At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999, the word Eternity was spectacularly ignited in fireworks across the Sydney Harbour Bridge; the first written word of the new millennium. Broadcast on television to over one billion homes globally, much speculation followed as people were curiously affected by the call and question of this single extraordinary word.
Eternity was first written in chalk on a footpath in Darlinghurst Sydney in 1932 by Arthur Stace, a reformed alcoholic and street derelict. Arthur was born into dysfunction, abuse and extreme poverty during Sydney’s notoriously violent years of razor gangs, crime syndicates and sly grog trade. As his siblings were scattered into foster homes and jails and his parents fell to their inevitable demise, Arthur began his descent into alcoholism from the tender age of 14, followed by his first jail stint for theft at age 15. He stumbled through the decades, lost in a seemingly endless fog of despair until at 45 years of age he begged a police sergeant to give him a cell for the night, where he could die in peace. That very same night, Arthur’s life would be forever changed.
This is the remarkable, never-been-told-before story of Arthur Stace, affectionately known as ‘Mr Eternity’. His life story will move you to tears, and show you that there is hope, no matter how bad the circumstances
