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About This Podcast
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 history.
NEARLY ALL lived largely solitary lives, in the harsh and lonely inland, on the edge of deserts, in a world of searing droughts, and occasional fierce floods.
THEY WERE prospectors, sheep and cattle men, boundary riders, drovers, railway workers, truck drivers, Aboriginal groups, and isolated but hardy women.
AUSTRALIA'S AVIATION HISTORY also started in the red dust. You'll hear interviews with some of Australia's most famous pioneer airmen (many of whom started flying in the First World War), who used aircraft to make the Outback a little less lonely.
JOHN ALSO interviews the descendants of other unique characters, reads fascinating tales from Australia's Outback past, and spins tales of his own red dust adventures.
WEBSITE: www.reddusttapes.au
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Recent Episodes
S2E8 The White Flood Descends
Now Red Dust listeners, I have no interviews to present to you this episode. Rather, let’s head back in time, to before recording devices were invented.Australia, as with the rest of the world, right…
S2E7 Three Dames of the Australian Bush
It was a tremendous pleasure sharing with each of the women in this chapter. Auntie Kath Nichols, who lived in what was destined to be a ghost town in the northern South Australia with Twiggy…
S2E6 Aboriginals, Looking to The Future ... In 1972
Now I want to present to you a time capsule. It’s a radio documentary I prepared in 1972, for the ABC.Back then it’s title was, ‘The Urban Aborigine’ , and you’ll find the word 'aborigine' features…
S2E5 Maudie, Alice, and the Flower Well Mob: Brief Voices of First Australians, Deserts Apart
This episode has everything: A road trip. (Well, on mainly dusty tracks) across three quarters of Australia.Memorable encounters with remnants of Aboriginal tribes – two of whom were the last…
S2E4 The grit-faced bushie who loved a drink, and the thrill of finding floaters
Ned Conroy, the craggy-browed Scotsman with the missing teeth and a dusty face the colour of the red earth he dug in, loved the bush, and the chase for floaters – those bits of gold on the surface –…
S2E3 Who’s the nutty one? Chasing a bus, or serenely alone?
From the age of 12 Les Craigie was a professional boxer. In our interview he compared an easily bruised apple with the delicacy of a pummelled human brain. At 21 he’d had enough of the risks, and for…
An Aussie engineer’s adventures in Antarctic: Pt 2
Woops. Once again, we’re a long way from the usual Red Dust Tapes Outback territory.This is the second of the two-part anecdotes of John ’Snow’ Williams, who first went to the Antarctic in 1958, at…
S2E1 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…
S1E12 A rare and exclusive interview with the legendary Sir Donald Bradman
THIS IS THE FINAL EPISODE OF SEASON 1.Whoah! It seems I achieved something that the great television interviewer and self-confessed cricket nut Sir Michael Parkinson longed for, but never managed –…
S1E11 As a kid, he skinned cats and sold the meat. What happened years later at the Dolly Pot Mine?
SEASON 1, EPISODE 11When 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…
S1E10 The bushman with a passion for local history
SEASON 1, EPISODE 10In the Depression years Fred Teague had been a gold miner and fox shooter north of the road to Broken Hill. He drove trucks for the legendary Harry Ding to Innaminka, and up the…
S1E9 ‘You had to overcome their fear’. Exclusive interview with co-founder of Qantas
SEASON 1, EPISODE 9It was bitterly cold up there, in leather cap and goggles, in the open cockpit. Turbulence in North Queensland skies was often terrifying. Passengers could do nothing but hang on…
S1E8 ‘It’s a terrible crime to be a scab. A scab is worse than a murderer’
SEASON 1, EPISODE 8One 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…
S1E7 Both families were miners. Together they created musical gold
SEASON 1, EPISODE 7Last edition we met Sis McRae, the all-night fiddler from the early part of the 20th Century. Sis had just one child, Margaret McRae, who married Jim Coad.Both families had mining…
S1E6 More Naughty Norman, then tales from Granny McRae, the All-night Fiddler
SEASON 1, EPISODE 6There are two distinct parts to this episode: first, more revelations about an early aviation legend. Then, we visit Ada (Sis) Mcrae, born 1889, who recalls the hardships and joys…
S1E5 Some ’naughty bits’ on Australian airline pioneer Sir Norman Brearley.
SEASON 1, EPISODE 5They wouldn’t let Brearley look at the bodies. A women said it was the first time she’d ever seen a man cry.'I made all the rules, and I followed every one of them'.World War One…
S1E4 From WW1 ace fighter pilot, to starting Australia's very first airline
SEASON 1, EPISODE 4Within a few short years after the First World War, over the heads of horses donkeys camels and bullock teams, a new sound could be heard in Australia’s interior: the droning and…
S1E3 Chasing opals since the 1920s, while paddling his own dusty canoe
SEASON 1, EPISODE 3Opal miner Franko Albertoni was born in 1883. He was 88 when John Francis interviewed him in 1971, but still jumping around in the crushing heat like a little pixie. In 1920 Franko…
S1E2 Cranky camels, murderous mules, and a swarm of swaggies
SEASON 1, EPISODE 2It was 1919, and Charlie Gill was 12 when he started work on a cattle station east of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. It was a tough but joyous life for a boy.Charlie was…
S1 RED DUST TAPES trailer
Are you intrigued by Australian oral history? You’ll really love RED DUST TAPES.Soak up the voices and the stories of Outback old-timers who were born over 130 years ago. Here's a quick trailer of…
Frequently Asked Questions
Red Dust Tapes has published 20 episodes since March 2024, covering topics in Documentary, Places & Travel.
Red Dust Tapes is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 39m.
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