Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Welcome to conversations. And my guest today is
Speaker 1: a living national treasure. I don't know what you have
Speaker 1: to do to be designated as a living treasure. But
Speaker 1: Ernie didn't go. Is just that one of our famous
Speaker 1: television actors and presenters and comedian and star football player,
Speaker 1: star basketball player. He's everywhere, he joins us. Now, Ernie,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good, make good, so good to have young with you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, by the way, you know you can get
Speaker 2: off the list. What you have to carck it cack it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: get off the living legend. But you can't be on
Speaker 2: a living legend if you carcked it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a bit some We won't we won't go there.
Speaker 2: Well it just makes room for someone else.
Speaker 1: Ernie, dingo am too. My goodness, that's a significant decoration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the job's taken. Then ohr go. It's too
Speaker 2: early in the morning for this day.
Speaker 1: Well it's early for you, it's a bit later for us.
Speaker 1: As we're speaking. Where abouts are you?
Speaker 2: I mean, w a home of the Mighty Eagles, mate.
Speaker 1: Mighty Eagles aren't quite so mody these days.
Speaker 2: I give it a gate. Your bloke's been down there
Speaker 2: you know as well, No.
Speaker 1: We can't laugh a new series of going places, and
Speaker 1: he didn't go. You just keep getting work, don't you.
Speaker 2: I think it's because I just keep going traveling, and
Speaker 2: I used to post about where I'm traveling, and the
Speaker 2: network used to get jealous of the fact that I'm
Speaker 2: having all this fun out in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 2: and then they come along and say, oh, can we
Speaker 2: film it and take the fun away? And a lot
Speaker 2: of what Then I have to get a lot of
Speaker 2: my old buff haired mates to sort of stick their
Speaker 2: noses on the telly with me. But it's good fun.
Speaker 2: Another season of that. Lots going on in the industry.
Speaker 2: I think they're just trying to get the best out
Speaker 2: of me before I get off the list.
Speaker 1: Get off the list, we go. I've been intrigued by
Speaker 1: you any over the years because I've been able to
Speaker 1: follow you from Afar. I mean we've spoken a couple
Speaker 1: of times. But how did it happen? I mean, you're
Speaker 1: born in the country, You're born on a station.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm station boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us tell us about the early days.
Speaker 2: Bulladoo Station, Yeah, Bullado Stations, the cattle station near the
Speaker 2: Murchison River, old bike by the name of Bob Jensen's
Speaker 2: and he's still there. I'm his boy because I was
Speaker 2: born on his station. You know, he's had others born
Speaker 2: on the station, but then they're not as well known
Speaker 2: as I am, and he doesn't realize it. I stole
Speaker 2: all their beautiful compliments and stories and stuff and just
Speaker 2: put it out there and pretending it's all mine. But
Speaker 2: now Bolla do station. My grandmother delivered me on a
Speaker 2: wash house floor on my Auntie's in my Auntie's house.
Speaker 2: All three ladies, Mum, Mum, Nana and my Auntie were
Speaker 2: all domestics and the stations. So they had a little
Speaker 2: break around about morning tea so the women can get
Speaker 2: back to work after morning tea, after small gate.
Speaker 1: What were the early days like for you growing up
Speaker 1: on the station. It was a different era. You must
Speaker 1: have been subjected to all sorts.
