Hi, everybody, Welcome to conversations. And my guest today is a living national treasure. I don't know what you have to do to be designated as a living treasure. But Ernie didn't go. Is just that one of our famous television actors and presenters and comedian and star football player, star basketball player. He's everywhere, he joins us. Now, Ernie, how are you?
I'm good, make good, so good to have young with you. Oh yeah, by the way, you know you can get off the list. What you have to carck it cack it, Yeah, get off the living legend. But you can't be on a living legend if you carcked it.
Well, that's a bit some We won't we won't go there.
Well it just makes room for someone else.
Ernie, dingo am too. My goodness, that's a significant decoration.
Yeah, because the job's taken. Then ohr go. It's too early in the morning for this day.
Well it's early for you, it's a bit later for us. As we're speaking. Where abouts are you?
I mean, w a home of the Mighty Eagles, mate.
Mighty Eagles aren't quite so mody these days.
I give it a gate. Your bloke's been down there you know as well, No.
We can't laugh a new series of going places, and he didn't go. You just keep getting work, don't you.
I think it's because I just keep going traveling, and I used to post about where I'm traveling, and the network used to get jealous of the fact that I'm having all this fun out in the middle of nowhere, and then they come along and say, oh, can we film it and take the fun away? And a lot of what Then I have to get a lot of my old buff haired mates to sort of stick their noses on the telly with me. But it's good fun. Another season of that. Lots going on in the industry.
I think they're just trying to get the best out of me before I get off the list.
Get off the list, we go. I've been intrigued by you any over the years because I've been able to follow you from Afar. I mean we've spoken a couple of times. But how did it happen? I mean, you're born in the country, You're born on a station.
Yeah, I'm station boy.
Yeah, tell us tell us about the early days.
Bulladoo Station, Yeah, Bullado Stations, the cattle station near the Murchison River, old bike by the name of Bob Jensen's and he's still there. I'm his boy because I was born on his station. You know, he's had others born on the station, but then they're not as well known as I am, and he doesn't realize it. I stole all their beautiful compliments and stories and stuff and just put it out there and pretending it's all mine. But
now Bolla do station. My grandmother delivered me on a wash house floor on my Auntie's in my Auntie's house. All three ladies, Mum, Mum, Nana and my Auntie were all domestics and the stations. So they had a little break around about morning tea so the women can get back to work after morning tea, after small gate.
What were the early days like for you growing up on the station. It was a different era. You must have been subjected to all sorts.
Of Oh, there was very little English around on those area because we're set aside away from the main house where my mum worked or where Nana was working, and where they lived was only about one hundred and fifty meters And I remember when I was told that when Mum used to go to work in the big house and I was at home with the old girls one hundred and fifty meters away, and Mum used to come back, and well, Mum used to look after the white kids in the big house and we'd get to see her
either once at the end of the day or once a week, and she would see her father who was about one hundred and fifty meters further, would see him once a month. On I spent the last Sunday of every month, and yeah, it was pretty different. So I had a lot of voices around me that was birds and animals. You could work out which birds in the morning were making noises and what the weather was like because they'd all come with their stories and chirp up
and carry on around the place. And you could also tell the different birds by the time of the year by the sounds of different birds. So that was a lot in the first couple of years bundled up. And you know the old et you probably had this when you were young as well, that you you were seen and never heard.
Kids should be seen and never heard.
Yeah, so that was another one too, because basically we weren't allowed to speak language now dialect Waji, so there was a warning word that was said, no man or ballet means no more talking because the white fellow coming. So yeah, so we grew up with that, so it was sort of it was more of an intriguement to see this, you know, big fellow in a lot of big white fellow and knowing that you couldn't really sail out to him, but you could, you know. We'd learned
to say hello, and that charmed them straight away. So as a kid, all you have to do to white fellows at that time was hello with a big smile, and you want them.
And what sort of employers were they those white fellows in those days?
Well, see around that area we had a lot of older men who were like old Ossie stock, but a lot of their wives were Celtic women. My Lord of Bryde sent out from Scotland and from Wales and the Irish, you know, the Celtic side of that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Whiles would come out. So the only company
those women had were the Aboriginal women. And we're still in touch with a lot of those families out through Maria and the hawkers that used to come through there, you know along yellow long will do more than all those old families. Their descendants are still in touch with each other today, especially around my travel area.
Yeah, so so was your dad of Stockman?
No, No, I'm one of those passersbys, and dad was on the other side of the fence. And he's got kids older than me and kids younger than me. So it was a ships in the night sort of situation.
You so you don't have a relationship with him, or you didn't have that.
I never had a father figure in my life. A lot of good teachers around.
Me, though, But how did that impact on you?
Looking at it now, it doesn't really bother me at all. I saw things from uncle's point of view. I saw things from my grandfather's connections a big part of my life and still today because my grandfather was a top lawman, and he used to travel walk hundreds or thousands of kilometers for ceremonies and nearly every summer and initiated a lot of men and being a part of those ceremonies.
Since getting back, you know, we're talking about one hundred and fifty, one hundred and twenty years ago, one hundred and thirty years ago. Because he died at nineteen forty seven, she.
Said, opens up a whole line of discussion when you talk about initiation.
Now we still do bush camps every year. White people don't know about that. I mean when we talk about law camps and we talk about that's my connection to a lot of men's health, men's issue stuff that I had taken on board as a young fellow. Not having a father figure to step me in the right direction.
Mind you, having a father figure in those days was pretty hard, mainly because of the fact that the persecution of a lot of men in those times was so demoralizing for them, where they would look after their family and then go to walk and go to work and be you know, I have to cop a lot to deal with just to get through the day. So at the end of the day, when those dads used to come back home, you know, a silent word and because they were so frustrated and angry and what they had
to do to get through that day. So I have a lot of respect for them. And then looking at all the other men around the districts, you know that or through my traditional cultural background and see a lot of strong lawmen as to what they were, like my grandfather, like my uncles, and my cousin, and to see what they've gone through and still maintained today, and knowing full well that very very few Waybillers or non Avoridginal people know what they what we do in the summertime.
Ernie didn't go as my guest. Folks, he's back with going places with Ernie didn't go. And also the big backyard quiz. We'll talk about that when we come back back shortly. Welcome back everybody. And he didn't go as my guest. He's in wa And I must say, Ernie, I mentioned before the tape started running that photo that painting behind you is magnificent. Can you just explain it? I know our listeners can't see it, but can you just explain it for us?
The women in my family we have, well, all Averiginal people born are given a skin group. They belonged to a certain skin group. Well, it doesn't matter our far or our removed from the indigenous society. They have a skin name. And on top of that, we have a totem, and there's a senior totem which the grandmothers have and my grandmother's totum is a red dl black cocker tooo. So when she's around. As in the painting behind me, there's there's a protection. She's looking over me all the time.
Keep an eye out from my mother's is the Martin Swallow, you know. And there's all these differences of having totems as a protector, as a totem as a symbol of strength, and the connections you have with the other people's totems around you. So you're connected as a skin, you're connected by name, you're connected as a child, you're connected as mty, you're connected as all these different ways. So you're not
very much alone in anything that you do. So this one behind me is my fiftieth birthday present that my wife gave to me, you know, the redtail black cockatoo in transit and full paint, and the story about them when there's the bloke that painted it was seeing them like he was seeing them as an old friend. And yeah, so I've got redtail black cockatoos basically all around my house. And every time you hear that call, that's just the old girl's keeping an eye on you.
My son Chad lives in the country and they're surrounded by a yellow tail black cockatoo.
Same call.
Yeah, it's they're just They sometimes fly around our golf club and they're just mesmerizing. I'm digressing, so I don't blame your mate.
There's the lovely thing about the red all black cockatoos is the white, the red, and the yellow, and they all have a very similar call. And you have the you have the glossy ones as well as which are getting pretty close to extinction. And that's usually where a lot of more people are starting to move in to. If they move into the bush, that's when we start to lose our beautiful birds. And your son would start
winging if he does hear that calls. You feel safe because when you hear that call, you know you're close to home.
