Flashback: The 1980 Ned Kelly Centenary Festival [Sharon Hollingsworth]

NOTE- this was first published back on February 18, 2005 at Dave White's glenrowan1880 website. I figured it was high time for it to be brought back into the light as this festival has been much discussed and alluded to on many forums and facebook groups. Please excuse the formatting of the text as I had cut and pasted  my old article (and edited out dead links, etc) but blogger has a mind of its own! THE NED KELLY CENTENARY FESTIVAL Written by Sharon Hollingsworth, North American Correspondent, Glenrowan1880.com Everyone who knows me, knows that I love to hunt for facts and solve mysteries. I can't rest until I find solutions to puzzles and conundrums that have caught my fancy. My latest Sherlock Holmes type exercise involved the Ned Kelly Centenary Festival, which was supposedly held a quarter of a century ago at Winton, Victoria on November 7, 8, and 9, 1980. My quest began because at another Kelly website, and on ebay from time to time, I had seen a souvenir programme booklet for the Ned Kelly Centenary Festival. Further checking on the other Kelly website showed that there was a recording called 'Ned Kelly 100 Years a Hero' released as a souvenir of the Festival. What sort of threw me off was that the blurb (at least last time I looked!) said that it was "produced in 2000 by Bail Records." Having seen a photo of the back cover, I think the confusion set in as 2000 was a postal code of an address on the back. This was originally produced in 1980. My curiosity was piqued! Why had I never heard anything about this event? No one online had ever mentioned it in feedbacks or in articles, no one had claimed they had attended it and I have seen no photos of it. Granted it took place in the pre-internet days, but folks love to rub it in and carry on about some great one time only experience they had that you never will (witness the original Woodstock)! I decided to go to the google search engine (in other words I 'googled' it!) and found only 3 entries. The first two were from that other Kelly site already mentioned (about the booklet and recording). Where it got really intriguing was the third entry which turned out to be something of a red herring! The website that google took me to was a sort of travelogue of someone who had visited Australia and toured all around. They said that while in Beechworth they visited a bookshop and that they "...discovered a pile of old 'Ned Kelly Centenary Festival' programmes from 1980. For some reason, it never took place, but the literature had already been printed up and was full of articles on their hero." So the plot thickened! So I had the clues of a booklet and recording being made, no mention anywhere on the event actually going on and now this individual giving this information on a website, which obviously someone had to have related that "fact" to him. I decided to dig deeper and ask around to see if any of the 'usual suspects' in Kelly circles had any idea what the go was. Several people had told me that they had heard it did not go on or that they heard it had been cancelled and so on. A couple of people had said they always just assumed it had happened but they had heard nothing of it beyond reading the festival programme booklet. So again I found myself without a clear answer. I was told that Tapsell's Bookshop (in Beechworth) had stacks and stacks of the programmes available for $2 a copy. Again this added to the assumption that if they had "thousands" of them then maybe it did not go on as related by the punter above? I knew I needed a copy of this booklet myself before I could proceed further. Dave White sent me one and I was very impressed with the content. The Ned Kelly Centenary Festival souvenir programme booklet was dedicated to "MAGGIE SKILLION-the fifth or forgotten member of the Kelly gang." Looking through this I was able to find out that the director of the festival was Mr. Peter Galvin. I was able to locate Mr. Galvin and get the story from "the horse's mouth" so to speak. I found that the Ned Kelly Centenary Festival most certainly did go on! I have an interview I conducted with Mr. Galvin below. He was most gracious and friendly and helpful. But first, to set the stage, let's see what was on the schedule of events for that weekend in November of 1980. The festival kicked off on Friday November 7th with the gates opening at 6:00 P.M. Admission fee was $8.50 per day and children under 14 accompanied by adults were admitted free. A weekend ticket for Friday through Sunday cost $16.00. But what a bargain it was as the festival was chockful of entertainment and fun! According to the booklet there were around 20 musical acts to perform. Among those scheduled were the Bushwackers Band, Redgum, Reg Poole, Ted Egan, Carrl Myriad Band, Eric Bogle, Johnny Chester and Hotspur, Bush Turkey and many others. Quite a few plays and re-enactments were to be presented. The plays "The Jerilderie Weekend" and "The Kate