa saw
him creating friendships with a number of members of the Ngai Tumapuhia-A-Rangi
hapu through his first wife Annie - many of whom including her have sadly
passed away.
In the 1990s and prior to his
retirement in Rotorua in 2007 he wrote several short stories including 'The
Wreck’, ' Hawaiian Blues’ and ‘Trumped’ which were all published in the NZ
Woman's Weekly.
Paul married Alison in 2009,
after moving to Rotorua in 2008.During
their time in Rotorua, Paul and Alison engaged in a number of activities,
including voluntary work for St John, and supporting various church groups.
He felt inclined to bring back
to life some of the colourful characters he had known and loved during his
years of growing up in the 1940s to 1970s era and ‘Caught Up in Time’ was
created.
The book describes the life
and experiences of people in a world that saw rapid change as it recovered from
what he described as the “shell-shock” of the Second World War.
At the time of his death he
was working on a novel ‘Riding for Gold and Glory’ based on his experiences in
horse racing in New Zealand and Australia.
Although he didn’t have any
children of his own, Paul came to love and enjoy the company of Alison’s children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The couple enjoyed several
cruises around New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific and travelled to Asia and
Europe in 2013.
A small family gathering was
held to farewell Paul in Rotorua. Michael Smith Publisher and Director BMS Books
Mention the words “crime novel” and “mentally ill” in the
same sentence and you are most likely to come up with an image of a psychotic
killer or a hacked up victim.
The deranged family member, associate or stranger has been a
great source of antagonistic criminals in any number of crime novels.The Guardian newspaper even compiled a list
of the
top 10 novels about deranged killers, although that doesn’t
necessarily mean they are “crime novels” as such (that is another story).
The role of mentally ill are slotted into in most crime
novels came to mind when I had a privilege of attending Rotorua Noir – said to
be the first New Zealand festival of crime writers.
It was a stimulating conference, from the workshops on the
first day, to the sessions throughout the second and third days and the
featured activities.It is unlikely that
there has ever been such a concentrated meeting of fiction writers of a
specific genre in one place at one time in New Zealand. (Feel free to correct
me if I am wrong.)
We had writers who have their works regularly published by
multi-national titles and those who, fed up with rejection, decided to go it
alone through self-publishing, sometime relatively successfully.That is a story for another time.
At least two of the writers on panels were former or active
members of the New Zealand Police, while others had a personal or professional
interest in mental health, one even growing up in the grounds of an institution
where her father worked.
I was aching to ask at the end of the session involving these
writers how or why mentally ill people were so often stigmatised in fiction,
particularly crime fiction.
My interest in this area of work led me to make a submission
to the New Zealand Government’s inquiry into mental health in 2018.I made the submission as a publisher but more
so as somebody who has dedicated many years to helping people express their
creativity through writing novels and other forms of literature.
As I told the inquiry when I appeared before it in Rotorua,
this does not mean our list consists of what could be classified as mentally
ill, but it means how I have seen the mental and social benefits to be had from
writing creatively.Being published is
not just a bonus for writers but a goal, no matter how outwardly timid they may
appear.
We now know – post-the Mental Health Inquiry and current
events – if we didn’t know before, that mental illness is not a respecter of
race or social status.
That is, unless you inhabit the world of the crime novel.
The role of the mentally
unwell in books was highlighted at a crime fiction festival in Cardiff, Wales
in 2018.Rosie Claverton, a writer and
junior psychiatrist, and fellow writer Matt Johnson, a former police officer
who has suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, discussed how crime writers
can be lazy in creating a protagonist with a mental health condition.
As well as leading to
unrealistic plots, it seems this approach also negates any need for the writer
to explore their character’s motivations. (See 1 below)
It is fair to say that the
number of criminals with mental health problems is relatively high.A study by the US Bureau of Justice
Statistics found that nearly a quarter of both State prisoners and jail inmates
who had a mental health problem, compared to a fifth of those without, had
previously been behind bars three or more times.
However, scientific studies
have found becoming mentally ill doesn’t necessarily lead to a life as a
violent “crim”.
A study involving nearly
35,000 participants found that the incidence of violence was higher for people
with “severe” mental illness, but only significantly so for those were also
involved in substance abuse and/or dependence.
“Because severe mental illness
did not independently predict future violent behaviour (sic), these findings
challenge perceptions that mental illness is a leading cause of violence in the
general population,” the authors wrote. (2)
‘Harden up - it’s real life’
might be one response to these concerns.A Sunday Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh spent twelve years in
the police force, including time on CID, and as a public order commander. (3)
She left the police in 2011 to
work as a freelance journalist and social media consultant, and now writes full
time.
In a column entitled “Mental
health in crime fiction: how flawed is too flawed?” she noted how victims are
also being stigmatised as being mentally ill.
However, she asserts that
crime fiction held a mirror to society and she was proud to write within a
genre that explores issues such as mental health, adding “It you don’t like
reading about characters with mental illnesses, that’s your prerogative,
too.But mental illness exists, both in
real life and in fiction.”
However, as we have just had New
Zealand’s most famous living “nutter” knighted as Sir Mike King, it is time for
writers to also look beyond the obvious picture of the mentally ill.They should look for wider and more
imaginative plot lines for characters whose lives are simply different to the
norm.
1 1. https://createdtoread.com/mental-health-crime-fiction/Arch Gen
Psychiatry. 2009 Feb;66(2):152-61. doi: The
intricate link between violence and mental disorder: results from the National
Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Elbogen EB1,
Johnson SC 2009.
