Statues - Henry Lawson

Dare I make a bold claim about Henry Lawson? He is a writer much derided in his own land, yet much loved as well. He has not translated into the modern age very well, hasn't our Henry. He was a product of this land, at that time - for much of the 19th century, the country called Australia did not exist. We were just a collection of independent states.

So the bold claim? Henry Lawson is to Australia as Mark Twain is the the United States. What about Banjo Paterson I hear the pundits splutter? Or C.J. Dennis or Adam Lindsay Gordon, or Henry Kendall I hear interjected from the bleechers!


Lawson almost single-handedly defined the mythical Australian in his landscape. He created the ideal of the sun-burnt battler humping his bluey around the outback blocks of this state, living off his wits and ever sus of them city-folk in their finery with their fancy ideas.


Lawson was prolific in the period before the demon drink got her claws into him. He was well served by George Robertson (of the booksellers, Angus & Robertson), and by J.F. Archibald (editor of The Bulletin). He also had Banjo looking out for his legal interests. Mainly two women, his mother and his wife, who always gave him curry. Every time Henry was locked in the clink or dead-drunk in the gutter, his mates would hand the hat around, and Henry would live to write another day.

Lawson's journal, exhibited in the Centenary '100' by the State Library of NSW

Try but two of his short stories: 'The Loaded Dog', and 'The Drover's Wife' to get the flavour of his definiton of life in this wide, brown land.

As for his poetry, I have already posted 'Faces in the Street', and 'One Hundred and Three'. Seek out 'The Roaring Days', and 'A Voice from the City'.

It is ironic that this statue puts Lawson on a pedestal - that is the last place he would want to be. But one calm, starry night wander through Sydney Hospital, across the Domain and down Mrs Macquarie's Road. Just as the loop divides, in the centre beneath a gum-tree, there you will find Henry, his dog, his mate and his swag ready to entertain you with ballads from a land that maybe no longer exists, if it ever did.

Portrait of Henry Lawson, painted in 1913 by Florence Rodway, held by the State Library of NSW

Sunday in my City - Water on tap

On Art Gallery Road, near Robbie Burns memorial

Top left: Victor Chang memorial opposite St Vincents Top Right: Hyde Park south, near War Memorial Bottom Left: Mid Central Ave, that joined Gardens with Domain Bottom Right: Grand Drive, Centennial Park

Water is the most precious of commodities. More precious than gold. More precious that shares. Nearly as precious as education, but not as precious as love. We drink it, we cook with it, we bathe in it, we launder in it, we flush with it. Human household uses. But there are also industrial uses and agricultural uses. Water was a marginalised natural resource that was taken for granted. But that is all changing.

Australia is an arid country, and it is not alone on the planet in that respect. Our rainfall pattern is around the coastal fringes, and obviously this is where the population exists. We have creeks, but not a plethora of massive running rivers. No Niles, Mississips. No Rhines, no Danubes.No Amazons, no Yangtzes. Our main river system, one that drains a massive area of the entire continent, is the Murray-Darling which is nearly 3,500 km long.

All three bubblers are in the Botanic Gardens, the two small ones are same bubbler from different angle

Consumers the world over, for the last decade, have been convinced that the only good water to drink is the water that comes in small plastic bottles. This may not be totally true, but it does have people taking water where-e’er they go, and drinking water more frequently. Drinking fountains (bubblers) went out of fashion when advertisers told us that they transmitted diseases and were unclean.

All the bubblers featured here are very close to the inner city, and in areas that were developed in the middle of the 19th century. There are bubblers all over our city and in our major parks. I lost count how many there are in Centennial Park. Nowadays, these are all connected to our main water supply.

Today, I feature the humbler bubbler. Tomorrow, the bubbler gets a roof over its head.

Near Mrs Macquarie's Chair overlooking the Opera House

A member of the Sunday in my City community.