> Skip to content
  • Published: 1 February 2018
  • ISBN: 9780143003458
  • Imprint: Ebury Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $24.95
Categories:

Wisdom Man




Some lives, like that of Banjo Clarke, are so special thy touch countless others without trying. A descendant of Truganini, Banjo was born in the early 1920s in the Framlingham Forest near Warrnambool, Victoria, a member of the Kirrae Whurrong tribe.

Life should be looked upon as a sacred thing, to be handled carefully. If something terrible happens, you stop for a while and have a think, and then you work around the next big problem coming up. Like water around a rock. And you still help people when you can, even your worst enemy.
Some lives, like that of Banjo Clarke, are so special they touch countless others without trying. Banjo was born in the early 1920s in the Framlingham Forest near Warrnambool, Victoria, and by the time he passed away he was known and loved by thousands for his wisdom and kindness. He carried a swag during the Great Depression, fought with Jimmy Sharman's famous boxing troupe, built roads for the army in World War II, and had 67 great-grandchildren.

Despite the great hardships he faced in his life, Banjo was renowned for espousing love and forgiveness, sustained by his deep connection to his land, his ancient culture and its spiritual beliefs. His conviction that these could prove the saving of the world was his motivation for telling his story.

  • Published: 1 February 2018
  • ISBN: 9780143003458
  • Imprint: Ebury Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $24.95
Categories:

About the authors

Camilla Chance

Camilla Chance was born in Reading, England, and came to Australia in 1946. She has worked as an editor at Faber and Faber, an English teacher and a book reviewer, and now lives in Warrnambool. She became a close friend of Banjo Clarke after meeting him in 1975. At his request she began interviewing him soon after, continuing until his death some twenty-five years later. Banjo Clarke was convinced that traditional Aboriginal values could help the world counter greed, conceit, and lack of human caring, and he wanted his story recorded in his own words by someone he trusted outside his family.

Clarke Banjo

Banjo Clarke was born in the early 1920s in the forest on Framlingham Mission, near Warrnambool in south-eastern Victoria. He spent the Depression years travelling in search of work, and the war years working with the Allied Works Council in Brisbane and Darwin. But Framlingham Forest remained his true home and was his source of strength. Banjo's life story is not so different to that of many Indigenous people of his generation, but it was the loving-kindness he showed to all he met, including his enemies, that set him apart. He died in 2000.