FACTORIES and open fields, burning rubbish tips and the winding river … the Footscray of Michael Leunig’s childhood has come a long way in some respects, but it’s always been a suburb of contrasts.
There’s an air of nostalgic whimsy in the cartoonist’s voice as he describes his childhood by the banks of the Maribyrnong. It’s the same quality that pervades his instantly recognisable cartoons.
“It was a working-class area with a real consciousness of itself as that,” he says of the 1950s Footscray.
“There were a lot of factories, a lot of people working in them and a lot of really bad smells from the tanneries.”
It was a very down-to-earth community as well, he adds, and it was already undergoing a post-war transition from an Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic culture to one reflecting a much broader mix brought about by migration.
Leunig says the area has always kept a strong community spirit. He felt it during his schooling at Maribyrnong High and it carried through to his first job at the meatworks.
He credits this sense of community, a supportive family and “a lot of freedom as a child” as informing both his art and world view.
“Life was very basic.
“There was a chance to be contemplative as a young boy. I would go to the Footscray library and borrow books. I just wanted to be expressive; somehow I got it in my blood.”
Storytelling around the kitchen table, his father’s role in the union and unhappiness about the war in Vietnam all shaped Leunig’s trajectory as a political and philosophical cartoonist.
“The ’60s was a time of upheaval. My father was very active in the Meatworkers Union and there was certainly that influence there in my family; lots of ideas.
“It was an intellectually lively time and I got a political consciousness during the Vietnam War.”
Leunig took to cartooning like a duck to water, a “self-taught art that doesn’t come through the proper channels”.
He credits this with allowing him to develop his own style and voice.
He’s now known to many via his cartoons for The Age newspaper and through cartoon-books such as The Adventures of Vasco Pyjama and the Curly Flats series.
Leunig was declared an ‘Australian Living Treasure’ by the National Trust of Australia in 1999, and he feels blessed to have been able to develop his cartooning career without losing sight of what drew him to the form.
“I went into it as a political cartoonist, but I was never really interested in the main players.
“I have always been more fascinated in the ordinary people. It has been very personal work, a personal matter, things like human loneliness, love and death, depression and joy.”
He considers his realm to be “the space between dark and extreme light” and believes it’s the shared emotional touchstones of love and sadness, loneliness and joy that connects with his audience.
Leunig will reflect upon his early life in Maribyrnong and Footscray in ‘Curly Pyjamas and other such stuff: an evening with Michael Leunig’ – a free talk at Footscray library for the Maribyrnong Literary Festival, from 7pm on Friday, September 7.
Bookings: maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/library
