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Mount IsaMount Isa

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Boyd Curran
Lawn Hill Riversleigh Pastoral Holding Company
email: boydcurran@bigpond.com

Kath Swift
Leukemia Foundation
http://www.leukaemia.org.au/
Information line: 1800 620 420

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  - 13 August 2007

Mount Isa

Valerie and Glynn Johnston from Mt Isa

Valerie and Glynn Johnston from Mt Isa
Photo by ENOUGH ROPE

Tonight another of our ENOUGH ROPE On The Road specials. Before we begin, a reminder of how we got here. Over the last four years, we have been amazed at the stories our audience has shared with us in the studio, during Show and Tell. So we decided to take the philosophy behind Show and Tell, that everyone has a story, on the road.

ANDREW DENTON: The place we’re headed to is hot, isolated and not exactly a tourist paradise. Mount Isa, in north-west Queensland, is a long way from anywhere else. Some travellers describe it as ‘the middle of bloody nowhere.’ But the locals reckon the rest of us have got it wrong about what it’s like to live here.

MALE: Outsiders make this assumption that Mount Isa is this rough, tough bush sort of blokey area where um you’re not allowed to be flamboyant and have fun.

FEMALE: They think that we all wear great big 10 gallon hats and sing country and western music and line dance.

MALE: They think they’re going to miss out on going to the beach, which they do. But I don’t think they realise that we’ve got everything here except of course snows.

MALE: All my mates still think I’m mad. They ring me up regularly and say what are you doing? Come back, there’s a good job here. And um yeah they can’t understand why we stay here.


"I remember ringing one of my friends in Melbourne saying I feel like I'm in a Texan movie...and the people here are the characters."




FEMALE: I remember ringing one of my friends in Melbourne saying I feel like I'm in a Texan movie. That was my, and the people here are the characters. [Laughs]

KATHY SWIFT: Come on Blonde Moment, Come on Blonde Moment, Come on Blonde Moment, Blonde Moment, Come on Blonde Moment. Hello, I'm Kathy Swift. I've lived here, in Mount Isa for 66 years and I work for the Leukaemia Foundation raising funds and I love every minute of it.

ANDREW DENTON: What about your hairstyle? Where did that come from?

KATHY SWIFT: Well when I was young I wanted to be Mrs Donald Bradman, so if I played, as kids did in those days, you had the old fashioned games, my sister use to be Mrs Clarke Gable and I was always Mrs Don Bradman.

ANDREW DENTON: [Laughs]

KATHY SWIFT: And then Alice Faye, appeared in a movie with this hairstyle and I think I would have been about eight and I thought oh look at her hairstyle. It's beautiful!

ANDREW DENTON: Does it have a name? It should have a name?

KATHY SWIFT: An Edwardian style?

ANDREW DENTON: No, no, no it's got to be called ‘The Kath’.

KATHY SWIFT: ‘The Kath’ hairdo.

ANDREW DENTON: Have a ‘Kath’.

KATHY SWIFT: Yes, and not only that Andrew, I only have to wash it once a week and it stays in. You just touch it up if you're going somewhere special, and it's, it’s there.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: G’day how ya goin. My name is Glynn Johnston. I live in Mount Isa, and I've been here for a lot of years. I'm usually known as the friendly mauler, because the more you hit me, the friendlier I get.

ANDREW DENTON: Tell me about Fred Brophy's boxing tent. What happens? How do I end up in ring with you?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Well you’d have to get probably two of your cousins who are twice as big as you, for a start, to help you ‘cause…

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: I wouldn’t fight you by yourself.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: And if I did I’d fight you with one hand behind my back. That’s what I usually do.

ANDREW DENTON: Is it in your blood?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yes, yes it is. Boxing is in my blood. Same as showmanship. Canvas in my veins, runs through my veins thick and, just thick, can't get it out of me. I love shows.

ANDREW DENTON: Tell me about your mum? She was very, ah young, when she had…

KATHY SWIFT: 13 years old when her first baby was born.

ANDREW DENTON: 13?

KATHY SWIFT: And she had ten living, and she had two that died, and she lost quite a few.

ANDREW DENTON: Was it unusual to have a baby at 13?


"And...you’d come home and you’d never know if you had a bed because if there was a battered wife, or a girl that had got in trouble and was pregnant, mum would take them in."




