When Leuralla Toy Museum closed, the Blue Mountains lost the world's finest collection of 20th century toys and the contents of the room dedicated to Clive Evatt Jnr's uncle, Herbert Vere Evatt QC, PC, KStJ.
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"Doc" Evatt to most Australians, Bertie to his family, he was born on April 30, 1894. A NSW MLA, 1925-1930, from 1930 to 1940 he was the youngest-ever judge to serve on the High Court of Australia. Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs from 1941 to 1949 in the federal government, he was also deputy prime minister.
Internationally, he was President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1948 to 1949, helping to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Leader of the Australian Labor Party, in opposition from 1951 to 1960, he retired from politics when he accepted the post of Chief Justice of NSW.
His death on November 2, 1965 ended the life of one of Australia's most prominent public intellectuals.
That public figure escaped to the Mountains whenever he could.
In 1918, while studying for his final Bachelor exams, Evatt had eye problems. He thought he was going blind, but "10 days' tramping through the Grose Valley, stumbling... through rocky creek beds and seeing nothing but the overhanging cliffs and trees, brought him back to Sydney with his eyesight restored. He passed with the highest honours, winning the University Medal" (Kylie Tennant, Evatt: Politics and Justice).
In 1927, Evatt and his wife, modernist painter Mary Alice, bought land in Leura Mall for a weekender. They admired the great white gum-trees which they could not bear to cut down, buying the adjoining block to build their house, Kelmscott. Although Australian plants were still "scrub", the Evatts kept the native trees and shrubs, Christmas bush, flannel flowers, crimson waratahs and an old banksia tree.
Evatt loved Kelmscott. He believed the pure Mountain air cleared his bronchitis and the throat infections that flared up whenever he was overworked.
At Leura, they entertained, played tennis and indulged in long bush walks with family like Clive Evatt Snr and his wife Mary, of Leuralla, and friends such as historian C. Hartley Grattan.
Mary Alice had gone to school with Eleanor Dark. Visiting the Darks in Katoomba meant discussions ranging over art, literature and politics as both Eleanor and Erik were left wing too, advocating free medicine and hospital reform.
Evatt entertained his daughter with bedtime stories revolving around the Dazzle family, an engine driver father, his wife and their two children who had magical adventures in the Blue Mountains (Gideon Haigh, The Brilliant Boy).
The Mountains and his holiday-house in Leura provided a haven for Evatt from the hurly-burly of political life.
Robyne Ridge is publicity officer for Blue Mountains Historical Society.
