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G'day, you mob! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, as well as get their fair share of Australian culture, history, news and current affairs and all that jazz. So, today I have a brilliant little interview with Adam Courtney, a Sydney based writer and journalist.

Adam used to work as a financial journalist for papers such as The Financial Times, The Sydney Times, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, but since then, in the last decade or so, he's been writing books on Australian history, including The Ship That Never Was. And his most recent release and the subject of today's interview, The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter.

Now, guys, this is an absolutely awesome book. I couldn't put it down. Adam sent me a copy of this a few days ago. I literally finished it within two or three days, which is, you know, a pretty good record for me, as normally it takes me more than a week to finish a book. It's an amazing story about William Buckley.

And he also covers John Batman and loads of other characters who were involved in the establishment of the colony in Victoria and the founding of Melbourne. But primarily, this book is focussed on William Buckley, who spent 32 years as an escaped convict living amongst the indigenous Australians in and around the area of Geelong. And these people were called the Wadawurrung people.

So, it's an absolutely fascinating read, guys. I really recommend that you get your hands on a copy. It's written incredibly well, you will love it. You'll get a fair dose of Australian history at the same time as learning a load about indigenous history and culture as it was at the time of colonisation. Anyway, guys, that was a big intro. Thanks again, Adam, for coming on the podcast. Kick the Magpie and let's get into it.

G'day, guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I have author and journalist Adam Courtney. Welcome, Adam.

Hello. How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. So, mate. You just published a book, The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter, and you were kind enough to send me a copy, which I couldn't put down. It was absolutely wonderful. Can you tell me, I guess, first and foremost, a bit about your history? Where did where did you grow up and what was your sort of childhood like? And did you always want to be a writer?

Look, I grew up in, you got to know Sydney, I suppose, but an area and I still live in the area, but I've been back and forth, area around Watsons Bay, Vaucluse, the eastern suburbs of Sydney. And I grew up there until about the age of 18, 19, and then went to university and sort of... It's a beautiful area. It's it's very, very suburban. And I wanted to see the world at that time 1819-20.

It was beautiful to live there and right by the sea and got some of the most beautiful harbour beaches around that part of part of Sydney, but I wanted to see the world. So, pretty much after having left uni, I went overseas for about 18 years and never wanted to... never really came back. I went to live in England and I've spent a long time in France and Italy. So, I've been around. I speak a few languages, I loved living overseas, but this is by the time I hit about the age of 40, I wanted to come back and I'd always been a journalist. I worked, I was lucky enough to work for some of the bigger newspapers over in the UK, the Financial Times, The Sunday Times, I did a lot of work for, worked for, excuse me, countless magazines.

So, I've been a journalist and a writer for them. It wasn't until about, I don't know, about the age of 43, 44, 45, I just felt that I'd had enough of doing journalism. It's fine, I was a financial journalist, which I quite enjoyed, but I wanted to do something else and I just, something in me clicked, my father's well-known writer, but he didn't sort of clicked in myself, It wasn't related to people say, "Oh, did you follow your father Bryce?" And I'd say, "not particularly."

I mean, he didn't actually, funnily enough, he didn't start writing until he was about 55.

Really?

Yeah. No, I didn't start writing his Power of One until he was 50 something, 55, 54. Took him a couple of years to write it and I think he was 57 or 8 when it actually came out. So, his first book, he was quite, quite long in the tooth, using the expression. He was fairly long in the tooth, even longer than I am now.

So, at 45 I wrote, I became very interested in, because I'd always been interested in travel, I wrote a book about the Amazon and I went there a couple of times. I've done a lot of journeys in my life. I've walked over the Alps, I've been to the Kokoda Track, I've done Everest base camp, I've been to Annapurna, I walked up Kilimanjaro.

I love journeys and I always wanted to write about Journeys. An Amazon had thousands of these sort of little journeys to write about. About the amazing conquistador feats into the jungle, and I thought that's... If I love these particular, particular subject and great journeys, this is what I really should write about. And so that's where I kind of got started around, about 10, 11 eleven years ago, I said, ok, this is something I want to write about. Hope that gives you a short summary.

No, definitely. I saw that book about the Amazon and you won't know this, but my wife's Brazilian and so...

There you go.

Yeah, I've recently been getting into a lot of the Brazilian books. I've got a pile on my corner about the history there. You know.

You speak Portuguese?

Yeah. We only speak Portuguese in the house.

That's brilliant.

So, we're trying to raise my son speaking it.

Be bilingual. Oh, good. That's great. I'm glad to hear it, because half my friends who are of some ethnic background, and they don't speak the languages. And I always loved languages and I speak French, Italian and some German. I actually live with Brazilians and they told me I could speak a little bit of Portuguese, but, you know. All I seem to remember is swear words, I can swear really, really well in Portuguese, but that's not going to help me in Rio de Janeiro. But I went to Manaus when I was there. And I could understand a lot because I lived with Brazilians, but I couldn't, I wasn't great at speaking, to be honest, but I got around. I kind of got around. It's very similar similarities with Italian. And so, yeah, Brazil is close to my heart in some ways.

So, that was the first sort of step in getting sucked in to history and writing sort of history books, was it? The Amazon stuff.

See, I thought to myself, I'm tired of reading, I looked at what is there in Australian history and it was also because I'd lived in England, I looked at the English history and it's always the same stuff. World War II this, Churchill that, Henry the VIII this. But in Australia, it's the same thing. You know, Burke and Wills, Eureka Stockade, I won't mention a certain writer who seems to be pretty good at promulgating all the excellent cliches. I think I have his most recent book, right? By Cook, or about Cooke.

Yeah. Look, you know, he tends to go for the obvious, but we won't use this this time to talk about that. The point I'm trying to make is I wanted to find something different if someone hadn't read about, neither in Britain more much in America or obviously in Australia, I was just fascinated by the Amazon because it is made up of, when it comes to journeys and adventures and great expeditions, incredible expeditions that nobody's ever heard of.

And they're all mostly done, not all, but many of them are done by Europeans. Many of the same kinds of people who went into Africa. If you wanted to look at great journeys, you go doing that and you hear only about great journeys into Africa, there is very little on South America. So, South America to me is a continent that is that we as, quote unquote, Europeans or whatever you want to call us, Europeans, westerners, probably the better way (to say that) had not have neglected, but at the same time. Peter, is that you can't sell a book because no one's done it.