Kelly Roadshow" (by Frank Hatherley) were on the schedule Re-enactments such as one on bushranging called "The Chain Gang" and Kelly related ones such as "The Fitzpatrick Incident," "Stringybark Creek," "The Kellys Wouldn't Run," "Robbery on the Benalla Road," "The Shooting of Aaron Sherritt," and "Glenrowan" [see photo at bottom] were also on the agenda. Other events and activities over the long weekend included a damper bakeoff, harness show, stockhorse events, a cross country horse race, billy boiling, yarn spinning, bush fun run and marathon wood chopping. As if all that was not enough to get one's Kelly groove on, there was to be a forum led by Dr. John McQuilton, a showing of historical Kelly films, carnival rides, amusements and exhibitions, as well as bush and folk music workshops and a special Guinness Book of World Records attempt! The souvenir programme booklet itself also contained articles about the Kellys which included "Fallout From Stringybark Creek," (by Doug Morrissey) and "Did Ned Get a Fair Trial?" and interestingly there is a reprint of the 1880 pamphlet called "Kelly's Defence" (by a lady). One final bit before getting to the interview with Mr. Galvin is this bit taken from the festival booklet. In the section called "History of the Festival-how it came to pass" is the question "Why Winton?" The answer: "When the idea was first conceived, we looked around for a suitable venue in the Glenrowan area. At the time, the local media publicised our search for a Festival site, and we received an offer from the Benalla Auto Club, suggesting the viability of the Winton Recreation Reserve. After considerable investigation, it was decided that the Winton Reserve was the only suitable site in "Kelly Country" that would be able to cope with the crowd that we anticipated would attend. Winton also had the added advantage of being situated centrally in the heart of Kelly Country, just 6km from the Kelly Homestead in Greta, 15km from Glenrowan, 12km from Benalla, and was the site of the former Winton Grog Shop, where disgraced Constable Fitzpatrick drank for many hours before he set off to arrest Dan Kelly, but ended up assaulting Ned Kelly's mother and sisters. This incident led to Ned's mother being jailed for three years, and was the spark that ignited the Kelly legend. What a combination!! The site of a coward's self-vindication to the site of massive people's commemoration. At this festival we stand on the site of history, but such is life!" .............................................. Below is an email interview I conducted with Peter Galvin, the director of the Ned Kelly Centenary Festival. Sharon: Hi, Peter, I hope you didn't take any offence that myself along with many others had thought this Festival did not actually eventuate! I have always wondered why we never have heard anyone say they attended or have not seen any photos of it on the net. Perhaps with this story, some may come forward and offer up their accounts of it. So tell me, what made you come up with the idea of staging a Centenary Festival? Who else was involved in the planning? Were you a Ned Kelly fan from way back? Peter: The Kelly Festival was in fact the idea of many like minded people who were loosely associated through an ambitious magazine called the Independent Australian, the Bushwackers Band and also the Builders Labourers Union. The Festival came about when a number of us who were involved in the promotion of an independent Australian culture saw the centenary as a way of highlighting Australia's unique culture. Ned Kelly epitomised to us the ideal that Australians did not need to be subservient to anyone else's culture. We were all great fans of the Kelly legend. The Festival became our field of dreams and was at least a decade before its time. I have no doubt that it was our politicisation of the Kelly legend that led to our event being ignored by history, because in a sense we failed to capture the support of the traditional Kelly aficionado, the mainstream folk music scene and the local area community. Sharon: Peter, tell us how many people did attend the Festival and relate to the readers here what you had told me earlier about why the attendance count was lower than you had hoped for. Seems like a run of bad luck and some unfortunate circumstances just prior to it. Peter: We had about 3,000 paying customers and about 1,000 others (workers, performers etc) and was a wonderful event for those that attended. It was a financial disaster for the organisers (a group of 5 friends were the company, organisers and financiers) being about 2,000 people short of break even. Unfortunately it rained solidly in the week leading up to the Festival and there was a petrol transport strike which combined to stop people coming up from Melbourne especially and also down from Sydney. The Bushwackers Band and the BLF combined to help us sort out the financial mess. Sharon: Before the Festival you had been involved with promoting bands and events through