Alan Marshall (Australian writer)

Marshall was born in Noorat, Victoria. At six years old he contracted polio, which left him with a physical disability that grew worse as he grew older.[2] From an early age, he resolved to be a writer, and in I Can Jump Puddles he demonstrated an almost total recall of his childhood in Noorat. The characters and places of his book are thinly disguised from real life: Mount Turalla is Mount Noorat, Lake Turalla is Lake Keilambete, the Curruthers are the Blacks, Mrs. Conlon is Mary Conlon of Dixie, Terang, and his best friend, Joe from the books, is Leo Carmody.[3] Australian poet and contemporary, Hal Porter wrote in 1965 that Marshall was:

... the warmest and most centralized human being ... To walk with ease and nonchalance the straight, straight line between appearing tragic and appearing willfully brave is a feat so complex I should not like to have to rake in the dark for the super-bravery to accomplish it.[4]

During the early 1930s Marshall worked as an accountant at the Trueform Boot and Shoe Company, Clifton Hill and later wrote about life in the factory in his novel How beautiful are Thy Feet, 1949.[5]

Mount Noorat crater and summit, featured in Marshall's books

Marshall wrote numerous short stories, mainly set in the bush. He also wrote newspaper columns and magazine articles. He traveled widely in Australia and overseas. He also collected and published Indigenous Australian stories and legends.

His literary friends and associates included John Morrison and Clem Christesen.

He married Olive Dulcie Dixon in May 1941 and they had 2 daughters, Katherine and Jennifer. The couple divorced in 1957. For many years he lived in Sandringham[6]

Marshall died on 21 January 1984 in a nursing home in Brighton East Victoria where he had been a resident for the last two years.[7] His remains are interred at Nillumbik Cemetery, Diamond Creek, Victoria.[8]

In 1981 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a nine-part mini-series of Marshall's autobiographical stories.[9] The actor, Adam Garnett, won the 1982 Logie Awards for Best Performance by a Juvenile, for his role as Alan Marshall in the series. The TV series acclaimed popularity not only in Australia but also in UK and USSR, becoming the first every Australian TV-series to be shown by a major TV channel over there.

In 1979 Alan Marshall unveiled a plaque on a monument to himself at his birthplace in Noorat.[10]

Marshall was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 1981 Australia Day Honours.[11]

In 1985 the Shire of Eltham, where Marshall had lived for many years,[12] established the annual Alan Marshall Short Story Competition for emergent writers.[13] In 1937, he completed his first novel, How Beautiful Are Thy Feet, which remained unpublished until 1949.[14]

There is a bronze bust of him and a plaque in the Sandringham Library, Melbourne.[15]

Sculptor Marcus Skipper created a realistic statue of Marshall cast in bronze which is located in the front of Eltham Library, a branch of Yarra Plenty Regional Library. It has been classified as significant by the National Trust.[16]

Alan Marshall Reserve, Eltham is located on the corner of Main Road and Leane Drive,[17] and has been there since at least 2007.[18]

• Marks, Harry (1976). I Can Jump Oceans: The World of Alan Marshall. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson (Australia). ISBN 0-17-001977-2.
• Miller, E. Morris & Frederick T. Macartney (1956) Australian Literature, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, pp. 324–5.
• Morrison, John (1987), The Happy Warrior, Melbourne, Pascoe Publishing, ISBN 0-947087-08-7
• Porter, Hal (September 1965). "Melbourne in the Thirties". The London Magazine. 5 (6): 31–47.

• Alan Marshall at IMDb
• Alan Marshall at AustLit.edu.au
• Alan Marshall at Library of Congress, with 32 library catalogue records
• John McLaren, "Marshall, Alan (1902-1984)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 17 October 2018.