Full Transcript for Ian Roberts

wanted to have a look around and they were interested. And I said, well, where do you come from? And they said, Truro. So I walk out the front with them and there's their four-wheel drive ute with a standard four by six trailer. with a pile of bitumen in the back. And they said, we're patching potholes. So that's the, from Truro to Blyth, which is probably about an hour and three quarters. 00:02:55 Speaker 1: Patching potholes. 00:02:55 Speaker 2: They're patching potholes around the countryside. That's all we get now. Used to have a full maintenance depot in Clare that we get around fixing up roads properly. Now they just plonk a bit of bitumen in, stamp it down, drive on to the next one. 00:03:09 Speaker 1: This is quite controversial. 00:03:11 Speaker 2: Well, it is. 00:03:13 Speaker 1: We're interviewing you because you're an ex-football champion and an artist and a botanist, but now we're getting into politics. 00:03:20 Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I got a bit interested in politics at one stage and I'd been on local council and I thought, no, I couldn't handle that. It doesn't matter whether you have an idea or if you can't convince the other 20, 30, 40, 50 that it's a good idea, you get nowhere. 00:03:34 Speaker 1: Who's your local member then? Liberal or Labor? 00:03:37 Speaker 2: Liberal, but we're one nation now with Noorunga. We're tied in. We swapped. We're right on the border. So we've been Geoff Brock for up 10 years, and now we're One Nation. 00:03:48 Speaker 1: Well, how's that working, giving them One Nation? Well, they're not new on the scene, but their influence is starting to grow. 00:03:55 Speaker 2: Well, it is. But, I mean, the last she's, I don't think, had any experience in local government or politics. So it'll be a big learning curve for her. 00:04:04 Speaker 1: Right. We'll move off politics. 00:04:05 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:04:05 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:04:06 Speaker 2: That's it. 00:04:08 Speaker 1: You're from a farming family. 00:04:10 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:04:10 Speaker 1: Tell us about the, you know... the Roberts family history up in Blyth. 00:04:15 Speaker 2: Well, Dad, Grandpa moved to Blyth in 1910. He married a local girl. 00:04:19 Speaker 1: Where was he from? Where was he from? 00:04:21 Speaker 2: He was from Kadena. So they were cousin Jack Miners. So he was about four foot nothing and nearly as wide. And he married a Lutheran girl from Blyth. She was sort of five foot ten. And so they looked an interesting couple. And he was Methodist and she was Lutheran. They became Anglican. So I had No idea about that history. 00:04:43 Speaker 1: This is your grandparents? 00:04:44 Speaker 2: Grandparents, yeah. So dad took over the farm and then I took over. 00:04:48 Speaker 1: So he went from mining to farming? Yes. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: When the mines ran out, instead of following the mines, they bought some of the best farming country or moved out into it and cleared it out from Kadena. So grandpa's dad was a farmer at Kadena. And he had a heap of kids, so Grandpa moved to Blyth. 00:05:07 Speaker 1: Did you know your grandfather? 00:05:09 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I did. Not for long. He was about, I was about eight or ten when he died. But he was a pretty stern sort of character. But the local business people who knew him said, you know, he only had to shake Tom's hand and that was it. You knew the deal was done and there was no backing out of it. Okay. But he was a tough, he was sort of a bit of an entrepreneurial business farmer, I think, so. 00:05:33 Speaker 1: Did he go to war? 00:05:34 Speaker 2: No, we were, it's funny, in our family, people generally were at the wrong age for the war. So dad was, he was, I think, 16 when war broke out. And he wasn't allowed to go to war because some farmers, if they only had one son, they had to stay home on the farm. 00:05:53 Speaker 1: So you grew up in a traditional farming family. 00:05:58 Speaker 2: Well, yes. Dad was never a true blue farmer, though. He really would have been a woodworker if he'd been a city guy. 00:06:04 Speaker 1: So he had the artistic. 00:06:06 Speaker 2: No, no, not at all. No, but he had the hands on. He loved making stuff from nothing with his hands. And he liked wood. He loved working with wood. 00:06:16 Speaker 1: So he made things out of wood? 00:06:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, he'd knock up things. He was always fixing things. And so we never had a welder. So if you couldn't fix it with a piece of wire and a pair of pliers or a nut and a bolt, you couldn't fix it. So nearly all our machinery was always new because Dad had no mechanical knowledge. I had no mechanical knowledge. So we just bought new machinery all the time. 00:06:38 Speaker 1: Well, it's easy if you can do it. So the seasons must have been pretty good for you. 00:06:42 Speaker 2: Well, they were good. But I can remember we swapped harvesters for $ 3, 000. You know, you'd buy a new harvester, hand over cash. Now it's a million dollars minimum. 00:06:53 Speaker 1: For a harvester? 00:06:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. 00:06:56 Speaker 1: I see those great big tractors. I wonder how much they cost. 00:06:59 Speaker 2: Well, I think they're $ 600, 000 up. It's just ridiculous. 00:07:03 Speaker 1: So did you, I mean, you grew up on the farm, but obviously farming wasn't your thing. 00:07:09 Speaker 2: I wasn't a natural farmer. I hated school. I hated the fear factor. You know, get the cane if you did something wrong. And I was a goody two-shoes, so I hated doing anything wrong. But if you're a kid, you just naturally make mistakes and do things wrong. I got the cane twice, once for leaving the school grounds. And I was led easily, led astray by another kid. 00:07:29 Speaker 1: Oh, you're blaming someone else. 00:07:31 Speaker 2: I am. I'm blaming him. He was my rival in footy for many, many years. 00:07:35 Speaker 1: What's his name? 00:07:36 Speaker 2: Oh, Herb McKenzie. Good footballer. His son is still playing. I think he's nearly 50. And he still

