# Gilbert Mant

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{{Short description|Australian journalist and author}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
thumb|right|Private Gilbert Mant, 1941
'''Gilbert Palmer Mant''' (20 July 1902 – 16 February 1997) was an Australian journalist and author.

==Life and career==
Gilbert Mant was born in [Sydney](/source/Sydney).<ref name=OC>{{cite book |last1= Wilde |first1= William H. |last2= Hooton |first2= Joy |last3= Andrews |first3= Barry |year= 1994 |title= The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature |edition= 2nd |location= South Melbourne |publisher= Oxford University Press |pages= 511–12 |isbn= 978-0-19-553381-1}}</ref> His mother was the granddaughter of the English-Australian painter and diarist [Georgiana McCrae](/source/Georgiana_McCrae).<ref>Gilbert Mant, ''The 20th Century Off the Record'', Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 1994, p. 122.</ref> After some years as a [jackaroo](/source/Jackaroo_(trainee)) he returned to Sydney and wrote as a freelance journalist in the early 1920s, often on literary topics.<ref>{{cite journal |title=How Noel Coward Writes His Plays |journal=Sydney Mail |date=16 January 1935 |page=25 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166110609}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Rudyard Kipling: What We Owe to Him |journal=Sydney Morning Herald |date=17 November 1923 |page=13 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16106875}}</ref> He worked for the Sydney ''[Daily Telegraph](/source/The_Daily_Telegraph_(Sydney))'' from 1925 to 1930 and subsequently worked for [Reuters](/source/Reuters) in Australia, Britain and Canada.<ref name=OC/>

Mant married Marion Carroll in Melbourne in March 1933.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Weddings |journal=The Argus |date=8 March 1933 |page=11 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4722722}}</ref> The couple went straight to New Zealand, where Mant was covering the tour of the [English cricket team](/source/English_cricket_team_in_New_Zealand_in_1932%E2%80%9333).<ref>{{cite journal |title=Catty Communication |journal=Smith's Weekly |date=25 March 1933 |page=22 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/235068195}}</ref> He had been covering the [Australian leg of the tour](/source/English_cricket_team_in_Australia_in_1932%E2%80%9333), and intended to write a book about it, but Reuters refused him permission to do so when he told them he would be critical of the [bodyline](/source/bodyline) tactics of the English captain [Douglas Jardine](/source/Douglas_Jardine).<ref name=WCA/> He also accompanied the next English team on its [tour of Australia in 1936–37](/source/English_cricket_team_in_Australia_in_1936%E2%80%9337) as the Reuters correspondent.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Avro Plane for New Guinea |journal=Labor Daily |date=2 December 1936 |page=8 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/237980322}}</ref>

Mant joined the [Second AIF](/source/Second_Australian_Imperial_Force) in July 1940 and served in [Malaya](/source/British_Malaya) until September 1941, when he was discharged and became a [war correspondent](/source/war_correspondent) for Reuters.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mant, Gilbert Palmer |url=http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/Veteran.aspx?serviceId=A&veteranId=173119 |website=www.ww2roll.gov.au |accessdate=3 December 2019 }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name=OC/> He returned to Malaya for Reuters, escaping from Singapore in a British destroyer when [Singapore fell](/source/Battle_of_Singapore) to Japanese forces. He wrote the books ''Grim Glory'' (1942) and ''You'll Be Sorry'' (1944) about his experiences.<ref name=OC/> His wife, who had accompanied him on many of his journalistic travels, replaced him as acting news editor of Reuters in Sydney when he enlisted. They had a daughter and a son.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Current Notes |journal=Press |date=13 September 1940 |page=2 |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19400913.2.7.2}}</ref>

Mant left Reuters in mid-1942 and became State Publicity Censor for [South Australia](/source/South_Australia). This position was responsible for monitoring newspapers and radio broadcasts to ensure they did not endanger wartime security. He stayed in the position until the end of the war.<ref>Mant, ''The 20th Century Off the Record'', pp. 80–91.</ref>

Beginning in October 1945, Mant's weekly column "The Way I See It" appeared in the Sydney ''[Sun](/source/The_Sun_(Sydney))'' and its successor ''[The Sun-Herald](/source/The_Sun-Herald)'' until 1956. Covering current topics and prominent figures, and illustrated with drawings, it at first occupied a full page of the Sunday edition, then later two columns of a page.<ref name=WCA>''[Wisden](/source/Wisden_Cricketers'_Almanack)'' 1998, p. 1436.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mant |first1=Gilbert |title=The Way I See It |journal=Sydney Sun |date=21 October 1945 |page=7 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/229028493}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mant |first1=Gilbert |title=The Way I See It |journal=Sun-Herald |date=26 December 1954 |page=34 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12648594}}</ref>

In 1956 Mant became the public relations manager for the [Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales](/source/Royal_Agricultural_Society_of_New_South_Wales). He retired in 1969 and moved to [Port Macquarie](/source/Port_Macquarie), where he worked part-time for ''[The Land](/source/The_Land_(newspaper))'', mostly covering [agricultural show](/source/agricultural_show)s in northern [New South Wales](/source/New_South_Wales). He married a second time in 1963, to Yvonne Hawes.<ref>Mant, ''The 20th Century Off the Record'', pp. 7–9.</ref>

==Books==
*''Holy Terror and Other Stories and Verse'' (stories, verse and sketches, 1923) 
*''Glamour Brat'' (novel, 1941)
*''Grim Glory'' (war reporting, 1942) 
*''You'll Be Sorry'' (war reporting, 1944) 
*''Gone Tomorrow'' (novel, 1946) 
*''Buttercup'' (for children, 1969) 
*''The Big Show'' (history of the [Sydney Royal Easter Show](/source/Sydney_Royal_Easter_Show), 1972)
*''A Town Called Port: A Port Macquarie-Hastings Valley Walkabout'' (history, 1986, with John Moyes)
*''The Singapore Surrender'' (''Grim Glory'' and ''You'll Be Sorry'', published as one book, 1992)
*''A Cuckoo on the [Bodyline](/source/Bodyline) Nest'' (cricket history, 1992) 
*''Soldier Boy: The Letters of Gunner W. J. Duffell, 1915–18'' (edited, 1992) 
*''The 20th Century Off the Record'' (memoir, 1994)
*''Massacre at Parit Sulong'' (war history, 1995)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mant, Gilbert}}
Category:1902 births
Category:1997 deaths
Category:20th-century Australian journalists
Category:20th-century Australian male journalists
Category:20th-century Australian novelists
Category:Journalists from Sydney
Category:Australian war correspondents
Category:Australian Army personnel of World War II
Category:Australian columnists
Category:20th-century Australian historians
Category:Australian Army soldiers
Category:Military personnel from Sydney

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Gilbert Mant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Mant) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Mant?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.