Life continues to be pretty jolly good. While I have now all-but stopped writing books (still have the ‘Witley Court’ one to write) I continue writing generally – and will never give up.
Steve and I both did a lot of thinking over the festive period and both came to the same decision – to scrap the documentary. We have both realized now that the funds are just not going to happen – and if they don’t happen, the documentary doesn’t happen either. Both bitterly disappointed about this but life goes on and we have some other pretty exciting plans for the future.
Oh, so dry.
These plans do include the feature film which we plan (in collaboration with an American production company) to make in the next couple of years. I am doing much of the groundwork which I am absolutely thriving on. Again it is continuing on the mammoth learning curve that I began for myself some nine years ago. A whole new world. I’m even having a go at transcribing the book to screen – Steve will be helping with this. Finding locations (at the moment, we will be based at SAFilm, all going well) and actors and so much more.
Steve and I still do plan to do a series of short trips around country Western Australia, to make promotional films,
for ‘Red Dust Dreams’ and ‘No Looking Back’ as well as the three books that Steve has and still is writing – ‘My Footprints in Port Hedland’, ‘Salvaging the Memories and Artifacts of Perth’s Television History’ and his auto-biography, ‘Little Boy Lost’. While we have yet to start thrashing out the details of these trips, we have already done a reconnaissance trip up to the beautiful ‘John Forrest National Park’ in the Perth hills, near Mundaring. We had planned to have a weekend of solid filming
up there on the Australia Day long weekend this year, but one of our team members became very ill and we were not able to proceed with this. However, we remain hopeful that we will still be able to do this in the not-too-distant future. That particular team member is now fine again but there have been other interruptions and side-tracks which have delayed everything.
The above-mentioned reconnaissance trip was the most wonderful day out. Starting very early, we drove up to the ‘John Forrest National Park’ and spent the morning – or most of the day, actually, wandering around, selecting good spots for filming. We lunched in their tavern and were joined by some very friendly parrots, kangaroos and various other animals and birds. Even one very brave and cheeky parrot which kept swooping me and grabbing a beakful of whatever I had on my plate, scattering the rest of the meal as he/she did so. Steve and I loved every bit of it, but then we both love nature and this was nature at its best.
Having already said that I have all but stopped writing books, apart from the ‘Witley Court’ one, I have recently been across to South Australia to visit the station and have returned with the thought that there is one more book that I would like to try. All about ruins, history and ghosts in the Australian regional areas. Every time I manage to leave Perth and suburbs to get out into the country, I am forever seeing ruins, some are just chimney stacks, but I cannot help but wonder about the people who lived in those houses – the history that must have been there. When I visited many of the stations which participated in ‘Red Dust Dreams’ I was shown several graves and had quite a few ghost stories repeated to me. Some of these have been published in the relevant chapters in the book, others haven’t. This book will be based on memories, factual events which I have been provided with and plenty of internet research. Some of it might even be included in the feature film for ‘No Looking Back’ given that it is all part of my life.
Deserted – and eerie – Masonic Lodge in Cue, Western Australia
