Colin Thiele significant contributor to South Australia teacher education in 1960s/70s – plus children's books
South Australian children's book author Colin Thiele was principal of Wattle Park Teachers College for eight years before becoming director of Murray Park College of Advanced Education.
Colin Thiele, along with his achievements in award-winning children's fiction, with novels such as Storm Boy, Blue Fin and the Sun on the Stubble series. also had a significant impact on teacher education in South Australia.
After a long contribution as a school teacher, Thiele was vice principal and principal of Wattle Park Teachers College and principal of Murray Park College of Advanced Education for much of the 1960s and 1970s.
Thiele was born in 1920 and lived with his family just outside Eudunda, near the little settlement of Julia, overlooking the Murray Plains. His ancestors had been among the first German migrants to arrive in South Australia. Samuel, William and Johann Christian Thiele also were among the first to swear the oath of allegiance in June 1839 that allowed them to own land. Although young Colin is said to have only spoke German until he went to school at Julia Creek, both German and English were used by his parents but nightly Bible readings were always in German.
Thiele was educated at several country schools including Eudunda Higher Primary and Kapunda High before studying at Adelaide University, graduating in 1941. He started teaching at Robertstown, near Eudunda, before war service.
Thiele had enlisted in the Australian army in 1940 and was posted to the 18th Light House (Machine Gun) as a private. He transferred to the Royal Australian Air Force in 1942, serving out the rest of the war as a corporal at air defence headquarters, Higgins Field, at the tip of Cape York Peninsula, and in Papua New Guinea 1942-45.
His first book postwar was the Progress to Denial poetry. In 1951, he was the South Australian winner in the world short story quest. He worked at several high schools, including Port Lincoln, where he taught English from 1946-1955; Unley and Brighton. Another of his early books was a geography text, out of frustration what was available.
During the 1960s, Thiele started writing his children's novels, including The Valley Between that earned him the 1982 Australian Book of the Year. In 1967 and 1968, Thiele won the Hans Christian Anderson Award; in 1979 and 1986, the Austrian State Prize for Children's Books. Other awards included two Commonwealth of Australia jubilee federal arts prizes, the Grace Levin poetry prize and the Dromkeen Medal in 1997. Thiele was one of the first to have his work published in the Adelaide-based magazine, Angry Penguins, and his books including Sun on the Stubble, The Fire in the Stone, Blue Fin and Storm Boy, were adapted for films or television.
In 1973, after eight years as principal of Wattle Park Teachers College, Thiele became director of Murray Park College of Advanced Education. He later returned to Wattle Park to develop its teachers centre. While at Wattle Park, Thiele and A. Burfield, wrote The Benedictions of Benjamin Gates, recording their experiences teaching at Unley High where Gates was headmaster for 25 years. Thiele was director of Wattle Park Teachers Centre from 1974 until his retirement.
Thiele was active in the Australian section of the International Board on Books for Young People, the Commonwealth Literary Fund, the Australian Society of Authors and Adelaide Writers Week. Colin Thiele was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1977 for services to Education and Literature. He retired in 1980 and moved to Dayboro in Queensland, in 1993, for health reasons. The South Australian government set up the Colin Thiele Literature Scholarship for South Australian writers under 26.
The University of South Australia named its library after him and the 2008 Adelaide Writers' Week was dedicated to Thiele.