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
An Aussie engineer’s adventures in Antarctic: Pt 2
Woops. Once again, we’re a long way from the usual Red Dust Tapes Outback territory.
This is the second of the two-part anecdotes of John ’Snow’ Williams, who first went to the Antarctic in 1958, at the end of the International Geophysical Year.
In this era the world was gripped with the fear of nuclear war, with the United States and Russia flinging threats at each other. So it was remarkable that a year of scientific co-operation was achieved, that had many significant, and shared, outcomes.
In this second episode, John talks of expeditions to count fleas on seals and Emperor penguins, one mechanical problem after another, escaping from crevasses, and a brief boozy encounter with the Russians.