Notes for White’s The  Watch Below

White, J. (1966) The Watch Below. London, UK: Ronald Whiting and Wheaton.

• Index
• A short summary of the novel
• Themes, motifs and tropes
• Quotes from the text
• Discussions of the novel
• Relevance to focus questions
• Resource list

A short summary of the novel

1. In the middle of the Second World War a German submarine torpedoes a modified cargo tanker, the Gulf Trader. Due to the modifications the vessel has a specially re-enforced and experimental hull and compartments remain intact while fore and aft is ruptured.
2. Some of the cargo tankers crew escape on an improvised raft but there are three men and two women trapped in the Gulf Trader. They hope for rescue but in the meantime the canny engineer, the crew’s doctor and a psychologist take steps to survive.
3. A struggling garden to keep the air clean is established, a manual generator used for light and primitive power, they huddle under sacks to keep warm and two of the men, pair with the two women. As a way of reducing boredom, maintaining sanity and keeping the survivors wits sharp, the psychologist devises the great success of their terrible isolated existence – the Game.
4. Based on unusual theories the survivors believe that repeated questioning and concentrated recall will produce total veracity over long periods of time, so much so that the whole of the Bible, Shakespeare and even some pulp sci-fi novels are remembered and passed on, exactly correctly.
5. While the reader observes the first generation in the Gulf Trader survive and bear children a parallel narrative of the journey of the Unthans from their doomed homeworld is interspersed through the trials and travails of the humans families.
6. The Unthans have left a heating planet for Earth, believing it uninhabited. They travel in a vast fleet and the while the species act, talk and seem to think very like humans, they are aquatic, like short, stocky sharks with dextrous feelers for manipulating and building technologies capable of travel across interstellar distances for generations.
7. The vast bulk of the Unthan fleet is in Hyper Sleep, or “hibernation anesthesia” and some of the spaceships are also without crew guided by the flagship, the guiding and central navigating control spacecraft. By and large it is the crew of this spaceship that is the main focus of the Unthan narrative.
8. The Unthans have a major problem: they expected to use hibernation anesthesia to make the journey but now that these brave survivors are actually in space they find that repeated Deep Sleep causes severe loss of mental capacity. This means that they cannot use one crew, off and on, to complete the journey. Instead they must stay awake with all their facilities through several generations to guide the flagship and the whole fleet to earth.
9. There are also parallel problems for the Unthans and the survivors of the Gulf Trader. On the submerged cargo tanker the human generations use the Game to pass on cultural knowledge while on the Unthan flagship the original crew prepare a written and taped record of their training, duties and knowledge to be passed from generation to generation. But the children of both the humans and the Unthans are different from their parents. They do not know the outside, the planetary world the Game and the Unthans describe in their great journey. They are more loyal to their own generation than their parents’ fantasies of received formal information and through the Game. Individuals turn away from the original mission, the old break with the young and there is sporadic violence between the groups.
10. For the Unthans there are more concrete problems. A food supply ship is commandeered by a breakaway crew who refuse to follow the guidance of the flagship’s next generation crew. A boarding party on a camouflaged shuttle craft is successful in taking back control of the food ship, holding in frozen state animals on which the Unthans feed, like aquatic cows.
11. For the humans on the Gulf Trader there is always one of the number (the one without a sexual partner) who attempts escape and the inevitable death is recorded as the sound of a helmet scraping against the bulkheads now flooded near the survivors.
12. The Gulf Trader is breaking apart. Its metal floors are rusted and breaking, bolts are popping under pressure and the food supply is nearly gone and the surviving greens on their last legs, though it must be said that the original three beans growing on electric light by a hand-cranked generator succeeded beyond any botanist’s wildest dreams, over the subsequent generations.
13. By the time the Unthans approach Earth’s Solar System they see that the third planet, their target with its rich oceans, is not uninhabited. Through time dilation thousands of years have passed and now the terrestrial human species also have advanced technologies with bases on the nearby planets. Nevertheless, the Unthans led by the flagship crew with an original Captain revived from Deep Sleep have no choice and conflict is inevitable between the aquatic species of the Unthans and the terrestrial humans.
14. In their very last days of survival on the now fractured and sinking Gulf Trader the survivors are saved by an Unthan officer with her own agenda. Because the humans have extraordinary mental powers because of the Game the survivors are able to communicate with the Unthans. Just as a terrible war between the Unthans and the Earth forces is about to begin, peace is forged by the intervention of the Gulf Trader survivors with the latest generation of the Unthans with their changed mission objectives. The Unthans are allowed to settle in the oceans and there will be a sharing of technologies and cultures.

