Hear This 16th May 2025

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:09):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.

S2 (00:24):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia radio show. Today I'm
revisiting an interview that was conducted way back in 2009.
And it was with Barry Heard, who is an Australian author,
though he is much more than that. And this is
an interview about a fiction book that he had just

(00:47):
released called tag. Tag is the name of a man
who travels across overseas with the Light Horse because he
was a wonderful horse handler, horse whisperer, and Barry tells
his story wonderfully. And in this interview he talks about
this man, the inspiration, and also the history of the

(01:07):
light horse and and what they had to cope with
when they endured battles in the First World War. I
do hope you enjoy this revisiting of author Barry Hurd.
Our special guest today is Barry Hurd, and we're very
proud to have Barry on the show. It's a very

(01:28):
busy year for him working for legacy and giving talks
on World War One. Barry was conscripted in Australia's first
National Service ballot and served in Vietnam as an infantryman
and radio operator. After completing his national service, he returned
home and like many returned soldiers, he suffered post-traumatic stress

(01:48):
syndrome that eventuated in a breakdown 30 years after the
war ended, and writing about his experiences has given hope
to thousands of men and women who have endured the
atrocities of war and the crippling side effects that linger
long in its wake. Barry has written two books in
our collection, Well Done Those men, which is used now
in over 150 high schools throughout Australia in both history

(02:10):
and English, and in 2009 he was appointed Australian Ambassador
for Libraries Victoria. He has been involved with fundraising for
Hope Foundation, the Fred Hollows Foundation, Oak Tree Books for
Bhutan and two orphanages in Vietnam. But Barry's interest in
World War One began back on his home farm in
country Victoria, and in this interview, Barry talks about his

(02:34):
novel tag, which is based on the life of a
man in his neighbourhood of country Victoria. So basically the
next farm along. So for Anzac Day, Barry talks to
us a little bit about the very loving and assiduous
research he did to research this, this childhood friend and
veteran of the Light Horse Brigade. It's a wonderful story

(02:56):
in itself, how he came to write the book. So
I do hope you enjoy it. And we join Barry
as he talks about the man the book was based on.

S3 (03:04):
His side of his face was basically missing. He had
a great big hollow where his eyes should have been.
He was very badly injured in World War One, but
he had a very big flap across his face, sort
of like a glove to hide all his wounds. But
invariably the wind would blow it up in the air,
and he'd have it sticking up in the air like

(03:24):
a peaked cap. And it was so funny after a while.
I don't know why he wore it, but anyhow, yeah,
he wrote me a letter. I was in Vietnam at
the time as a young conscript when he wrote the letter,
and it didn't say anything other than when you come back,
we should meet up. And I understand now, as an
old man, what he was saying, because it would have

(03:45):
been nice to talk to someone quite intimately at the time.
And he was a good friend, but he died not
long after he wrote that letter in 1967. And the
end result was it was put away somewhere, and it
was lucky it was kept, actually. And then I'm not

(04:06):
sure how they found it, but the family found the
letter and next thing I had a knock on my
front door. And grandpappy wanted you to have this letter.
And I read it. And I was quite stunned by
reading it so long after it was written. Beautiful handwriting. And.
And so I decided to follow his trail or his journey.

(04:27):
And I sought local advice from very old people, almost
his age, and had no accurate luck. They all had stories,
but they weren't. I could see they were different. It
meant to me that Jack never spoke. Jack Campbell was
his name. And so I went to the State Library
because I love research. I've always been into research, and

(04:47):
that's my academic background. I found his unit that he
went into initially, which was the Lighthorse. And so then
I went to the war memorial and asked permission, and
I got a lot of access. I was very lucky
to get that. And and I had him in the
lighthorse going to Into Cairo, um, on the wilkshire or

(05:08):
it wasn't actually going to Cairo. It was a ship
that left Williamstown going to London, but it was redirected
to Cairo with all the horses on. And I read
these stories about the way the horses were treated on
the ships, which was appalling. They were locked up in
steel cages. I was quite distressed reading all that, and
on the first part of the trip, before they even
got to King George Sound, which is now called Albany,

(05:31):
they lost 200 horses out of 15,000 on this big
sort of massive ships and through dehydration. Oh no. No.
Scouring and rearing in the stalls and scouring is like
having diarrhoea, but eventually they end up in Cairo. And
then I won't go into too much detail, but the

(05:52):
end result was all the horses and the men. The
light horse were put off. And then about five months later,
Gallipoli started. What a lot of people don't realise is
after the battle at Gallipoli from the 25th of April
had been going for almost a month. They had a
massive problem where they were fighting, which was called No
Man's Land. It was covered in bodies two and three deep.