KATHY SWIFT: Oh very unusual. Mm, especially that day and age it was very unusual and I never knew this Andrew, until she died. And I was devastated. I used to think, you know, oh all these children, and she’s so much younger than dad. And um anyway, you’d come home and you’d never know if you had a bed because if there was a battered wife, or a girl that had got in trouble and was pregnant, mum would take them in. So consequently we’d sleep on the floor. And to this day women still pull me up and say “Oh your mother gave me a bed many years ago”.

ANDREW DENTON: You travelled around from town to town with your dad?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Well me old man had a show, well he didn't have a tent, but he had a show. He had four horses buck jump, and he had eight or nine blokes fighting. He said ten quid, which was a lot of money, if you could beat him in a fight, or ten quid if you could ride a horse, his horse, or ten quid he'd ride your horse. Cause he was um buck-jump fella, ‘Broncos’, that's his nickname Bronco. He got that from the rodeos. And that’s how he got his nose too, it wasn’t from fighting, everyone thought it was from fighting, but it was bull, bull gouged him in the nose. And he, he, that’s why he went to boxing because he reckons this rough riding business, is just too rough.

ANDREW DENTON: So he thought he’d got to something gentle like boxing.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah something nice and easy where you got, you can wack him back.

ANDREW DENTON: Cause your dad was, ah he was a bit of a horse whisperer wasn’t he?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: He, he could train any animal.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Any animal, yeah. Dog, snake, cat, he, I’d seen him train a cat to walk up like this, backwards.

ANDREW DENTON: You’re kidding me?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yes. [Laughing]

ANDREW DENTON: I’m going to have to watch you.

ANDREW DENTON: Was it a great love affair between your mum and dad?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh yes, yes. He just, he just idolised the ground she walked on. And he would buy her a gown, every year, no matter how much money we short but when he’d come in from fencing he’d have his money for the contract, and he would send away, get mum to pick which dress she wanted. And every year she would be actually the belle of the ball in Camooweal. But my dad never danced. But he would always take us up onto the ah to the Camooweal Shire Hall, in Camooweal, with pillows and blankets and we would sit there on the veranda of the hall and look in and watch our mum dance all night, until we fell asleep.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you remember the first time you saw your dad fight?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah, I thought he was a bloody mad bastard [Laughs].

ANDREW DENTON: What happened?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Well he’s a showman. It's a pity he wasn't like into movies or singing or something cause with me, with me showmanship. I'd be a singer or a movie star, instead of a bloody tent boxer.

ANDREW DENTON: So how much did you travel around as a kid? Did you stop in places for long?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah, yeah go to school a couple of days here, couple of days there. It got that way that mum and dad would just drop us off to school, we'd enrol ourselves while they set up things.

ANDREW DENTON: Was that hard just rolling into school not knowing anyone, only there for a few days?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: You don't really know any different.

ANDREW DENTON: How did the other kids treat you?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Not very good [Laughs] …Went ‘donk’ real quick.

ANDREW DENTON: Well ‘cause you’re, you’re ‘carny’ folk, you’re sideshow.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Not having a uniform you know, you're not part of it. You're always an outcast. I had a, my first uniform was in grade eight.

ANDREW DENTON: Was that a big moment?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: And that was, my first pair of shoes on my foot was in grade eight. [Laughing]

ANDREW DENTON: What did that feel like?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Oh, it felt real good ‘cause I was part of the, ya know, finally I’m part of this little turn out here. I’m one of youse.

BOYD CURRAN: How ya going? I'm Boyd Curran. I moved to Mount Isa 11 years ago to start a business. It's been a great place to live, grow up a family and do business. I work for an Aboriginal company, helping to improve the lives of Aboriginal youth.

ANDREW DENTON: You grew up as a young tacker, what was it like being a kid on a farm?


"And ah, when we first started driving it we couldn’t actually see out the windscreen, so they use to have those little air vents underneath the windscreen and we use to look through there."




BOYD CURRAN: Look, a great lifestyle. We were very fortunate. I remember we ah used to ride our motorbikes up to the bus stop which included about five or six miles along a main road, and ah then in winter when it got too cold we use to drive the Landrover. And ah, when we first started driving it we couldn’t actually see out the windscreen, so they use to have those little air vents underneath the windscreen and we use to look through there.

ANDREW DENTON: So you’re steering like this?

BOYD CURRAN: Steering like that looking through the air vents.

ANDREW DENTON: It would have been funny someone driving the other way.

BOYD CURRAN: Well a lot of the council workers use to come past and they used to think it was a great joke. But I remember the local policeman in town cornered dad one time and said, you know, “If I ever catch your boys out there driving that road there’ll be trouble”. And I think he said you know, “The only reason you’ll catch them is if you come out there looking for them”.

