A Home in the Outback Katherine Waite

One of the stall holders at Agfair 2024 was Jaddan Bruhn who was selling Broken Hill and Silverton greeting cards and gifts using his original photography and artwork and archival images. Jaddan says his works are inspired by the landscape, buildings, textures and people of Broken Hill, in particular the unique building material and finishes in use around the town throughout its history. He likes to explore the idea of time, layering, heritage and reminiscence.  Jaddan was born in South Broken Hill and comes from the great Attard family – his great-randfather
Emanual Attard moved to Broken Hill in 1918 and worked at Central Mine. Jaddan lives in Sydney but regularly travels back to Broken Hill. I sat down with Jaddan to ask about his family history and his work as a photographer and artist.

Butcher Girl Alison Meagher was a special guest at Agfair 2024 providing four demonstrates over the two days on how to use the whole beast in butchery. On Saturday morning I attended the demonstration and up on stage with Alison was local school student Annabelle Smith from Scarsdale Station. I caught up with Annabelle afterwards to ask about her interest in butchery.

Agfair 2024 saw the launch of the book Pubs, Publicans and People of Broken Hill and the far west by local writer Emily McInerney. I caught up with Emily at the Broken Hill Book Company Stall to talk to her about the book. All books brought to Broken Hill were sold and more are on the way to Broken Hill soon

There’s a real buzz in Broken Hill at the moment with the biennial Agfair Show which is held at the race course. There’s stalls showcasing farming and agriculture equipment, clothing, art and crafts as well as entertainment and cooking demonstrations. I went along for the good old country catch up and met Lucy Gale, from Pincally Station north of Broken Hill, who was run off selling her hand made ceramic wares, Little L's Australia. I caught up with the 20 year old to ask her about her creative business.

On Thursday 2 May, Katherine Waite facilitated a discussion at Petrichor Bar in Broken Hill with podcast guests Lori Emment, Heather Pearce and Ben Clavel in front of a live audience.



As you can imagine, live events always have the special quality of the unexpected and sometimes the audio doesn't capture the magic of the event quite like attending in person.



*During the event, I asked a question in reference to the International Women's Breakfast happening at Palace. It actually happened at The Astra. The error was completely mine.



Thanks to Petrichor and Aimee Volkofsky.

Meet Robert Williamson, the A-grouper who trained as an apprentice in Broken Hill and worked his way up to be a mining executive.

Robert is the oldest of four boys but when his mother died from breast cancer, he decided to stay in Broken Hill and help his father.

He got himself a trade at Zinc Mine and was offered training in industrial electronics which became an in-demand skill.

As a young man he travelled and worked at Bougainville Copper and overseas at a Kibbutz. When he returned he moved to the Western Australian region of Pilbara and was there maintaining dump trucks and mining equipment at iron ore mines.

When he was working at Dampier mine, he introduced a robotic systems to the way Rio Tinto managed their port system which earned him praise and accolades from the mining sector.

He was head hunted to develop and establish robotic systems all over the world, including iron ore ports in China. He went into mining consulting and among his achievements was selling US$10million dollars of technology to the large Brazilian company Vale.

More recently, Robert’s attention has returned full circle back to Broken Hill which he says is completely coincidental. With his business partner Gordon Toll, he’s currently in the process of applying for mining licenses for Lodestone Mines to develop Australia’s next big iron ore project in the Braemar Region in South Australia. The proposed mine site is just over 1.5 hours south west of Broken Hill, inland from the small South Australian town of Olary.

Robert is based in Adelaide but travels regularly to Broken Hill for business.