Spectacular! Breathtaking! Really, no word/s adequately describe the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. It is an area, like most of outback Australia, that I have always yearned to see – and I finally have. Some years ago, I visited the very western end of this amazing area – just enough to glimpse a taste of its true beauty. The station that I had arranged to visit was only a few kilometres east of Derby, just along the Gibb River Road and this was my first ever foray into this vast part of Western Australia.

It is an area of amazing, ancient and unique land formations. While Australia is only a relatively recent ‘discovery’, it is also one of the oldest islands in the world. There are only two climatic seasons in the Kimberley that I know of –  wet and dry. The former lasts from November through to April and when it rains, it is heavy and seemingly never-ending. It doesn’t stop – not until it wants to around April in the following year. Most roads are closed simply because they are rendered impassable. There are signs at the start of all the unsealed roads out there, listing the destinations that each road leads to, then there is a little board that is moved to cover the words ‘Open’ or ‘Closed’, whichever is relevant. I also believe there are pretty heavy fines in place for those whom choose to ignore the warnings and go anyway. There are also websites which can keep people up to date before they try to head out. Tourist resorts and station stays also close. And it is my understanding that if you are anywhere ‘in there’ when the wet comes, you stay there, until the dry comes. The climate is monsoonal and cyclones are very common in the wet – this applies right across the northern parts of Australia.

The reason for this trip was to research life on the above-mentioned station. This station participated in my book – ‘Red Dust Dreams’ and was among one of many such trips around the nation (WA., SA., NSW., Qld and the NT) visiting the 20 stations that were included in the book. The idea of this was to try to highlight the way of life of the people whom live in such remote areas of the nation. Some of the stations are hundreds of kilometres from their nearest ‘town’ which could be simply a petrol station and/or a hotel, if that. And these people survive in such conditions – and overall they love it. While it can be a very lonely and isolated existence, most of those people would not change it for anything. It is also incredibly quiet and can be viewed as relaxing, even though the people on the stations work incredibly hard. The book includes such aspects as grocery shopping, power, fuel, education, health (thank goodness for the Royal Flying Doctor Service), entertainment, holidays (what holidays???) and – well, the list is endless and includes everything that those in suburbia do. Overall, it is also usually incredibly dry out there which is why the properties are so huge and this is the reason why Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania were not included. Overall the rainfall in these states and territory is much higher which means the properties (farms) are a lot smaller and far less isolated. 

Like the rest of the outback, the Kimberley did not disappoint. My daughter (who lived and worked in Broome at the time) provided the transport once I reached Broome and then she joined me on this part of the trip, which was a huge double positive. She knows the area quite well and also knew what I wanted to see so she organised a few wonderful surprises for me. The first was visiting the prison Boab Tree at the western end of the Gibb River Road (there is also one at the eastern end, so I understand). The one we saw is absolutely mammoth, believed to be around 1,500 years old. I say mammoth because apparently it has a circumference of some fourteen centimetres. It also has a door (two metres by one metre) and was called the Prison Tree for a reason – it is my understanding that in the 1890s it was used by local police to hold Aboriginal people overnight. There are information boards at the entrance, describing the story behind it as well as providing photos. I found this all to be fascinating – but also incredibly sad. I seem to recall that the tree was also used by the Aboriginal people for shelter, food and medicinal purposes. Unique to the region, these trees are thought to originate from some millions of years ago when Africa and Australia were joined. 

We also dropped in to the Mowanjum Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre. Those people are so clever and talented. Some superb pieces of art there  – actually all the pieces I saw were beautiful. I have also heard that each piece of art holds a story – I would love to know more about that. 

Our whole trip to the Kimberley was great fun and so interesting. We even went camping (invited by the manager of the station) – something I had not done for X amount of years and was a tad apprehensive about the very idea of this. But…off we went…and had the best time. The tent was just a ‘bit’ improved on the last one I had slept in. And the food – wow. The station cook joined us on the camp and treated us to an amazing meal which consisted of two different sorts of sausages, several salads and finished with a Nutella Cheesecake! Now, this was MY kind of meal. We camped on a dry salt marsh not far from the station and we could see the lights of Derby twinkling in the distance – on the other side of the marsh. The rooves of our tents were made of clear plastic – pure bliss to just lie back and take in the beautiful night sky. So clear – you could almost reach out and touch those stars. Just superb. 

After dinner, Rob joined an impromptu fun fire-building competition. What a laugh. AND I will add that it was completely safe there – no wind at all to carry any alien little sparks off to potentially start new fires and the marsh is absolutely enormous. I think we had five healthy fires burning at one stage, all except one were completely put out by the time we all went to bed. That one fizzled out safely during the night. So much fun. 

An early morning start next day and several new sets of tracks around the tents indicated we had had visitors during the night. Never did find out exactly what (they looked like dogs…) and not in a hurry to find out. When cleaning up and taking down tents, one of the staff discovered another visitor – under his mattress. A small python. Ok! After we’d all crowded around for a good look and after many photos, one of the other staff picked up the snake, which was probably terrified and took it into the scrub at the edge of the pan and left it there. 

And on the way to and from the salt marsh, we passed another homestead which was deserted but it was explained to us that it was actually Bungarun, which was an old leprosarium, constructed in 1936 and closed in 1986 and was mainly for Aboriginal sufferers of the disease. My understanding is that, sadly, 357 of them did not survive and are buried locally in simple graves with white crosses. There are quite a few buildings remaining: quarters for former medical staff, dormitories, service buildings, patients’ shelters and an Anglican chapel which was constructed in 1956. This is listed as an Aboriginal Heritage Site and was placed in the Register of Historic Places in 2000. I really wanted to go inside and have a good look – but not alone – not even if I was paid to. I cannot get enough of deserted buildings and ruins and the histories behind them. But this one just looked…odd, to me. But that only made it more fascinating.

As mentioned above, my daughter had arranged some surprises for me for after our stay at the station. The first of these was a visit to the spectacular Windjana Gorge which cuts through the Napier Range which is all part of the ancient Devonian Limestone Reef.  And I finally – FINALLY – saw freshwater crocodiles in the wild. I could not believe it – but there they were, about 10 ‘freshies’ all basking in the sun. Real, live crocodiles. And they were not interested in us at all.

Next stop – Tunnel Creek. Wow. This also cuts through the Napier Range. Equally amazing and quite the challenge to climb down through many very large rocks, plunging yourself into complete darkness. It is advised that you wear ‘appropriate’ shoes for this walk as you do go over many uneven rocks and all sorts of other things, probably as well as walking through a lot of water. There are also ‘freshies’ in there – we did see a pair of eyes glinting at us from the sidelines at one stage but I spied another mammoth Huntsman perched on top of a rock in the water – quite near the croc so I was trying to watch both at the same time. We did wear those miner-cap things with a light on them, so we could see our way – sortof. It was quite a long walk and an absolutely wonderful one. Have no idea how long we took. After we found our way back to my daughter’s car there was another surprise awaiting me – she had had the forethought to bring a picnic lunch for us. Yum. 

Legend has it that Tunnel Creek was used as a hide-out by the Aboriginal leader, Jandamarra, who was eventually killed outside its entrance in 1897. It is well worth a visit – as long as you are prepared.

Time was moving on so we realised we needed to get moving if we were to reach Broome by sunset. My daughter was doing all the driving and was getting tired, understandbly. On our way to the main road west, we called in at the ruins of an old police station – Lillimulura – the story behind these also concerns Jandamarra and was equally fascinating. And a old mine site, if I remember correctly.

This trip was actually the second to last of my research trips for the book. I was very sorry when it was all over and all it has really done is to whet my appetite for further trips into our mighty outback.

I make no apology for the fact that both past and present tense are used in this piece; nor for the fact that both the imperial and metric measurement systems are used. I was raised on the imperial and it is these measurements which I continue to use in this piece.

Mention the Australian outback to most people, be they from other nations or Australia and often visions of vast, barren deserts, miles upon miles of virtually nothing except a bush here and maybe a tree there and plenty of red bulldust, are conjured up. 

Overall not an attractive picture, so most would think.

Old petrol bowser and pump on a station in Qld.

How wrong can some people be.

I was born in Adelaide, capital of South Australia and raised on a sheep station in the north eastern pastoral district of that state. The station is 115,000 acres, which is small compared with other stations further up and out. Our livelihood depended on Merino sheep for their wool and a few head of cattle. The land, which is very barren, is comprised of such vegetation as salt and blue bush, mulga and gum trees, among others. We average less than seven inches of rain per annum so cannot rely on cropping. Ours is amongst the first of the ‘big’ sheep stations heading north east of Adelaide.

Peterborough is the nearest town, being 32 miles away. Along with my three older brothers and our cousins, I was educated, until the ripe old age of 11, by School of the Air and correspondence school.

There were times when we actually did have enough rain to isolate us completely but with today’s technology this no longer happens. In those days (and I am only going back 30 or so years), we had our own generator providing us with 32 volt power, a telephone connected to a ‘party line’, mail once a week and groceries monthly. The wonderful Royal Flying Doctor Service provided our medical services in emergencies.

My brother and his family are living on and managing the station now. With improved roads, transport and technology my niece and nephew were able to attend the local primary school in Peterborough, rather than relying on the School of the Air. Both then followed the lead of the generations before them and attended boarding school in Adelaide.

As can be gathered from the information above, rain water is very scarce. While all (or most) stations have several large concrete tanks, dam water is used for personal bathing, washing and dish washing. The water looks dreadful, like wishy washy mud, but to many, it is a real novelty to wash and swim in. We also used to swim in the dams when they were full enough; usually they did not have enough water in them in which to swim. But there were the very rare occasions when water was plentiful, thereby allowing us to swim in the dams and even in the creek, both of which were a lot of fun. When swimming in the dams you just had to be careful not to be nipped by a yabby (similar to a crayfish or lobster and just as tasty). The other positives about swimming out there – no chlorination, no salt usually and no pullution. Just good pure water. A good deal of Australia’s outback water is supplied by huge artesian basins.

While kangaroos are a dearly loved part of the Australian fauna, they, along with rabbits and foxes, are also a terrible menace in the outback. Our station is surrounded by a supposedly dingo-proof fence. However, it seems no-one told the kangaroos about this as they cause more damage to the fence than anything else does. In fact, dingoes and wild dogs are plentiful further up north and rarely venture as far south as our station. They rip the stock to pieces – not to eat – just for the fun or it. Rabbits, kangaroos and other pests eat the spear grass and general vegetation, what there is of it, which is food for our stock.

Despite the above, as children we often rescued orphaned animals, including ‘joeys’ (baby kangaroos), emus, the odd kids (baby goats as some would know) lambs and calves. We also kept a carpet python as a ‘pet’ at one stage. All were released into the wild once old and strong enough.

Entertainment was a little different out there. Travelling over one hundred miles for any kind of social occasion was and still is very much the norm. If you were not prepared to travel – take a ‘road trip’ you didn’t really have a social life. I now live in the city and dislike driving in the suburbs intensely – too much traffic, too many pedestrians, traffic lights, freeways – no thanks. And I won’t go near the CBD. But put me on a country road and I can drive forever and love it. ‘Local’ towns held annual horse racing carnivals where the emphasis seemed more on local gossip, ‘high’ fashion and of course, drinking, than on the races themselves. Races? What races? We actually had race horses at one stage, but that was well before my time.

Up to the age of 11 my only real play-mate was my youngest brother, until we were sent away to different boarding schools. I also had a cousin – her father and my father were brothers and co-managed the stations for many years.

We all learned to ride horses and motor bikes and to drive cars (on the station only – NEVER outside the boundary) almost before we could crawl. That just seemed to be a part of life out there and I presume it still is on many remote properties.

