Editing Sydney Push (section)

==Dispersal after 1964==
The year 1964 saw the gradual demise of the Royal George Hotel as the prime focal venue of the Sydney Push which dispersed its bustling social life to other traditional venues like the Newcastle, Orient and Port Jackson hotels in [[The Rocks, New South Wales|The Rocks]] near [[Circular Quay]] and the Rose, Crown and Thistle at [[Paddington, New South Wales]], but also to alternative central-city pubs including the United States and Edinburgh Castle. By the early 1970s, the Criterion Hotel on the corner of Liverpool and Sussex Streets had become the watering hole of the last of the Push diehards. Meanwhile, Push hangers-on and 'tourists', now numbering hundreds, patronised pubs like the Four-in-Hand (Paddington) and the [[Forth & Clyde Hotel|Forth and Clyde]] at Balmain, but these were venues of social entertainment, lacking the intellectual camaraderie, the informal folksong and the bohemian flavour of the 'George'.

The retired education professor Alan Barcan has published a personal account of his view of activism at Sydney University during the 1960s. Though he was not an eyewitness of Push life, he provides some relevant insights into how student life became infected by Push doctrines of freedom and rebellion, to a point at which the social movement was superseded and its leading personalities were dispersed or replaced with a new breed of social critics.<ref name=Barcan>Barcan, A [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Student+activists+at+Sydney+University+1960-1967:+a+problem+of...-a0164112253 Student activists at Sydney University 1960–1967], Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society (ANZHES), January 2007</ref> As described by Barcan, this period saw the emergence of mainstream talents like poets [[Les Murray (poet)|Les Murray]] and [[Geoffrey Lehmann]], journalists David Solomon, [[Mungo Wentworth MacCallum|Mungo MacCallum]] (Jnr) and [[Laurie Oakes]], [[Oz (magazine)|Oz magazine]] satirists [[Richard Neville (writer)|Richard Neville]], [[Richard Walsh (Australian publisher)|Richard Walsh]] and [[Martin Sharp]], and maverick writer [[Bob Ellis]]. These were people who did not actively embrace the Push life but were strongly influenced by it.
[[File:Push reunion 2012.jpg|upright=1.3|thumb|A group of Push associates at a reunion in 2012]]
Push personalities who emigrated to the United Kingdom included [[Clive James]],<ref>who sailed on the ''Bretagne'', New Year's Eve, 1961, as recorded in his ''Unreliable Memoirs'' (1980) p. 166</ref> [[Padraic McGuinness|Paddy McGuinness]], Chester (Philip Graham) and Ian Parker (pictured above) who returned to Sydney in the late 1970s and was knocked down and killed while drunk, in Dixon Street.<ref name=appo>{{Cite book| author = Richard Appleton| author-link = Richard Appleton| title = Recollections of a member of the Sydney Push |location=Sydney, NSW|publisher=Darlington Press| year = 2009| isbn = 978-1-921364-09-9}} Appleton stated that he had been with Parker at a [[Balmain, New South Wales|Balmain]] pub on the morning preceding Parker's death.</ref>{{rp|p. 236}} For some reason, a false account was promulgated that he died in a London street.<ref>e.g., [[Bob Gould (activist)|Bob Gould]] [http://ozleft.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/my-enemy-is-dead-and-i-mourn-him/ ''My enemy is dead and I mourn him''] Statement at the funeral of [[Padraic McGuinness|P P McGuinness]], February 2008. (Gould seems to have been misled into thinking Ian Parker was killed in London.)</ref> Paddy McGuinness returned to Australia in 1971, working as a film critic, Labor ministerial staffer, right-wing newspaper columnist and journal editor until his death in 2007. Folksinger John Earls went to Bolivia and former ''Tribune'' ([[Communist Party of Australia]] newspaper) cartoonist Harry Reade went to join Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba (and returned in 1971 at the same time as Paddy McGuinness). The disabled poet [[Lex Banning]] travelled to England and Greece from 1962 until 1964 but returned and died in Sydney in 1965. The folksinger Don Ayrton departed to settle at [[Kuranda, Queensland|Kuranda]] in Queensland where he committed suicide in 1982. A tragedy occurred as Paddy McGuinness was departing for Italy by ship in May 1963. The farewelling crowd included a young Push lady, Janne (or Jan) Millar, who fell to the concrete dock floor from a height and suffered fatal head injuries.<ref name=appo />{{rp|p. 117}}<ref name=Coombs>{{Cite book| author = Anne Coombs| title = Sex and Anarchy: The Life and Death of the Sydney Push |location=Ringwood, Vic.|publisher=Viking| year = 1996| isbn = 0-670-87069-2}}</ref>{{rp|p. 161}} A number of other tragic deaths occurred in this decade, including some from [[substance abuse]] which was becoming a regular part of Sydney culture at the time.

Many young Push associates simply moved on to careers in the professions and academia. A reunion organised by André Frankovits at the Royal George/Slip Inn in 2000 attracted around 280. Another, at the Harold Park Hotel in February 2012,<ref>Personal communication from Andre Frankovits, 29 March 2014</ref> drew nearly 200, including some who had travelled from Hong Kong, [[North Queensland]] and [[Perth]] to attend. Later annual re-unions have attracted around 50.

On the demise of the Push, Anne Coombs has stated: "[... things began to change] in 1964, the year the [[Beatles]] came and brought into the open that new phenomenon: '[[youth culture]]'."<ref name=Coombs />{{rp|p. 178}} Citing this, Alan Barcan added "In advocating free love and opposition to authority, the Push and the Libertarians anticipated the new post-1968 morality. But the adoption of many of their ideas by society undermined their ''[[Wikt:raison d'être|raison d'être]]''".<ref name=Barcan />