Tanya Heaslip

He was a serious character.

So how did you communicate with the outside world living on that station back in those days?

Two-way radio, the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

So that was based in Alice and every morning there'd be what they'd call traffic and through the base they'd have telegrams that would be read out to people on stations and people on stations would call in with their telegrams and then they'd have a medical session.

where the doctors would get on and talk to people out bush.

And then they'd have school of the air.

And so we'd have half an hour each day, each grade, grade one to grade seven.

So they were all sectioned out timeframes.

As soon as medical was over, on came school of the air.

And then medical and traffic would come again later in the day.

And you'd find out what was happening on other stations by listening to people calling with what they needed or what was happening through telegrams.

I was really shocked by how bookish the culture was out in central Australia.

Maybe it's no longer the case because of, I don't know, satellite coverage and the bloody internet's there as well.

But I don't know, in the day, everyone read books, didn't they?

And was that you?

The School of the Air had a little library.

It was just a demountable on the back of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, but it had a little room full of books and people donated books.

Now, they were all books set in the 30s and 40s.

They were almost all Enid Blyton or Heidi or they were all set in Europe.

There were a couple of Colin Tierleys, but mostly they were European books and mum would go into town once a month to get the supplies and