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

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The Overlander – The Prince’s Highway 1 traces the historical development of the
region from its original discovery, using extracts from official records and from
journals of early explorers and pioneers. Particularly interesting are the extracts from
the journal of Angus McMillan, whose father arrived in Gippsland from the Isle of
Skye in 1830. Brady’s feeling for this area is obvious – his descriptions of the giant
cedars and turpentines, the coastal figs and flames betraying that same love which
Kendall felt, whose “Kiama” he quotes. While still containing essential tourist
information, such as a directory of hotels and garages, this little book in its tone and
evocative descriptions gives a sense of history and an atmosphere readily recognisable
by anyone who has travelled its tortuous roads. It must be regarded as the best of the
books in this group – well worthy of rereading, even if only for its accounts of early
travels by land or by sea in such steamers as “The Old Billy” (“King William the
Fourth”), “Rapid” (whose custom belied its name) or “Norah Creina”, which pitched
and rolled their way down the coast, conveying pigs, calves, butter, bacon, raw hides
and passengers, all in close proximity and providing everything necessary “to offend
the olfactory nerves.”
More personal and yet more discursive are three books detailing actual voyages and
journeys undertaken by Brady when the innate restlessness of the man overcame the
necessity to earn a staid living. As well as stressing the historical, geographic and
economic points of importance, he binds these books together by his common interest
in and sympathy for people and the manner in which the countryside impinges upon
their lives. This sympathy gives him ample opportunity for his theorising about ways
in which their lives can be improved, whether through greater cohesion (by
unionism), more patriotism, greater and more efficient use of resources or by merely
giving more thought to their functions. Occasionally, despite this over-riding
seriousness, Brady’s escapism comes through, as in his revelling in stewed duck,
Murray cod grilled on the coals and billy tea while camped on the shores of the
Murray, while “all Nature pulses, throbs, respirates freely around…” 2 Such periods of
leisure and material contentment provide opportunity for soul-searching and
philosophical musings on widely ranging issues. So, secure in his caravan on his
north-ward trip, “isolated, apart, free, forgotten of the world and caring nothing for it”
he can disparage the “strident vulgarity” of everyday life and the “bathos and
banality” of commerce and consider the realities of life, the longings of the human
heart for happiness, sympathy and love which find expression in music, poetry, art
and which would be unaffected by the loss of all material comforts. It is in moments
such as these that the anti-materialist Brady, the dreamer, Brady the romantic and
idealist, is most evident. And in his contacts throughout his journeying he attempts to
live these beliefs. There is an Arcadian faith in the therapeutic nature of the
countryside which led to his retreat to Mallacoota, with the world “as a wonderful
garden in which the soul moved in harmony with God.” 3 There are many such
instances where his proclaimed atheism and agnosticism are forgotten and a religious
ethos, at times closely related to Pantheism, reigns instead. He is a good traveller in
that he travels with a sense of history. There is a cathartic value in such travel. It
revives, stimulates, equalises and gives a sense of perspective. And if one travels
with the sensitivity of a poet, one gains most of all. Loudly he proclaims:
“Philosophers I impeach you. Economists, I doubt you. Reformers, you I despise.
Poets, I hail you!”
1 Melbourne, 1926.
2 River Rovers, (Melbourne, 1911), p,19
3 King’s Caravan, p. 76.