Pittwater Online News

February 2 - 8, 2020: Issue 436

Ella McFadyen's Love Of Pittwater: Children's Champion

Ella McFadyen, 1940's, photo courtesy State Library of New South Wales

Young people who have undertaken any of the challenges offered by surf clubs such as Avalon Beach SLSC, and led by those who care about youngsters - people such as Mike Stanley-Jones in which they paddle/swim/run/walk and then hike back out again of the Palm Beach-Ku Ring Gai National Park, just for fun, would have been interested in the Boomerang walking Clubs formed by Ella McFadyen, especially in being part of her ‘Greenwood’ groups.

Although Ella McFadyen covered a lot of ground, literally and in the physical sense, during her time; travelling throughout rural New South Wales and Queensland, in the Pacific to the Solomons and New Guinea in 1925, to Cronulla for another 'break', one of the places she visited frequently as a Boomerang Walking Club member, and for respite, was Pittwater.

Ella McFadyen (1887-1976) was a journalist, editor, writer of books for children, poet and amateur photographer with a passion for the environment (and inspiring youngsters to be amongst this through forming the Boomerang Walking Clubs), a deep love for animals, and sharing insights about the natural world with children. She conducted the Children’s Page of an old weekly journal, the Sydney Mail (as “Cinderella”) until that publication finished in 1938 and also wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald Women’s Thursday section, Australian Town and Country Journal and many other newspapers and magazines.

Her love of the great outdoors and Australia's wildlife, and sharing that with children, features in just about everything she did and wrote, while her passion for photography captured scenes and animals of here we may not recognise in some cases. Ella's words paid numerous tributes to our environment and bore witness to seeing the little things as much as the great landmarks that have not changed much since she first visited. Her responses to her child and young adult readers spoke of the peninsula and shared tidbits of information on everything from the flowers to the Seasons and weather and what can be found where.

Ella May McFadyen was born a second generation 'Australian' (or third generation if you take into account her mum was born here) on November 26th, 1887 at 'Burrundulla', John-street, Stanmore. Stanmore then was green with paddocks and trees. Ella was one of five girls and two boys born to Donald and Mary McFadyen. Soon afterwards the family moved to 'Airlie' in Garfield street, Five Dock. The suburb of Five Dock was named, apparently, 'from the fact of there being five natural inlets or docks on the western bank' - or there were. The earliest documented reference to Five Dock is in the Sydney Gazette, February 3, 1805. In 1806, Governor King granted this bay to surgeon John Harris, who named it 'Five Dock Farm', and this comprised the entire bay, including the current-day suburbs of Five Dock, Abbotsford, Drummoyne, Chiswick, Russell Lea and Rodd Point.

(1880). Parramatta River, Five Dock, Port Jackson, New South Wales, ca. 1880 Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-140536671

The farm was eventually sold and broken up into smaller parcels of 30 to 60 acres and, being so close to town, began to be developed. By the 1890's, when the McFadyen family lived there, a tramway system had been installed making this area popular among those who had families who they wanted to have space, fresh air and paddocks to play in, but whose dad had to catch a tram to town to work.

While the family lived in Five Dock her two brothers were born as was another sister, while her youngest sister was born at Point Clare, Brisbane Water, in 1904, when the family moved there for a short time. So Ella was already looking across the water to Pittwater, to Barrenjoey and Lion Island and West Head years before her stories and poems about here appeared where people may read them.

Ella's father was the son of John McFadyen who was born on the Isle of Coll, Argyll, Scotland in 1829 as had her great grandfather, Roderick, in 1801 and her great great grandfather Donald McFadyen in about 1773. In a 1972 interview Ella states that her grandfather spoke Gaelic and he and his wife, Margery (nee McPherson), would speak this in the house when they didn't want the children to know what they were speaking of.

Roderick McFadyen and his family came to New South Wales in 1856 as things weren't too good on the Isle of Coll and those living there were encouraged to emigrate to places such as Australia and Canada. John McFadyen was already 26 when he arrived here and took up farming with his brothers and sisters at Morpeth on the NSW Mid North Coast. Donald McFadyen was born at Morpeth on July 31st, 1863.

On her mother's side there was a strong Irish influence, her grandfather on her maternal side, was Thomas Wilson (1814 to 1871) while her great grandfather was a Tim Kelly who came to Australia aboard the ship, 'Isabella Watson' with the 99th regiment.

Her father bought a paddock at Five Dock which Ella described as then being a green place 'with just a few pegs to tell you where the new streets were to be'. Her childhood at Five Dock is described as having pets - including a pet wallaby!, horses, a vegetable garden and a swimming pool. Her love of drawing animals both from nature and at the Museum filled her days.

Her father's firm was one of the first to use electric lights and he told stories about using electric lighting to speed up the construction of the Garden Palace, which burnt down soon after. Her father also told stories of the Hunter River including rescuing a drowning cow and sustaining it on the second floor of the house, until the water subsided. Her father liked horses but not gambling. Her mother disliked horses and forbade the children to go near them.

Ella was home schooled by her Mother despite the old Five Dock Public School being just across from the McFadyen 'paddock'. She learned Latin and grammar and although ruminated over having mother as teacher credited her sound sense and use of 'Gardiner's analysis' as providing her with the correct use of words and as words became her career, of seven decades in length as a poet, wordsmith, story teller and editor, her mother did very well indeed. Ella remembers reading Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' when aged 10!

As biographer Emily Gallagher states in A slight bias towards eels and lizards (Inside Story March 8th, 2019) –

alike those on the Isle of Coll, Ella did not attend school but ‘instead finding companionship in her dolls and the books her father scattered thoughtfully around the family home. In a sign of what was to come, she often spent her time reading, sketching birds at the local museum, looking through old diaries and notebooks, and pretending to publish newspapers…..’ [2.]

When Ella was almost 16 her mother fell in love with Brisbane Water - just across from Barrenjoey Headland, during a visit there during Autumn. It was at Brisbane Water that Ella's passion for writing prose and rhymes, previously created for her younger siblings, began to be shared with others.

While living there she visited places along the waters in a little skiff and on one adventure found the stone in which Australian poet Henry Kendall had carved his name. Ella climbed a tree and took a photo of this using her little box camera and it was published in the Sydney Mail years before she joined that paper to run the two page Children's Page - known as 'Cinderella's Page' to generations of children and young adults. That little story and Henry Kendall rock photo taken by Ella:

KENDALL'S GLEN.
BY ELLA McFADYEN.

We left the road where it swerves upward through the orchards to Penang, and soon the mangroves aud ti-trees and wind-rustled swamp grass were left behind, and the bracken bristled up from the white sand track, all dimpled with the little hollows of the ant-lion.

The track leads down to the stone-paved ford, but we turned off past the old house beneath whose roof Kendall must many times have slept. Convict-built, of solid stone, and some 70 years old, it nestles among its grey orchard trees, and the sunlight draws warm tones from its weather-stained shingles and mellow-tinted stones.

Beyond Narara Creek our climb began up the rugged grey face of the range, till, breathless and weary, we halted upon a green tableland starred with flannel daisies and red Christmas bells, while from the slopes below us the coveted pink tops of the Christmas bush beckoned. Presently we came upon a little loitering stream, sunken under the sand here and there, only to reappear a few paces further on tumbling in a mimic cascade into little pools where the crayfish crawl and the dragonflies hover. Before us stretched a splendid panorama.

The stream led us to the abrupt, lichen-spotted lip of a rock-faced gully that dropped sheer at our feet. Over it the water leapt into music-haunted shadow, and the wind beat back on us a fine-spun veil of spray. A detour led us down steeply to the rocky floor of the gully till we stood beneath the fall—

that Silver singer far away

By folded hills and hoar.

Close by is the rough grey boulder with the clearly-cut inscription, 'H. KENDALL, 1874,' and below the letters 'G.L.F.'

Standing in that remote and hidden sanctuary, with the written music of the poet blending in one's ears with the voice of the water dripping down the moss-boarded ledges, one might well indulge the hope that as it has lain undesecrated these 35 years past, so may it lie aloof and ever sacred from the hands of that old vandal — Change.

I wonder if the leaves that screen

The rock-pool of the past

Are still as soft and cool and green As when we saw them last-!

I wonder if that tender thing.

The moss, has overgrown

The letters by the limpid stream —

Our names upon a stone !

KENDALL'S GLEN. (1909, May 5). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 29. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article164294203

This wasn't the first item published under Ella's name, but is one of the earlier images she photographed that was published. Ella also credits her time at Brisbane Water as being the place she commenced finding things she could write about.

At her mother's insistence, her father bought a property at Noonan's Point, near Point Clare but it was a long commute to Sydney then - almost a hundred miles in a round trip in those days which took a long time, and the family moved back to Ashfield, as Brisbane Water was impractical. While living there Ella had some drawing lessons from the great Australian Artist Sydney Long who had a sister living at Gosford and who would join the family on picnics at Brisbane Waters. She recalls Rock Davis and other 'ancient mariners' of the place.

View from McFadyen Home - and Grounds at Point Clare - From Ella McFadyen photos held by and courtesy of State Library of NSW, Item No.: c078560075

Ella began getting poems published and despite her mother's disapproval she persisted writing and was having stories and 'rhymes' published while still a teenager.

In a 1972 interview [3.] she states the first ever published rhyme appeared in the old Australian Town and Country Journal and was written while living across the way from Pittwater at the Noonan's Point home. There is one published by this journal in February 1906, 'The Curlew' and another in September of that year about Boronia's - those wonderful bright pink tiny flowers that are out everywhere in our bush during Spring.

THE CURLEW.

(Written for this paper by Ella M'Fadyen.)

Out of the dark, with low lone flight,

Wailing you came, I know not why,

And clamoured to the voiceless night,

And wept a space and then went by.

And so, thought I, some souls go forth,

With none to answer or to mark,

To carry all a lifetime's worth,

And lose it in the empty dark.

Life's Bedouin, that knows no rest,

That gropes in vain, that finds no goal,

That learns no answer to its quest,

And perishes-a futile soul.

Down where the mists lie low and white,

Where ebbs the tide and grey oaks moan,

You broke the silent-seeming night,

Still Nature's murmurous monotone.

Where man has carried doubts and fears,

You also seek, down to the sea,

The answer standing through the years,

Rebuking man's impatient plea.

That one insistent, frightened cry,

That echoed faintly down the track,

Through the night watches listened I,

But never heard you coming back.

THE CURLEW. (1906, February 14). Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 28. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71527251

Boronia.

Because you sprang amid the waste,

Amid the arid drouth and gloom,

So that the way you trod you graced,

I send you wild Boronia bloom.

Because the fragrance of your deeds

Has sweetened many a sad soul's doom,

Has ministered to many needs,

I send you sweet Boronia bloom.

Because within your heart of gold

I humbly pray there may be room

For one whose life lies drear and cold,

I send you brown Boronia bloom.

ELLA M'FADYEN.

Boronia. (1906, September 12). Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 32. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71540749

Boronia ledifolia - Sydney Boronia

Fairies

Ella's early poems were romantic, patriotic, and showed her real interests lay in the environment, aboriginal people and wildlife and, after doing a few commissions, some of these appearing in the Sydney Mail, began to pursue what she was most interested in.

At the end of WWII the then editor of the Sydney Mail, William Robert Charlton, told Ella they could return to pre-war publication sizes and offered Ella work running a big two page spread for the Children's section - her dream job! Unfortunately Ella was ill in hospital when the offer was made and could not take up the job she had longed for until late in 1919. The Sydney Mail was an Australian magazine published weekly in Sydney, the weekly edition of The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, and focused on content for rural Readers.

