Belshaw’s World: Bushrangers and cattle duffers

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 6 May 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

According to Victor Crittenden’s entry on him in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Frederick Ward was born at Windsor in 1835.

He adopted the name Captain Thunderbolt in 1865. From then until his death at Kentucky Creek on 25 May 1870, he robbed across a wide area of Northern New South Wales.

In the years since his death, Thunderbolt has acquired a mythic presence.

The first feature film about him was made in 1910 and was simply called Thunderbolt.

The film opens with Frederick Ward, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and leading a horse, bidding a loving farewell to his sweetheart, Jess Anson, in front of her farm. In the words of the Australian film historian William D. Routt:

“The lane is dusty and crowded with riders. Something is urging them to leave the farmland and their true loves behind. The situation is one which might occur in a Western from 1910, or indeed from any year. Familiar trappings of the genre seem to be there: an awkward cowboy, a faithful heroine, hats, horses, partners waiting, trail dust. An instant later, however, and all that was familiar is made strange in an intertitle: “Ward Joins the Cattle Duffers”. As we read it, vistas blur. We sense that we aren't in Kansas anymore, nor in the Wild West either.”

Ward is arrested for duffing – an arrest which he indignantly protests and violently resists. His sweetheart goes insane and dies when she hears the news. Ward escapes heroically from prison to take vengeance on the authorities who have so mistreated them both. As the dashing and gallant bushranger Captain Thunderbolt, he dies a hero's death, shot by the police. It is not the thieving of cattle that is marked as wrong in this story, but the law that condemns the cattle thief.

This is all good stuff, even if some of it is only loosely connected to the truth.

Very similar themes appear in Cecile Holmes’ first feature film, the 1953 production Captain Thunderbolt. Made in Armidale and district, the film presents Thunderbolt as a heroic figure.

I remember this film well even though I was quite young. This film was a big thing, the first and so far only major feature film made in Armidale. Locals appeared in dozens of bit roles. The premier in Armidale’s Capitol Theatre was a major local event.

Thunderbolt is not New England’s only connection to bushranging or, for that matter, stock theft.

In 1838 and 1839, for example, Gentleman Dick and his gang ranged the Tablelands and Slopes before being captured in true wild west style in a shoot-out at Bundarra.

One of Australia’s most famous books, Robbery under Arms, was based in part on events that took place early in 1874 in the Inverell District. These became known to Rolf Boldrewood (Thomas Browne) when he was police magistrate at Armidale.

Heroes or villains regardless, we have people and events captured in folk-lore, books and films that have become larger than life.

The Tablelands have a special claim to Thunderbolt, yet it seems to me that we are bad at selling the story. I stand to be corrected here; it is some time since I have read the local tourism material. Still, I make the assertion so that you can correct me if I am wrong.

The problem as I see it is that we localise instead of telling a story.

More than a dozen towns or districts across the broader New England can and do lay some claim to Thunderbolt. Uralla has a particular place because Thunderbolt was shot nearby and buried there, but it is still only one place.

This means that the visitor just sees bits. The Uralla tourism web site has some interesting material on it, but again has a very local focus.

In writing this column I did a web search on Captain Thunderbolt. The first New England Tableland's site - Thunderbolts Way - was on page two.

Think how much more interesting it would be for the visitor if the bushranging story was told in a linked fashion across space and time.

Drew Hopper Photography - a nice place to visit

Searching on one Of Lynne Sanders-Braithwaite's  links I discovered another very good New England photo blog, Drew Hopper Photography.    This shot shows the beach at twilight.

I think that Drew's blog makes a wonderful companion to Gordon Smith's lookANDsee.

Gordon's focus is inland, Drew the coast. Between them, they show a little of the visual texture of two close but very different parts of New England.

Aboriginal language groups in southern New England

Hunter Valley Aboriginal Groups looks at the distribution of Aboriginal language groups in Southern New England.

I only have to look at the far north of New England now including the extension into Queensland to complete a preliminary analysis across the whole territory. Obviously new issues keep coming up as I write, but I am increasingly confident that I am getting at least some understanding of patterns and relationships.

Once I have completed the overall framework, I am going to be in a much better position to start looking at the detail.