(06:15):
And so to get up and charge, I had to
run over bodies. And I'm not exaggerating. And so the
end result was the Turks and the allies got together
and stopped the war. And the reason they stopped it
was two. One was to bury all the bodies, and
the second was that they were so depleted in everything food, troops, aid, etc.,

(06:35):
that that's when they came back. The Australians came back
to Cairo and got all the light horsemen and took
them to Gallipoli on the 24th of May, and that's
the first day of armistice. It the war stopped. Wow.
And all those light horsemen buried the Turks and the
Australians and the French and the. They all did it together. Wow.

(06:59):
And to read about it, it just shocked me. I
had no idea. And of the comments and the. there's
any Turkish person listening. The thing that stunned me was
that the Turks loved the Australians, because the Australians just
bloody well got on with it and did it, whereas
the Australians loved the Turks. All they wanted to do
was hug and cry and, and bought them coffee and,

(07:20):
and they were very emotional, very feminine, whereas the Australians
were the opposite. But then the next day they went
back to war and, and in the unit that Jack
went in with, which was roughly 60 men, 63, I
think only seven walked out at the end of Gallipoli.
And then he came back to Cairo and was ordered,
along with the men that survived, and the new lighthorsemen

(07:43):
that had arrived, to take all the horses to France.
Because the mud was so bad, they had to replace
all the vehicles with horses. And so the horses became
the ambulance, the food going out, the wounded coming back,
the weapons going out was all done with horses. Just
there's so much to tell. But just briefly, what happened
after they'd only been there a matter of a couple

(08:06):
of months, was the first time gas was used, and
on the day the gas was used they lost 15,000 horses.
And what a lot of what they didn't realize is
when the gas is heavy and it goes down low
and the men without gas masks were asked to stand up.
But when a horse goes to sleep, where does his
head go? On the ground, almost. He stands up and

(08:26):
lowers his head. Yeah. And so came the massive effort
of attempting to put a gas mask on the horse.
And even when they were able to do that, and
this is where I go into a lot of detail
in what I wrote. Um, the thing that was fascinating
is that it took loving and caring and animal love

(08:47):
to be able to do it, whereas the Army would
normally use force and discipline, and the only people that
could actually enable the horse to have a mask on
were the men who cared for horses and had a
horse background, which was Jack Campbell, this man I knew,
and he got very involved and Often very emotional to
read about the struggles. And then even with a gas

(09:09):
mask on, the most trips a horse could do into
the battlefield was for trips, and either the horse would
get so panicky or get so stressed that he would
die very young or they'd shoot him.

S2 (09:23):
And so none of them, of course, made it back.
They wouldn't have transported.

S3 (09:28):
Oh no, they didn't. But that was another major issue.
And that was, I haven't mentioned in the book, but
that was lack of food for the horse. And what
a lot of people don't realize is in northern France
and Belgium, there was no animals left. Even the cattle
and everything died from gas. It was such a terrible, terrible.
Not everything, but most, you know, at the end result

(09:48):
for these is that Jack, during a massive campaign of
trying to get wounded out, was wounded himself very badly. Ironically,
in the book, I've got it Wrong, I assumed he
was hit with artillery, but because of the wounds he
had in the hospital, they I never did like if
you get injured in a car accident, they don't say
what sort of car it was or anything. They just say,

(10:09):
you've got a broken leg and I got that very wrong.
I found out much later after the book was published,
but yeah. And so I went from there to the
hospital in England, where he was looked after for quite
a while and very seriously injured and lost it all,
as I said, the side of his face and had
a shorter leg. And in the story of the hospital,

(10:32):
I bring in the nurses because they were just worked
to exhaustion. They never had a break. They had no leave,
they had no holiday, they had nothing. I've never been
acknowledged properly, in my humble opinion. And I went to
the opening of the Nurses Memorial 12 years ago in Canberra. Yeah.
And then Jack comes home to Australia, struggles to fit

(10:53):
in with a normal community and and most of the
returned servicemen did. And I came across a paper, a
PhD that a local where I live and where Jack
lived had done a thesis on or a paper on it,
and it was just staggering to read what we believe
happened and what actually happened. A lot of them were arrested.

