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
From WW1 ace fighter pilot, to starting Australia's very first airline
SEASON 1, EPISODE 4
Within a few short years after the First World War, over the heads of horses donkeys camels and bullock teams, a new sound could be heard in Australia’s interior: the droning and spluttering of aircraft.
First it was the 'barnstormers' offering thrills and first flights to small country communities. Then came airmail services, then passenger routes were opened.
It was Sir Norman Brearley, with his Western Australian Airways who first made it to airline status, with a route from Geraldton to the far north-west of Australia's largest State.
As he told John Francis during an interview in 1971, Sir Norman, born 1890, was 13 when the Wright Brothers first took to the air. In the early days of World War One after less than two hours instruction, when his flight instructor refused to go up with him again, Norman said he 'taught myself to fly'.
By June 1916 he was in action on the Western Front, during which time on what was considered a 'suicidal mission' he shot down an observation balloon, and later with another pilot attacked seven enemy aircraft, before being shot down in No Man's Land with a bullet through both lungs.
Sir Norman's many aerial adventures and later prominent role in military pilot training, saw him awarded a Military Cross, a Distinguished Service Order, and the Air Force Cross.
As you will hear in this first of a two-part series – and even more so in the second part to follow – Sir Norman Brearley was a fighter, both in the air and later in establishing his airline.