Celebrated Australian actor Jack Thompson remembers his adoptive father reading Banjo Paterson's poems to him when he was a boy of seven.
More 60 years later, Thompson was on the stage in Orange in the NSW central west reading the poet's works to celebrate his 150th birthday.
"My dad used to quote Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson in the living room after dinner," Thompson said after his show, Australian Poems, at the Civic Theatre on Sunday.
The iconic poet, whose baptism certificate from Orange's Holy Trinity Anglican Church reads Andrew Barton Paterson, was born at Narrambla near Orange on the 17 February 1864.
During his lifetime, the balladeer, immortalised on the $10 note, moved extensively throughout NSW, Victoria and Queensland.
After studying law, Paterson worked as a journalist with the Melbourne Age and a war correspondent during the Boer War, all while penning poems and our unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda.
Thompson, who lives in northern NSW, says Banjo was, and continues to be, an inspirational influence in his life.
""Paterson wrote some fabulous pieces," he says.
"My father always thought The Man from Snowy River was the best thing he wrote, and it's hard to argue."
Raised by his adoptive father, John Thompson, a poet and a broadcaster, and his wife Pat, "the woman who had the fine idea to adopt me", the actor grew up in a house where words were vitally important.
"I was brought up in a house full of poetry and poets," says the actor who played Clancy in The Man from Snowy River.
It was not unusual for Thompson's adoptive parents to have dinner parties several times a week with poets such as Kenneth Slessor, who like Banjo was born in Orange, and AD Hope.
"The house was full of poets and poetry. "It was an extraordinary household."
During Thompson's time at school every pupil had to learn at least one Paterson's poem as part of the curriculum.
At the age of 14, Thompson left the comfort of his family's home and went to work on Elkedra cattle station in the Northern Territory. This was an experience that brought him even closer to the balladeers, he says.
"When I first went to the bush I recognised that all of this imagery was there.
"My life's experience was reflected in the imagery of those bush balladeers.
"It's about who we are."
Thompson says he's thrilled that Australians are celebrating their cultural heritage with events like the Banjo Paterson Festival, which finishes in Orange on February 17.
One of the highlights of the festival was the opening of Emmaville Cottage. The historic house, thought to be the birthplace of Paterson, was restored by a group of keen history buffs and moved from the city's Waratah sports ground to the Botanical Gardens.
