OUT BACK (No.1)

- celebrating the bush contemplatives

OUT BACK (No. 1)

- by David Campbell (1915-1979)

SISSY STUFF : 'David Watt Ian Campbell (1915-1979), poet, was born on 16 July 1915 at Ellerslie station, near Adelong, New South Wales, third child of native-born parents Alfred Campbell, grazier and medical practitioner, and his wife Edith Madge, née Watt. Madge was descended from James Blackman. Her son was registered as David Watt Ian, but baptized with Presbyterian forms David Alfred in 1916.

He was educated at home, at a preparatory school and (from 1930) at The King's School, Parramatta, where he held the J. D. Futter memorial scholarship in 1933-34.

An outstanding sportsman, he twice won the Buckland Cup for boxing, and was captain of the school, of the Rugby XV and the rowing VIII.

By his own apocryphal account, all he did at school was play football: 'They left my mind completely alone . . . I was lucky'. Yet he wrote some poetry, despite his allegation that it was held to be 'very sissy stuff'. - ADB - Australian Dictionary of Biagraphy