Author Archives: Nelle

read it and let us start reconnecting with our country again My Country by Dorothea Mackellar(1885 – 1968) Sadly this poem is sneered at by many and has been deliberately altered by others, but this poem says it all. What it means to be Australian. Perhaps the last verse is the most significant.The first verseContinue reading “Dorothea Mackellar”

Anzac Role Our daily dose of country and continuing the story of a great Australian Banjo Paterson’s Forgotten ANZAC Role: One of the Least-Known Parts of His Life April 23, 2020/in Articles, Celebration and Events /by Rhema Central CoastBy: Annie HamiltonMain image: Australian bush poet A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson. Inset: Light Horseman Private Richard Harwell BryantContinue reading “Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Patterson”

Our daily dose of country The Man From Snowy River There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around That the colt from old Regret had got away, And had joined the wild bush horses – he was worth a thousand pound, So all the cracks had gathered to the fray. AllContinue reading “Andrew Barton ‘Banjo” Patterson”

Our daily dose of country Clancy Of The Overflow Clancy of the Overflow was one of the first poems I remember learning at primary school. I was only about nine at the time but something about the flow of the words and the picture they conjured up spoke to me and I’ve loved it everContinue reading “Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson”

It’s 1932 and Australia is in the grip of the Great Depression.One in three workers are unemployed.Decrepit shanty towns hug the outskirts of the big cities.A scrawny rabbit caught in a trap will feed a family for a week.Country roads are filled with broken men walking from one farmhouse to another seeking menial jobs andContinue reading “Lennie Gwyther’s solo ride from Leongatha to Sydney remembered”

Australia famously rode to prosperity on the sheep’s back. Wool was our main export commodity from 1871 to the 1960s. For over a century, the golden fleece drew pastoral workers and professionals to regional Australia, and sustained many a country town. From the 1960s, new challenges faced an old industry: competition from synthetics, rising costsContinue reading “Bleat! How Australia fell off the sheep’s Back”

It was 1951 and Australia’s economy was riding on the sheep’s back — the dawn of the Rolls Royce decade of wool, as it came to be known. A young international photographer found himself deep in northern New South Wales on Burren Burren station Francis Reiss was supposed to be learning about the wool trade.Continue reading “The Free Ride on the sheep’s back is over Series”

For a century, the wool industry gave Australia one of the highest living standards in the world. The economy rode high on wealth from primary exports. By the 1950s, wool was synonymous with the Australian way of life. By the 1990s, the gap between city and country people was ever widening. What does the futureContinue reading “The free ride on the sheep’s back is over Series”

The Australian stereotype is intertwined with notions of larrikinism. It is a stereotype of a fundamentally good person that tests the boundaries of dubious rules. As defined by historian Manning Clark, “Soaring over them all is the larrikin; almost archly self conscious- to smart for his own good, witty rather than humorous, exceeding limits, bendingContinue reading “The Australian Larrikin Series Part 4”

It is one of their most cherished national traits, but Australians fear that larrikinism – a blend of rebelliousness and cheeky irreverence – is on the brink of extinction. There are few greater compliments in Australia than to call someone a larrikin – defined in the Macquarie Australian English dictionary as “a mischievous person”. LarrikinsContinue reading “The Australian Larrikin Series Part 3”

The great Australian larrikin: Myths, markets and moral panics Tony Smith Melissa Bellanta Larrikins: A History, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2012 (296 pp). ISBN 9-78070223-912-0 (paperback) RRP $34.95. Australians take an interest in their national identity for many reasons. European settlement is recent and so the blended nation perhaps remains in adolescence. WhileContinue reading “The Australian Larrikin Series Part 2”

Larrikin is an Australian English term meaning “a mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good hearted person”, or “a person who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions”.[1] In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term generally meant “a lout, a hoodlum”[2] or “a young urban rough, a hooligan”,[1] meanings whichContinue reading “The Australian Larrikin Series Part 1”