THE MEN FROM SNOWY RIVER MARCH
World War I was fought with little regard on either side for the loss of thousands or even tens of thousands of troops in each engagement. Although enlistment numbers were high in Australia in 1914, by the end of 1915 the reality of the war as revealed in letters from servicemen abroad, and a shortage of labour at home, meant that enlistment numbers were dwindling rapidly and needed to be boosted. The ‘snowball’ recruitment marches began in 1915. A small group of men would begin a march from a country town or village, enlisting men as they went, ‘snowballing’ until eventually a large number arrived at a city army camp.
The first march from Gilgandra in October 1915 was known as the Cooee March — twenty-six men left Gilgandra and by the time they arrived in Sydney a month later there were two hundred and sixty-three recruits.
The Men from Snowy River March started with fourteen men at Delegate, near the New South Wales–Victoria border, on 6 January 1916. They marched through Craigie, Mila, Bombala, Bibbenluke, Holts Flat, Nimmitabel, Summer Hill, Rocks Flat (which is not the Rocky Valley in this book), Cooma, Bunyan, Umeralla, Billylingera, Bredbo, Colinton, Michelago, Williamsdale, Queanbeyan, Bungendore, Deep Creek, Tarago, Inveralochy and Tiranna to Goulburn. They marched three hundred and fifty kilometres in twenty-three days, with other men coming from places like Bega and Williams Creek to join them, reaching Goulburn on 29 January 1916 with one hundred and forty-four volunteers, which, despite all the excitement, was considered disappointing by army recruiters.
At each stop they were met by local dignitaries, music, feasts and children running alongside them. At times — or possibly for the whole march — they were accompanied by a bagpipe player and a drummer, as well as the handmade wool banner made by the women of Delegate, proclaiming that they were The Men from Snowy River. The banner, scarcely faded, is now held by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
All of the men who enlisted on the Snowy River march were in battle on the Western Front. Of those one hundred and forty-four men, thirty-nine were killed in action and seventy-five were badly wounded. None, probably, survived unscathed, whether in mind or body. Perhaps every community lost men, knew sons or neighbours killed or wounded, and had to cope in the years the men were away, as well as face challenging changes when the men returned. It was not always the ‘happily ever after’ expected when they rejoiced at the November 1918 Armistice.
None of the characters in this book are based on any of the real men who were part of the Snowy River march, although their stories are based on letters and diaries from that time.
You will find the names of the real men on the memorials in the towns and villages where they lived, and their sacrifice is still remembered each Anzac Day.
CATCHING BRUMBIES
I have based the brumby hunt in this book on accounts from a hundred years ago. (Modern brumby hunting uses different methods from those of the round-ups back then.) Many of the horses were taken to be boiled down for tallow and for their hides. The young ones were broken in and sold as riding horses — most weren’t valuable, though some were excellent, strong and hardy. As in Paterson’s poem, the brumby stallion in this book was a well-bred horse who had escaped and ‘joined the wild bush horses’. His foals were likely to be excellent horses, unlike those of brumby stallions; brumby stallions had won their position by fighting with other stallions, not because of their speed or endurance, and other qualities prized by humans.
FLINTY’S BACK INJURY
I have given Flinty a more severe case of my own back injury — the spurs on two of my lower vertebra are broken. About a decade ago, at its worst, there were times when I couldn’t move my legs or back, as the swelling pressed on the nerves. Thanks to good medical care and MRI scans, I knew that my back wasn’t broken and that my spine was still sound. While spines can’t regenerate, exercise, a good diet that lowers inflammation and physiotherapy mean that I rarely have much of a problem any more or, if I do, a few exercises relieve it. Just occasionally, though, especially if there is a cold snap at night, I can wake unable to move my legs till I roll off the bed, stand up like a zombie and slowly move forwards until movement eases. A hot shower usually fixes things from there.
If it hadn’t been for X-rays and scans, however, I would have worried, like Flinty, that my back was broken, and if I hadn’t had good medical assistance I might not have kept moving to strengthen the muscles around the injury. If Flinty had had a better doctor — or modern medical knowledge — they would have known that she needed to move gently to regain her mobility and that lying still, with pressure on her back, would make the problem worse and slow her eventual recovery.
WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA TO 1920
Women were among Australia’s earliest settlers, farmers and explorers. Australia’s first professional shearers were women from what is now Germany, brought to teach men the craft. You will find few mentions of them though.
Women’s voices from our history mostly survive in their letters and diaries. Men’s accounts were more likely to be published at the time. The Matilda Saga is written to try to change that perception. The famous poems work just as well if you change male to female: ‘“You’ll never catch me alive!” said she’ or ‘I doubt she’d suit the office, Nancy, of The Overflow’.
