The Family Conspiracy by Joan Phipson

First published: 1962; illustrated

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Family, nature, and health and illness

Time of work: The 1930’s or early 1940’s

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: A sheep station near Bungaree, western New South Wales, and Sydney, Australia

Principal Characters:

• Mr. Barker, an Australian rancher
• Mrs. Ethel Barker, his wife
• Jack Barker, their grown son, his father’s helper
• Lorna Barker, their oldest daughter, a kind, serious girl
• Edward Barker, another son, a responsible boy of thirteen
• Belinda (Linda) Barker, their pretty ten-year-old daughter
• Robbie Barker, their dark-haired, high-spirited nine-year-old son
• Fanny Barker, the mischievous youngest child in the family

The Story

The Family Conspiracy is a realistic story of family life on a sheep station in the western part of New South Wales. The story begins with a crisis: Mrs. Ethel Barker becomes very ill in the middle of the night, and after examining her, the doctor informs her husband, Mr. Barker, that in addition to being overworked and exhausted, Mrs. Barker needs an operation. Obviously the story is set before the advent of national health insurance, for it is clear that the Barkers must find the money to pay for this surgery. Unfortunately, times are desperate. There is a serious drought, which imperils the Barkers’ economic future. Furthermore, the time has come for two of the children, Lorna Barker and Edward Barker, to move on from their mother’s instruction and go to boarding school. For years, Mrs. Barker has scrimped to save the money for their education; she flatly refuses to take any of those savings for an operation for herself.

The four middle Barker children, who are so close in age, younger than their grown-up brother Jack Barker but much older than their pesky little sister Fanny Barker, constitute a close society within the larger family group. When they meet to discuss their mother’s illness, they conclude erroneously that what made her col-lapse was a party that she had recently had for the children. Even though they helped, Lorna and Edward, along with ten-year-old Belinda Barker and nine-year-old Robbie, are certain that they did not help enough. They put their few coins together, vow to keep the secret while they earn more, and then plan to present Mrs. Barker with the money she needs.

Each of the children thinks of a different way to earn money. Belinda sews baby clothes until her eyesight becomes so bad that her parents have to buy her glasses. Robbie tries to mine for gold but nearly loses his life and eventually switches to trapping and skinning rabbits. When he finds that his father has sold his hoard of rabbit skins along with the rest, Robbie is infuriated, and after Mr. Barker accuses him of selfishness, the children come very close to giving up their project. Edward, however, persuades them to wait until Lorna returns from a supposed vacation visit with a friend.

Actually, Lorna’s vacation was a job; she had gone to the home of her friend’s sister to help with her children. Lorna, however, unaccustomed to a city, manages to get lost in Sydney with her two charges. When she returns to the worried parents, she finds herself confessing that she has deceived her own mother about her plans, and she realizes that she must go home. Still, she takes with her the wages she has earned, as well as an offer of a place on the coast for her mother’s convalescence.

Meanwhile, Edward has been resisting pressure from the other children and from his own conscience to sell the dog he has trained. Instead, he gets a job as a drover. After Edward behaves heroically when he is left alone with the cattle, his boss offers to buy another of Edward’s puppies, provided that he will train it. With his wages and what he will make from the sale of that dog, Edward, too, can make a considerable contribution.

Only the younger children have not succeeded in their plan. Here Jack helps; having learned the secret by accident, he pays Robbie for the rabbit skins. As for Belinda, she invests the money she made sewing in lottery tickets, and to everyone’s surprise, she wins. After the four children give their money to Mrs. Barker, they suddenly realize that Fanny is missing. When the Barkers contact the police in the nearby town of Bungaree, where Fanny had been forgotten, they find that she is making a door-to-door collection, and the story ends with laughter.

Context

The Family Conspiray, which won the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award in 1963, is typical of Phipson’s earlier works, which usually deal with children in rural Australia, who are closely involved with animals and who must win respect and acceptance through surmounting various obstacles. Two other books are closely related to The Family Conspiracy—its sequel, Threat to the Barkers (1963), which dealt with the same family, particularly with Edward, and Phipson’s first book, Good Luck to the Rider (1953), which deals with the Trevor family, the Barkers’ neighbors.

Critics point out that some of the author’s plot details are too skimpy. As examples, they cite the reason that the children in The Family Conspiracy felt so guilty about the party and the general nature of Mrs. Barker’s mysterious illness. They sometimes point out that even those episodes which start out to involve adventure generally subside too soon into blandness. They do admit, however, that in her spare style, Phipson creates realistic characters, moving in a realistic environment.

Phipson’s later works are more melodramatic in nature. For example, The Cats (1976) is a thriller about a kidnapping that eventually pits both criminals and victims against a pack of enormous cats, and When the City Stopped (1978) is a story about the terror that ensues after a general strike allows arsonists, looters, and murderers to take over the city. The Watcher in the Gardens (1982) describes the developing relationship between a difficult girl and a blind old man, who are threatened by a malevolent young hoodlum.

Although these later novels have been widely circulated and have received considerable critical acclaim, they do not have the popularity of the earlier, simpler stories such as A Family Conspiracy, which places Phipson in the company of writers such as Hesba Brinsmead and Colin Thiele, whose protagonists live and triumph in Australia’s vast lands and tempestuous oceans.