(11:15):
A lot of them were jailed. They refused to adhere
to the drinking laws in those days. Um, they were
very angry. The only heroes were the dead soldiers. The
ones that came home were a problem and the public
didn't know how to handle them. And reading this document
this young man did for a PhD is just staggering.
I couldn't believe what I was reading. And why didn't

(11:37):
we tell the world this was a reality of coming
home from war? And it was never. It was. Although
there has been an article in the paper in about
1924 and the local paper about, um, they opened a
war memorial in their local town. Not many returned servicemen
turned up. A massive crowd. But the returned servicemen went
there a week later and defaced it. They were so

(11:59):
angry with all the words of honor and bravery and.
And all they saw was suffering and An appalling injuries
and wounds and deaths and sorrow and, you know, big
good words. Yeah, yeah.

S2 (12:13):
There's, um, the Association for the blind in which was
the beginning of Vision Australia, one of the organisations I
used to work there in South Yarra. Um, there's a
portico leading into the building and, uh, after the Second
World War, blinded soldiers, um, First World War. Sorry. The
blinded soldiers, um, would gather there of a morning, um,
you know, smoking their roll ups and things and listen

(12:34):
to the morning paper being read. Someone would come out
and read it. They had the frustration of saying, look,
we're we're blinded, but we're not sick. We're, well, we're
young men. And, uh, sort of a social gathering sort
of started to happen out that way because they wanted
to have fun.

S3 (12:48):
Yeah. That's interesting. And, uh, because that was the gas.
The gas was sort of like capsicum spray today multiplied
by ten, because it would not only blind you, it
would burn out your throat. And if you got it
into your lungs, God help you. And and, um, it
was just. And the poor old horse, It was just terrible.
And a lot of people don't realize not only the horse,

(13:09):
but the dogs, but even the pigeons. For a pigeon
to be released to send a message, they had it
in a gas proof cage. And I'd take it up
in the air with a balloon and release it. And
when they estimated they'd be coming back, they'd have it
back up in the air, the cages and the pigeons
would go in and they'd bring it down. And it
was a massive problem.

S2 (13:28):
So your writing of this book, you've obviously got a
love of animals as well.

S3 (13:31):
Oh, yeah.

S2 (13:32):
Yeah. And that's from your background?

S3 (13:34):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. I grew up with horses and dogs
and always particularly a horse. A lot of people would
not be aware of what a great friend a horse
can be. Because you can't live in Melbourne, have a
horse in the backyard where you can have a dog
and a cat and a bird and. But yeah, I
wrote in that other book, the Connors book. I had
a horse who he was a bit of a rebel.

S2 (13:57):
So that's part one of our interview with Barry Heard.
Next week, we look at the work that he's written
about his own life, the View from Connor's Hill, Wonderful stories,
and also the book about his harrowing journey in Vietnam
and beyond. Well done, those men. Now, if anybody would
like us to see if we can get in audio

(14:19):
or Braille or both. Um, the book tag that Barry
was talking about today, uh, just let us know if
you're a member of the library and you'd like to
see if we can get that book, because it sounds
like a wonderful, uh, history of, um, men and animals
in the First World War. Now, to a reader recommended.

(14:41):
And this is from Karen in a thank you, Karen.
And this is the book, uh, back on Track, how
one man and his dogs are changing the lives of
rural kids. This is by Bernie Shakeshaft and James Knight.
Karen writes, I think I heard about this man in
Australian Story. It's a really fascinating book about his life,

(15:02):
which shows us how to assist unfortunate young people who
have fallen between the cracks in society. It is refreshing
to hear how he completes these outcomes in ways that
are completely different from what we expect. I feel for
those who are misfits, and I applaud Bernie and his
attempts and success with so many. Sadly, it is probably
a drop in the ocean with the numbers of disadvantaged

(15:24):
youngsters and the system that meters out the punishments. Anyway,
read the story and decide for yourselves. Thank you so much, Karen.
So I'm going to play a sample of this book.
So back on track how one man and his dogs
are changing the lives of rural kids. As a kid,
Bernie Shakeshaft's mischievous, mischievous and reckless behaviour led him to

(15:45):
become known as the wild one of his devout Catholic family.
It isn't surprising that his path led him to the
Northern Territory, a place where people often go to either
lose themselves or find themselves. Bernie, a searcher for his
purpose in life, found himself. He had many jobs, firstly
as a ringer on a cattle station owned by the

(16:06):
Packer family, and later as a dingo trapper for the
Parks and Wildlife Service. Throughout it all, he drank, he swore,
he fought and took chances with his own well-being. But crucially,
he also developed deep connections with the indigenous people. And
it was these connections that helped him lay the foundations
for what was to come. He worked for youth welfare organisations,

