Hermits of Borroloola Adventure

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specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.

For this collection, Sir David Attenborough

has chosen documentaries from the start of his career.

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DIDGERIDOO PLAYS

PERCUSSIVE STICKS

ABORIGINAL SINGING

If you like the wide open spaces,

if you want to get away from it all, well, this is the place to be -

in the middle of the Northern Territory of Australia.

This highway here - the bitumen, as they call it -

links Alice Springs in the centre of Australia 600 miles that way

with Darwin on the north coast, which is 400 miles that way.

And in the entire 1,000 miles of highway,

which is longer than the length of the entire British Isles,

there are perhaps three or four settlements

that can compare in size with a large English village.

In-between, a few hamlets

consisting of no more than a petrol pump, a store and a place to sleep.

That's lonely enough, but if you REALLY want to be lonely

then turn off the bitumen, down a road like this.

Down here, you travel for 250 miles and you see nothing.

No settlement, no store, no house, no human being,

not even a source of fresh water.

If you break down, you don't go and walk for help

because there's nowhere to walk to and you would die of thirst.

No, you just settle down beside your car and prepare for a long wait

until a car may come by, perhaps a week,

and you prepare too to drink the water of your radiator.

We set off down this road a fortnight ago

and we took with us an extra five gallons of oil,

20 gallons of petrol, 25 gallons of water and food for a week.

The road is flat and straight.

You can drive for 20 miles

without having to move the wheel more than a few inches.

The worst hazard is dust.

A fine talc-like powder lies over the road in drifts so deep

that it conceals boulders and potholes big enough to break an axle.

It swirls behind you and filters into the car, covering everything.

It sticks in your hair and clogs your eyes and your mouth.

It was unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as the thought

that if the car broke down and we couldn't repair it,

we would be marooned in this wilderness for days

and maybe weeks until a passing car could take a message for help.

After 250 miles of emptiness, this was the first building we saw.

This is Borroloola Hotel.

HARSH BIRD CALL

Once, there was enough room here for 20 guests.

Perhaps the accommodation, even at its best, was never very comfortable.

But at least they would have got shade from the sun

and shelter from the dust storms.

A horseman reaching Borroloola might have travelled for days

with little to moisten his mouth but tepid water from a water hole

green with scum.

Here, he could've got a decent drink.

Here, once, he would have found company

after days without seeing another human face.

Now the only sound is the wind creaking in the corrugated iron roof.

A wind that has already blown down much of the place.

From the look of it, another gale will be sufficient

to demolish the whole rickety construction.

50 years ago, Borroloola was quite a large settlement.

A base from which prospectors and cattlemen

set off into the largely unexplored Northern Territory.

It stood on the banks of the McArthur River,

up which sailed ships laden with stores

having made the thousand-mile voyage round the coast from Darwin.

Pioneering cattlemen bringing up herds

to establish new stations in the territory came through Borroloola

because there was good fresh water by the river.

Here, the drovers stopped and drank the hotel dry.

If there was a white flag flying above the pub

then all the drinks were free,

for it meant that one of Borroloola's citizens had become a father.

At the turn of the century, Borroloola had two hotels,

five stores and a permanent population of over 50 Europeans.

Even more remarkable, there was a library here of nearly 3,000 books.

The government sent up surveyors to lay out squares and terraces,

and divide the desert into building plots.

Borroloola seemed certain to grow into a big and prosperous town.

But somehow, for some reason, it never happened.

Out in the desert, boreholes were drilled for water

and it was no longer essential

for the cattle to come by way of Borroloola.

New roads were driven through the parched bush

and traffic up the river dwindled.

The ox wagons, waiting at Borroloola to take the ships' cargoes

and haul them out to the cattle stations, waited in vain.

One by one, they rotted

until nothing remained of them but the iron hoops of their wheels.

In the 1920s and '30s,

a few cars came roaring and rattling across the desert,

driven by enterprising prospectors.

Some managed to return to civilisation,

but others coughed their way as far as Borroloola

and then stopped for good.

There was no-one here to tackle a major repair.

Already, business at the hotel had shrivelled to almost nothing.

White ants chewed their way through the entire library.

Only one volume survives.

The Imitation Of Christ by Thomas Akempis.

Its title page is still easily legible.

But, inside, the termites have eaten most of the holy man's words.

Although gold had been found close by, the claim petered out

and the machinery, brought in with enormous labour to sort the ore,

was abandoned to rust.

Up in the hot hills, the last of the full-time prospectors

sitting alone, shot himself.

Life ebbed away from Borroloola. But it never entirely left it.

For some, the town was more attractive as a dead shell

than it would have been had it grown and flourished.

The last keeper of the hotel never left it.

He's an Irishman and his name is Jack Mulholland.

Jack, what brought you first to Borroloola?