 

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Themes in the novel

Themes in the novel:

A theme in a novel or shorter narrative is an important idea that emerges from a literary work (Baldick, 2015). The subject matter of a novel can be described in terms of its action and events, but the theme of the novel will be “described in more abstract terms (e.g. love, war, revenge, betrayal, fate, etc.)” (Baldick, 2015). Some themes are described in the quotes section, below, but readers can always find their own themes and these can be defended with evidence from the text.

Motifs:

In a novel or shorter narrative a motif is a “distinctive recurrent element” (Chandler & Munday, 2016). Some motifs are found frequently in the genre of Science Fiction (SF), such as the protagonists search for answers, a planet, a person of a place in deepest space. In the sub-genre of the Generation Spaceship within SF some motifs are found across many texts, such as the vast array of stars seen through a visor or a transparent shell. The repetition of the motif leads it to “acquire a ‘ symbolic ’ significance” (Chandler & Munday, 2016).

Tropes:

A trope in a novel or shorter narrative is a figure of speech “especially one that uses words in senses beyond their literal meanings” (Baldick, 2015). Tropes in formal argument could be metaphors or rhetorical questions but in the genre of Science Fiction they are a “familiar, metaphorical, and/or rhetorical figure of speech or way of telling a story” (Harcup, 2014). Some SF devices, such as space shuttles, fusion engines and virtual reality displays are tropes that shortcut the process of explaining what these actually do or how they work. Instead, the reader and writer accept them as part of the SF furniture and move on with the narrative itself, unless the trope is a vital part of the story.

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Quotes from the narrative

The fish-like alien species find that Hyper Sleep or ‘hibernation anaesthetia’ leads to mental breakdown and disease:

‘But surely there was some indication that this might happen?’ Gerrol broke in suddenly. ‘Hibernation anaesthesia was perfected fifteen years ago. The fleet …the whole operation depends on it …!’ (White, p38)

The Healer says “It is hard to see how the absence of weight could affect a person whose metabolic processes have been halted in a Cokld Sleep tank, but this might be a factor. It is more likely that subtle differences in background radiation are the cause, or a combination of free fall and radiation …” (White, p39)

The repeated sleeps cause problems, linked to GS texts’ interest in individual and cultural memories:

The effects are: “There is a feeling of mental confusion, also mild, and temporary. It is a little difficult to remember things, but the memories are still available and are complete and accurate.” (White, p39)

The reasons why the Untha have to flee their homeworld in the vast fleet:

This had been due to the atmosphere of fear and tension which pervaded his home and his world rather than say failing on the part of his parents. During the past three hundred years Untha’s sun had grown steadily hotter and her two great oceans had shrunk until there was no longer a water connection between them. Plant and animal life had long since disappeared from the land surface and in the sea his people were being forced to occupy an ever-narrowing life strata — between the ocean surface which was close to boiling point and too hot to allow life without complex refrigeration systems and depths where the increased pressure demanded even more complicated forms of protection. And so at an early age Deslann had come to understand the reasons for the atmosphere of tension and fear, and to realise that not only were his people being pressed between an ever deepening layer of boiling and the crushing pressures of the ocean depths, they were trying to decide on which of two methods should be adopted to solve the problem. The choice was not easy. (White, p41)

Hyper sleep was supposed to allow many more Unthans to travel:

The Fleet was built, and during the building the anaesthesia technique was perfected and it became possible to take along many more times the number of people than originally intended, so the ships were modified to carry large numbers of passengers who would not require food from the beginning to the end of the tremendous voyage, and great efforts were made to develop fool-proof for the Long Sleep tanks and remote-control systems for the un-crewed ships. (White, p42)

The Unthans will sleep through generations, but training will provide the means to keep the Mission intact:

As he talked on there could be no doubt in Deslann’s mind that Hellahar had arrived independently at the same answer. Briefly, it called for the crew with the exception of Hellahar and himself taking the Long Sleep once only, which would mean that the mental effects would be negligible, and being warmed shortly before the target system was reached. Before the cooling, however, they would have to prepare a written and taped record of their training, duties and knowledge, this data to be broken down and simplified so that the basics would be within the mental grasp of a child. (White, p58)