In the January 14, 1920 Sydney Mail's Ella's Children's Page appeared:

THE CHILDREN'S PAGE.
Conducted by ELLA McFADYEN.

Boys and GIRLS — all you young Australians who are going to be one big family of friends, as we come together each week in reading this Page of ours — what did you think of the Editor's ideas last week? If I know anything about boys and girls — and, really, I ought! — I think you were delighted with the idea of a Page of our very own where we can have discussions and stories and letters and all sorts of jolly com-petitions. Do you remember in the 'Jungle Book' (and I know that lots of you have read it, because it is some times given as a school prize) all the wild creatures of the jungle met together at the Council Rock, and made their plans? Lots of fun they had on those moonlit nights, and interesting gatherings there must have been. But I think that if we held a council together, for all the boys and girls, big and little, we would have things almost as wonderful to relate.

BUSH LORE.

FOR instance, I have a very warm spot in my heart for the boy who loves Nature-lore. A big boy was telling me the other day about the tricks the lyre birds play, and, as they have played a few on me, I was keen on hearing. This boy had been down wild, remote Moonee Creek, where the poet Kendall used to wander, and he told me how the lyre-birds there mimic every-thing in the bush, and how one led him out of his way by imitating the delicious gurgle of a little stream over stones. Onward and downward he went through the tangled timber, thirstily picturing that cool water to himself, only to find at last the lyre-bird having a little concert all on his own, and no stream there at all!

IDEAS AND DYNAMITE.

BUT, of course, there are boys who prefer motor-bikes, or stamps, or engineering. Or perhaps one of you is an inventor. I once knew a boy who had an idea for running an engine with dynamite; but I am glad to say he never got further than drawing plans. Even if the first inventions are not successes, it will be nice to hear all about them and to exchange ideas, be-cause all the world's great inventors were once little boys, and all the best ideas were once just notions be-ginning to grow in some child's mind. I would like this page to be a sort of Hobby Club, where we can talk about such things, and where you can write and ask questions.

WHAT GIRLS CAN DO.

BUT what about the girls? I have a letter here from a girl who is very earnest in wanting to be a poetess. And I am not going to give her that tiresome old piece of advice, 'Don't!' because, even if she never becomes a great writer, her verses will help her to appreciate the beauty and happiness of life. Besides, plenty of successful writers began just as she is beginning. All the good ideas must have a little beginning somewhere, you know. There is a saying that 'in the heart of every man a poet has died young.' I don't see why our poets should be allowed to die, nor our artists, inventors, or explorers. I think that with a little help we could keep the good ideas alive and give them a chance to develop as the boys and girls get older.

FUN AT SCHOOL.

I DARESAY you all love dressing up, and most of you would like to act in a play. Some school-girls wanted to give a play for the Red Cross, and their trouble was that they had only the shabby school-room to act in and the old forms and presses for scenery. That did look like a difficulty, didn't it? But if you have read the adventures of Nicholas Nickleby you will remember that, the first time he had to write a play, he was asked to write it around a pump and some tubs that his friends had bought cheap. So he wrote a play with a great Pump Scene, and it was a huge success. The girls and I decided we could do as well as Nicho-las, so we wrote a school-play to suit the furniture, only to make it attractive we had school-girls of the day when curls and crinolines were worn. One girl was the school marm with snow-white hair, and the rest were her pupils.

Did you girls in the sheep country know that the curly locks of Lincoln wool, all washed and combed and stitched to a little close-fitting cap, will make the love-liest white wig for an old lady? Well, just try it if you get the chance. It was a great play, and there was a little mechanical mouse that slipped out suddenly and made great fun by sending all the girls scuttling on to the forms. We even had an epilogue, which is a kind of complimentary speech, spoken in verse. Everyone wanted the play repeated; but the point of it all is that the girls did all this them-selves, with just the least little bit of help. It is wo-derful what you can all do if you will let yourselves believe you can. And so that you may all tell me what you are doing we will institute straight away

CINDERELLA'S POST-BAG.

CINDERELLA is my 'really truly' name when I have letters written to me, and you all know Cinderella, the girl who wasn't the least afraid of rats and lizards, and who had such wonderful luck in raising pumpkins. Who has a letter to drop into my post-bag this week?

In the Sheep Country. This little girl, who lives in the Henty district, N.S.W., rode about the ground at the last Henty show on her pet lamb. She has two other lambs broken to saddle and harness.

OUR COMPETITIONS.

THE competition for girls is: 'MY FAVOURITE LESSON AT SCHOOL.' There is a Junior section, up to 12 years, and a Senior section, up to 17 years. A Certificate of Merit will be awarded for the best answer in each section. Write about 100 words. The competition for boys is : 'THE BEST HOLIDAY I EVER HAD.'' There is a Junior section, up to 12 years, and a Senior section, up to 17. A Certificate will be awarded for the best answer in each section. Write about 100 words. Note that the closing date for both competitions is FEBRUARY 4th. Send your name, address, and age with your letters. THE CHILDREN'S PAGE. (1920, January 14). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 27. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article159028090

From this first speaking to her Readers Ella is 'Cinderella' when they are sending letters to her. The Children's Page was also a place where Pen Pals were matched to each other, by 'Cinderella' many of these corresponding into adulthood with each other as well as with 'Cinderella'. Children living in the country then, as now, could sometimes feel a bit along, and isolated, so having a friend to write to was a great way to talk about what they were feeling or thinking or dreaming of doing to someone their own age.

Now, Faeries play a prominent and very important role in Scottish and Irish folklore, from the time that every waterway, well and loch had a name, and an ancient faerie that looked after or 'spoke' for it. Even people with strong religious beliefs embraced the notion of fairies, kelpies, and brownies in centuries past. Scottish fairy lore is rich with descriptions of these creatures and their habits.

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” - Sir J. M. Barrie, Scottish journalist, writer, and dramatist (1860-1937)

“Fairies use flowers for their charactery.” - William Shakespeare, English dramatist and poet (1564-1616)

Ella grew up surrounded by these traditions and this may account for her strong ability to speak 'fairy' to her young audience throughout her career and apply these to the places she loved - all of them uniquely Australian. Ella herself credits her Scottish ancestry from the Highlands and Islands as having an incredible amount of poetry, to use own words, 'passing through our souls'.

Ella's earliest works, apart from the rhymes and short stories, began appearing in such places as the acclaimed Bulletin's monthly periodical 'Lone Hand' with Bertram Stevens telling her she had a 'lyric gift', although Ella believed that all Scottish folk had this and even showed and spoke about being 'fey' - which is a Scottish term for being able to see things that others may not.

It was 'fey' talk, and fairies she knew, and wrote as though one of them, even going on strike for her seven days off at Cronulla one year as a fairy:

A PAGE FOR THE CHILDREN.

THE FAIRY TALE

BY ELLA McFADYEN.

NAY, I've no skill for tale or rhyme,

Yet, little folks, you'd set me spinning.

Well, come then: Once upon a time

(I know that's held the right beginning),

THERE was a lady, fair to woo,

And eke a knight; she loved him dearly.

He loved her. (Were this story true

That might not follow half as clearly.)

THERE was a dragon in that land —

A fiery dragon that assailed her;

He slew it, and thus won her hand.

(Just as he would have had he failed her!)

THE fairies graced her wedding day,

And blessed with gifts the lovers' passion.

(Now grant this could befall to-day,

Who cares such things are out of fashion?)

WERE love a tale and life a rhyme,

And mine the keys of tears and laughter,

Perhaps our 'Once-upon-a-time'

Might finish 'Happy-ever-after!'

A PAGE FOR THE CHILDREN. (1913, April 16). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 48. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article158477652

Fairy Bells.

OLD folks forget their fairy tales —

how sad the saying runs.

They don't believe in fairy lore be

loved of little ones,

In dancing fay and tripping sprite and

feasts by moonlight set ;

And when I'm old, as now they are,

may be that I'll forget,

Till some still night beside the sea,

dim tide and silver sand

Will bring to me, in memoried peal,

the bells of fairyland.

Fairy Bells. (1920, November 17). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 32. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article159040733

Children's Page

Conducted by ELLA McFADYEN.

A Fairies' Union

Cronulla.

DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,—

I write this Ietter to the C.P. to break to you the dreadful news that, after all, there is a Fairies' Union, and as a member of it, I have gone on strike. Possibly you thought such a thing could never happen. I hardly believed in the possibility of it myself, and yet it has come to this. I will explain. To begin with, this is the last week of my holiday at Cronulla; the sky is blue again after the rain, the surf is very inviting, the beach is still gay, though the crowd on it is thinning daily. You know the last few days of an ebbing holiday are as sweet as the last drop in your cup or the last peach on the tree. I have borne patiently with the fact that the postman is always pulling cards in the letter-box inviting me to call for packets when I go up town. I get these packets and out tumble a few score of your letters sent on from the city. Really, I have been a conscientious fairy. I have read letters, written answers, straightened out the metre of innumerable poems, named more calves, canaries and kittens than will bear thinking of, given away all my nice postcards of the South Coast, recommended books when I am dying to get to a really nice one myself, written to oversea correspondents to say what a lovely time I would have been getting in the surf had I been there, and all that kind of thing. I even got the 'Herald'' and resolutely read the Inter. lists for your precious names. And now I won't write another C.P. until I am back at work. I simply won't. I have struck for a good round week of seven days. And after that I suppose I will go back and resume work the same as ever. That is, if you do not declare a lockout and invite some horrible old hobgoblin to run the C.P. instead. I have been moved to this drastic action by the fact that the sun has gone down, and since breakfast-time I have read just exactly 75 letters and have not been near the surf all day. I am assured that in striking I have all the fays, elves, sprites, water-nymphs, pixies, gnomes, pixies, dryads', naiads, undines, oreads, leprechauns, banshees, trolls, goblins, hobgoblins, brownies, will-o'-the-wisps, and others of the Little People behind me. The Incorporated Society of 'White Witches highly commends my action, and the mermaids have offered to down tails in sympathy. So it is no good, my dear children: you will simply have to run the C.P. for yourselves this week. Carry on with all competitions as annnum-ed in last issue, and perhaps when I get back I will write again and tell you about my holidays. For the rest, I don't suppose the printers will have to bring out the C.P. this week with blank columns, because here are your own letters lo fill them up. Now I am going to look for a comb and tissue paper, on which to play 'Solidarity for Ever.' — Farewell. CINDERELLA.

A HOLIDAY SNAPSHOT AT LAKE NARRABEEN.

Cinderella's Post-Bag (1924, February 13). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 34. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166151686

The 'fairies' were not only another beautiful link with Nature they could also be prevailed upon to teach a little insight too:

Gossip

MIRANDA met a fairy

Last Tuesday week at four

(As she told Matilda Mary)

On the path beside her door.

Told tales are past retrieving;

Miranda's most upset,

In the fairies in her set.

There's Nell and Joan and Nan, I vow,

They'll tell you every one

They don't believe in fairies now —

It simply isn't done.

Miranda met a fairy —

The fact cannot be blinked.

She's in a sore quandary,

Though she's thinked and thinked and thinked.

For she told Matilda Mary,

And Matilda told the town

That Miranda met a fairy,

And she'll never live it down.

Cinderella.