MALE: The colours of Mount Isa really is an artists paradise.

FEMALE: The reds and the um the browns of the earth, all the earthly colours, and the blue of the sky.

MALE: You've got the red earth, the ochres right through to the beautiful purple blue sunsets. It’s a remarkable colour it, it really shows you how alive this place is if you look pass the surface.

FEMALE: I just remember seeing the all this blue sky and hills and just thought I'm in paradise.

BOYD CURRAN: I grew up in this little town called Capella, and ah when I was a child I think we probably had a population of about two hundred people in those days, and you knew where everyone lived in town and you knew who lived in every house, and a lot of the people who went there, including my father, started off with very little money. So I think there were certainly no prima donnas in those communities. There was never a town versus cocky attitude that you see in other towns. I think that there were a lot of battlers in those towns, and they supported each other.

KATHY SWIFT: This is the first time I’ve been down here since those years just after the war. But thank God, um we never got to that stage where we needed to use it for the evacuation of the hospital.

ANDREW DENTON: Kathy Swift was a young teenager in Mount Isa during the Second World War. She worked as a nurse in this underground hospital dug out of a hillside by the miners, to provide shelter from Japanese air attacks.

KATHY SWIFT: It was a scary time to be in Australia because we just realised that the Japs were closer than we wanted them, and who was gonna help us? All our fellas were away fighting in the Middle East, there were no troops left here to defend us. Most of them were all up in the Islands, and Australia was actually a sittin’, sitting duck for them to come in.

ANDREW DENTON: Mount Isa when the US soldiers came here, what was that time like?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh it was terrible, it was dreadful because there were so many troops stationed here and we had the black negro, the American negro, and ah we had the yank, and we had the Australian. Well at first it started off that you’d go to the movies, at the Star Theatre, and before five minutes was up there’d be a brawl, in the theatre because the Australian would have a girl and the American didn’t have one so it would be on for young and old. It got that bad that there was two theatres here, and one they allowed the troops to go to and you could only go to the Star Theatre, if you were accompanied by a lady.

ANDREW DENTON: You started a hay bailing business which ah to begin with was pretty tricky wasn't it?

BOYD CURRAN: Well it was. I remember um my brother in law, he was telling me it’s easy this hay bailing, I’ve done heaps of it before. We went out and we borrowed about a hundred thousand dollars, and bought all this second hand machinery and we went across hay bailing um on the property next door. After about four hours we’d successful made two bails so I rang my brother in law up and I said, “Can you come over and show us how to do this hay bailing?” And he turned up there and after about an hour I don’t think we’d successfully bailed any more and he said “I’ve got to go”. And he left me with it. And I remember just about ah being beside myself with grief and thinking I cannot believe my first business venture I’m going to fail at it.

MALE: I reckon if you start staying longer than seven days Mount Isa kicks in, the people kick in.

FEMALE: The thing about growing up in Mount Isa as a kid was um the support of, like you knew everyone around town.

MALE: I think it’s just, just the friendliness of everybody, just the down to earth people that you meet here in Mount Isa.

FEMALE: We breed ‘em tough out here. Yeah, not like them on the coast, softies [Laughs].

ANDREW DENTON: How long after the war did you meet your husband George?

KATHY SWIFT: Ah, ‘bout 12 months after the war.

ANDREW DENTON: And was it love at first sight?

KATHY SWIFT: No it wasn't.

ANDREW DENTON: Oh.

KATHY SWIFT: No (laughing) I thought he had a thing for my sister.

ANDREW DENTON: Can you remember the moment where you suddenly went George, he's the man?

KATHY SWIFT: Yes I think I was at the Star Theatre picture show but bear in mind Andrew I was chaperoned right up till I got married by my mother. I’d be out with mum, would be on one side, George would be the other.

ANDREW DENTON: (Laughing)

KATHY SWIFT: In this day and age, it doesn't happen.

ANDREW DENTON: No.

KATHY SWIFT: But believe me it did. Ah, we got married and had four children and it was absolutely true love till he died.

ANDREW DENTON: You were married to George for 30 years, when did he pass away?

KATHY SWIFT: On my 50th birthday. He put on a party for me, a surprise party, and ah we came home at about 11 o'clock and he said “Did you enjoy that love?” And I said, “Oh it was beautiful, a lovely surprise”. And um the and next minute I could feel him squeezing my hand and ah, I said “George, you're hurting my hand love”. And he never answered me and I just kept felt the pressure in my hand. Then I looked at him and I thought oh my God. And um, it was just so shocking, so very traumatic, and you know, just out of the blue at 57 he's gone.

