The Longyard Legends is an award to recognise individuals, groups or organisations for their outstanding contribution to the advancement and promotion of bush poetry in Australia.
The Longyard Legends for 2008 were awarded to:-
Ellis Campbell
and
The Naked Poets
If you go to Tamworth drop in to the Longyard Hotel and have a cold one in the Goonoo Goonoo Room while you peruse the Longyard Legends bush poetry awards.
| Longyard Legends 2008 |
for his continued successes in over three hundred written competitions, his contribution to bush poetry writing workshops and his column Writing Tips.
. . . more about Ellis Campbell. |
| as a group, for taking bush poetry to new audiences nationally and for their input into the continuing resurgence of one of the finest forms of entertainment available, the spoken word. |
| After a lapse of ten years the once popular Poets Wall of Renown has been re-established at the Longyard Hotel. Annually at the Fireside Festival held in June each year, bush poets were inducted acknowledging their contribution to bush poetry with eighteen poets added to the list up until 1998.
The Australian Bush Laureate Awards were introduced in January 1996 at the Longyard, but because of crowd numbers, that ceremony eventually found a new home at the Tamworth Town Hall. From 1998 the photographic display was discontinued and eventually removed from the Goonoo Goonoo (pronounced Gunny Ganoo) room into storage. |
| Longyard Legends 1992 - 1998 |
| was born and educated in Brisbane and spent most of her life in rural Queensland. Until retirement she taught speech and drama, music and English, but she always found time to devote to her family Jay, Sally, Zita, Rachel, Nora, Eylece and Bill in addition to her other great interest, rhymed poetry.
Carmel has travelled extensively throughout Australia performing Australian Bush Poetry - Traditional, Established and Original. In 1997, 1999 and 2001 she appeared at the Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Nevada USA.
Carmel has won many awards for her writing including the prestigious Bronze Swagman Award in 1996 and in 1999, the 'The 1995 Battered Bugle Award' and the 'Ernie Setterfield Shield'.
At Winton in 1995 Carmel was acknowledged as the Reserve Champion Lady Performer of the Australian Bush Poets Association.
Carmel was a founding member of the Australian Bush Poets Association Inc and worked hard to establish the judging rules and categories for competitions. |
| This very funny award-winning humourist was spotted by Judith Durham of the Seekers in 1986 whilst performing comedy in the Noosa area north of Brisbane.
Shirley, already a 1985 winner of the Noosa National Play Competition, became a popular performing stand up poet at every major festival across the nation.
Her confidence and experience has taken her to great heights in the Bush Poetry movement having performed throughout the three eastern states from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the southern most points in Victoria.
She is cheeky, she is charming, and presents a collection of the most outlandish poems imaginable. Always the brunt of her own jokes and poetic situations.
Shirley is not backward in coming forward with many of the sometimes-embarrassing predicaments in her life.
Her enthusiasm for the lighter side of life reminds us that 'laughter is the best medicine' and followers of her performances and readers of her books are immediately addicted to her work.
In 1996 Shirley won the coveted "Pat Glover Story Telling Award" at the premier Port Fairy Festival in Victoria.
In 1998 Shirley was inducted to the Wall of Renown at the Fireside Festival at the Longyard Hotel in Tamworth. |
| was born in the small Victorian town of Kyabram, has lived and worked there all his life and has been presenting monologues and singing at local functions for a good part of it. He began writing verse around 1980 and won many prestigious competitions with classic poems such as "Skew Wiff Kelly", "Patches" and "Gladys". He became Australian Limerick Champion in 1991, produced a very successful book and an album of his verse and was first president and co-founder of the Kyabram Bush Verse Group. Grahame has spent many years preserving our heritage and promoting bush verse in Victoria. |
| was born and raised at Bungendore on the NSW Southern Tablelands. A fifth generation Aussie he was educated by the Sisters of St Joseph and made very aware of his Irish heritage by his mother.
Frank worked at many jobs such as drover, roughrider and farming contractor before establishing his own trucking business.
