Fannie Bay to Flemington: Living Bush Legends

by Barrie McMahon

Overview

The soul of Australia is captured in its legends. Some we invent, like the Man From Snowy River while others, such as Ned Kelly, we anoint. Animals share this legendary status. Phar Lap and Red Dog have captured our hearts as compellingly as Crocodile Dundee or the Man with the Donkey.
Though we live in cities, our legends stem from our dying bush culture, from the cattle musters, the remote communities and the bush races. The story of Shane Clarke, bushman, horse breaker, trainer and Aussie battler, who arrived in devastated Darwin after cyclone Tracy, and reject horse Undue, illustrates that bush legends regenerate and endure.
Legends are made when the odds are beaten. Such was the case with Darwin trained horse Undue. Never taken seriously except on the Fannie Bay dirt oil track, horse and trainer captured 'down south', plundering the stake money and the bookies' bags to become the only Darwin trained horse ever to win Group 1 races.
Perhaps bush culture is not dying and we are just looking in the wrong place. We need to look from Fannie Bay to Flemington.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940033024766
Publisher:	Barrie McMahon
Publication date:	01/05/2012
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Barrie McMahon loves a good story particularly one that reflects his lifelong interest in Australian history, communication and folklore. It is a fascination with how people's lifestyles reflect and reshape their cultures.
The same focus on culture and communication is evident in his work as a professional educator. As co-author with Robyn Quin he has written many media text books for teachers and students and with Jan McMahon captured the folklore of the Darwin racing culture in Fannie Bay to Flemington: Living Bush Legends (Vivid Publishing 2011).
His novel Copyboy satisfies his passion for spinning a good yarn while at the same time examines how the immediate post World War II Perth community interacted with the dominant medium of the time, the newspaper, to engage with and reshape the traditional Australian ethos.
Barrie is an old bloke, old enough to have faint childhood memories of that era. He has lived in Perth, Western Australia most of his life. He and Jan have two married sons, four grandchildren and through long term friendships are part of various extended families whose cultures they celebrate.