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
‘It’s a terrible crime to be a scab. A scab is worse than a murderer’
SEASON 1, EPISODE 8
One day 1970, in the Outback town of Broken Hill, I was standing on a street corner, tape recorder in hand, grabbing sounds for a radio documentary. A short, energetic little fellow wandered up and said, ‘Hello son, what are you doing here?’
It was Frank Bartley, born 1888, who like his father before him became a miner at the Broken Hill mines.
Broken Hill, they say, is the richest source of lead, zinc and silver in the world. It was also the site of three long-running workers’ strikes, that after tough battles, created Australian industrial relations history.
Frank Bartley was a lively encyclopaedia for the rich history of Broken Hill. He gave highly memorable, graphic descriptions of the tough working conditions, the illnesses from bad mine practices and poor hygiene, and the bitter, protracted struggles between workers and bosses.
We also hear excerpts from my old Broken Hill documentary, going deep underground, and visiting a School of the Air classroom when isolated Outback children were taught via radio.
We finish with the title song from a new album, ‘Threeways’, by Australian Country singer-songwriter Kevin Sullivan.