ANDREW DENTON: Tell me about the spelling yards. How hard was it to break into this market?

BOYD CURRAN: ‘96 we build the yards, it was hugely successful in the first 12 months we put through 70,000 head, you know. At the time everyone was saying “Look, you know Cloncurry’s the real centre. You know it’ll never work in Mount Isa”.

ANDREW DENTON: For somebody like me, for whom all I know about the cattle industry is whether or not the steak’s tough.

BOYD CURRAN: Yep.

ANDREW DENTON: What does a spelling yard do? What do you offer?

BOYD CURRAN: Yeah well essentially it’s like a cattle motel. People send their cattle in here in transit you know when they’re breeding the cattle in the Territory and they come back into Queensland to fatten them.

ANDREW DENTON: Alright, and so it’s like a motel. Do you actually do room service? Is there a chocolate under the pillow?

BOYD CURRAN: We do. It’s five star.

ANDREW DENTON: Is that right?

BOYD CURRAN: In fact if you don’t like your accommodation for the night, we could probably put you up here.

ANDREW DENTON: I’ll keep that in mind.

BOYD CURRAN: Just to prove how good it is.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Beat em with one hand behind my back. You see that one? I’ll do it to you know alright. Ready?

ANDREW DENTON: Can you do it with two?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Well you watch this. Remember I took your girlfriend off ya and she was your fantasy...she was your soul mate.

ANDREW DENTON: (Laughs)

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Remember that? She was your soul mate. One hand pack... [Punching noises]

ANDREW DENTON: Oh...

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Oo... Have a go there mate.

ANDREW DENTON: I just did, that was it.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: [Laughing] Right in there again!

ANDREW DENTON: There’s too much of you!

GLYNN JOHNSTON: [Laughs]

ANDREW DENTON: What sort of guys would fight you?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Bikies, mugs, pugs, bullies, footballers, ringers, I look after my opponents. I don't punch them in the jaw. I don't give them black eyes. I don't bust their nose. Not unless they do something bad to me. They all get in there for one thing. I just want to have a go. That's all they want to do so why permanently damage them.

ANDREW DENTON: Would you have a beer with these guys afterwards?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Oh shit yeah. Yeah, yeah no worries. Their mum and dads even given me money to look after because I looked after them. Money. “Oh thanks, I'm glad you looked after, glad you…”

ANDREW DENTON: So you would basically calculate the weight of your punches depending on…

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Absolutely.

ANDREW DENTON: …On the character of the person you were fighting and the skill.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: I read people, it’s something, well that’s why I can fight real good cause I can read whether, by just talking to a fella, I can tell whether he can fight or not. I can tell whether I can beat him or not. Just talking to him.

ANDREW DENTON: You had to start life again at 50.

KATHY SWIFT: That’s right.

ANDREW DENTON: What did you do?

KATHY SWIFT: Well I’d say for about three months I did nothing. I was just devastated. I just couldn’t come to terms with it and then I thought oh this is no good. So I leased the Mount Isa Race Club.

ANDREW DENTON: You had a bit of a falling out with the racing committee?

KATHY SWIFT: Well for a start I was as green as grass. I’ve never been in a business, and then I kept thinking why am I paying 1000 a month for electricity? That’s a lot of money. And in actual fact, Kathy Swift was paying the jockey’s refrigerated air, ah rooms, the greyhound electricity, the big lights that light up everything…

ANDREW DENTON: They made you pay for everything?

KATHY SWIFT: I was paying for everything, the whole lot.

ANDREW DENTON: What happened?

KATHY SWIFT: I just got the key, I said “Is this the only key that goes to the fuse box?” They said “Yes”. I said, well, told a young fella I knew, “Get up there and turn it off love then give me the key”. So out they come, the big dignitaries coming from everywhere, Russ Hinze and they wanted this lovely dining room, club room to have their morning tea in. And they said “Oh the power’s off”. They had electricians coming from everywhere looking, and I’m standing at the back door watching them and he said, “What’s this bloody woman done now?” I said “This bloody woman’s turned the power off and it’ll stay off. I pay the bill. You want to entertain Russ Hinze you go somewhere else”.

ANDREW DENTON: So when did you start to become sweet on each other?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: Oh he was the ugliest looking being [Laughs].

