About: Weevils in the Flour

"Weevils in the Flour" is a song derived from a poem written in 1960 by Dorothy Hewett, "Where I Grew to be a Man" (often titled "Island in a River"). It was published first in Tribune in 1960 and then in Hewett's joint book of verse What About the People? published in 1963. The poem was put to music in 1963 by Michael Leyden. It tells of a child growing to be a man in a makeshift settlement during the Great Depression in Newcastle NSW. The settlement lay directly opposite Australia’s largest steel factory, owned by the mining giant BHP. The song describes the privations of the settlers and the environmental degradation of the area. In the last verse it reaches an upbeat conclusion: