Archie Moore, Heart of Gold, 2026,
from Remnants Of My Father, 18ct gold - plated sterling silver, 17.5 × 10.5 × 10.5 cm, TCG023856
Pallion Art Collection
HEART OF GOLD
I want to live,
I want to give,
I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold.
It’s these expressions I never give.
That keep me searchin’ for a heart of gold.
And I’m getting old.
(‘Heart of gold’, Neil Young)
The idiom ‘heart of gold’ is of unknown origin but was popularised by Shakespeare’s war play Henry V, written around 1599. On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, King Henry disguises himself as a commoner and under the cover of night talks with soldiers to uncover their morale. When he asks Pistol if he considers himself ‘better than the king’, Pistol says, ‘The king’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame …’ (Act 4, Scene 1), suggesting his admiration for the king.
My father’s father was William Henry Moore – the fourth William Moore and third to live in Australia, with the first arriving as a convict. In 1900 in a land ballot for closer settlements, he won 2267 acres of Kamilaroi land, situated off Agincourt Road near Coolatai. One day, defeated by this land, he threw the branches used for severe lashings against my father to the ground and said to my father, ‘Damn it. I can’t break you.’
My father’s mother, Margaret Lily, was also ‘tough’ but a ‘good woman’, according to my father. Someone who possessed a heart of gold. This is the view of my father by those who would keep him up to the wee hours pouring their drunken hearts out in our kitchen. One such person was ‘Echo’. My father named him that because he would repeat the same thing several times. I remember Echo Evans being so hurt by a person coughing at my father’s funeral, thereby disrupting the solemn occasion, that he told him, ‘I hope you die ya bastard!’
I want to live,
I want to give,
I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold.
It’s these expressions I never give.
That keep me searchin’ for a heart of gold.
And I’m getting old.
(‘Heart of gold’, Neil Young)
The idiom ‘heart of gold’ is of unknown origin but was popularised by Shakespeare’s war play Henry V, written around 1599. On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, King Henry disguises himself as a commoner and under the cover of night talks with soldiers to uncover their morale. When he asks Pistol if he considers himself ‘better than the king’, Pistol says, ‘The king’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame …’ (Act 4, Scene 1), suggesting his admiration for the king.
My father’s father was William Henry Moore – the fourth William Moore and third to live in Australia, with the first arriving as a convict. In 1900 in a land ballot for closer settlements, he won 2267 acres of Kamilaroi land, situated off Agincourt Road near Coolatai. One day, defeated by this land, he threw the branches used for severe lashings against my father to the ground and said to my father, ‘Damn it. I can’t break you.’
My father’s mother, Margaret Lily, was also ‘tough’ but a ‘good woman’, according to my father. Someone who possessed a heart of gold. This is the view of my father by those who would keep him up to the wee hours pouring their drunken hearts out in our kitchen. One such person was ‘Echo’. My father named him that because he would repeat the same thing several times. I remember Echo Evans being so hurt by a person coughing at my father’s funeral, thereby disrupting the solemn occasion, that he told him, ‘I hope you die ya bastard!’