It is, yes, it's very, very hard to sell this book. So, I had something like 80 rejections and I finally got published in 2015, if I remember correctly, I didn't get paid anything. Didn't want it. I just wanted to get published. So, it was in a book and in e-book form. And it hasn't done particularly well because, still, no one's interested in South America, it really is the unknown story in terms of journeys and expeditions.

So, I was pulling my hair out trying to find stories because I got sucked in by Tim Flannery The Explorers where he used snippets of, you know, 30 or so different explorers diaries and put that into a book. And I was like, far out, like, I got so sucked in and I'm like, my wife's Brazilian, I would love to know, there must be shitloads of people who went exploring in Brazil, in South America in those countries.

Get a copy of Amazon, man, it's all there, a fair bit of it.

Exactly. It seemed very hard to find, you know, the journals of these people published in English, it seemed like there was effectively nothing.

Well, look, you know, it's obvious, you know? We only look at, this is what sort of has frustrated me in many ways, we only look at the history that concerns ourselves. And, you know, I'm sure that the Brazilians and Argentines they have their own histories and they publish their own history. But I always wanted us to know more about, I mean, the Amazon is the most incredible place on Earth. How on earth did people get in there? What happened? What happened to these people? What strange things, I just found it fascinating. But the rest of the world still doesn't seem to come with me. So, that's like, you know, you try to write a book and that's just the way things go.

Is that tied into our education when we begin our sort of, you know, formative years at school and that history is quite often...

Absolutely.

Taught old school, right? Like Rome.

The English, learn about the English. And then again, of course, is that there is a Western canon, I think they call it, where we learn about, you know, parts of the French history, German, perhaps, but mostly Roman, etc., medieval. It's all been done in a particular way that I don't think gives us a really good sense of history around the world. The world was one, has always been, dependent on each other.

We said, oh, it's a global world. It's been global for 500 years, as far as I'm concerned, and everything about what I wrote, and even in the conquistadors, back in the fourteen hundreds, it's a global world, and everything that impinged on Brazil at that time came from it from another source.

So yes, we tend to stick to our own histories. That's why Australian history is always going to be a lot better here for obvious... I mean it's obvious, we want to know about our own history. But I'm, I guess, I'm surprised at how little we want to know about everybody else. That's what I'm really saying.

It is weird too when you have the Internet and, you know, access to this information like never before, you would imagine, it's almost like people are overwhelmed with information and you get that paralysis by analysis. You don't know where to start. So, you just kind of give up, right? It seems like people are just bombarded with this stuff. What was the history like at school for you?

You are going to laugh at this because I actually left in year 10.

Oh, no kidding?

I always loved it. I just didn't, I think I just became bored by the way it was... By the way I was taught. I'm sure you're a generation younger than me, but I think it still holds true that in year 9, we do Australian history. And it'S bored the living hell out of me, to be honest. And I think that's the stuff we deal with a lot of European history I found fascinating.

But Australian history isn't well taught and I don't think it's well documented. And it needs some, it needs to be drilled down too, in a way that I think it's only just happening now. And I think Australian history is beginning to become a real thing. People say, well, you've got to learn more about graziers.

Graziers started coming here in 1820s, or whatever it was. I mean, history of Victoria, which is what this book is about, which you've just read, isn't the very beginnings. I don't... This is an interesting question for you, I don't know how much Victorians, because New South Welshmen, like me, would know nothing about founding of Victoria. And I didn't know anything before I wrote this. Is it well known in Victoria what I wrote about? That's the question now. Isn't that everything about historical knowledge.

Yeah, it was sad. I remember we learnt a lot about, I think Cook maybe a little bit about the First Fleet when I was in year nine, but again, Cook, I really, I really like him as a as a character and what he did in our history, but he sort of just arrived here. It wasn't really that much in terms of the development of Australian history and our nation. You know, he touched on here for a few months and then buggered off and never came back, you know. So I don't know why that's so emphasised, you know?

I guess he was the first to put the flag down, said this is... he didn't say 'it's Australia', but it's New Holland. He did them, I mean, he's the one who said it'll be here. And I think that was it. I mean, he's an interesting... Just out of interest. I don't think... Very... Virtually nobody in New South Wales knows who John Batman is.

Melbourne was going to be called Batmania, right?

Yeah. Well, I think even John Batman, he probably would have realised it was going a bit too far. Never really, Batmania never stuck. But I'm sure that the local Victorians know Faulkner and Batman. I mean, they probably know that, I'm guessing.

Well, it's messed up.

We have no clue. We don't know anything.

Even through your book. I'm like, holy crap! These are all the street names in Melbourne. Like, I know these names, but I don't know the characters. There is this Burke, you know, there's Collins, there's Swanston. There's all of these different names and you're like, holy crap, I finally get it, but how do I not? I'm thirty two, thirty three and I've lived in Melbourne for 10 years...

And that's exactly the classic example of how our history has failed us. Why don't we look at Melbourne or Sydney, Sydney, just as, you know, here is another example. Everywhere in Sydney, and I'm not so sure, I doubt it, it's probably down your way. Everywhere in Sydney is Macquarie Place, Macquarie, this Macquarie that, now reading the biography of Macquarie, and now I know who he is. But I knew he was a governor. That's about it.

I know, exactly, why isn't history taught so that we know? Why the street was there? And then you can put history into a context, "oh, yes, I work on Swanston Street" or whatever. Now I know why they named it, why that ended after that. That gives History an immediacy and an understanding.

Do you think that's a big problem, though, with why we had so many people demonising our history at the moment and these characters in the past and wanting to tear down statues? Is it that we've forgotten the stories because they haven't been taught ?

I find this one a very tough one because I don't want to see... This history of Melbourne, and I'm only, I just learnt it all myself writing this book. I don't, It's a history, whether we like it or not. And I don't like this. I mean, if you look at, I think I said in the book, if you look at the Batman Memorial, I think it's somewhere in the middle of Melbourne, It's got three different little, I think, I'm pretty sure it's three. So, the first one, the second one crosses out the first and the third crosses out the second.

These are plaques, plaques at Queen's Vic Market, I think, that have been put up and then corrected, and corrected, and....

Then corrected. Which one is it? At Queen's market, is it?

I think it's Queen's Market. Yeah, the Victoria Market in North Melbourne.

So, I don't know. It's funny. I've written about, but I don't know Melbourne as well, I should, but I really don't. I've learned a bit about that, but I really should go and make sure I know more, you know, Queen's Market. Exactly. That's a classic example. You know, people defacing Cook.

I think, I believe that every culture has a role. If they want to put a statue of Cook, then let's put it one of over an Aboriginal guy up there as well. Next to him, these two are equivalent. This is the person that was in charge, he could have been Bennelong here in Sydney. Let's put Bennelong up there with Cook. And if you want to change it, they put Bennelong, the man that was there with Cook, who's his nation Cook took. I don't mind that. Don't destroy one for the other, because you can't, you can't change history as terrible as it is.

It's almost like burying family secrets too, right? It's kind of like, well, that doesn't really help. You can't learn from history if you hide all of the stuff you didn't like.

I mean Batman the... I believe, the electorate down your way has been taken away and it's been replaced by another name. I don't have a big problem with that. It's the memorials when they keep changing things, because society changes its views on things, then these things somehow become, it should be kept, I mean, they have kept let's be honest, they replace the plaque, they kept the original there, they haven't defaced. So, we can see how society, in a way, it's very interesting to see how societies changed its views over the period. Yeah, look, it's a very difficult one because having read this, having written this book, you know, I was just in awe of the Aboriginal people, what they had to go through.

It's very, very sad writing it in many ways. I think what happened in Victoria is every bit as bad as what happened in Tasmania, which gets a bigger press.

Yeah.

Let's get onto it then.

You haven't even talked about the book.

That's it, I'm sorry, I'm getting onto it. You've just written The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter. So, how did you find out about the story then? If you grew up in Sydney and you'd never heard of Batman or Buckley or at least didn't know most about them, what's the story?

Following on from the theme that I kind of said to you before is that I don't want to do Cook, I don't want to do all the big ones that have gotten in, so I'm looking for stories that often have a big local understanding, like Geelong knows about Buckley, for instance, Geelong and parts of Melbourne. They all know about Buckley, but the rest of Australia doesn't.

And now this is an incredible story about a man who embedded, for want of a better word, himself into the Aboriginal ways, it had not, the story first it was suggested to me and he said 'you know this expression you've got Buckleys, mate'.I didn't know anything. And so who's Buckleys? And I got a Victorian view is it came from Buckleys and Nunn, the department store. And others said, no, it's from William Buckley.

And I actually went and asked, I was thinking of doing Buckleys at one point, a I asked the audience in Mornington Peninsula, well is it Buckleys and Nunn or William Buckley, 50 percent said it was William Buckley, the other 50 percent, so nobody quite knows. But I'm looking... The answer to the question is, I'm looking for stories. The one I did before this, The Ship that Never Was, very Tasmanian's story.

And I think it had a great deal to say about the convict system, even though it wasn't related to Sydney and its convicts. It had a great deal to say about how convicts were treated.

I have to find something that has a social and historical element to it. Buckley is, if you look at it straight, it's just a story about a guy who lived with the Aborigines. But it's as you could see, it's much, much, much more than that. It's about how white men and black men can work together into to some extent and be together, but how that can be destroyed?

And it's about our relationships with the Aborigines at the very earliest stage. And I needed something, I can't write just about a pure journey or a pure adventure, it has to have a social and historical element to it. Buckley fitted that bill in every single way because it was about white-Aboriginal relations as much as it was about the life and times of William Buckley.

So, it fitted that bill. Now, what I want is another story, that's a local story. It could be a Queensland one, maybe even it's, I might even find one in Sydney that hasn't been told that has that greater sense about it, of it being important to our history, at the same time, it's a cracking good read and it's a cracking good story. Buckley fit that bill. So, did Jimmy Porter in The Ship That Never Was. The one I did before that, and they're not well-known to the rest of Australia. And that's really important. It's got to be smaller things, but have an import for the rest of Australia, and I think both of those fit that bill.

And there's so many questions that I want to ask, but before we get into it, can you tell me, so you've got three sort of protagonists in this book. You've got John Batman, who was a currency lad, which I'll let you explain. You've got John Faulkner, who was a convict that came out to Australia, and you've got Buckley, who was also a convict that came out, but then ended up living with indigenous people for thirty two years. Can you give us a sort of nutshell review of each of these characters?

John Batman is the, I was was trying to think, I think he's the only indigenous Australian. So, he was born in Parramatta, which I think makes him a currency lad.Is that the reason? I'm not sure.

So, he was the first generation.

He was the first generation. Very much born in nineteen hundred, if I remember correct. And he's a true Australian in that sense. And I think the interesting thing about him is that he had a lot of great ambition and he came to Tasmania at very moment, pretty much the very same moment that many other pastoralists were coming out from the UK. But he's a guy who was 20, 21 or something around that time when he came out and knew Australia had like the back of his hand.

The rest of the pastoralists, you know, he had a backwards knowledge. And he'd lived and talked and probably spoke some of the Sydney Parramatta languages, the language that people who lived in Parramatta. He had Aboriginal friends growing up as a kid. He came to Tasmania and it wasn't foreign, whereas for all the other pastoralists, it was. That made him very different from the start.

It meant that he was not ill at ease in his surroundings and was able to feel more at home and could converse with the local people. So, that's John Batman. William Buckley was an illiterate bricklayer, he lived in a little tiny village called Marton, in Cheshire, left home at an early age and went to live with his grandfather, I think it was, and was apprenticed to become a bricklayer at 14 or 15.

He was a giant of a man already at 15, he was over 6 foot. I mean, he was unbelievably huge for his time. He'd be a big, he'd be a huge guy now, in those days, he was gargantuan. I mean, in the sense that if you are five foot seven or eight in those days, you were considered a tall guy.

Well, that's the joke about Napoleon, right? That he was five, seven or something. And everyone's like, oh, he was tiny. Like, no, everyone was that height at that time.

Everybody was that height. Yeah, exactly. I thought he was exactly about 5'4. So, but I'm not sure how tall Napoleon... But anyway, Buckley was enormous and built and big. Not just... He was he was extremely well built and became the pivot man. He went from being a bricklayer, he said, I've had enough of this drudgery, I'll join the militia groups, and they were going out to Holland in fighting against the French in the late 1890s.