Speaker 2: Of Oh, there was very little English around on those
Speaker 2: area because we're set aside away from the main house
Speaker 2: where my mum worked or where Nana was working, and
Speaker 2: where they lived was only about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: meters And I remember when I was told that when
Speaker 2: Mum used to go to work in the big house
Speaker 2: and I was at home with the old girls one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty meters away, and Mum used to come back,
Speaker 2: and well, Mum used to look after the white kids
Speaker 2: in the big house and we'd get to see her
Speaker 2: either once at the end of the day or once
Speaker 2: a week, and she would see her father who was
Speaker 2: about one hundred and fifty meters further, would see him
Speaker 2: once a month. On I spent the last Sunday of
Speaker 2: every month, and yeah, it was pretty different. So I
Speaker 2: had a lot of voices around me that was birds
Speaker 2: and animals. You could work out which birds in the
Speaker 2: morning were making noises and what the weather was like
Speaker 2: because they'd all come with their stories and chirp up
Speaker 2: and carry on around the place. And you could also
Speaker 2: tell the different birds by the time of the year
Speaker 2: by the sounds of different birds. So that was a
Speaker 2: lot in the first couple of years bundled up. And
Speaker 2: you know the old et you probably had this when
Speaker 2: you were young as well, that you you were seen
Speaker 2: and never heard.
Speaker 1: Kids should be seen and never heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was another one too, because basically we
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to speak language now dialect Waji, so there
Speaker 2: was a warning word that was said, no man or
Speaker 2: ballet means no more talking because the white fellow coming.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so we grew up with that, so it
Speaker 2: was sort of it was more of an intriguement to
Speaker 2: see this, you know, big fellow in a lot of
Speaker 2: big white fellow and knowing that you couldn't really sail
Speaker 2: out to him, but you could, you know. We'd learned
Speaker 2: to say hello, and that charmed them straight away. So
Speaker 2: as a kid, all you have to do to white
Speaker 2: fellows at that time was hello with a big smile,
Speaker 2: and you want them.
Speaker 1: And what sort of employers were they those white fellows
Speaker 1: in those days?
Speaker 2: Well, see around that area we had a lot of
Speaker 2: older men who were like old Ossie stock, but a
Speaker 2: lot of their wives were Celtic women. My Lord of
Speaker 2: Bryde sent out from Scotland and from Wales and the Irish,
Speaker 2: you know, the Celtic side of that England, Scotland, Wales
Speaker 2: and Ireland. Whiles would come out. So the only company
Speaker 2: those women had were the Aboriginal women. And we're still
Speaker 2: in touch with a lot of those families out through
Speaker 2: Maria and the hawkers that used to come through there,
Speaker 2: you know along yellow long will do more than all
Speaker 2: those old families. Their descendants are still in touch with
Speaker 2: each other today, especially around my travel area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so was your dad of Stockman?
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm one of those passersbys, and dad was
Speaker 2: on the other side of the fence. And he's got
Speaker 2: kids older than me and kids younger than me. So
Speaker 2: it was a ships in the night sort of situation.
Speaker 1: You so you don't have a relationship with him, or
Speaker 1: you didn't have that.
Speaker 2: I never had a father figure in my life. A
Speaker 2: lot of good teachers around.
Speaker 1: Me, though, But how did that impact on you?
Speaker 2: Looking at it now, it doesn't really bother me at all.
Speaker 2: I saw things from uncle's point of view. I saw
Speaker 2: things from my grandfather's connections a big part of my
Speaker 2: life and still today because my grandfather was a top lawman,
Speaker 2: and he used to travel walk hundreds or thousands of
Speaker 2: kilometers for ceremonies and nearly every summer and initiated a
Speaker 2: lot of men and being a part of those ceremonies.
Speaker 2: Since getting back, you know, we're talking about one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty, one hundred and twenty years ago, one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty years ago. Because he died at nineteen forty seven, she.
Speaker 1: Said, opens up a whole line of discussion when you
Speaker 1: talk about initiation.
Speaker 2: Now we still do bush camps every year. White people
Speaker 2: don't know about that. I mean when we talk about
Speaker 2: law camps and we talk about that's my connection to
Speaker 2: a lot of men's health, men's issue stuff that I
Speaker 2: had taken on board as a young fellow. Not having
Speaker 2: a father figure to step me in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Mind you, having a father figure in those days was
Speaker 2: pretty hard, mainly because of the fact that the persecution
Speaker 2: of a lot of men in those times was so
Speaker 2: demoralizing for them, where they would look after their family
Speaker 2: and then go to walk and go to work and
Speaker 2: be you know, I have to cop a lot to
Speaker 2: deal with just to get through the day. So at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, when those dads used to
Speaker 2: come back home, you know, a silent word and because
Speaker 2: they were so frustrated and angry and what they had
Speaker 2: to do to get through that day. So I have
Speaker 2: a lot of respect for them. And then looking at
Speaker 2: all the other men around the districts, you know that
Speaker 2: or through my traditional cultural background and see a lot
Speaker 2: of strong lawmen as to what they were, like my grandfather,
Speaker 2: like my uncles, and my cousin, and to see what
Speaker 2: they've gone through and still maintained today, and knowing full
Speaker 2: well that very very few Waybillers or non Avoridginal people
Speaker 2: know what they what we do in the summertime.
Speaker 1: Ernie didn't go as my guest. Folks, he's back with
Speaker 1: going places with Ernie didn't go. And also the big
Speaker 1: backyard quiz. We'll talk about that when we come back
Speaker 1: back shortly. Welcome back everybody. And he didn't go as
Speaker 1: my guest. He's in wa And I must say, Ernie,
Speaker 1: I mentioned before the tape started running that photo that
Speaker 1: painting behind you is magnificent. Can you just explain it?
Speaker 1: I know our listeners can't see it, but can you
Speaker 1: just explain it for us?
Speaker 2: The women in my family we have, well, all Averiginal
Speaker 2: people born are given a skin group. They belonged to
Speaker 2: a certain skin group. Well, it doesn't matter our far
Speaker 2: or our removed from the indigenous society. They have a
Speaker 2: skin name. And on top of that, we have a totem,
Speaker 2: and there's a senior totem which the grandmothers have and
Speaker 2: my grandmother's totum is a red dl black cocker tooo.
Speaker 2: So when she's around. As in the painting behind me,
Speaker 2: there's there's a protection. She's looking over me all the time.
Speaker 2: Keep an eye out from my mother's is the Martin Swallow,
Speaker 2: you know. And there's all these differences of having totems
Speaker 2: as a protector, as a totem as a symbol of strength,
Speaker 2: and the connections you have with the other people's totems
Speaker 2: around you. So you're connected as a skin, you're connected
Speaker 2: by name, you're connected as a child, you're connected as mty,
Speaker 2: you're connected as all these different ways. So you're not
Speaker 2: very much alone in anything that you do. So this
Speaker 2: one behind me is my fiftieth birthday present that my
Speaker 2: wife gave to me, you know, the redtail black cockatoo
Speaker 2: in transit and full paint, and the story about them
Speaker 2: when there's the bloke that painted it was seeing them
Speaker 2: like he was seeing them as an old friend. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so I've got redtail black cockatoos basically all around my house.
Speaker 2: And every time you hear that call, that's just the
Speaker 2: old girl's keeping an eye on you.
Speaker 1: My son Chad lives in the country and they're surrounded
Speaker 1: by a yellow tail black cockatoo.
Speaker 2: Same call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's they're just They sometimes fly around our golf
Speaker 1: club and they're just mesmerizing. I'm digressing, so I don't
Speaker 1: blame your mate.
Speaker 2: There's the lovely thing about the red all black cockatoos
Speaker 2: is the white, the red, and the yellow, and they
Speaker 2: all have a very similar call. And you have the
Speaker 2: you have the glossy ones as well as which are
Speaker 2: getting pretty close to extinction. And that's usually where a
Speaker 2: lot of more people are starting to move in to.
Speaker 2: If they move into the bush, that's when we start
Speaker 2: to lose our beautiful birds. And your son would start
Speaker 2: winging if he does hear that calls. You feel safe
Speaker 2: because when you hear that call, you know you're close
Speaker 2: to home.