Anyway, this little kid growing up on a station, how do you break out? I mean, if that's the word, how do you how do you move on from the station? Why did you become so famous?
Well, we moved into town, and as we moved into town, there's a progressional living standard. You can live outside like in fringe dwelling. You can go to the reserve, but once you're in the reserve, you straight under government control. Because at that time we still wasn't citizens. I grew up being young a you and I spoke why daddy. So my language is and my identity from my traditional
background gave me that. But they says, no, you're not are, You're not Yummage, you're not Wadjedi whatever you think you taught you your native, the government refers to as being native. So I had the whole lot. I grew up Wayjetdi speaking Wajeddi with Yammay people. I was told I was native, and then they did a bit of voting and we went from native to Aborigine. Then they decided to update
that to make us Aboriginal. And then by the time we worked out all our paperwork and printed out all these printed with Aboriginal organizations, they changed it to indigenous, so we lost all that paperwork. And then after becoming indigenous for a while that they said there was no bugger that you're not indigenous anymore, your first nation. And you know, in a couple of years time they'll have to change it again because that's been the pattern, and
all this has happened in just my lifetime. We were called other names, but you weren't. I can't say that on you.
Know, so many, so many points of discussion, how different are the indigenous dialects. When you mentioned a couple, then how how different are they?
Are?
They completely different languages. You've been to Europe, Yeah, I have been to Europe.
Well, you know how the Nords talk, I mean Sami people up in Finland. We talk about the Finnish language. But in Finland there's the Sami people, who are the indigenous people there who've got a different language. Again, but all over Europe, you know, it's hard for the Greeks to talk to to talk to the Polish, and there they're neighbors basically, you know, and you know everyone's there's all these different languages all over Europe and you accept them.
And even in Italy is I love Italy for many reasons. There's so many comparisons the north of Italy and the middle of Italy to the east side and the west side and down the bloody Sicilians, for instance, they've got a different language or dialect again, so to speak Italian, you've got to be careful where you are because you've got a different accent all top to bottom. So the
language is in Australia rare the same. But then some of the language, most of the desert languages, or the northern part of it is prefixed language, and the southern the older part I mean the southwest and the south east, and even Tasi. I mean Tazi was an island seventeen thousand years ago, so they've got a language beyond that. And that's more of a suffix language.
When you say, what do you mean by that suffix and prefix, I.
Was just saying I can see you on my computer. I'm work trying to work this out over. You know, prefixes when you put the subject first, okay, and suffix is when it's later. If I was to say I went down the road to see a mate, I can't even bloody explain it.
I get the idea.
So we've used that.
You can say that is in the room.
In that room as a man in that Yeah, that's right. I just went a little bit blank there in a minute.
Well it's a complicated question, Ernie, I'm sorry to do that.
Well, it's complicated languages. I mean, it's that sort of thing about. You know, you've got your speaking language that everyone seems to know, whether yidarky come from. In the top end of Australia. You've got the people in Darwin which is so similar to the people that come from where the Yidarky come from or Gobberil comes from and totally different. But even in Darwin you've got people like really that comes from the island, which is different to
the people on the mainland of Darwin. So that dialects, you know, which is only a couple of miles apart. But then you go down to build Dempsey Country down towards the center of Australia and it's different again. You've got Central Australian, the Banto with animal people there. It's completely different again with Liam Ryan sort of stuff, not Liam Ryan, Liam Jarrah, even Liam Ryan, that's my family. He comes from where my language comes from.
Anually, let's go back to this little kid growing up and you moved to this, you moved to this into the town.