cleans up everybody else. And then the other time I got the cane was we were picking apricots. Last day of school, the apricot tree is loaded with apricots. And we kids are clambering all over the tree, eating apricots. And next thing, a girl's dobbed on us, and we're all lined up out on the last day of school. So I spent the whole holidays, how am I going to make it up to the teachers? You know, how can I make up this mistake that we've all made? 00:08:09 Speaker 1: You were that worried about it. 00:08:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, too highly a developed conscience. 00:08:12 Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? 00:08:13 Speaker 2: Well, I coached the local footy team for three years, and I think having this worrying mind, when we lost, I didn't sleep for hours. two nights that I'd go to sleep at three o'clock, wake up at four o'clock, still churning over why we lost and why, what I could have done better. If we won, I slept like a baby. And so I don't know whether you had the same problem, Graeme, but even now I've just returned to going to footy because I've got grandsons playing and I go back to football and if they lose... I don't sleep. I get to sleep about what I play. Yeah, I'm still coaching, playing and umpiring all at the same time watching my grandchildren play, whether it's under 14s, under 17s, A grade. 00:08:59 Speaker 1: I understand the tension when your sons or your grandkids are playing. You're heavily invested. You want them to do well. You don't want them to get hurt, but I don't think it stops you sleeping at night. 00:09:09 Speaker 2: It does me. I said I can't go to the footy. I just can't go anymore. I'm going to have to stay home. 00:09:18 Speaker 1: My guest is Ian Roberts, country legend from Blythe in our mid-north, just outside of Clare. So much to talk. He's more than a bush legend. He's an artist and somebody who contributes to his community with great enthusiasm. Back shortly, folks. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. My guest is Ian Roberts. Now, Ian's a bit of a legend up in the country. He's from Blythe. He calls Blythe the center of the universe. Nobody else knows about Blythe, unless the people who live there. Well, he's got a great record in sport up there and service to the community. And he's an unbelievable artist and and probably a botanist as well, maybe not qualified as a botanist, but certainly has the ability to be one. But anyway, you're diligent at school. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: Well, I was diligent at school, but I hated the fear factor. So as soon as I could get out of school, I left, and the options back then were teaching. Well, if I hated school, why the hell would I be a teacher? And being a banker, and I wasn't really interested in money, so that was out. The only thing left was farming. So I thought, oh, well, farm's there. And Dad had said that whoever becomes a farmer, there were three boys in the family, three girls, but three boys. The oldest one, he didn't want to be a farmer. And I was second, and I said, well, right, I'm being the farmer. 00:10:44 Speaker 1: What did your older brother do? 00:10:46 Speaker 2: He ended up working for the council, but he's got a very interesting history. We could spend an hour on his history. 00:10:52 Speaker 1: Just give us a quick snapshot before we get back to you. 00:10:55 Speaker 2: Well, mum and dad woke up one morning and he'd gone. The petrol cap was out on the petrol tank and he'd filled the car up and gone. No note, nothing. 00:11:06 Speaker 1: Just gone? 00:11:07 Speaker 2: He'd gone. 00:11:08 Speaker 1: What was the domestic relationships like within the house? Oh, good. 00:11:12 Speaker 2: No, no, he got on really well. Okay. You know, we always say he was mum and dad's pet, being the first child. But he'd gone to Sydney. So it turned out he'd gone to Sydney. But what he was actually doing was going to get on a plane and go to America to marry his girlfriend that he'd met. She was a rotary exchange student, came to Clare, and they hit it off like a, they were like two rabbits. And so they... He was going, anyway, he got over there and he rang to say, I'm coming. And the mother said, no, no, you're not. She doesn't want to see you anymore. 00:11:43 Speaker 1: Oh, no. 00:11:44 Speaker 2: Well, it turned out she was pregnant out of wedlock. And being a Catholic girl. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: To your brother. 00:11:51 Speaker 2: Said to her brother, the mother said to my brother, you're not coming. And she doesn't want to see you. No other explanation. So mum had taken the girl off for an abortion. 00:12:01 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:12:02 Speaker 2: And it actually wrecked her life. Couldn't have any more children. So she not only wrecked their relationship, she wrecked the fact she couldn't have any grandchildren. So it was a bit of a tragedy, really. That girl eventually left her husband and rang us up just when my brother was breaking up with his wife. 00:12:22 Speaker 1: And? 00:12:22 Speaker 2: And said, what's going on? So she comes out to Australia. He went over there. She comes out here and they got married. 