Speaker 1: Anyway, this little kid growing up on a station, how
Speaker 1: do you break out? I mean, if that's the word,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you move on from the station?
Speaker 1: Why did you become so famous?
Speaker 2: Well, we moved into town, and as we moved into town,
Speaker 2: there's a progressional living standard. You can live outside like
Speaker 2: in fringe dwelling. You can go to the reserve, but
Speaker 2: once you're in the reserve, you straight under government control.
Speaker 2: Because at that time we still wasn't citizens. I grew
Speaker 2: up being young a you and I spoke why daddy.
Speaker 2: So my language is and my identity from my traditional
Speaker 2: background gave me that. But they says, no, you're not are,
Speaker 2: You're not Yummage, you're not Wadjedi whatever you think you
Speaker 2: taught you your native, the government refers to as being native.
Speaker 2: So I had the whole lot. I grew up Wayjetdi
Speaker 2: speaking Wajeddi with Yammay people. I was told I was native,
Speaker 2: and then they did a bit of voting and we
Speaker 2: went from native to Aborigine. Then they decided to update
Speaker 2: that to make us Aboriginal. And then by the time
Speaker 2: we worked out all our paperwork and printed out all
Speaker 2: these printed with Aboriginal organizations, they changed it to indigenous,
Speaker 2: so we lost all that paperwork. And then after becoming
Speaker 2: indigenous for a while that they said there was no
Speaker 2: bugger that you're not indigenous anymore, your first nation. And
Speaker 2: you know, in a couple of years time they'll have
Speaker 2: to change it again because that's been the pattern, and
Speaker 2: all this has happened in just my lifetime. We were
Speaker 2: called other names, but you weren't. I can't say that
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 1: Know, so many, so many points of discussion, how different
Speaker 1: are the indigenous dialects. When you mentioned a couple, then
Speaker 1: how how different are they?
Speaker 2: Are?
Speaker 1: They completely different languages. You've been to Europe, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have been to Europe.
Speaker 2: Well, you know how the Nords talk, I mean Sami
Speaker 2: people up in Finland. We talk about the Finnish language.
Speaker 2: But in Finland there's the Sami people, who are the
Speaker 2: indigenous people there who've got a different language. Again, but
Speaker 2: all over Europe, you know, it's hard for the Greeks
Speaker 2: to talk to to talk to the Polish, and there
Speaker 2: they're neighbors basically, you know, and you know everyone's there's
Speaker 2: all these different languages all over Europe and you accept them.
Speaker 2: And even in Italy is I love Italy for many reasons.
Speaker 2: There's so many comparisons the north of Italy and the
Speaker 2: middle of Italy to the east side and the west
Speaker 2: side and down the bloody Sicilians, for instance, they've got
Speaker 2: a different language or dialect again, so to speak Italian,
Speaker 2: you've got to be careful where you are because you've
Speaker 2: got a different accent all top to bottom. So the
Speaker 2: language is in Australia rare the same. But then some
Speaker 2: of the language, most of the desert languages, or the
Speaker 2: northern part of it is prefixed language, and the southern
Speaker 2: the older part I mean the southwest and the south east,
Speaker 2: and even Tasi. I mean Tazi was an island seventeen
Speaker 2: thousand years ago, so they've got a language beyond that.
Speaker 2: And that's more of a suffix language.
Speaker 1: When you say, what do you mean by that suffix
Speaker 1: and prefix, I.
Speaker 2: Was just saying I can see you on my computer.
Speaker 2: I'm work trying to work this out over. You know,
Speaker 2: prefixes when you put the subject first, okay, and suffix
Speaker 2: is when it's later. If I was to say I
Speaker 2: went down the road to see a mate, I can't
Speaker 2: even bloody explain it.
Speaker 1: I get the idea.
Speaker 2: So we've used that.
Speaker 1: You can say that is in the room.
Speaker 2: In that room as a man in that Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: I just went a little bit blank there in a minute.