Old chimney stack. Rest of the building long gone. These are found throughout the rural and remote areas of the nation. What a story they could probably tell…

At times we were almost completely self-sufficient; raising our own chickens; milking our own cows and also making cheese and we had our own sources of lamb and mutton. Also vegetables and fruit when we had sufficient rains for them to grow. In the very early days we also produced bread from our own ovens. In those days, we were fortunate enough to have an excellent cook, along with governesses and a ‘cow-boy’. Those days are long gone now and we no longer produce any of the above apart from the meat and fruit and veges on occasion. While parts of the sprawling homestead have been modernised for practicality, the bread ovens have been preserved, along with our old milk-separating cellar, although neither is used.

Like most stations, we have a couple of ‘outstations’. In better years one of these held a family of about fifteen children; the other has been empty as long as I can remember. Now both stand empty.

The homestead itself is typical of many country homesteads, with huge rooms, very thick stone walls, completely surrounded by wide verandahs, huge open fireplaces and very high ceilings. This building, the engine room, slaughter house, shearers’ quarters, shearing shed, stables (no longer in existence) and assorted other buildings, resemble a small village.

And then there are the snakes and other reptiles and ‘creepy-crawlies’. The worst and most venomous snake is the Common Brown but we also have had the occasional visit from the King Brown, which lives further north. Another common species is the afore-mentioned Carpet Python, which is harmless. As for spiders, the harmless Huntsman is easily the most common and they can grow to be enormous. I am afraid that I am very much an arachnophobic and have suffered from this fear since childhood. I used to try to overcome this for the sakes of my daughters – but that didn’t work – they are both worse than I am. We also have the Redback spider, which is a cousin to the Funnelweb (which we do not have) but not as venomous. But you don’t want to be bitten by the Redback either.

Budgerigars (budgies) poking their heads out of their front door to say hello – or maybe to tell us to go away.

Among my childhood and teen memories on the station is one relating to a certain uncle (not blood relative) who lives on a nearby station and who owned and flew a Tiger Moth aeroplane. This uncle used to make a habit of flying low over our station and dropping bags of sweets attached to tiny parachutes, for us children. This occurred annually, after he had visited the Royal Adelaide Show. We used to love racing each other into the huge creek bed at the front of the homestead searching for those little parcels; a bit like an Easter egg hunt. We also had an airstrip, as did and do most stations, only ours has been overgrown by salt and blue bush and I think would cause an emergency if someone tried to land a plane on it. If I remember correctly, these airstrips were mainly for the use of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) as well as the odd other plane – like our uncle’s.

Sign for outback race club meeting. Western Australia.

The afore-mentioned creek could be quite dangerous, but very exciting, in heavy rains. It didn’t even have to be raining on the station; as long as there were heavy enough rains ‘upstream’, the chances were very hight of our creek coming down a ‘banker’ (meaning a usually bone dry creek suddenly filled to over-flowing with rushing water). I have only witnessed it once but would not have missed that. Imagine standing in a completely dry creek bed and suddenly hear an almighty roar – looking in that direction and seeing a huge bank of water, sometimes many feet deep, coming straight for you, taking all in its path. These ‘bankers’ have been known to drag fences, trees, windmills, junk, animals and anything else that gets in the way, as far as the creek travels. We have found items on stations over 200 miles away – and other items have disappeared forever.

Very dry lake bed…middle of Qld.

There really is just so much more to the magnificent Australian outback than has been mentioned here. To the eye of the uninitiated, it probably still is and always will be a vast, barren, boring, unending desert with very little, if anything, to offer – especially compared with mountains (we have those in the outback too), lush green pastures, rivers and waterfalls, flowers and other flora and fauna…yes, I concede that the outback could well be considered ‘ugly’.

Just an idea of what the distances in our outback are like.

But it is not. To me, the outback is absolutely spectacular.

It really is beautiful if one bothers to take the time to really look and appreciate the beauty. You do not need a vivid imagination to really see the beauty out there. The colours of the hills and valleys at dawn and sunset and after a rain – even before a rain – are spectacular in themselves. I have seen many paintings of different settings in the outback – they cannot be imagined, they are real, just as are those of snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, rivers and forests.

Outback worms….hmmm….

The fauna of the outback is as impressive as that of the lusher areas, too. As previously mentioned kangaroos abound out there – but not koalas. These gorgeous creatures are fussy eaters in that, while Australia has numerous types of eucalyptus trees, the koala will only eat the leaf of one species and this is found in certain areas of the nation, not all over. Other fauna includes hundreds of different sorts of reptiles, along with many other creatures, some harmful, others not. Emus, eagles, eaglehawks, galahs, sulphur-crested cockatoos, rosellas, cockatiels, wild canaries, budgerigars to name just a few. There are also hundreds of species of small ground-living birdlife.

The spectacular Wreath Flower – one of our beautiful wildflowers.

Like every nation Australia has a huge amount of features of interest for the tourist and locals alike, but I just feel that the outback, which really does have just so much to offer, is so often overlooked. It is not even acknowledged by many city folk – or if it is, from what I have heard, it is very negative, in our own nation which I think is so very sad.

So this is my little effort to help acknowledge and salute it, as truly deserved.

Dawson’s Burrowing Bees. These little fellows were found in the middle of an outback road in Western Australia.

Well, here we are over half way through 2021 and still no film. We are getting nearer though and the funding is starting to improve, but nothing is going to happen until next year. And having said that in the heading – telling COVID to go away – sadly, I think it is here to stay and as much as I hate to admit it, we might/do have to learn to live with it.

A few weeks ago, I met with the two (so far) production companies involved and have been told that this is going to be a big-budget film with all stages (pre-production, actual filming, post-production and distribution) expected to take months/years. I will admit that this certainly sounded more possible than the original timeframe that was described to me – just a couple of weeks for the actual filming and not a lot more for the other stages. The funding has never been in question – although the way we were going to try to raise it has been but I made an ‘executive decision’ about that some weeks ago and think the new approach will help to move everything forward. Even if it does not happen until next year but I am constantly working on it. 

‘Big Bell’. One of many ghost towns in the mining areas of Western Australia and scattered across the nation.

Some info about the ghost town of Big Bell. Might be too small to read though. If you are interested, you can google it.

Two of the parts have been cast which, to me, is a huge step forward to start with. If you are receiving this blog it does mean that you are still on our list to be considered for a part in the film (although there are a number of people whom have subscribed to this blog and are not involved in the film itself at all – thank you for subscribing), so please don’t worry that we have already cast these parts and that you weren’t contacted about them. Both these people are playing me, at different ages and while we are actually introducing a new talent, this person has some experience and does her own filming as well as having won awards for her acting. But NLB will be her first feature film. The second person is an actress who was very well known on Australian TV in the 60s and 70s and has appeared on and in different things through the years since.  This latter lady is one of Australia’s big names. We are working on several others as well. And if you are on our list, you should eventually be called for an audition.

And a couple of our famous native budgies, peeking out of their doorway to say hello…

As most know, given that our international borders are still firmly closed and that the internal borders can be snapped close almost without warning, while I come from South Australia, we realised that the only way we could make this film was/is to shoot 99.999999% here in Western Australia. Both the opening and closing scenes have to be shot in SA.

Ancient Indigenous carvings cover this rock, although not easily seen and there are spectacular wildflowers surrounding it.

Some caterpillars – not sure what this is all about, but they are on a tree in outback Western Australia.

I will admit none of this has been easy – there have been some amazing challenges, including of course, COVID itself – but I have really never given up. Not really. I have been VERY close to it but I have always had the wonderful support of both production companies as well as a few others whom will be involved in the film – you all know who you are – thank you so much. The ‘thing’ is – I am really passionate about this film and I think all the above-mentioned people are too. I am told the idea is ‘different’ and ‘unique’ and really, now and in the coming couple of years, is the perfect time to get such a film made. Completely and absolutely Australian. 

Site of the outback annual Landor Races. A similar race event will be covered in the film.

We are slowly but surely putting locations into place. The three stations that are involved are being kept up to date on progress as well as other places that will be in lieu of the places that featured so much at various times throughout my life, to date.

We still plan to have some Indigenous actors involved as well as an actual Indigenous community if we can. And the good old local races which were held in three of the ‘nearby’ (the nearest one being 22 ks away, the furthest being half way up to Broken Hill) towns, annually – one of these needs to be included as they have always formed such a big part of the social life of those in remote Australia, particularly, as well as rural Australia.

So much to do and all still so good. I just refuse to give up. I won’t give up – not bad for a 65 year young granny!

The spectacular ‘Wreath Flower’ – one of our many beautiful wildflowers.

I don’t know why, but for some strange reason, I thought 2021 would be a heck of a lot better than 2020. I thought COVID would magically vanish on New Year’s Eve and everything would be honky dory for the new year. Not so. I do think it is better but this disease has really kicked the world right out of balance and it’s going to take a L O N G  time to recover – if ever. 

As with most industries, entertainment has taken a beating. Lockdowns, closing of borders, both state and international (which I am completely in favour of actually – and NOT inviting debate on this) have all hit hard. I know a lot of production companies which were shooting films when lockdown started last year – and then just had to stop. Full stop. And only now they are gradually trying to get moving again but it is taking a long time. 

And we haven’t given up – we are still fighting through COVID like everyone else in the world is. There have been a couple of times when I have been very close to giving up. I have to thank those extras with whom I have had regular contact – some of them have repeatedly contacted me to see how things are going and I THINK I have always been positive with them. Thank you to the above people and others for this. 

Also a huge thanks to the two production companies which are collaborating with me on NLB. While I think both were wondering when and how NLB would ever be made (but, no, they were not giving up – they have NEVER given up) I felt that was more because we were trying to raise the funds and had some very good ideas about how to do this – but the timing was completely wrong. And again, I think COVID can be blamed fairly and squarely for this. I made a couple of executive decisions earlier this year and when I tabled them at my last meeting with the two production companies, the latter seemed a lot more positive about NLB than they have recently. They have just finished shooting another film, mainly in outback WA I think and are in the editing and post-production stages for that. After that, I believe they will be turning to NLB. Meanwhile, I am working on a list of potential sponsors and it is growing quickly. All of which is very positive. 

As always, I am including some photos with this post – but something different this time as they are not of the outback. They were taken on a very cold, overcast and eerie Thursday morning a few weeks ago, when my friend and I tried to have our usual paddling outing. Overcast conditions and rain, sometimes heavy, were forecast and that’s exactly what happened. And it seemed that the river had flooded in places. On the whole, the water was like glass – superb to paddle on. And usually I would have, but I did not feel like being out in the middle of the river when the heavens opened up and down came the rain – and that’s exactly what happened to my friend. So I didn’t go out – I wanted to take photos of these unusual/eerie conditions and try to capture the feeling of that morning, but my friend did go out – but luckily for her, when the heavens did open up, she found a small cave in the river bank and sheltered in there. There are now two platforms for paddlers to launch on and off but the main one of these had been raised to try to keep it out of the water and the second one was partly submerged and the water was gradually getting higher and higher. The picture to the right is of a paddler launching himself from the larger platform with his kayak sitting on the smaller platform, which was becoming submerged. 

Anyway, back to NLB. Things are starting to move a bit more positively now and at this stage, it looks like it will be made in mid-2022. It will still all be shot in WA, much of it in the outback. And we are still hoping to employ rising Caucasian and Indigenous actors from WA, as well as some bigger names from the east for the main roles. We have got some pretty ‘unique’ scenes planned too. Hopefully, a lot of fun and laughter as well as some major drama.

Typical main street in a town in outback Western Australia. Very peaceful and quiet.

Here we are in February, 2021, already. And here in Western Australia – Perth, we have recently finished a very sudden and hard five-day lockdown. It took everyone by surprise but we got through. We were plunged into the lockdown on a Sunday evening about three weeks ago, at 6 pm (we were told about it just before lunch that same day) and the next day, a massive bushfire started up in the hills north east of Perth. A lot of animals and properties were destroyed but, luckily, no humans. Very sad though. There were a couple of other bushfires in other rural areas around the state. And then we had a cyclone up north, which caused massive floods and a lot of destruction. The tail end did come as far south as Perth but it pretty well fizzled out by then and we just got a lot of very welcome drizzle.