00:12:28 Speaker 1: What a story. 00:12:31 Speaker 2: He's a crazy bloke, my brother. I hope you listen to this, Gary. 00:12:35 Speaker 1: And your sister-in-law? 00:12:37 Speaker 2: So my sister-in-law was a lass called Sandy. So she came out. Anyway, the marriage didn't really work out that well, second time round. And there's reasons for that that I don't want to divulge. But she married another bloke and then just had a heart attack and died. 00:12:52 Speaker 1: Oh, what a hard life. 00:12:53 Speaker 2: She died here in Adelaide, sadly. 00:12:55 Speaker 1: You take up farming, but it's not really for you? 00:12:58 Speaker 2: No, so I did that for 18 years. And I liked farming. I did like it. There were parts of it I didn't like, but mostly I liked it. And Dad and I, we never once discussed what we were going to do for the day. I've sort of come to realise that we didn't do what

normal farms do. We have a discussion on Monday morning, what are we going to do this week? And we just got up and it would rain, so we'd go out and get the combine ready and go seeding. 00:13:24 Speaker 1: So what was the farm? 00:13:26 Speaker 2: Wheat, barley, sheep, cows, pigs, chooks. It was mixed farming back in those days. Completely different now. 00:13:34 Speaker 1: And what was the most lucrative for you as a farm? 00:13:37 Speaker 2: Wheat was the most. But because you had a bit of everything, Dad's view was if you've got a bit of everything, when one's down, one will be up. So he used to make a bit of a joke that farmers would chase the best price. So if wheat was up, put everything into wheat. And then of course it had crashed because everyone was growing wheat. So the price had crashed. So dad, there were wheat quotas back when we were farming. And so most farmers said, well, we're not growing wheat. There's a wheat quota. So dad reckoned, well, I'll just keep growing the same amount. And if we grow a good crop, we'll put it in the shed, which we did. We lined a shed and then sold it two years later when wheat quotas disappeared. And the price had gone back up because no one was growing wheat anymore. So Dad was quite, I think, quite cluey about, he was very sensible with money, taught me a lot about. 00:14:23 Speaker 1: Who's on the farm now? 00:14:26 Speaker 2: Well, my son-in-law has come back and kicked us off the farm, and we've built a house next to the gallery in Blyth, and he wants to. 00:14:34 Speaker 1: Be a farmer now. So your son-in-law married your daughter? 00:14:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, this bloke married my daughter, Matthew. 00:14:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, and came and kicked you off the farm? Yeah. How does that work? 00:14:43 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we were quite happy. It was really good because we got to build a house in life 10 years sooner than we wanted to. And while we were still young enough to actually manage it without being too stressed. 00:14:54 Speaker 1: As all this is happening and has happened, you're a young fellow growing up in the country who obviously loves his footy. You must love your footy because you're pretty good at it. When did footy start for you? What's your first involvement with footy? 00:15:07 Speaker 2: Well, probably when I was about 12. I think. So back then you had, only had senior Colts and A grade. You didn't have, I think we had B grade occasionally, but not every week. So you started, you started late. 00:15:21 Speaker 1: At Brunello, we had A grade, B grade, senior Colts. Yeah. B grade was always short though. 00:15:28 Speaker 2: Well, ours was too. That's why they didn't play every week. Okay. So I was dead keen, you know, like, well, kids, you want to, want to play, want to play. Well, the first game, the coach pulls me aside and said, Robert, your plan for Wakurna, which is a three-house town over near Port Broughton. And so here I am, desperate to play for Blythe. All I wanted was a

red and white jumper on the back, and he puts me in an orange and brown, I think it was, jumper for a kerner. I was peed off. I took my wife back here a while ago to show her. I said, I stood right there. That's the place I stood when he told me. You know, when I was 12. 00:16:02 Speaker 1: So did the school play footy at all? Did you ever have school? 00:16:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, they did. Yeah, no, we had, we kicked, you know, end to end, of course. Yeah, yeah. But then we played against the other towns. 00:16:13 Speaker 1: Now you won four male medals. You probably won't tell me that. You won four male medals. You were 10 times best and fairest for the Blythe footy team. So as a junior, was this talent obvious? 00:16:26 Speaker 2: I was the runt of the litter. So I was a tiny little kid and I should have brought a photo down, but it shows me I'm here and all the other kids are up here. So I was small but quick. That was my claim to fame. 00:16:42 Speaker 1: Well, you must have ball handling ability. 00:16:44 Speaker 2: Well, yeah. When I look back at my life, I think I was born to play football and grow trees. They're the two things. 00:16:50 Speaker 1: I don't think they're compatible. 00:16:52 Speaker 2: They're not really in the same league, are they? But I think that's... They were the things that I did naturally. And it's interesting. I watched my granddaughter who plays footy and watching her on the field, she was always scanning around her all the time. So she knew exactly where her opposition was, where she's still playing, where her teammates were. And I think I must have been the same. So I had a real awareness of where the ball was going, where it was coming from. And so I was able to get more ball than other players, I suppose. 00:17:25 Speaker 1: So your first question, Is it your first game you're playing for Wakurna against Blythe? 00:17:30 Speaker 2: Against Blythe, yes. 00:17:31 Speaker 1: Did you kill him? 00:17:32 Speaker 2: Oh, I can't. I probably didn't get a kick. I know the first grand final I played and we won, but I didn't get a kick. And they carried me off the ground. I didn't get a kick. And I thought, oh, you know, you feel like the, what's, there's a word for it. 00:17:45 Speaker 1: Is this a senior colt you're talking about? 00:17:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, a senior colt. 00:17:47 Speaker 1: Why did they carry you off the ground, didn't you? 00:17:49 Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. Just because I was little and I'd played in my first grand final, I think, looking back at it, so. 00:17:55 Speaker 1: You never forget your first premiership. 00:17:57 Speaker 2: Well, you don't. No, you don't. 00:17:59 Speaker 1: We're going to take a break because I want to explore this football career of Ian Roberts a bit more and then we'll get on to the artistic botany side of his life. Ian Roberts is my guest, folks. Back shortly. G'day, everybody. Welcome back to Conversations. My guest today is Ian Roberts. Now, Ian is a bush legend. You

know by bush legend? These people who make their name in the country town. as a footballer, as somebody who serves the community, and Ian's done all of that. We're just talking about the start of his footy career where he's a skinny little kid, gets a chance to play for Blythe, but they make him play against the opposition because the opposition was short. But you actually play in a premiership in the senior colts. Yep. 00:18:41 Speaker 2: Until I was 21, I hadn't not played in a grand final. 00:18:46 Speaker 1: So you went from senior colts to A grade? 00:18:48 Speaker 2: To B grade for the first year. A grade, B grade the first year because they– Unfortunately, just when it was my turn to be captain of the team, they dropped the age limit. So I jumped straight from at 15 and a half if I was straight up into A grade, B grade. 00:19:02 Speaker 1: So you played a season of B grade? 00:19:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. And we played a grand final against all odds. We won the grand final. I can't remember that much at all. You know, you're too young at 15 and a half, 16 to remember that stuff, really. 00:19:16 Speaker 1: So you're that young playing B grade against, I guess, men? 00:19:19 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. But a couple of the other Blythe legends, they loved telling the story. There were two really hard nuts for Brinkworth. 00:19:29 Speaker 1: For Brinkworth? 00:19:29 Speaker 2: Really hard nuts. 00:19:30 Speaker 1: What were their names? You let us know. 00:19:34 Speaker 2: Brenton Dutsky and Vern Dutsky. Look, Vern Dutsky's a great tree man, so I've got to know him really well. But back then in the footy days, they were hard nuts, those two brothers. Anyway, the story goes that this little Roberts character was running, and because I was quick, they they decided they were going to take me out so they have they've come in from the side i'm running this way and they've come in from the side they're going to clean me up well they they missed i was a bit quick for them and they missed and there was this an almighty bang and they both went down in a cloud of dust and i because i didn't know anything about it but this is You know, 15 years later, they're telling me this story. 00:20:10 Speaker 1: Have they told you? 00:20:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, no, the local Blythe legend. They informed me of that. The crowd loved it, of course, but I didn't know anything about it. 00:20:20 Speaker 1: So you go on and you have great success at Blythe, obviously. Yeah. 00:20:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, we only won two A-grade premierships in my time, sadly. Lots of losing. We'd always win when we were underdogs and lose when we were favourites, unfortunately. 00:20:32 Speaker 1: Sounds like the Crows. 00:20:33 Speaker 2: It does, doesn't it? Yeah. Blythe had a pretty good history. We had lots of particularly good teams, particularly back in the 20s and 30s. They had some terrific players back then. 00:20:48 Speaker 1: You won the Blythe Best and Fairest 12 times. Yeah. The other guys would be, they'd be sick of you, wouldn't they? 00:20:56 Speaker 2: Well, it was a bit embarrassing, wasn't it? You know, when that's happening and you know there's other terrific players in your team. 00:21:02 Speaker 1: Well, how did they, was it a count or was it just someone decided? 00:21:05 Speaker 2: No, no, it was like weekly. 00:21:08 Speaker 1: Votes. 00:21:08 Speaker 2: Votes, yeah, weekly votes. I don't know how that was given out. 00:21:11 Speaker 1: 12 times. In how many seasons. 00:21:15 Speaker 2: Did you play? 15. 00:21:17 Speaker 1: So only three times you did, and that would have been towards the end, I suppose, that you didn't play. 00:21:21 Speaker 2: I had cartilages out of my knee in 1975, and so I only played half that year, and then a couple at the end, I think. 00:21:30 Speaker 1: Barry Roblin, similar. Did that force your retirement from footy? 00:21:34 Speaker 2: It did eventually, yeah. My knee was so sore after every game, just from bone on bone, because there's no cartilage. Back then, they took the whole thing out. I've still got them in a bottle at home. I scare the grandchildren. There's a lot of cartilage in your knee. I did learn that too when they took them out. How are the knees now? 00:21:52 Speaker 1: Have you had any replacements? 