your company called Ironbark Promotions. What other jobs or career paths had you followed up to that point and what direction did you take in later years? Peter: At the time I was an industrial officer with the BLF (a construction industry union) and in my spare time I ran Ironbark music promotions as a hobby. I have worked for the past decade in the community education and training sector, until I had a stroke a few years back and now do freelance media and I am still called Ironbark. Sharon: Reading in the Ned Kelly Centenary Festival booklet I see that at the Festival you had several souvenir items for sale among them an EP (extended play) record with 4 songs on it (The Kelly's Wouldn't Run-Carrl Myriad/Stringybark Creek-Bushwackers Band/Poor Ned-Redgum/Ned Kelly's Letter-Blue Tongue). Give us some info on this record. Peter: The EP was a moderate success but I was left with a couple of thousand which I have managed to sell (as a fund raiser for worthy causes) or give away over the past 20 years. The CD version is just a copy that I ripped to the computer and make for people without record players, depending on demand. Sharon: Speaking of the record above, did every musical act listed in the Festival Programme booklet (around 20 or so) actually appear? None had to cancel out? Where any added to the roster after the programme went to press? Peter: As far as I can remember, everyone listed appeared, and the program was so tight there was no room for late additions. Sharon: Did every event go to plan? What about that one event, where a gentleman, Gary B. Jones, was to attempt to deliver the longest political speech on record to enter the Guinness Book of World Records? The booklet says that the previous record holder was from 1978 and for 33 hours and 5 minutes. Mr. Jones wanted to take 34 hours to "get his message across" which was to beg for "A Pardon for Ned." Inquiring minds want to know! Peter: I'm not as sure about every event as there was too much happening for me to keep track of but I don't think Mr Jones turned up. I seem to remember some dispute over who was to pay his fare out to Australia. [Note from Sharon: the festival booklet stated that "Gary B. Jones of Anchorage, Alaska, has flown here at his own expense to beg a 'pardon for Ned'.." so perhaps the dispute occurred before the festival and after the booklet went to press.] Sharon: What about the forum led by Dr. John McQuilton? How did that go? Peter: It did, and again I have no recollection of these specific events. Sharon: Do you recall which historical Ned Kelly films where shown during the Film Show on the Saturday? Peter: I don't but I do believe it happened. Sharon: Everyone I have talked to about this has expressed the desire to see a festival like this happen again so they can attend. What is your advice to anyone who would ever consider trying to put on an event of this size and scope? Peter: Make sure your big ideas are backed up by big and reliable finance and marketing. Sharon: I really appreciate the way that all sorts of historical background of the Kelly's are included in this souvenir programme booklet. It was very well done! I even liked the advertisements in it and how most were along the lines of the Kelly theme, such as the Olympic Bushranger Tyres at "prices so reasonable even Ned Kelly would have paid 'em" or Lipton Tea "A brew..as bold as Ned Kelly." Then we have an ad for the updated (1980) edition of Ned Kelly: Man and Myth on offer for $5.95! (Just recently saw an earlier edition on ebay go for $60.99!!!!!!!). So tell me, who was the mastermind behind the souvenir programme? Peter: A guy from Melbourne, Dan Hellier, who now runs Publicity Works. The advertising was handled by a woman whose first name is Jane (I can't remember her last name). I wrote and organised most of the content. Sharon: Peter, I want to thank you for being so helpful and so nice to me. You have been a most gracious gentleman and I am happy to have made your acquaintance. In closing is there anything you wish to say about the festival and your part in it that I have not touched on here? Peter: I don't have any photos of the event. I am normally an avid photographer but I must have been too pre-occupied at the time to take any but I'd would love to see any some time.  Peter in armour [Note from Sharon: Just prior to this story being run, I had mentioned to Brian McDonald about what I was writing about and he sent in a photo of a scene from one of the Festival's Kelly re-enactments which he found in an issue of "Two Hundred Years" put out by Bay Books, circa 1988. Issue #45 had a piece on "Festive Occasions" and was where he found it! Thanks, Brian!] A photo of the actual festival! Many thanks to Peter Galvin for his time and cooperation. Thanks also to Brian McDonald for being both generous and eagle-eyed! :) And last, but never least, thanks to Dave White for getting me a copy of the Festival booklet and for always being willing to give me a showcase for my writings.