Norwood Historical Walk: The Parade, Norwood

On Norwood parade people come for a coffee, a snack and to meet people. It is also possible to walk along the Parade and meet famous people who have had quite an affect on Australia. The Norwood Historical Walk is a series of plaques placed in the footpath of the Parade that explain briefly the lives of poets, politicians and social reformers.

At the eastern end on the corner of Queen Street is May Gibbs. Her children's classic "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" is still in print. When it was first published in 1940 it was a radical change for the children of Australia. Previously children on the Empire had grown up reading about forests, fairies and white Christmas. Now May Gibbs had wicked banksia men down the creek, there were frogs, lizards, leafy sea dragons and the Gum Inn for the gumnut babies. May Gibbs was born in England in 1877 but came to South Australia as a child originally living in a slab hut on the Eyre Peninsula before shifting to a house in Queen Street that backed onto Second Creek.

Further toward the city near the Baptist Church there is a plaque to Mary Martin and across the road in front of the Norwood Hotel is one for Max Harris. Mary and Max are linked because they were great friends, starting at Adelaide University in the 1930s and then through their business dealings into the 1970s.

Legend has it that during his youth Max was so absorbed with reading that Mary used to have to steer him through the city because he always had his head in a book. Later Mary started her own bookshops and they spread through South Australia and even had one in Hong Kong. Max helped out and eventually took over the business as Mary followed her passionate interest in India, where she eventually died. The only remaining Mary Martin bookshop is in Rundle Street. Max Harris was a big name in 20th century Australian literature, writing poetry and columns for the Sunday Mail and the Australian. His plaque is outside the Norwood Hotel because for years he used it as his office. He would wander down the Parade and meet friends and then work away in the pub. He was born in Mount Gambier but loved Norwood and was a champion of the push for Mary MacKillop to become a saint. Although he wasn't a Catholic he was buried in the MacKillop Park at the top of the Parade.

The old Institute building signals the plaque for one of South Australia's great social reformers. Catherine Helen Spence was born in Scotland in 1825 and came to South Australia with her family in 1839. She was teaching by the age of 17 and later wrote a novel about colonial life. Although she continued writing her passion was for women's rights and she worked as an advocate of women's education and electoral reform. She gave speeches around the country fighting for proportional representation fearing the "tyranny of the major parties". She was the first woman appointed to the Education Department's Board of Advice and stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Federal Convention in 1897. Catherine Helen Spence was a solid member of the Unitarian Church that still stands nearby her memorial and she lived in Kent Town and Norwood, eventually settling in Osmond Terrace.

On the corner of the Parade and Elizabeth Street is the plaque for Australia's most popular poet. It isn't Banjo Patterson or Henry Lawson - it is Clarence Michael James "C.J." Dennis. Dennis was born at Auburn in the Clare Valley and lived for a while in Elizabeth Street, Norwood.

Dennis' greatest work was "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke" published in 1915 and more than 250,000 copies later it is still being sold. These tails of the narrator and his "peach" Doreen were loved by readers - especially the first ANZACS heading off to war in Europe ("that flamin' war"). The poems were adapted into an early film and later used for television. The man known as the larrikin of the Laureate died in 1936 at which time Prime Minister Joseph Lyons referred to him as the "Robbie Burns of Australia". Further along from the plaque to C.J.Dennis is one reminding walkers of the work of Doris Taylor.

She was born in 1909 and after a terrible accident as a child she was paralysed at the age of seven. She was in hospital for nine years before emerging able to use a wheelchair.She returned to live in William Street. Doris Taylor was concerned about the institutionalisation of elderly people and on October 6 1953 she held a meeting in the Rechabite Hall (now Vinnys) in Norwood and planned a system where hot meals would be provided for the elderly so they could remain in their homes. It became known as Meals on Wheels and now the program is run in every state of Australia. Over 2,000,000 meals have been served in South Australia.

Doris Taylor continued to fight for the rights of the elderly and was politically active. She managed the political campaign of the Labor candidate for Norwood Don Dunstan from her bed, armed only with a phone. Don Dunstan is also immortalised in the Parade walk. He was Premier for nine years and is remembered as one of the great social reformers of Australian politics.

Other plaques remember James Ashton the founder of the Norwood Art School, William Joseph Denny the former Attorney General and the Blessed Mary MacKillop. There is also a plaque that recognised the Kaurna people who lived in Kensington and Norwood prior to colonisation.

The Norwood Walk is along The Parade at Norwood and its FREE.