00:21:54 Speaker 2: I haven't. I do exercises every morning for sciatic nerve pain that was related around that knee, but I think that's kept the arthritis a little bit freer, but planting trees is a bit of. 00:22:06 Speaker 1: A chore these days. Well, just quickly before we move on to the trees, four male medals in the Northeastern Footy League. Who was a rival from another team? A team that you would have been. 00:22:17 Speaker 2: Oh, we had some terrific players back then. A fellow called Barry Eberhard from Burra, John Mitchell from Mintero. Don Somerville was the other one. They were all terrific players. Lyle Ackland, he won, I think, three male medals for Mintero Manura. 00:22:32 Speaker 1: Any ex-league players come up there or did you? 00:22:35 Speaker 2: Not really, no. 00:22:37 Speaker 1: Unusual? 00:22:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really. I think we were just a bit too far away for them to come out. And no one, like you only had your team players then. If they were ex-league and they came from your club, they'd play for you. But Ivan Ekerman, of course, came from Blyth. 00:22:52 Speaker 1: Ivan Ekerman, Port Adelaide. 00:22:54 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:22:55 Speaker 1: We're not happy with him. 00:22:56 Speaker 2: He had a long career. And his two brothers were pretty good footballers as well. But they all left, unfortunately. All these good footballers left Blyth. That made it easier for me. 00:23:07 Speaker 1: Well, being such a legend in the bush, surely you would have been approached by league teams down here in Adelaide. 00:23:12 Speaker 2: Well, we, we were tied to central districts at the time and I was a Sturt fan. I loved Odie's style of football, that

handball, you know, moving, clean football. And I went to central, me and a mate went down for the trial trials and not a single person said, G'day, how you going? Come over here. You know, welcome. And, and we both, we thought, well, stuff this, if this is city football, they can stick it up their jumper because Blythe, you know, we had a wonderful reputation. It was the greatest at times. We had Michael Pratt, a bloke called Barry Miggy, who was a second cousin three times removed. And he was, to the day he died, he was like a child, a larrikin child and never lost his childhood nature. 00:23:58 Speaker 1: What was Michael Pratt's claim to fame up there? 00:24:00 Speaker 2: Oh, he just killed it. When he came to training, we spent most of our time laughing. He's one-liners. I mean, a lot of the stuff was... Was he a good player? Oh, he wasn't bad. He was pretty good. He was a left-foot wingman, and he'd just blast the ball to full forward every time. But he was mucking around and telling jokes at training all the time, and so it was very unserious. But it was a great time to be in that club and to come down to Central's, which they didn't show any interest at all in us. 00:24:29 Speaker 1: Who was coaching Central then? Can you remember? 00:24:31 Speaker 2: No, I can't remember. too long ago that is so we went back both of us went back to Blythe and we won the premiership that year so no regrets at all about that but I'd love to have I'd love to have played under Odie and learned his coaching methods that was the one regret I have. 00:24:47 Speaker 1: Okay it's interesting I obviously studied that and and speak regularly to guys who were coached by him and try and gauge some of the magic and it was the emphasis on skill and probably the relationships that he had but I just couldn't compare him to Neil Curley, you know. Cowles had that extra. Jack Odie's record's unbelievable. That's why he's a legend in the Hall of Fame. I don't know, but he just, I don't know. Cowles had something extra. Didn't have quite the record, but a pretty good one. Anyway, that's beside. So you're a farmer, but you must also, you had this artistic ability. Now, when was that evident? 00:25:27 Speaker 2: Well, we had cows on our farm, so we never travelled, so. 365 days of the year we were stuck on the farm. So mum and dad didn't have a holiday while I was a kid. They could only go on holiday when I was old enough to milk the cows on mine. And so I didn't know art existed. There was nothing in the house to speak of. And so at some stage I started growing eucalypt seedlings and I found them really interesting, peculiarly. 00:25:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, but why would a kid from the bush who's like a footy player and a great footy player Why would you find leaves interesting? 00:26:02 Speaker 2: Well, my grandfather, on the maternal side, he was interested in trees and he was a bit of an amateur botanist as well. So he was growing stuff at Yakka, north of Blyth, in 1910, way before anyone else had thought of it. And so I guess he was the inspiration for what my heart was. 00:26:21 Speaker 1: Was he growing eucalypts? 00:26:22 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, growing eucalypts. 00:26:23 Speaker 1: Why would you grow eucalypts? Why would you grow them when there could have been other a revenue-returning tree. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: Oh, he was growing them around Yakka in the town. And we had a spare bit of land on the farm. So not on property. Okay. So it's not on farming property. 00:26:41 Speaker 1: So what, just for decoration? 00:26:42 Speaker 2: Just because he was interested. because he loved trees, yeah. 00:26:46 Speaker 1: Eucalypts specifically? 00:26:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, eucalypts, yeah, specifically, yeah. 00:26:51 Speaker 1: So you got that interest, you acquired the interest from him, your grandfather? 