Yeah, we got into I was because of our family systems I have. I grew up with three mothers, my mum, her sisters are my mum's so being lucky to have three mums so I can go either way. So living with my mum, having three moms around me, I have that guidance around me and my cousins, their children. My mom's sisters children. They're my brothers and sisters because we all got we have three mums. My older cousins were
sort of like. They were like eight nine, and I was about novel seven and eight and I was about five, and so I was too young to hang out with them, so they used to go and do things big boys do and spend a lot of time alone. I have one sister older than men. Eventually I had five sisters younger than me, and so it wasn't really a playful
world for me. So I used to entertained myself. What I did was go out into the flat and there was a bit of sandpile there that they used in the backyards, and I'd pile the sandpile up to about a foot and a half two foot high. And that little sandpile was the one that changed my life because I could look down at that sandpile, walk around that sandpile, and just look at it as a sandpile. But if I laid on the ground, that sandpile become the horizon, and with a finger, I can touch the top of
that sandpile. Therefore, I could touch the horizon until I lifted my head up and the horizon disappeared into the distance. So that was my fascination. In every direction I looked, the horizon was different. So I had this travel bug and my mum's brother, Lesdingo, he broke out of w a against the government because he was a He wanted to explore the world with the Brearley family. They were a traveling show and he changed his name to Kid Brearley to boxing the tents in those days, and he
used to ride the of the horses. They're all the shows in those days, traveling shows, boxing shows who would have bucking horses and a boxing tent traveling around. Shaman was from people may remember as well. And so he went from the Midwest into the Northern Territory, top of Queensland and down into the Victoria. Didn't want to go
overseas because he couldn't understand that to Dazzy. So he came home via the same route and brought some peanuts back from Queensland from King Roi and showed his mom and my sister and they had peanuts in a brown paper bag that he's been carrying around for about about six months to get home. So the travel bug was sat into me and I just wanted to chase the horizons and been very lucky. I mean, you know, the Great Outdoors was a classic example of my standard travel
and now going places. And I tell you what, still there's still parts of this particular island that I still want to see. So the travel bug was there, but just I had to get through being a kid.
We'll talk about the travel Bug because it ties him with your program Going Places with Ernie Dingo. Also the Big Backyard Quiz. Lots to talk about. We've got to get you playing footy and basketball because you're a star at that.
We haven't done that much been Dad got the T shirt.
Ernie ding goes my guest fus back shortly. Welcome back to conversations everybody. If you just tuned in, we're having a chat with Ernie Dingo, and it is a good yarn because he's telling us all about his early days, which in some sense they sound idyllic, but I can't imagine they particularly were when you you know, obviously you were villified. I would have thought as a young fellow, as a family, did you feel that, did you since that? Or were you just a happy kid?
If you stay with it, Kwanzi, you know full. Well, if if somebody tells you you're an idiot and you stop and look at them, they're going to throw something, because that's just the opening line, and they're going to keep going. And if you it depends how you respond as to their next move. So it got to the stage where, you know, I came to Perth in seven three dealing with the lot at school when my first year at primary school.
In grade finteen seventy three, you were seventeen seventeen.
Yeah. When I was in primary school at the age of five, I went to a Catholic school and these kids used to run around the corner and they'd say something to me and laugh, and because they laughed, well, I thought it was okay because they laughed, it wasn't to tell My big cousin, the one that you know, told me, you know, I'm too much of a baby,
don't go with them. He came around the corner and they were saying pull the trigger, bang bang bang, but they'd run away laughing, So it must have been funny because I didn't know what it was. And until my cousin came around and he heard them and he whacked them and we got kicked out of the school. In primary school, I learned a few of the other words that were being handed bandied around, and a lot of them at American connotation. You know, are you all that
sort of stuff? And he's so like, well, no, I'm not, I'm yummi ye. So I was dumb to a lot of the expressions. I came home from high school one time and said to mom, Mom, I gotta ask you a question, and she goes, what's up. I said, well, these kids at school call me a. She said, who's I'm twelve years old? Thirteen years old? These kids are calling me a. And I didn't know it was the
trigger sort of game again, because it doesn't. I was too busy meeting people, having fun and enjoying things around me, playing sport, playing basketball, playing long distance running, you know, for everything that kids. I played hockey. I played soccer because these Italian kids, and I loved soccer. Okay, I'll have a crack at it. Played hockey. I'm a left hand. I was getting whacked in the legs all the time baseball, so like, all right, I get thrust, don't you know,
knock some birds out of the tree. When we were young, hunting for food and yeah, this is easy. But Mum, these other kids are calling me a what's of seconds? You don't know? And I said, no, I don't know. That's what she said. I don't know either, all right, So it didn't matter because my mom didn't know, and she made it sound like it wasn't a problem. But then other kids who would get upset about names and what do they call me that? What does it mean?