The Chinese in New England 1848-1853

I mentioned that I was investigating the history of the Chinese in New England. I have now put up a first post - The Chinese in New England 1848-1853.

The post focuses on the pre-gold rush period.

Belshaw’s World: Selling Armidale’s romance

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 29 April 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

In my last column I suggested that Armidale had failed to sell itself to Australia. I also suggested that Armidale could draw lessons from Melbourne’s success.

If you look at the Victorian Government tourism advertising over at least the last ten years you will see remarkable consistency.

Whereas Sydney tries to sell iconic attractions such as the Opera House or the Harbour, Melbourne sells experience and romance wrapped around first English and then increasingly European themes.

Whereas Sydney tries to sells itself as a modern city, a place of excitement using bright colours and fast tempo, Melbourne uses muted colours and a slower tempo to present itself as a place of sometimes mystery where past and present merge in unexpected ways.

The Victorian and Melbourne Governments have been remarkably clever in backing this approach up in their planning and city development. The new precincts are integrated, while the re-development of the city lanes has created an ambience nothing short of fantastic.

By contrast, Sydney is something of a mess.

I am, I think, reasonably good at selling Armidale. In doing so, I draw from the Melbourne experience.

When asked what there is to see in Armidale, I ask how long can you stay? This attracts interest and usually makes people ask why.

I explain that Armidale is the traditional centre of a very large region with its own variety, culture and history. To really see this, the best way to go is to use the city as a base for touring. A week would be good.

Note that I am already setting up a perception about the city. It’s not just a stop point.

Assume, for a moment, that the person just wants to know about Armidale and its immediate district.

Then I will say something like Armidale reflects its history.

The city began as an administrative centre of a vast region that briefly stretched north as far as Torres Strait. Later it was the capital in waiting for those trying to get self government for New England, to break the Sydney Government’s control over the Northern Districts. It was also the centre of one of the wealthiest squatting regions in Australia.

Armidale’s old city reflects this past. Note the use of the words “old city”. The words are accurate, but they also create a sense of difference. How many Australian towns can claim an old city?

The old city was formed within the old town boundaries. Major public and commercial buildings centred on the main street, while town merchants and local squatters built homes and town houses on the north and especially south hills overlooking the town centre.

Some of these people were seriously rich. This is where I refer to Booloominbah as the headquarters of F R White’s pastoral empire, noting that even the smaller mansions had to accommodate a number of servants, as well as family members.

Most of these buildings and homes have survived. This explains the Victorian feel of the old city with its iron lacework and blue brick mansions.

You all know Armidale, so I won’t continue.

My point is, and this is the link with Melbourne, that Armidale can be sold on history and romance in a way that few Australian centres can. It cannot be sold on attractions and events.

We are actually very bad at presenting Armidale’s romance.

I think the problem is that most Armidale people don’t see it themselves, don’t understand their past.

Just at present the subject of Thunderbolt is of great interest to Express letter writers.

For the purposes of this column, it doesn’t matter whether Thunderbolt was an absolute villain (he wasn’t) or a Robin Hood figure (he wasn’t). He just has to be interesting!

On this, a question for you. Is there anybody left in Armidale who actually remembers the Thunderbolt movie?

Bogged down in history

Just at the moment my research and writing focus remains solidly focused on history. I am trying to consolidate some thoughts on the Chinese in New England.

On a more current matter, I see that Gordon Smith has bravely attempted the Big Hill, the most direct road from Armidale to Kempsey. Brave chap!

This photo shows a little stream that finally flows into the Styx River.

In the background at the back you can see the main road. Main road? Yes, I fear that it is. If you want to go from Armidale to Kempsey and the Macleay River Valley, then this is still the direct route.

This is just part of the world that I am trying to bring alive in my writing. New England, the North, the Northern Districts, call it what you will, has an area of over 194,000 square kilometres. England is just 130,000. This is a huge area to write about at local level because you have to show the linkages, commonalities and differences.

To write about Newcastle, for example, you have to know the history of mining and manufacturing in Australia. I don't yet, although I know the broad patterns. Now I have to translate this into local understanding. I actually know Newcastle quite well, but I don't know the detail I need.

Sigh!

