The 2019 Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice has released an intimate tribute to one of its esteemed "friends".
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Technical difficulties prevented the video honouring acclaimed poet Les Murray from being aired on the evening of June 21 as part of the Border's annual community event to shine a light on suicide and mental illness.
Created by Border-based documentary maker Helen Newman, the short film pays tribute to Murray who died on April 29, 2019.
The literary giant had been the unofficial patron of the Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice and in 2018 made a rare public appearance as a guest speaker at the event.
He had famously battled through the "miseries of mental anguish" and depression since his teens and penned the courageous memoir of those struggles, Killing the Black Dog.
In the video, filmed at his modest farm home at Bunyah, NSW, Murray describes how he went to a "rotten school" were he was "persecuted" by constant bullying.
He reveals that he became interested in poetry because "my English teacher liked it" and his sports master introduced him to "real" Australian poets.
"He knew that I never played sport ... I treated it with contempt," Murray says.
"I started following up those leads and finding that this is the thing I want to do ... and I've been at it ever since."
Murray admits his writing saved his life.
And there is no doubt we are all the richer for the 80 years lived by this humble genius.