Ballad Of The Poet We Forgot

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday April 25, 2008

Steve Meacham.

With a life as rich as that of Tom Skeyhill, who turned to poetry after being blinded, it is amazing that he was neglected for so long, writes Steve Meacham.

When author and historian Robert Holden was told the legend of blind Gallipoli poet Tom Skeyhill, he did not believe a word of it.

How could it be true? Surely a man who had achieved half of what Skeyhill was reputed to have done in his 37-year life would be revered as a national treasure?

Why, if Skeyhill was regarded in his day as Australia's own Rupert Brooke, was there not a single book on him, or even a mention in the Australian Dictionary Of Biography?

And how, if Skeyhill had been sensationally cured of his blindness in a "modern-day miracle" that made headline news on two continents, had he become such a forgotten hero?

Holden is now Skeyhill's most enthusiastic supporter, having curated a new display which goes on show tomorrow at the State Library of NSW celebrating the poet's extraordinary life.

According to Holden, this year's co-recipient of the library's $20,000 C.H. Currey Australian history memorial fellowship, Skeyhill was one of the most famous of the original Anzacs; a man whose story could not have been made up by a Hollywood scriptwriter.

Born in 1895 and raised in Hamilton, in western Victoria, Skeyhill enlisted in the AIF when he was 19, trained in Egypt and landed at Anzac Cove in April 1915.

As a signaller, he had one of the most dangerous jobs. "Signallers had to be up there with their flags, visible to friend and foe," says Holden. "It was like waving a flag to the enemy, saying, 'Here I am. Where's your sniper?"'

On May 8, he was permanently blinded during a charge. Evacuated to a military hospital in Egypt, he spent 77 days lying in a bed, the victim of what the official notes called blindness "from shell concussion".

Yet those bleak days were among the most productive of his life. As a form of self-therapy, the meagrely educated Skeyhill began writing poetry, dictating his verses to the digger in the next hospital bed.

Even before he left Cairo, a handful of Skeyhill's odes about the frontline had been published as a slim pamphlet, Poems From The Peninsula.

"His poems became an overnight sensation in Australia," says Holden. "The troops just loved them." They were not intellectual or pompous. Rather, they were Kiplingesque, in the style of If or Gungha Din - relying on sardonic Australian humour and a clear moral code. His most famous work, Me Brother Wot Stayed At 'Ome, had "my coldfooted cobbers" clearly in its sights:

'E reads in the mornin' papers/ That the Turks are on the run/ Then 'e brags about Australia/ And wot 'er boys 'ave done,

'E shines before the barmaids/ 'E's good at beery skitin'/ But round the corner of the street/ Is where 'e does 'is fightin'.

'Is dug-out's in the tap-room/ The bar's 'is firin' zone/ And the billiard cue's 'is rifle/ Me Brother Wot Stayed At 'Ome.

"He was writing in the idiom of his day," Holden explains. "Stuff that mum and dad and the boys at the front could understand.

"It wasn't Shakespearian, and he never pretended it was. But it was written in the language people reacted to immediately. In his own day, Skeyhill was the most popular Australian war poet. Forget Banjo Paterson, Will Dyson or C.J. Dennis."

Amazingly, given his wartime injuries, Skeyhill became an unofficial but enthusiastic army recruiting officer on a fund-raising tour for the Red Cross.

"Rather than say 'My life's over', Tom travels round Australia wearing his John Lennon-like glasses and reciting his poetry," says Holden.

By 1918, when the United States entered the war, Skeyhill was not only a celebrity but one of Australia's most accomplished public speakers. So it was natural that the Red Cross should invite him to tour the US on a lecture tour which aimed to raise #1 million to help look after wounded soldiers.

In San Francisco, Skeyhill shared the stage with former president Theodore Roosevelt. By then, the Australian was suffering from crippling headaches. Roosevelt arranged for him to be treated by a friend, the American Osteopathic Association's president.

"In a matter of 20 minutes, the osteopath cured Tom's blindness," Holden says.

If Skeyhill was astounded - he had to be treated for shock when his sight suddenly returned - so was the rest of the world. The event made front-page news across America and Australia, described as a modern-day miracle.

Four days later, Skeyhill addressed a massive audience at New York's Carnegie Hall, introduced by Roosevelt with the following words: "I would rather be on the platform with Tom Skeyhill than any man I know." Skeyhill's eloquence that night raised $US23 million in just 23 minutes. The New York Tribune labelled him as "The million-dollar-a-minute man".

For the rest of his life, Skeyhill remained in America, with occasional forays back home to Australia or to exotic locations such as communist Russia. He met a beautiful Broadway actress, Marie Adele. Their daughter Joyce was born in 1931.

But they never married, which had disastrous financial consequences in 1942 when Warner Bros made the movie Sergeant York, based on Skeyhill's two books about his friend, Alvin York - America's most decorated World War I hero.

The two men forged an unbreakable bond the night Skeyhill made a detour during a 1927 lecture tour of Tennessee to call in on York, who had rebuffed all previous attempts by publishers and movie studios to tell his story.

A deeply religious man, York had begun the war as a conscientious objector before deciding God wanted him to fight.

"Everyone wanted York's story, but he just wanted to go home and marry his childhood sweetheart," says Holden. "But Tom hit the right note because he saw in the restoration of Tom's eyesight a miracle as in the days of the Bible."

The movie would be made, earning Gary Cooper an Oscar for best actor and the studio its highest-grossing film of the year. Skeyhill earned a credit in the pre-titles, but the studio decided no money was owed to his de facto widow or daughter.

Because, by then, Skeyhill had been dead for 10 years, killed in 1932 when his plane crashed in Massachusetts, while he was trying to fulfil speaking engagements. America honoured him with a full military funeral, but in his homeland he was already a passing memory.