This is the second of two articles about the 2025 MSRBF Art and Photography and Elyne Mitchell Photo Story Awards and its theme ‘Man or Myth?’

Honor Auchinleck, Corryong Courier

What would acclaimed author Elyne Mitchell have said about the 2025 MSRBF Art and Photography and Elyne Mitchell Photo Story Awards’ theme ‘The Man or the Myth’?

As her daughter I will tell you some of what I remember.

Elyne spoke to people on both sides of the High Country – in the Monaro and the Upper Murray – who remembered Banjo Paterson. She did her research and contacted Paterson family members and asked them about the identity of ‘The Man’ who inspired the poet to write ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and if he was Jack Riley? She would have wanted to know if he was a composite character inspired by many mountain men or whether he was a myth?

Elyne and Tom Mitchell’s home at Towong Hill often echoed with the discussion about whether or not Jack Riley was ‘The Man’. The competitive Tom was convinced Jack Riley was Paterson’s subject and he had an advantage over Elyne because his family had known Paterson in Sydney.

Paterson had stayed with the Mitchells at Bringenbrong and Tom had corresponded with him while Elyne had only met the poet once.

Elyne held her own ground and argued that Banjo’s ‘Man’ was probably a composite character in the poet’s imagination, made up from his memories of stockmen he knew on the Monaro or in the Upper Murray.

In her ‘The Man from Snowy River’ young reader series and later on in the 1990s as inaugural patron of the bush festival, Elyne supported the possibility that Jack Riley might have been the bard’s inspiration.

Sometimes Elyne would say we have a wonderful poem and why do we need to know the identity of the ‘Man’? Like Banjo and as a writer, Elyne knew that most people love mysteries and myths.

If anyone was to ask Elyne about the inspiration motivating her to write, her answer might have included her father General Sir Harry Chauvel. As a child Elyne had been thrilled by his stories of the wild horses, but his stories were set on the Upper Clarence River near his childhood home at Tabulam.

Quite apart from her father’s stories, there were his wartime exploits with the Light Horse Brigade on Gallipoli and later rising to command the Desert Mounted Corps in Palestine.

Elyne had other inspiring heroes too. Close to home there was Paul Edmund Strzelecki and the mystery of which mountain he climbed.

While she accepted that Mt Kosciuszko was higher by 19 metres at 2,228 metres than the next highest peak, Mt Townsend at 2,209 metres, she would ask if we know for sure that that Strzelecki climbed Mt Kosciuszko?

Confusing things still further, in the 1930s when Elyne first arrived in the Upper Murray, there were local people who referred to the High Country above the tree line as ‘Kosciusko’!

If Elyne was still alive she might challenge entrants of the Elyne Mitchell Photo Story Awards to go out and work out what is important – ‘The Man or the Myth’.

You will need to take a photograph or find one you have already taken to illustrate your writing. Don’t forget to reference the theme but like Elyne, you might consider what is important to you – the man or the myth or is it the landscape? Give your work a title.

Towards the end of her life, Elyne paid tribute to the Upper Murray and the High Country as ‘The country that built my heart’. For Elyne, her inspiration encompassed the world in which she lived, with its people, fauna and flora, myths, stories, songs and poetry.

She wouldn’t have had much time for identity politics. It didn’t matter who you were. What mattered to Elyne is what you did with your life and that you were doing something worthwhile for your community.

She practised what she preached in her writing and created her own myth with her story in ‘The Silver Brumby’. Her books inspired generations to enjoy reading.

Banjo Paterson died 84 years ago in 1941 so there is unlikely to be anyone around who remembers him personally. Tom and Elyne are also long gone and the lively discussions fell silent long before the homestead fell victim to the 2020 bushfires.

So, aspiring entrants will have to make up their own minds!

Paterson fans and entrants to The Man from Snowy River Bush Festival’s Art and Photography Exhibition and The Elyne Mitchell Photo Story Awards might find interest and inspiration in Alistair Campbell’s ‘Banjo Paterson Papers: A Life in Pictures and Words’ from the Paterson Family Archive.

This article appeared in the Corryong Courier, 27 February 2025.