Heart of our Nation
Paul F Walsh
Speech at Conservatorium September 21 2023
The photo behind me features Uncle Bob Smith.
Uncle Bob was a humble man, a teller of tales, my friend and comrade.
When Uncle Bob’s black dreaming of an accommodation centre for the relatives of Aboriginal patients at John Hunter Hospital met my white Novocastrian Tales dreaming, Yallarwah Place became a reality.
Novocastrian Tales, published by Susan Harvey and myself, was a national bestseller and the Novocastrian Tales project raised the funds to build Yallarwah Place.
Yallarwah Bicentenary Memorial, embodied by Yallarwah Place, is believed to be the first united and inclusive Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal memorial in Australia.
In the photo behind me, Uncle Bob is mingling the soils at the Rainbow Serpent’s Head at Yallarwah to show that all peoples are welcome at this place of healing.
Ray Kelly, Susan Harvey and I recently returned to Yallarwah to discover that this place of healing is now itself in need of healing.
The reconciliation magic that happened at that special place had been forgotten. What is believed to be the first united and inclusive Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal memorial in Australia was suffering from memory loss.
Reconciliation magic happened at Yallarwah twenty-five years ago, and we are delighted to tell you that reconciliation magic happened again at the Rainbow Serpent’s Head at Yallarwah during our recent visit.
As my dear friend and comrade Ray Kelly remarked in his Uncle Bob tale within Novocastrian Tales, and I quote: ‘The Rainbow Serpent working his medicine.’
We heard an emphatic and empathetic YES from the Hunter New England Health team who are now creating plans to restore and improve the entire Yallarwah Bicentenary Memorial site in conjunction with a special ceremony at the 25th birthday of Yallarwah next February.
This ceremony is hopefully the first of many annual ceremonies in accord with Ray and my and Susan’s desire to pass the torch of Yallarwah guardianship onto the next generation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal volunteers working together.
To truly understand the reconciliation magic of Yallarwah and what happened there twenty-five years ago, I feel that you need to experience part of the reconciliation magic of Novocastrian Tales via the film we are about to share with you.
This film was co-created by Keir Enderby and myself, and it was directed and produced by Keir Enderby and features a host of familiar faces, including one Dr Ray Kelly dancing around a fire.
I want to thank Dr Ann Hardy and the GLAM Lab and Gionni Di Gravio and the University of Newcastle’s Special Collections for restoring and preserving this film for posterity.
Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in twenty-five years, please enjoy our 8-minute film: Heart of our Nation.
Copyright Paul F Walsh 2023