Book Review:
Dare to Dream: the Life and Times of a proud Australian
by Kevin Perkins. Sydney: Golden Wattle, 2002. ISBN 0646394673 385p.
Kevin Perkins has recently published a very interesting biography of Tom Hayson. Many will know Tom as a successful property developer and a moving force behind the Darling Harbour development. Of particular interest to us, is his Lebanese heritage. Tom is the grandson of pioneer Lebanese settlers.
The Elhessen Family
The Elhessens came from the northern village of Aitou. Tannous Yacob Elhessen and Josef Elhessen and Josef wife, Rachel and son Diab decided to escape the poverty of their homeland and seek new opportunities in Australia. When they arrived in Sydney in 1886, a Customs official mistakenly bestowed Tannous’ Anglicized middle name Jacob, as their surname. So they started life in a new land with a new name.
The Jacob Brothers Become Hawkers
The brothers hit the country roads as hawkers, and when Tannous had saved enough, he married Philomena Hashem whom he had met on the ship to Australia. They raised a family of five boys and two girls in Redfern, including Frederick Thomas Jacob, Tom’s father.
Lavina and Frederick Jacob (Tom’s parents) set up a small business in the New South Wales country town of Barraba where Tom grew up.
The first part of the book has a great deal of new and, until now, unpublished information about some of the early Lebanese settlers and their families and would be a great aid to many family historians.
At 15 Tom Hayson scored a lucky break by becoming a newspaper copy boy and went onto become a successful journalist in the rip-roaring days of Frank Packer - who fired him and then re-hired him - and colourful Ezra Norton who took him on at his new Daily Mirror.
Radio Journalism
Jacobs - before he changed his name to Hayson when he went into real estate - moved onto establish an outstandingly successful career and a radio Journalist. At 2SM, he became the first roving reporter on radio pioneering the on the spot broadcasts in Australia. He interviewed many of the great figures of the 20th century.
The Hayson Group of Companies
A foray into real estate was the beginning of his third career and with his son Ian, Tom formed the Hayson Group of Companies. It has been said that his crowning glory was the central part he played in promoting and developing the old Darling Harbour goods yards into the modern entertainment and commercial precinct it is today.
Dare to Dream also explores the difficulty Tom had in coming to terms with his Lebanese ancestry and Australian society's (before the era of multi-culturalism) demand that everyone adopt a fairly rigid and Anglicized vision of what it was to be Australian.
Dare to Dream, available in bookshops now, is a great read. Maybe it will encourage others to tell their stories.
...........................................................................
©2002, ALHS