Distant memories of a now vanished North Coast - Coffs Harbour Surf Music

It is hard now to believe that the population of inland New England and the North Coast were once in balance. At the 1961 census, Tamworth (19,390 people) had just overtaken Lismore (19,010 people) as New England's largest centre outside the lower Hunter. Armidale (13,170 people) was still behind the North Coast's second largest centre Grafton (15,600 people), but was rapidly closing the gap. Coffs Harbour's population was 7,188, Port Macquarie's 6,110.

I make this point because in those days inland New Englanders saw the North Coast as their own playground. Yes, we went to other places for holidays as well, but most went to the North Coast. Each family had their own special spot.

At Yamba, for example, the flats in one street carried the names of New England properties from the Armidale area. These flats were in fact owned by country people who bought them because Yamba was their spot.

My aunt and uncle were part of the Yamba group. This photo from cousin Jamie's collection shows James and Aunt Kay at Yamba in 1961.

Over forty years later the Drummond family gathered at Yamba in that street for Christmas in what would in fact be the last time before death decimated the sisters who had formed the core of the continuing family.

The Belshaw's were not a Yamba family.

We ranged more widely. Port Macquarie once, Urunga a number of times, Sawtell ditto. We also stayed at Manly in Sydney where Mum and Dad had been married and and at what is now the Gold Coast. Mind you, the Gold Coast was really an extension in some ways of New England made exotic by its Queensland location.

In all this, we did not stay at Coffs Harbour. I always thought of Coffs as a port town, not a holiday place, although many New Englanders camped there just next to the main beach. I would be in my forties before we first stayed in Coffs for a break just after Helen was born. Oddly, or perhaps not, Coffs is now Helen's favourite NSW coastal resort.

While we did not say at Coffs, our holiday focus on Urunga and Sawtell meant that we went there a lot. This was the big centre for food and shopping. As a kid I really liked the jetty area, hoping to see a ship. Sometimes we did, although the port was now very quiet because of the decline in coastal shipping.

Time passes. I am now at university in Armidale. The Beatles are all the rage. Very few of us had cars, so our focus was mainly campus and local. However, from time to time we would pile into one of the few available vehicles and head for Coffs.

The pattern was nearly always the same. Coffs was then about three hours away by road. We would drive down in the morning, arriving for a late morning swim and then lunch at the pub. The afternoon was spent drinking beer and listening to surf music.

From this distance in time, I have no idea how often the pub in fact had a band, nor could I really describe the music. My recollection is that surf music came out of the US in the late 1950s. Initially band, it had a strong beat. Vocals were then added.

While brother David bleached his hair, I had little interest in surfing as such and remained outside this particular cultural loop. This remains the case today. Even though we presently live in Sydney not far from the beach, I still think of the beach as somewhere to go on holidays. My wife and eldest are very different.

Back then, surf music was interesting in part because it was different. It was also an excuse to have a swim and drink beer. We would generally leave for Armidale in the late evening, sometimes staying till the pub shut.

The trip back was always less fun. Often as we reached the top of the mountain and headed inland across the Dorrigo plateau, the mist would come down. Those who know the Dorrigo will know what I mean.

Driving in thick mist is not pleasant. The mist diffuses the car lights. Put high beam on, and the world dissolves in white light. Kept on low beam, only the road just in front can be seen. When, as in this case, the road is windy, driving is slow and a bit jerky.

We would often reach Armidale late at night and, exhausted, drop into bed.

Postscript

Over on my personal blog, North Coast Memories - SS Fitzroy, provides a postscript to this story.

Belshaw's World: Armidale’s failure to sell itself

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 22 April 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

I can understand why Armidale people were upset at the city’s failure to make the top town list. I too was upset. It was a sufficiently silly result to throw doubts on the whole judging process.

I may have been upset, but I wasn’t surprised.

Growing up in Armidale, I expected people to know where the city was and indeed most did. Located in what was then widely seen as some of Australia’s most spectacular scenery, this was Australia’s only university city. It was also the centre of a rich wool district when Australia still rode on the sheep’s back, the capital in waiting for those fighting for New England self-government, the educational hub for a wide area.

The New State Movement alone generated more press coverage for Armidale than the city achieves today in total. As one of Sydney’s local parochial dailies, the Sydney Morning Herald’s coverage was hardly sympathetic, but the coverage was there.

Today, very few people actually know where Armidale is. The city has dropped below the radar.

Every pillar that once supported Armidale’s prominent position has declined in importance or even vanished. Just to list a few.

The Great Northern Railway has gone. The Pacific Highway has replaced the New England Highway as the main north-south road. New university centres have arisen. Boarding has declined in importance, assisted by Queensland government subsidies that at one blow stripped Armidale’s schools of their country Queensland boarders.

Too far from Sydney or Brisbane to attract the day or weekend visitors that have helped places such as Orange or the Lower Hunter build tourist traffic, Armidale has become something of a backwater.

The changes in Australia that have made Armidale a backwater will continue.

Last year Australia accepted a record number of migrants. Less well recognised, we also lost a record number of Australians through emigration. In combination, these changes were so big that roughly one current Australian resident in fifty did not live in this country twelve months ago.

This column is not about immigration. I support Australia’s immigration program.

My point is that most of these new residents have absolutely no knowledge of Armidale, nor are they likely to get it at present.

We cannot turn the clock back. We have to find new ways of responding.

I do not think that Armidale does a very good job in selling itself, a failure not assisted by the fiasco of Tourism NSW’s two brand solution.

Part of the problem lies in confusion in messages, between the need to promote Armidale as a place to live while also promoting the city as a tourism destination.

I think that the Thrive campaign, in conjunction with things such as Armidale’s participation in Country Week, has actually done a reasonably good job in presenting the city as a good place to live.

The problem is that the things that make Armidale a good place to live are not the things that attract visitors, nor do they assist the city to differentiate itself, to find a place within the increasingly complex Australian mosaic.

The fact that I can get good coffee in Armidale, attend a play or listen to some music may help me decide to live there. However, it is not going to make me want to visit. I can find all those things elsewhere.

One of the remarkable things of the last five years is the way Melbourne has re-branded itself as a European city.

In using the word European I am not talking ethnicity, but culture and life style.

For a number of complicated reasons many Australians, and especially the young, have fallen in love with Europe. Melbourne has ridden this wave with perfection, creating acute distress for Sydney’s current Lord Mayor.

In my next column I will look at the lessons Armidale might draw from Melbourne.

Around the New England press - week ending 24 April 2009

I have been all over the place in posting terms, with the result that none of my part completed posts have made the light of day. I can only promise to try to do better!

As part of my reading, I have been browsing round the on-line editions of various New England newspapers. I do this all the time to keep in touch. However, I thought that I might start sharing some of this with you on a weekly basis.

In Grafton, Council has been looking at the best way to redevelop the waterfront area. My suggestion: please focus more on the city's history as a major port. You make damn all use of this.

Further south in Kempsey, judging is underway for the Miss Show Girl competition. That takes me back. One of the more pleasant tasks that I once had to perform was judging the same competition at Walcha. I do love country shows. Some have struggled in recent years, but we would all be poorer for their absence.

Port Macquarie has been having problems in getting its new hospital beyond the blue print stage, despite promises. Tamworth, too, appears to be in a similar position. In all, a bit of a mess.

The latest population statistics suggest that Maitland is NSW's fastest growing inland city.

Inland? Look I may be wrong, but if my memory serves me correctly Maitland is, what, 40 minutes from the sea? If Maitland is inland, then Penrith is outback.

There is actually a very serious issue here, the way in which changing official definitions affect the way we see things. They have got to the point that they have become a very serious distortion.

Still at Newcastle, the discovery of a live yellow bellied snake washed ashore sent shudders down my spine. This is a seriously venomous snake.

Fortunately, this is a rare thing. Still, if the sea does warm in the way projected, it does worry me just what things might move south.   

In Cessnock, the Member for Cessnock, Kerry Hickey, has welcomed an announcement by NSW Premier Nathan Rees that just over $3.5 million is being invested in Cessnock to upgrade 1149 social housing homes.

This was a somewhat belated response to an earlier announcement by NSW Premier Reece that the Government would spend $48 million on upgrading social housing in the Hunter Valley. 