I heard it was a good place, nice country.

Plenty of water holes and springs and ducks and geese... Nice climate.

And did you settle down in the place then?

No, no. I stopped one night here, joined the library up here

and put in about three or four months' reading.

Did you? What did you read?

All those books in the lib... Not them all, but quite a few of them.

- What sort of thing? - Oh, well,

it had almost a complete set of WW Jacobs, and I like Jacobs.

- Oh, yeah? - And I read all those.

What else?

And also various other books. I've forgotten them now.

I remember reading one medical book.

- Did you? - After I'd read the medical book,

I reckoned I suffered with every disease known to man.

HE LAUGHS

I liked the place while I was here.

Then I had this offer to manage this public house here, which I did.

I took it up and came over this way.

Was that a full-time job?

Well, yes. You had to be here all the time.

- Yeah. I mean, was it a busy job? - Definitely no, no. No.

You got plenty of time to sleep, plenty of time to read,

plenty of time to eat.

How many guests do you reckon you would get at any one time?

At one time, oh, never more than one, and I don't think there'd be more

than about four or five all the time I've been here while it was a hotel.

What? Do you mean at any one time?

Or four or five guests at all?

- At all. - What, total?

- Total. - No wonder it closed.

Jack, what do you reckon keeps a man in this country?

It must be a pretty lonely sort of life.

Oh, no. That all depends.

I've never been lonely in my life.

There's always been so much in life,

I could never honestly say I was lonely.

I've lived for years on my own in the desert,

haven't seen anyone for months, but I've never been lonely.

The trees are company and the birds and all the rest of it.

You've made a lot of sacrifices to live here.

Which one would you like to take back, as it were?

Well, I can't honestly think of any sacrifice that I regret...making.

Hmm.

No, I honestly can't think...

You must miss... You must miss people?

Oh, no, no. I don't miss people.

Oh, no.

Or the company of drinking companions or beautiful women?

No, I don't miss beautiful women.

Women never made much impression on me.

- No? - No.

What's wrong with them?

Oh, I consider they're very deceitful, they're liars

and they're totally without principle whatsoever.

But they're lovely to look at.

I admire them and I like looking at them.

It sounds as though you might have come out here

for the classical reason

of an unhappy encounter with a beautiful woman, Jack.

Oh, no. No. Definitely no.

You just never had any use for them?

Oh, I wouldn't say I wouldn't have any use for them.

Oh, no. I like them...very much.

But, er, as far as...

as, er, devoting my life to any particular woman,

no, definitely no.

Jack, how do you fill your days?

Well, most of the time I'm in the bush.

Got an old truck there,

I make periodic visits out into the scrub, prospecting and...

Prospecting? What are you looking for?

Well, I'm supposed to be looking for copper or gold, silver and lead,

something like that, but I'm looking for contentment mostly.

- For contentment? - Yeah.

Of course, the prospector wouldn't admit that.

But most of them are doing just that very thing, looking for contentment.

- Do they find it? - I think they do.

- Do you find it? - I find it, yes.

I'm still the same as I was when I was 25,

I like to see what's over the next hill.

Yeah. And that's a reward for life in itself?

- I consider it is, yes. - Yes.

Have you ever found any diamonds or gold or...?

Oh, yes. I've found a little bit.

I've found a little bit of opal, a little bit of gold.

I've found copper.

Have you ever exploited it?

No. I've sent samples away, parcels away, but never did any good.

Which is typical of most prospectors.

DAVID LAUGHS

Well, isn't that pretty disappointing?

Oh, no. No, it would break a man's heart if he DID discover anything.

What would there be to live for? Nothing.

- Truly? - Well, there's nothing in life.

If you've a lot of money, what good's money to you?

Well, it can make life comfortable, easy.

Yes, well, what are you going to do, drink it?

Give it away to women, something like that?

Buy a few motorcars? A yacht or two? Something like that?

No. I can see nothing in that.

You must have a need for SOME money?

- What do you do? - Yes, you have to.

This life makes it necessary to have a few pound.

Well, I, er, get it where I can.

Scalping dogs and crocodile hides and...

DAVID LAUGHS

But...that way you get enough pounds to sort of buy, what, flour?

Flour and tobacco is the main things.

Flour, tea, sugar, tobacco - that's the main things.

Ammunition, of course.

You don't work over-hard at it?

Oh, you work... I work MORE the way I'm living now, I work harder

than the present day fella in this country works

to get his £25 and £30 a week.

You spend a fair amount of time

sitting and thinking, don't you, Jack?

Oh, I do a lot of thinking at times,

but when you've got to walk 20 miles a day prospecting, that's work.

Would you describe yourself as a happy, contented man?

I should say so.

- The gods have been very good to me. - Yeah.

I consider myself a remarkable fella.

Why remarkable?