Although he had written verse since the 1970s it wasn't until 1993 that a meeting with Col Wilson and Jim Haynes launched his career as a performer. Frank is also known as one of Australia's best story-tellers and has promoted Bush Verse as President of the Bush Poets' Association. |
| our first recipient of the Bush Poets Wall of Renown honour for 1996 was born at Miles, on the Western Darling Downs and turned a childhood love of Banjo Paterson into a passionate pastime by writing and reciting bush verse. His 'bush credentials' are a unique blend of experiences working in drought relief, agricultural research, fat lamb production and grain farming. With his brother he founded the Bellow Park Shorthorn Stud and went on to notch up ten Brisbane Royal Show Championships. In 1986 a car accident, spinal surgery and an extended recovery led him to start writing bush verse.
He began performing in 1993, won five major Bush Poetry Championships in 1994 and took out the first Waltzing Matilda National Title at Winton in April 1995. |
| Our second recipient of the Bush Poets Wall of Renown for 1996 grew up on dairy farms around the Lismore area in Northern NSW. He left school at fourteen and worked in the sugar mill until he joined the navy in 1960. After ten years service and some time as a cellarman in a Sydney pub he moved back north and bought his own dairy farm. His vivid childhood memories of NorthCoast life, together with his unique style and sense of humour have made him a great favourite with audiences since he began writing and reciting his verse in 1991. He produced his first book in 1993 and his album was a finalist in the Bush Laureate Awards of 1996. He was Champion Poet at the National Country Music Muster in 1995. He is "The Mullumbimby Bloke". |
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| was born and bred near the small publess, blink and miss town of Myponga on the picturesque Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide where he grew up with a love of the land. On leaving school he worked the family sheep property and in between busy times worked as a rouseabout and later as a shearer.
He inherited his fathers warped sense of humour and spending his early years in the ribald atmosphere of shearing sheds developed an outlook on life which allowed him to see the funny side of most situations.
His first book Blasted Crows was in its fifth print inside three years and was quickly followed by Blood on the Board. |
| was born in 1923 on a small farm west of Mackay in northern Queensland and, armed with the basics, having missed a secondary education through the depression years, started his career as a stockman on Alexandria Station on the Barkly Tablelands of the Northern Territory, an occupation that carried him through the rest of his working life.
Bruce won the inaugural, and now coveted and most prestigious Bronze Swagman Award for Bush Verse in 1972 and again in 1975. In 1990 he toured the United States with a group organized by the Australian Stockmen's Hall of Fame and the American Western Folklore Center. |
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| was born in Sydney and went to school in the Bankstown district before joining his parents in a house painting venture in the bush. A real love of the outback soon developed and Bobby continued to travel the bush with an earthmoving business.
He began writing poems while waiting for the next stages of jobs to be ready and began to share them with his mates and family. It was obvious that they struck an immediate chord with real Aussies so Bobby began to enter, and win, verse competitions including the 'Blackened Billy' in 1992.
After a lot of coaxing he began to recite his verse in 1993 and another great Bush Poetry performer, "The Larrikin", was born. Bobby now lives in the rural town of Mungar, in Southern Queensland. |
| was from the Fitzroy Falls area but spent several years farming near Goulburn before settling at Wagga Wagga. Ted worked with Telecom for 38 years and was also a bee-keeper and poultry breeder. His skill with the spoons and bones led to a distinguished involvement in Bush Music and his band The Bush Bandicoots won the first two Tamworth Battles of the Bushbands. As a reciter, with his distinctive thumb in waistcoat and swishing hat, he was known at festivals all over the country. He made two solo albums of bush verse, gave life to the words of some fine Australian poets and inspired many to take up reciting. He was on hand to help out with the very first bush poetry event at the Longyard. Ted died on January 25th, 1991. |
| - "Blue The Shearer" was born and raised in the outer Sydney suburb of Wentworthville. He moved to the bush in 1968 and spent the rest of his life there, retiring as Regional Director of Youth and Community Services in 1986.