Gossip (1933, February 8). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 47. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165958450

Ella also began on the Junior Red Cross paper founded by Eleanor Mackinnon in Bridge Street, Sydney and was spread through the schools. Her work with and for the Junior Red Cross would go on for fifty years and many a Junior Red Cross member would appear in the Cinderella pages for decades. Later she would be the 'camp mother' for Red Cross camps for children and marvelled, 'Funny thing isn't it, an Old Maid mothering camps, but apparently I was one of their best camp mothers.'

Some of those camps took place at the Narrabeen Fitness Camp - what we today call the 'Sydney Academy of Sport'.

Ella didn't speak down to youngsters, she included them and what was happening all around them as topics to discuss. As stated in this 1932 interview, '"Few children really care for baby talk, or ideas too carefully broken down for their consumption. Children's stories, like their clothes, are best made a little on the big side — they'll grow into them,"

HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN

Miss Ella McFadyen’s Family

A MODERN CINDERELLA INTERVIEWED

"The spontaneous joyousness of children is the best asset with which to continue life. Too much reliance on artificial entertainment saps the spirit, but to have one's own resources is always riches." With this as her healthy philosophy, it is no wonder that Miss Ella McFadyen has been so successful in one of the most difficult of all tasks to do Well the guidance and development of the Young Idea. Another interesting clipping from her book of experiences is this ' "Few children really care for baby talk, or ideas too carefully 'broken down for their consumption. Children's stories, like their clothes, are best made a little on the big side — they'll grow into them,"

Miss McFadyen certainly had large Ideas at four years old. "My favourite game was to sort out all the old diaries, note-books and letters I could find, and play at conducting a newspaper," she told a representative of "The Telegraph." "I don't know where the ambition came from, as there were no literary people in my family that I know of, but my ambition clung like a Scotch burr." - She was an accepted writer of verse while still a child, and her name Is still well known to readers of the "Sydney Morning Herald." She graduated straight from school into journalism, doing feature work for several weeklies. Then she was asked by the editor of the "Sydney Mail" to conduct a Children's Corner for that magazine, and when she accepted the offer she accepted what has become a life work.

FULL-TIME INTEREST.

"I am married to the Page and the members are all my children," she said. "It would take a very devastating divorce to separate us. Many who joined the Corner 12 years ago are now married and have babies of their own, but they refuse to resign their membership, contrary to the rule which disqualifies them at 17 years of age. They continue to write, and how can I desert such faithful friendship? Gradually the work has come to ' take up the whole of my time, and I have to make It my recreation as well as a full-time position: But It is happy work, and well worth the sacrifice." Besides the endless claims of her "children" she receives letters of consultation from parents and teachers, and her methods of developing youngsters along the right lines is admired by writers and teachers all over the State. A fact that helps to explain her influence for good Is that she spends all her leisure time outdoors with members of her Page.

MISS ELLA McFADYEN

WALKING ENTHUSIASTS.

From her West Highland ancestors Miss McFadyen Inherits a love of walking and open-air pleasures — and the stranger gift of second sight. "Such an anachronism In Australia," she said laughing, "but there it Is, and the less Interesting habit of sleeplessness that goes with it."

One trait balances the other, however, as she can become sufficiently tired on a forty-mile walk to sleep the night through and go to work next day without a trace of fatigue or stiffness. On her long walks she Is accompanied by members of the "Boomerang Club," formed of members ot the Page who 'are capable of walking 30 miles a day, carrying their packs, without distress. They pursue botanical and bird-life studies during their walks, or talk about books, and they are trained in bushcraft of all kinds. Younger members have their own walking club, and Miss McFadyen has trained many youngsters of 10 and 11 years to walk 10 miles In an afternoon. She carefully supervises their food and footwear — the two most important details of successful long distance walking!

Ambitious young photographers also find outlet for their talent on these walks, and Miss McFadyen is the keenest of the camera enthusiasts. Her floral and animal studies rank high amongst amateur work, and she provides all the Illustrations for her pages.

QUEENSLAND CHILDREN.

The strong affection between herself and the children Is due partly to perfect confidence. She never uses an "understudy" for the page, and, no matter how heavy the pressure of correspondence, reads every letter she receives. While she refused to "talk down" to children, and believes that they take great Interest In serious aspects of study, she declines to preach. "I think the story with a moral concealed in its tail is just simply cheating," she declared. "Children are given too much powder in jam. If you told them it was powder and appealed to their will-power most children would prefer to take their medicine 'straight.' "

Many Queensland children are members of her page, and she is very Interested In them. "I think the Queensland high school boy is remarkably intelligent," is her comment, "and all Queensland children are very bright. I think they draw better than children of my own State; but that may be due to training in the- schools — I don't know. Some of my grown-up 'children' live In Queensland's farthest outback districts."

ROMANCE BLOWS IN.

Soon after she started her Page, Miss McFadyen received a visit from a Queensland boy. When he went home he talked about her so much that his people became curious. "How old Is Cinderella?" asked his mother. (Cinderella is Miss McFadyen's "Page" name.) The boy thought for a moment, and answered: "As old as the person she happens to be talking to;" "Cinderella" heard of this charming compliment after the boy's mother became a relative of hers, for eventually the boy married her sister! So romance, which can never be kept out of anything, is linked with "Cinderella's Page. And "Cinderella" herself, who is on a flying visit (In both senses) to Queensland, will spend a few days with her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. C. J. Cameron, at Beechmont, Queensland. HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN (1932, September 28). The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), p. 9 (FINAL). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article181159874

The C.P. pages were filled with letters from children seeking a friend, all of whom were answered individually by Ella, a mammoth task. As The Sydney Mail was published for rural Readers, and isolation and loneliness could mark the lives of some of these young people, a friend they could talk to and hear from about the worlds outside their own cannot be underestimated - many of these letters started with announcing they too wanted to be her friend - and this lady, not immune by any means to the nuances and tone within these, also set up a Pen Pals section through the page so that when they were not writing to her they could have a pal to talk to elsewhere. Ella became, to thousands of children, over decades, another mother or auntie, and many kept in touch even into adulthood.

Even a century on the essence of Australia and Australians shines through these letters and shows not that much has changed where youngsters are out in the environment, playing - with the exception of ponies and horses giving way to motorised transport. The correspondence also reflects the events of their lives' times too and their being given a platform to express themselves, in an era where children were still largely expected to be 'seen and not heard', shows Ella recognised what was happening in their communities and the world around them also impacted upon them and must be given an outlet for expression.

A few examples:

CINDERELLA'S POST-BAG.

DEAR CINDERELLA,— Bundella.

I would like to be one of your friends. I am nine years old, and I live in the country. There are two magpies that come here; they eat out of our hand. I am sending you a snapshot of the magpies. My baby brother is feeding' them in the snapshot. The nearest railway is 50 miles away. We get the mails three times a week — on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 'We look forward to the 'Sydney Mail' on Thursday. I have been going to school 11 months; but it is only a half-time school. We have a nice teacher, and I am in second class, and will be in third class when I go back after the holidays. My two sisters go to school, with me. We have had some lovely rain, and I hope the grass will soon grow so that I can have my pony home. I am very fond of reading the letters that other little boys and girls write to you. Your little friend. RONALD EWBANK (9 years).

(Dear Ronald, — Thank you for the snapshot; it will appear one of these days on the page. I should like to hear from your sisters also.— Cinderella.)

Dear Cinderella,— Gundagai.

This is my first letter to the Children's' Page, and if you accept me as a member it will not be the last. Now, I'll tell yon .i bit about myself. My dad lias a wheat and sheep farm; he has over one thousand acres of land. When my three brothers went to the war five years ago I left school to help my father do the farm work, and I've helped him ever since. My' eldest brother was one of the first men to enlist from Gundagai, and he was killed at Gallipoli, 1915. My second brother was killed in action in France in 1917 ; and the third enlisted when he was 17, and he was wounded twice and gassed once. He came home last June. He is an Anzac. My hobbies are riding, horses' mostly, then push bike and motor bike, shooting, swimming, diving, and photography; in fact, I go in for all kinds of sports. We have a large Red Cross circle in Gundagai. I am president of the Junior Red Cross here. By the way, Cinderella, if you could tell me where I could obtain any views of the Prince's visit to Australia I'd be awfully pleased; or if any members of the Children's Page have any snapshots of his visit or of H.R.H. himself I would be very pleased to hear from t.hem. My address is Florrie Bell, Kimo-road, Gundagai. I was unable to go to Sydney to see the fun, as Gundagai is nearly 300 miles from Sydney. From yours sincerely FLORRIE BELL.

(Dear Florrie, — You appear to have a good all-round capacity for work and play both. I like your list of hobbies, and am glad that you have time for the Red Cross as well. Your brothers put up a record of which you must be. proud. Perhaps some of our young photographers will send you some snaps, meanwhile I am mailing you a quaint little likeness of the Prince, very tiny, but just like him. — Cinderella.)

Dear Cinderella,— Nowra.

We have been getting the 'Sydney Mail'' for a long while, but it is much more interesting since you started the C.P. We live very near the Shoalhaven River, and we have to cross it in a punt before we can get to Nowra. A launch runs up the river every day with milk. We have a lot of horses'. My pony's name is Jaeli; he is a chestnut, with a small white star on his forehead. I have, a calf which I rug every night, and I feed her on corn and chaff; she is dark red and very quiet. Could you suggest a name for her? I am very fond of music, and have passed five examinations in it. Hoping this letter is not too long for publication. Your new correspondent, JEAN -MACKENZIE (12 years').

(Dear Jean, — Why, I have not passed five exams, in the whole course of my life. A pretty name for the red calf would be Poppy. -—Cinderella.) CINDERELLA'S POST-BAG. (1920, July 14). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 19. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article159040185

DEAR CINDERELLA.— Ashfield.

You will be very pleased to hear that I am out of the hospital, after being there for six weeks. Mummy and daddy took me home in a taxi last Sunday. There was a lovely surprise for me when I went, into the dining-room. The room was decorated with heliotrope and gold streamers, as these are my favourite colours, and on the centre of the tea table was a beautiful Christmas tree, all lit up with little coloured candles. It looked so pretty. I would have loved you to see it. Mavis is staying home from school for the rest of this term to act 'nurse'. I think the etchings and drawings of old Sydney in this week's 'Sydney Mail' are most interesting. I love anything historical, don't you Cinderella?

Just before I left Prince Alfred they were putting on the wireless there. On every bed will be a crystal set and there will be a loudspeaker in each ward as well. Won't it be lovely for the patients to lie in bed and hear all the best music? I think the wireless is very instructive. Have you one? I wish we had.

Don't the Papuans look interested in Captain Frank Hurley's wireless in the 'Sydney Mail?'' I am sending you a piece of poetry which I composed while I was in the hospital — 'The Autumn Elves.' I hope you will think it good enough to publish some time. Well, Cinderella, I am getting tired, so will close. Wishing you every success. With love and best wishes from DOROTHEA DOWLING (15).

(Dear Dorothea, — I am very glad to hear you are home again, and hope you will soon be quite strong. Etchings are very fascinating things — so sympathetic, and so much more suitable to an ordinary room than the more ambitious type of work. When I have some more money to spare I mean to acquire a few. There is one that I saw exhibited a while ago (by Mr. Squire Morgan) of a coast scene near Pittwater. The drawing of the rocks was lovely. But then I am always wanting art' pieces. I badly wanted Sir Bertram MacKennal's bronze statuette of St. George. I'd simply love to have that little bronze boy-saint looking down at me as I worked. I saw Captain Hurley's new film. The plot is ordinary, but the life at Thursday Island is very interesting and well shown. Your verses are very nice and will be used later on, when they will be seasonable. I am afraid wireless would interrupt my reading if I had it. — Cinderella.) Children's Page (1926, December 22). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 24. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166522140

Dorothea Dowling, along with her sister Mavis (q.v.), were members of the Imperial Society of Dancing (Classical Ballet); and represented Australia in London at the Festival for Ballet Congress. The sisters also contributed verse, articles, and short stories to Australian periodicals and radio poetry sessions. They wrote the words for 'Carols for Unison Voices and Piano' (1969), to accompany music by Miriam Hyde.

