News release
A NEW FESTIVAL FOR SUTTON FOREST AND CAPITAL COUNTRY
THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS FESTIVAL OF AUSTRALIAN BUSH POETRY
The village of Sutton Forest, now included in Capital Country, is set to host a new festival of national significance, to be called The Southern Highlands Festival of Australian Bush Poetry.
The festival will be held in Sutton Forest on Sunday 30 May 2004 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.
Historical and geographical context. Andrew Barton Paterson (1864-1941) was born near Orange in outback New South Wales. He was the most popular and prolific of the ‘bush poets’ whose works, both humorous and tragic, found an outlet in the pages of Sydney’s Bulletin magazine from the 1880s onward.
Former Southern Highlands resident Clement Semmler, a general manager of the ABC, was the author of several studies of Banjo Paterson and wrote a critical biography titled The Banjo of the Bush (1966). The following passages are from the introduction to his book The Collected Verse of Banjo Paterson (1992):
‘He had a comfortable upbringing, first in the countryside and later in Sydney where he lived with his grandmother Emily Barton, an educated woman who nurtured his literary talent. He practised as a solicitor from 1886 and it was at about this time that he began to submit verse to the influential Sydney magazine The Bulletin. The publication of ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ and ‘The Man from Snowy River’ secured his reputation as Australia’s pre-eminent folk poet and the first collection of his poems, The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, published in 1895, was an immediate and resounding success. Paterson exchanged law for journalism in 1901 and subsequently worked as a newspaper correspondent and editor in Australia and abroad. His literary output was prolific: as well as four books of verse his published writings included two novels and several collections of sketches and reminiscences. His war dispatches were highly acclaimed. In 1939, two years before his death, he was appointed a Commander of the British Empire for his contribution to Australian literature.
Paterson’s father Andrew Bogle Paterson, was a lowland Scot – one of generations of farmers in Lanarkshire – who had emigrated to Australia in the 1850s at the age of 16 with an older brother and sister. After working in the Riverina for a short time the brothers bought a station called Buckenbah, near Yeoval in the western district of New South Wales. When the station had to be sold because of poor seasons and drought, Andrew branched out on his own with the purchase of Illalong Station in the Yass district not far from the Lambing Flat gold diggings – now the town of Young. But troubles again with drought and also with free selectors (the Selection Act had just been passed and droves of selectors descended on the property to ‘squat’) caused the bank to foreclose. Happily, the new buyer of Illalong made Paterson’s father the station manager, so it remained the young boy’s home.
There is no doubt, from Paterson’s later recollections, that life at Illalong in his childhood and early teens was the genesis of his life-long love for and writing about the bush and its people. There were seven children of the Paterson family, but he was 12 years older than his only brother and thus like many a lonely bush child before and after him he found a constant pleasure in the sights and sounds of the outback. He watched the fascinating sight of gold escorts passing by from Lambing Flat, guarded by mounted troopers; dozens of bullock teams went by each week and the bullockies would often stop to have a yarn with the youngster and demonstrate their prowess with their fearsome whips; swagman and itinerant shearers passed the time of day with him. These experiences were his introduction to the great ‘characters’ of the bush – later immortalised in his ballads…’
Many Australian youngsters were brought up on the poetry of Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, Thomas Spencer, Will Ogilvy and their fellow writers.
Some could recite the poems with uncommon ease. Bush poetry echoed of another time, a better time, despite the hardships so often recorded…
However, changes in taste and fashion have seen many Australians by-pass these nostalgic stories of loyal dogs and horses, squatters, gold rushes, drovers and cattlemen and bushrangers. But, more than a century on, urbanised Australians can sympathise with solicitor Paterson in his Sydney legal chambers (1889):-
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all…
And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal –
But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow’".
The great poetry of ‘Banjo’ Paterson’s times is the birthright of every Australian.
This festival focuses upon that era when poetry was more popular than short stories and a man might have no greater social status than a rouseabout, but could try his hand at verse and strike for recognition, fame and immortality as a published contributor to the famous Bulletin.
Booktown Australia. In 2000 the Southern Highlands was declared Australia’s first booktown – the newest member of the international community of booktowns that take their lead from Hay-on-Wye in Wales. The festival will be a regular yearly participant in the celebration of Booktown Australia. It will serve to encourage both an interest in poetry and the contribution that literacy makes to a better society.
The venue. Sutton Forest has a fine village hall with extensive grounds in a picturesque setting. Nearby is the Sutton Forest Inn where a bushman’s thirst can be abated with a glass or two of cold ale.
The festival’s main stage will be set up in a marquee in the grounds, leaving the hall free for a program of bush music and dancing.
Also in the grounds will be a ‘Drovers’ Camp’ hosted by the Riley family of Trangie. They serve robust meals of tasty stews and fresh-baked damper, all cooked in iron camp ovens in the traditional way.
Program. The program will run from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.
It will be co-ordinated and presented by Mr Frank Daniel of Canowindra, the President of the Australian Bush Poets Association Inc.
The program will have two sections.
For example, Richard Mulvaney, the long-serving Director of Bowral’s world-renowned Bradman Museum will be reciting Thomas Spencer’s immortal poem How McDougal Topped the Score.
2. New poetry. The festival will also focus upon new poetry – giving an opportunity for everyone to try their hand at emulating the bush versifiers in the style of Paterson or Lawson or the other ‘greats’.
The top prize is $1,000 for the best new Australian poem in the tradition of the old Bulletin verses.
As well, there are subsidiary competitions:
The competition will be judged by a panel of eminent local citizens.
Bush music and dancing. Concurrently, the program will include interludes of music, song and dancing in the village hall under the guidance of the legendary Bob McInnes of Robertson, one of Australia’s foremost exponents of Scottish fiddle music. Visitors and guests will have the opportunity to learn some of the glorious old shearing-shed dances.
Stalls. Around the perimeter of the hall, stallholders will be invited to set-up, in the theme of the day, with stock lines and presentation to suit.
Admission. A small admission charge of $5 will apply to help offset the costs of staging and promoting the event.
Overview. The objective is to rekindle interest in the poetry of the Paterson era, and to introduce a new generation of Australians to the wonderment of a great Australian tradition: the bush poem.
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Contact: Garry Barnsley OAM
387 Bong Bong Street
BOWRAL NSW 2576
or PO Box 438, Bowral, NSW, 2576
Phone: 4862-1411 (BH) 4871-2060 (AH)
Fax.: 4862-1947
E-mail: barnowl@acenet.com.au