And then they say it's rude, it's rude. Ah, they can't I'll put you know. But in the back of my head we used to say, well, we can speak white fellow language, we can speak English. These Italian boys teach us Italian, mostly the dirty words. But you know, that's the way you go with young fellows. All languages that you learn. Polish, this old Serbian fellow that was in our town. As kids growing up, we'd learned some of the hollows and how I you and good sort
of stuff words I mean, all Polish. For I learned at a very early age too to speak Polish, and eventually he would teach me the movi apoporski and which means I don't speak Polish, imperfect Polish. So we have all these languages around us. We learned English, we learned all this, We learned this at school, we learned French and German. Never thought we'd ever go there, but we did.
The Italian boys, the Greek boys, and all the Middle East and boys around grew up with Afghans and the Sikh community and all that around, Chinese gold miners and stuff like. They were everywhere. The Irish, the Welsh Irish were the craziest, and the Scottish was just as bloody mad. But you know it was the English. We learned their language. So when these kids used to go, you know, that's a bloody derogatory word towards US indigenous people, and I'm going, well,
why don't we swear at them and their language? And we did with the smile on our face.
Surely sport, you were good at sport. You played, you played basketball, your footy. You're a good runner. That must have helped you integrate into mainstream society.
I loved sport. Long distance running was my love. I ran the Halli Memorial Mile my second year at school and did all right. And they introduced the three thousand that year as well, and I set the record in that in seventy one and broke it in seventy two and whacked the Allly Memorial Mile as well. In my last year at school, I played a lot of sports. I was sent to Perth for a baseball scholarship when
I loved playing basketball. I mean I had a black called Colin Jennings as a sports teacher, and when we were in primary school as a nine to ten year old, learned how to play basketball, so I was too light to play footy. My cousins used to eat a lot more biscuits than me, so they were a lot bigger and a lot more of a bully than me. Because I didn't want to get into it, so we used to skirt the packs and play off the side of the ball, come over the back. We used to get
it and that sort of stuff. But don't go in for the big stuff because the boys they ate your biscuits as well. So basketball was good to play as a kid. I came down to Perth as a baseball scholarship, playing for the Marley Eagles on Basandeene Oval and as a pitcher, and I didn't know that in baseball you can call the picture whatever you like, but you weren't allowed to say his name. And racism in Perth in the seventies was pretty rife, and you know, you just
had to put through it. Never walk around on your own because you'll just get bumped. Because they made tried to make Ariginal people members of the community and assimilation program where we was trying. They wanted us to be like them. As soon as we tried to be like them, they tell us where they wrong color to be like them. So they push didn't matter what you do, the dog
Collar Act and all that, it didn't matter. So in baseball, the the umpire, I looked at the umpire and he said, Mike, they can say whatever they want, but they're not allowed to use your name. So I put a ball into their dugout and caused a bit of a rift and didn't play after that, I'd gone down.
To it sounds similar to the issues that Black American baseball has had, like the Jackie Robinson's and those.
Oh they were amazing, all that sort of stuff. They had their own league though, well, like like you know, Aridinal boys, we had our own leg too. We'd play with stuff because we weren't allowed to be on the same field as and they had boots, we didn't. Marinot as a classic example of that. From the footy side, I played footy at school, but I was more of a basketball long distance run, anything to keep me on my own, because I kind of like being on my own.