Speaker 1: Well it's a complicated question, Ernie, I'm sorry to do that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's complicated languages. I mean, it's that sort of
Speaker 2: thing about. You know, you've got your speaking language that
Speaker 2: everyone seems to know, whether yidarky come from. In the
Speaker 2: top end of Australia. You've got the people in Darwin
Speaker 2: which is so similar to the people that come from
Speaker 2: where the Yidarky come from or Gobberil comes from and
Speaker 2: totally different. But even in Darwin you've got people like
Speaker 2: really that comes from the island, which is different to
Speaker 2: the people on the mainland of Darwin. So that dialects,
Speaker 2: you know, which is only a couple of miles apart.
Speaker 2: But then you go down to build Dempsey Country down
Speaker 2: towards the center of Australia and it's different again. You've
Speaker 2: got Central Australian, the Banto with animal people there. It's
Speaker 2: completely different again with Liam Ryan sort of stuff, not
Speaker 2: Liam Ryan, Liam Jarrah, even Liam Ryan, that's my family.
Speaker 2: He comes from where my language comes from.
Speaker 1: Anually, let's go back to this little kid growing up
Speaker 1: and you moved to this, you moved to this into
Speaker 1: the town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got into I was because of our family
Speaker 2: systems I have. I grew up with three mothers, my mum,
Speaker 2: her sisters are my mum's so being lucky to have
Speaker 2: three mums so I can go either way. So living
Speaker 2: with my mum, having three moms around me, I have
Speaker 2: that guidance around me and my cousins, their children. My
Speaker 2: mom's sisters children. They're my brothers and sisters because we
Speaker 2: all got we have three mums. My older cousins were
Speaker 2: sort of like. They were like eight nine, and I
Speaker 2: was about novel seven and eight and I was about five,
Speaker 2: and so I was too young to hang out with them,
Speaker 2: so they used to go and do things big boys
Speaker 2: do and spend a lot of time alone. I have
Speaker 2: one sister older than men. Eventually I had five sisters
Speaker 2: younger than me, and so it wasn't really a playful
Speaker 2: world for me. So I used to entertained myself. What
Speaker 2: I did was go out into the flat and there
Speaker 2: was a bit of sandpile there that they used in
Speaker 2: the backyards, and I'd pile the sandpile up to about
Speaker 2: a foot and a half two foot high. And that
Speaker 2: little sandpile was the one that changed my life because
Speaker 2: I could look down at that sandpile, walk around that sandpile,
Speaker 2: and just look at it as a sandpile. But if
Speaker 2: I laid on the ground, that sandpile become the horizon,
Speaker 2: and with a finger, I can touch the top of
Speaker 2: that sandpile. Therefore, I could touch the horizon until I
Speaker 2: lifted my head up and the horizon disappeared into the distance.
Speaker 2: So that was my fascination. In every direction I looked,
Speaker 2: the horizon was different. So I had this travel bug
Speaker 2: and my mum's brother, Lesdingo, he broke out of w
Speaker 2: a against the government because he was a He wanted
Speaker 2: to explore the world with the Brearley family. They were
Speaker 2: a traveling show and he changed his name to Kid
Speaker 2: Brearley to boxing the tents in those days, and he
Speaker 2: used to ride the of the horses. They're all the
Speaker 2: shows in those days, traveling shows, boxing shows who would
Speaker 2: have bucking horses and a boxing tent traveling around. Shaman
Speaker 2: was from people may remember as well. And so he
Speaker 2: went from the Midwest into the Northern Territory, top of
Speaker 2: Queensland and down into the Victoria. Didn't want to go
Speaker 2: overseas because he couldn't understand that to Dazzy. So he
Speaker 2: came home via the same route and brought some peanuts
Speaker 2: back from Queensland from King Roi and showed his mom
Speaker 2: and my sister and they had peanuts in a brown
Speaker 2: paper bag that he's been carrying around for about about
Speaker 2: six months to get home. So the travel bug was
Speaker 2: sat into me and I just wanted to chase the
Speaker 2: horizons and been very lucky. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 2: Great Outdoors was a classic example of my standard travel
Speaker 2: and now going places. And I tell you what, still
Speaker 2: there's still parts of this particular island that I still
Speaker 2: want to see. So the travel bug was there, but
Speaker 2: just I had to get through being a kid.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the travel Bug because it ties him
Speaker 1: with your program Going Places with Ernie Dingo. Also the
Speaker 1: Big Backyard Quiz. Lots to talk about. We've got to
Speaker 1: get you playing footy and basketball because you're a star
Speaker 1: at that.