GLYNN JOHNSTON: I was always sweet on her [Laughs] ...I don’t remember.

VALERIE JOHNSTON: I shouldn’t say that should I...but no he was a funny looking...I suppose I was a funny looking kid as well. But no not until after school had finished.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah? What was it you liked about Glynn?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: Oh, I don’t know. I was really confused. [Laughs]

GLYNN JOHNSTON: She’s still confused.

VALERIE JOHNSTON: He’s gonna punch me soon isn’t he!

ANDREW DENTON: How long have you been together?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: Um it’s been 32, 33 years.

ANDREW DENTON: And you haven’t worked it out yet?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: You gotta keep that mystique in a relationship.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you remember the first time you watched Glynn fight?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: Oh.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: I think I got beat up in a street fight first time she see me fight (Laughs, mumbling)... I was drunk some old bastard bashing me.

VALERIE JOHNSTON: I didn’t take him anywhere, I couldn’t take him anywhere.

FEMALE: The town is about the mine basically, that's how it goes.

FEMALE: People ask you where you come from and you say Mount Isa and the first thing they'd say is “Oh right, the big stack”.

FEMALE: It means everything to me because as a kid growing up here my dad worked at the mine and my first job was at Mount Isa mines

FEMALE AND MALE: I got to see the big stack being built, so that was pretty awesome to me as a kid.

FEMALE: My grandfather used to work there. It’s, I think it's the heart of the city, it's what keeps us going.

MALE: If that heart stopped, it stopped beating, the town would die around it.

NEWSREEL: Mount Isa — one of the world’s richest producers of copper lead and zinc. But last August following the refusal of a four pounds a week wage increase, the Australian Workers Union banned contract work and union members reverted to wages. More than a 1000 angry miners defied a back to work order by the Queensland Industrial Commission.

ANDREW DENTON: Can you tell me about the big strike of 64/ 65 - eight months?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh that was terrible.

ANDREW DENTON: What was it like to go through?

KATHY SWIFT: It was dreadful because we were struggling from day one. When we married we had drawn out all the money we did have in the bank because uh we need, our fridge blew up so we had to buy a new fridge and uh we just went completely broke and were in debt to friends of ours for quite a while.

ANDREW DENTON: As the strike wore on and you realised you’d lost all your savings. That must have been a very anxious time?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh it was anxious because we felt that the town was gone and we’d never even sell our home. We just felt absolutely desolate. Even my children, you know, they felt it at school. They said it was terrible at school because the children of the men that went back, they were victimized as well.

NEWSREEL: The loss of wages paid to the miners so far is more than four million pounds. As Pat Mackie continued as leader, the Queensland government declared a state of emergency. Extra police were sent to Mount Isa.

KATHY SWIFT: Nicklin was Premier of Queensland at the time and he sent his SS men up as we, as I call them.

ANDREW DENTON: It was marshal law wasn’t it?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh it was shocking. We were standing on the corner of the hotel a lady and I, and we were discussing the strike because it was every woman’s nightmare to try to make, do you know, and know you’re going to the wall and you’ve got nothing left and um so he said “Move on ladies and don’t discuss the strike”. I said “We’re not hurting you”. He said, “I said move on”. So he shoved me and of course I hit the other lady and her glasses fell off and he wouldn’t even let her stop to pick them up.

ANDREW DENTON: When they talk about a big property out here, they mean millions of acres. An agreement between the local Lawney people and the Zinifex Century Mine set up the Lawn Hill and Riversley Pastoral Holding Company that runs 60 000 head of cattle. As an advisor to the company Boyd Curren is involved in employing and training young aboriginal stockmen.

BOYD CURRAN: When we initially put word out that we were chasing trainees for the property we had over 70 young people apply for ‘em, all males and there was a really smart kid called Aaron and I was interviewing him and I said “Do you drink or smoke Aaron?” And he said “Oh no sir”. He said “I used to drink and smoke something terrible when I was 14, played up, he said but I've realised the error of my ways and I no longer do that”. I said “How old are you now?” And he said “I’m 15 now”. And it really weighed on me heavily because I had so many kids applying and I knew that this kid probably wasn't going to get a start with us. And it wasn't the fact we were going to be giving kids the opportunity to um improve their lives, it was a fact how many kids we weren't going to give the opportunities to.

ANDREW DENTON: The day you realised you were told the strike’s over and you knew you hadn’t won, what was that like?

KATHY SWIFT: Absolutely devastating. If women had been running that strike we’d have been still out.

