Jack Stewart was well known in the local area as an optometrist, Rotarian and Deniliquin alderman and mayor.
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But in 1956, he was also hailed as one of the community heroes of the flood.
His efforts to help his fellow locals during that flood was immortalised in prose.
A poem penned under the pseudonym A Banjo Wielder - that being the slang for a shovel wielder - appeared on the front page of the Deniliquin Pastoral Times on July 20, 1956.
It had two titles - ‘A Tribute to a Townsman’ or ‘The Black & Yellow Vest’.
The latter referred to Jack’s trademark vest, which has now been donated to the Deniliquin & District Historical Society Museum for posterity.
“Jack’s son Adrian kindly sent us the vest worn by his father which was the inspiration for the poem,” Historical Society president Lindsay Renwick said.
“We’ll have it on display, along with the poem and the information we have researched, in one of our new glass cabinets.”
In sending the vest to Mr Renwick and the Historical Society, Adrian offered some insight as to how his father’s trademark look came to be.
“What was not generally know is that my father, unable to purchase the vest he wanted, wove the material himself and a local tailor made it into a vest,” Adrian said.
It was after the floods, in 1959, that Jack became an alderman on Deniliquin Council, and he served as mayor from 1964 to 1968.
Jack moved to Deniliquin in 1949 to start his optometry business, and lived here for 33 years until he and wife Edna retired to Queensland.
During his time in the community he was also involved in the Deniliquin Chamber of Commerce, Deniliquin Dramatic Club and the technical college (TAFE).
Edna was involved in the CWA and Guides.
Jack died in Maryborough in 1992, at the age of 74.
•••
The Black & Yellow Vest
By A Banjo Wielder
Oh, the black and yellow waistcoat, that we’ve seen so much of late,
Has been a mighty factor, saving Deni from its fate;
For though we’ve trucks and shovels, and men and all the rest,
The man who keeps them moving wears the black and yellow vest.
If you’ve got a spade and barrow and you don’t know where to go,
You’re sure to get directions at the Town Hall portico.
For there the information is really at its best,
And the man who knows the answers wears a black and yellow vest.
We’ve engineers, and gondoliers, and wardens by the score;
The ladies do a mighty job with tea and food galore.
The cops are tops, the soldiers, too - there’s nothing that we lack,
While we have the yellow waistcoat to keep us on the track.
Jim Burchfield has his buttonhole, and Churchill his cigar,
And ‘Monty’ has a beret as he rides his armoured car;
But if we need a talisman when things are getting tough,
I’ll settle for the waistcoat, to get us through the rough.
Australia has her emu and her famous kangaroo,
The Southern Cross flies on her flag, a striking emblem too;
But if Deni wants an emblem for a Municipal crest,
What could she have that’s better than Jack Stewart’s yellow vest?
And when the floods are over, and no cloud is in the sky,
When Leo Mick’s spring onions are once again high and dry,
And when they’re pinning medals upon the civic breast,
Don’t forget Jack Stewart and his black and yellow vest.
Senior journalist