Red Dust Tapes
OVER 55 YEARS AGO multi-award-winning journalist John Francis interviewed ageing Australian Outback characters, before their voices were lost in the red dust.
THIS IS UNIQUE Aussie history.
NEARLY ALL lived largely solitary lives, in the harsh and lonely inland, on the edge of deserts, in a world of searing droughts, and occasional fierce floods.
THEY WERE prospectors, sheep and cattle men, boundary riders, drovers, railway workers, truck drivers, Aboriginal groups, and isolated but hardy women.
AUSTRALIA'S AVIATION HISTORY also started in the red dust. You'll hear interviews with some of Australia's most famous pioneer airmen (many of whom started flying in the First World War), who used aircraft to make the Outback a little less lonely.
JOHN ALSO interviews the descendants of other unique characters, reads fascinating tales from Australia's Outback past, and spins tales of his own red dust adventures.
WEBSITE: www.reddusttapes.au
Red Dust Tapes
Cranky camels, murderous mules, and a swarm of swaggies
SEASON 1, EPISODE 2
It was 1919, and Charlie Gill was 12 when he started work on a cattle station east of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. It was a tough but joyous life for a boy.
Charlie was an acute observer, with the memory of a steel dingo trap, and a great way with words. In this 1968 interview he talks of sleeping rough when mustering, of dealing with cranky camels, on the dingo hunt, the joy of working with cattle, and why donkeys are sweeter than mules.
As a 21 year-old Mr Gill joined the police force. He recalls the hard line he was forced to take with the hordes of desperate swaggies heading west during the Depression years.
This is the first edition of Red Dust Tapes, where former radio documentary maker John Francis takes us on a journey through Outback Australia to meet now long-gone, colourful characters whose lifestyle has now all but disappeared.