ANDREW DENTON: I assume you had a few words to your husband, to George as well.

KATHY SWIFT: My word, told him they were a gutless mob. [Laughs] Because I feel, if you’re going to lose everything you own and you were going to sit out for eight months, why go back with nothing?

ANDREW DENTON: I can only imagine that Isa after the strike, in the months and years after that strike that people feeling the way they were, was it a difficult town to be in?

KATHY SWIFT: Very difficult because a lot of people sold up and left. There was different ones did suicide over the strike. Friends of ours and uh it...it was a bitter to swallow to go back without anything.

ANDREW DENTON: What drove them to that point?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh well because they were, they went back and they were classified as scabs.

ANDREW DENTON: You would have had some sympathy for them I expect?

KATHY SWIFT: Yeah definitely. It’s eh not an easy thing to go back and if you’ve got a family to keep. No I felt sorry for them because ah they had to lie down in buses to get back to work so, all the people that were lining up to see who the scabs couldn’t see them, they lay down on their stomachs on the bottom of a bus so they could go to work. It was tragic. It really was.

ANDREW DENTON: The 1965 strike is now a distant memory for most Mount Isa-ian’s. Today, both the town and the mine are booming.

ANDREW DENTON: Let's talk about these 36 boys that you took on this drive.

BOYD CURRAN: Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: How far did you go?

BOYD CURRAN: Well, I think it was about 450 kilometres. We went from Julia Creek to Longreach.

ANDREW DENTON: Over how many days?

BOYD CURRAN: Six weeks it took us. Each group was there for 14-15 days.

ANDREW DENTON: How many head of cattle were you driving?

BOYD CURRAN: We had 12 hundred head of cattle on the drive, so it was extremely challenging. I mean for the boys to come into a routine when they were up early morning, they were working hard all the day. They had to do their washing in between, going to bed late at night. Sometimes they were on night watch. It was a huge challenge for them. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Aboriginal or white kids. If you go on a cattle drive um it’s really tough work. They’re long hard days but I, I guess that’s, that’s a sense of reality that we try to give these kids and hopefully it’s something they’ll look back with pride forever.

ANDREW DENTON: You’ve been fundraising for over 30 years…

KATHY SWIFT: Over 30 years.

ANDREW DENTON: And they’ve been all sorts of methods you’ve used for fundraising, starting with horse manure.

KATHY SWIFT: Well we’d go out bush every weekend, and um pick up the dry pads, the cows and the bullocks leave there. And put them into bags, come back and we’d go all around town selling our manure for two dollars a bag.

ANDREW DENTON: That’s a hard slog.

KATHY SWIFT: Oh hard slog and we’d do that some nights till midnight we’d be still selling it.

KATHY SWIFT: I was told not to say this on TV, my expression, but anyway you can cut it if you don't like it, but I said I worked for years for leukaemia and I thought everyone we helped, have died. What is the good? It's like pushing shit up hill, and they said “Mum don't say that on TV”. I said “No”. But that's how it felt to me, that we were doing all this hard work and we were getting nowhere. Now today 70 per cent cure, and the people that we have now in quite the last few years, they've all got over it, or they're in remission.

TRISH MACNAMARA: You’re listening in with Trish MacNamara on Mob FM’s lunchtime requests, here on the Mob right up until two o’clock.

ANDREW DENTON: Valerie, what is Mob FM?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: It’s an Aboriginal radio station. The music that we play is mostly country.

ANDREW DENTON: How did somebody with an anthropology degree come to be managing a community radio station?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: Oh it’s fun. It’s totally different to anything else that I’ve done.

ANDREW DENTON: You were really determined to complete this degree weren’t you?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: Yeah. I was just so keen on doing that because I didn’t want anyone else come from Mount Isa and start university and not finish it and say “Well Valerie came here and she didn’t finish either, so it’s okay”. So I knew I just really had to finish.

ANDREW DENTON: Not many of the...the people you knew actually completed did they?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: No they didn’t. I think there was two of us, um.

ANDREW DENTON: Two out of how many?

VALERIE JOHNSTON: I think there was about 90 um Aboriginal students in that year.

ANDREW DENTON: Over 30 years you've seen an awful lot of people and helped care for an awful lot of people. Are there some that stay with you in particular?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh yes a terrible lot stay with me. One in particular he was absolutely gorgeous. He battled so hard and so long. And um, he had the worst I’ve ever seen.

ANDREW DENTON: What is it about this young boy that particularly stays with you?