(16:29):
and all the while he built up his knowledge about
helping wayward youths, particularly those from indigenous communities. Years later,
Bernie was living in Armidale. He'd been visiting too many
kids in prison and going to too many funerals. The
usual methods weren't working, so that reckless, reckless, mischievous kid
inside him decided he could do better. He started a

(16:50):
youth program called backtrack with three aims to keep them alive,
out of jail and chasing their hopes and dreams. For most,
this was their last chance, combining life skills, education, job
preparedness with rural work. Bernie threw in one other a
factor dogs and it works. With the help of these

(17:11):
working dogs, the lost boys and girls find their way
back on track. Let's hear a sample of this book
back on Track how one Man and His Dogs Are
Changing the Lives of Rural Kids by Bernie Shakeshaft. It's
narrated by Graham Brennan. Oh, and just a bit of
a warning. There is the F word in this. Some
small sample of the book.

S4 (17:32):
The nor'wester blows across the hills. It scuffs up dust,
bends yellowing grasses, and sends a shiver through the lustreless
leaves of the eucalypts. A few clouds hurry by. Earlier
in the morning, some had teased the earth, but the
rain that fell wasn't enough to wet a pebble in

(17:52):
the middle of a long winter. It has been a
much longer drought. A dark grey Holden, Colorado dual cab
heads out of town. Its driver wears a black puffer
puffa jacket, a blue woollen jumper, blue shirt, blue thermal
vest and dusty grease stained blue jeans. His eyes are

(18:14):
also blue. So is his language. I'll fucking sort it
out later, he says to someone over his phone's loudspeaker.
His delivery is direct but not brusque. He holds a
steaming cup of coffee that has failed to wash away
the nicotine gravel in his voice, even when sitting. He

(18:34):
appears lanky, skinny legs, long arms, bony fingers. His skin
is scarred and blotchy, and his reddened face is framed
by wrinkles across his forehead and a grey speckled, gingery
beard on his chin. He drives further out of town,
occasionally easing his work boot off the accelerator to look

(18:55):
at a shed, a business, a paddock, a fence. He
knows them all. Finally, he heads over a crest on
the bitumen and finds what he has been looking for.
A small mob of pregnant Angus cows, as black as
the morning, are dawdling along the side of the road.
Behind them, a teenage boy sits on an idling motorbike.

(19:18):
When the boy notices the Colorado pullover, he stops, starts
on the throttle until he reaches the vehicle. The driver
winds down a window. Good to see you. Got the
warning signs out. Well done.

S2 (19:32):
And that was a sample of Back on Track. How
one Man and His Dogs Are Changing the Lives of
Rural Kids by Bernie Shakeshaft. Bernie is being that's being
Shakeshaft is s h e h a f that's s

(19:53):
h a k e h a f t. That book
goes for ten hours and 36 minutes, and it's a
fairly new release in the library. And it comes under
the categories of Animal stories, autobiography, Australian Australian, Australian Stories,
indigenous non-fiction and Inspirational Stories. Sounds like a really nice one.

(20:17):
And thank you Karen for that. Now the next two
books are topical and they're not all that new, but
one is called Jonestown The Power and Myth of Alan Jones.
This is a 2006 biography of radio personality Alan Jones
by Chris Masters. How do we rank a man who

(20:37):
raises millions for people in need, but whose actions waste
millions in support of unworthy mates and poor public policy?
How do we define someone who, on his own, finds
jobs for the out of work, but who routinely trashes
the careers of others? These are some of the many
paradoxes of Alan Jones. Why is he adored? Why is
he reviled? Why does this talk radio host have the

(21:00):
power to dine with presidents, lecture Prime ministers and premiers
and influence government ministers. And how is it that he
could not only survive a scandal such as the cash
for comment affair, but go on to greater reward? Chris
Masters seeks the answers to these questions and in doing
so reveals a complex individual and the potent relationships he

(21:21):
has with both Struggle Street and the big End of Town.
Jonestown explores the hazardous, hazardous intersection of populism and politics.
It reaches deep into a powerful industry and exposes the
myth and the magic of a very powerful man. Let's
hear a sample of Jonestown The Power and Myth of
Alan Jones by Chris Masters. It's narrated by Francis Greenslade.

