Banjo Paterson

📍Illalong, near Yass, NSW 2582, Australia

“I was born at Narambla, near Orange in New South Wales, in 1864, the eldest of seven children, and when I was a small boy my family took over my uncle's sheep station at Illalong, near Yass. Illalong lay close to the main road between Sydney and Melbourne, and from our home I watched the life of the bush pass by: bullock teams, Cobb and Co coaches, drovers with mobs of cattle, shearers, swagmen and horsemen of every kind. I learned to ride almost as soon as I could walk. At first a governess taught me at home, and once I could ride a pony I went to the little bush school at Binalong. Horses were everything to me; I rode to school, rode with the stockmen, and went to picnic race meetings and polo matches in the district. I listened to the yarns and songs of the bush workers, and their stories of wild rides, droughts and flooded rivers stayed in my head. The landscape of the Yass and Binalong district, its hills, creeks and stations, was the country I wrote about for the rest of my life. At ten I went to Sydney Grammar School and lived with my grandmother, Emily Barton, at Gladesville, where she encouraged my love of poetry. I became a solicitor, but in 1885 I began sending ballads to The Bulletin under the name The Banjo, after a racehorse my family owned. The Man from Snowy River, Clancy of the Overflow and Waltzing Matilda followed. Those Illalong years gave me my characters, my rhythms and my love of the bush, and today a memorial at Illalong marks the place where I grew up.”

Sources: monumentaustralia.org morethanourchildhoods.org alldownunder.com Wikipedia: Banjo Paterson