Lawrence Ferlinghetti came to Writers' Week

at our Festival of Arts the year I left for London. I was working as a school librarian at the time. That made it much easier for Judith Wright to convince the Education Department that she needed me at Writers' Week more than the school needed me for five days.  I am not sure what the other staff thought of all this. They certainly had no idea how hard I was going to be working.

It was the fourth time I had gone to Writers' Week with Judith. On the first occasion she had turned up at the school I was then attending and informed the headmistress that I would be attending Writers' Week. Judith did not ask. She informed. "I need Cat. Cat is going to be working very hard. She will be my interpreter for the week." Yes, by then Judith was so deaf that following what was going on was becoming very difficult. She saw an opportunity to get some help - and an opportunity to give me the experience of writers from all over the world. And yes again, I managed to learn more in that first week with Judith than I would ever have managed to learn in school.

The fourth time around when I was a little (but only a little) less in awe of her and all the names I recognised around me I met two more poets, one was Allen Ginsberg and the other was Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I did not care for Mr Ginsberg. He was loud and often rude. He was not in the least bit interested in me - not that I expected him to be but he had been impatient when introduced. There had been an abrupt nod of acknowledgment before he turned the conversation on himself. Judith neatly refused to understand what he was saying. He gave up and wandered off much to her relief - and mine.

But Mr Ferlinghetti was different. Who was I? What was I doing there? Did I know Judith's poem about the magpies? He was so pleased to have met her at last. He took the trouble to look directly at her as he spoke. His speech slowed just a little as he talked. I only needed to repeat a couple of words. 

Later in the week Judith was meeting a fellow poet-friend for a one-on-one. "Go and talk to some people Cat. I'll come and get you if I need you."

It wasn't something I would have dared to do so I sat down on the steps of the State Library Reading Room to wait. Ferlinghetti came out with someone I didn't recognise. They parted company. Ferlinghetti looked around and, seeing me, came over and asked, "Are you waiting? May I join you?"

And for the next hour or so we talked. He was full of questions about the city, about how I had come to know Judith, my writing, about schools here and much more. He wasn't asking out of any sense of duty to keep a young cat entertained but of a deep curiosity about the world and people he met in it. 

We had two more long conversations that week, one including Judith and another poet.  At the end of the week he was surrounded by people wanting to say goodbye and get his autograph on their new copies of books they would probably never read. I was trying to help Judith understand what people were saying to her in the noisy surroundings. Then there was a light tap on my shoulder. 

"Cat, you didn't sign this."

He handed over the short poem I had typed out for him at Judith's request. I signed it and passed it back. He gave me a smile and disappeared into the crowd.  

I would like to have met him one more time but now he has gone for good.