He got wounded, but apparently acquitted himself very well. And it said that he came back to England, sort of got in fell in with the wrong crowd, was accused of stealing some Irish cloth, which is, the Irish cloth at that time, was extremely valuable and sent down the colonies. So, the guy never really had a...just to be himself, he was working as an apprentice. He's working, he was in the army and then he was a convict. So, it was always somebody else's placing, if you like.

And this was by the age of twenty one, right? Really young.

When he finally got down to Victoria, when they first settled in 1803, it was a failed settlement, he said I think the guy said. Here is the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It looked like England unalloyed. It was perfect. I'm going to take my chances. I'm going to go out there and take my chances, and so he did. He fled with five other guys, the rest either didn't make it or went back. He stayed on. And there he wasn't the Victorian bush. The only white men with the odds, whalers and sailors that might come ashore and kill seals and destroy the whales. He was on his own.

This was amazing. Sorry to interrupt you, but to give you quickly the 1803, I think it was he landed in Sorento or near there, and they set up their base. He escaped. And you just kept mentioning in the book these names of towns and places that I've been to my whole life, you know? You were talking about him going all the way around Port Phillip Bay, to Indented Head, to Point Londsale, Ocean Grove, Barwon Heads, Torquay, and I'm just like, again, how did more people not know this? But yeah, it's an incredible tale of him running away from...

It's funny. I think it must be, I wanted too, myself, not being a local Melbourne guy and only knowing most of these places by name. And I did go around the Bellarine Peninsula and Corio Bay. And I mean, I've seen the basics, to Geelong, and I went to Buckley's Falls. I've missed quite a bit. So, I haven't seen everything. And I've only been through parts of the ,Mornington Peninsula and I checked out Sorento, but only very vaguely. I didn't really have much time when I was doing it. But I wonder, I was wondering too if Victorians reading this would say, "Oh, I didn't realise it was like..." I was hoping that when they read it, "oh my God, I didn't know it was like that in those days!", because that's... I'm just going on the descriptions of the place.

100%. I didn't know he was so spread around in Victoria. I thought the point Lonsdale, you know, Buckley's Cave, that's where he landed. That's where, you know, it's near here that he came in contact with Batman. That's it. But your book shows that you know how far afield he went throughout the entire state.

Yeah, he lived around Port Phillip Bay in and inland too, he probably went as far and easily as far as in Ballarat because of Wadawurrung people went that far inland and to other places. You know, further down south. Yeah. I mean, he really, he was the Port Phillip Bay man, really, the first guy to really go round the whole thing and see it. I mean, he's almost, you could almost say, he was a kind of expeditioner himself.

And so what about John Fawkner? How does he fit into this?

I put him in as a lesser character. Others have put him as a higher character. I didn't. Maybe it's because I didn't like him, I really didn't. I admire him in some ways. I admire Faulkner. I think he wanted to take credit for something that he didn't really shouldn't really take credit for. Yes, he was one of the pioneers, of course, he was one of the pioneers of Victoria. But Batman was the guy who went out there, did the treaty. That's another whole other story. Faulkner just said, oh, ok, I've seen you've done that. They're expecting somebody to come ongoing.

Faulkner gave nothing away. He didn't help, he didn't give anything to anybody. He said, I'm just going to use this place. Is the archetypal settler, in my opinion. He did have some very good relationships with some of the local people. So, it's not entirely true, but you always get impressed with him. He's doing it for his own gain. Batman, interestingly enough. Well, we'll get to that perhaps later. But Faulkner, I don't like the way he talked about Buckley. He was hypocritical about it. First, he'd tell people that Buckley was some sinister mastermind. He was going to raise all the the local people to come up against the settlers. And there are other breath he'd say that that Buckley was a lump of lard and he didn't have a brain and he was just savage, half savage or whatever.

So, the question is, John Faulkner, what was he? A criminal mastermind or was he... He'd say anything he liked. And Fawkner was a very persuasive man, yet a lot of sway, what he said, people believe, he was just one of these highly opinionated people who spread bad news if it suits him.

And that's why I tried to give as little to him as possible because I don't think he gave very much to the colony at all in those early days.

He was an opportunist, right?

He was opportunist. I admire him. He went out there, he did it hard like many of the guys... But at the same time, what's his lasting legacy? You know, I don't see much there for Fawkner. So, yeah, that's my feelings about. Well, let's face. I love Buckley and I don't like the way Buckley.

Well, let's focus back on Buckley's story. So, Buckley ran away from this settlement that then later failed, and they ditched it, right? So, Collins had tried to set up a settlement, a military outpost, right? To keep the French away.

Yeah. I don't know if you could call it a military outpost, but yes, he kept it situated at a point which would have given military advantage, because if the French came to that part of the world, he would have seen them and been able to attack. So, he, I believe, that's just my conjecture, that he selected Sorento because it was close to the ingress and outgress of the bay. It had... It was advantageous. There weren't too many rips and currents and swells and all that sort of thing.

He was protected. It probably was a good place in terms of it being hard with the ships. It wasn't a very good place in terms of being for colonisation. There were much better places. And of course, Batman later, 30 years later, selected a far better place because of course Melbourne. It was much better place than anything, Collins had ever found. And Collins knew about Melbourne, by the way, it'd been seen.

And he never really ventured up there and checked it out. And there were places on the Bellarine Peninsula, Geelong, Corio, were much better than he could have gone and that would have a better places to settle. Collins just decided, yeah, well I don't really like it here, I don't have a reason, and said, ohm we're going and that was it.

I love his Buckley's escape too, ride? I think you were saying that it was either New Year's or Christmas, he waited for all of this. Can you tell us that story then?

Look, the story was, I think, it goes that everybody was a bit down at heart. So, they doubled the rations of grog for... and the people were partying on, and probably the soldiers were having a bit more grog than they would normally have. So, Buckley and his unruly motley crew, so to speak, decided, oh, this a beautiful time because they'll all be drunk.

Of course there weren't and he was shot at, and one guy was hit, I believe. One guy was hit while they left, but the five of them, one guy was hit, another guy stayed with that guy, and it was for them. One dropped out and three made it along all the way to Mud Island. And then, yeah. So, Buckley had two guys with him for most of it. Then they went back. So, that was the story.

