Julia State School where author Colin Thiele AC first attended before going on to Eudunda and Kapunda schools. Mid North South Australia
Dr Colin Milton Thiele AC
Background:
Born at Mrs Knabe’s Nursing Home, Eudunda, 16 November 1920.
Father, Carl Wilhelm (1873–1954) and Mother Amalia Anna, nee Wittwer (1887–1983), Brother Armin Louis (1916–1992), Sisters Stella Louise (1911–1995), Dora Meta 1914–2002) and Avis Anna 1929-).
Two childhood homes in Hundred of Julia Creek, first farm on Block 308, Register No 71420, second farm (from 1925), Section 318, in a cropping and grazing area ten kilometres northwest of Eudunda.
Baptised (19 December 1920) and confirmed (6 October 1936) in Julia Lutheran Church.
Educated Julia School (1926–32), Eudunda Higher Primary School (1933–34), Kapunda High School (1935–36), University of Adelaide and Adelaide Teachers College (1937–42).
Served with RAAF as a radar mechanic in the Second World War (1942–45).
Married Rhonda Gladys Gill, 17 March 1945 in Adelaide. Two daughters, Janne Louise (born 1948) and Sandra Gwenyth (born 1954).
Educator:
Taught at Unley High School (1945), Port Lincoln High School 1946–55), Brighton High School (1966).
Lectured at Wattle Park Teachers College (1957–65)
Vice-Principal (1964–65) and Principal of Wattle Park Teachers College (1965–72); Principal of Wattle Park Teachers College 1973–80).
Author:
Colin Thiele’s career as a writer started in the 1940s with poetry and ABC radio scripts. Burke and Wills (1949) was a successful radio verse play.
He has written or edited a total of 101 books. The first was Progress to Denial, a book of poetry, in 1946. His complete list of works incudes poetry, radio scripts, short stories, biography, history, environmental and educational titles and children’s books. He is represented in numerous anthologies and collections of stories and articles.
Storm Boy (1963), his most famous book, was adapted as a film in 1976.
The Sun on the Stubble (1961), The Shadow on the Hills (1977) and the Valley Between (1981) form a loose trilogy about his childhood in the Eudunda district and, with Uncle Gustav’s Ghosts (1974), provided the scenes and characters for an ABC series, Sun on the Stubble, in 1996.
Blue Fin (1969) and The Fire in the Stone (1973) have been adapted as films. “The Water Trolley”, a short story (1996), was adapted for a television version in 1990.
His long list of national and international awards include two Commonwealth of Australia Jubilee Federal Arts Prizes (1961), the Grace Levan Poetry Prize (1960, the Children’s Book of the Year Prize (1982), and the Dromkeen Medal (1998). His books have been translated in many other languages.
The Statue:
Colin Thiele, who moved to Dayboro, Queensland in 1993, unveiled the fireglass statues of himself on Saturday 5 November 1995, here in the town gardens.
This event was planned to coincide with “Eudunda Revisited” celebrations of 125 years of European settlement. Chris Radford, the Freeling sculptor, has depicted his subject sitting on a rock, holding a notebook, and looking down at Mr Percival, the pelican in Storm Boy.
The Eudunda community raised over $60,000 to have the statue cast in bronze by Tim Thomson of Crafers in 2004.
[Details for this sign have been taken from “Can I call you Colin”, the authorised biography of Colin Thiele, 2004, by Stephany Evans Steggall, and from her PhD thesis, 2005, entitled “Colin Thiele: Double Vision. A Biographical Study of an Australian Writer and Educator”.]
*Colin’s life was a deep well, from which one could draw refreshment and encouragement. He walked tall down the road of recollection among the people and the land he loved and portrayed so well.
(From the eulogy given at Colin’s funeral, written by Mr Max Fatchen one of his closest friends.)
Colin Thiele died of heart failure at Brisbane, Queensland, on 4 September 2006.
