Tim Winton met his wife when he was nine. What’s their secret?

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Tim Winton. The author, 64, has written 30 books, including Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath – which have been translated into nearly as many languages – and has won the Miles Franklin four times. His latest novel is Juice.

Tim Winton: “[Some] think the artist’s job is to console and comfort. I don’t think it is.”Credit: Violeta Jahnel Brosig

BODIES

How’s your health, Tim? Not too bad for an old bloke, but I’m at the stage of being conscious of the narrowing window. We spend so much of our lives pretending we’re never going to get old and die, then your body just catches up. I’m conscious that I might just have 10 or 15 more good years.

Where in – or on – your body do you notice this? Bones, mostly. As you get older, arthritis sets in and you’re not as supple. I still love to swim and surf every day that I can, but I can’t do those things the way I could do them once. There’s actually much more of me than when I was young, but I can do less with it. [Laughs]

What’s your superpower? Slow-boiling irritation. You’ve got to get your energy from somewhere, mate.

Which superpower do you wish you had? Oh, I’ve always wanted to fly. Maybe that’s why I swim: it’s as close to flying as I can get.

What’s the secret to your great hair? Doing nothing! It’s just a shredded bit of straw.

But it looks so luxuriant. It’s just neglect! I don’t think I’ve got a hair on my head that’s not split three times, sun-f---ed and salt-ravaged.

SEX

If you could get in a time machine and give a pep talk to teenage Tim Winton about the birds and the bees, what would you tell him? How do you tell a young person to relax? There’s nothing he or she can do to relax. Every fibre of their body is just wound up; their hormones are boiling. But look, I fell in love at nine and I’ve been married for more than 40 years to the same girl, so …

You met your wife, Denise, at age nine, and you’ve been married for decades – which is extraordinary. How has your attraction to her changed over time? At nine, there was an erotic charge: there’s no getting around that. I was interested in her for reasons I couldn’t understand. In terms of what’s changed, we have more skin in the game: our children, our grandchildren, our work, our values, our ideas. My publisher, years ago, saw us in the street and thought we looked like brother and sister. We could be family. On paper, I guess we are.

An early photo of Tim Winton and his wife Denise. “We were lucky to find each other. I feel more lucky than successful.”Credit: Courtesy of Tim Winton

What else has helped keep the relationship together? We have to caution against letting anybody think it’s a success. Staying together doesn’t somehow mean you’re a success and the people who didn’t stay together are failures. That’s a false view. But we were lucky to find each other. I feel more lucky than successful.

What’s the secret to writing a good sex scene? Or how do you avoid writing a terrible one? Oh, look, bad writing’s bad writing, isn’t it? In the end, can you read it aloud to yourself without bursting into laughter? Sometimes less is more.

POLITICS

What are the three issues you take into consideration when you enter the ballot box nowadays? The true economy, which is the state of our air, water and soil. The environment. Then it’s class, which is deeply related to environment. And justice, which is part of both.

Tell me more about how the environment, class and justice connect. The weird thing is, people often say, “Oh, I love nature; I’m really into nature; we have to look after nature.” We just forget that we are part of nature. We are totally bound up in the environment. Anything that we do to fight for the integrity of our environment is a matter of social justice. And when the environment is in a bad state, the people who suffer the most are our poorest and most vulnerable. All these issues are bound up in the same argument.

In 2022, you gave a speech at Perth Festival in which you publicly criticised how Woodside and Chevron – fossil-fuel companies – were festival sponsors. Why was it important for you to do that? We know that what’s making us so prosperous is what’s producing such high levels of inequity right now and leaving the legacy of a scorched earth for those who come after us. It seemed interesting that so many people in the cultural space saw themselves as if they weren’t actors in that drama. Every time we don’t act, we’re acting. I thought it was time to call it out and say, “Look, we need to detach ourselves from the tentacles of the corporate forces that are preventing us from moving on.” There is this tendency in the arts to want comfort and consolation. [Some] think the artist’s job is to console and comfort. I don’t think it is.

What was the reaction and outcome? The first thing to say is that I went into it in a spirit of collegial openness. I didn’t want to be wagging my finger at anybody. I just said, “Look, we’re all in this; we’re all doing it; we’re all compromised. Let’s find ways of unpicking ourselves from this mess.” There was a sense of relief from people that somebody had finally said what needed to be said. And Chevron did relinquish its sponsorship role in the aftermath.

Do you embrace the idea of yourself as an activist? It feels, nowadays, as if the term “activist” is used in certain spheres of politics and the press as a slur. It’s definitely got a pejorative usage now. It’s fascinating to see the degree to which activism and peaceful protest are marginalised, persecuted and criminalised. I’m happy enough to embrace it: I’m an artist and an activist. I was more discreet about my activism once, but for the past 25 years, I’ve been publicly advocating. It’s a sense of duty and obligation that I feel. Inaction has consequences. And it gets harder to keep nice and stay out.

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