One of the etchings of Pittwater James Squire Morgan completed during the 1920's - I wonder if it's the one Ella loved?::

At Palm Beach (1920s) by James Squire MORGAN - from and courtesy National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1926 © Estate of the artist. Item: Df112248

The Boomerang Walking Club - Pittwater Days

Ella had a deep abiding love for her homeland and the outdoors, it's seasons, landscapes, the animals and plants and wrote about this in all her stories and 'rhymes'. Associated with the Children's Page was the Boomerang Walking Club whose members had to be able to walk 20 miles a day before they could go on treks and like boomerangs, return home under their own power.

Ella states in her 1972 Interview by Hazel de Berg that 'all our walks were in search of Nature subjects for me and things I could explain and show for the boys and girls and help them to become Conservationists. And beyond Conservation, earlier, you want a sense of Ecology'

She speaks about the unfortunate destruction that may occur when a troupe of Scouts, as she uses as her instance, hike through the bush, breaking plants, leaving marks. Her and her fellow hikers method was:

'We were like the blacks; we wanted to live secretly, silently, have an unseen life'. [3.]

As she replies to her young Readers:

'KING INGODA' (Bourke) : The Boomerang Club purposely remains a small company with a high qualifying standard. We seek the solitude and peace of the bush; we detest noise and interruption and anything that spoils the native charm of our quiet excursions. Cinderella's Answers (1932, August 10). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 48. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166226104

HELEN HOSKINS (Wollongong) : The Boomerang Club exists to train its members in efficient long-distance walking and to promote the study of bushcraft, Nature, etc. Most of our members are keen on botany, photography, bird-lore, and the literature of outdoor life. Only a small number of candidates can be accepted for this training, and, obviously, only those who live convenient to Sydney. Guests from the country are invited to share our walks when possible. Cinderella's Answers (1937, April 21). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 48. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article160502078

Living at Lindfield their walks frequently brought them to Pittwater, and Broken Bay, where she could gaze across to an old favourite home on the Central Coast, with many a tramp through the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park and even to Barrenjoey. However, Palm Beach was also a place just for respite - the 'First Correspondent' referred to here is her sister Eunice, who would soon marry a pen-pal from Queensland:

The Children’s Page
Conducted by Ella McFadyen

Little friends who wish to visit Cinderella are reminded that the time to call at the 'Sydney Mail' Office, ' Herald ' Building, Pitt and Hunter streets, is between 10 and 12 on Tuesday mornings. Cinderella is on the second floor.

A Sea Change

When First Correspondent and Fairy Godmother returned from their three weeks of holiday in Queensland Cinderella, said that it was quite time she took, if not a holiday, at least a change.

UNFORTUNATELY, holiday was not quite possible. There was too much to do. However, she put some things in a bag, bought new bathing shoes, and fiddled about with her typewriter till she discovered the locking gear that is supposed to ensure safe carriage to the portable models. Of course, it would have been more fun lo leave the typewriter and take the camera instead, but that could not be. Ali Baba, with a deep distrust in his golden eyes, got between the adventurer and the garden gate and wept aloud. No one needs to tell him what packed bags mean. Even a last-minute gift of sardines did not quite mend that small broken heart. It is sad business leaving one's pets; but that once over, heigh-ho! for Palm Beach and the surf.

At Palm Beach one may sit in a deep balcony (made from the rough stone which seems to be the typical architecture of that holiday land) and look up over the surf and the dunes to Barranjoey Lighthouse. See that spelling? Mr. Russell, who tends the lighthouse and really must know, says that Barranjoey and not 'Barrenjoey' is the correct form officially accepted, and he pointed to the lettering on a locker in proof thereof. In the early days (the lighthouse was opened in 1880) 'Barrenjuey' was the recognised form, but that has been discarded.

It is a windswept place, that lighthouse hill with the brown stone building of the lighthouse and its residence and high-walled garden looking rather like a fort built to defy invading elements. Lower down the slope, on the sheltered side next to Pittwater, there is pretty vegetation and a nice little rocky stair of rough stones. Flocks of wild goats wander about, not very brave in spite of big horns and long beards; and down at the foot of the hill there is a shed where a man once kept a little museum of snake-skins and such trophies he collected. He had the skin of an echidna there and some really fine snakes and iguanas.

A pity he could not have collected for his trophies the wobbegong some fishermen left on the beach. This, perhaps the only really comic member of the shark family, was about five feet long and very fat. He had a foolish face with fringy things like seaweed for whiskers, and such queer fins that they looked almost like little legs. He probably used them for scuffling along the bottom of the pools, for he hunts about on the bottom, I think

‘When my glass slippers wear out,'' said Cinderella, I shall get a pair of shoes made from the beautifully patterned, carpet-like skin of a wobbegong — after having it soaked for a twelvemonth in eau-de-cologne.'

WHEN the morning dip was over and the morning work of getting together copy and answering letters (those letters that never cease for a day!) had been faithfully attended to, came freedom. They were mostly companioned hours, too. Francis Sherwood, our Nana Glen member, shared a day: and 'Split-pin.' who will be remembered only by our most ancient members as one who occasionally made daring lightning raids across the border of the Ingle Nook, shared another. Once there was David, who is going to be a member some day, but is only five as yet. Sheila, too, was a little girl-chum with a genius for showing one nice walks. In passing we must wish her success with her bursary exam. Then there was an old sea-eagle who was rather good company along the cliff at evening. He went out at that hour to do his perilous fishing, and once came back trailing something that looked like a slingaree with a long tail. Jock, a long-headed Scotch terrier with an approachable heart that really belied his extraction (Scotch terriers should be a little dour and slow to be friends, but Jock always loved at first sight anyone who would take him home to tea and biscuits), was always ready to accompany one on a walk.

Once a dauntless company of adventurers (three in number) set off on the Newport 'bus, with an enormous picnic basket, and made their way through the callistemon scrub, that seemed all afire with blossom, towards the cliffs where hides the Hole in the Wall. There was some good scrambling before the basket was set safely on a ledge and the steep path to the cave was discovered and essayed. It is a most impressive cave, full of the footmarks of little wild creatures, and very dark and cavernous towards the rear, where a fall of rock has blocked what, was, I believe, at one time a landward exit. Anyway, it was a good cave for adventures, and could quite suitably, have been used to hide a chest of pirate treasure. (Anyone want to fit out an expedition to go there and make sure ?) It was pity Cinderella did not have her camera along that day: but she could hardly have taken a snap of herself dauntlessly climbing up to the cave mouth, and the comrades below were too steeply below to have done so, either.

BEST of all times, probably, were the lonesome rambles along the cliff path, when one could shout reams of Gordon's glorious 'Song of the Surf' with no one but the sea-eagle to hear. Most people at the seaside murmur bits of 'Sea Fever' and other Masefield fragments, and lots more no doubt think of Byron, even if he is considered too out-of-date to quote aloud; but all proper Australians should get 'The Song of the Surf' by heart before they go down to the sea. Out on the rocks towards Whale Beach, where one can gloat over the pools of sea anemones (pools lined with crystal and velvet and sprinkled with jewels, where the many-coloured living blossoms quiver and unfold), one could hear the big waves whooping in over the sunken ledges and feel the shock of them as they surged through the hidden channel beneath, making all the rocky bases of the cliffs shudder with their force. Only then did one get in full the sonorous splendour of Gordon's lines —

You come, and your crests are hoary with the foam of your countless years;
You break With a rainbow glory through the spray of your glittering tears.

To watch the breaking of a high surf on these great rocks and realise the immensity of the force that sends them swinging in is to touch the verge of a very great discovery — a thing that breaks like a dazzling light and soars splendidly above the power of words into the realm of conviction. Then the waves fall back from the cliff in a smother of foam; the sea-eagle, swoops and wheels again to the land, and the great discovery, that a moment since was about to solve all mysteries, is caught up again just beyond human understanding. The mystery remains.

When against the rocks he was hurled, and sucked again to the sea,
On the shores of another world, on the brink of eternity.
On the verge of annihilation, did it come to that swimmer strong,
The sudden interpretation of your mystical, weird-like song ?

The lines ought to be graven on a stone slab along the cliff path for the joy of all who love poetry and the sea, and the swinging, rhythmical waves of both. And that brings us back to the earth and the realisation that the seaside days are spent; that there are hundreds of unopened letters lying everywhere, and the Poetry Competition ought to be judged. It has been held over quite long enough. Children's Page (1928, October 31). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 54. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article158404607

Which home Ella stayed in is not recorded - from the earliest though, her tenacity in wanting Australian stories for Australian children, as well as photographs of children's playgrounds, lends itself to the conjecture that she and Maybanke Anderson (nee Wolstenholme), who also was published by Angus & Robertson, must have known each other. Her eldest son Harry, a lawyer and passionate ornithologist, was also part of the Palm Beach Land Company and one of the early owners of a beachfront home and weekender at Palm Beach and the family had a terrier named 'Jock':

Social Surf Season Opens at Palm Beach

By NIYA BECKE

OCTOBER the first Is the official opening day of the surfing season; and from now on the red-gold ocean beaches, so far almost abandoned in the still cool breezes of late spring, begin like magical molluscs, with gigantic invisible shells, to open and tip on the seashore in multi-colored hundreds-and-thousands the' first enthusiasts of surfboards, sun and sea. A foretaste of the striking beach ensembles for this year, has been already enjoyed by many women at recent mannequin parades, and soon the, 'season will be thoroughly and merrily launched. Palm Beach is one of the - most beautiful of Sydney's surfing places. The wide sweep of bay and free view of ocean, the soft curves of the gum-tree covered hills; the delightful bungalows, the, groves of satin-leaved palms, and stately Norfolk Island nines on the front, make It distinctive and unique, while the many well-known people who are' residents, or-have summer houses or bungalows here lend a greater interest to this attractive spot. Tucked among the trees is "Bob-stay," the blue and white snuggery of the Lord Mayor Hagon family, whose pretty daughter Margaret recently spent the first days of her honeymoon in these appropriate surroundings.

The Horderns' fine house and blossom and shrub-filled grounds on the front are well known. Beside them is the bungalow of Mr. and Mrs. C.P. Curlewis. Their daughter Joyce and some of her girl friends add riding to other seaside joys, and are often seen cantering along Palm Beach roads. Mrs. Harry Wolstenholme, Marjorie and their Sealyham doggie, Jock, live next door in a delightful bungalow, whose garden plots glow with geraniums at the edge of a beautiful lawn. ... Social Surf Season Opens at Palm Beach (1933, October 1). The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), p. 27. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229151667

EB Studios (Sydney, N.S.W.). (1917). Panorama of Palm Beach, New South Wales, 7 Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-162484891 - enlarged sections from to show the Hordern place beside first Palm Beach SLSC Shed, Curlewis home, Wolstenholme residence(with cows in front yard!) and Peters' place, now Palm Beach SLSC members clubhouse (with horses in front!).

