ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Chatting to a lady in my walking group this morning and she tells me that Banjo Paterson was best man at her grand parent's wedding. It's that degree of separation thing again... and this conversation came about because I was wearing a jacket with the "Man from snowy river festival" on it. It's a great conversation starter - I had a steward bail me up on a plane once because I was wearing a t-shirt with similar motif on it and more recently at a fuel stop on the Hume a man asked me if I went to the festival this year. (Luckily I didn't - it was washed out and over $100,000 worth of damage done to the golf course where the campers got bogged).

Heather

It is indeed a small world. One of my backyard neighbours met CJ Dennis, and his wife met John O'Brien
(Monsignor Father Hartigan) when he visited her school.
We used to have a lady here on the central coast who had Will Ogilvie's brief case. Apparently young Will had an affair with her aunty!

...and she kept his brief case!

It shows that it really wasn't that long ago doesn't Vic?

Heather

Was that the motif on the tee shirt that washed out and caused that damage or the festival


Bob

I wasn't there Bob - and neither was my t-shirt!

Did Will's affair necessitate a case of brevity

Ron

I think Friday and Saturday were washed out. I arrived on Saturday night. Sunday was sunny and beautiful.

The re-enactment was cancelled and the mud was horrendous.

The Poets' Breakfast was great. I sold 12 books!

It is reported that Will Ogilvie's decision to come to Australia as a young man was due in part to the influence of Adam Lindsay Gordon's poetry. Athough he left Australia to return home early in the 1900s,
he died in 1963.