Ernie, we need to break and we're three quarters of the way through this program and we haven't. We haven't got you into the film and stage and all that sort of stuff yet, So we'll do that when we come back. Ernie ding Go is my guest. Folks back shortly, Ernie Dingo is my guest, a living National Treasury's He's got a new series of Going Places with Ernie Dingo, also starring in The Big Backyard Quiz. We talked all about his growing up days, and we haven't got him
on the stage yet. You still go to person on a baseball scholarship. How on earth do you end up in the movies on TV, on the stage? How did how did that happen?
Oh? You have you haven't been listening in Cornsey. I've been on stage ever since I came into this world.
Okay, yeah, of all the.
Things that we've that's that's our preparation already. I mean listening to those birds around you, listening to our feeling that weather, when that when when that what we call William William, when that first rain come with language. I come from wildflower country, so everything around you speaks to
you all the time. The first drops that come out of the skull, you know, out of the sky rain drops, you know, people referred to as the verger, the rain that leaves the cloud but never make it to the earth. So they have stories to us that the rains that come afterwards, Once the first rains have gone through and softened the earth and made a puddle, then one drop falls about a week later to make that puddle move
downhill or whatever it is. See all that's preparing us for our for my theater from the beginning, that storytelling side of it all.
So somebody must have identified to you. Somebody must have seen your talent and given you an opportunity. How did that happen?
I think those old blakes had a cattle pride mate, and they call them tasers these days. So while I was finished playing baseball, I started playing basketball because I love that, And they said I was my di you'd love this. I was earning eighteen dollars a week, thirteen dollars a week board and a dollar a day, twenty five cents into the city, twenty five cents in the bus, and twenty five cents to work. And I did that for six months because my boss at the time, I
had two bosses. One of the bosses thought that the money given to the company from the government to as a training incentive, he wasn't he wouldn't last, so they didn't give me my money. So at the turn of the I love. That's why I love the end of the financial year, because the first six months of me at and doing apprentice, the boss held all that money back, thinking that I wouldn't last into the new year. So when I did last into July, I got all this back pay.
That was a sign writing apprentice.
Sign writing apprentice back back in the day. But that's all right. I love my art. Still observe with them.
Can you still draw it.
If underneath the desk is still a bunch of brushes and pain dirty in the place? Anyway, So I went. They told me that this the state basketball. You can go and do tryouts if you're any good. But the only trouble is I'm on a limited wage. So from Mount Lawley to Perry Lakes it's about five k's. I just walk it. I used to walk to training. Turned up. I trained for a week with the under sixteens because I was only a young fellow, and they said when's
your birthday? I said July. They said, well, you can't be at under fifteen's you're over the limit. So he got to play in the under eight ens. And the difference between a fifteen year old and seventeen year old is too bloody foot. So I have a crack at and went to Melbourne to play. That was right down to the final ten I made the team, went to Melbourne, stayed under eight ens nineteen seventy three basketball for West Australia. And while we're there, met a young blake shooting in
the courts by the name of what's his name? That number ten for Australia.
Andrew Gays, that's the blake.
Yeah, yeah, I knew him. I knew him as about a ten year old. Eleven year old was Drew.
Okay, So Bat, we've got to get you. We've got to get you on the stage and the TV.
We've otherwise, well that's what I was doing. When I was playing basketball, because we had to deal with a lot of crap from a lot of opposition players and a lot of umpires and teams and supporters that we had to go through like the Globetrotters and put on a show. Our team was called Panthers and then Wildcats.
That was the main team we played under, and yeah, we're all Aboriginal team and we caught a lot of crap from left, right and center, but we just had to button our lip and make it count on the scoreboard. I mean, I've played in games when we were with that bad that there there was only two of us left on the field to play against the full team.
Everybody got failed off.
Yeah, because let the umpires get to them. So yeah, that was that was fun. And the same Blake that did Welcome to Country with which Rich and I were the only two players on the field playing five blokes and they've got half a bench full of full of blokes as well. We didn't care. How'd you go five? We come second in a lot of those games, and we've got We've played one team Sterling for instance, one particularly at a carnival, and I had five pairs of
shorts on for five fowls. I was still on the field at the end of the game because every time I got a foul, I'm just going drink another. Yeah, And I was wondering how many shorts have I got on? Will I get down to my jocks because black feathers in those days didn't wear jocks.