Speaker 2: We haven't done that much been Dad got the T shirt.
Speaker 1: Ernie ding goes my guest fus back shortly. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to conversations everybody. If you just tuned in, we're having
Speaker 1: a chat with Ernie Dingo, and it is a good
Speaker 1: yarn because he's telling us all about his early days,
Speaker 1: which in some sense they sound idyllic, but I can't
Speaker 1: imagine they particularly were when you you know, obviously you
Speaker 1: were villified. I would have thought as a young fellow,
Speaker 1: as a family, did you feel that, did you since that?
Speaker 1: Or were you just a happy kid?
Speaker 2: If you stay with it, Kwanzi, you know full. Well,
Speaker 2: if if somebody tells you you're an idiot and you
Speaker 2: stop and look at them, they're going to throw something,
Speaker 2: because that's just the opening line, and they're going to
Speaker 2: keep going. And if you it depends how you respond
Speaker 2: as to their next move. So it got to the
Speaker 2: stage where, you know, I came to Perth in seven
Speaker 2: three dealing with the lot at school when my first
Speaker 2: year at primary school.
Speaker 1: In grade finteen seventy three, you were seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I was in primary school at the age
Speaker 2: of five, I went to a Catholic school and these
Speaker 2: kids used to run around the corner and they'd say
Speaker 2: something to me and laugh, and because they laughed, well,
Speaker 2: I thought it was okay because they laughed, it wasn't
Speaker 2: to tell My big cousin, the one that you know,
Speaker 2: told me, you know, I'm too much of a baby,
Speaker 2: don't go with them. He came around the corner and
Speaker 2: they were saying pull the trigger, bang bang bang, but
Speaker 2: they'd run away laughing, So it must have been funny
Speaker 2: because I didn't know what it was. And until my
Speaker 2: cousin came around and he heard them and he whacked
Speaker 2: them and we got kicked out of the school. In
Speaker 2: primary school, I learned a few of the other words
Speaker 2: that were being handed bandied around, and a lot of
Speaker 2: them at American connotation. You know, are you all that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff? And he's so like, well, no, I'm not,
Speaker 2: I'm yummi ye. So I was dumb to a lot
Speaker 2: of the expressions. I came home from high school one
Speaker 2: time and said to mom, Mom, I gotta ask you
Speaker 2: a question, and she goes, what's up. I said, well,
Speaker 2: these kids at school call me a. She said, who's
Speaker 2: I'm twelve years old? Thirteen years old? These kids are
Speaker 2: calling me a. And I didn't know it was the
Speaker 2: trigger sort of game again, because it doesn't. I was
Speaker 2: too busy meeting people, having fun and enjoying things around me,
Speaker 2: playing sport, playing basketball, playing long distance running, you know,
Speaker 2: for everything that kids. I played hockey. I played soccer
Speaker 2: because these Italian kids, and I loved soccer. Okay, I'll
Speaker 2: have a crack at it. Played hockey. I'm a left hand.
Speaker 2: I was getting whacked in the legs all the time baseball,
Speaker 2: so like, all right, I get thrust, don't you know,
Speaker 2: knock some birds out of the tree. When we were young,
Speaker 2: hunting for food and yeah, this is easy. But Mum,
Speaker 2: these other kids are calling me a what's of seconds?
