Amazing story of ginger Mick.

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Goulburn, NSW
So picture this.

Its 1932 and Australia is in the grip of the Great Depression.
One in three workers are unemployed.
Decrepit shanty towns hug the outskirts of the big cities.
A scrawny rabbit caught in a trap will feed a family for a week.
Country roads are filled with broken men walking from one farmhouse to another seeking menial jobs and food.

On the outskirts of the South Gippsland town of Leongatha, an injured farmer lies in bed unable to walk or work.
World War I hero Captain Leo Tennyson Gwyther is in hospital with a broken leg and the family farm is in danger of falling into ruins.

Up steps his son, nine-year-old Lennie.
With the help of his pony Ginger Mick, Lennie ploughs the farms 24 paddocks and keeps the place running until his father can get back on his feet.

How to reward him?

Lennie has been obsessively following one of the biggest engineering feats of the era the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
He wants to attend its opening.
With great reluctance, his parents agree he can go.

So Lennie saddles up Ginger Mick, packs a toothbrush, pyjamas, spare clothes and a water bottle into a sack, and begins the 1000+ kilometre trek to Sydney.

Alone.

Thats right.

A nine-year-old boy riding a pony from the deep south of Victoria to the biggest and roughest city in the nation.

Told you it was a different era.

No social media.

No mobile phones.

But even then it doesnt take long before word begins to spread about a boy, his horse and their epic trek.

The entire population of small country towns gather on their outskirts to welcome his arrival.

He survives bushfires, is attacked by a vagabond and endures rain
and cold, biting winds.

When he reaches Canberra he is welcomed by Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, who invites him into Parliament House for tea.

When he finally arrives in Sydney, more than 10,000 people line the
streets to greet him.
He is besieged by autograph hunters.
He becomes a key part of the official parade at the bridges opening.
He and Ginger Mick are invited to make a starring appearance at the Royal Show.
Even Donald Bradman, the biggest celebrity of the Depression era,
requests a meeting and gives him a signed cricket bat.

A letter writer to The Sydney Morning Herald at the time gushes that just such an example as provided by a child of nine summers, Lennie Gwyther was, and is, needed to raise the spirit of our people and to fire our youth and others to do things not to talk only.
The sturdy pioneer spirit is not dead let it be remembered that this little lad, when his father was in hospital, cultivated the farm a
mere child.

When Lennie leaves Sydney for home a month later, he has become one of the most famous figures in a country craving uplifting news.

Large crowds wave handkerchiefs.
Women weep and shout goodbye.
According to The Sun newspaper, Lennie, being a casual Australian, swung into the saddle and called Toodleloo!.

He finally arrives home to a tumultuous reaction in Leongatha.

He returns to school and soon life for Lennie and the country returns to normal.

These days you can find a bronze statue in Leongatha commemorating Lennie and Ginger Mick.

But Australia has largely forgotten his remarkable feat and how he inspired a struggling nation.

Never taught about him in school?

Never heard of him before?

Spread the word.

We need to remember and celebrate Lennie Gwyther and his courageous journey.

It's a great story.

God knows we need these stories now, more than ever.

Stolen from Garry Linnell's article in The New Daily

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Wow, what a tale. Why in the fifty,s and sixty,s was my generation being taught about the roman and british empires in history classes. Instead of :goldpan: :goldpan: stories like this.
On the same theme look up the history of SirHubert Wilkins, one of our greatest explorers and adventurers. If he was born in nealy any other country he would be a national hero,
But in oz he barely rates a mention.
Jim
 
reynard said:
Wow, what a tale. Why in the fifty,s and sixty,s was my generation being taught about the roman and british empires in history classes. Instead of :goldpan: :goldpan: stories like this.
On the same theme look up the history of SirHubert Wilkins, one of our greatest explorers and adventurers. If he was born in nealy any other country he would be a national hero,
But in oz he barely rates a mention.
Jim
It's all to do with us being tied to the british/monarchy apron strings; be it conscious or sub-conscious.
Educated from an early age about queen and country,[I love god and my country and will honor the queen] plus endless endless british shows on TV.
And it's still happening now,we'll never be allowed to get away from the british and become ALLSTRALIANS :lol: :lol:
 
reynard said:
Wow, what a tale. Why in the fifty,s and sixty,s was my generation being taught about the roman and british empires in history classes. Instead of :goldpan: :goldpan: stories like this.
On the same theme look up the history of SirHubert Wilkins, one of our greatest explorers and adventurers. If he was born in nealy any other country he would be a national hero,
But in oz he barely rates a mention.
Jim

Because without the Roman invasion it wouldn't of happened.
 
in reading about the great australian gold fields and the lives of the peoples on them. l tend to feel some how cheated by the victorian education department of the day 1960's in regards to local history, just happy l didn't have to learn french
 
Because without the Roman invasion it wouldn't of happened.
And to be fair, we had lots of Australian explorers etc on the syllabus in the 1950s and 1960s (Burke and Wills, Scott, Sturt, Leichardt, Mitchell, Stuart, Giles)- and we had only been independent of Britain for a bit over 50 years and were still part of the British Empire (not British Commonwealth) up until about when I was born in the late 1940s). Our parents fought alongside British troops in many cases. We had God Save the Queen (initially King) as our National Anthem, and many had parents and most grandparents who still spoke of "back home" (UK). At the end of ww2 most Australians were of dominantly immediate British descent and trying to ignore a British part convict or indigenous ancestry, and our law was British Law (which aint the same as Roman-Dutch such as I lived under elsewhere). We learnt Henry Lawson, Dorothy McKellar, Neville Shute and Banjo Patterson in English class. The first real split was probably when Britain joined the European Common Market and our farmers realized that blood was not as thick as money....

And the Romans were the first to "civilize" the Brits (semi-naked Celts painted in woad who had initiation rights involving cattle, who could not even speak proper English!). Such is life..... :rolleyes:
 
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