By Tony Wright
The mighty St Paul’s Cathedral reverberated to the laconic voice of actor and producer Bryan Brown as he recited Michael Leunig’s whimsical ode to life and death, called simply Get a Life.
“Anyone can get a life,” the poem began. “Anyone can lose it/ But who will dare to inhabit the thing/ And use it?”
Leunig – for that was the single name by which most of his vast fandom recognised the poet and cartoonist – lost a few days before Christmas the life he had inhabited and bent to his own often mysterious reality for almost 80 years.
Sunny Leunig speaking at his father’s memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral.Credit: Eddie Jim
But he lived on in his own words of poetry at his memorial service in Melbourne on Thursday, the pews crammed with many hundreds of the Leunig-devoted who came for this final farewell.
He lived on within his own music, too, for his words inspired numerous musical collaborations over the years. Neil Finn of Crowded House and vocalist Katie Noonan were among them, and their voices enriched the memorial – Finn on a recording and Noonan in person, her voice floating amid the cathedral’s great arches.
Michael Leunig cartoon and poem Get A Life.
Rock poet Nick Cave and playwright David Williamson were among the celebrated who sent messages of love, but it was the anonymous who clearly found sustenance in Leunig’s work who came in such numbers every seat was occupied half an hour before the service began.
For those who streamed to the cathedral that Leunig had often visited – gathering spiritual enrichment, according to Melbourne Archbishop Dr Philip Freier – Leunig was a cartoonist whose works bewitched, enchanted, bewildered and sometimes infuriated.
His was a dreamscape of the happily naive and seekers of direction floating through more than half a century, inhabited by Mr Curly, Vasco Pyjama, ducks, teapots and here and there, nightmares of savage commentary.
It was more than this, said his friend David Tacey, intellectual and highly regarded authority on spirituality, among other things.
“Michael Leunig was a rare genius who showed us the geography of the Australian soul,” Tacey told St Paul’s.
Katie Noonan at Michael Leunig’s memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral.Credit: Eddie Jim
“The metaphysical significance of his work escapes many of those who have smiled and laughed at his cartoons in the last 55 years, [but] he attends to the spiritual life in our time, exploring the problems of finding spirit in a materialistic age.”
Why, Tacey found great significance in the ducks inhabiting Leunig’s cartoons.
“The duck … represents the spirit which animates life and gives meaning,” Tacey said.
“One of my favourite cartoons is a melancholic figure seated beside a gravestone under a dead tree, wilted flowers in his hand surrounded by tombstones marking the death of Santa Claus, supernatural figures, fairies and God.
“But in the foreground, a duck points its beak at this solitary, mournful figure in an accusatory way. The duck is alarmed at the man’s despondency as much as to say, ‘wake up. The world is full of enchantment, even if you can’t see it’.”
Leunig’s editor at the much-loved Nation Review in the early 1970s, publisher and journalist Richard Walsh, recalled that Leunig in the early days was turned off by having to produce a political message to a deadline and to be rational and relevant, the weight of the worries of the world on his shoulders.
He felt the public needed a mystery, Walsh related, something they could not quite understand but in which they could lose themselves, laughing. And so he drew a strange little fellow with a teapot on his head, and an editor decided to use it.
Decades later, Leunig found himself under attack for a cartoon that appeared to show contempt for mothers who left their babies in care. During the pandemic, The Age – which had published him for many years – refused to use a cartoon that depicted a vaccine syringe as the terrorising cannon of a military tank.
The Leunig family at Michael Leunig’s memorial service.Credit: Eddie Jim
Leunig had a nearly 50-year career at The Age, which ended when he was let go last year.
“Mike never got used to being the source of public anger,” Walsh said. “It hurt him terribly. He himself was a highly tolerant man, and he expected that generosity of spirit from others.”
Leunig’s family spoke of him as a man who came from a place of love and concern for the human spirit, and one of his sons tried to explain how that had prompted his opposition to COVID lockdowns and compulsory vaccination.
“He was continuously going into battle for the little person whose voice was not being heard,” said Gus Leunig, one of Leunig’s four children.
“Never was he more concerned for the human condition as he was during COVID. He became deeply sad and morally outraged by the government’s use of power that seemed to persist in decimating people’s rightful freedoms.”
Leunig’s partner Nicola Dierich spoke of Leunig as “a playful creature, a rascal with a twinkle in his eye, an artist, [and a] philosopher who sought to understand by standing under, not looming over.
“There is such goodwill in the faces of Michael’s characters, and it comes down to their innocent and knowing eyes, unless he’d drawn a politician, a simple circle and dot.
“But pause a moment, look into that eye, and you will see your own vulnerability, innocence and brave good cheer looking back at you.”
Cartoon: Matt Golding, after Michael LeunigCredit: Matt Golding
Leunig himself seemed keenly aware of his frailties in his poem Get a Life.
“A lived-in life will soon get loose and worn,” Bryan Brown recited. “From use and feeling; Countless tiny scratches; The shine goes off. It’s very unappealing!”
Finally, however, the poem, booming out around the cathedral, found optimism in both life and death.
“And yet it works and lives! It all still goes. It forgives. It’s a miracle! Worn in. Bashed in. Cried in. And the great thing – a lived-in life can be happily died in.”
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