The excitement and the history of “Banjo” Paterson is all on display in the Banjo Paterson: more than a Poet exhibition recently opened in Yeoval. Yes, Yeoval the childhood home of this great Australian storyteller and poet.
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The little boy “Barty” who played along the banks of Buckinbah Creek with his sister for company watching the sticks and logs that came down with the flood waters. Not too much happened in Yeoval in the 1860 and 1870s - not too many visitors and lots of time for young Barty to observe the bush characters and the occasional traveller who called into the outpost of Buckinbah Station.
His father spent many months away trying to save the sheep and his Queensland stations from the drought and the banks, a battle that he lost on both fronts.
It was young “Barty” who helped out where he could at home, doing odd jobs for his mother, shepherding his father’s sheep and all the time noting the effects of the drought, the unexpected western storms that caused the creek to suddenly flood and then run down to trickle again within days.
The packs of dingoes that savaged the mobs of sheep especially at lambing and the pesky emus that pecked at the silver pieces on the teams harness startling the horses as they stood outside the Buckinbah Station store.
These childhood adventures gave ‘Banjo’ a wealth of information for his future poems and stories as did his observations of life around him all his life and never allowing an opportunity to pass that could be put into prose.
A great example of this is when he was a practising solicitor. He was chasing up a bad debt for a client - a debt from a man called Clancy, when out of the blue came a reply in the mail from a work mate of Clancy who used the phrase “Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving and we don’t know where he are”.
To Paterson’s’ sharp mind it was a perfect line to build a poem around, hence that great immortal 1889 verse “Clancy of the Overflow”
It’s the same Clancy who has lent his name to the cafe that serves the delicious country cooked delights that are featured at the Banjo Paterson exhibition. Clancy’s cafe in Yeoval features country goodies all freshly cooked on site.
Travel up and visit because “Sharon’s scones are a pleasure that the townsfolk will never know”.