Well, I'm reasonably happy and contented.

Yeah?

Well, there are not many people

who can sit down and say that they're happy and contented.

Oh, yes, well, of course, there's a screw loose somewhere.

- Yeah. - Definitely a screw loose.

'Jack's old truck is a 1928 model.

'When we first saw it,

'there was a large nest of white ants in the middle of the engine,

'but Jack assured us that it was only a moment's work

'to get it into running order.

'It had no electric starter, nor even a crank handle,

'but Jack had his own method of starting it.

'The rear axle has been jacked up and the engine is in gear.

'To have suggested to Jack that it might not go

'would have been extremely tactless and have offended him deeply.

'But I must admit I had my doubts.'

- Nearly. - Nearly, but not quite.

ENGINE SPLUTTERS

ENGINE ROARS

Jack rather prides himself on making his own roads.

And when the engine is going sweetly,

he never misses an opportunity

of knocking down a few trees to improve one of his tracks.

CLUNKING

People in the territory say that Jack and his like are mad.

They call them hatters or no-hopers.

But he's not the only one in Borroloola.

Two others live around the decaying remains of the town.

One of them has built himself a cabin

some five miles away from Jack's hotel

by the side of a small lagoon.

He's known as the Mad Fiddler.

VIOLIN MUSIC

He sits for weeks on end without leaving his tiny cabin,

playing his violin. He refuses to be photographed.

He's even been known to threaten unexpected visitors with a shotgun.

Every few months, he drives out to a store in an ancient car

to collect flour and tea and tobacco.

But his visits are as short and as infrequent as he can make them.

VIOLIN MUSIC CONTINUES

There's a story in the territory

that he is the titled son of an English aristocratic family.

40 years ago, he told us,

he had been an actor in the theatres of the north of England.

And when I asked him why he had left, he replied,

"I got out of England for England's good."

Now he seeks no company except the birds that haunt his lagoon.

VIOLIN MUSIC CONTINUES

"A man's riches," he said to us, "are the fewness of his wants.

"I find all I want in the country around me."

VIOLIN MUSIC CONTINUES

The last of the hermits of Borroloola is its oldest inhabitant, Roger Jose.

No-one knows how old he is,

and Roger himself has been claiming that he's 68

for at least the last five years.

With him lives Biddy, his wife,

who catches fish for him in the river and cooks his meals.

Every morning, he fetches water and chops wood

so that he can have a fire to keep himself warm during the cold nights.

His hat was made for him to his own design by Biddy

out of the leaves of the pandanus trees that grow nearby.

His house is extremely odd -

a circular construction of corrugated iron with no windows

and only a small opening cut in its side to serve as a door.

It must be suffocatingly hot during the heat of the day,

but then Roger spends most of his time outside,

sitting down by the wall of his extraordinary house, thinking.

Roger, this is a rather curious house. What exactly is it?

It's a tank, a conservation of rainwater.

How many gallons did it hold?

5,000, I think.

Where was this tank originally?

Up there. You can see the base of it now.

- What, by the hotel? - Yeah. Under that mango tree.

What made you shift it?

Well, it was crippled. It got badly crippled.

And it was no longer any use. You can see where it's been patched.

You can see patches stuck onto it in all sorts of cruel manner.

I don't...

And I thought it would make a good dwelling.

So, I got it off and brought it down here.

When did you first come to Borroloola?

About... A little later than this, about this time in the storm time.

- But which year? - 1916.

A long time ago.

46 years, I think.

You're a man who likes solitude, I imagine.

Oh, indeed I do.

I don't know whether it's vanity, I'm very fond of my own company.

- I never feel lonely. - Never?

No. Well, hardly, to be honest.

I've mostly always had a mate, a female, like a...

And prior to that, I lived in civilisation.

I got married about 30.

Well, I hadn't developed this superiority complex, you know.

I found out

I couldn't get any better company than my own by then, you know!

And I'd already learned enough off my fellows, savvy?

Oh, goodness, yes.

So, you came out for the wilderness?

In a sense, but I'm at bay in a sense.

I'm here. This is as far as I can travel!

A lot of people, I suppose, would find this loneliness unendurable,

Roger, for a long period of time.

True enough! Oh, that's obvious.

- Oh. It would overpower some men. - It would overpower them.

It is overpowering, but I doubt it would ever overpower me.

But like I said, I'm not an example of complete loneliness, see?

Old Biddy, although she's primitive and all that, she's company, yes.

And the sort I like - she won't argue the point with me!

And moreover is not a bit interested in what I've got to say!

THEY CHUCKLE

Are you seeking loneliness?

No, not loneliness. I want you to understand, I'm not a bit lonely.

- You're not? - No. Oh, goodness, no.

If you said isolation, well, that would be slightly different.

Yeah, I could say yes, I am fond of isolation.