And again, as with lockdowns the world over, everything just stopped. No gym, no tennis, no paddling. No going out at all, except for essentials and the usual things. Oh and one hour of exercise. But after five consecutive days of no new cases, the main lockdown was lifted on the following Friday night, with some restrictions remaining for a further week. For that week we had to wear a mask at all times and for anything – except swimming and showering and eating and drinking. My little mask has a funny little plastic thingy built into it which I am thinking has something to do with letting air through, so I won’t suffocate. I haven’t seen that on anyone else’s yet but I guess similar masks are out there. And we have our new app – SafeWA. We have to either use that to scan the code thingies at the entrances to all businesses – and if that doesn’t work (mine seems to go on strike occasionally) there is a sheet you have to sign instead. Either way, you have to register for contact tracing. Just in case.

Dawson’s Burrowing Bees. Found near Mt Augustus in outback Western Australia.

Sooooo – having all this happen recently did give me a chance to get a few things done for our film, ‘No Looking Back’. And I think things are gradually starting to move. It is very exciting and all going well, 2021 has the potential to be a really good year. 

Logo for ‘Media Productions – AUSTRALIA’. Owner: Steve Fitzgibbon

We had our first ‘groundwork’ meeting last month. These meetings will be monthly and the other two attendees are and will be Rod Manikam (of ‘Rodman Pictures’) and Steve Fitzgibbon (of ‘Media Productions – Australia’) – we get along very well, have lots of laughs (and snorts – ooooooh yes, they are both learning to snort – it’s just part of this film – nothing like finishing a good laugh with a snort) but are completely professional and serious when the need arises.

We are in the process of organising the second and final audition for the girl who will be playing me in my teens and perhaps early 20s. She’s doing a terrific job so far – she does need to learn to snort too. We have approached an actress from Qld who was a leading actor in the 1970s and has appeared in various things since, to play me as I am now and she will take the film out. I am working my way through the cast list at the moment, trying to find bigger names to play me and a few other more major parts as well as smaller parts. 

Logo for ‘Rodman Pictures’. Owner and Producer: Rod Manikam.

We are determined to try to give rising WA actors, many of whom are pretty well still unknown, a chance with this film. As well as our Indigenous people. We have chosen a few bigger Indigenous names too – these will be looked at further as we progress. And other Indigenous people to act as extras – and children, for School of the Air and secondary school extras and others, scattered through the film. And crew of course. The list is quite extensive.

We do have a few ‘aims’ with this film. Given the current COVID situation the world over and the fact that so many nationalities cannot fly out of their own countries at the moment, including us in Australia – well, this leaves one area for any holidays, any travel at all, for the foreseeable future. Australia! While the domestic borders are open, at the moment anywhere in Australia is reachable, as far as I know. But we really have just so much to see in our own back yard. I am not referring to the well known tourist spots around the nation. I am referring to our amazing outback and all that it has to offer. However, as we have already experienced, the borders can be slammed shut at any time, without notice – so going interstate is probably not the best idea at the moment.

Giving an idea of how big distances are in the outback of Australia. How far people travel to do anything…

So, as has been mentioned in previous blogs, ‘No Looking Back’ is planned to be filmed almost completely in outback WA. The opening and closing scenes will be shot in SA but the rest of it, including one special scene, will be in WA. We have tentatively chosen three stations to use in the film here and I am in discussions with these three at the moment. I wanted to use working stations that have also become stations stays, giving people a chance to see how pastoral stations and the people on them, work and survive. There are some that are well known in WA, have quite high profiles – we did not really want to use them. Instead we want to use some that are not so well known, but should be. 

We really want to showcase our magnificent and spectacular outback. Again, not just the known and popular tourist spots, but so many other areas and places that are not so well known. Another area we feel very strongly about and are giving a lot of consideration to is for music – our soundtrack. We plan to work with either the WA Symphony Orchestra or the Perth Symphony Orchestra (which has already shown interest and – yes – they are two completely separate entities). There is also a third contender for this. We also plan to have one very special scene in which we hope to bring in a Canadian actor with whom I am in discussions about both writing and singing a special song for this scene. 

There really is so much involved and planned for this film, so I am hoping that everything will go reasonably smoothly as we progress. It continues to be a massive learning curve, with many challenges and I continue to thrive on it.

And a fun notice to finish off with.

What a strange year it has been and continues to be. But I am sitting here on my laptop, which means I am alive and well and – presumably safe – for which I am truly grateful, given how many people world wide have lost their lives to COVID-19. Absolutely awful.

It was Halloween recently, not that I particularly encourage that. It’s not an Australian tradition. Only my opinion. But it also means Christmas is just around the corner. And there seems to be a baby boom in our family, with one due on Christmas Day itself. 

And, HOPEFULLY, ‘No Looking Back’ is starting to look good for next year. The WA border has been softened ‘conditionally’ – and that lasted two whole days when SA suddenly had an outbreak. Now SA has been banned from WA, except for people with exemptions which are very rare. With huge concern about SA’s outbreak and people from there having already travelled far and wide throughout the nation, it is looking increasingly likely that our premier could close the border tightly again, to the whole nation. And it seems this could happen very quickly – with a moment’s notice.

As I said, things can and do happen at a second’s notice and this is the case currently. NSW is now battling a cluster outbreak, which appears to be growing – so premiers of the other states are watching intently and borders are changing as the outbreak grows. And Christmas is less than a week away – wow – what a year! The other issue that I can see is complacency – so many people across the nation (and world I think) have become quite complacent and this is a worry – that virus is still out there. 

When I first heard that the border was going to be opened, I thought that we would be able to bring in actors from South Australia, my home state, after all. But I think if I tried to do that, I would be jumping the gun a tad. Disappointing still but the risk of this virus is just too high.  

And, sadly, with COVID behaving the way it is nothing can be guaranteed, so we also had to rethink the production companies that are working on NLB. This did mean that the one in SA has been taken off our list and we are now sticking with two WA companies: Rodman Pictures (Owner/Producer: Rod Manikam) and Media Productions – Australia (Owner/Director: Steve Fitzgibbon). However, I do plan to work with the SA production company as well as many of the SA actors on our list and the few from the eastern states, in the future. And the project in mind is already being planned. I am, therefore, including all the SA actors (and some from other states) whom have indicated that they are still interested, given the chance, in the recipient list for this. This list includes a few Indigenous actors too. But I really have no idea what is going to happen – who does???? – I just live in hope and still do want to give all aspiring and rising actors in SA and WA a chance, as well as a lot of other people in the industry. 

I have been receiving emails from quite a few actors from other states recently – while I will respond to them individually I am hoping that by receiving and reading this you will get some idea of what I am still trying to do – all the time remembering that COVID seems to be ruling the world at the moment and everything could change so quickly. Thank you so much to those people whom are still showing interest. That is really appreciated.

Most of NLB will be shot in WA – we have three stations involved with two others as backups. We have a good list of extras and I am now working on ‘bigger’ names for the more major roles. 

Ok, it’s now Tuesday 17th and it seems ‘things’ have changed again. Obviously I didn’t finish this in one sitting, which is something that is becoming increasingly common these days. I am hoping that NLB will start shooting pretty early next year, but nothing – absolutely nothing – is guaranteed.

My goodness, life is confusing at the moment. I keep thinking I will finish this and get it out – then I get interrupted and leave it for a couple of days and in that time, several things have changed. And things continue to change. It’s now December (what in the heck happened to the rest of November – actually, what happened to the rest of the year????) and Christmas is just there. And more and more things keep happening and changing.

See? Told you. I left this yesterday and already things have changed. Not sure for the better or not. But we have now set out date for our first pre-production for our meeting in January, which is a big step forward at the moment. Just so exciting and much to do. 

However, I am going to leave this here and get it out. I do plan to get the next blog post out after our meeting in January.

In the meantime, I will take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry, albeit a tad different, Christmas and may the coming year be a heck of a lot better than the current one. 

And please stay well and safe – and if you are not well, I hope you recover quickly.

JIMMY JONES – WHO WAS HE?

Glad you asked. 

And I wish I could answer.

But I’ll have a go anyway.

While Jimmy (James Henry Jones) was part of my life throughout my childhood, teens and early 20s I never really knew him. I don’t think anyone did – including Jimmy himself most of the time.

But he would have been one of the biggest and most mysterious characters of all time to me. When I was younger I always just took him for granted – but now that I am older and have had a chance to reflect and reminisce on my younger life – there he is, not exactly standing proud and tall – but there, VERY much a presence.

So who was he? There are a few facts which we do know about him. He was born in New Zealand (in 1885, apparently and I do recall him proudly describing the day of his birth as being the same day that they hung Ned Kelly – but I wouldn’t swear to that) but no-one knows anything about any family or much about his early life. My late father recalled that Jimmy came to us as a ‘cowboy’ in January 1945. Apparently he was drafted into the New Zealand Expeditionary Force when the Great War broke out, but then deserted, throwing away everything but the boots which he wore for life. And I mean for life – they were the only shoes of any sort I ever saw Jim wearing.

According to my father, Jimmy moved through various employment in different states, through which he accumulated a wealth of knowledge. He was a Seventh Day Adventist or Christadelphian and claimed to be a Russian Communist – apparently, shortly after he arrived at our station, my grandmother asked if he would like anything to read. His response? ‘Do you have any Judge Rutherford tracts?’ 

I do recall clearly that Jimmy was not a talker – at all. And when he did talk, the topic could be months or years after the event had taken place. An example of this was when he was being driven home from the local town (60 k) after his annual holiday. I believe he had been enjoying a drink or two – or three – or…  The journey was the usual completely quiet event but for Jimmy suddenly announcing his opinion about a friend who had died years before. ‘Clarrie dead hey! Best place for him, the sod – no hereafter for him!’ Guess they were not best friends. On the whole, Jimmy’s entire vocabulary could be counted on one hand – two at a stretch. His main words were: ‘Woosh. Woosh’ – to this day, no-one knows what it meant but it was Jimmy’s favourite line. He did also mention the weather on the odd occasion: ‘Hot, eh?’, ‘Cold, eh?’ or whatever was relevant.

His hygiene was not the best and we always knew when he had showered or bathed, or whatever he did – about once a year. He’d come to his meal (in the main station kitchen) and simply say: ‘Water hot’. That’s all it needed. We knew. Mentioned above are his boots – I was trying to remember his general wardrobe – or lack therein. All I can remember is a very old cloth cap (similar to those that I have seen coalminers in the UK wearing in the past, in films), a deep blue or brown denim jacket and long cloth pants, kept up with a string tied around his waist. As can be imagined from this – the poor old bloke did smell – badly.

His duties on the station did diminish over the years. Milking our cows was one of them – and it was quite the vision watching him after a day in the afore-mentioned local town – particularly when he tried to walk up a rise into a westerly wind. Something like this – not quite in a straight line and often backwards – for three steps forward, he would take one back. And the cows must  have enjoyed those particular milking efforts – very light on if at all!

My father recalled one particular evening when Jimmy asked one of the other employees what time the sun went down. Upon being answered, he’d tell them there would be a corroboree about an hour later. And sure enough – around the mentioned time, spurred on by a good few alcoholic drinks, Jimmy came out of his room, dancing and singing. Quite a sight, so I have been told.

Jimmy was also an excellent writer – beautiful hand writing and excellent command of language. I believe several books were discovered under his bed after his death and these remain in safe-keeping on the station for any of his relations to claim – if they do. One of his other hobbies was absolutely unique – he made models of lyre birds and bunches of flowers and worked on perpetual motion. His tool kit consisted of pliers, tin snips and soldering iron (solder he obtained by melting it out of tins) and his material: wire and thin pieces of tin. His lyre birds and flowers were cut from tin and fashioned into the most beautiful, colourful and incredible works of art. His ‘perpetual motion’ was not so successful but did display an amazing sense of creativity and imagination – his efforts were complicated machines of arms, levers and all sorts of things – but sadly, none worked. Further evidence of his imagination was in his dart for shooting rabbits. It consisted of a short piece of number eight fencing wire, sharpened at one end and let into a tube of rolled tin. The other end of this tube had a short strand of rope inserted in it and towards the front, a form of fin. The thrower, along the lines of a ‘shanghai’ was a piece of wood held in the hand. On the top was fastened 15 cm strip of rubber (old motor tube) with a slotted piece of leather fastened to it. The fin on the dart was fitted into the slot on the leather, then drawn back as far as possible – and released. The dart would have been lethal for a long distance as the pointed wire, which such force, had good penetrating power.