So well, I'm gonna fast. I'm gonna fast, fast forward because you've been in so many productions. You've been You've been in movies, movies, You've had television shows with fringe, d well, fast forward, mister elect have done all sorts of things you're currently doing, going places. When he did know the big big backyard quiz, somebody must have seen something in you and identified that talent. You're skirting around the issue. You've got to tell me who that was.
I'm not a drinker. I used to dabble in smoking or dabble in a couple of I used to drink unleaded beer. Couldn't do full strength because I am silly enough without it. Never done drugs. I always look at my traditional law sight. I just like being who I was had. I've had a great upbringing from the bush. I've had always, always had different people in my backyard that they were sort of like outcasts, and they were
still present. Every now and then one person would come through that was different and not of the not so I was. I was always treated differently because they couldn't work me out. I didn't. I'd listen to anybody out. You sit down and have a yarn with anybody. Black, white, male, female, short, tall, fat skin. It didn't matter to me. There were only two types of people, salt water and fresh water. You come from the coast, you come from inland. That's all
that mattered, and that's what I enjoyed. Whatever. The first question is to somebody, that would determine your conversation to them. If somebody says you're a dickhead, you can say what and then it's fisticuff, or you can turn around and say that's mister dickhead to you. Then you put the footback on, you know, showing the footback where it belongs, kicking back on the teeth, but gently, and they realize it's their own bloody feet that's kick and there to it.
I learned at an early age don't bash your head up against the wall, and don't bash somebody else's head up to tell them that there's the wall, put your head on it. So when I arrived into Sydney on back in eighty three, I spent two weeks in Canberra at a conference. Monday, I spent an extra day in Canberra with my cousin Tuesday, arrived in Sydney Wednesday. I got a script Thursday, I got an agent Friday. They told me I had the job and I started on Monday.
What was the role Cara Breakout, which is a big, massive breakout of Japanese prisoner war in the world, the biggest breakout in Cara in Australia. Australian don't teach you about a history. So that was a job. There was an Aboriginal guard Johnson family in the original Cara Breakout, and I was hired by Kennedy Miller, famous Kennedy Miller to play the role to honor this particular abordin as
the guard from the Johnson family. And my character's name was Johnson surname because in the war they're called by their surnames. So that was my start. I loved a bit of comedy at the time. I just reversed all the Irish jokes into Aboriginal jokes, and I started taking the mickey out of myself.
You know, do you regret doing that now?
No, we'll see. I went down to fast forward and there was at that time there are only two black fellows on television, man Kamal. There wasn't anybody there. Used to be a girl on Channel seven who would play the records back in the old days. But she just as a model, would put the records on and you listen to the music back in the old old notes when Telly's first came first came out, and she is the she works out out of Victoria there in the movie The Sapphires. She was the one of the lead
singers in the Sapphires. So she's more famous than I am. I'll get a bigger mouth so theater. I'd have a crack at anything because I can. It's like football. You're contracted to play that season and then you take a jumper off at the end of the game, put your civs on and go and be a buffet.
We're run out of time. I know this is leaving us unfulfilled, unrequired, but what have we got to look forward to? With this season's going places? With any dingo, what are we looking forward to?
Me taking the mickey out of a old bunch of bushies. It would be probably a good one. But them showing me all the beautiful places where they are. This country has got so many beautiful pockets that we The best place to do is to sit at home and watch it on the telly. All the different shows that do out back shows. I mean every network is doing travel programs from around the country. Mine's no different to them. So have a little at them and see how beautiful this country really is.
Great to catch up. You're looking fantastic. You always did. You joked about being a good looking dude, but there's no joke. Thank you so much for joining us.
No Ori Scoronsa. You have a good day, and one day we'll have to sit down and have a good bloody yarn.
We'll have no time moving on it. That would be great. All the best, mate, and he didn't go National Living Treasure and he didn't go. I am thank you so much for your time.
Thanks mate, you have a good one.
Thank you so much for joining us.