Red Dust Tapes

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Red Dust Tapes

John Francis

12 episodes

3 weeks ago

THIS IS THE FINAL EPISODE OF SEASON 1. Whoah! It seems I achieved something that the great television interviewer and self-confessed cricket nut Sir Michael Parkinson longed for, but never managed – to not just meet, but to interview the legendary, world-beating cricketer, Sir Donald Bradman. It was said that Don Bradman was ‘elusive’. Like a lyrebird in the bush, perhaps? But there was the great Don, graciously opening his office door to me, welcoming me in, and cheerfully sharing so many s...

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Documentary

Places & Travel,

Society & Culture

Episodes (12/12)

Red Dust Tapes

A rare and exclusive interview with the legendary Sir Donald Bradman

1 year ago

51 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

As a kid, he skinned cats and sold the meat. What happened years later at the Dolly Pot Mine?

SEASON 1, EPISODE 11 When I interviewed Ernest Skein in 1970, I was told he had recently been let out of jail. I didn’t want to close down an interview with a fascinating old-time prospector, so when I got the message that some subjects were not to be touched, I left that one alone. It remained just a giant elephant in the tiny, hot-as-hell tin shack in which I interviewed him in Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory. What I’ve found out recently deepens the mystery of Ernest Skein....

1 year ago

31 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

The bushman with a passion for local history

SEASON 1, EPISODE 10 In the Depression years Fred Teague had been a gold miner and fox shooter north of the road to Broken Hill. He drove trucks for the legendary Harry Ding to Innaminka, and up the Birdsville Track, in gruelling conditions, where if you got stranded you’d better have plenty of water; and where a wrong turn could mean the end. Then in the early 1950s he opened Hawker Motors, which became a mecca for motorists heading up into the Flinders Ranges and beyond. What made Fred Tea...

1 year ago

44 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

‘You had to overcome their fear’. Exclusive interview with co-founder of Qantas

SEASON 1, EPISODE 9 It was bitterly cold up there, in leather cap and goggles, in the open cockpit. Turbulence in North Queensland skies was often terrifying. Passengers could do nothing but hang on and bear it, hopefully holding something to catch the vomit. And on landing, ‘sometimes the only edifice on the aerodrome was a little tin shed’, Sir Hudson told me. ‘On a cold morning you’d see the poor passengers making a sprint for this little tin shed.’ Sir Hudson Fysh was co-founder of...

1 year ago

40 minutes

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-runn...

1 year ago

38 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

Both families were miners. Together they created musical gold

SEASON 1, EPISODE 7 Last edition we met Sis McRae, the all-night fiddler from the early part of the 20th Century. Sis had just one child, Margaret McRae, who married Jim Coad. Both families had mining backgrounds. With Margaret and Jim this continued, with their barytes mine at Martins Well in the Flinders Ranges. But it’s what they achieved above ground, out there in the back country of South Australia, that is truly remarkable. Seven children, seven highly talented multi-instrumental...

1 year ago

53 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

More Naughty Norman, then tales from Granny McRae, the All-night Fiddler

SEASON 1, EPISODE 6 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 bu...

1 year ago

46 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

Some ’naughty bits’ on Australian airline pioneer Sir Norman Brearley.

SEASON 1, EPISODE 5 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 seco...

1 year ago

32 minutes

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 a...

1 year ago

41 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

Chasing opals since the 1920s, while paddling his own dusty canoe

SEASON 1, EPISODE 3 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 ch...

1 year ago

25 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

Cranky camels, murderous mules, and a swarm of swaggies

SEASON 1, EPISODE 2 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...

1 year ago

33 minutes

Red Dust Tapes

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

1 year ago

2 minutes