Book Info
The Weilmoringle Kid
The Weilmoringle Kid is a city-bred youth just out of college dispatched at the whim of government to Weilmoringle, a drought-and-fly ridden sheep station in the Australian Outback.
Overwhelmed by the heat, dust, isolation and the prospect of enduring up to three years in such a desolate environment, the Kid strives to give the assignment a "fair go". First he has to build the school. Seventeen students appear on the first day, mostly Aboriginal. There are no desks, books, chalk, paper or supplies of any kind. There has never been electricity and it hasn't rained at Weilmoringle for two years. The school enrolment swells to fifty-seven.
This is an autobiography that reads like an adventure novel, an inspiring story of resiliency and of one young man's efforts to gain a surer sense of identity and independence. It is also the story of the postmaster who masterminds the advent of public education and creates a legend of the teacher's life. Above all, it is the stirring tale of a twelve-year-old Aboriginal boy, Dougie Orcher, in school for the first time and determined to impart some lessons of his own to induce the teacher to stay.
Exerpt from the Novel
Gurungu. The magic string. A gift a few Aboriginals had of receiving messages by mental telepathy. I thought I'd been blessed with the gift when I left Weilmoringle that first year but the moment had been fleeting and singular. Any news received from there since has wafted into my life like smoke from an Aboriginal fire, although I've been grateful for any connecting thread for the Weilmoringle experience lights a passage in my mind that only grows brighter with time.
Wayilmarrangkal. Weilmoringle. The name of the sheep station once half a million acres where I had to build my own school before teaching in it; where two cultures co-existed while I wrestled with the anguish of being a lonely itinerant in an indifferent land.
Bernard Hauville was my first student and I his first teacher. When he and his family visited me where I now live in Canada the memories came flooding back after so many years and over so many miles.
"Bunny passed away last December," Bernard told me.
Why hadn't I known? No magic string.
Reviews
Barry Broadfoot (Order of Canada) - Author (Ten Lost Years et al).
"Like the outback people he endured. And what he did in this land alien even to Australians has rarely been written about but the boy went in and he came out a man. This is his story, told without fancy but with the flavour of those days."
Jack Hodgins - Canadian Author (Broken Ground et al).
"There are passages here the most ambitious novelist could envy. Readers who like a good story well told should not pass up this book. Pettit has a fine sense of shape and structure and a prose style that is as fresh and clear and strong as anyone could hope for. I expect to worry about those kids for awhile."
Mark Forsyth - CBC Radio Host.
"There's a good deal of Aussie humour at work. There are also well-crafted characters who go beyond conventional Australian stereotypes that make this memoir read more like an engaging novel."
Jeff Gaulin - The Saanich News.
"…a gem of a book, one written with all the humour and wit of a Stephen Leacock novel. The Weilmoringle Kid is a great read by a skilled writer."