Speaker 2: You don't know? And I said, no, I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's what she said. I don't know either, all right,
Speaker 2: So it didn't matter because my mom didn't know, and
Speaker 2: she made it sound like it wasn't a problem. But
Speaker 2: then other kids who would get upset about names and
Speaker 2: what do they call me that? What does it mean?
Speaker 2: And then they say it's rude, it's rude. Ah, they
Speaker 2: can't I'll put you know. But in the back of
Speaker 2: my head we used to say, well, we can speak
Speaker 2: white fellow language, we can speak English. These Italian boys
Speaker 2: teach us Italian, mostly the dirty words. But you know,
Speaker 2: that's the way you go with young fellows. All languages
Speaker 2: that you learn. Polish, this old Serbian fellow that was
Speaker 2: in our town. As kids growing up, we'd learned some
Speaker 2: of the hollows and how I you and good sort
Speaker 2: of stuff words I mean, all Polish. For I learned
Speaker 2: at a very early age too to speak Polish, and
Speaker 2: eventually he would teach me the movi apoporski and which
Speaker 2: means I don't speak Polish, imperfect Polish. So we have
Speaker 2: all these languages around us. We learned English, we learned
Speaker 2: all this, We learned this at school, we learned French
Speaker 2: and German. Never thought we'd ever go there, but we did.
Speaker 2: The Italian boys, the Greek boys, and all the Middle
Speaker 2: East and boys around grew up with Afghans and the
Speaker 2: Sikh community and all that around, Chinese gold miners and
Speaker 2: stuff like. They were everywhere. The Irish, the Welsh Irish
Speaker 2: were the craziest, and the Scottish was just as bloody mad.
Speaker 2: But you know it was the English. We learned their language.
Speaker 2: So when these kids used to go, you know, that's
Speaker 2: a bloody derogatory word towards US indigenous people, and I'm going, well,
Speaker 2: why don't we swear at them and their language? And
Speaker 2: we did with the smile on our face.
Speaker 1: Surely sport, you were good at sport. You played, you
Speaker 1: played basketball, your footy. You're a good runner. That must
Speaker 1: have helped you integrate into mainstream society.
Speaker 2: I loved sport. Long distance running was my love. I
Speaker 2: ran the Halli Memorial Mile my second year at school
Speaker 2: and did all right. And they introduced the three thousand
Speaker 2: that year as well, and I set the record in
Speaker 2: that in seventy one and broke it in seventy two
Speaker 2: and whacked the Allly Memorial Mile as well. In my
Speaker 2: last year at school, I played a lot of sports.
Speaker 2: I was sent to Perth for a baseball scholarship when
Speaker 2: I loved playing basketball. I mean I had a black
Speaker 2: called Colin Jennings as a sports teacher, and when we
Speaker 2: were in primary school as a nine to ten year old,
Speaker 2: learned how to play basketball, so I was too light
Speaker 2: to play footy. My cousins used to eat a lot
Speaker 2: more biscuits than me, so they were a lot bigger
Speaker 2: and a lot more of a bully than me. Because
Speaker 2: I didn't want to get into it, so we used
Speaker 2: to skirt the packs and play off the side of
Speaker 2: the ball, come over the back. We used to get
Speaker 2: it and that sort of stuff. But don't go in
Speaker 2: for the big stuff because the boys they ate your
Speaker 2: biscuits as well. So basketball was good to play as
Speaker 2: a kid. I came down to Perth as a baseball scholarship,
Speaker 2: playing for the Marley Eagles on Basandeene Oval and as
Speaker 2: a pitcher, and I didn't know that in baseball you
Speaker 2: can call the picture whatever you like, but you weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to say his name. And racism in Perth in
Speaker 2: the seventies was pretty rife, and you know, you just
Speaker 2: had to put through it. Never walk around on your
Speaker 2: own because you'll just get bumped. Because they made tried
Speaker 2: to make Ariginal people members of the community and assimilation
Speaker 2: program where we was trying. They wanted us to be
Speaker 2: like them. As soon as we tried to be like them,
Speaker 2: they tell us where they wrong color to be like them.