"He was so bad he had no immune system left, and he wanted to go to Disneyland...I think it was no more than a month we had 10,000. And he got to Disneyland... Andrew you would not believe it. He never needed a wheelchair. He never missed a ride in Disneyland. Oh he was on cloud nine. He lived for another two years."




KATHY SWIFT: A tonne of guts. He was wonderful. He was so bad he had no immune system left, and he wanted to go to Disneyland. To get him to Disneyland was 10,000. And I canvassed all the clubs. We did cake stalls. I think it was no more than a month we had 10,000. And he got to Disneyland, they had a wheelchair waiting for him. Andrew you would not believe it. He never needed a wheelchair. He never missed a ride in Disneyland. Oh he was on cloud nine. He lived for another two years.

ANDREW DENTON: Could all the boys that went on this drive ride? Were they experienced?

BOYD CURRAN: No, no well just about everyone who turns up for our programme say they can ride…

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…

BOYD CURRAN: Ah the reality is a lot different so we always as part of our induction do a horsemanship course with all the boys and um and the way we relate that sort of stuff is we talk about our horse. For starters you’re not allowed on the horse until you’ve got your shirt tucked in because if you don’t respect yourself you’re not going to respect these horses. So it starts with, with simple messages like that, and how we relate that to real life. I could say to them “Listen, get off your arse and go over there and get me a drink and if you don’t do it, I’ll kick you up the backside and punch you on the nose”. And they’d go get me that drink and they’d hate me for the rest of their lives. They’d be looking to punch me in the nose and kick me up the arse afterwards. But if I say to them “Could you please go get me that drink over there and grab one for yourself”, then hopefully they’ll bring me a drink back and they’ll be happy to do it. This is the way we relate how to, how to actually work with your horse and with cattle, in real life situations on the property, but also how we relate it to working with people.

MALE: Mount Isa the city of opportunity, without a doubt. Anyone can do what they want here if they’re willing to have a go of it. An excellent place to live.

FEMALE: City of friendly down to earth people, definitely

FEMALE: What I love about Mount Isa is that it’s just home.

MALE: I love Mount Isa. I’ve been in Mount Isa 38 years, so you’d have to love it.

FEMALE: The people out here, you make friends they’re your friends for life — they don’t care who you are what you are — they just take you for who you are.

MALE: Out here you just get to meet everybody, every person in the walk of life crosses your path for some reason and they’ve all got great stories to tell.

ANDREW DENTON: One of the other achievements in your life is one of the other achievements in your life, you've got five kids?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Me old man always said to me “You're put here for one reason mate and that's to breed and once you've done your breeding, the rest is all your own time. So when you're young, do your breeding, get it out of the way and enjoy your life”. And now I've got six grandchildren and that. The six grandchildren mean everything to me.

ANDREW DENTON: When you were a young dad, you were bit of an absent dad weren't you?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah but mainly that was work mainly.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.


"...well we come back here on holiday and me wife had to go up town and wanted to leave the kids with me and they didn't want to stay with me. They were crying, they didn't know me. That's when I realised I'm missing out on my children here."




GLYNN JOHNSTON: And then I realised that my children, well we come back here on holiday and me wife had to go up town and wanted to leave the kids with me and they didn't want to stay with me. They were crying, they didn't know me. That's when I realised I'm missing out on my children here. So I went back business I was shares with, give them the business, paid me out that was when my wife pursued her career. So I was like Mr Mum, before the movie ‘Mr Mum’ came out, I was Mr Mum.

ANDREW DENTON: What was it like being Mr Mum?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Fair dinkum I always felt bored in life. What was this all about? I had me kids, Dad said to breed, you know I've got me kids. But I never felt self-worth. I didn't feel full person. I was sort of always looking, looking. Then when I started looking after toddlers, then I realised, all that went out the window. No more ego stuff for me. It was change a shitty nappy, make a bottle, yeah so I forgot all about that stuff.

ANDREW DENTON: During the course of the drive, what effect did you see that it was having on these young men?

BOYD CURRAN: The main thing was pride. Kids that might have spent most of their time ah smoking dope and getting into fights or into trouble at night, all of a sudden, um you know, you, we heard stories where they, they would give their hat or theiryou know they all received … as memorabilia for having participated in the drive, they’d give it to their grandmother and so their grandmother “You look after this, you know? Make sure no one steals it”. We’d got a lot of feedback about boys, you know, where it did actually turn their lives around. They weren’t participating in that type of ah rebellious behaviour that they had been previously.