Jimmy Jones (or James Henry Jones – that part we do know definitely) passed away in the mid 1970s. An amazing and unique character.

TO ANYONE WHOM MIGHT WISH TO CRITIQUE THE ABOVE FOR ANY ‘MODERN’ REASON WHATSOEVER, PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THIS DID ALL OCCUR IN THE 1970s AND EARLIER.

DISCLAIMER

The book that this biopic is planned to be based on is my autobiography: ‘No Looking Back’ and has been written as anonymously as possible. Some cities, states and institutions have been mentioned but on the whole, no human names have been mentioned.

THE SCHOOL WHERE THE BULLYING OCCURRED IS IN NO WAY AT FAULT NOR IN THE LEAST BIT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY EXPERIENCES.

Hello…hopefully this blog post will find everyone well and starting to enjoy life again now that we, in Australia, are moving out of isolation and back to normal – or should I say, the ‘new normal’…although I still don’t know what that means exactly. Social distancing is a part of it as is washing your hands properly and very regularly. Both continue to be so very important.

Part of the Great Australian Bight.

So…no, I haven’t forgotten you. Nor have I stopped working on NLB in any way at all. And now that we ARE starting to get back to this new normal, I am starting to look for better known actors – mainly from SA and WA again – to take the more major roles. Also locations – we have three pastoral stations on board, although not yet in cement – but they will be – and I am looking for another couple. I plan these to be spread between both states (SA and WA).

I am also looking at showcasing the difference in School of the Air from when I was a primary student learning that way, to 55 years later – ie today. The difference is just so mammoth – which is hardly surprising given that there are 55 years of improvements in transport, technology and roads etc. I do consider myself to be very fortunate with my primary education – it was so different. And through the research for ‘Red Dust Dreams‘ I was incredibly lucky in that one of the stations in Qld that I visited had three students learning through SotA or Distance Education, so I was able to see first hand how different it is nowadays. Just amazing. On that same trip, I also managed to visit my own old SotA base in South Australia and have to say I was quite stunned when seeing the lessons being taught from that end as well. 

Music is another big factor and we have huge plans for this – for the opening and closing scenes and even one scene on the station which will feature a rising singer/songwriter from WA who is writing both the music and lyrics for this very special scene which will feature that thing that is so very rare in the outback – RAIN. We are hoping that one of our foreign actors will be actually dancing in this rain, on the station, with me. Yes. Rain is so rare out there that when it did happen we used to sit and watch, listen, smell and take it all in. And I have loved dancing in it ever since. Yep – even in the middle of the night. 

Normal sparse vegetation of the outback.

Thank you to all those who responded to my last blog post when I did ask for everyone whom is still interested in being considered for our film to let me know – more on this below. I am still trying to do my best to give everyone a chance with this, particularly rising actors from South and Western Australia. This includes anyone from me right down through the layers to the extras and helpers etc. We do have some from other nations but a lot now depends on what borders are open by the time we reach the stage where they are needed to be in Australia. That said, we also have some bigger names coming in from the eastern states and again that will depend on borders being open. 

With everything starting again, we are slotting in locations…as in stations and I have a few people in mind for the roles of station owners and/or managers as well as a lot for station hands/jillaroos/jackaroos. None of these is locked in concrete yet and won’t be until after auditioning. 

Dawson’s burrowing bees. On a road in outback WA.

Writing of the screenplay itself is going well. I am still really enjoying it but, again, I had no idea how much is involved. I have to keep referring back to my autobiography to see what I did throughout my life to date! And doing this has meant I have found that I have missed certain characters that need to be included but I have also been able to delete some who really didn’t play a huge part in my life.

Again, when I began this I really had no idea how much is involved in making a feature film/biopic – and I’m only in pre-production which I am told can take years. Then there’s actual filming, to say nothing of possible years in post-production. Just another rung in this mammoth learning curve that I have committed myself to.

Before I close I do need to just reiterate that, PLEASE – those of you whom are still interested in being considered for a role in this film and have not already done so, PLEASE respond to this to let me know. Again, if I do not hear from you, I will be removing you from our list and you will no longer hear from me at all. I will mention this one last time in the next blog – after that, it will be too late.

Thank you – and stay well. 

Typical main street of outback town. Lovely and peaceful and quiet – usually.

DISCLAIMER

The book that this biopic is planned to be based on is my autobiography:  ‘No Looking Back’ and has been written as anonymously as possible. While some states, cities and institutions have been mentioned, no real humans names have been, except mine.

The school where the bullying occurred is in NO WAY AT FAULT NOR IN THE LEAST BIT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY EXPERIENCES.

Oops! Looks like a couple of months have slipped by without another blog. Well, OK, I did issue one special blog on the 27th March – just after lockdown/isolation was announced. But before that, the last one was on 16th March. That wasn’t supposed to happen – I mean, the blog post was supposed to happen but I had planned to issue one out every month. 

What a strange, strange time it is.

I hope that this blog finds everyone enjoying good health and remaining sane. It is the weirdest time that I can ever remember – and never hope to experience it again.

I also hope that those of you whom are involved with this film or have indicated that they were interested, still are. PLEASE let me know if you are no longer interested. There’s no problem with that, either way, but I just need to be kept up to date. Thank you.

While we have all been in lockdown/isolation the world over, many of us have found ways to ‘keep going’. And I really hope that applies to everyone whom reads this blog. 

Our last real blog post was issued on the 16th March – I’m just trying to figure out where that time has gone. When we first went into isolation/lockdown with no end in sight, I thought that the time would absolutely drag. 

How wrong I was. I think it is now seven weeks. 

The good news is, for those of you whom ARE still interested, the film pre-production continues. I have been workng pretty solidly on it throughout all these weeks and things are going quite well. And while there have been very frustrating moments, I continue to thrive on it all. There are things quietly happening in the background and other things that, frustratingly, cannot even be considered while we are going through this restriction phase. But I hope to jump on them as soon as possible once things return to ‘normal’ – or the ‘new normal’, or whatever it is.

I think you will all realise that, unless a miracle occurs in more ways than one, actual filming will not now be starting until sometime next year (ie 2021). I am NOT giving up but this thingy that has turned the world upside down, kind of hit and changed everything in pretty well every way possible. We are not alone in having everything thrown into a spin – I believe many in the entertainment industry – and most industries – have been affected badly (or positively in some respects, I believe) and no-one really has any idea of what the future holds.

Something that has been happening since the beginning of the lockdown/isolation is that I have been receiving some very positive/encouraging emails from a few people and I cannot thank those people enough. As you all know, one thing I am determined to do with this film, is to give rising actors in Australia (and a smattering from other counties) a chance. While our film won’t open many doors, unless we are very lucky, I am hoping that, steered and managed and showcased the correct way, it just might help some of our actors, as well as crew members, production companies generally as well as shining a light on the bullying issue which remains so rampant everywhere, through everything. Also I am hoping that by showing my own experiences of growing up in the outback, going through correspondence and School of the Air, might educate and highlight such a life for others in the urban areas of Australia and overseas. There are many more aspects in the film, throughout my life to date, which I hope will prove to be inspirational to others.

The other thing that I am hoping that working on this film will be, apart from sheer hard work, is FUN. And lots of it. Good laughs. Although I don’t think that will be too much of a problem with my snorts.

On that happy note, I bid you all farewell until our next post. And again, PLEASE, all those of you whom responded to my original callouts for potential actors, PLEASE contact me to let me know you are still interested, no matter when we get the chance to start this film. If I do not hear from you within a few weeks, I will presume you are no longer interested. And that is fine – I just need to know.

Thank you everyone – and stay well.

‘Dawson’s Burrowing Bees’. This hive (not sure of the correct name for the home of these particular bees) was found on a road in the outback of Western Australia.

DISCLAIMER

The book that this biopic is planned to be based on is my autobiography: ‘No Looking Back’ and has been written as anonymously as possible. Some cities, states and institutions have been mentioned but no humans, except me.

The school where the bullying occurred is in NO WAY AT FAULT NOR IN THE LEAST BIT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY EXPERIENCES.

From days well and truly gone by.

Hi all – I really hope you are all well and will stay that way.

While I only issued our last update a couple of weeks ago, I have been feeling an increasing need to get something out about this horrible nightmare that we are all enduring, world wide and how it is affecting us – or should I say, pre-production of our film.

I am not in complete lockdown – yet – but am close enough to it. I am trying to stay at home as much as I can, only going out for daily exercise, always keeping the required distance from others and washing my hands constantly – and that’s about it. My husband continues going out because he works in an ‘essential industry’.

Like so many of us, my initial fear at the thought of having to stay home for weeks/months on end was – how on earth do I stay busy and keep myself sane?

And that did worry me.

Still in drought.

But now that we are at the end of the first week of self-isolation, I am more than busy and keeping myself very sane – well, ok, as sane as I have ever been and will ever be. As mentioned above I am still getting my daily exercise and plan to keep this up until the worst is over – until we get the green light that everything is lifted and we are getting back to ‘normal’ life again. 

I also continue to work heavily on pre-production of our film – ie the script is nearly completed – at least the first draft is. I am also being sent scripts for other potential films to read through – believe me, if all these are accepted by production companies, there are some excellent films to be made in the future. And from what I can see, they are mostly being made by Australian production companies, with 90% Australian crews and cast and locations completely Australian and mostly in the outback. YES! 

Drought again.

I am also looking for another pastoral station to add to our existing ones, along with looking for many other locations in SA and WA. And starting to look at more major actors to play the major roles. Most of these characters require several actors to take them through many years. Some of those actors that I already have on our list will be considered for some of these roles as well. But these are only people whom have been acting for a long time and have built up healthy profiles.

And yes, as is known, we have conducted one audition to date. More would have been planned from then on, but life seemed to have other ideas which have brought much of the ‘normality’ of the world to a grinding halt, albeit temporary. So, no auditions for the moment but as soon as the above-mentioned green light is turned on, I will be getting straight back into the areas where socialising/mixing is required. And that includes auditions.

Typical wool shed, complete with some shearers’ stands.

Funding remains a requirement. While we have had a couple of donations (again my deepest gratitude to those people) I have realised it is possibly not the best timing to continue looking for funding/grants etc. That said, if I can convince funding bodies/people that this film has the potential to assist getting the tourist industry in Australia, particularly for the outback, back on its feet after this nightmare, then maybe…just maybe. And there are other areas too which I will look at and I will reach out to various relevant people/bodies, but need to choose very carefully and wording is vital at any time, but more so now. Again, more donations are welcome and please always remember, this film will simply not proceed without money. What does?

So I leave this with you. I will continue to send out our updates but as for pre-production itself, anything involving socialising/mixing will be put on the back burner until further notice. But it WILL happen.

For now I will sign off and wish you all the best of health throughout the coming months. Stay healthy, stay safe, keep washing those hands regularly, always stay the required distance when in the company of others and do stay home if you can. Follow advice from the authorities to a ‘T’.

I am thinking of you all and REALLY looking forward to the end when we can really get stuck into this. It WILL happen.

Thank you.

Just a reminder of how big distances can be in outback Australia.

DISCLAIMER

The book that this biopic is planned to be based on is my autobiography: ‘No Looking Back’ and which has been written as anonymously as possible. Some cities, states and institutions have been mentioned but on the whole, no human names have been mentioned … except mine.

The school where the bullying occurred is in NO WAY AT FAULT NOR IN THE LEAST BIT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY EXPERIENCES.