So, why did Buckley decide, you know what? I'm not going back, screw this, you're on your own? Because I can imagine that's like us entering space alone, right? At that time where the understanding of the locals was that they were savage cannibals, what do you think was going through his head at the time and made him decide, you know, screw it, I'll take my chances?

First, he was extremely big. He was strong. And that doesn't make you more capable or able of survival, but he he probably believed it. You know, this is a guy that had, pretty much had to fend for himself since to the age of 15. He'd been in the army, he'd been highly respected. He knew he was able to make decisions for himself. And he, as I sort of said, he had a life of drudgery in the army, he had a life of drudgery as a convict and as a bricklayer. He just didn't want to go back to that life.

He'd had enough. And he said, I think he said, 'it's liberty or it's death. And if I don't make it, then at least I had my chance of liberty'. It is the first time he'd ever been free in his life. Really. Other than when he was probably a kid. But then he was under his mother or mother's orders. I think he, there was a part of him, was relishing his freedom, and another part of it was damn scared because he didn't know, but he had the guts to go through it, and he thought I could forage, I fire myself a fire stick. He was very lucky in the sense that he's in one of the most fertile parts of Australia at that time.

There were berries to eat. There were seashells to be found. There was abalone. He reckons he could find the gum from his tree that was edible, And he found out later that it was. He probably made a few mistakes, but he scavenged in existence. He ate pigface, which he said was like watermelon.

I tried that the other day, that exact species he would have grown, grows in my mum's front yard.

I think I've got a bit. I haven't tried eating it yet, but I will.

It's salty.

Well, yeah, but good water. So, that's a good water supply, I think. And I think it grew in proliferation in one part in Nooraki where he stayed. I don't know if he was able to fish, he couldn't get eels, but he could get oysters and things like that. So, he somehow scrambled to get an existence and he made it. It wasn't, but once he was on the move and things started to come, it became wintry. All the food sources start to dry up and he didn't know how to look after itself. And that's when things got very critical for him.

And, so what exactly happened? Because it's a really interesting story of how he encountered indigenous people and how they accepted him, right?

Well, there were two encounters, one brief, I can tell you that one, or the the one where he actually met the people he would live with, which would you prefer me to (?).

Go with the people, the second one.

Yeah, firstly, he did meet some, but decided not to stay with them, even though they asked him to. Basically, he was wondering back, I think he had decided, he says in the book that in the Morgan book that he decided he wanted to go back, he couldn't, stand the winter anymore. There was no food and he wanted to go back to the camp. So, on his way back to the camp. He's getting very sick. No, he had absolutely no power left in his limbs, he got all the way to Thompsons Creek, which is in Breamlea, I think. And he forwarded the stream there. And at that point, just before that happened, he'd found the grave of a warrior.

In that grave, there was a mount in the earth and he found a very large spear and he took the spear thinking, well, it might help with the walkway, maybe, who knows, he might be able to hunt with it. So he basically desecrating the grave. He said, look, I had to, you know, I just think I had to use this. I was starving. Forwarded, he forded the creek, but after that, pretty much his reserves of strength had gone and he fell down and went unconscious. Now I think he was being tracked by the local people.

They knew he was there and they were just curious, who was this person? And then when he woke up, there was three Aboriginal. I think three Aboriginal women around him screaming and wailing and saying, this is him. They saw this fear and believed he was a returned kin, i.e. someone who had died and been resurrected. And they called him Muringurk, which is a to be the name of the person whose grave he took the spear from. And they thought he'd come back to them.

Now, you've got to go into some of the Aboriginal beliefs at this time, which is many of them believed that when you died, you went over the seas. Your spirit went over the seas to Tasmania. And some of you came back. Now, they don't believe that anyone who's, they don't believe in this is anything other than their own knowledge. So, if you've come back, that means you must have been king in the first place. You've returned to a place where where you were when you were living.

So, they saw the spear, the man might have been, who knows? Muringurk may have been a tall guy. They might have thought this is him back. Coming back as a white ghost, so to speak, he's back, he's resurrected, you are Muringurk. And they believed wholeheartedly for the rest of this 32 years over there that he was Muringurk come back, and they treated him with unbelievable honour. It's almost like, imagine seeing one of your own dead relations coming back. This is the greatest thing that could ever happen to you to see your mum or dad come back or your cousin or your husband or wife or whatever.

And and he lived as a returned king. And they treated him like that with kid gloves, so to speak. And they loved him. And that was it. Buckley was in. He was really in.

What do you think it was like for him experiencing that kind of acceptance and love from people that I would imagine he'd never experienced before?

He, I think that he'd never had such love and affection from anybody, including his family. I think the first few days he was just in total, he just had no idea what was going on. He always thought every time a fire, every time they lit a fire, they would throw him on the fire and cannibalise him. And so he was in this state of not quite sure what was going on. Until he had... they did a corroboree for him. And it was then very clear to him that he was a guest of honour, even though, of course, of treating really well, give me food. They were looking after him. He said something like, oh, I only went off for a toilet break somewhere and they couldn't find him. And they started getting really upset because they wanted him around all the time. They wanted to treat him as this great sort of return person. And then they had a magnificent corroboree for him, which I tried my best to describe in the book.

And a corroboree is like a celebration of party, right? With dancing and...

He realised with dancing and people beating the drums was what he called an orchestra player. There were men dancing right in front of him. There were women dancing around him in the nude. He said, you know, he couldn't quite believe what was going on. They wore all their ornamental gear. Some of them quite frightening, you know, they were in the dark with with the fire behind them. They all had the white, white lines down their body. It would have looked pretty scary. But he began to realise that this was, he was pretty sure it was in his honour, this is saying welcome back and this is our way of celebrating it. And he said, that was the first night I slept beautifully because then he realised he was in no danger and never, never mentioned that he was in any danger, he felt to be in any danger with his new family, so to speak.

And he ended up occupying a very interesting role in indigenous relations, didn't he? As a result of being this returned person from the dead.

