Story
A Pleasure in Words
words todd kuchel
PHOTOGRAPHY pete thornton
With a contagious enthusiasm for words, Chris Russack has ever been drawn to creativity, inspiring those around him and establishing lasting legacies throughout his community.
Amidst Chris’ living room, surrounded by shelves stacked with numerous book collections, it’s surprising to learn that he wasn’t always a passionate reader.
“Both my parents and my sister were avid readers, but I wasn’t as a kid,” Chris shares. “I found reading boring, because there were too many other things to do.”
Nevertheless, Chris would find himself sitting at the table with the newspaper or reading the backs of labels.
“I guess I was always thirsting for information,” Chris says.
Each Christmas, Chris was gifted books from someone in the family, but the only books he read were on general knowledge or weather and dinosaurs.
Regardless of topic, words had made an impression on Chris.
Working briefly in a wool store after school, he found a lack of reading and writing opportunities left him craving more.
In a following job in the government, Chris became involved in a quarterly newsletter.
“I wrote a couple of poems and a couple (of) little travel stories about places I had visited,” Chris shares. “I don’t think anybody read these things, but they printed two or three thousand copies.”
After a brief time, Chris was thrilled to obtain a job as a copywriter for a radio station.
“Well, I thought, great, this is the foot in the door,” Chris said.
Sadly, it wasn’t what he had expected.
“A lot of the advertisements were written by agencies, and my job was basically to proofread them or to shorten them down,” Chris shares. “I couldn’t see a future in it.”
Coming from a family of bankers and schoolteachers, Chris had always thought they were the two occupations he would not get into, yet despite his intentions his next venture was teachers’ college as a mature aged student.
“My mother, aunty and cousins were teachers,” Chris explains. “And my grandfather had been a senior teacher at Adelaide High for years.”
Chris had never known his grandfather but the year he graduated was exactly 50 years from the time he died.
“There hadn’t been a male Russack teacher for 50 years. I was the only grandson, and my Father said, ‘I think your grandfather would have been proud’,” Chris shared.
Chris really enjoyed teaching. Once again, he had an opportunity to be creative.
When nearing retirement, Chris recalls being asked what he would do during those years.
Chris replied, “Well, I’ve always wanted to write a book, over the next two years I’m going to write five.
“I haven’t quite achieved that, but I have written and produced three little poetry books through The Leader.”
The Leader has also been printing Chris’ poems weekly for the past five years.
“When you retire, I think it’s really important to have a hobby,” Chris shared. “You’ve got to use your brain; you’ve got to exercise that as well as your body.
“I find, through the writing I can have a hobby that keeps my brain active, and I get a certain satisfaction.
“When I see my poem in the paper each week it’s like, sort of, do I make a cake and throw it in the bin or do I make a cake and share it with people and watch them enjoy it.
“I get enjoyment and pleasure out of writing them and if I can make someone else have a bit of a laugh that’s satisfaction to me.”
“When the president opened the door, it was like a tidal wave coming through. People literally rushed in and started grabbing books. We had no idea how to run it, we didn’t have anything priced, we just said, 'make an offer or fill a bag'.”
- chris russack
In 1981, Chris had joined the Lions Club, and upon arriving in the Barossa in 1997, joined the Angaston & District Lions Club. The following year he presented the idea for a fundraiser.
“All these people sitting on mountains of books, what do they do with them?” Chris wondered. “Why don’t we collect them and have a book sale?”
Books came from libraries and private collections.
“We had our first sale in the Angaston Town Hall on a Sunday afternoon,” Chris recalls. “When the president opened the door, it was like a tidal wave coming through. People literally rushed in and started grabbing books. We had no idea how to run it, we didn’t have anything priced, we just said, ‘make an offer or fill a bag’.”
Chris remembers suggesting another sale be held two years later, but the club wanted to do it annually instead.
The book sales became a successful, annual event, eventually shifting to the charity book shed at the Angaston Recreation Park, where it is now open every Friday except Good Friday.
Chris has many ideas for his poetry going forward, and you can also catch his poems weekly in The Leader newspaper.