Some sexist arguments from the male command crew Unthans, considering which females to warm from sleep:

Simply picking them at random was out for several reasons, Hellahar said. The choice might be physically or mentally unsuitable. Or if capable of withstanding the considerable shock of being told of the situation and her position in it, the female in might already be mated and emotionally tied to another Long Sleeper and this would be a psychological barrier too diffcult to overcome. Even as it was, Warming two females and requesting that they mate with them because the safety of the Fleet and the continuance of the race demanded it was not going to be easy. It was very rare to find a female whose thought processes were not coloured and to some extent guided by emotions and they would be unlikely to find two of them who would be willing to accept logical argument as a form of courtship (White, p58)

The Unthan command crew decide to choose attractive mates – sexism suitable to Heinlein:

‘There are many reasons,’ Hellahar concluded seriously, ‘why we should pick the best-looking ones.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Deslann, just as seriously.

They both laughed then, loudly and long and at the same time a little self-consciously because they both knew there was nothing at all to laugh at in the situation. They were two children laughing in the dark to show they weren’t afraid of the Big Black Gobbler. It was a most uncomfortable, unsatisfying laugh, and it was the last they were going to have for a very long time. (White, p66)

Initial days on the sunken Gulf Trader  – three beans will help them survive in the sunken wreck:

‘Not very well, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘All but three of the beans planted in the first tray have taken, although they don’t seem to be exactly flourishing. I’m not an expert on plant biology — all I know is that bean plants, when mature, have a large quantity of leaves and these should be good at absorbing our C02 …’ (White, p69)

The Unthans are philosophical about their chances in Hyper Sleep:

‘Of course, to look on the worst possible side of it,’ Deslann went on, ‘there is always the chance that our generations of Captains and crews will mismanage things so badly that you will never be revived—the pile will go critical or the timers will be damaged by unskilled maintenance or our descendants will kiII each other off or die in some other fashion. Or you might waken to find that the Fleet, or this ship, or both has been destroyed. (White, p83)

A useful quote for the GS Project about changes for those crewing the ship and those in HyperSleep, with their hopes for the treatment of the awakened command crew:

‘You, on the other hand, will see each other in a very short time because there is no detectable ‘while’ in hibernation anaesthesia. I don’t know what sort of things you will have to meet when you awaken. Doubtless there will be changes in language and customs and values, perhaps a certain amount of degeneration. To you all these changes will seem to have happened within the next few minutes, so they will be bound to come as a shock. But no matter what that future crew has become, or how it behaves, I would like you to treat them with sympathy and understanding. And respect.

‘If for no other reason than that their ancestors were once your Healer and your Captain,’ he ended on a lighter note, ‘you will treat them with respect.’ (White, p95)

The beans have grown very well, really:

“The two young people not on the generator or standing by it stayed in the garden where, with the lights in operation and the process of photosynthesis at work in the struggling young bean plants, the air was supposed to be fresher.” (White, p86)

Discussing narratives from ‘the Game’ – there are intertextual links to Science Fiction texts:

“‘The Hornblower stories resemble science fiction in many ways.’ said Wallis. ‘They show the past rather than the future, of course, but they describe a slightly alien world where language and technology requires a certain amount of effort to understand, and the effort increases the enjoyment.'” (White, pps111-112)

The last, best hope for Untha:

“The last survivors of Untha’s past and the only hope of her future – was something taught early and often” (White, p128)

Captain Gunt speculates on the outcome of a war between humans and the Untha, between the gas breathers and those in the Oceans:

“‘The pollution of the planet’s gas envelope and the death iof surface food supplies will have very little effect on sea-dwellers,’ Gunt went on grimly, ‘and provided we retain the initiative, retaliation from the gas-breathers should be minimal …'” (White, p159)

First Contact – Wallis imagines their final rescue and is a little shocked:

“Wallis felt suddenly anxious about their rescuer’s feelings over this, and about his people’s appearance and what he should say. ‘Hello’ or ‘Thank God’ or ‘You certainly took your time getting here, friend …’

But when the figure broke the surface Wallis saw that the water was designed to keep water in and air out, and that the …head … inside it was not human.” (White, p176)

A useful quote for the GS Project about the next generations on the Untha flagship who only know their ship:

Despite the great stress placed on the importance and meaning of those lights there was a growing feeling, among some of the second generation trainees especially, that they were in fact only coloured lights and to worry about them was silly. The flagship was their world and the things which the elders said were taking place outside it were very hard to believe. (White, p115)

An intertextual reference to SF from survivors in their sunken ship, the Gulf Trader, playing the Game that kept them so clever:

It was a story he had always liked, about a civilisation that had grown up in a giant interstellar ship lost forever among the stars, with Joseph taking the part of Hugh Hoyland and his son that of the mutant Joe-Jim. But it was a short story, because he had overheard Richard telling everyone there would not be time enough to recite the dying Commander’s top favourite novel. Considering the situation in Gulf Trader, Wallis thought, it was a rather an appropriate story. (White, p126)

The Unthans discover that on their travels to Earth the humans have evolved and built a civilisation:

it has become densely populated by this intelligent, gas-breathing form of life suffciently advanced to cross interplanetary space. There are bases on the target planet’s moon and on the dehydrated fourth planet, also strong indications of bases on the moons of the inner gas giant, planet Five. I myself can conceive of no solution to this problem nor can any of my crew, so I am passing responsibility back to you, sir.’

Neither Captain spoke for a long time after that. Then slowly Captain Gunt performed the Gesture of Respect between equals and said formally, ‘I hereby relieve you of the command of this ship … (White, p152)

The survivors in the sunken vessel still play the memory Game that is central to survival in this text:

The Game was not only sacred, it was as much a part of life in the Ship as eating and breathing. During the Game life became tolerable, and even exciting and happy. It allowed them to forget the short period of nightmare each day when they walked barefoot over cold mtetal harsh with rust, shivering in the scraps of hair and plant fibre they called clothing.

They could forget the generator, now more a means of keeping warm than a device for supplying light and the garden which, with insufficient light and no heat at all, barely kept itself alive. It allowed them to forget the food, still inadequate. (White, p155)

Heglenni of the Unthan command crew cares more for the humans than her own Captain. This is a bit of tumbled logic but is quite useful for the theme of corporate amnesia and the generations passing:

Self-preservation, the survival of one’s self or one’s race, was the Prime Law. Another law was that enemies must be destroyed. Even the enemies themselves agreed on this. But Heglenni had not only been unwilling, she had been unable to kill the gas-breathers in the wreck, and her feelings in the matter had gradually been transmitted to the communications officer. Basically it was a feeling of rebellion against natural and inevitable laws, reinforced by the strange but true fact that Heglenni felt much more understanding and affection for the grotesque, spindly gas-breather Wah-Lass than she did for Captain Gunt. When she looked at the Captain she saw a fat, self-confident, highly-efficient Unthan who was inclined to be patronising, when he wasn’t being impatient, about her background and manners. But when she looked at Wah-Lass she scarcely saw the gas-breather at all.

Instead she saw a composite picture of the Flagship and the face of her father Deslann Five and the blind, ravaged features of Hellseggom of the Food-ship and the shadowy faces of all the Captains stretching back to the First Deslann. In the picture, too, was the conflict between the Young People and the Seniors, the generations-long war with the Food-ship and the overall suffering which had come in the wake of too much inbreeding and cramped, unnatural surroundings. The technical aptitude which made it possible to survive physically in such hostile surroundings formed only a very small part of the picture in comparison with the sheer, dogged courage and mental discipline which had kept them both going for generation after generation, The flagship had had a Purpose in the shape of the target planet and journey’s end to give them stability and direction, but the gas-breathers in their wreck had had nothing but the will to survive and to remain as civilised as possible while they were doing it. (White, p188)

The Unthans and Earth decide to cooperate for peace, mediated by the survivor Wallis:

It was a slow-moving area of highly-agitated water characteristic of the enemy hover-boats, probably the only kind which could pass over the submerged rocks with safety. The patch of disturbed water slowed and came to a stop almost directly overhead. A large metal object broke through the surface and began to slip down towards her, and Heglenni had a moment of the most horrible kind of fear followed by an angry fatalism. Then she noticed that there was a line attached to the object which stopped it short of the sea bottom, and that it was making loud, distorted, but noises.

