TELL TALES TRUE

FROM HAY - the shearers cook

2006-03-05T12:44:00.000+11:00

Chris and myself are in Hay exploring the social history past and current of the wonderful world of shearers cooks. We spent two nights and a day out at Coonibul Station where Denise Baker and her potwalloper Karen are cooking 5 meals a day for up to 50 people. She gets up before five and its often after 10 pm before she gets to close her door - a ninety hour week! I've been bitten by a yabbi, helped crumb 200 lamb cutlets and helped a 60 year old shearer write a poem (see below). It's been an eye opening and belly expanding exercise. This footage has been added to interview with two old time shearers cook Maggie and Eunice to make a 13 minute digital film.This film will be part of an exhibition at Shear Outback - The Shearers Hall of Fame called "Bait Layers and Babbling Brooks." This Exhibition will open sometime in July/August before being taken on Tour.

Extract from Micks poem "I'm the big wide world"

There worked a cook
by the name of Johnny Cole
He was a good cook
Depends how many flagons he had
By the same token he lost his family

The cooking was good till Wednesday
Coles always had his flagon of plonk
Sometimes you’d see him cooking
Sometimes you’d see him
Flat on his back
All wood
Stoves no gas.

2005-07-03T17:18:00.000+10:00

DUNLOP GIRLS,
Museum of the Riverina
May, 2005

"The Dunlop girls are happy,
The Dunlop girls are free
The Dunlop girls are happy,
when they are on the spree
We never ever argue,
we neer disagree,
But we'd all drop dead if old Joe said
Come and have a beer with me" (song)

"It doesn't matter that i don't speak english
I might pick it up straight away. I didn't
say good morning I didn't say nothing when
I started work. I started putting buttons on,
you know....putting mens buttons on coats"

""So I said ot my sister "The Office Boy like you,
The good looking one" 'cause we called him
the good looking one,
"Don't be silly" she said "he's too youg ofr me!""

MADE IN WAGGA

2005-05-10T22:45:00.000+10:00

This series of four digital artifacts was commisioned by the Museum in Wagga Wagga for their exhibition "Made in Wagga" in the old Historic Chambers in the centre of town. The exhibition was a collection of stories, objects and artifacts based around Wagga's local History. Four subjects were selected by the museum to be the subjects of short social documentarys. They all had their own challenges and styles. Gary Hiscock is a Third generation saddle maker and an incredible yarn spinner. Gary tells his family's history in a classic Australian sardonic style. The man is drier than the outback. Garys story is cut together with 80 years of photographs and some amazing footage of process. He demonstrate traditional saddle making techniques and the shots of him using his grandfathers 100 year old hand and foot operated leather sewing machine have to be seen to be believed. Hiscock saddles were famous accross the country for their toughness and durability in the days when there was a saddler in every small town accross the country.

The Wagga Iron Foundry was an exploration of process past and present. Two foundry workers with, between them, over seventy years of experince in the trade tell their tales. This combined with the images of red hot molten metal and the process of casting help the viewer to appreciate what goes on in this industry which to be honest doesn't seem to have changed much in the last 100 years. It was Hot then, its still hot now!

go gumi

2004-10-16T12:44:00.000+10:00

Interviews were conducted with Morrie Kramer a Wagga Businessman. The World Championship Gumi Race was run by the local Lions Club from 1978 to 1995 and was a race down the Murrumbidgee on craft constructed out of inner tubes. Morrie was a great subject for an oral history on this subject. Morrie had won the first two Gumi races and donated his inventive craft to the Museum of the Riverina. Zeb spent hours in the Riverina Regional Archive run by Charles Sturt University poring over, slecting and scanning from their huge collection of photo's and documents on this subject to incorperate into the film. An exciting moment was discovering old 16mm film of the event from RVN2 (now PRIME) raw news footage in the archives. Not so exciting was the realisation that none of it was labeled and that there was no projector on which to play it. Sue Harding nearly came to the rescue and we were able to record the images however the sound was magnetic and her projector could handle it. Chris rang the University and was told "Nah mate we chucked all that gear years ago. A disbeleiving Chris thought he'd just go out and check with the audio visual storekeeper Johnny Parker who found one projector with vision and another with sound and Chris digitised the footage. Some of this material found its way onto the DVD as an extra feature. A great moment was had on the river as anxious museum staff looked on while a much older Morrie launched what was now a museum arftifact onto the Murrumbidee River. This was the first digitaal social documentary that Chris and I worked on together - the start of tell tales true.