Col has had an interest in the mechanics of rhyme for as long as he can remember and began writing topical poems and plays on demand from the locals. Such classics as The Cross-Eyed Bull and Esmerelda eventually led to regular spots on ABC Radio through 2CR and then 2BL and the Regional Network. Col produced five volumes of collected verse and was in constant demand to perform around the country. He lives in Wellington with his wife of 45 years who is affectionately known as The Resident Censor. |
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| spent all her life on the black soil plains of northwest NSW so it is not surprising that her very original poetry was written from the point of view of various farm animals. Her spirited recitation of this poetry led to her winning two major awards at Tamworth in 1988 and 1989 and being chosen to represent Australian Bush Poetry at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Nevada USA in 1990. Marion published two collections of her verse and drawings Among Udder Things and Some More Udder Nonsense. She made her recording debut at the Longyard in 1991 on the album The Bush Poets - Live!. |
| claims to be from the mythical town of Weelabarabak. Others say he was raised on the shores of Botany Bay and went bush as a young man. He taught in outback schools, sold sapphires, worked in radio, pursued an academic career and taught Literature, Writing and Drama. As a professional entertainer, Bush Poet and songwriter he toured extensively in Australia and overseas. He was special guest at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Nevada USA in 1993, appeared at Expo'92 in Spain and organized and hosted the Bush Poets' Breakfasts and Fireside Festival at The Longyard since their inception. He recorded several albums of songs and poems on the EMI label. |
| was born and raised in the Moree district. Urged on by some rugby mates he entered and won the Original section of the first Bush Poetry Competition held at the Longyard Hotel (1987). Murray subsequently stayed on in Tamworth as a reporter on the regional newspaper, The Northern Daily Leader. Always a keen sportsman and observer of human behaviour, his poetry varies from social commentary to unbelievably tall tales. He has toured Australia as a Bush Poet, and poetry from his book A Few Quiet Words, has been featured on national radio programmes such as the Alan Jones Show. Murray has been a popular part of bush poetry at The Longyard right from the start. |
| was born in Leeton in the Riverina, developed a love of Australian poetry as a kid in the thirties, and has been reciting and spinning yarns ever since. He worked in a variety of rural industries as an orchardist, wheat and rice grower, cattle farmer, farm goods salesman and for the Department of Agriculture on the brucellosis eradication scheme. John won the Traditional section of the first Bush Poetry Competition held at The Longyard and has played a vital part in the poetry events there ever since. He made many bus tours around Australia as resident story teller and reciter for Hannaford's Coaches. |
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| was born in the great depression and raised around Rockhampton, Queensland. He won numerous awards for his poetry including several Banjo Paterson Awards and worked tirelessly to keep isolated writers in touch with one another from his home in Thangool, Central Queensland. A familiar figure at poetry gatherings and Folk Festivals Charlee published a collection of verse as well as a collection of cricket stories. He was acclaimed "Liar of the Week" by the other poets at the first Bush Poets' Breakfast Festival held at the Longyard in January 1991. |
| is a Queenslander who represented the new wave of young bush poets. He had a distinctive style of narration with a strong rhythm and a good ear for the vocabulary and speech patterns of the bush. Marco won major awards for both original poetry and traditional recitation and performs in schools for the Arts Council and organised poetry events for the Folk Federation. In true bush tradition his verse varies from the sentimental and stirring to the hilarious. Marco launched his first book of poetry The Cakemaker's Revenge at the Longyard in January 1992. |
| spent much of her life as a bushman's wife and raised her family on outback properties. She retired to Tamworth where she wrote her first poem at the age of seventy-two. She has written everything from gospel songs to poetry about the hardship of the old bush life but is perhaps best known for her humorous classics such as That Avocado. A great character, she produced books and tapes of her poetry, appeared at festivals and on TV and radio and was a much-loved performer at the Longyard Poetry Festivals in June and January. |
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