‘Captain Heglenni, Captain Gunt, Communicator Dasdahare Any Unthan person who is in contact with your flagship,’ it boomed in the slow, laboured and unmistakable accents of the gas-breather Wah-Lass. ‘This is a recording of my words, since I am still under the care of the Healers. But I can assure you with all truth that my superiors wish for peaceful contact with your race and a non-violent solution to our problems. A continuing war between us would, as well as bringing about your destruction as a civilised race, so poison our oceans and our gas envelope with radioactive material that our own species might be lethally affected.

‘Until now we had thought that our destruction of the ships in the vanguard of your fleet had committed us irrevocably to war as the only solution possible, but now that we know the ships destroyed contained only food animals, peace is still possible between us.

‘The remaining units of your fleet will arrive ten days from now. We will not oppose their landing, but urge that you signal us before then so that we will know that you do in fact desire peace. (White, p189)

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Discussions of the novel

Budrys on The Watch Below

Budrys (1966) in a review of The Watch Below (White, 1966), sees many familiar tropes in the novel, co9mmon to GS narratives, such as the “barbarian tribes” on the vast ship that have lost touch, but then there is , “flash of hope as the good guys win out”. However, there was a new twist in using two vessels on imponderable journeys “the alien starship and the closed, mobile environment of the Terrestrials… White uses the differences and the similarities between the two to tell a moving, genuinely optimistic story.” (Burdys, 1966) The aliens have no choice “but to mate, beget and educate children and try to keep their purpose alive” (Burdys, 1966) Meanwhile, the Gulf Trader is sunk and people are trapped inside, where “they have no choice but to find ways of creating light, food, air and buoyancy, and to try to stay alive” (Burdys, 1966).

The problems of the people in their submerged wreck is “just this side of impossibility”. When the aliens land in Earth oceans there is a great furor and it is ” Only because they rescue the descendants of the original tanker – trapped Terrestrials – are they able to find anyone who will understand their problem and interpret it to the rest of the world” (Burdys, 1966).

Boaj, a more recent critic, speaks of The Watch Below

In a blog entry for ‘Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations’ Boaj, (2011) notes that White “spins a disturbing tale of two isolated and decaying societies — one alien, one human”. White’s dark vision “is a transfixing take on the generation ship” asking the reader “how would a society descended from five individuals evolve for a hundred years trapped in the hull of a vessel deep underwater with only a memory game, the groans of the hull, a flicking garden light, piles of dried food, a generator, and intense cold to keep them occupied?” (Boaj, 2011)

Boaj argues that one solution to these privations and the isolation was the Game, where, “To remain sane each person recalls the smallest details of books (C. S. Forester’s Hornblower Series, the Bible, pulp sci-fi, etc), childhood events (birthdays, etc), everything…  It evolves into more than a simple obsession for it is the laborious construction of the only source of knowledge accessable for the future generations”.

Boaj (2011) believes the first section “replete with lengthy descriptions about how they figure out how keep from each others throats, couple-off discretely, and survive” is the least interesting but the sheer hard work in the early stages is more believable while their continued success is not, for this reader. Boaj (2011) sees the novel improve after the first generation on the crippled and submerged Gulf Trader. Now the descendants of the original five have never been outside and their only knowledge is from the Game.

Sisley’s take on The Watch Below as a useful GS text for secondary students:

This short novel is not recommended for the GS Project. This is not because the novel is hard to find as it is available at several second-hand businesses online. The judgement of its unsuitability for the target audience is based on three elements: the sexism of the male characters both Unthan and human, the extraordinarily unlikely survival of the Gulf Trader, and the poor or nonexistent characterisation.

Even though the review by Boaj (2011) as above talks of characterisation, this is not sustained.The reader follows the characters through their first few years and this is believable, up until the survivors of the torpedoed tanker start growing enough beans by torch light to create oxygen for themselves and their first children, and can also eat the beans and fertilize with their own waste. The characters disappear and are replaced by a few stereotypes that mirror the changes on the alien guidance flagship that brings the fleet of aquatic Unthans to Earth, as they flee their own planet that is overheated by their star.

While the shark-like fish aliens were interesting and their fights with each other, also, the main argument from White is that people can have more trust and empathy for other people (even those aliens of the human species) than their own, long forgotten ancestors.

