The Walgett Spectator

The Walgett Spectator has served the north-west since 1896, one of the longest running regional newspapers in New South Wales.

Despite a fire that destroyed its premises in 1903, the Spectator continued. During the 1920s and 30s, it published some of the earliest written records of the Lightning Ridge opal fields, many of them under the pseudonym “Old Chum.”

That pen name belonged to John Michael Landers, a former Sydney shipping clerk and longtime Ridge identity. Landers first appeared on the Ridge in 1910, later living at the Three Mile and the Grawin. He wrote a long-running column on opal field activity for the Spectator, reporting new finds, claim disputes, and field gossip in colourful, often poetic prose. His 1921–26 accounts, recovered decades later from a wardrobe and compiled by the LRHS as An Old Chum Remembers, are the earliest known eyewitness histories of the Ridge. Landers’ writings preserved many stories that might otherwise have been lost, and for the Ridge, the Spectator was often his voice.

• The Walgett Spectator @ Facebook.

Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Spectator, Facebook; Spectator (Walgett, NSW), National Library of Australia, item 1312041; ‘Local Paper’, Learning About Lightning, learningaboutlightning.blogspot.com.