Well, of course, when when the, let's remember that when he came out in from the cold, so to speak, 32 years later, he was absolutely conversant with all the Kulin languages, because if he spoke Wadawurrung, he was intelligible to people at the Boonwurrung and to the Woiwurrung. In fact, just about all the Port Phillip Bay tribes understood that, they understood each other and probably had basically different dialects of the same language. And, so he could be understood throughout the Port Phillip Bay area and beyond as well.

And he'd forgotten English by this point too, right?

He totally forgotten. English, totally forgot English. So, he walked in his camp set up by Batman. Batman wasn't there. It's important to know the Batman had gone back to Tasmania, but left eight people, five of his Aboriginal men and three white guys, and Buckley comes in, this huge man sort of walking out of the primeval slime of primeval bush, whatever you want to call it. And it was an astonishing figure, all dressed in possum skins, knew how to use his spears, had the stance of an Aboriginal guy, couldn't speak the English, just sat there, looked askance and said nothing.

What do you think the westerners thought? You know, because they would have had no idea, right?

Well, if you see my, what I did was I purposely made it from the point of view of one of the Aboriginal guys, because the westerns wouldn't have had, they wouldn't have had a clue that the Aboriginal guy would have realised that this guy had been embedded for many, many, many years. Not only was he embedded, he was an important man. He could tell that Buckley was not just a guy who went to live in... he's actually an important man.

And he understood that this was an important man come to see what they were all about. And that's it, that's important to know that, I think. So, yes. In answer your question, he began to understand English again, came back to him over the next few weeks, so he could converse with them. And of course, the Wadawurrung didn't know why these people were on their land. But if they were to be on their land, they had to give some kind of, there was a gift giving.

They had to give some reciprocity. And, so Buckley was there. They were probably annihilated, these eight people if it wasn't for Buckley, it's almost certain. They would have said these guys aren't giving us enough, they haven't done all the right protocols, they haven't asked to be on our land, why should we even entertain them being on our land? ...Smoothed the way between the two.

Sorry, it broke up there for a sec. Sorry. What did you say about Buckley?

I was just saying that they realised he was there, Buckley was there to smooth the way between the two different races. And he would become then the famous go-between for both. So, when information needed to be exchanged, it was Buckley that was always the man they used to do so.

It was amazing with the indigenous people, the Kulin people and Wadawurrung that he was with. He was never expected to fight, right? And he became a bit of a peacemaker between quarrels and quite often made it his goal to try and stop bloodshed between indigenous people too before they even...

I think that he saw this, they realised he would be in a fight or they wouldn't let him be in a fight, because, is my understanding that they thought he'd already had enough, already experienced having had to die. So, we don't want him to die again.

And come back even whiter.

Yeah. They might be transparent by that, but so they treated him with kid gloves. But at the same time, he says in his journal, this is one thing I find a little difficult. At the same time, in the Morgan Journal, because Buckley couldn't write, he was illiterate. So, he got John Morgan to write this story for him. In the journal, he seems to be saying that there were fights every five minutes and there weren't. I just don't believe, it's one of the things I think that was just used. I think there were, obviously, going to be problems between clans and between different tribes, and there were women seem to be a big reason for it.

So, I think he did do a lot of smoothing over trying to be the great conciliator. And I think that was his role and he became respected for it. We can work things out. He helped to work things out, which is surprising in a way because he didn't, it would have taken many years to understand the culture that he was dealing with. And I think to be a conciliator, you really have to be on top of the culture.

You really have to know what is, who's right, who's in the right here and for what reason. Because the Aborigines kinship was an important thing, but it also there was, there was a very strong feeling of everybody knowing their place. Everybody knew who each person was and where they should be, what they should be doing. Everybody had an identifiable role and Buckley would have had to understand that. Everybody's role, to know, to be able to negotiate between various warring factions.

Who has the right here and who has a right there. And unfortunately, we don't get many...he says he was a conciliator, but we don't get too many episodes that I can remember in the Morgan of him telling us how he smooth things over. So, it's not many, there's not much, there isn't a great deal of evidence that he was a great conciliator. He says he was and one gets the impression that he probably was, but I can't, there was no evidence of it.

I found throughout the book, too, that you obviously referred to him as a bit of a ghost, but he kind of has that he ends up in a kind of ghostly position in the indigenous tribes later on, right? Because of some quite tragic events that happened to his family. Can you talk about that?

Yes. If I remember correctly, this episode, you have to understand a bit of the culture here. What happened was there was a man, I think, had come into their tribe, bitten by a snake and within a few hours had died. Now, as I understand, the Aborigines didn't believe in the same kind of cause and effect, i.e. that a snake bit the man and killed him is. This is what Buckley sort of says. There's another example that I found in the literature where a man was bitten by a snake and he said it wasn't the snake. It was a man from another tribe who directed the snake towards me.

There's even another example of a man spearing another man, and the man says the spear was not directed by the man who threw the spear. It was from another tribe. Now, they believed a little bit like we did, that foreigners, I mean, serious foreigners, people from a very far off tribe were all cannibals. They're all bad people and they would always put the blame on what they called 'bad magic' from a distant tribe.

Didn't come from one that you knew, a local tribe didn't do it, the local tribes that you knew would not do a bad thing to you. It was always one from... See what would happen is a man could, in this situation, a man lost his life through a snake. This man's tribe believes that because Buckley's adopted nephew was with the man the night before, that it was actually his fault. So, they came and re-enacted vengeance on him, I think Buckley's brother in law, if I remember correctly, and the son, one of the sons, because they believed that they had put the bad magic on him, not that the snake had done anything.

The snake was just the end result. And that's one of the beliefs that Buckley had very, a lot of problem understanding. He would have just said 'snake got him. That's just the way it is'. They never saw it quite that way. There was always a reason.

They blame sorcery, right? Or other people.

Other people or sorcery, anyone further away was a sorcerer. So, the unknown was also a bad thing.

Because the thing about that situation that blows my mind too is that the, I think you mentioned it's on the Barwon River, there is this tribe of 60 men paint themselves, Buckley knows, holy crap, shit's going down. They come over and massacre the family in front of Buckley and then the people who just finished killing his family are like, "Did you want to come with us? We'll take care of you." You know, they show this kind of real interest in him. How do you think he dealt with seeing that happen?