This argument alone is quite useful for the project and the unusual approach of comparing the Unthan GS ship with the sunken Gulf Trader with its generations of trapped families is also notable. These unusual elements of the novel may be useful for individual students interested in the sub-genre of the Generation Spaceship but the teacher may need to offer advice on the rampant sexism. In the same way, students looking at the GS narratives through the lens of ecological systems and sustainability might use the novel to critique the monocultural solutions offered.(Sisley, 2018)

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Relevance to the focus questions

The focus questions for the GS Project are:

1. What is worth holding onto over the generations?
2. What should be discarded for the voyage? and
3. Can life be sustained in the GS …or on Earth?

Only a few comments are made here related to the three questions, above, mostly because the narrative itself will be interpreted differently by different readers. But what might be noted here are:

1. Because there are two, split narratives in The Watch Below (White, 1966) it is clear there are values that should be retained over the generations, for both the aquatic Unthans and the families trapped below the waves. Common to both was the solidity of the family unit itself. Both species expected and valued the role of family. Linked to this, both species respected authority. While there were revolts against authority within both species’ descendants, these were short lived and unsuccessful.
2. Also accepted in both species is notions of romantic love, conventional gender allocations and power imbalances favouring the male, or whatever passes for male amongst the Unthans. These elements do not seem to be examined in any depth, nor their universality, perhaps as unlikely as the survival on the Gulf Trader.
3. More positively, the role of education and self-improvement was stressed for both species. The Unthans overcome their extraordinary problems through rigorous training and good methodologies to pass on vital information over many generations. Amongst the human survivors on Gulf Trader the evolution of the ‘Game’ is an even more rigorous system for preserving and passing on societal, cultural and technical knowledge. The Game is the solution to the conflict between the Unthans and Earth, as it trains the human mind with perfect recall, allowing the survivors to learn the Unthan language incredibly rapidly and to stop the war as it starts. Clearly, education and self-improvement through knowledge acquisition survives through the generations, and should survive.
4. Students may suggest that what should be discarded would include the sexist banter, the societal expectations based on gender and the stupidity of some of the hierarchies enacted on board the Unthan flagship and the Gulf Trader. Nevertheless, what seems to be discarded in the novel is the criticism of the earlier generations by the descendants. This is seen in the revolt or alienation of the young and the defeat of their plans. It seems the author focuses on the need to stay on the mission, while at the same time acknowledging that the passage of time must inevitably weaken familial links.
5. The sustainability of the GS is clearly seen in the trials and victories of the survivors in the sunken Gulf Trader. Using clever technological adaptations they overcome to some degree their terrible environment and manage to not only survive but for several generations they thrive. They generate oxygen through a hydroponics system and minimise their waste and recycle effectively.
6. Perhaps the most important part of the human sustainability in the Gulf Trader is the innovation of the Game, initiated by the Doctor, Surgeon-Lieutenant Radford. The Game allows the survivors to overcome their greatest enemy, boredom. Essentially, this memory training activity has extraordinary success and allows the survivors complete recall of any event in their lives. This enables a small group with only a couple of books to enjoy all of the world’s great literature and ideas through individuals remembering, with great effort and many prompts, all details of everything they ever did or read or said. The Game enables the group to recover, through oral memories, technical documents, the Bible, Shakespeare’s plays, some pulp fiction reading and even musicals anyone of the group has experienced. The recovery of this body of content saves the fiurst groups lives and allows for the continued and sustainable lives of their descendants.

 

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Resource list

Baldick, C. (Editor). (2015). The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press : Oxford.

Boaj, J. (2011) Book Review: The Watch Below, James White (1966). In Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations, published December 10, 2011. Accessed 20 February 2018 at https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2011/12/10/book-review-the-watch-below-james-white-1966/

Burdys, A. (1966, 08) Galaxy Bookshelf. In Galaxy, V24 n06, pps 190-193. Accessed 20 February 2018 from https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v24n06_1966-08#page/n185/mode/2up

Caroti, S. (2011). The Generation Starship in Science Fiction: A Critical History, 1934-2001. Mcfarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-6067-0.

Chandler, D. & Munday, R. (Editors). (2016) A Dictionary of Media and Communications. Second Edition. Oxford University Press : Oxford.

Harcup, T. (Editor). (2014). A Dictionary of Journalism. Oxford University Press : Oxford.

White, J. (1966) The Watch Below. London, UK: Ronald Whiting and Wheaton.

Sisley, M. (2018) In conversation. 19 March 2018, Canberra, Australia.

 

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• Read Robinson’s story ‘The Oceans are Wide’ (1954)
• Read comments and notes about Robinson’s ‘The Oceans are Wide’ (1954)