Magnetic Island , off Townsville, was extolled in a poem by the late Keith Garvey in the book, Rhymes of a Ratbag , published by Hutchison in l981 , the jacket and poems illustrated by cartoonist Dennis Hutton,the Magnetic Island one below.
The drawing carried the message that leaving Magnetic Island and returning to the mainland was going back to the rat race. The island wildlife displayed included a Peacock, a Curlew, Laughing Jackasses-Kookaburras -and strange card- playing creatures .
Garvey, born at Frog Hollow, Moree, NSW, of an Irish father and colonial mother, in l922, worked on many outback jobs . He became known as the scribe from the bush, big on the ABC and wrote several popular books .
Ned Kelly and Captain Bligh got a mention in his poems . So too did Lasseter's lost gold reef, the Dead Heart, Ted Egan's songs about the Northern Territory ,Gallipoli battlefields and Korea.
(Poems. Island. Garvey.)
