ABSTRACT
Significantly, many letters drawn upon here have not previously been examined in any systematic way. In each of the chapters, but in chapter 2 in particular, we draw on them to put flesh on the bones of many aspects of ‘Chambers the man.’ Additional evidence is adduced in chapter 2 from observations of family members and colleagues, as well as recollections of the authors, to show that he was a man of candour, humour, great diligence, at times a loner, while always a very social person. Many colleagues wrote to Chambers upon his retirement and, like Allan Barton, commented on his excellent writing skills. He was a wordsmith who, in the drawn-out debates over CCA in the 1970s, resorted to publishing his ideas in verse under the pseudonyms L.O.M. Bard and Ern Malley. In the former nom de plume Chambers playfully calls on images of both Shakespeare (the Bard of Avon) and the London’s finance sector, Lombard Street. The latter was the name used in 1943 by two Australian poets in a literary hoax that attracted international attention. Their aim was to deride modernist poetry. Chambers sought to deride CCA’s alleged virtues through verse.
Chambers could also be acerbic, both in written and verbal debates. His several personas, for example, led his daughter Rosemary Pearce to describe her father as enigmatic—while his academic and practitioner opponents have described him, at times, as both arrogant and charming.
But above all, chapter 2 reveals he was a committed family man. On several occasions in the 1960s and ’70s he turned down offers of overseas chairs and visiting professorial appointments in major universities so he could remain close to his devoted wife, Margaret, his daughters, Rosemary and Margaret, and son, Kevin. He acknowledged in the letters of refusal that he was spending many of the available daily hours dedicated to the mission of seeking a better accounting. Those hours away from his family were already regarded by him as too many.
