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World War II veteran Fred Whitaker, 100, is drinking a Guinness out of a relative’s pewter mug when I ask if he considers himself wise. He puts down the beer. “Wise? No. Stroppy.”
The centenarian is stroppy about global politics (Donald Trump is a “narcissist of the first order”), Australia’s place in the world (“I have a burning hatred of the American alliance”) and the upkeep of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (“Sydney doesn’t realise how good it has it”).
But as the Guinness sinks deeper, the self-proclaimed strop has to admit that there is a remarkable number of things that make his hazy eyes twinkle.
He loves literature, great Russian sopranos, and the run club he created (“It’s a drinking club with a running problem”). He loves “The Aussie”, a historic pub at The Rocks; IPA beers, and reading about international affairs. He loved his wife, Joan, and his old blue cattle dog, Harry.
But the thing Whitaker loves the most right now is that his portrait has been entered into the Archibald Prize at the NSW Art Gallery. The selection process hasn’t finished yet, but he’s confident about its worth, because in one of the many jobs he took since returning from service in World War II, he once guarded the gallery’s packing room.
“It’s a cracker,” he said of the portrait by Karolina Venter, who produced a painting based on a photo taken at one of his favourite places on Earth, in the shadow of the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “I don’t know all that much about [art], though I worked in the gallery, but I know a good painting. I know it’s got a damn good chance of winning the Packer’s Prize, if they knew the circumstances.”
The circumstances of Whitaker’s life – he is one of 717 Australian WWII veterans left, down from 1300 a year earlier – are remarkable. Born during the Great Depression, he worked briefly as a bank clerk before joining the navy at 19. He was in Darwin during the Japanese bombing of the city, and he served across the Pacific and off the Kimberley coast.
The happiest period of his life was living with his wife and three young boys in Singapore during Lee Kuan Yew’s transformation of the city. The second-happiest period was the decade he spent volunteering.
The circumstances of how Venter ended up painting him are even more interesting. After his wife died in 2007, Whitaker went to the old Dendy cinema near the Opera House.
“My habit was, after seeing a movie, I’d buy a choc-top and sit down on the seat outside in the sun,” he says. Sketching nearby was Venter, then 17 and newly arrived in Australia from Hungary with her mother and sister. He asked if she’d do a painting of his old dog. So began a lifelong friendship, which eventually saw Venter and her family move into Whitaker’s Greenwich home for a few years as they settled into life in Australia.
“They’re my dearest friends now, all these years later,” he said from his home at RSL LifeCare’s Anzac Village in Narrabeen on Thursday.
Whitaker turned 100 in February. Venter celebrated with him by walking across the Harbour Bridge, a special place for him – he had sat on his father’s shoulders and watched it open in 1932. He wants to be around for the centenary celebrations in 2032.
He’ll mark Anzac Day by taking his walker and his physiotherapist for a stroll once more over the bridge. He’s never been one for the parades: the only time he ever participated in one was from the back of a taxi. “I thought that was ridiculous. A taxi from here, all the way down to the march, and a taxi back. I’m not going to ask the bloody public to pay that for me.”
Having seen conflict during his time in the Pacific, Whitaker wants Australians to realise that, ever since his generation served in World War II, “Australia became part of America, basically the 51st state”, and that many in the Asia-Pacific consider the country’s leaders to be “ratbags”. He wants his country to mature over the next 100 years.
But what he most wants is for his portrait to win the Archibald.
“I used to guard the Archibald. And now I’m thinking about winning it.”
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