6 episodes
Red Dust Tapes John Francis
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- Society & Culture
OVER 50 YEARS AGO multi-award-winning journalist John Francis interviewed ageing Australian Outback characters, before their voices were lost in the red dust.THIS IS VERY SPECIAL Outback history. Most of these unique old characters would be aged over 130 if they were still alive today.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 WILL ALSO interview the descendants of other unique characters, read fascinating tales from Australia's Outback past, and spin tales of his own red dust adventures.
WEBSITE: www.reddusttapes.au
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More Naughty Norman, then tales from Granny McRae, the All-night Fiddler
There are two distinct parts to this episode: first, more revelations about an early aviation legend. Then, we visit Ada (Sis) Mcrae, born 1889, who recalls the hardships and joys of life in a small Outback town.SIR NORMAN BREALEY really made the dust fly with his biplane-era airline in Western Australia, but the maverick way he ran his business also raised the ire of our early aviation authorities.In this final instalment on Sir Norman, we hear of more of his brazen business antics.SIS McRAE...
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Some ’naughty bits’ on Australian airline pioneer Sir Norman Brearley.
They wouldn’t let Brearley look at the bodies. A women said it was the first time she’d ever seen a man cry.'I made all the rules, and I followed every one of them'.World War One dogfighter Major Norman Brearley was the first off the ground with an airline in Australia, dramatically changing the lives of people in Outback Western Australia. Major Brearley had been ruthless and cunning in the skies over the Western Front, and was the same in business. In this second episode on his establi...
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From WW1 ace fighter pilot, to starting Australia's very first airline
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 rou...
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Chasing opals since the 1920s, while paddling his own dusty canoe
Opal miner Franko Albertoni was born in 1883. He was 88 when John Francis interviewed him in 1971, but still jumping around in the crushing heat like a little pixie. In 1920 Franko and his brother were among the very early miners at the Coober Pedy Opal Fields in South Australia. Then in 1930 they were among the first 12 to dig for opal in Andamooka.Franko was still living in the same mud and stone hut they had built there. A hut so tiny he just had room for one chair, and so dark, he co...
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Cranky camels, murderous mules, and a swarm of swaggies
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 pol...
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RED DUST TAPES trailer
Are you intrigued by Australian oral history? You’ll really love RED DUST TAPES.Soak up the voices and the stories of Outback old-timers who were born over 130 years ago. Here's a quick trailer of RED DUST TAPES, which will be available weekly from mid-April.For more information and to SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER, go to: reddusttapes.au