He didn't deal with it. He couldn't do it, because to them, it was like it's almost like, think of it, I tried to think of it this way, it's like someone killing someone and saying 'it's not personal, it's business'. I believe they believed that they had to get rid of this evil sorcery. Buckley wasn't involved. Wasn't Buckley who had the sorcery, it was somebody else. So, when they killed the family, they had got rid of something that was a problem for their tribe, that there was sorcery emanating from someone.

And Buckley, and they didn't have any problem with Buckley himself. They didn't associate him with the death by snake. So why can't he be a friend? So, they don't see it is in any way, but of course, Buckley, these were his beloved family, closest relations amongst his Aboriginal family. And he is, you know, he didn't, he wasn't, that's where he's Europeanness was still evident.

Whilst he might have understood what was going on in the culture, he couldn't always accept it. He couldn't act like that. He was a European and he brought up for cause and effect, not to superstition. So, I see it as a sort of the equivalent of a mafia shooting and say we didn't do it personally, we had to do it for business sake. It was nothing against you. We had to get rid of this person. That's how I think it was like and he couldn't get his head around that. And then he went off into the into the wilderness and self isolated, so to speak, for many, many years, because he couldn't deal with various Aboriginals, some of these Wadawurrung customs, he had trouble with them.

I can't imagine, yeah. I can't imagine being in that position because you felt like you've tried to leave that behind. You've joined this, you know, Eden, and then you're faced with this completely different culture that, you know, you just wouldn't be able to fathom. But, so he was effectively a pariah, sort of self isolated type like we are at the moment, but in the bush and that and he heard eventually that the the British man had come on land and that the Wadawurrung were going to kill them because they hadn't been sharing anything with them, right?

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

So, he ends up going back with them, right? I mean and trying to maintain these relationships between indigenous people and the settlers who established Melbourne. Can you talk about what that process was like and sort of where Buckley ends up living out the rest of his life?

Yeah. What happens is, trying to put it in a nutshell, Buckley... there was 8 men and Buckley basically says to his Aboriginal friends, don't kill these people, don't, don't get rid of them because there will be more boats with more booty and you will be recompensed for these people being here. And they believed him and there was also the interesting thing is that the local people fell in with the five Sydney, they call them Sydney blacks, that's what they were described as, they were the Aboriginal men that worked for John Batman.

And they embedded themselves very, very intelligently with the local people and went corroboreeing and kangarooing, as they called it. And they they got on. So, there was a lot of good, good faith. But at the same time, it was underneath the simmering tension, you are not giving us enough and we will come and get them and Buckley had enough clout to stave this off. But he was hoping all the time that another boat would come and that the boat would be filled with things that the...

And he was quite right. When it came, there was more bounty and Aborigines began to believe, oh, well, these white men aren't so bad after all. They're paying us off. We're looking at... Buckley stayed there for a little while. He, whilst he was waiting, he met one of Batman's men, John Elder Wedge said, "You work for us and help us, and we'll get you a pardon". Because let's not forget, he was a convict still. I mean, he was still considered a convict. Whilst he was still in Geelong, sorry, not Geelong, in the... On the Bellarine Peninsula. His pardon came through. So, he was actually a free man.

Then not much later, he was told that they're going... that there was a better area in the Melbourne... "The Melbourne area was better on the Yarra. We're all moving up there." And of course, what Buckley didn't, wasn't all that crazy about going up there, by now, he felt he'd basically become a white man again. That was several months in and still it with them and I think that he thought, look, let's just follow this. I better stay with a white man, we want to make sure there's no problems with anybody else. I'll be able to help, I think I can do the right thing by everybody, I'll smooth over things, I think he thought that he would become, they wanted him to be an integral part. They wanted him to be a man that could help and talk and smooth over any difficulties and problems.

And of course, they moved, to Woiwurrung area and Boonwurrung. Parts of Melbourne Boonwurrung and parts were Woiwurrung. And so there were Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung people there, and they weren't these people. The Wadawurrung were his people. And so Buckley was actually out of this country by then. Although he understood and he knew a lot of their customs, and he'd met them, he'd been with the Woiwurrung, that wasn't his country.

So, he was never really that happy in Woiwurrung territory. So, he'd been moved, so he was slightly unsettled by that, although, you know, he'd been there before. I think he probably knew the Melbourne he actually, he had gone through the Melbourne area when he was escaping. How well he knew it until he settled there...? And he worked for John Batman. He made a chimney and it's arguable that he was actually, he put the very first, he made the very first stone in Melbourne, actually, funnily enough, on Batman's Hill.

People say, "Buckley's chimney was a very first piece of masonry", so to speak. So, yeah, he had a decent life there. We don't hear very much about what Batman thought of things because by this time Batman was getting very sick and Fawkner had come just before Batman. This is... And Fawkner was becoming the big man in in town. Whereas Batman you had very little of. And I think it's because he was, you don't hear him giving speeches. You don't hear him, you know, telling people what to do, but Fawkner's basically become the big man and people will listen to Faulkner as their leader, but in the early stages, not Batman. Although Batman had the prime position on the hill, he was still kind of the king of Melbourne at that point.

It seems like such a difficult position too that Buckley is in, because the stories seem to be all about truth and dishonesty and a shitload of grey, right? I think you write at one point that so much of this story is about lying, perhaps more accurately being two faced to keep the peace. What did you mean by that?

Yeah, I think we can look at Buckley's situation. If, just look at the situation where he's saying... talking to the Aboriginal people saying "Don't kill the white people, they're going to bring more booty". So, he's being two-faced in the sense because he knows that the more white people come, the more ships come, the more people land, the more he's endangering the local inhabitants.

At the same time, he's trying to preserve, make sure that there are no deaths among the white people. And what the story kind of shows, you can't be, can't play devil's advocate the entire time. Now, another example is when Batman finally did arrive, he gave a speech. In fact, Buckley had to be the one, of course, doing the interpretation. And basically, Batman says if you shoot a man, we will shoot you like a kangaroo.

So, here is Buckley at one point trying to be the Aboriginals agent, being the agent of the white people, saying, being the one who delivers all these messages, saying if you do this and don't do the right thing by us, we will kill you. So, what are the Aborigines going to... and the Wadawurrung or the Woiwurrung or the Boonwurrung who were listening, what are they going to think of Buckley? "Whose side are you on, buddy?" So, you know, he had to play two sides to keep the peace. But it doesn't work that way. And that's what this story pretty much tells us, that you can't be two people all at the same time.