Her sister, Eunice, who is the 'First Correspondent spoken of above, was married in February - a February that was 91 years ago!:

WEDDINGS.
CAMERON-MCFADYEN.

The marriage of Miss Eunice McFadyen. daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald McFadyen, of Wondabyne, Lindfield, to Mr. Clarence Johnston Cameron, elder son of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Cameron, of Erracht, Beechmont, Queensland, took place at St. Martin's Church, Killara, yesterday morning. The Rev. L. Charlton officiated. The bride wore a gown of cream guipure Iace, finished with parchment-coloured satin, cut high to the neck, and with long tight-fitting sleeves. Her hat of hand-woven straw was trimmed with roses and she carried a shower posy of frangipanni and gold roses. Miss Ruth Wilson, cousin of the bride, acted us bridesmaid. She wore a period gown of pale pink georgette banded with folds of mauve satin, and a hat of amethyst hand-woven straw. She carried a bouquet of mauve gladioli, and pale pink carnations. Mr. Lindsay McFadyen was best man. After the ceremony the guests were received at the bride's home by Mrs. McFadyen, who wore a gown of black satin, with a black hat relieved with vieux rose. She carried a posy of pale pink roses, mignonette, and heliotrope. Mrs. Cameron, mother of the bridegroom, wore a fawn crepe-de-Chine frock, and hat to tone, and carried a posy of blue delphiniums and gold roses. The bride left for the honeymoon wearing an ensemble of kasha cloth, in tones of autumn brown, the coat being finished with leather trimming. WEDDINGS. (1929, February 27). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16534461

Ella's Readers get to hear about it too:

An Interesting Wedding

A WEDDING which our correspondents have anticipated with interest look place at St. Martin's, Killara, on February 26th, when Eunice Graham McFadyen, of Lindfield, was married to Clarence Johnston Cameron, of Beechmont, Queensland. The pen-names by which the bride and bridegroom were known on the C.P. were "First Correspondent" and "Macnore." The bridesmaid was Ruth Wilson, who formerly corresponded under the pen-name of "Pandora." The ceremony took place in the morning, and it was a further happy connection with our club that the presence of Miss Maud Owen at the organ was due to her introduction to Cinderella by a group of our Eltham correspondents. After the wedding luncheon, at which only a few immediate relatives and one or two Ingle Nook friends were present, the bride and bridegroom left for a motor tour of the South Coast. After a brief stay on their return to Sydney, they will proceed by car to Beechmont, where they are to make their home. Among the gifts made to the bride were some charming mementoes from members of the Cinderella Club, the staff and pupils of Eldinhope, and the Old Girls' Union of Wenona College. The photographs were kindly taken by "Bing Boy," of the Ingle Nook. An Interesting Wedding (1929, March 13). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 54. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166258076

Item c078560078 and c078560079 (back) reads '24 Kenilworth Road, Lindfield - McFadyen home' - from Ella's Series 04: Residences, homesteads, factories and farm buildings, mainly New South Wales, ca. 1879-1953 / collected by Ella McFadyen - from the collections of the State Library of New South Wales.

LION ISLAND, AT THE MOUTH OF BROKEN BAY.

These rocky shores are a favourite haunt of our Boomerang Walking Club. LION ISLAND, AT THE MOUTH OF BROKEN BAY. (1933, November 22). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 47. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165961286

Her Readers and Letter Writers would share information about their own walks, including those taken here:

Cinderella' s Post Bag

MY DEAR CINDERELLA,— Wahroonga. It is such a long time since I last wrote to you that I thought I must drop you a line. At Christmas time we spent two glorious weeks at Narrabeen. The weather was ideal for surfing, so we made the most of it. I always had an idea that the surf was rather dangerous there, but only on two or three occasions we found the undertow strong. One day we hired a boat and went up Deep Creek. It was rather a hot day, and my arms got a bit sunburnt. On each side of the creek people had pitched their tents, and they looked so nice dotted here and there amongst the trees. People were bathing in the water, and we had to steer the boat in a zig-zag fashion practically all the way alone.

About half way up we pulled in towards the bank, and everybody hopped out to have a look round. After I having afternoon tea we started for home. My sister I took several snaps, and they came out very well. It was about five o'clock when we got back to the boatshed, and everybody said what a glorious day we had had.

Another day we walked up Deep Creek-road towards the Elanora Golf Links. After walking some distance we turned off the road, and climbed the hill. When we reached the top we were rewarded with a lovely view of Narrabeen Lakes. Walking further on we could seethe ocean and coastline. On reaching home everybody was feeling rather hungry, so we voted for an early tea. Our second long walk was from Narrabeen to Collaroy. Leaving the main road we went down a side street and then up a steep hill. Reaching the top we had a glorious view of the ocean, and could see all over Collaroy, and Narrabeen away in the distance. I enjoyed the holiday very much, but the two weeks went too quickly. Ruby Litchfield, my old correspondent, is quite well again. 'Darkie's' address is Carruchan, Kennedy, North Queensland, now. She still writes me nice long letters. Trusting you are quite well, and not forgetting Ali Baba. With love from 'CHERRY BLOSSOM' (O.I.).

(Dear 'Cherry Blossom,' — Like myself, most of our old brigade will be very much interested to see your name on the C.P, once more. I know Elanora as a place of very fine views, and you must have enjoyed your Narrabeen holiday very much. Thanks for sending me word of Ruby and 'Darkie,' to whom I owe a letter. — Cinderella.) Cinderella's Post Bag (1932, March 9). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 47. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article160081879

While Ella and her friends made frequent treks into Pittwater, gathering insights for her to share and inspire the Children with:

JEAN, Of the Boomerang Club. The picture was taken from the Pittwater shore, and shows Barrenjoey. Children's Page (1933, February 8). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 47. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165958448

Boomerang Club Notes
By Number One.

OUR Easter walk from Gordon to Broken Bay added fresh laurels to those invisible wreaths that adorn our members' heads — their old felt hats notwithstanding. Cinderella had so little spare time at Easter that the walk had to be compressed between Sunday night' and Monday night. As speed was essential, only a small party likely to maintain an even pace was selected. To grade as a Boomerang one must, among other qualifications, be able to walk 20 miles in a day without serious fatigue. To graduate as Big Boomerang one must be able to face an emergency of 40 miles within 24 hours. Several senior members have possessed this qualification for years.

Starting from Gordon about 8 p.m., twelve moonlit miles brought us to our supper on a rocky site where uncontaminated water and plentiful firewood were available. The midnight march was resumed, despite a vivid electrical storm to seaward, and we lay down in the pre-dawn chill on our old camping ground at Elusive River. A camp-fire of redgum, a snack, and an hour or so of sleep under our coats, and we were off for the cliffs above Broken Bay and that lovely panorama of Hawkesbury River, the Bay, Brisbane Water, Pittwater, Lion Island, and the sunlit ocean, which we believe to be uneclipsed by any scene on the coast.

A hot breakfast, a doze, and a little loitering and we are back on Elusive River — which is only mapped as such by the cartographers of Fairyland — for lunch. Our last meal was at dusk, near country sadly desolated by road-making, and then with our backs to the bush it was the hard road under our feet again. The 'Secretary Bird' and 'Beetle' marched well and earned packs round about 20lb weight. 'Lilac Blossom' and 'Ashie' (a new recruit' from Queanbeyan, where 'Toad' has been training her) proved very stout fellas and finished swingingly at four miles an hour, making Gordon by 10.30 p.m. The mileage, irrespective of camp-making and rambling, was 20 miles of hard road and 26 of tracks, much of it cluttered with loose stone. The 46 miles total was a creditable performance — and everyone was able to get into city shoes and go to work next day.

Cinderella, will see her young friends every Tuesday morning between 10 and 12 at the 'Sydney Mail' Office, 'Herald' Building, Pitt and Hunter Streets. Business girls may call from 5 to 6.30 p.m. last Tuesday in each month. Cinderella's Page (1938, May 4). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 47. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166227905

The poems inspired along these walks ran in other publications - these are two shared previously about Pittwater and Broken Bay:

WEST HEAD

Happy it is in the blossom time,
In the blossom time of spring,
When the morn is in its golden prime
And birds are on the wing.

Blue of the tide upon either hand,
From the sea to Broken Bay,
And the grey old lichened boulders stand
Knee-deep in flow'ry spray.

Blithe at the heart for the wattle's sake,
And the scent the warm wind spills,
Where the Hawkesbury lies, a gleaming snake,
Amid the deep blue hills— ;

Stirring the bee's with their honeyed load
From the blossom feast beneath,
Happy it is to take the road
That winds across the heath.

ELLA MCFADYEN.

WEST HEAD. (1929, January 4). Windsor and Richmond Gazette (NSW : 1888 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85927422

SANDS OF MORNING.
by Ella McFadyen.

Summer breathed over the hills to-day,
A waft of the bush and a wind from the bay,
And my truant thoughts went straying:
Pittwater flickered with nor'east flaws,
The surf ran high 'tween the Lion's paws,
And the spring-fed runnels' were playing.

I saw the hills that drop to the sea,
And a honey-bird's call was a call for me
And the great grey sandstone boulders
Were elephant's browsing, heath to the knees.
And the rosy waxflowers, clotted with bees,
Fondled their lichened shoulders.

To-morrow I'll rise and be ready to roam
In the starlit hour when the cats come home,
Ere ever the birds are waking,
When each needlewood thorn is a dewdrop's place,
And her thread-like blossoms are fairy lace,
And the whole world's mine for taking!

I must seek the lairs where I used to lie,
Curtained by trees and under the sky;
I must find and touch and recover
The sights and sensations laid away,
Where the Lion lies couchant at Broken Bay,
To welcome me back like a lover.

The strong white feet of the winter rains
Have trodden the campfire's cold remains,
The lizards my hearth are keeping;
I must find the cave where the fairy-mouse
And her wee pouched kindred kept their house,
And-the nest where her babes are sleeping.

Grape-blue the hills in the dawn shall be,
And the sun shall rise from a white-gold sea,
With light for the day's adorning,
Where the rain-washed track is a virgin sheet
For the printed tale of a pilgrim's feet;
My feet on the sands of morning.
SANDS OF MORNING. (1935, March 14). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 2 Supplement: Women's Supplement. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17171195

That this place was a solace and refuge to Ella and her friends is threaded through all her works. Even decades later she recalls her visits here as visions. Her interview with Hazel de Berg marks pointedly the great beauty of the Australia as experienced in her many bushwalks, and one particularly long bush walk from Gordon, a Sydney suburb to the coast here and back. The bush walk started at 3am and finished at 11 pm and covered 42 miles. Ella remarks that her bush walking friends relished the experience.

In 1911 the following 'Peg Man' poem was published - this was a game Ella and her brother used to play with their cousins on the banks of Macquarie River in those eras where children made their own toys and amusements:
THE PEGMEN.
BY ELLA M'FADYEN.
We made the Pegmen all ourselves
From some of mother's pegs,
With little bits of kindling wood
Tacked on for arms and legs.
We made them in the summertime,
When days are long for play,
And lesson hours are early done.
And Cliff came up to stay.

We made them tools of wood and tin,
To help their farm to keep,
We built them dams and shearing sheds,
And paddocks for their sheep.
Cliff made them crooked roads, where they
Could ride their wooden horse,
And where be scooped a gully out,
He made a bridge across.

