A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

But it is not be thought from this view of Brady’s mental strivings in verse that his
themes were always serious and grave. Knowing of the light heartedness of the man,
his ready wit and abundant vitality, humorous verse should naturally be expected, and
in fact is found in considerable measure, ranging from accounts of the tall tales so
beloved of countrymen to the whimsical and childlike personification of animals and
the creation of strange new creatures akin to those found under Hugh McCrae’s
editorship in The New Triad. 1 “The Coachman’s Yarn” is a good example of the
embodiment of the tall tales which have come to form part of the folk-lore of the
Australian bush. This particular coachman tells of the cold in “Nimitybell” in 1883 –
so cold was it that “It froze the blankets, it froze the fleas, / It froze the sap in the
blinkin’ trees”. A curlew in this winter had nit beak frozen to his feet. Even the
sounds of the bush froze, for when a log was dragged to the fire and burnt, the sounds
of the cross-cut saw could be distinctly heard as it thawed! Even the flaming wick of
a candle froze and burned down a house when it finally thawed out! 2
Much of the earlier humorous verse, written for the Bird-O’-Freedom and The Arrow
contains broad, obvious wit, atrocious puns and schoolboy witticisms (such as the
name of a ship – the “Ellen Blazes”) but there are many occasions when his sense of
fun finds a higher plane, is whimsical, artistic and attractive. In good Australian style
he is interested in the effects of drink, some of the lighter poems making reference to
intoxication in an adolescent manner, to its delights and stupidities. He would take a
newspaper item, comment upon it jocularly, weaving into it unusual features until the
result is pure fun. So when an item commented upon two rams which had strayed
into a householder’s yard, Brady compares them with monsters he has seen in his
cups:
They’d saucer eyes and horns ten feet
In length, and when the bleat,
Their mouths in order to complete
Our terror,
Were opened up until we saw
Their livers large and red and raw.
We’ll swear this fact is free from flaw
Or error ………… 3
There are countless examples of this kind of levity in The Arrow, some better and
many worse!
Another aspect of his technique with humour consisted of his custom of taking
something reasonably important to most people and poking fun at it in a goodhumoured
manner; so doctors, lawyers, dentists, clergymen, even editors are jocularly
“sent up”:
The devil felt poorly, and strange, sirs, to tell
The devil he shivered, although it was hell;
In Tophet there shivered damn quacks b y the score.
And doctors and surgeons were there in galore,
But not one could cure him, though all were agreed,
The Monarch of Darkness was sickly indeed. 4
1 Editor (with E Watt) from August 1927 – July 1928. The Chouse, Cark, Blurb and other mythical
animals appeared in illustrated poems. See J. Webb, Hugh McCrae, O.B.E., unpublished M.A. thesis,
Sydney University.
2 The Bulletin, 20.4.1922
3 “He-Ha-Ha!” Bird-O’-Freedom, 4.2.1893
4 “Monte Carlo”, Bird-O’-Freedom, i7.1.1893
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