00:26:55 Speaker 2: Well, it's a bit more complicated. The Koolabar Club were a group of older men who went around to each other's farms or properties and looked at gum trees. And so I'd go, because I loved my grandpa, I'd go with him. And while they were looking at the trees and talking to each other, I had my head poked in a tree a bit further away, pinching some gum nups off them. And so Papa took a photo of all my collection. I had tobacco tins and shoe boxes full of seeds. 00:27:24 Speaker 1: So this group of men go around and look at trees. Yes. You can understand why I'm a bit amused by that. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: Well, it was called the Koolabar Club. 00:27:33 Speaker 1: The Koolabar Club. 00:27:34 Speaker 2: There'll be people out there that'll remember something to do with their grandparents doing that. 00:27:39 Speaker 1: For what reason would they do that? 00:27:40 Speaker 2: Just interested. It's a bit like being a stamp collecting club. Not much different to that. Well, I don't know. 00:27:48 Speaker 1: I think I might find stamps a little bit more interesting than gum leaves. 00:27:52 Speaker 2: No, no, no. There's 900 species, Graeme. 00:27:57 Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. Ian Roberts is my guest, folks. He's an artist and an amateur botanist and a A bush legend, absolutely no doubt about that, back shortly. I am talking today to Ian Roberts. He's a great guy, a great fellow from Blyth in the Mid-North. I've never been there. I don't think I have. I've not been to Clare. It's not far from Clare. Ian grew up in the country at Blyth. It's the centre of the universe. He started his life's journey on a farm and now is an artist and a botanist. But when did you start to draw? I mean, I've seen some of your drawings are exquisite, but of plants, I mean, of gum leaves and, you know. 00:28:41 Speaker 2: Well, I started at about 16, I started to grow eucalypts. I'd been growing them a bit before that, but I started to get serious and collect seeds from all over Australia because I had three acres that I could plant the council. 00:28:52 Speaker 1: This country footy legend planting eucalypts. Creatures and studying them.

Weren't you one of the boys? Didn't you go out and have a drink after a game? 00:29:01 Speaker 2: No, I'm like you, Graeme. I didn't like beer, so I didn't drink. I'd still go out with the boys. Yeah, but I went out with the boys. Yeah, I did all that, and I watched their silly antics when they'd got drunk, and that put me off even more. A country footy trip to the city on grand final day. That was a wild, a wild weekend. 00:29:20 Speaker 1: Imagine it was. 00:29:21 Speaker 2: You'd go to a pub this year and they'd ban you forever. So you'd have to go to another pub next year and they'd ban you forever. And we ran out of pubs eventually to stay at. 00:29:30 Speaker 1: Where did the artistic ability come in? 00:29:32 Speaker 2: I don't know, really. I, I love drawing woodwork lessons and I had a teacher who encouraged me. He, me 10 out of 10 for these line drawings. And so I think that was an encouragement. And then when I grew these eucalypt seedlings, I found the leaf shape at the juvenile stage really interesting because it changes completely sometimes from juvenile to adult. So I started drawing them and it just kind of developed from there. And then I bought some paints and started painting them. And eventually another bloke brought out a book on all the eucalypt flowers and fruits. And I thought, oh, bugger, he's done that. That's my ambition gone. So I started painting birds and putting the flowers that had turned up on my trees. 00:30:17 Speaker 1: And I've got a couple of, I've got one now. I've downloaded it this morning, actually. It's a blue wren, I think. 00:30:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, blue wrens. 00:30:24 Speaker 1: They're really amazing drawings. Birds are great. You ever do the yellow-tailed cockatoo? Yes, yep. I love that bird. 00:30:32 Speaker 2: Got a big, big painting of that. 00:30:34 Speaker 1: Amazing bird. Do you do people? 00:30:37 Speaker 2: Do you do... No, no, not interested at all in people. 00:30:40 Speaker 1: So you just do birds and eucalypts? 00:30:42 Speaker 2: Well, really flowers. Flowers. Yeah, when I was painting, that was Banks years on that one. But eucalypts are my real passion as far as painting. And the seedlings, because it's 900, to grow them and paint them is life's work, really. So I've had to give away birds and flowers and just go back to, I'm running out of life, Coinsy. Running out of eyesight. Getting a wobbly hand as well. 00:31:08 Speaker 1: I guess that's coming with that. How old are you now? 74. 00:31:11 Speaker 2: Nice. 00:31:13 Speaker 1: Plenty of time to go, to straighten it out a bit. But Joe, your work is featured in books and the like, is it not? 00:31:21 Speaker 2: Yes, yes. So Dean Nicole and Malcolm French used my small ceiling paintings just to show... but people who are buying the books, what the seedlings look like. 00:31:30 Speaker 1: And are the seedlings used for rejuvenation of the countryside? Yeah, they are. 00:31:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, so I grow, over the years, I've grown up to

