Peter Norman again

I first blogged about Peter Norman months ago during the London Olympics, and now that I’m actually in Sydney I decided to make a pilgrimage to Newtown to see if the mural painted to commemorate the athlete’s selfless act of bravery during the 1968 Olympics was still there.

Not only did I find the mural, I found the owner of the house the mural is painted on, a friendly guy named Silvio. It (the mural) was apparently the brainchild of a young man named Don who fetched up at Silvio’s house one day in 2000 asking if he could use his wall for the mural as it was right by the railway taking spectators to the Olympic stadium at Homebush. Silvio advised him to come back with scaffolding and copyright permission, which he did; and while the house is no longer threatened with demolition the soundproof wall next to the railway does a very good job of obscuring Don’s tribute from train travellers; which is a shame since it is tucked away down a rather obscure cul de sac and you wouldn’t know it was there unless you made an effort to seek it out.

So all power to Don for his enterprise, and to Silvio for his support.

Silvio and his decorated wall