And I think that in the end, Buckley had had enough of trying. I mean, he went to, there was a story of him and Foster Fyans later on. And he's telling the people they had to do this and they had to do that, and Foster Fyans is asking him to translate. And I think he just basically got jack of it. "Why am I telling these people? These are my people. I mean, Geelong Territory. And I'm telling them not to do this, to do that. And I'm just doing... Being the white man's voice. I'm not protecting them in any way."

And he's said, I've had enough of this. The white man doesn't... thinks that are half savage, doesn't trust me. And the black man... I'm the man delivering all these messages of doom to them. So, you can't be the two things at the same time. And that's what I think he's great dilemma was.

And it started from the very first second where he had to lie to the Aboriginal people pretty much said, don't kill them, you know, these people will bring more stuff. He didn't know what they were going to bring, he thought they would, but he had to lie to them to keep them alive. And he's doing the right thing and making sure no one kills each other, but having to lie to do it at the same time. You can't do the two things at the same time. That's what the story is really about, I think.

And I imagine, too, if he just said, 'oh, have at it. Kill them all', it's like, well, you've removed that problem for the next few months until the next group of people come next more heavily armed.

Also, let's not forget there was something in it for him. He would have thought if I did the right thing by white people, I'm going to get a pardon. So, there was a tit for tat going on here. And that's what it kind of was said to him. They said if you work for us and be our guide and are helpful and tell us... show us around country and help us interpret, and people front understand our intentions, we'll give you a pardon. And of course, that's what he got. But he'd already, you know, he played with the devil. Once he'd accepted, accepted the devils, you know, offer, he was with the devil. And he didn't mean to be. He didn't want to be, but he had to be, unfortunately. And that's deal we had to do.

It seems too like in the story there are so many of these juxtapositions, right? With Buckley and the Wadawurrung, Buckley's land was taken from his parents, right? In the Enclosure Act in England during the industrial revolution. And this similar sort of situation is taking place or an analogous situation, right? With the indigenous people.

That's why I think he had to leave. He couldn't sit by and watch the people he loved being take... having their lives taken away. He'd already said he'd experienced it himself. In fact, you could argue that even seeing his own lands being taken away by these ruthless white settlers. So, he is the microcosm of many of the problems that were going on here. And he is, that's why I love this story, because it's not just about white taking over black, it's about a man stuck in the middle of it all, trying to do the right thing by everybody. And finally, he can do the right by none.

And it's a story of, you know, paying the devil, once you've taken that side, you know, you're gone. And he said, I've had enough. I cannot be on a white policeman and watch my people are being destroyed. And I think he had to leave. How could he have, if he'd stayed another five years in the Melbourne area, I think he would have committed suicide. He would have seen a decimation of all the people around him.

The white people, of course, didn't understand that. They didn't understand that, you know, at least emotionally, he was an Aborigine. He was emotionally an Aborigine watching his people being destroyed. He had more emotional ties with them than he did with any white people. Yet, the white people were the people who would give him his freedom.

And there in lies the problem. They gave him money and and a possibility, the other people gave him the love. And so where does a man go in that situation? And that's why this is such an important story, in an emotional level as well.

So, finishing up, would you say the truth is better than fiction sometimes? Because, you know, we've all just gotten off the rollercoaster that was Game of Thrones and we love that.

It's one of my pet subjects, I'm not a great lover of historical fiction. And I'm on the record with various literary, I think the world lives on historical fiction, you know, the Hilary Mantel stuff, in a way they pretend that they've been there. I don't use anything that hasn't been put on the record. My father, as well, I had huge arguments with Bryce, he's a historical fiction guy. We never came to any understanding on this. He believe the imagination was more important. I believe the facts. So, you could give me an hour on this one.

But I feel like that this story is so good because there are no real black and white. Here is the good guy, here is the bad guy. This is the story you work out who are the villains and who are the heroes.

The truth is always more interesting than fiction. Every single time. If you, as I think I remember someone saying, if you look at something hard enough, it's you find it's always interesting. Everything that you look at is interesting if you look at it hard enough. And that's why I... let's go full circle and say that's why I don't think Australian history has been looked at hard enough because the really interesting stuff is the stuff we're not being taught.

And I want to find stories like Buckley, like Jemmy Porter that put the human into a historical and social context to make us understand what was going on at that particular time. You can't do it just purely by, in my opinion, it just might be, just by telling the story of Melbourne was started in this time and there was John Batman and they fell out with that. You've got to do it through character. And only through a character, a real character, not a fake one, a real character. Typically, people do it through fake ones. And I don't do that.

It's almost like junk food, right? It's too easy to consume. You want something that leaves you thinking and leaves you grappling with, what did I just read? Because, you know, to finish up this this book...

You read as best as possible the facts and the truth about two two men, John Batman and I'm hoping that that's as good as anything that any historical fiction writer will write. In fact, I think it's better because I just deal with what we know. I don't veer away from that and that's it. And that's enough in there to tell you everything you need to know, but I think, I would say that I wrote it, I think there's enough in there for you to understand what these people were about.

Well, Adam Courtney, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. And guys, get your hands on the Ghost and the Bounty Hunter because yeah, it is a page turner, for sure.

Thank you, mate. Pete, it's been a pleasure talking to you. And we'll do it again. If I write another book, it's got to find another story like this one. As good as this. I'll find it somewhere.

Man, there's loads in Australian history. You've got ample, ample to choose from, right?

Well, look, it's hard to find the right ones, but you've got to have a certain amount of criteria, tick a few boxes. But we'll find another one. And I'm sure we'll have another talk at some point.

No worries. Thanks again so much, mate. I appreciate it.

It's a pleasure, mate. And I hope you enjoyed it. Okay, mate. Bye bye.

Alright, guys. That's it for today. Thanks again, Adam Courtney, for coming on the podcast. It was an absolute pleasure to have a natter with you mate, to have a yarn with you. Guys, don't forget to pick up your copy of The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter. It's available now in all good bookstores, guys, get it online if you're stuck inside because of the quarantine and use this time to level up your English and learn a bit about Australian culture. Once again, guys, thank you so much for joining me. It's always a pleasure. I wish you all the best. And I'll see you soon. Peace.

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