SECOND DISCLAIMER

Yes, I snort. And I’m proud of my snort. It shows that I am having a darned good time. And it comes from ONLY that – having a good time and LAUGHING. No, I do not do the drug sort of snorting that possibly entered everyone’s head on reading that title (showing my ignorance again) – I actually wouldn’t know how to and I’m not remotely interested. But I do snort – have all my life and will continue to. So, for those who do end up working with me, be prepared and get used to it.

Now, to get on. First of all, I would like to express my huge gratitude to Brooke McKenzie whom has made an extremely generous donation to the funding of the film, in an effort to help get it moving. Brooke’s name will now appear in the credits on the screen, along with anyone else who wishes to donate something toward getting this movie up and out there – believe me, this would be more than welcome. However, if you want to remain

Dawson’s burrowing bees. On a road near Mt Augustus in Western Australia.

anonymous, that can also be organised. Please get in contact with me for the bank details. Donors do not have to be limited to those whom have anything to do with the movie, but anyone else who could be interested in helping out financially, is very welcome to do so.The content of our film – meaning what I have done and had anything to do with throughout my life to date, is pretty varied and includes:

• Seeing how a small five year old child (me) lives in the isolation of the outback – sharing with the world how education is provided out there;
• Seeing how School of the Air is conducted;
• Learning how the people on the stations in the Australian outback live without the convenience of the towns and cities being close by;
• Bullying. My six year nightmare at a boarding school (see above) is covered and I understand that an increasing number of people is relating to it;
• Showcasing much of our spectacular outback scenery;
• Inspirational – I am a 64 year young female and began all this when I was 55. Yes, I am probably mad but I am absolutely thriving on all this and don’t think I could ever stop. And it’s doing my snort a lot of good too.

I do also wish to thank those of you whom have made suggestions and sent me links to potential sources of funding for the film, apart from straight donations. I have and am following most of these up and couldn’t be more grateful to you all.

There was a house here once. Now all that remains is the fireplace and chimney. Such a normal sight for regional and remote Australia.

As we progress along with pre-production, I am receiving quite a lot of comments etc from various people about how amazing it is that we are making this film. Why are we making it? Apparently, it is different, unique and that nothing quite like it has really been done in the past. I have people asking to come onboard to do anything – many of these people cannot act – they just want to be an extra or simply help out in some way. And many are happy to do this simply for the experience and not to be paid at all. All these names are recorded and I will be in contact with you all sooner or later.

And yes, we have begun auditions. But there is a LONNNNNG way to go so PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT ME ABOUT THIS. We have a huge list of roles and many of them include the characters in varying ages and situations. So, at this stage, we are actually now looking at early 2021 for filming. So I think it goes without saying that you should take any other roles that may come your way in the interim.

I will say that I am no longer doing all this alone – I have some wonderful people who have come on board to help and again, I could not be more grateful to them. But I am still doing the bulk of it. And, like the entire learning curve, I am finding that absolutely everything is taking much longer than anticipated. I can now see why pre-production, filming and post-production, along with everything else for all films, takes so long. 

Our first audition, mentioned above, was on Saturday and it is the reason that I felt I should mention my snort. Because I did. I laughed and snorted a lot on Saturday. In short, we had a wonderful time and enjoyed ourselves immensely, although we were completely serious and totally professional when we needed to be. This film is about darned hard work AND fun. Lots of fun – lots of both.

So it does seem we are on our way. At this stage, I will ask all of those potential actors from WA who applied through FaceBook – if you have a StarNow profile, can you please send it through to me. Those in SA who applied through the one FaceBook post that I issued I think have sent me their profiles. And the rest of those in SA, also the few from other nations and other states, all responded to the StarNow post so they are fine. 

A few other things have happened but for the moment, they are veiled in secrecy, even for the cast. Let’s just say I am pretty darned excited and really loving this whole experience. 

I will leave you here and I do plan to get another post out in a couple of months – and keep them going.

But in the meantime, if anyone does wish to donate, large or small (the donation I mean) please contact me. Very gratefully received.

Thank you.

The original homestead backed by the ranges on our family station in South Australia.

DISCLAIMER

The book that this biopic is planned to be based on is my autobiography: ‘No Looking Back’ and has been written as anonymously as possible. Some cities, states and institutions have been mentioned but on the whole, no human names have been mentioned. The school where the bullying occurred is in NO WAY AT FAULT NOR IN THE LEAST BIT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY EXPERIENCES.

Talking to other past students both at my old school and other schools, it does seem that most of them look back over their school years with tenderness and happiness and warmth. 90% have told me that they loved those days. And I now know why I was picked on and realise that if I had my time again, there is absolutely nothing I could do about it. The ‘problems’ lay with me, absolutely but they were enough to cause the bullying. And I would have been and still would be powerless to change anything.

The amazing RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) has to be able to land anywhere in emergencies…

‘No Looking Back’ does contain detail about my bullying nightmare which occurred over six years. However, it must be remembered that this happened back in the 1960s and 1970s when such acts as bullying and the like were not recognised nor acknowledged and very little, if anything, was done – and that was only when and if victims spoke up. How were and are the staff supposed to know that someone is being bullied unless they either witness something themselves – or the victim or someone else speaks up for them. I think it was accepted as just being part of life, part of growing up. These days, that has completely changed in many instances and many schools have now got their own anti-bullying programmes in place. Many also have counselors. But again, victims do need to ‘speak up’ and many still won’t, for fear of repercussions and similar. Sadly there are an increasing number of suicides occurring among victims of bullying. Most of these people, so I believe, have not spoken up.

Outside loo. Long since unused but a redback’s paradise. And possibly the odd snake.

There is actually a very fine line between teasing and bullying, although being pushed down stairs, locked in a cupboard and finding a huge spider on my bed (and I am very much arachnophobic) would be hard to be classed as teasing – I reckon they all fall into bullying. Full stop. 

So what is this film about? Me. Yes me. It is a visual autobiography – a biopic. And it is something that I never thought I would do, write an autobiography, let alone make a biopic based on it. At least not until I was in my late 70s or 80s and then probably get someone else to tape, then type it all. 

Shearing shed – or woolshed – most sheep properties have/had them.

But no … or yes, here I am, doing the lot at the moment and loving it. But before I really started writing it, I honestly did not think I had and am still living such an exciting and different and, perhaps, inspirational life that anyone else would be interested in. And that hasn’t – or hadn’t – really changed – I’ve now written and published my book – and life continues. And becoming deeply involved in pre-production for the biopic.

There is a reason I changed my mind and felt that maybe – just maybe – some of what I have done in my life could be interesting – to someone, somewhere – or even inspirational, perhaps. It was when people started asking me about my bullying nightmare – and then being asked to write about it, that my mind began ticking over and I felt that telling my story might just help someone else. Or not. I didn’t know but as I had never previously really described those six nightmare years to anyone, I also felt that writing it all down might be good therapy, for me. And now that I have done that, I think it has been good therapy – I know it certainly brought the memories rushing back and I even shed a few tears, here and there. After that I was being asked about my own primary education (via School of the Air) and then other aspects of my life also seemed to attract questions, whether I thought they were interesting/inspirational or not.

There is another reason – an extremely important reason, why I am doing this. Why I am persevering – not giving up even when I feel I want to stop the world and step off (thank goodness there are people around me who know me well enough to push me…not to step off the world but to get on with all that I am trying to do) and this reason applies to two of ‘my’ other books as well. My sheer passion for the outback and the life of the stations people and so many others who live out there. I have lived in suburbia for most of my life – but will never love it like I do the outback. And I am not talking about the rural areas so much, the farming areas, but more the really remote and isolated areas. Of Australia. 

One other aspect about this biopic is very important to me. I really wanted to use an all-Australian cast and crew – I initially wanted to use only people from SA and WA but then quite a few others applied – from other states and from overseas. I had also realised that a lot of the station hands and some of the owners as well as some working in businesses in outback towns, are from other nations – many are young backpackers. So I have quite a few of the relevant names on the list but overall I am trying to give local actors a chance. I am still working with that aspect and one further very important group of people are our Indigenous people. This last one is proving to be nearly as much a challenge as the funding, but I don’t give up easily. I am fascinated by the Australian entertainment industry and really want to help ‘add’ to it – do my bit any way I can. And if writing the above books, making a doco and the biopic are the ways that I have at the moment, so be it. And as I say, I don’t give up easily. 

I mentioned two of ‘my’ other books – the very first one, which my late father actually wrote, is about our family and ancestors and early life on our sheep station. My father had been writing this book for the last 30 or so years of his life and had literally just finished when he passed away. So it was not published before he died. Instead the manuscript and piles of documents and photographs that accompanied it, went round and round between my brothers and me for the next 17 or so years, until one day, on a birthday, I woke and realised we needed to get Dad’s book out. Someone had to do it. And that someone was me. So I did. I found a publisher who could offer exactly what I wanted and between the two consultants whom were assigned to me, and me, we worked like beavers (beavers do work, don’t they…) to get that book out – preferably before my late mother passed away. She was in her late 80s at the time and still appeared to be enjoying good health – although she was also wonderful at covering up any health issues. But her age was against her and us – but we did get that book out. It was published and released exactly a week after Mum passed away. Yes, I was devastated – but have been reassured that Mum knew something was about to happen and died a happy woman – or as happy as anyone could be when facing the end of life as we know it.

Yes it has been hellishly dry in most of the outback – however, much of this area has also recently had life-saving rains…

Dad’s book is obviously the reason for my enclosing the word ‘my’ in inverted commas – it was not my writing, therefore not my copyright but Dad’s – I simply had it published and released. Then came my biggest effort (until this biopic) – ‘Red Dust Dreams’ which describes the lives of the people on 20 of our sheep and cattle stations around the nation. To conduct the research, I did something that I have always wanted to do, ever since I was a very young girl. I traveled the outback, by myself. And I thrived on it. I visited 17 of the participating stations (in SA., NSW., Qld., the NT and WA – the ACT., Victoria and Tasmania were not included as most of the regional people in those states and territories do not live on such large landholdings – on the whole and as far as I know they are not isolated or remote enough to suit the requirements for this particular book). That was an amazing experience and so much fun. The book was published in 2012 and did become a finalist in the International Book Awards. 

After ‘Red Dust Dreams’ was published and released, the questions mentioned above began. During the research travels I also had a few people asking whether my travels and experiences were being filmed…as in documented, apart from being in the book. In other words, they were asking if a documentary was also being made. A visual interpretation of the written word, as such. It wasn’t – the thought had not occurred to me. But I did start thinking about it when I finally got home. And we have been trying to make this doco for the last few years – but the usual is blocking it – funding. Why does everything rely on money. During this time I was also being asked about my bullying nightmare and my own outback education as well as a few other aspects in my life. I sat and began writing, finally – and thus ‘No Looking Back’ was borne. Although I still did not feel it was that interesting nor inspirational – but others, it seems, feel differently.

Once the book was published and out and I thought I would be moving on, I had people asking about a visual interpretation of it. Huh? A movie – a bio-pic effectively. Oh. Er…no. That sounded exciting actually but also a heck of a lot of work – so into the ‘too hard basket’ it went – for five minutes. 

A typical outback plane. Privately owned by station people.

So – I got into it. Now, remembering that I am not a film-maker and I am in my 60s – and a female to boot – well it did seem that everything was against me even considering this. The other huge obstacle – which does hit just about everyone in this industry – you guessed it – money. Yes, money. Funding. Literally having never done anything like this before, it really was also a matter of the blind leading – something. I started researching heavily and then decided to post a piece on FB – not actually a casting call but more a call for ‘expressions of interest’ – for potential actors. I put two or three of these on relevant FB pages for WA and then tried a couple in SA. Unfortunately, as I no longer live in SA, this was not permitted but the admins were wonderful and posted the blurb that I sent over anyway. This happened around my birthday last year and I was in no way prepared for the response that I received. Not so much from SA (although I did receive a couple from there and both are now on our ‘shortlist’ which was growing daily but has now slowed down), but WA – wow. And then I posted on StarNow – not sure whether that was the best thing I could have done – or the worst. Probably the former but the timing was awful – right on Christmas at that stage. I was swamped. And I have tried to respond to each and every applicant individually – very time consuming but soooo interesting and I am learning just so much. Again all part of my mammoth learning curve. 

