IN 2010 I wrote a column about the Little Boy Lost, Steven Walls, who was the subject of Johnny Ashcroft’s hit record. This record, as I was told, topped the Australian charts longer than Pub With No Beer and Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport combined until Ashcroft pulled it from airplay.
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In a conversation with Johnny Ashcroft the other day he revealed that this column was published on his website, www.johnnyashcroft.com.au.
Steven Walls will be 60 next August.
In case you have forgotten the story, I repeat this 2010 column, which can also be found on Ashcroft’s website:
Even though poet William Blake published his poem A Little Boy Lost late in the 18th century, and Bing Crosby starred in a movie of the same name, Australians like to take ownership of the expression “little boy lost” because it represents a satisfying chapter in our national history.
This week our search for the Australian Little Boy Lost celebrates its 50th anniversary – and the days match up perfectly.
The subject of that search in 1960 would probably prefer the anniversary to pass without any fanfare, but our national pride in achievement cannot be overlooked.
As a nation, we can take much satisfaction in our Little Boy Lost story.
The search for four-year-old Steven Walls started near Guyra at 9am on Friday, February 5, 1960, and ended the following Monday, after thousands had participated in a search that typified the values that made this nation great.
The young lad strayed from the scrubby area where his father had been caring for some sheep.
Singer Johnny Ashcroft wrote and sang the song Little Boy Lost – a song that topped the hit parades for longer than A Pub With No Beer and Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport combined.
For me, a teenager with a sense of adventure, joining thousands of others combing the wild bush country around Guyra was simply the thing to do at the time. We didn’t have a sense of making history; but rather we saw the search as way of joining others in doing something worthwhile.
Fortunately, the boy knew how to look after himself and the outcome was as everybody had hoped.
Johnny Ashcroft’s experience with the song, however, showed how words can convey different meanings from one country to the next.
Despite its Australian success, the release of his song in the United States was delayed to the extent that the Ashcroft version was seen in that country as simply another version of a Jimmy Dean song.
In Britain, Tommy Steele stripped the believability of the song with a rewrite that proved decidedly unsuccessful. Among the changes, the wild New England ranges became the wild and distant ranges, the bush horses became saddle horses, the mention of Steven Walls was removed, the mention of Dorrie Walls praying for her little boy lost was changed to her tears falling on the pillow where he’d laid his little head, the scrubby gully became a hidden valley, and the story that the townsfolk and bushmen often tell became a story around the campfire.
Ashcroft was disappointed that the changes made a significant historical song just another pop song – and one that bombed overseas. If anything, the experience showed that newspapers aren’t the only ones that can change things around with unfortunate results.
Johnny Ashcroft told me many years ago that the search brought Australians together as a nation and gave them a renewed sense of pride.
The singer also made his own professional sacrifice in the period following the search.
When his song was at the top of the hit parades he had it pulled from the airwaves because of the search for another little boy lost, Graeme Thorne, the kidnap victim who was eventually found, murdered. No other songwriter or recording artist is known to have deliberately killed the airplay of his own hit record in such a fashion, but Ashcroft told me he had no hesitation in taking the action that in time gave him another special place in Australian music history.
www.lauriebarber.com