DAVID ROWBOTHAM: A CHRONICLE
DAVID ROWBOTHAM
(Website Introduction)
Poet and Newspaperman
David Rowbotham is an Australian author, journalist and poet who lives in Brisbane, Queensland. Generations grew up reading his poems, stories and criticism. Many among them were inspired by his work and presence to become writers and journalists themselves. He has been the nation’s most notable poet and newspaperman after Leon Gellert and Kenneth Slessor.
War Veteran and Writer
Now inspired by his age and continuing publication, many of the new generation look to him as their only living national example of how a war-veteran poet nearing his 80s has never stopped work. His work has only got better with time. It still appears in newspapers, in his new books, and in national and overseas anthologies. He has more than 60 years of publishing history behind him.
Home
He is still married to the New Zealand nurse he met in London in 1951. They have two daughters, one a doctor, one a journalist, and there are five grandsons.
Books, Songs, Shoes and Countryside
He was born in 1924 in the Darling Downs city of Toowoomba, of which a great-grand-uncle was mayor. His father Harold was the self-educated son of a pioneering Downs bootmaking family, and his mother Phyllis, who played piano and violin, grew up on pioneering downland farms. Books and songs and shoes and the countryside were his legacy.
The Great Depression
For struggling families during the Great Depression, his was a typical education. After early boyhood in Brisbane, where his father made shoes at Breakfast Creek, he attended Toowoomba East State School, and was then given a scholarship to Toowoomba Grammar, from which he won a teachers’ scholarship. He began his life of gainful employment as a very young probationary teacher in 1941.
On reaching enlistment age, he joined the RAAF. He served as a wireless operator in the South-West Pacific. The Great Depression and Second World War left an indelible mark. This is seen in his poetry.
Breaking into Journalism
He spent his post-war years, till marriage, as a student at Queensland and Sydney universities; as an editorial assistant at the publishers Angus & Robertson, Sydney; and as a freelance journalist in Sydney and London. These were rich years in which he wrote prolifically and met other writers. Then he became staff-columnist for the Toowoomba Chronicle; and joined the staff of the Brisbane Courier-Mail in 1955. His more than 30 years in fulltime journalism had begun. Counting part-time and freelance years, he has spent more than 50 years in his trade.
Arts and Literary Editor
He took his Arts degree by correspondence in 1964, and, after a period of teaching English at Queensland University, he was appointed inaugural arts and literary editor of the Courier-Mail. In that role, for 17 years, he had a significant influence on the development of the arts in Queensland and interstate.
Posted as Dying
Despite heavy newspaper and public duties, he kept on bringing out books. He resigned from his paper in 1987, after sudden illness. In 1996, when in hospital and posted as dying, he wrote and edited the book of poems that came out that year, The Ebony Gates (QCUPress). Since then he has written another book of poems, Pacific Star, which is with publishers. Another two books, both memoirs, are waiting their turn.
The Order of Australia
Now best known for his poetry, he has 18 books to his credit. For this sustained literary achievement combined with his energetic public activities, he has received national and American honours and awards. He is a Member of the Order of Australia and an Emeritus Fellow of Austr
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