Adam Lindsay Gordon

For many he was regarded as Australia's greatest poet and his life reads like one of his own galloping pieces of verse. Adam Lindsay Gordon was a remittance man. Described as a riotous youth, Gordon's parents shipped him off from their Scottish estate to Adelaide in 1853. On arrival he signed up as a horse breaker with the mounted police at the Thebarton barracks before being posted to the Southeast as a trooper. It proved to be the ideal posting for this most unusual policeman. "Riding around the Southeast on his horse the locals often heard him quoting poetry." His passions were poetry and horse riding. And after leaving the mounted police he continued to indulge both while living at this quaint cottage known as Dingly Dell, its not hard to see why. During his time here he continued his poetry, became a State member of Parliament and enhanced his reputation as a horseman with feats of daring like the famous Blue Lake Leap. It's claimed he leapt his horse over a fence and onto a narrow ledge on the edge of the Blue Lake. It's the poetry of a swashbuckler at heart full of midnight rides and tales of brave stockmen.

For Alan Childs the man who lovingly maintains Dingly Dell, Adam Lindsay Gordon's verse is pivotal to the emergence of a sense of nationhood in Australia. Old photos underline the extent of his fame well after his death, with Dingly Dell becoming a shrine where hundreds gathered in the 1930's for broadcasts of Gordon's poetry. His fame extended beyond Australia's shores , this piece of correspondence from American President Theodore Roosevelt in which he describes himself as an old admirer of Gordon's poetry and states his liking for another more recent poet by the name of Banjo Patterson. Gordon's fame reached its peak in 1934, sixty four years after his death when a bus for the balladeer was installed in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, the only Australian poet to receive such a distinction. But such posthumous pomp and ceremony belies the rollercoaster ride that typified his life in later years. "He goes to Ballarat and he's broke and buys a livery stable". His investment went up in flames in a bad fire but worse was to come. His baby Annie died soon after aged eleven months and his wife Maggie left him. Gordon moved to Melbourne where no longer allowed to compete in steeplechase events because of his numerous head injuries, he took a job as a sports reporter on a newspaper owned by that other great writer of the time Marcus Clarke. However faced with financial ruin when his claim to Esselmont Castle in Scotland failed, Gordon later shot himself on Melbourne's Brighton Beach. In years to come his verse would be recited in classrooms around the country. Dingly Dell Cottage is open seven days a week from 9am to 4pm. Alan Giles also conducts special tours by arrangement. For details contact (08) 8738 2221 or email: info@postcards.sa.com.au