Lawson and Paterson and the other ‘bush poets’ immortalised the Clancys. It is time the ‘Nancys’ were acknowledged, the strong women who shaped our nation, who didn’t fit into the sentimental clichés of strong silent men and ‘the little woman’ who waited at home.
A womanly woman was supposed to tend the home and her family, not go droving, run a farm or work for wages after she was married, except in extreme necessity. Many jobs forbidden to women were even more out of bounds for married women; others were unattainable simply because no man would hire a female, nor would men work with one. Women might be nurses or teachers or telegraphists and telephonists, but usually they were forced by regulations to give up even these jobs as soon as they married.
The home-maker was the ideal. Many women, mostly from poverty, did work outside their own home after marriage, but usually in ‘home-like’ occupations — as servants, cooks and laundrywomen — although many factory workers were women too, employed at a small fraction of the men’s wage. One of the reasons for the strong feeling against working wives was that they undercut the wages of men.
By 1920 Australian (white) women had fought for and won the vote (see A Waltz for Matilda) and the right to go to university and be awarded degrees, although the careers of most would be as ‘assistants’ in academia, medicine, laboratories, publishing and journalism and other professions where the men got the credit for much that their ‘assistants’ achieved.
World War I was a time of enormous change in the way many women thought about their lives. They were forced to become farm managers, replace men in professions, and cope with families alone while waiting with dread for the casualty list or telegrams to say a loved one had been lost. For the women volunteers and the official nurses, telegraphists, drivers and VADs, the war was their proving ground. Many died from infection, wounds, disease and exhaustion, but others emerged indomitable.
Yet even before the war, women had run farms, ‘gone with cattle’, dug for gold, trained and broken in horses — all activities that were not seen as womanly and so were best ignored. Even in World War I, while the role of official nurses and VADs is acknowledged, the extraordinary role women played in feeding, transporting and providing unofficial medical aid is ignored (see also A Rose for the Anzac Boys).
THE DROVERS’ BOYS
One of the unspoken traditions of the bush was ‘the drover’s boy’, an Aboriginal wife who could not be acknowledged, but who would be a partner for life on the road and at home.
SOME OF THE NATIVE PLANTS IN THIS BOOK
She-oak — Allocasuarina spp, probably glauca
Christmas bush, thorn bush — Bursaria spinosa
Gorse, bitter-pea — Daviesi
a ulicifolia
Cascade everlasting — Ozothamnus secundiflorus
Native sarsaparilla — Hardenbergia violacea
Austral Indigo — Indigofera australis
Native heath, heather — Kunzea spp
Snow gum — Eucalyptus pauciflora, E. dalrympleana,
E. rubida, E. viminalis and E. stellulata
Snow grass, tussock — Poa spp
Narrow-leaved peppermint — E. radiata
Alpine ash — E. delegatensis
Red shaggies, royal grevillea — Grevillea victoriae
Hop bush — Dodonaea spp
Native cherry — Exocarpos cupressiformis
Yam daisy, murnong — Microseris lanceolata
I have deliberately not given any clue about the fungus Mrs Clancy uses in this book. Fungi can be and often are fatal if not correctly used and identified. The source of the green ointment and the wattle species she recommends are also left deliberately vague. The bush is a living larder and chemist shop, but it takes many years to learn what can be safely used, and how to do it, and as long to learn how to diagnose medical conditions. Please don’t attempt to learn either except from well-qualified and experienced practitioners or widely recognised places of study.
TIMELINE OF BOOKS
The Girl from Snowy River is part of The Matilda Saga:
A Waltz for Matilda (1894–1915)
A Rose for the Anzac Boys (1915–20)
The Girl from Snowy River (1919–26)
The trilogy above will be followed by another three sequels, covering the era 1932–72. The final book in the series will be set in 1969–72, when the wounded Vietnam veteran of The Girl from Snowy River wheels himself down to the Rock and meets the girl from the past, and when Flinty Mack, Matilda and ‘Nancy of The Overflow’ dance to the most ancient music of their land. Although my book Somewhere Around the Corner is set in the Depression and Pennies for Hitler covers the years 1939–42, these tell unrelated stories.
Acknowledgments
A book like this is made up of gifts from many people, over many years, sharing their skills and knowledge of the land. Once again the ‘two Kates’, Kate Burnitt and Kate O’Donnell, guided and cosseted book and author to make it the best book possible. To Lisa Berryman and Liz Kemp too, I owe more than I can express. They assess the manuscript, rip it apart and show me where it should be mended. Mostly, they demand that I write the difficult parts, the ones where I’d rather say, ‘And the rest is a row of dots…’ Without their determination, unfailing honesty and friendship, this, like so many of my books, would be a shadow of what it might be. Many, many thanks as well to Jane Waterhouse who took the words of the book and created the perfect image to go with it.