S5 (21:45):
Alan Jones is an angry man. The rage has exploded
without warning, like terrorist bombs. There are many moments when
he detonates in sudden fury before production staff, hotel receptionists,
chauffeurs and airport clerks seething and manic. It is as
if competing personalities join joined forces egging each other on,

(22:06):
Jones the motivator inspires himself to greater fury. The rage
is are sometimes caught on tape when an interview displeases,
a slow burn erupts into uncontrolled wrath. You are scumbag
guttersnipe stuff. What a joke. Just a moment. You are
in my office, up and down from his chair, pacing, pouting,

(22:30):
glasses on and glasses off, discharging the inner fury. Just
shut up for a moment and listen. I'm half minded
to grab you and ram you against the wall, you
absolute scumbag. When friends are caught in the middle or
on the sidelines, they stare, mute and aghast, wondering how
this anger builds after witnessing withering attacks, some vow to

(22:51):
forever keep their distance. When Alan Jones loses members of
his loyal audience, it can be for a similar reason.
They tire of the harping between 530 and 10 a.m.
as the sun rises over Sydney and the airport, noise
curfew lifts. Alan Shrills whines and roars like the arriving aircraft,

(23:13):
venting his irritation, agitation and anger at all who continue
to so wilfully disappoint. The primary industry minister, John Anderson,
is still suffering from a serious kick in the head.
Some cow must have got onto him. It is clear
Police Commissioner Peter Ryan is no longer capable of doing
his job. Carl Scully's political career is vanishing in front

(23:36):
of him. He has only himself to blame. That Amanda
Vanstone could not run a pig sty. Australia's loudest voice
in commercial radio is rich, famous and at war with
his own life.

S2 (23:48):
So that was Jonestown. The Power and Myth of Alan
Jones by Chris Masters Chris is c h I s
c Chris Masters is m a s t e m
a s t e r. Um, and as I mentioned,
that book was published originally in 2006, and it goes

(24:12):
for 18 hours and 20 minutes, quite a long one there.
There is also another book by Chris Masters in the collection. Oh, actually,
there's a couple. Uh, the first one is an interesting one.
Flawed Hero, truth, lies and War Crimes. Another very, um,
topical and probably controversial book with the Victoria Cross and

(24:32):
Medal for gallantry. Ben Roberts-Smith was the most highly decorated
Australian soldier, the best of the best. When he returned
to civilian life, he became a poster boy for a
nation hungry for warrior heroes. He embodied the myth of
the classic Anzac, seven foot tall and bulletproof. But as
his public reputation continued to grow inside the army, rumours

(24:54):
were circulating. So that's an interesting one. That's called Flawed
Hero by Chris Masters. And there is also no Frontline
Australia's special forces at war in Afghanistan. And I'm looking
at Wikipedia here. Christopher Wayne Masters, um, was born in 1948,
in Grafton, New South Wales. He's a multi Walkley Award

(25:17):
winning and Logie Award winning Australian journalist and author. Yeah,
looking through here. Masters work also played a key role
in bringing down Ben Roberts-Smith. So the history of Jonestown,
the publishing of the, um, the book Jonestown is interesting
in itself. Um. On the 29th of June 2006, ABC
enterprises decided to cancel publication of Masters manuscript, stating that

(25:40):
the publication was being withdrawn because it would almost certainly
result in commercial loss, which would be irresponsible, but this
was widely believed to be a veiled reference to the
fact that Jones lawyers had threatened an expensive defamation lawsuit
if the book reached publication. Many ABC personalities criticised the
board's decision and wrote a petition against it, with signatories

(26:01):
including Richard Glover and Phillip Adams. Allen and Unwin ended
up taking the book on and releasing it in October 2006,
and lengthy excerpts were also published in The Sydney Morning Herald.
With regard to the Ben Roberts-Smith book. Marsters spent more
than seven years investigating and reporting on Victoria Cross winner
Ben Roberts-Smith. Flawed hero was short listed for the 2004

(26:25):
Victorian Premier's Prize for Non-fiction. Thank you for joining us
on here this today. I've done a bit of research
about where Tag is available. It's not available in audio

(26:46):
from anywhere, but it is available from many different libraries,
and it is available as an e-book from From Overdrive.
And a shout out to Gina. Hi, Gina. I know
you're listening and it was lovely catching up with you
to see Kate Grenville In conversation in the Melbourne Writers
Festival and the wonderful Nardi Simpson as well to great interviews,

(27:09):
and we had a good chat. And you've recommended a
book that I'll have on next week. And a lovely
shout out to Tony in Western Australia, who, um, contacted
Vision Australia to say that he really enjoys listening to
the show. Thank you Tony, if you've got any recommendations, uh,
send them through. And that's an invite to everybody. If
you have read a book that you enjoy, if you've

(27:31):
listened to a book that you enjoyed, just let us
know and you can always contact the library on 1300 654 656.
That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library at Vision Australia.
Org that's library at org. Have a lovely week and

(27:51):
we'll be back next week with a fresh lot of books.