Distance signpost giving an idea of how vast Australia is.

I have also been able to find a couple of bigger names to be considered for the major roles as well as finalising locations (three stations are involved at the moment), which I am still doing. Next on the list is to print out all the profiles of those on the shortlist. And the script. At the moment, I think we have a director from South Australia, an assistant director from WA., two executive producers – both from WA, one cameraman who will also be making a ‘behind the scenes’ film as well as bloopers and a few other things. We are also gradually getting the music in place. And of course, the rest of the crew and cast. None of these is in concrete yet but we are getting there. 

So, as you can see, there is a mammoth amount to do but it is very slowly but surely coming together. I also do have several links and ideas for funding, all of which I am looking into and acting on as I can. But any suggestions/ideas for funding from anyone would be very welcome. Even donations are very welcome. 

I plan to keep these blog posts up and out to everyone, but mainly to the people who are shortlisted for consideration for auditioning for the biopic. This is my way of trying to keep everyone updated on our progress. Not sure how often I will publish these but I will do my absolute best to keep everyone updated.

I am not sure whether this is something I’d recommend – or not. It is certainly a challenge – all part of the mammoth learning curve I have been on for about a decade. And, overall, I am thriving on it. But there are times…

You see, I am not a film-maker – I am an author. Actually, truth be told, I am a writer. A plain writer. While I do have four books on the market, I do not feel that I should be called an ‘author’. As I did not feel that any of those four books would be accepted by a traditional publisher, I bypassed them completely and had them independently published, by three different companies… one in Australia, two in the USA.

I had always wanted to write –  anything. And now I do, more or less. I am addicted to it. I think that’s the only way I can describe it. Addicted. Because I am. When I was very young and living in the outback, I used to write letters to anyone I could find that would respond. And, believe me, that wasn’t easy. But I did finish up with several penfriends before I was sent off to boarding school and they all vanished. I kept wanting to write but ‘life’ got in the way for a few years and it wasn’t until my late 20s that the writing bug reared its head again. Still having no idea how to write a book – or even if I did manage to actually write one, how do you get a book published? And then distributed? All too much for me at the time, so I turned back to letter writing.

This was fine and dandy, but I found those people (family and friends) to whom I wrote did not share my passion – so – that was a failure. I eventually found some penfriend advertisements in magazines and was then able to start writing and getting responses. YES. And this continued for about 30+ years. At one stage I had around 200 penfriends, both in Australia and overseas. That kept me busy – and broke. At the time I was also mum to two young girls and I had a few other interests. I did a bit of sewing and decorating of children’s clothes, I put gift baskets together and a couple of other forgettable things. While also being involved in committees etc once the girls began school.

Fast forward to my mid-50s. My late father had been writing a book about our family and related things, which he finished penning shortly before he passed away. For the next 17 or so years, the manuscript, along with the piles of photographs and documents, passed between my brothers and me – round and round and round and round and…etc. Until one morning, when I realized that if I didn’t do something with it all (have it typed up and published, somehow) it would never be done – and the reason I was worrying so much was because of my late mother’s advancing age. She was very well as far as I knew but then she was always good at hiding health issues, except migraines. So I got onto Google. And eventually found what I wanted and, working with two consultants, Dad’s book was eventually published – exactly a week after Mum died! Just a tad disappointed – although I have been reassured many times that Mum knew something was about to happen with the book and that, apparently, made her a happy woman – or as happy as anyone can be when facing the end of life as we know it.

And that was the catalyst for my writing. After Dad’s book was out, I followed it with a very forgettable book about bullying and then – then – I was ‘hit’ by this epiphany, for want of the correct word, whatever it may be. I just woke up one morning and saw this amazing window of opportunity. I suddenly realized that I could finally combine two of my passions – writing and the outback. And so I set out to do this.

Fast forward again – I now have four books out with at least two more to go and I am also helping others to write their autobiographies, thereby keeping stories alive. AND – enter the film making business.

More next posting.

 ‘Tainted Getaway’ – what a fantastic film. Made entirely in Perth, Western Australia, with an almost completely Australian cast and produced by ‘Rodman Pictures’, owned by Rodney Manikam. It showcased part of the CBD as well as the bank of the beautiful Swan River and even a part of the Karrakatta Cemetery, where there was a shootout – very suitable place for such a scene. Also the airport and other places, some of which I didn’t know but I do know the whole lot was filmed in Perth, using almost all local cast and crew. I believe they even shot one scene just down the road from me. I really loved the idea that Rod and the production company did film locally and used local talent. It’s something I am now looking at for our own forthcoming film. 

‘Lurking Woods’

I was fortunate enough to attend the film’s premiere last Sunday and LOVED it. I had never attended a premiere before and it was an amazing experience. I went with my film-maker friend, Steve Fitzgibbon (of ‘Media Productions – Australia’) – and his wife and daughter. Steve was actually a member of the crew (cameraman) for the film and as such is included in the credits. ‘Media Productions –  Australia’ is also the company which will be the main one that I will be using for my own film, next year.

‘Infected Paradise’

We stayed for the nibbles and drinks ‘after-party’ held at a local bar. So much fun. And seeing these actors and meeting some of them was just such a thrill for me. One that I have never had the fortune to do before but hope to do again in the future. I was even more excited when I realized that I also know the story writer, Rocky Mangan. He is my coffee man, no less, at my gym and his wife is the lady who keeps my back in check whenever it feels at odds with itself. I am hoping to employ some of the cast for this film for our own.

‘Wild Justice’

Rodman Pictures has made several films, trailers for all are available to be seen on their website as far as I know. These include ‘Lurking Woods‘, ‘Infected Paradise‘, ‘Wild Justice’, ‘Sofie’ and ‘Man in the Mirror‘ as well as their latest, ‘Tainted Getaway’. I have not seen any of these other ones but I plan to see the rest as soon as I can. 

‘Sofie’

And the synopsis for ‘Tainted Getaway’:  ‘What was meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity for Allison Haven becomes a nightmare when she’s abducted by escape convict Brock Bremmer, who vows to retrieve his lost money from a tragic past. Little does he know an old nemesis, Mason, is not on his trail to retrieve it as well, including the authorities who will stop at nothing to bring them to justice.’

‘Man in the Mirror’

I guess my only negative for the entire evening – and which was my own fault – is that I managed to get lost on my way home. I know the way like the back of my hand – by day, but during the night seemed to pose a bit more of a challenge. I was only about five minutes away when I missed one turn-off. Ouch. I realised too late, saw the house that I usually judge it by, disappearing in the rear-vision mirror and – ok, I won’t tell you what I thought. Yes, I know I could have reversed – not a lot to stop me, including traffic. But that didn’t occur to me so I kept driving and finished up on a main road which I should not have been anywhere near. But I recognised it. And it was the first thing I did recognise after watching that house disappear. I was OK after that. But have to laugh about it now. And for that to be my own negative – well, it was a brilliant evening.

CONGRATULATIONS to Rod and all the crew and cast. A congratulations well deserved. Made me very proud to be an Aussie.

We cannot seem to help ourselves. While both Steve and I did some thinking over the Christmas period and came to the same conclusion, that we scrap the documentary, we both realized how disappointed we were with this decision. So…we met a bit later and have decided to resurrect it – only not having so much involved in it. Probably making it one long trip, lasting about a month and only in WA. We do still want to include as much as possible in it (all the while sharing and showcasing our spectacular outback to those in urban Australia and the rest of the world). However, with preparations for the feature film also well and truly underway, I have also realized that I want to include quite a lot of the highlights that were/are to be shown in the documentary, in the movie. So this we plan to do. I am ‘working’ on the itineraries at the moment.

Yes, the documentary still needs to be funded (and donations are still very welcome – along with the RFDS – Royal Flying Doctor Service, we are also going to try to raise funds for mental health/depression in the outback). However, cutting back on the amount of filming we will be doing for this and instead including it in the movie, will all help with the budgeting. 

We also have a couple of other production companies which are considering coming onboard, in some way or another. One of these is here in Perth and the owner attended our last meeting a couple of weeks ago and hopefully, will continue attending. It is all still part of this mammoth learning curve for me – I am also starting to ‘work’ on the screenplay for the film: ‘No Looking Back’ (working title only, at this stage), adapting the book to screen. Yet another first for me. While I am writing most of the storyline Steve will do the camera bits, since that it all completely alien to me. I am also looking at actors, given that

many of them will have to play me at different ages, from a very young girl, right through to now (and beyond). Locations is another thing, as well as crew, music and so much more. 

I have a few other projects that I am ‘working’ on too. One of these is an anti-bullying TV show (hopefully) on which I am collaborating with a wonderful Canadian actor – who has also (depending on the script, when I have finished writing and perfecting it) agreed to come onboard the feature film mentioned above as a cast member. We are moving along with this show, called ‘Why Me? Bullying – the Untold Stories’. The idea being to give victims of bullying, past and present, from around the world, the chance to actually ‘vent’ – get their story/nightmare off their chests, rather than bottling it up. This can be done completely anonymously or however we can organise it at the time. We are also inviting professionals such as psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors etc to come on board, be interviewed and hopefully, bring us completely up to date on mental issues. And celebrities – we already have a couple of ‘big names’, who have all-but-agreed to lend us their names, faces and perhaps even allow us to interview them. We are looking for a lot more too.

And there is the chance that I will be writing two more books – one on the magnificent ruin of Witley Court Hall in Worcestershire, England, which I have mentioned previously. I was fortunate enough to have visited this beautiful ruin when I was in the UK in my early 20s – and loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it. And, as with most ruins in the UK, its history is fascinating. I have begun writing this book and plan to get back to it as soon as I can. A second book that is a possibility at this stage is about the biker fundraising group: ‘Bikers on Hogs for Dogs’ – a group of about 20 or so middle aged bikers (not to be confused with bikies) who belong to this group which was founded and now led by Jenny Adams and which raises funds for dogs – and other animals, I presume, although I am still learning about this group. And there is a third book, although I will not be actually writing this one. It is an autobiography about a school friend of mine whom is another whom has an amazing life story to share and I am just helping her to write it and have it published or printed.

Otherwise, I’m not doing much.

Many years ago, I did something that I did not think through – and would never ever do again now that I have had this experience.

So, what did I do to cause such a reaction?

I visited a cemetery. A very old cemetery. Some of the graves were ancient. It is not in Australia.

And why was I visiting this cemetery? 

Because I was on a trip, researching my family tree. I shall explain myself.

In my 20s, I traveled to the UK for a working holiday. In fact, we flew out on my 24th birthday. In those days, I still drank alcohol – just a tiny bit. Purely social drinking and more than one glass of anything didn’t do me the world of good. For some reason I was sitting on a window seat – for the life of me, I cannot think how I was because that’s not what I was allocated. I was given a seat right in the middle of the plane. But there I was, watching out of the window as we were flying into Singapore. And my gosh – I had never seen so many lights. What an amazing sight. I didn’t realise that Singapore is so big.

I was reassured later that Singapore is not that big – my eyes were deceiving me. Or should I say, the one drink of champagne that I had been given for my 24th birthday made it seem that the lights in Singapore had trebled or more. 

While in the UK, I decided to make the most of some ‘spare’ time and travel up to Stirling in Scotland. Stirling being my paternal family seat. My late father had already done quite a lot of research into the family tree and I thought that I would like to do my bit and spend some time up in Stirling. So off I went. I stayed in a lovely old B&B for about a week and spent much of my time just wandering, taking in all the history that I could find. I visited the old castle, which I absolutely loved and I would have given almost anything to visit many of the ruins that I could see in the distance, but couldn’t.

I was there to go to the cemetery. And go to the cemetery I did. With note pad and pen in hand, it was mid-afternoon on a sunny day when I wandered through the entrance and started looking at these ancient headstones. I found some of them to be absolutely fascinating – and for the first time ever, I really began to appreciate history. After wandering aimlessly for about half an hour, I suddenly found myself among some with my family name on them – our ancestors. So I settled in and started making notes. 