It's quite complicated from my perspective because Sydney has not, to my knowledge, released details of the total pattern of spend on the various Rudd Government packages at local level. This makes it very hard to assess total New England impacts.  

Moving inland and north, there was concern in Tenterfield  with the level of homelessness, with 64 homeless, twice the national average. I have noticed that release of this data at local level has generated a number of stories in the New England media.

Putting my professional hat on, one of the messages that I have tried to get across is the need in official policy to consider relative as well as absolute measures.

We live in a world of performance measures. This means that with something like homelessness, targets get set like reducing the absolute level of homelessness by x or y. The best way to do this is to focus on big numbers.

A big population area may have a large number of homeless even though relative homelessness is well below the average. Once absolute targets are set, policy makers focus on the big numbers. Places such as Tenterfield with just 64 homeless miss out even though the local need is in fact far greater.

I do not have a solution to this, beyond the constant need to localise when looking at the real impacts of policy.

More from the New England media next week.

Belshaw’s World: Pleistocene New England’s 10,000 year cold snap

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 15 April 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

My last column covered the likely first period of Aboriginal occupation of New England from around 40,000 years ago. This period ended with dramatic climate change affecting every aspect of life.

From perhaps 25,000 years ago Sahul, the name given to the continent that then included Tasmania, the Australia mainland and New Guinea, became very dry, both intensely hot and intensely cold. This climatic regime peaked during what is called the Last Glacial Maximum, 21,000 to 15,000 years ago.

The sea retreated to perhaps 120 metres below current levels. It became colder, 2-4 degrees C below current levels. On land, mean monthly temperatures probably fell by 6-10 degrees C. Extensive inland dune building suggests that the climate became much windier.

New England’s coastal strip grew as the sea retreated. The sclerophyll woodland and deciduous forests would have progressively colonised the new land, with the coastal dunes and associated wetlands following the shifting coast east. While colder and drier, there was sufficient food and water to maintain populations.

The Tablelands were very different. There average temperatures fell by perhaps 8 degrees C. A region of cold steppe and scattered sub-alpine woodland began in New England, sweeping down through the southern Snowy Mountains into Tasmania.

In the southern Snowy Mountains, the fall in temperature was sufficient to allow glaciers to form despite the lower precipitation.

In New England, the higher portions of the Tablelands in the centre and south where average heights are around 1,300 metres must have been very cold, dry and windswept. Along New England’s Snowy Mountains where the highest peak (Round Mountain) is almost 1,600 metres, there were probably blizzards and semi-permanent snow despite the much lower precipitation.

It seems likely that any previous human occupation of the Tablelands would have come to an end, although people may still have visited the lower areas.

To the west, the slopes and plains experienced cold arid conditions probably similar to modern Patagonia. The lower slopes were probably grassland with spring herbs and scattered patches of woodland and forests. Further west, the often dry streams crossed arid plains. Human occupation would have retreated to places with secure water supplies.

These changes took millennia and would not have been noticeable to individual generations. However, the long term effects on the human population were almost certainly severe.

While we can surmise this, the absence of archaeological evidence makes it hard to define the precise effects.

We know that there was Aboriginal occupation of the coastal strip, given that the Wallen Wallen site in South East Queensland shows continuous occupation from 20,000 years ago, a date in the earlier part the Late Glacial Maximum. Other coastal sites that might have given us clues are now deep under water.

It is reasonable to assume that any occupation on at least the majority of the Tablelands ceased. But what happened further west?

With diminished rainfall but also lower temperatures, it seems likely that there were areas on the Western Slopes and Plains that would have continued to provide sufficient water and food to maintain life. Why, then, is there still no archaeological record?

Assuming that the area was populated, the pattern of sites would have reflected then on-ground conditions. Many of the sites would have been camping sites, not easily identifiable beyond lithic scatter. Other sites would have reflected the past location of permanent water.

My feeling is that we need to chart what the landscape was like then to identify possible sites. However, it may be that the landscape has changed so much that we will never know.

As the long cold spell of the Last Glacial Maximum came to an end, New England entered a new period of dramatic geographic and climatic change. But that’s again a matter for another column.

Note on Sources: The material in this and the previous column is largely drawn from John Mulvaney & Johan Kamminga, Prehistory of Australia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 1999.