I built the woolshed and the gates
With sticks and things I got,
And Dorry, though she's just a girl,
She helped us quite a lot.
Cliff begged some oilcloth for their boots
(Although they have no feet), '
And Dorry helped to make their clothes,
Because she sews so neat.
From here to Pegmen's run, you know
Is quite a longish way,
Across the paddock, where the ram
Chased Cliff and me one day,
It's lonely there when evening comes'.
Because the river moans,
And makes a little saddish sound
Among the crossing stones.
They aren't afraid. They work all day,
As honest Pegmen should,
Their hearts are oak, although their heads
Are only clothes-peg wood.
And then we water all the roads
Outside the Pegmen's run,
And send them racing through the mud—
Oh, that's what I call fun.
And if they tumble in the creek,
You simply fish them out —
They aren't like silly dolls you buy,
That people scold about.
So if you get the kindling wood,
With which the fires are lit, -
And ask your mummy for the pegs
As soon as they are split;
And if she's got some oilcloth left
From covering her shelves,
Why, then, perhaps you'd like to make
Some Pegmen for yourselves.
For if you live away from town,
And want to have some fun,
There's nothing half as good, you'll find
As games on Pegmen's run.
THE PEGMEN. (1911, September 13). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 44. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article164333162
These stories, begun decades before, would grow with more 'chapters' added, which were first run in newspapers and eventually led to them being published as very popular children's books with wonderful illustrations. The Pegmen Tales (1946) and Pegmen Go Walkabout (1947) and Little Dragons of the Never Never (1947), featured the adventures of two little horned dragons from the centre of Australia. Ella even had these lizards as pets and became so good at looking after them and other Australian lizards both Taronga Zoo and the Australian Museum sent several to her for care. As such, Ella was an early wildlife carer:
TAMING THE LIZARDS
Miss Ella McFndyon has a flair' for winning the confidence of wild creatures of the bush. She has even managed to tame and to breed the tiniest of lizards. At the request of the authorities of Sydney Zoo, Miss MacFadyen has made a special study of that innocent and harmless little creature, with the fierce guise and the alarming name, the Horned Dragon. This, by the way, is .the least libelous of of its names, for in Latin it is Moloch horridus, and in bush English it is Mountain Devil, Demon Lizard, and anything else ugly that its appearance seems to suggest. Miss McFadyen will talk of 'The Horned Dragons of the Never Never,' from 2FC at, 10.45 — 'Women's Session' — on Wednesday morning next, and the talk will be relayed to 2NC, 2NB, 2CR. Therefore country folk may be sure of .being able to hear Miss McFadyen's story. TAMING THE LIZARDS (1937, September 11). The Northern Champion (Taree, NSW : 1913 - 1954), p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162159928
DELEGATE FROM LIZARD LAND
By ELLA McFADYEN
WHEN Chips, the Horned Dragon from the Never Never, reached me after his long overland journey, he was just six and a half inches of sad little lizard, thirsty and troubled from his horned head to the tip of his thorny tail. Caring for these desert lizards, when they are sick or unhappy, calls for special knowledge and a lot of attention, so Chips was sent to me to grow well again.
With the right care he was soon enjoying his bath, sunbake and meals, and putting on frequent changes of colour-bright yellow, earthy red, or lichen-green, as these little dandies of our sandy inland do, if they are in good health.
When I took Chips to the Junior Red Cross camp, as living material for our nature talks, I hardly expected that he would be elected camp mascot. Maybe it was the Bathurst air, or perhaps the tiny black ants on Mount Panorama were especially tasty, but he breakfasted heartily, and then spent the better part of each day in charming the young campers to a kindly interest in our harmless Australian lizards. These inoffensive creatures are too often hunted or killed, though they are most helpful in eating harmful insects. DELEGATE FROM LIZARD LAND (1947, January 29). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 4 (Playtime). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27905983
What stands out about her books is they are still being enjoyed by youngsters today - when you can get your hands on a copy.
Pegman story available online: New South Wales. Department of Education. (August 1948). The school magazine of literature for our boys and girls Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-775758110

WHY BABY REPTILES QUARREL
By ELLA McFADYEN
"NATURE has a reason- for everything. It is fascinating to find out why animals do certain things.
Some creatures, like sea-birds for instance, live together in large colonies, and others, like deer and wild cattle and wild horses, form large family groups under one leader, stronger and wiser and bolder than the rest. As a rule, however, Nature finds it better for her wild families to split up. Even with the herd animals just mentioned, there comes a time when the old leader is too feeble or too cranky for the good of the mob, and then a young fellow starts up, fights and defeats him, and takes on the leadership.
One reason why all the little animals of a family do not stay together is that an enemy might kill them all in one attack. If they have scattered, some are sure to escape. But the chief reason why families break up and go different ways is that Nature insists that young animals learn to do their own hunting, instead of depending too long on their parents.
Savage animals, like lions and tigers, turn against each other as they become older. You never find a family living together once it has grown up. "
Among sea creatures, like the oyster, tides and currents carry the eggs here and there. The creatures that bore into piles and damage wharves, or attach themselves to ships, are another example of Nature's plans for scattering the young. Before they are full-grown, their bodies have limbs for swimming, but as soon as they make fast to a place that suits t hem, they change and become borers, or adapt themselves for sticking.
Many of our harmless, peace loving lizards have children who spend their early life quarrelling. The Big Skinks, like the Blue-tongue, the Pink-tongue, and the Giant Skink or Land Mullet, soon become so gentle as pets that they will take food from your hand. But they have big appetites, and their legs do not keep pace with their growth, so it is only as youngsters that they scamper about much. That is the best time for them to travel. And that is the time when you will see them snatching food from each other and nipping each other's paws.
This, pretty little striped skink is a finger-length of baby Pink-tongue, about a fortnight old.
In the Nature article In "Playtime" on July 16, the word "gills" was inadvertently substituted for "plates." The sentence in question should read: "Instead of scales, they have bony plates, called denticles, embedded In their tough skins." WHY BABY REPTILES QUARREL (1947, July 30). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 5 (Playtime). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18037323

Some covers:

Ella created characters that lived in distinctively Australian landscapes, under Australian trees, in Broken Bay and Pittwater caves, in the swamps of the Never Never. These tributes were a part of that growing rise of Australian stories for Australian people and children that underlined Ella's involvement in the literary community of her day and her lifelong passion for nature writing and bushcraft. Her body of work is so large, and she was so prolific, several volumes would need to be published to collate them all into one coalesced work.
After the position at Sydney Mail finished, and her work for the Sydney Morning Herald was scaled back, she was offered a position reviewing manuscripts for one of her favourite publishers, Angus and Robertson, work she did until three years prior to passing away - another dream job! The first manuscript she reviewed was Dorothy Walls 'Blinky Bill', for which she produced a condensed version. This book, first published in 1933, gives us a timeline for her work with Angus and Robertson - which, if records showing she went on with them until 1972, shows an almost 40 year career with them too.

A Gum Tree In Heaven

In her 1972 interview with Hazel de Berg, towards the end of the tapes, Ella has clearly been asked how she would like to be remembered. She reflects on herself being just one link in the infinite connectedness of nature, reincarnation, her notion of heaven, the kindness of animals, sharing one instance where she witnessed one of the little lizards in her care moved aside to let another, sicker little one, eat. Sharing insights on Australian animals remained a constant throughout her life, as did her love and respect for the original custodians:

BUSH BABIES

.No. 1-Pouched Mice

By Ella McFadyen

IN some of the sandstone caves around Pittwater and Hawkesbury River, if you are lucky, you may have your evening camp visited by little creatures with the long name of Phascogales, and the appearance of large, plump, long-tailed mice.

They are marsupials, like possum with pouches for carrying their young and large eyes for seeing in the dark and we often call them pouched mice. They feed by night, but only insects. They were curious about food we gave them, and picked it.up in their tiny paws, but threw it down again and scampered off to find beetles.

In a corner of the cave we found a nest of gum leaves, in which mother Pharcogale had left her babies while she went hunting. When her older children told her about us (the first ones we saw were half grown) she ran in through a hole in the roof of the cave, across the ceiling, and down the wall, and took a baby about the size of a thimble out of the nest. Carrying it on her back like a Koala she leapt so far across the cave that it almost seemed she flew, alighted on the opposite wall, ran up it, across the ceiling again and out of the hole, and all the time the baby clung to her back.

''Now." said one of our party. I suppose they'll go and sleep at grandma's, for as long as we stay in the cave." And that is probably what they did.

BUSH BABIE (1946, June 26). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 10 (Playtime). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17992372

"THAT MUST HAVE BEEN PIGGIEBILLAH"

Miss Ella McFadyen tells the aboriginal story of how the ant-eater got its spines.

NEAR the top of Cambewarra Pass one day, a Scotswoman, unfamiliar with our bush animals, called to me to come and see the queer creature she had under a box. She had put a heavy stone on top of the box. We removed the stone, turned over the box, but whatever had been there had vanished like the things the conjurer puts under his hat.

I looked at the bare, scuffled soil and said: "That must have been Piggiebillah."

On another occasion when tramping the heights above Pittwater, there blew up the hillside an odour of crushed ants, as when a cart-wheel is driven over a gravel ant-hill on a bush track. The scent led us to a ravaged ant-hill, the side of it clawed away, and the surviving ants running about distractedly, wringing their hands. There was no sign of the marauder.

"That," we said, "must have been Piggiebillah."

Peering over a cliff above Broken Bay one cloudy afternoon, I saw what looked like a vegetable promenade. A rounded tuft of scrubby straws, blackened at the tips, scuffled along like a burnt off grasstree stump out for a stroll. It began to sink through the earth as it got wind of me, but this time I was wearing a pair of strong leather gauntlets, and digging fast, 1 got my hands under the fellow, levered him out . as he gripped hard at the soil, and tossed him into my hat. And that was Piggie-billah, the spiny ant-eater, whom scientists call Tachyglossus, meaning "swift-tongue."

"Piggiebillah"

His taloned feet grip like the claws of a bird, his narrow snout is like a bird's bill, and encloses the long, sticky, flickering tongue with which he licks up ants. The spiny ant-eater. no less than its cousin the platypus, is among the world's wonders, for it lays an egg which it carries about in a pouch till a hairless baby is hatched, which it feeds on milk. Its spines are just a sprinkling of specially developed hairs for protective pur-poses, but its best protection is the speed with which it digs, letting the loose earth fall in behind it so that no hole shows where it has gone.

Here is a story the blacks tell: Piggiebillah was once a very wicked black-fellow who should have slept with his mouth open, so that his soul would come out and go walkabout, and keep watch for enemies. But Piggie's soul used to "go walkabout altogether too much," and leave him tired in the morning, so he slept with his mouth shut and took the risk. -One night the whole tribe decided to punish him, so they fell upon him in his sleep, beat him out of all shape with their clubs, stuck him full of spears and left him for dead. But Piggiebillah was strong. He did not die. He healed up crooked and he shrank up small, as he had no one to feed him while he lay helpless. Now he gets about, only he has never been able to pull out the spears, with his crooked little hands, and that is why he looks such a spiny ant eater. "THAT MUST HAVE BEEN PIGGIEBILLAH" (1947, July 2). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 4 (Playtime). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18033061

Her work as a 'Red Cross camp mother' continued - even helping children marvel at the bush and all its treasures here at Narrabeen, and staying true to her love of and connection with Australian rural areas and their children. Here too she was sharing her love of trees and their importance in our environment - she would share Aboriginal legends - and loved her time with the youngsters:

J.R.C. CHILDREN IN CAMP

DURING the week 70 schoolchildren between the ages of 12 and 15 years entered the Junior Red Cross Camp at Narrabeen for an 11-day holiday course in first aid, nature study, and handcrafts. ,

The national secretary of Junior Red Cross, Mr. F. G. Degenhardt, is camp director.