5,000 just for local revege projects. So we've got the rail corridor from Blyth to Kaibunga has been revegetated. Okay. And so it looks, it's terrific. 00:31:47 Speaker 1: There's not a bike path there or something? Sometimes they put bike paths on the old railway lines. 00:31:51 Speaker 2: Well, the one north of Blyth is, so that goes 2.2 kilometres. That was all we could afford. And so that's beautifully surfaced, a bit like the Riesling Trail up in Clare, but better, I think. Better views. 00:32:02 Speaker 1: So your house is on the old property, is it? 00:32:05 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. So a mile north of Blyth. 00:32:08 Speaker 1: And I guess you're surrounded by gum trees. 00:32:11 Speaker 2: Well, when I grew up, there wasn't a tree to be seen. So Blythe was a plain that, for a certain amount of it, there were no trees at all, just a few stunted shrubs. And so it was great farming country. Stick the plough in and away they went. No stones. Wonderful farming country. 00:32:28 Speaker 1: But you've contributed to the society in other ways. I mean, there's the story about you starting the Blythe Cinema, like the Tell us that story. I mean, is there a need for a cinema in Blyth these days? 00:32:41 Speaker 2: Well, of course there is. I came down to Nova Cinema and I went to see Master and Commander of the Far Side of the World and I was just blown away by the sound effects. It was a good movie, that one. And I thought, we deserve to have this in the country. Now, there were a couple that were bringing our projectors down to the Clare Town Hall, but they put them at the back of the hall on the floor and the kids, the chairs were just chairs that rolled around on the floor so there was noise. They came down to the Blythe Tower and all I didn't hear a word of dialogue because the kids were making too much noise, the echo in the room. This is not good enough for the country. And I'd bought the old Masonic Lodge and I thought, I don't know what I'm going to do with it now. I've bought it. Why would you buy it? 00:33:24 Speaker 1: You don't know what you're going to do with it. 00:33:25 Speaker 2: Well, it was across the road from the gallery and I thought, oh, I could have a second gallery here. Well, I had the door open all day and I thought, I'm going to go over there one day and find nothing in it. So that didn't work out too well. And so I put out a call publicly, is anybody interested in having a cinema? Well, 23 people turned up at the meeting and they weren't on other committees. So I thought, oh, there's an interest here for people who are not on footy clubs and netball clubs and stuff. So away we went. My wife and myself funded the setup and everything since then has had to be paid out of profits. 00:34:00 Speaker 1: So what have you got? You've got a, what sort of projector do you have? 00:34:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got two proper, same projectors they have in. 00:34:07 Speaker 1: Like a band cinemas, yeah. 00:34:09 Speaker 2: Big cinemas,

only they're smaller because the throw is smaller. Yeah. And we've got twin cinema now. We've just built, five years ago we put up a second new one. And what sort of sound? Oh yeah, proper surround sound. It's top shelf sound. We've just put in a new projector to replace an old one. $ 74, 000 for the projector and the sound. 00:34:31 Speaker 1: Who comes to the movies in Blythe? 00:34:33 Speaker 2: Claire, Balaclava, Blythe, Brinkworth, Snowdown. We had people from Crystal Brook on the weekend. Peterborough, they'll come a hundred. 00:34:43 Speaker 1: What times are your sessions? 00:34:45 Speaker 2: We have about seven a week on average. And so Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and then school holidays, we're five or six sessions a day, every day of the week. 00:34:55 Speaker 1: That staggers me. A little place like Blythe. 00:34:58 Speaker 2: It is. So before COVID, we were doing about 15,000 people a year through the place, and now it's probably about nine. And we've got a team of projectionists ticketing. It only takes one person generally to run the whole thing. So you do the whole, you've got to do the lot. 00:35:14 Speaker 1: That's amazing. 00:35:16 Speaker 2: People come in and say, oh, hell, I didn't expect this. 00:35:19 Speaker 1: What sort of seats have you got? 00:35:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, proper cinema seats, yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, rigid cinema seats. Not gold class. 00:35:26 Speaker 1: I was going to say, do you have a gold class? 00:35:28 Speaker 2: No, no. We worked out that was $ 20, 000 a seat to put gold class seats in. Wow. Including the building. 00:35:36 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:35:36 Speaker 2: And we thought, well, that's ridiculous. We don't need that here. Okay. 00:35:40 Speaker 1: We might have to backtrack a little bit, Ian, because I did interview Michael Wanganeen. famous football, legendary Indigenous team coach. And he was closely connected to you, I understand, at one stage. 00:35:56 Speaker 2: He was. And the thing I liked about Mike was he brought a new modern style of football to Blyth and that was offensive handball. So where it had always been, if you got in trouble, you handballed. He made it. And he was such a good player. He could handball 20 metres accurately. And I guess I had such a good rapport with him. He was a Ruckman and I was Santa. And all I had to do was get on my own and Mike would immediately handball it to me with dead accuracy. 00:36:25 Speaker 1: So we would have tagged you. 00:36:28 Speaker 2: Yes, you would have. I only have had one tag in my life. And I've been reading Travis Boak's book of late and how he handled tags. And I thought, I wish someone had told me about taggers. But anyway, Michael was an Aboriginal bloke and he came to Blythe and He came to Blyth with a legendary status even then. And he told me only a few years ago, he said, I was petrified coming to coach this all-white team and what they'd think of me. And I said, really, Mike? You know, when you came to us, we just thought you're a good coach and you're a good player. 