Mary Benson (campaigner) Mary Benson (campaigner) Mary Benson (8 December 1919 – 19 June 2000) was a South African civil rights campaigner and author. Born in 1919 in Pretoria, Benson served in the South African Women's Army during World War II. After the war, she was secretary to film director David Lean. Benson became acquainted with the author Alan Paton, and read his novel "Cry, the beloved country" (1948), whose main theme was racial discrimination in South Africa. This affected her greatly, and she became a campaigner for the rights of black people there. She worked with Michael Scott (who, in 1946, was
Up the Country (novel) though presumably the names of places and of people are disguised, there are many unmistakable evidences of truth and of actual events that happened in the days of long ago." Up the Country (novel) Up the Country : A Tale of Early Australian Squattocracy (1928) is a novel by Australian writer Miles Franklin. Originally published as by "Brent of Bin Bin", this novel forms the first part of a trilogy, followed by "Ten Creeks Run" (1930) and "Cockatoos" (1955). The novel is set somewhere in the southeast of New South Wales, in Snowy River country, and follows the story of