Outback Stories
‘Outback Stories’ tells of the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century rural pioneers in the transportation, sheep, cattle, mining and farming industries – and especially the challenges and successes of the average and typically anonymous workingmen and women who contributed so much to Australia’s national identity. The stories are told through archival film footage, including several ‘home movie’ films from the 1920s, rare early photographs, magic lantern slides, postcards and animated ‘bush characters’. Fahey, drawing on his long history as a music producer, has spiced the films with snippets of songs, oral history and recitations from his archive.
The project sees Warren Fahey collaborating again with video creator, Mic Gruchy, whose masterful editing, featured in their highly successful multi-screen Biennale of Sydney production ‘Damned Souls & Turning Wheels’ (Cockatoo Island 2010).
Warren believes ‘Outback Stories’ provides a valuable and much-needed insight into aspects of Australian history often overlooked in our enthusiastic endorsement of multiculturalism. “I firmly believe, it doesn’t matter if your family came in the First Fleet or a leaky boat last week, people come to Australia because of our unique national story – and that story was mostly born and bred in the outback.”
The 12 Programs:
- The Stockmen of Australia
- The Springtime it Brings on the Shearing
- Sidney Kidman – the Cattle King
- Drovers on the Long Paddock
- Jimmy Nicholas and The Lights of Cobb & Co.
- Bush Campfire Yarning
- Boots, Buckles & Battered Hats
- The Station Cook – the ‘Babbling Brook’
- Humping the Drum on the Outback Track
- On the Rantan and Lambed Down
- Bullockies & Bull-dust
- Digging Holes in the Ground – like Rabbits!
‘Outback Stories’ was made possible with the support of S. Kidman & Co., The Vine Foundation, Rebel Penfold Russell, Christo Reid, and the valued cooperation of the National Film & Sound Archive, TROVE and State and regional libraries and museums across Australia.
Boots, Buckles & Battered Hats
Take a peek inside an outback Bushman’s wardrobe and be transported to a world of historic Australian fashion. Drovers, shearers and stockmen dressed for work and dressed up for occasional play. Practicality came before the fashion runway!
Sidney Kidman – Australia’s Colonial Cattle King
One hundred years ago, most Australians, particularly those in the bush, knew Sidney Kidman’s name and his accomplishments as the ‘cattle king’.
Kidman always saw the harsh ruggedness and challenges of the outback as an opportunity. At his peak, he seemed to be everywhere and rarely missed an opportunity. His voracious appetite for buying and selling rural properties knew no boundary fences, and he became the most successful cattle dealer in the world. His philosophy was,” A man who never made a mistake never made anything else.
Humping the Drum Swaggies
Australian swaggies, the name coming directly from the fact they carried their belongings in a ‘swag’, were known as bagmen, tramps, whalers and sundowners. They were acknowledged as amongst the most original and curious wanders on earth. Their story is of desperate times, the relief of the evening’s campfire and welcome billy tea mugs, and survival through ‘thick and thin’ in Australia’s lean and mean times.
The Springtime Brings the Shearing
They used to say the old-time shearers worked like horses and spent their money like asses. It was tough work peeling the greasy wool from the sheep, especially in the days of blade shearing. Here you will find colourful stories and songs of champion shearers and how the shearers changed the face of Australian unionism and politics. The shearers helped Australia’s wild economic ride into the twentieth century.
Digging Holes in the Ground – like a rabbit!
The discovery of gold in 1851 turned Australia upside-down as fossickers came from the earth’s four corners to seek their fortune. Some did, and many did not. One old timer summed it up: “There’s lots of gold – and lots of Australia mixed in with it!” The gold rushes eventually led to deeper-down company mining, and the frustration, aspiration and mayhem continued to be documented in song and stories.
Bush Campfire Yarns – Outback Stories
Australia grew up around the bush campfire. It was where food was prepared, billy tea boiled, aching bones soothed, and song, poetry, and yarn-telling thrived. It was where news was told and passed on. Strangers were welcomed, and old hands snoozed after long days in the saddle as they travelled overland with their mobs of sheep and cattle. The iconic campfire was the centre of outback life.
Bullockies & Bulldust
The bullockies or teamsters led their bullock or horse teams across tracks undeserving of the name ‘roads’. Blinding dust one day, and impenetrable mud the next. They also knew a different ‘dust’, for they were skilled in spinning ‘bulldust’ yarns around the evening’s campfire. They were a colourful part of the outback’s history.
Droving on the Outside Track
The Australian cattle industry began in the late 1830s when the continent was opened up to droving herds of cattle and sheep. The men (and a few women) who ‘drove’ the beasts were called ‘drovers’. They were skilled with horses, working dogs, a temperamental climate and months of loneliness. These ‘overlanders’ created folklore that contributed to the Australian identity. A story of fascinating and inspiring adventure.
Jimmy Nicholas & Cobb & Co
Born on the Victorian goldfields in 1853, the story of Cobb & Co is a wild ride transporting everything from people to mail to parcels. One coach, ‘Leviathan’, held 89 passengers and was drawn by 16 horses and driven by the legendary ‘Cabbage Tree’ Ned Devine. Jimmy Nicholas operated Cobb & Co through the West, North and East with a determination that even droughts, fires, floods or the boldest bushrangers could deter.
On the Rantan
With their season’s cheque for shearing of droving safely in their saddlebags, the itinerant outback workers would regularly go on the spree or rantan. They were usually ‘fleeced’ like innocent lambs by shanty liquor landlords. Australia’s legendary dryness appeared to have an unquenchable thirst.
Station Cook – The ‘Babbling Brook’
19th-century outback workers ate to fill their stomachs in the shearing shed or cattle camp. Food fashion came later, and most colonials simply wanted fuel to sustain ‘hard yakka’. It was a tough life made tougher by the continuing whinging of the men, many of whom saw baiting the ‘babbling brook’ as an amusement. A popular taunt ran: ‘Who called the cook a bastard?’ To which the inevitable response was, ‘Who called the bastard a cook!’
Stockmen of Australia
Often characterised as lean, sunburnt, awkward with the opposite sex, and, possibly, when on the ‘rantan’, a bit of a larrikin, the stockman is, at the same time, acknowledged as an exceptionally skilled rider, plain-talker, expert stock handler, practical and determinedly hard worker. The pioneer stockman’s life was one of ever-present danger – wild horses to be broken in and branded, stampedes to be avoided, calves to be cared for, and a hundred other jobs to be completed in the normal course of station life.