A BUSH poet and proud ambassador for Glen Innes whose verses brought to life tales of droving, shearing, bushrangers and boxing tents has died at the age of 91.
Col Newsome, who championed pioneering history and peppered it with colourful anecdotes, passed away on Sunday night following a brief illness.
Born in October 1916, Colin John Newsome was one of four children of Reginald and Jessica Elsie (nee Cole). Two years after the death of his mother in 1923, his father married Nellie Cole, a union which produced a further four children.
Col's early years were spent on a farm near Wellingrove, where he was instilled with a love of literature at the little school there. Working as a farm labourer by his mid-teens, at the age of 16 he took, with his father, 6000 sheep to Whip Handle Creek east of Bolivia, shepherding them during drought.
A keen cricketer who played for Wellingrove in the 1930s and 1940s, on the outbreak of the Second World War he joined up, serving in New Guinea twice, where he contracted malaria but did not see active service. It was apparently during this time that he began his writing career with a poem called The Yellow and Blue, which was later set to music and became a marching song.
After the war, he worked as a shearer, drover and bushman in NSW and Queensland, becoming more and more fascinated by stories of bushrangers and the sort of colourful characters that he himself would become. During a time in the late 1940's he was for two years a member of Jimmy Sharman's touring boxing troupe, visiting shows in country towns and cities, and in 1947 he won an Australian Bullock Riding Championship at Glen Innes, one of several such titles.
In 1951 he married Phyllis Litchfield, with whom he had three children - Stephen, Elsie and Laurie, bringing them up on a block not far from town on the Emmaville Road that he drew in a soldier settler ballot.
With themes of bush humour and tragedy inspired by Henry Lawson, his first of 11 books, 'Drovers Camp', was published in 1956, the title poem surely being quite revolutionary at the time for its expression of equal rights for Aboriginal people. But his compositions were not restricted to verse, and he was a regular letter writer to the Examiner during the 1950s, particularly about the shearers' strike but also on topics as wide ranging as tethering cows in streets, help for Hungarians, schemes for the unemployed and a fair wage.
A long time supporter of the underdog, he gave a voice to those who suffered hardship, or whose view of the world may not have agreed with officialdom at the time. It was something he touched on regularly, such as his book on Aboriginal bushranger Black Tommy: "He wasn't a criminal in the same way that people think Thunderbolt was a criminal," he said in a 2000 interview with this writer. "He was described in the papers as a desperado because the papers only got the police reports. His good deeds were not recorded."
Mr Newsome was made a life member of the Australian Labor Party in 1996, and in 2004, the Australian Rural Worker's Union.
A winner of numerous bush poetry competitions across eastern Australia, many of his poems were broadcast nationally in the 1970s and '80's by Colin Munro on ABC Radio's Australia All Over.
To son Laurie, he was a social activist often ahead of his time.
"He believed in respect, social goodness and freedom for all people and beings...both from oppression, and just as importantly, of expression," he said.
Grand-daughter Cassie Newsome, whose What About Life horseride from Brisbane to Sydney was inspired by a walk her grandfather and others did to raise money for Westmead Children's Hospital, said she had fond memories of her grandfather giving lessons in bush skills including butchering a sheep, and reading poetry to her class at Glen Innes Public School.
"His favourite poem was the Gympie Giant, and he recited it to a friend at Roseneath only a few weeks ago," she said.
Glen Innes tourism manager Wendy Fahey described Mr Newsome as "the heart and soul of bush poetry" who would be missed.
"He was the one behind the poets breakfast at the Australian Bush Music Festival in the 1990s, and followed with that into the Land of the Beardies and even a Celtic Festival.," she said.
"In the early days of the Visitors Centre he would often introduce coachloads of tourists to Australian culture, and international visitors were enthralled - if at times baffled by the slang. Col was happy to be an identity out the front, as well as working behind the scenes, he believed in experiencing life rather than making a lot of money, and brought to life so much of our early history," she said.
Pre-deceased by his wife Phyllis who died in 1982, Mr Newsome is survived by his special friend Sybil Sharman; children Stephen, Elsie and Laurie, grandchildren Sandra Gully, Matt Reynolds, Belinda Jillett, Stevie-Lea Newsome and Cassie Newsome, and great grandchildren Eden Reynolds, Lani Reynolds, Jake Jillett, Sarah Jillett and Lily Gully.
His funeral will be held at St Patrick's Catholic Church at 11am tomorrow, followed by refreshments at the Services Club.
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