Miss Ella McFadyen, well known naturalist, will give lectures during the camp on soil conservation. J.R.C. CHILDREN IN CAMP (1952, May 4). The Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1949 - 1953), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18505100

Children Learn Water Safety

In the beautiful surroundings of the National Fitness Camp at Narrabeen, near Sydney, 60 members of Junior Red Cross this week are learning safety, first-aid and accident faking, bushcraft and methods of conducting meetings and group activities. The camp, which is held annually, attracted 180 applications from boys and girls all over the State, and most of the 60 lucky campers were chosen from country centres.

Competitions

Three junior Red Cross Teacher-Patrons and six members of Junior Red Cross Headquarters Staff are in charge of the children, who are divided into five groups. Sports competitions between the groups and intergroup social activities have been organised. The children also have a daily camp newspaper through which they can express their opinions on camp activities. The Chairman of the Committee of Junior Red Cross, and the Chairman and General Secretary of Red Cross visited the camp last Wednesday. Saturday, January 15, will be Visitors' Day, when parents and visitors of campers can 'come to camp.' In the evening, a concert will be presented by the children. The camp will end on Sunday, January 16.

BUSHCRAFT: Miss Ella McFadyen, well-known naturalist, emphasises the usefulness of the Silky Oak to campers, Edward Wynne, of Newcastle; Valerie Beckett, of Coonabarabran; Kay Kayne, of Bathurst, and Janet Dietsch, of Cootamundra.

SWIMMING LESSONS: Jan Weller, of Dyers Crossing (near Taree), and Roberta Rekes, of Condobolin, get a lesson in swimming from Miss Mary Ross. After only two days in camp, these two little girls had learned to swim and were very proud of their achievement.

FIRST-AID: Sylvia Walters, of West Wallsend, adjusts an arm sling on Helen Clark, of Wellington. First-Aid and accident faking are included in the camp programme and the children are tested at the conclusion of lessons.

Children Learn Water Safety, First Aid At Red Cross Camp (1955, January 14). The Farmer and Settler (Sydney, NSW : 1906 - 1955), p. 18. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article117406924

Ella's other great passion was for Australian trees, and eucalypts in particular. Although in her time they seemed to be inexhaustible, alike her laments for the diminishing banks of green trees around her when writing from Lindfield in the 1920's, you must wonder what she would think if revisiting today with so many cut from the skyline and parks - so many they may be numbered by trunks still standing in this generation - and suspect she would again write a lament for beauty sacrificed for dollars:

THE CONTRIBUTOR
THE TREES OF SYDNEY.
BY ELLA M'FADYEN.

The Athenians of old accounted the olive tree which reared its majestic branches from the rocky height of the Acropolis the most precious gift bestowed by the gods upon their city. It is a truth in the life of great cities which has been learned and forgotten and learned again. Sydney is learning it, and one day she will be famed for her trees. To-day she has miles of garden suburbs, glorious in foliage. It will stand her citizens in better stead than pavements of marble and fretted colonnades.

There is nothing stamps a city or town with a character like the trees of its streets. The silver pepper tree is already symbolic of the towns of the western tableland, the broad streets of Albury to the south are beautiful with plane and cork elm. Northward, Grafton holds Supremacy in the glossy foliage of the black bean. The small-boyhood of Grafton, dodging along the strip of grass that the low branches still protect from the encroaching dust of the highway, assail each other with the big pods in lieu of stones. We acknowledge Brisbane as queen of the jacaranda and the golden-headed 'peacock tree' — and Sydney has her figs.

Her citizens have shaken their heads over them, and pointed scornful fingers at them, and lopped the branches off them, but I want to say a word for the figs. They have been railed at for littering the footpaths with their dropping fruit, they have been denounced for killing the grass, that, in defiance of nature, is expected to grow beneath them; yet what would the Domain be without its figs? And what of that grand old patriarch spreading his grey limbs to the sun in the little corner by Bridge-street?

Row upon row they stand along our parks, with squat, great figures, and knotty knees, dark, broad, and bearded, like satyrs or primeval wild. I love the figs of Sydney town for their sturdy defiance of the powers that be, for their dominant personality, uncouth, primitive, and splendid. 'I was, I am, and I shall be,' they say, and they are legion.

It is well for the English oak when the year Is young and she stands arrayed like a young huntress all in lincoln-green. It is well for the laughing planatus flaunting its baubles of green to every gust that goes by. It is well for the beckoning palms and the red-cheeked hibiscus, and for the radiant coral tree it Is very well when the year is young. But the inconsequent wind of autumn dances over the grass. The palms fling up their tattered manes like frightened steeds, the gaunt limbs of the oak have cast their last leaf and wait in vain for the mantle of snow that shall cover the eyes of a mocking world, and the plane, like a ragged and toothless old jester, his very jests outworn, shivers and crouches and shakes his few pitiful remaining baubles in a grim attempt at mirth. Then the old satyrs wait the winter out in their mantles of goodly green with russet reversed.

Only in gardens where Art lays her restraining hand upon the fiercer moods of nature, the plane tree stoops to her shady pool, a thing of beauty the long year round, and the oak is as much in her kingdom as the flaunting poincianna or the gnarled and glorious gingko (Salisburia adi antlfolia).

I wonder sometimes if the willows that trail their fingers in the lagoon about Allan Cunningham's monument have any memories. Perhaps they have —

'In the falling of the year,

'When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad,

When the boughs are yellow and sere.'

But ever with the waking of spring the willows forget and are young again— and yet their boughs have wept above Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. And the solemn Wishing Tree that once stood before old Government House in Philip-street! I wonder how many wishes of mighty import have been confided to its guardian dryad. Not the famed oak of Sumner-chaos himself was half as wise in the secrets of men.

There is a little sunny slope in a corner of the Botanic Gardens, and again a little railed plot before the new library, dedicated to casuarinas. Oh, the murmuring, grey-lichened casuarina spreading its pencilled beauty against the sunlit bay! Oh, the solemn river-oak binding the steep bank with twisted, flood-bared roots. Scarcely would they know their wasted and blackened fellows of the city garden. There are few of our native trees, it seems, that take kindly to the city ways.

Down towards the Quay in those criss-cross thoroughfares, where harbour breezes penetrate and stray, odd gardens and circumscribed courtyards may be found where a palm grows straight and slim to the sun, or a pandanus lifts its ragged head. Here and there in a park enclosure or a corner of the Botanic Gardens may be found a stiffly, self-conscious banksia, the uncompromising burrawong (Macrozamia), or the tattered and irreclaimable titree. 'Scribblings of nature, learning how to Write,' Marcus Olark called them. We have surely room in our city parks and squares for more of these transcripts from her inexhaustible copy book.

THE CONTRIBUTOR (1910, March 23). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 17. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article164291405

THE EXILE.

---o---

All the way from Samarai,

Every port we made:

Well I loved the bonnie trees

And their gracious shade;

Tulip bow'rs In dim Rabaul,

Kapoks, stiff and still,

Yellow-flowered hibiscus trees,

On Bitapaku Hill.

Slender-stemmed areca palms,

Cocos fringe aquake,

And the twilight, dimly red,

Rubber jungles make,

Climbing up from Gizo wharf.

Mine it was lo see

One-an exile from the South

Who showed my heart to me.

Green as sunlit Chrysoprase,

Blue beyond belief;

'Mile on mile of foam-laced wave

Washed across the reef;

Far below us, through the palms.

Seas without an end. . .

At my side a whisper spake,

Softly, as a friend

Have you In your wander leagues,

Pleased with palm and foam.

Utterly forgotten us,

And the shores of home?

Windy dawns and cooling rains,

Winter's chast'ning hand

Can It hold the heart of you,

The Lotus-eaters' Land?

All the way from Samarai

New things were to see.

But a voice on Gizo Hill

Showed my heart to me;

Sweet as love-words to the ear.

Honey to the mouth,

Bore the exiled eucalypt

Her greeting from the South.

ELLA MCFADYEN.

THE EXILE. (1926, February 20). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16281575

AN ADVENTURE.

I went down to the trees to-night,

When the birds were going to bed;

The red gums showed In the fading light,

And the shadows spilled and spread;

And there was a song I had never heard,

By the creek and the pebbles played,

And a queer shrill call from an unseen

bird—

But I wasn't quite afraid.

ELLA MCFADYEN.

AN ADVENTURE. (1930, February 15). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28045125

TREE SONGS.

1: THE CORAL TREE.

The Coral Tree

For beggary

Had but a rag to wear;

Her tattered leaves blew down the wind

And left her branches bare,

But Winter's King

Beheld this thing

And loved the beggar maid.

And set her by his royal throne

In scarlet fine arrayed.

ELLA MCFADYEN.

TREE SONGS. (1933, September 23). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17009155

TREE SONGS.

3: THE HUSH-A-BYE TREE.

The Sheoak Is a mother tree,

Her little babes to rest

She loves to hush and fondle

As she rocks them on her breast;

"So hush-ahush, my seedlings there,

So hush-a-bye," says she,

"Oh hush thee there, my fondlings fair,"

Soft sings the Sheoak Tree.

And when her little baby seeds

Are cradled in the earth.

And she is waiting patiently

For Spring to give them birth,

The fairies bring their elflings, lest

Her arms should empty be

And "Hush-a-bye" she'll softly sigh,

The grey old Sheoak Tree.

ELLA MCFADYEN.

TREE SONGS. (1933, November 11). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved January 29, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17023165

TREE SONGS.

4: ANTARCTIC BEECHES.

Above the Queensland border,

And lifted to the sky

Four thousand feet above the sea

And that is middling high

The Beeches of Mount Hobwee

In all their verdure glow,

Renewed these many thousand years

The oldest trees I know.

The orchids in their branches

Are waxen-white and sweet.

The great Rain Forest, green and vast,

Lies dim below their feet;

Old Beeches green on Hobwee,

Their knees In mosses hid,

Ere Pharaoh saw an architect

About a pyramid.

ELLA MCFADYEN.

TREE SONGS. (1933, November 18). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17025042

In her last words for Hazel de Berg Ella speaks of a wonderful red gum tree she adored on the point of Commodore Heights at West Head, just opposite Barrenjoey. Her words praise the view across to Lion Island, and how much she loved that island, Pittwater and Barrenjoey - she loved the sound of the casuarinas, and she loved the sight of the stately gums - and even wanted one for herself, in Heaven:

Trees In Paradise.

Betula the Birchtree is silver as

the moon,

And slender as a maiden, and

the Norseman had a rune,

That or an the earths trees,

the gods so old and wise,

Only chose the Birchtree to plant

In Paradise.

Betula the 'Birchtree, I grant you

she is fair

To grace the Norseman's Heaven—

- but my heart -would weary

there-

Weary for a Eucalypt In a grey-

green coat,

And a fire of little sticks breath-

ing scented smoke.

(Wanderers' fires besides the

way when feet are young to

roam.

Hearth fires at the close of day

to lure the weary homo;

Cedars of Lebanon, Sandalwood,

and Pine,

All the gums of Araby, smell

not half so fine

Then grant me, kindly angels, to

plant me even one

Eucalypt In Heaven when my

days on earth are done.

("Tree Songs" by Ella MeFadysn,

from the "S.M- Herald.'')