But I couldn't really talk of loneliness

because I don't know what it is.

But I gather that, for some men, it's overpowering, yes.

Talk to a stump or anything. Well, I suppose I would, in a way.

- In fact... - Do you talk...?

Do you talk to the birds?

Oh, yes, and talk to myself too.

- Do you? - Yes. Quite often.

You get the best answers that way?

Yes, it improves my mental state too, talking to an intelligent man! Yes.

DAVID CHUCKLES Oh, yes.

There was a library here at Borroloola, wasn't there?

What sort of things did you read?

Oh, nearly anything. I'd read the labels on jam tins. Yes, really.

- I'm a good reader once I start. - Yeah.

But it's rather an odd place to have a library at Borroloola, isn't it?

Beg yours?

Borroloola's not the first place you'd think of as having a library.

- Indeed no. - Was it a big library?

Like I told you the other day, there was at least 2,900 books in it.

There may have been more.

I got a job rearranging them once and I distinctly remember 2,900.

Who are your favourite authors, Roger?

First and foremost, I would put Gray.

Thomas Gray?

- Was that his name? - What? Gray's Elegy, you mean?

Yes, well, that'll just tell you how much I know. What was his name?

I mean Gray, the author of Gray's Elegy, or the Lincolnshire poet.

- I forget when he died... - And who else?

Oh, well, I would put him first and foremost.

You must understand I can only read English, like. Yes, that's all.

But I don't want to read anything else, in a way.

I would like to read

anything that was better than Gray's Elegy, I would.

And...and...and Shakespeare, of course.

You sound particularly fond of poetry.

- Me? - Yeah.

Oh, indeed I am.

Have you written much yourself?

Oh, a good bit, but you know what I mean...

Strange to say poetry was never in favour, was it?

People bought it,

but I don't think any poets ever made a fortune out of it.

Can you recite any of your own poetry?

Come to think of it, yes. One is not unconventionally long. Mm-hm.

Strange to say it's got no title! THEY CHUCKLE

But, er, would you like to hear it?

- I would. - Wouldn't bore you?

- No. - Well, I'll tell you about it.

You can get a bit of a sideline on how I came to write such weird poem.

There was one of the old-timers about here called Gaunt, Charlie Gaunt.

And he was well up in the... must have been towards 70.

He got a bug to write about the early days.

Raiding the blacks, you know, and shooting them up.

Well...

I wrote once... I remember writing something.

Here doddering in senile decay My memory harks blithely away

To pink dawns when I'd creep on blacks fast asleep

And knock 'em hell-west in all of a heap

A bravo just hired to slay

That their weapons could scarcely compare

Didn't cause me much care

Nor the fact that they slept while sheer murder crept

By red embers guided And no sentinel kept them apprised

Of the sinister shapes lurking there

And any who are prone to declare This one-sided fight wasn't fair

Should have seen the bold bids made by women and kids

Whom we slew for the benefit of opulent yids

Reclining in far Belgrave Square.

That'd be a joke if I haven't got that wrong.

- Is that a residential area? Posh? - Yes, that's all right.

Belgrave Square is a residential area.

I couldn't afford to stop, you know.

Reclining in fair Belgrave Square...

Mm-hm. Don't know where I am now.

Roger, it would seem that living out here,

your life really couldn't be more simple.

What do you live on, for example? What do you eat?

Well, I live on the simplest kinds of food perforce.

I would fain eat a bit more of the master's oxen, but I can't get 'em!

I live mainly on tinned beef, damper - oh, not so bad.

Damper is flour and water?

Yeah, and baking powder. Might as well be without the baking powder.

And I could go out and slay a marsupial or one of master's...

Slay a marsupial? You mean, knock off a roo?

Beg yours? Knock off a roo?

Yes, that's to put it in your best Australian...

HE MUTTERS

Would you regard yourself as a philosophic man?

Oh, yes.

Like, er... I would interpret it this way for my convenience.

I surely love wisdom and learning, goodness me, above all things.

What do you regard as the greatest reward

that comes from living this rather harsh life?

Harsh and lonely out here in Borroloola?

People wouldn't understand.

I think one of the great advantages about living here...

I've been accused of thinking too much, like,

if you could think too much.

What is a man frightened of?

Did he uncover things in his thought or what? But, um,

a keen sense of values of what really matters.

And what does matter?

Peace.

And... Yeah, peace, I suppose.

And, er...

And you mightn't believe this, might think I'm piling it on,

but I'm a very religious man, you know.

And...

You say, "Do I feel lonely?"

Why should I feel lonely with God

and men that ought to be immortal - Bill and Gray and old Omar, eh?

Why should I feel lonely?!

VIOLIN MUSIC

ORCHESTRA JOINS IN

MUSIC CRESCENDOS

MUSIC DIMINUENDOS