Vasco - 1913-1916

West Australian, 30 December 1913

Brisbane Courier, 16 August 1916 - Vasco at the Brisbane Exhibition

Brisbane Courier, 23 September 1916

Brisbane Courier, 16 August 1916.

This is topical, as it is currently "Ekka Week", only 94 years later.

There is a gap in the information about Vasco, from his return to Australia from California in (late?) 1913 until his enlistment in 1916. Was his new-found domesticity with Gwendolyn the main factor in his life for those 2-3 years? Or was he hanging out at the pubs and dives and maybe on the excursion steamers such as the "Koopa", doing his caricatures for a shilling or so a 'pop'? (See below - I had a newspaper clipping that said so, but forgot.)  We know from a newspaper interview that Gwendolyn, after Vasco's death, gained permission to play her mandolin on the "Koopa" during its trips from Brisbane to Redcliffe and Bribie Island. If he was, it means that there is a body of work out there that has not been collected or researched. Or maybe, as the first clipping says, he was working on his "Round the World on a Pencil" book. If that is the case, then there could be an unfinished or unpublished manuscript floating around.

Maybe I should write a letter to the Courier Mail (the latest incarnation of the Brisbane Courier) to see what pops up.

Vasco's activities in Brisbane.

Sydney Morning Herald, February 1926 (I think).

So he did 'work' the excursion steamers on Moreton Bay, according to the first sentence of the first part of the clipping. This also gives a summary of Gwendolyn's travels post World War 1, before she settled in Sydney.