Rochester Secondary College student and Weary Dunlop descendant Eden Beaumont, legendary author Peter FitzSimons', who is touring his latest book about Weary, and Collins Booksellers' Cindy O'Neill, who helped organise the visit.
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Peter FitzSimons isn’t on a book tour of regional Victoria – the acclaimed author is on a one-man crusade to fire up Australians about Australians.
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And with more than 100 people in the palm of his hand at Echuca library on Saturday night, FitzSimons gave them both barrels about what drives him to be the people’s historian.
He was here with his latest tome – The Courageous Life of Weary Dunlop – and is well on his way to his 50th book.
But so irresistible and in-your-face is his passion for everyone and everything Australia, that benchmark is hardly likely to be a destination – just a point disappearing in his literary rearview mirror.
Echuca-Moama, however, actually inspired a pause in his hi-octane Victorian roadshow, which kicked off in Weary’s hometown of Benalla on October 28 and will blow out at Ballarat on November 20.
Brought to Echuca by Cindy O’Neill from Collins Booksellers, he got to meet Rochester Year 11 student Eden Beaumont – a Weary Dunlop descendant and 2025 recipient of a Colin Sinclair Kokoda Scholarship, which in July saw him join four other students from the Murray Plains electorate to walk in the footsteps of heroes.
FitzSimons seemed genuinely enchanted to make the connection, and by the time his talk was over, he happily stepped aside to let Eden thank him for coming, give a small talk about his Weary connection and his Kokoda experience and finish up with applause almost as good as the author received himself.
FitzSimons is passionate about telling Australian stories.
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Then FitzSimons grabbed his hand and declared that with young people such as Eden in the community, the national stories are in good hands.
The full impact of both speakers came straight after, when people armed with their copies of Weary surrounded Eden and asked him to co-sign them with FitzSimons.
“It was all a bit full-on, to meet Peter, to hear him talk about his books and then be asked to go on straight after him,” Eden said.
“It was overwhelming, and I still can’t believe people wanted me to sign the books as well,” he said.
“Peter also gave me an autographed copy, but I didn’t sign that one,” he grinned.
In the past 40 or so years, FitzSimons might have dropped a centimetre or two – and a lot of kilograms – from his Wallabies playing height of almost 200cm, but he has clearly not lost even the slightest interest in telling, and writing, his stories.
There were plenty lining up to get their copy signed by FitzSimons.
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“I first came to Echuca a few years ago when I was doing another book and was immediately hooked on its river history – I don’t think I had ever realised just how big a business it was in the days of the paddle steamers,” he said.
FitzSimons confessed to his audience that Echuca might have to settle for being his second favourite Victorian country town.
“Wedderburn is my number one,” he told his rapt audience.
“It has a population of about 40 but when I visited it on another tour they bought 110 books,” he laughed.
“I know when I get up in front of a crowd like we have tonight, people often look at me and think ‘he doesn’t look like an author; he looks like a thug’.
“It’s true. I know some years ago I got a hot ticket in Sydney to attend a major show at the Art Gallery of NSW, where the very proper director Edmund Capon took one look at me and must have wondered how I got through security.
“So I looked him square in the face and told him I had just finished my first book,” FitzSimons recalled.
“He politely congratulated me and said he hoped I enjoyed reading the next one.”
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