Julia State School where author Colin Thiele AC first attended before going on to Eudunda and Kapunda schools. Mid North South Australia
Dr Colin Milton Thiele AC
Background:
Born at Mrs Knabe’s Nursing Home, Eudunda, 16 November 1920.
Father, Carl Wilhelm (1873–1954) and Mother Amalia Anna, nee Wittwer (1887–1983), Brother Armin Louis (1916–1992), Sisters Stella Louise (1911–1995), Dora Meta 1914–2002) and Avis Anna 1929-).
Two childhood homes in Hundred of Julia Creek, first farm on Block 308, Register No 71420, second farm (from 1925), Section 318, in a cropping and grazing area ten kilometres northwest of Eudunda.
Baptised (19 December 1920) and confirmed (6 October 1936) in Julia Lutheran Church.
Educated Julia School (1926–32), Eudunda Higher Primary School (1933–34), Kapunda High School (1935–36), University of Adelaide and Adelaide Teachers College (1937–42).
Served with RAAF as a radar mechanic in the Second World War (1942–45).
Married Rhonda Gladys Gill, 17 March 1945 in Adelaide. Two daughters, Janne Louise (born 1948) and Sandra Gwenyth (born 1954).
Educator:
Taught at Unley High School (1945), Port Lincoln High School 1946–55), Brighton High School (1966).
Lectured at Wattle Park Teachers College (1957–65)
Vice-Principal (1964–65) and Principal of Wattle Park Teachers College (1965–72); Principal of Wattle Park Teachers College 1973–80).
Author:
Colin Thiele’s career as a writer started in the 1940s with poetry and ABC radio scripts. Burke and Wills (1949) was a successful radio verse play.
He has written or edited a total of 101 books. The first was Progress to Denial, a book of poetry, in 1946. His complete list of works incudes poetry, radio scripts, short stories, biography, history, environmental and educational titles and children’s books. He is represented in numerous anthologies and collections of stories and articles.
Storm Boy (1963), his most famous book, was adapted as a film in 1976.
The Sun on the Stubble (1961), The Shadow on the Hills (1977) and the Valley Between (1981) form a loose trilogy about his childhood in the Eudunda district and, with Uncle Gustav’s Ghosts (1974), provided the scenes and characters for an ABC series, Sun on the Stubble, in 1996.
Blue Fin (1969) and The Fire in the Stone (1973) have been adapted as films. “The Water Trolley”, a short story (1996), was adapted for a television version in 1990.
His long list of national and international awards include two Commonwealth of Australia Jubilee Federal Arts Prizes (1961), the Grace Levan Poetry Prize (1960, the Children’s Book of the Year Prize (1982), and the Dromkeen Medal (1998). His books have been translated in many other languages.
The Statue:
Colin Thiele, who moved to Dayboro, Queensland in 1993, unveiled the fireglass statues of himself on Saturday 5 November 1995, here in the town gardens.
This event was planned to coincide with “Eudunda Revisited” celebrations of 125 years of European settlement. Chris Radford, the Freeling sculptor, has depicted his subject sitting on a rock, holding a notebook, and looking down at Mr Percival, the pelican in Storm Boy.
The Eudunda community raised over $60,000 to have the statue cast in bronze by Tim Thomson of Crafers in 2004.
[Details for this sign have been taken from “Can I call you Colin”, the authorised biography of Colin Thiele, 2004, by Stephany Evans Steggall, and from her PhD thesis, 2005, entitled “Colin Thiele: Double Vision. A Biographical Study of an Australian Writer and Educator”.]
*Colin’s life was a deep well, from which one could draw refreshment and encouragement. He walked tall down the road of recollection among the people and the land he loved and portrayed so well.
(From the eulogy given at Colin’s funeral, written by Mr Max Fatchen one of his closest friends.)
Colin Thiele died of heart failure at Brisbane, Queensland, on 4 September 2006.