UP CLOSE TO ADMIRABLE PETER BURLEIGH AND ASSORTED SEA DOGS IN THE MULGA

  

Captured reminiscing  on  Magnetic  Island , looking through a  rare  bound in volume  of  the  l969 Melbourne  magazine Broadside , edited by the late  Pete  Steedman,  is  talented  wordsmith and  illustrator, Peter   Burleigh. 

Burleigh contributed much  to  Broadsde which had a strong political content and challenged the national journal , The Bulletin . Later  on , after many  adventures overseas , some almost death defying with Steedman,  he   wrote  the  rollicking  Bulldust  Diary  for  Little  Darwin .

This illustrated  gem  was composed  as  he  drove  about  Australia   listening  to  dashboard Talking  Books  tapes , including  sailing  aboard  His  Majesty’s Ship  Surprise in 1815, fighting  the  perfidious Bonaparte.

A great fan of  maritime  yarns  , once owning a yacht  in France,  he wrote that  Pat Mickey O’Brien  had written  20 of them (including Master & Commander) about a Captain and his friend Stephen, a surgeon-spy. Brilliant. The best books about the English Navy  I’ve never read – or  listened  to, he said.

One of the   great  drawings   he produced  for  Little Darwin  while  engaged   in  long  running   naval  battles  in  the  Aussie outback  was  the   fabulous   one   we  rerun  below   because  of   its  sheer   brilliance. (See earlier  CRUCIFIED   KENTUCKY  FRIED  CHICKEN  Burleigh  post.)    

(Burleigh, Steedman, Napoleon .)