Gradually working my way from headstone to headstone, writing notes of my ancestors and looking at others that were just as interesting, some much older, I did not notice the time at all. I was enjoying myself too much.

What happened from then on should be filmed in fast motion – except that I will never do it again. As I said, I was not noticing the time – nor the weather, until that first flash of lightning scared the living daylights out of me. That was when I looked at the time and realised the jolly sun (what I could see of it) was gradually going down – and a thunderstorm was rolling in. Where did that come from? There had been no sign of it earlier. 

I cannot remember standing up and packing my things up, but I must have – and then looked around and realised I had no idea where the entrance was – nor did there seem to be any other means of escape. There were a lot of trees around and I figured I could shelter under one if needed – but it was getting darker very quickly. And my imagination was really going into overdrive – I also remembered that getting under trees is one of the most dangerous places to be when lightning is around. 

I would not recommend doing this to anyone – particularly if you have an over-active imagination like I do at times. I know I began to walk in a hurry – not actually running but not taking my time. And I also know that I went in all directions, having no idea where that entrance was and not having a torch or anything sensible like that, to light my way. I had nothing – except an imagination that was going into overdrive increasingly as I tried to find my way out. It really was the stuff horror movies are made of – with the lightning being my only means of seeing anything and my imagination quickly taking care of any sensible thing that might have been there, I was not in a good way. The rain wasn’t helping – I grew up in drought conditions and used to dance in what rain we got but there was no way I was dancing this time. It was getting heavier too, with the thunder and lightning increasing.

Somehow I did finally stumble onto the entry in what seemed to be hours later, but I think it was only about half an hour or so. Trust me, I wasted no time on escaping that cemetery and walking very, very fast back to my B&B. 

As I say, never ever again. I remain fascinated by history and the older the better. This includes cemeteries with headstones being as old as possible – but if ever I do venture into another one (and I am sure there will be) I would love to say I will make sure it is broad daylight and that the sun is shining – but that’s exactly how it was this time…things change. 

THAT would have been a great time to have that champagne!

No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt VIIII)

Chapter 11 – Challenges and (I Hope) Inspiration

Like most people, I have faced many challenges throughout my life to date. Some beat me, others didn’t. I simply rose to the latter and found another way around them. And I have no doubt there will be many more in the future.

These challenges have included health issues, some of which I have detailed in their relevant chapters. But there are a couple I have not mentioned and the first of these could have made a lot of difference to many things throughout my life.

Had I let it.

I was born with a heart condition. It is one that you can only be born with, you cannot grow into it and you cannot grow out of it. But I did go through the first 30 years of life without realizing I even had such a condition. I had always thought that everyone has one, right? No. Wrong.

Called ‘Barlowe’s Syndrome’ after a Professor Barlowe who discovered it, it causes palpitations and occasionally racing of he heart. Well it did for me anyway. Like many health issues, stress is one of the major causes for it. Very occasionally one of these palpitations can be slightly painful and it was when this happened in my early 30s that I decided to ask my doctor about it. I was admitted to hospital to be monitored overnight but nothing showed up. I also did have another test that determined whether I was in the group of sufferers worldwide who are in the life threatening category. I wasn’t. The cardiologist told me I could either have an operation, which was very new and could not be guaranteed or go on lifelong medication. I opted for the latter. This medication would control the racing but not the palpitations. That’s OK. I could live with that.

Or so I thought.

Thirty years later, for some reason I became extremely stressed one day and this in turn, caused massive palpitations which lasted for some 17 hours. The more I panicked, the worse my heart became. And the worse my heart became, the more I panicked. Vicious circle in other words. But about 1 am on the Saturday, I had not been able to relax at all and my heart was not slowing down. Fear of the unknown; I was starting to worry about what would happen if it didn’t settle. So I woke my long suffering husband and he took me to Emergency at our nearest hospital. I was checked thoroughly, blood tests taken (results showing that there was absolutely nothing wrong). I had an XRay, same result. I was monitored throughout and this showed the only evidence that something was not quite right. But gradually my heart settled down. And after a couple of hours I was sent home. The following week I felt ‘odd’ for most of the time but gradually came to grips with it all. Next step was an ECG and to see a cardiologist. I did this a few weeks later and everything was completely fine, except that a very minor leakage showed up, which only requires annual monitoring. 

My medication remains the same, which is fine. It is a comfort, though, to realize that I could not have had more tests on my heart to find there is next-to-nothing wrong. Sometimes, when I do start getting stressed, my heart starts to have fun and I have palpitations but I can now tell myself that I am absolutely fine. I do understand that sometimes if there are other issues with your heart (eg another virus or disease) that can lead to dire consequences. But for me, that was all ruled out with the blood tests.

Very reassuring, I can tell you.

There was just one other occasion when I started to wonder about my own mortality. It was when I miscarried our baby boy, between the girls. Again, I became very seriously ill in a very short space of time. And my waters suddenly broke far too soon. I was whizzed off to hospital and honestly cannot remember ever feeling so ill. I was put in a birthing ward as they expected me to miscarry overnight.

That didn’t happen and I just became weaker and weaker. Not nice. And I had reached the stage when I was just beyond caring. But things moved in a hurry when my gynecologist arrived next morning. Yes, I lost the baby, tragically. But, thankfully, they did manage to save me, although even that was touch and go for some hours. Many tests were taken to see what had caused this. Some of the results showed recognized issues, others didn’t and to this day, I understand that they were never able to distinguish a couple of the problems that I had.

I was discharged at the end of the week and my mother was able to come over and look after both our eldest daughter and me while I regained my health. And this took quite a long time. I had been incredibly lucky even if we did lose our son.

My reason for mentioning all this is that, when I do look back over my life to date and some of those health issues that I did suffer, I honestly do feel I have been incredibly lucky and, perhaps, somewhat inspirational. I could have just stopped and not done anything further with my life.

I also feel that my Dad’s book and the epiphany that I experienced in my mid-50s were probably among the best things that could have happened to me. There are a lot of people who cruise through life, never really finding their passions. Never really knowing exactly what they want to do and then acting on it. As is known, I have always wanted to write but if it hadn’t been for Dad’s book and that epiphany, both of which forced me to get out there and find out how to have a book published and then continue with all the things I am now doing, well, I possibly would have just stagnated. I really do not know what I would have done.

But I did. I pushed myself and now, today, I find myself in a position that I consider to be just so fortunate. Not only with all that I have done for myself, following my passions, but also with my life generally. I have made a wonderful life for myself in Perth. I have a wonderful husband and we have, to date, enjoyed 36 years of marriage. We have two beautiful daughters, both of whom are doing well and, overall, seem to be enjoying good health (OK, so I have been good enough to pass on my migraines and a few other health issues to them), one is happily married to a lovely man and the other has a wonderful partner. I have the most gorgeous grandson and I do feel incredibly lucky in that our grandson is growing up bilingual. Out of his grandparents, only one is actually a local and that is my husband. Our grandson’s maternal grandmother (Grandmere) is French Mauritian, his maternal grandfather (Grandpere) is from Queensland and I am from South Australia. And the mother of our second daughter’s partner (with me still?) is British.

And I have discovered and acted on my passions, while I am still young enough to enjoy them.

Challenges? Absolutely. But on the whole I got through them.

Surely that’s all pretty inspirational.

Honestly, how lucky can I be?

Ends.

While ‘No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins’ has finished, I have many plans for the future. We continue trying to make our documentary, based on ‘Red Dust Dreams’ and there is talk of a feature film being made of my auto-biography, the book above. One of the many other projects I am currently looking at is a potential anti-bullying show, on which I am collaborating with a Canadian actor, who is also a past victim of bullying and has agreed (hopefully) to act in the film of the above book, as well as with several production companies. We do plan this to go to TV and to be aired world wide, eventually. One of the main ideas behind this show, called ‘Why Me?’ is to offer victims of bullying, school, work or whatever, a ‘voice’ – somewhere they can vent, anonymously or not, on TV. We also plan to interview specialists on air as well as celebrities, to get their feelings and opinions toward bullying as much as anything. We do have a few celebrities who have been good enough to say they are happy to support us – by lending their names and faces to our show as well as, perhaps, being interviewed on air. More are very welcome to join us with this. No payment, either way, at this stage. 

There is more happening too, but at the moment, I do have my hands full with the above projects. Oh – I am still editing/proofreading manuscripts as well as helping/guiding others with the writing of their books and through to publication or whatever they want to do.

But, first and foremost, comes my family.

No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt XIII)

Chapter 10 – My Passions – Family, Writing and the Outback

My passions – first comes family. Followed by writing and the outback together. While I have lived in cities for most of my life I always have and will always remain passionate about the outback and the way of life on our pastoral stations. As mentioned earlier, I wanted to start writing as a child – I wanted to write a book and publish it. But I really had no idea where to start.

Next best thing was finding some new penfriends and writing letters. Those I wrote to as a child were found through the ABC radio and newspapers. I wrote to most of them for the rest of my childhood but then that fizzled out once I turned 11 and was sent down to boarding school. I didn’t lose interest exactly. It was just that I was so unhappy, so lost, had such bad homesickness that most things were driven from my mind. I did still live for the daily mail (in the cities it was and still is delivered daily, except on the weekends) but really only looked for mail from home.

This break from writing really lasted throughout my teens and 20s. It began again when my husband was transferred from Perth across to Sydney. Our girls were then four and one. The passion began to surface again so I began writing to some of our friends back in Perth and a few in Adelaide. The problem was that none of these friends shared my love of writing so that kind of petered out before it really began. Then I started looking in some of the women’s magazines and once the internet was introduced, I found some that way. I also eventually found and joined a couple of penfriend groups and thereby found my first new penfriends. And so I got back to writing. Over the years, this passion has stayed with me and at one stage, I had around 200 penfriends around the world. That kept me busy – and broke!

But irrespective of all these penfriends I still had the yearning to write a book and have it published. I had completely given up on fiction as I don’t have the imagination nor creativity for that. Meanwhile my late father had been writing his book: ‘The Sawers from Pitcairn’ whenever he had the chance, for the last 20 or so years of his life. He had literally just finished the actual writing when he passed away in 1993. For the next 16 or so years the manuscript, along with piles of documents and photographs, was passed around my three older brothers and me. Round and round and round. Until it reached me one morning and I realized that something had to be done to get this book published and out there, preferably before our mother died. She was around 87 at the this stage – and while her health had been pretty good to the end (as far as I know) no-one lasts forever so we knew Mum would eventually pass on too.

Now, to ask that question again. I needed to get this book out – but how? I turned to Google. I researched publishers around Australia but couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. I knew it was useless to even think about going through a traditional publisher, which is what I would have preferred, but it just wasn’t going to happen this time. I eventually left Australia with my search and found a POD publisher in the USA. And they were absolutely amazing. I had two consultants, both knew the situation – that we were working against time – and I really could not have asked for more help. Between the three of us we worked tirelessly to get that book out in time – and it almost worked.

We missed – by one week!

It was published and went on the internet – exactly one week after Mum passed away! I was devastated but have been reassured by many that Mum knew something was about to happen and died a happy woman. Well, as happy as anyone can be when facing that stage of life as we know it.

Next book was a largely forgettable effort, published by the same company as the above. I had different consultants and wasn’t quite so happy with their efforts this time. But then the book wasn’t exactly my pride and joy either.

And then – I woke one fine morning – and my ‘epiphany’ struck! I suddenly found myself with the most amazing window of opportunity. I realized I could finally combine two of my passions – writing and the outback. And produce a book – called: ‘Red Dust Dreams’.

To read more about that, you’ll just have to buy the book.