Angela Marshall, with this book as with so many others, not only turned pages of badly spelled and scarcely punctuated mess into an acceptable form, but added her encyclopaedic knowledge of horsemanship and history, as we exchanged emails about her lambs and my wombats, our respective vegetable gardens and offspring.
And of course my debt to the poets and songwriters long gone. I fell in love with ‘Clancy of The Overflow’ when I was seven years old, and the vision of the bush created by Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson. It may not quite be the ‘bush’ I found (they did tend to leave out the women, except in severely restricted roles as mother, wife and sweetheart), but I lived with their words till I was old enough to find the bush myself. My love always to my husband Bryan, who helped take men to the moon rather than droving cattle up to Queensland, but who shares Clancy’s love, kindness and knowledge of the land.
Perhaps I owe most gratitude to the valley and the mountains where I live. They and their inhabitants, human and otherwise, are the heart of the book, and of my life.
About the Author
Jackie French is a full-time writer and wombat negotiator. She writes fiction and non-fiction for all ages, and has columns in the print media. Jackie is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors and has won numerous awards. She writes across all genres — from picture books and history to science fiction.
www.jackiefrench.com
Other Books by Jackie French
Historical
Somewhere Around the Corner • Dancing with Ben Hall
Soldier on the Hill • Daughter of the Regiment
Hitler’s Daughter • Lady Dance • The White Ship
How the Finnegans Saved the Ship • Valley of Gold
Tom Appleby, Convict Boy • They Came on Viking Ships
Macbeth and Son • Pharaoh • A Rose for the Anzac Boys
Oracle • The Night They Stormed Eureka
A Waltz for Matilda • Nanberry: Black Brother White
Pennies for Hitler
Fiction
Rain Stones • Walking the Boundaries • The Secret Beach
Summerland • Beyond the Boundaries
A Wombat Named Bosco • The Book of Unicorns
The Warrior — The Story of a Wombat • Tajore Arkle
Missing You, Love Sara • Dark Wind Blowing
Ride the Wild Wind: The Golden Pony and Other Stories
Non-Fiction
Seasons of Content • A Year in the Valley
How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri
Invaded My Maths Class and Turned Me into a Writer
How to Guzzle Your Garden • The Book of Challenges
Stamp, Stomp, Whomp
The Fascinating History of Your Lunch
Big Burps, Bare Bums and Other Bad-Mannered Blunders
To the Moon and Back • Rocket Your Child into Reading
The Secret World of Wombats
How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?
The Animal Stars Series
1. The Goat Who Sailed the World
2. The Dog Who Loved a Queen
3. The Camel Who Crossed Australia
4. The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded
5. The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger
6. Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent
Outlands Trilogy
In the Blood • Blood Moon • Flesh and Blood
School for Heroes Series
Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior
Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs
Wacky Families Series
1. My Dog the Dinosaur • 2. My Mum the Pirate
3. My Dad the Dragon • 4. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome
5. My Uncle Wal the Werewolf • 6. My Gran the Gorilla
7. My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken
8. My Pa the Polar Bear
Phredde Series
1. A Phaery Named Phredde
2. Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce
3. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian
4. Phredde and the Temple of Gloom
5. Phredde and the Leopard-Skin Librarian
6. Phredde and the Purple Pyramid
7. Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team
8. Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants
Picture Books
Diary of a Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley)
Josephine Wants to Dance (with Bruce Whatley)
The Shaggy Gully Times (with Bruce Whatley)
Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip (with Bruce Whatley)
Baby Wombat’s Week (with Bruce Whatley)
Queen Victoria’s Underpants (with Bruce Whatley)
The Tomorrow Book (with Sue deGennaro)
Christmas Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
A Day to Remember (with Mark Wilson)
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2012
This edition published in 2012
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jackie French 2012
The right of Jackie French to be identified as the au
thor of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollins Publishers
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10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
French, Jackie.
The girl from Snowy River / Jackie French.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 9310 9 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 0 7304 9376 1 (epub)
French, Jackie. Matilda saga ; 2.
For ages 10+
Country life — New South Wales — Snowy Mountains Region — Juvenile fiction.
Orphans — New South Wales — Snowy Mountains Region — Juvenile fiction.
Australia — Social conditions — 1918–1922 — Juvenile fiction.
A823.3
Cover design by Jane Waterhouse, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: Girl © Jutta Klee/ableimages/Corbis; Mount Hotham by Peter
Walton Photography/Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com
The Girl from Snowy River Page 28