00:37:02 Speaker 1: So there was no racial barrier? 00:37:03 Speaker 2: There was no racial barrier. And so it made me think that my dad, he went on a footy trip to the southeast and I've got the... picture here of the two Aboriginal players, Lindsay Benbolt and Harold Cobby. I think it was Harold Cobby. They took him on the footy trip. You know, back in those days, Aboriginal blokes couldn't go into the pub. But he had the Blythe blazer on. He went on the footy trip. They made sure they took a beer outside to him. They included him in everything they did. 00:37:32 Speaker 1: But they still wouldn't let him in the pub. 00:37:34 Speaker 2: They wouldn't let him in the pub down there, no. 00:37:36 Speaker 1: That's amazing when you think of that. 00:37:38 Speaker 2: It is. 00:37:39 Speaker 1: A returned serviceman couldn't get into the pub. 00:37:42 Speaker 2: But I guess for me, it's a point of pride, I suppose, that there wasn't that racial thing. They were happy to take him on the footy trip with them. And so when Mike came along, we didn't, his Aboriginality didn't mean anything to us at all. 00:37:58 Speaker 1: He was still a player then, Michael? 00:38:00 Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. He was brilliant. He was a wonderful player. 00:38:03 Speaker 1: I just can't remember, did you win the flag under Michael? 00:38:06 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. So the 74 flag we won under him. We lost the year before in the grand final under him and then won the next year. And he got king hit halfway through the third quarter and actually couldn't give the three-quarter time speech. 00:38:20 Speaker 1: Who did it? 00:38:21 Speaker 2: A bloke called Barry Miggy that I mentioned before gave the speech. And he was quite inspirational in his own way. But we'd already won the game by then. 00:38:29 Speaker 1: No, he gave the speech. I mean, who hit Michael Wenger? 00:38:32 Speaker 2: Oh, no, I can't remember that. No, no, that's... But, you know, they were always looking to take him out because he was such a good player. 00:38:40 Speaker 1: Do you have reunions? Yeah, we did. 00:38:42 Speaker 2: Mike came to the 40th, it would have been, 40th reunion last year. And so it was just great to catch. And everybody loved catching up with Mike. You know, he was one of those blokes everyone loved. He was just terrific. 00:38:55 Speaker 1: Now, look, when Elliot, to the end, I don't want to be at the end, but we're nearly to it. Tell us about the, I don't even know how you say it, the Bajan K. Dahl Medal. What is that? 00:39:04 Speaker 2: Well, Eucalypt Australia are an organisation in Melbourne and the Dahl Medal came out of a forester who was a Dutchman who left all his money to the improvement of eucalypt research and all that sort of stuff. And so it's a big amount of money that they can give out each year for research and that sort of thing. So this medal goes to people who they think are deserving of it for their work with eucalypts. 00:39:31 Speaker 1: Where is it presented and how is it presented? 00:39:33 Speaker 2: In Melbourne. So I got a trip to Melbourne and had to give a bit of a talk to the other medalists, the previous ones, and the glitterati in the eucalypt world in Melbourne. There are a few around. 00:39:46 Speaker 1: I can't believe there's such a large community who... Fascinated by eucalyptus. Does that mean I'm anti, not anti? 00:39:54 Speaker 2: Well, you know, you just lack a knowledge, Graeme. You need to come to Blythe. We've got the Dean Nicole Eucalypt Walk. It's two kilometres. I'll take you for a walk and you'll get a sense of why I'm a bit keen on it. 00:40:08 Speaker 1: I have a great affinity with country footballers, particularly those who've had such a career as you had. Four male medals, 12 times the Blythe Footy Club Best and Fairest. Have they had to amalgamate as a team? 00:40:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, we've amalgamated with Snowdown. So it's Blythe, Snowdown, Cats now. So we're no longer the Blythe Roosters. 00:40:26 Speaker 1: So you were the red and white and now you're blue and white. 00:40:29 Speaker 2: So we just, basically we're a small area. Snowdown's a relatively small area. We've got a lot of salt bush between the towns. We've got hills either side, so not many people living on either side of us. 00:40:39 Speaker 1: What's the distance between the two towns? 00:40:42 Speaker 2: About 18 kilometres, I think. 00:40:43 Speaker 1: Oh, that's not bad. 00:40:44 Speaker 2: 20 kilometres. And honestly, they're a great family club. I've got to hand it to them. Amalgamations may or may not work, and this one's really worked. 00:40:54 Speaker 1: Blythe, I've never been. Ian, I'll have to get up there one day, particularly to experience this cinema and see your eucalyptus. And you can explain to me what fascinates you about the eucalyptus. 00:41:07 Speaker 2: Make sure you let me know when you're coming so that I can give you the guided tour of our mighty town. 00:41:12 Speaker 1: And the footy club rooms, are they still there? 00:41:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. They were built in 74, so they're a bit tired, but there's no money. Gosh, we could have got onto the SA NFL when they had domination of country footy clubs, but that might be for another day. 00:41:25 Speaker 1: We better not do that. Ian Roberts, thanks so much for coming down. Thanks for your time. Really enjoyed the chat. 00:41:31 Speaker 2: Thank you. 00:41:31 Speaker 1: Ian Roberts was my guest, folks. Maintains Blythe as the centre of the universe. You can debate that. But thank you so much for joining us.