ANDREW DENTON: Your dad Bronco, he had some pretty good advice for you growing up didn't he about trouble. What was it he said to you? He'd say “Walk away?”

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah “Walk away, don't fight them, and where if you have to defend yourself”, he made that clear, he says “Hit them in the chest, in the body, don't hit them in the head. It's cruel”.

ANDREW DENTON: What have you taught your boys?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah, same thing.

ANDREW DENTON: Did you want them to follow you into the tent?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: No they've forced their way in. They, my first bloke ‘Baby Mauler’, he even went to another trainer.

ANDREW DENTON: Are they still fighting?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Yeah they love it. They think it's normal. They, Micro Mauler, reckons “What's wrong with them? How come they don't want to fight?” He thinks it's just like having breakfast. They all do. He well he's had 132 fights and he's 15. When he started fighting, he was eight years old.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Well he fought seven blokes, in two days.

ANDREW DENTON: As an eight year old? And what's the secret to raising strong boys?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: The secret to raising strong boys is to love them. Understand them, cuddle them every opportunity you get, whenever they want a cuddle, cuddle them. Tell them you love them. Yeah reassure them their strength, Oh look at your muscles. Look how big and strong you are. [Laughs]

ANDREW DENTON: I think a lot of people, certainly who live in the cities, don’t understand why it’s so difficult for young Aboriginal men and women, but we’re talking boys, to actually move forward in their lives. Can you give us some sense of the hurdles they’re facing?

BOYD CURRAN: See I could, I could tell you, I could tell you what all the hurdles are I mean, but I think that it’s, it’s really, again it goes back to being too sensitive, for other people to hear about in this type of environment. I mean the government, the government know what all the hurdles are. The big problem is people come and go from governments or like you Andrew, you’ll come and go, but I’ll still be here next week and I’ll still be here next year. You know we can talk about stuff that’s pretty sensitive, but I want to make sure that I still have that credibility to keep doing what I’m doing in these communities for a long time.

ANDREW DENTON: You were never in it for the glory but, in 1997 you got the Order of Australia. What was that day like?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh that was absolutely mind-boggling. I just couldn't get over it. I just couldn't come down to earth. And in a way I felt a bit guilty because I thought, you know, we're all doing the same job.

ANDREW DENTON: You went down to Brisbane, Government house, what was that like?

KATHY SWIFT: Oh that was magic. We went to Government House for dinner that night. Oh and Andrew, just as well they gave us a waiter each. Each person had a waiter of their own because they had glasses going from one side of the table to the other and I said “Holy moly, which one do I use? Which fork do I use?” I, I, like if you give me six I can settle for it, but they were spread out like a regiment of soldiers and I thought now if I drink wine, which one? If I drink water which one? And this waiter must have anticipated he had a bushy from the back end of the black stump, and he just put his hand towards the glass and tip it up for me and I thought oh you darling and my family were all there, they all flew down to be there. You know they couldn’t come to the ah dinner but they could come to the presentation of the Order of Australia and oh they were over the moon. They were just wrapped.

ANDREW DENTON: You mention you’ve had your critics, some people say a lot of these boys didn’t go into work in the cattle industry which proves that it hasn’t worked. What do you say to them?


"We can’t perform miracles. I don’t think government can and I don’t think we should be expected to either but I know that we’re having a positive impact on a lot of people’s lives. I’ve, seen Aboriginal women with tears in their eyes thanking me for everything that our company does and everything our managers do on the property for their kids."




BOYD CURRAN: Yeah. Yep. I mean we, we’re not miracle performers. We can’t perform miracles. I don’t think government can and I don’t think we should be expected to either but I know that we’re having a positive impact on a lot of people’s lives. I’ve, seen Aboriginal women with tears in their eyes thanking me for everything that our company does and everything our managers do on the property for their kids. I mean to me that’s, that’s how I know that it is very successful.

ANDREW DENTON: So you're 48 now, five kids and six grandkids, 2000 fights undefeated. What's the purpose of life now?

GLYNN JOHNSTON: Oh family comes first, always family. Job is second, Money is third. You've got to have family first. Absolutely. You go to your grave with a warm heart if you have a family and stay with that family.

ANDREW DENTON: What’s the secret to staying young?

KATHY SWIFT: Staying young? Staying active, I don’t drink I don’t smoke. I drink gallons of water. I consider myself a very lucky lady and if I can give back to the people that aren't so lucky I do it and do it gladly because I just feel you know that somebody up there's blessed me, so surely I can do a little bit for somebody down here.

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