Over 55 years ago multi-award-winning journalist John Francis interviewed ageing Australian Outback characters, before their voices were lost in the red dust. This is unique Aussie oral history
Recent Episodes
A madman, and a death in the snow
Welcome to Season 2 of Red Dust Tapes. We commence this second season as far as you can possibly get from the usual Red Dust Tapes territory, in The Land of the Blizzard, Antarctica. It’s also just 67 years ago – so far more ...
A rare and exclusive interview with the legendary Sir Donald Bradman
THIS IS THE FINAL EPISODE IN SEASON ONE. Whoah! It seems I achieved something that the great television interviewer and self-confessed cricket nut Sir Michael Parkinson longed for, but never managed – to not just meet, but to...
As a kid, he skinned cats and sold the meat. What happened years late…
When I interviewed Ernest Skein in 1970, I was told he had recently been let out of jail. I didn’t want to close down an interview with a fascinating old-time prospector, so when I got the message that some subjects were not ...
The bushman with a passion for local history
PICTURED: Fred Teague leans against his dry blower, his brother George is to his left, with the gold pan. Taken on the Koonamore goldfield, South Australia, 1934. In the Depression years Fred Teague had been a gold miner and ...
‘You had to overcome their fear’. Exclusive interview with co-founder…
It was bitterly cold up there, in leather cap and goggles, in the open cockpit. Turbulence in those North Queensland skies was often terrifying. Passengers could do nothing but hang on and bear it, hopefully holding something...
‘It’s a terrible crime to be a scab. A scab is worse than a murderer’
One day 1970, in the Outback town of Broken Hill, I was standing on a street corner, tape recorder in hand, grabbing sounds for a radio documentary. A short, energetic little fellow wandered up and said, ‘Hello son, what are ...
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