Trees In Paradise. (1934, January 24). The Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1924 - 1941), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201255812

Called a Naturalist, a Poetess, an Editor, a Conservationist of old buildings as much as bush areas and bush animals, even a mother to the mothers and all their children during her work for the Junior Red Cross, Ella's love for all animals and nature is how her legacy comes forward to now - someone who wanted to and expected to see Australian gum trees in heaven alike those she sought shade from in her visits to our area - we could also claim her as one of our own - who is, hopefully, having that longed for green boughed rest under that one gum tree planted in heaven for her.

Ella McFadyen (left) and fellow Boomerang Walking Club member Jean Bransdon at West Head in the Hawkesbury River area, Sydney, 1932. photo courtesy State Library of New South Wales

One more story by ella:

YOUNG FOLKS
WHERE THE STARS FALL.
BY ELLA M'FADYEN.

The paper lay spread under the Cootamundra wattle tree on the side lawn. A firmly-planted, holland-covered elbow held down either page, and served at the same time to support an obstinate little chin. The brown eyes above had not long learned the language of print, but they were proud of their accomplishment.

'If parents could only be convinced of the incalculable harm wrought upon a young and eager imagination by these idle and in credible fairy tales.' The active little brain behind the brown eyes could tip more understand the long words than the red, mischievous mouth could pronounce them, but the general drift was quite clear. Harry lifted his chin so that he might have one sunburnt fist free to. bring down upon the open page, Just as father used to do when denouncing some new move in politics.

'I don't believe It,' he cried, his voice trembling with indignation, his little frown meeting in a puckered line. Just at that moment he felt a hearty thump on his shoulder. 'Bravo, old man, that's the style.' Harry jumped up, he had believed the gar den to be empty. Nevertheless the voice went on, 'Did you ever see' a fairy?' Harry was a good deal startled, but he stuck to his guns.

'No,' he answered, stoutly, 'but I believe in them all the same/' It was rather uncanny, this conversation with an Invisible questioner.

'Why do you believe?' 'Because, oh, because I've just felt them.' Then he added, almost fiercely, 'You go down to the creek when it's all quiet and the shadows are long and sleepy, and you see if you don't feel the same. As if you could almost see them, just like on still nights you can almost hear the stars singing. Oh, I wish I could quite, instead of only 'almost,' ' he added wistfully.

'Softly, lad, do you really mean that? Very ?well, here I am.'

A little brown person, with a big head and mischievous eyes, stepped down on to the open paper, bowing low, cap in hand.

'By jove,' said Harry.

The visitor seated himself cross-legged, and laid down his cap. 'There are fairies,' he said, 'just as long as there are folks'who believe in them. Don't say again that you've never seen one.' Harry's first impulse was To put his hand over the little brown thing, as though it were a rare new beetle, but he conquered toe impulse.

'Why didn't I ever see you before?' he asked, under his breath.

'I've often been here in the wattle trees, one gets a pleasant sea breeze from the top, but I didn't quite know whether you were the right sort. I don't care to take my cap off till I'm pretty sure of the welcome I'll receive. See? It's a bit inconvenient to only be able to. appear to those who believe' in us, but It's a law that can't be altered. But now you have made me eternally your debtor.'

'What's that?' Harry asked.

'Oh, that if you want a good turn done at any time I'm your man. Anything I can do now?'

'I daresay there's really a lot of things if I could think of them, but what's your name, first?'

The brownie stuck a piece of grass in the corner of his mouth, and thought for a ?while. 'Name of Prickles,' he answered. 'At least it's this way. I'm fairly young for my family, Just about two or three hundred years. There was a big drought in full swing in the year that I was introduced to Australia; I've been thin and dry ever since — must have been impressionable. Well, my folk gave me a name I suppose, but a trifle like two or three hundred years even is a long while to re member a thing, so I forgot right out to »ave trouble.' 'But why Prickles?' Harry asked, staring hard at his guest. 'My friends call me that, 'cause I've got such a beast of a temper.' 'And those' who aren't your friends?' 'They leave me and my name alone, that's all.'

And the mannikin squared his elbows and doubled up his fists laughably. 'Then, if you please, Prickles, we'll be .very good friends.' i

'Just so, old chap; but you're an out size, you'll admit.'

He cocked his head on one side and considered. 'I might have you altered to fit,' he remarked thoughtfully. 'Here, catch hands, there, round about, and so. Feel a bit giddy, eh? Don't jump, that towering beetle Is only life-size after all.'

Harry laughed aloud. He was of a height with his little brown conductor as they waded knee-deep across the shaven lawn. Then he stopped with a sudden misgiving in his heart.

'I say,' he said, 'you're all right, aren't you? There are- brownies and brownies, you know, Prickles; and another migntn't like

'That's all right. I'm not one of your goblins or after-dark flitter-bats, you be wire.'

'Still, Prickles, you wouldn't mind me saying a bit of Latin, would you?' Harry pleaded.

'Fire away; mensa mensarum, eh?'

'Ah, Prickles, don't laugh. I mean church Latin, like there is at the top of the Psalms. 'Quare fremuerunt' and 'Laudamus, and— I can't think of any more; but that ought to be enough, and you aren't angry, are you?' 'Not a bit, old man, a very sensible precaution. Now, what will I show you?'

'I'd like to see the fairies dancing a magic ring if I might'

Prickles shook his head. 'There's no moon to-night,' he answered. 'Tell you what, though, would you like to see where the stars fall?'

'I thought,' Harry answered, 'that they fell into the silver wattles, and that's what makes the gum so bright and sparkling.

'Some of them do, but most that you see fall go Into the sea. They're white hot, too. and I've heard them hiss as they took the water, all still and black, and the bubbles boil up like silver globes as the star sank. You've seen phosphorus on the water at night?'

Harry nodded. 'I've seen It stick to the oars.'

'Well, that's just starshine. It's molten hot while the star keeps spinning, and when it falls the water is so much colder that the starshine gets pretty well solid; that's what you see shimmering at night. I shan't be able to take you down this evening, it wouldn't be etiquette; but if you hurry up I will find a guide for you. It's getting dark already, come along.'

They hurried across the lawn to the garden beds, and Prickles stopped and knocked at the entrance to a spider's hole.

'Saves a lot of time if you can take a short cut like this. Hullo, ma'am,' as two close-set, green eyes shone down the dark tunnel, 'I was beginning to think you were out.'

The spider beckoned with a yellow fang, and turning round revealed a succession of four pillars of emerald eyes. Harry and his friend followed down several dark turnings, and she bade them a civil good-bye at the entrance to a somewhat wider passage. Down this they ran hand in hand, brushing from time to time against scurrying bodies that gave them no heed.

'Don't mind 'em,' panted Prickles. 'Just brownies,. same as me. They don't mind us, anyway.'

At length they came out through a crevice in the rocks on to the sea beach. It was quite dark, and the still water below and the still sky above were lit with myriads of stars.

'Hold a minute,' cried Pickles. 'I must find the old man. Um-ah!' he rummaged among the seaweed till he found a little cave Just below spring tide line, 'Here we are. Winkles, I say, Winkles, look alive man I (Bother the old slow coach.) Here. I say!' hammering' all the time with his fists.

At last a little old man with a long white beard peeped out and asked mildly, 'Who's there, and what can I do for him? Ah, it's you, Corks, is it?'

'Yes, it is, I'm afraid— at least, it feels like me. (Calls me Corks, Hal, 'cause it Is so Jolly hard to keep me under.) Look here, Winkles, I want you to lend this youngster a suit of oils; the little green ones I had the other day will do. He's going down to night, and I'm afraid I can't take him. I'll meet you again here in an hour or two. Good-night.'

The little old man drew Harry into his cave, where the roof was hung with tiny nets all spun of moonshine and cobwebs. In a twinkling there was a little suit of green -shining stuff laid out ready, and Harry was into it in a minute. Then the old man brought him a draught of something in a deep sea shell, and they set out together and went down to a group of rocks, in one of the pools of which a couple of sea horses were tethered. , Away down through the dusky, cool, green water they flew on their spirited steeds, landing at last on a smooth sanded floor before a great wall of rock.

They dismounted, tethered their horses, and passed through a gateway to an inner wall, all draped in sweeping green weeds like thin silk. Here was a broad archway hung with a curtain of threaded pearls, and within all the floor was wonderful shining silver. But above them the light was soft and strained, making Harry think of some lines his mother had read him about 'The purple twilights under the sea.' Yes, that was it, 'purple twilights;!' but what was this wonderful pavement?'

The old man chuckled softly. 'Stars,' he whispered. 'That's what we do— pave the sea with 'em. Look!'

As he spoke some score of silver-scaled mermen came rollicking in, with a great netful of stars held between them, and after them a shoal of merry sea maids, who clasped their pretty hands at sight of Harry, and made much Of him, bearing him off to their coral caves and gardens of sea flowers, branching white coral stems and scarlet sea anemones, and peacock-hued, gossamer-tissued growths. And there were palaces where these merry people dwelt, wonderful palaces hung with precious store of sunken treasure and beautiful shells, and pearls, pearls everywhere, in this Inner kingdom of the sea. There were strange fruits to taste and sweet music blown on shells to listen to, and, ah, well! there are wonderful doings down there on the shining sea floor.

And, last of all, his kindly guide took Harry round to a quaint little cave with bars of rare black coral across the entrance. A stout porcupine-fish poked out his little pig like snout.

'Who's there now?' he grunted. 'You can't get in.'

'Why, you know me, Porfcie, dont you? This is a young gentleman a friend of mine asked me to show 'around. Got anyone interesting inside? This is the prison,' he explained to Harry.

The porcupine-fish puffed himself into a ball, erecting all his spines, then he blew off a few bubbles thoughtfully.

'No one to speak of. A few crabs, very uncivil fellows; a couple of boys, the sort that will fix corks on a fellow's spine, and half a dozen young barnacles who've run away from -home. Pretty slack time we're having. Good evening, sir.' Harry and the, little old man, having bid den good-bye all round, remounted their horses and returned to the beach. When he had got his suit ef oils off the young, adventurer found it very good to lie in the warm, dry sand and wait for Prickles.

And presently his companion offered to while away the time with a story of the first star that fell.

'It was before my time, you see, but the tale has been handed down, lad. If you look, it's easy to see where there ought to be another star in the Southern Cross. See it now? There's -a kind of blank in the centre. Well, that was the star, and brightest of all, it was, among the sky legions. But one night when the Cross hung low, our star looked down into what seemed another sky as full of stars as its own. But of all these one was brightest. Lad, the stars were young then, and how should they know ? The bright star was lonely because it was brighter than any other, saving only the twin star in the sea, so one night it slipped down— down— and left its brothers for a mirage, a ghost star that died even as they touched. But do you wonder at the sheen of the sea when you think of all the stars that have fallen?'

'Hello! Is the old sea-dog, spinning you yarns, eh?' shouted Prickles,' hurrying up. 'Come along, Hal. Sleepy? Yes, that's the sea-diving; it's time you were home. Goodnight, Winkles.'

Harry threaded the dark passages again with Prickles' hand in his, and Dame Spider let them out at her front door. When they stood again beneath the Cootamundra wattle the brownie reversed his spell and restored Harry to his proper size.

'Good-night, old man; they're calling you from the house. See you again soon, I hope, and by-the-bye, if you find anyone who believes — really believes, mind you — you may tell them this.'

And Harry told me.

YOUNG FOLKS (1907, August 14). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 434. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article163661544