No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt XIIIV)

Chapter 9 – Leaving Adelaide, Settling in Perth – and Marriage (Continued)

Then my husband was transferred across the nation to Sydney. So off we went. Eldest daughter by this stage was starting at primary school and I managed to get my youngest into playgroup. I also made a few friends through both school and playgroup and I formed a craft group in Sydney. This was the time I tried to start up my own business as well, making children’s clothes and decorating and painting them with Hobbytex. Another thing I had a go at was putting together gift baskets and trying to sell them at local markets. All of these fizzled out, but at least I gave them each a chance. Sydney did have an established branch of the old scholars’ association, so I went along to a couple of their functions, but that too, fizzled out – for me, anyway.

With the girls starting in playgroup, kindergarten (or pre-school) and primary school, that I started getting involved in school committees – in the Parents’ and Citizens’ Associations etc.

This was the time I suffered from another health problem. I had done some gardening during the week and developed pains in my right side, just above the hip, by the end of the week. Thinking I had pulled a muscle while gardening, I tried to ignore it and continued as normal for as long as I could, hoping it would eventually go away. Had a reasonably busy weekend and managed to get through it all but by Monday, the pain had deteriorated and I went to the doctor. I was diagnosed with shingles. Apparently, I was also in ‘fashion’ in that two of his other patients had also been diagnosed that morning. Difference was that their pain had only begun over the weekend whereas I had had mine for some days. Their rashes had not yet shown so they were able to take some medication and get rid of their shingles, whereas I’d left mine for too long, the rash was very evident and I couldn’t do anything about it. I kept going for as long as I could (my husband was away) but with two very young daughters and the pain getting worse. I ended up being bedridden and was even hallucinating, the pain was so bad. I cannot remember how long I was in bed for but thankfully my mother-in-law was able to come over to help. I could not have coped alone. Both girls also got chicken pox either before or after I became ill. It was an awful time.

Once I had completely recovered from the illness I resumed my involvement in various committees etc. I did enjoy that and this took me throughout their schooling, right back to WA., when we finally moved back, with our eldest about to start secondary school. I seemed to fit in quite well with almost all their schools and I did make some very good friends. The only two schools that did not seem to ‘click’ with me were the one in Canberra (my husband was transferred there for 11 months at one stage while we lived in the eastern states) but that could have been due to more health issues that I suffered (and which have been described later). I did try to become involved there but it just did not work, so I gave up. The second school was the girls’ secondary school in Perth. No clicking again despite my efforts.

When in Canberra, as mentioned above, I suffered another health issue – a complete nervous breakdown. I cannot really describe how I felt. But I do know it was awful and I felt like I was living a nightmare. It occurred not long after my husband was transferred to Canberra. I cannot remember how or when I began to feel so awful but I do know it built up over some days or weeks. I went to the doctor and was told that I had already suffered the breakdown and it seemed that I had experienced the top three reasons for this: the first being the death of a loved one (my father passed away suddenly not long after we moved), moving house and divorce. While the latter was not technically true, my husband was traveling a lot for work and I was alone more often than not. Again, while trying to cope with two young daughters was not easy. And sadly it is very common. The one thing the specialists kept asking me (as they do with any sufferer in this position) was whether I had considered ‘hurting’ myself. My very adamant answer was no. All I wanted to do was get better. And once on medication and with sheer willpower, that is exactly what happened. I got better. However, going back to my school days, I do know that I would have considered ‘hurting’ myself had I not been so innocent and ignorant and known what suicide even meant. I look back now and just thank goodness for that innocence and ignorance.

With both girls at school full time I began looking for another job. I also did a couple of courses to try to add to my qualifications. This worked to an extent. I successfully landed a couple of positions but they did not last as I discovered that a couple of the firms that employed me had not necessarily been transparent about all the duties that would be performed, including hours of work and when I was told what these would be, I decided none of these positions would suit, so moved on.

However, I did successfully start work at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as a keyer for the income tax returns at the end of the financial year. I worked there on a contract basis for a few years and did make three wonderful friends, with whom I remain friends to this day. We have added another lovely lady to our group and have regular lunches. I did enjoy my work there – my hours were great. I started at 8.30 am and finished, with the afternoon shift taking over, at 12.30.

My final place of employment, after leaving the ATO, was as receptionist with a small, family run business. I was there for about seven years, when they ran into financial problems and many of the staff members had their hours reduced heavily. I was one of them. This lasted for about a year before I left altogether.

By this stage both of my daughters were adults, the eldest one being a qualified architect and living up in Broome for some years, with her fellow-architect boyfriend when possible as he was still living and working in Perth and would fly up to Broome as often as he could. They finally married and a couple of years ago presented us with our first gorgeous grandson. They now live in Perth. My youngest daughter really landed on her feet with her first full time position – she became an editor for a privately owned educational publisher in Perth. She also has a long term boyfriend and now lives with his mother and him. Both my husband and I feel exceptionally happy and lucky with the choices both our daughters have made with their partners. We get along very well with both our son-in-law and his family as well as the boyfriend of our youngest daughter and his widowed mother.

No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt XII)

Chapter 9 – Leaving Adelaide, Settling in Perth – and Marriage

I had made my choice – for the moment, anyway. As mentioned, everyone knew I would not return to Adelaide to live – ever – and when I made the decision to ‘try’ Perth, my family was not at all surprised.

For the first few weeks in the west I was very fortunate to be able to stay with my friend who lived there, and her mother. And her brother was sometimes there too. But after a few weeks, I realized that if I was going to stay in the west, I did need to find my own accommodation – and a job. I kind of needed money.

I was lucky enough to find a flat in South Perth quickly. I moved in, buying pieces of furniture as required and funds would allow – which they didn’t, really. I was borrowing from my long suffering parents. But I wasn’t really happy in that particular flat. I didn’t really feel safe, for some reason. Shortly after, one of the tenants from two floors above me moved out – and I grabbed his flat. Much happier up there. I had also been lucky enough to find a data entry position with the ANZ bank so everything was gradually starting to move again.

As might have been gathered throughout this book, I was not a very social person. I was and still am quite shy and have never been someone who can walk into a room full of strangers and feel good about it. Although I am a lot better than I used to be and I think I can thank the first weeks of my life in Perth for that. I realized after those few weeks that I really wasn’t meeting anyone and although I had a nice flat and a good job, I was lonely. While, yes, I did and still do enjoy my own company, it would have been nice to meet a few other people. But I realized this probably wasn’t going to happen unless I could get over this shyness, or move to another state, but not back to SA. But then I realized I would only face the same problem, wherever I was so I really needed to do something about it.

So I did. I joined a local group and the first event that I attended happened to be a Sunday sundowner held at the home of my future husband. Trying to overcome my nerves, I drove to his place and walked in, introducing myself. I didn’t stay for that long, but long enough to meet my husband-to-be and a few of his friends. I have to say I felt jolly proud of myself after I left and went home. I had done it. I had actually walked into this room full of strangers – all by myself! Then there was another function a few weeks later and again I pushed my nerves to one side and attended. It was actually fun. He was there too and I met some more people, some of whom remain good friends to today.

Then life settled down – sort of. However, it seemed that our rents were about to sky-rocket and there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to afford the new price. So I contacted the only person whom I thought might be able to help me – my husband to be. And believe it or not, timing was perfect. As it happened, the secretary in the office where he worked was about to move out of her flat, about five minutes from where I currently lived. So I zoomed up to have a look at these flats and to meet this lady – and discovered that the flat next to hers was already vacant. I grabbed it.

I moved in shortly after with the help of this new man in my life (although neither of us really knew that we would be in each other’s lives from then on, pretty well) and things just kept moving.

On 10th April, 1982 we were married in South Australia. It was actually Easter Saturday so arrangements proved to be a bit of a challenge. The service was fine, but flowers and a few other things were not easy to organise. But the day went off without a hitch and we flew to Tasmania for our honeymoon the next day. It was perfect – just what my mother wanted. The wedding, that is, not the honeymoon.

We returned to Perth to settle down – in my husband’s grandmother’s unit. Which was tiny. His grandmother lived in an aged care home and my husband had been ‘caretaking’ this unit. He was also doing it free of charge from my understanding and I had been led to believe that this would continue after marriage and I moved in. It would remain free of charge.

But this did not happen. Upon our return to Perth, there was a letter from the grandmother’s accountant telling us that she had decided that we would pay rent from now on. I was not a happy person and felt that this was reason enough to move on and into an empty unit, somewhere else. But my husband accepted it and we stayed where we were, squashed in to this tiny unit which had already been chock-a-block with his grandmother’s furniture and now with mine on top of that. I was prepared to sell mine – why should I?

We stuck it out for a year before purchasing a house and moving into it. I understand the grandmother was not happy with this and told my husband that he had promised that we would stay in the unit for at least two years. No thanks. Not when we had to pay rent after all – golly, we did want to be comfortable and while my husband might have been, I certainly wasn’t. We did move and I cannot recall what happened with the unit and furniture. My furniture naturally came with us but as for the grandmother’s, I cannot remember.

We both worked full time for the first year of living in our new house and then I became pregnant with our first daughter. She was born on the 28th August 1984 – and we had already decided that I would be a stay-at-home-mum while I raised our family – but then something happened that has always made me wonder about myself.

I got bored.

A few of our friends had their first children in the same year (1984) and apparently all those mums were very busy. So – where was I going wrong? What was I doing wrong? Or right? I was in exactly the same position as those other mums, with a young daughter, but I was bored.

So, daughter in tow, I started looking around for other things to do. Remembering the original reason for this book was to describe my six hideous years at secondary school in Adelaide – and after that most – sane – people would have thought I would never want to have anything to do with that school again. I thought exactly the same. So, I wondered about myself even more when I reached out to the Old Scholars’ Association in Adelaide, asking about a WA branch. The response was that there wasn’t a WA branch – yet. They attached a list of known old scholars to be in WA and I set out to contact these people and to arrange an inaugural meeting. This was a success and set the scene for our first annual dinner and things just kept moving from there. The WA branch was underway. 34 years later it still exists and has seen an evolving leadership and membership, which is normal. I led it for many years but handed over the reins a few years ago. Most of the original members have either moved interstate (following family) or overseas for the same reason. Sadly, but as normal, some have passed on. We have also had some guests from the association in Adelaide whom have flown over to join us at our events.

Other ways I have tried to keep myself busy once motherhood was here and towing first one daughter around and then both, once my second one arrived; I have been an Avon lady a couple of times; demonstrator for supermarkets at one stage and was into Hobbytex too. Along with several other things. 

I mention above that I remember taking our eldest daughter with me pretty well wherever I went, whatever I did. I do remember leaving her with others, about once I think. In Adelaide, I certainly recall my mother taking both girls out quite often, usually when I fell asleep on their couch and was dead to the world. Mum took them off to the zoo and other places, which they loved. However, one outing in Perth that I will never forget, well OK, let’s say it was a ‘near’ outing – we didn’t actually go in the end. I had my car out and ready to go, my daughter buckled into her child’s seat in the back and we were all ready to go to my local bank, which was about a five minute drive. Suddenly, I felt that I should not go. It was just plain weird and I will never be able to explain it. I had buckled my daughter in, locked the house and garage and was about to get into the car when suddenly I just had this overwhelming feeling. Obviously it wasn’t an urgent trip anyway as I decided to go the next day, or whenever, instead.

Turned out that there was good reason for this feeling.

That night on the news it was reported that my bank had suffered the biggest robbery in their WA history that morning and it happened at my branch – right on the time we would have been in there!

No, I have never forgotten it – and won’t – but also will never be able to explain my feelings.

Once our second daughter was born, her first year of life was rather a nightmare. She had a serious health issue and, strange as it might sound, good old ‘mother’s instinct’ kicked in more than once and actually saved her life, not that I really knew it. I mean, I knew her life had been spared but didn’t realize it was actually ‘mother’s instinct’ that had done it. I guess one of the really hard things about this was that, as no-one else witnessed it, including the doctors and hospital, people were starting to wonder about my sanity – seriously. Finally my daughter had a ‘turn’ at my in-laws’ home and I was able to get my husband and parents-in-law to see it. At last they believed me. She was examined thoroughly and spent a considerable amount of time in hospital during that first year and we were told she would grow out of it at the end of the year. And so she did, to my immense relief.

The second half of this chapter will be posted in my next blog.