Speaker 2: So they push didn't matter what you do, the dog
Speaker 2: Collar Act and all that, it didn't matter. So in baseball,
Speaker 2: the the umpire, I looked at the umpire and he said, Mike,
Speaker 2: they can say whatever they want, but they're not allowed
Speaker 2: to use your name. So I put a ball into
Speaker 2: their dugout and caused a bit of a rift and
Speaker 2: didn't play after that, I'd gone down.
Speaker 1: To it sounds similar to the issues that Black American
Speaker 1: baseball has had, like the Jackie Robinson's and those.
Speaker 2: Oh they were amazing, all that sort of stuff. They
Speaker 2: had their own league though, well, like like you know,
Speaker 2: Aridinal boys, we had our own leg too. We'd play
Speaker 2: with stuff because we weren't allowed to be on the
Speaker 2: same field as and they had boots, we didn't. Marinot
Speaker 2: as a classic example of that. From the footy side,
Speaker 2: I played footy at school, but I was more of
Speaker 2: a basketball long distance run, anything to keep me on
Speaker 2: my own, because I kind of like being on my own.
Speaker 1: Ernie, we need to break and we're three quarters of
Speaker 1: the way through this program and we haven't. We haven't
Speaker 1: got you into the film and stage and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff yet, So we'll do that when we
Speaker 1: come back. Ernie ding Go is my guest. Folks back shortly,
Speaker 1: Ernie Dingo is my guest, a living National Treasury's He's
Speaker 1: got a new series of Going Places with Ernie Dingo,
Speaker 1: also starring in The Big Backyard Quiz. We talked all
Speaker 1: about his growing up days, and we haven't got him
Speaker 1: on the stage yet. You still go to person on
Speaker 1: a baseball scholarship. How on earth do you end up
Speaker 1: in the movies on TV, on the stage? How did
Speaker 1: how did that happen?
Speaker 2: Oh? You have you haven't been listening in Cornsey. I've
Speaker 2: been on stage ever since I came into this world.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, of all the.
Speaker 2: Things that we've that's that's our preparation already. I mean
Speaker 2: listening to those birds around you, listening to our feeling
Speaker 2: that weather, when that when when that what we call
Speaker 2: William William, when that first rain come with language. I
Speaker 2: come from wildflower country, so everything around you speaks to
Speaker 2: you all the time. The first drops that come out
Speaker 2: of the skull, you know, out of the sky rain drops,
Speaker 2: you know, people referred to as the verger, the rain
Speaker 2: that leaves the cloud but never make it to the earth.
Speaker 2: So they have stories to us that the rains that
Speaker 2: come afterwards, Once the first rains have gone through and
Speaker 2: softened the earth and made a puddle, then one drop
Speaker 2: falls about a week later to make that puddle move
Speaker 2: downhill or whatever it is. See all that's preparing us
Speaker 2: for our for my theater from the beginning, that storytelling
Speaker 2: side of it all.
Speaker 1: So somebody must have identified to you. Somebody must have
Speaker 1: seen your talent and given you an opportunity. How did
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 2: I think those old blakes had a cattle pride mate,
Speaker 2: and they call them tasers these days. So while I
Speaker 2: was finished playing baseball, I started playing basketball because I
Speaker 2: love that, And they said I was my di you'd
Speaker 2: love this. I was earning eighteen dollars a week, thirteen
Speaker 2: dollars a week board and a dollar a day, twenty
Speaker 2: five cents into the city, twenty five cents in the bus,
Speaker 2: and twenty five cents to work. And I did that
Speaker 2: for six months because my boss at the time, I
Speaker 2: had two bosses. One of the bosses thought that the
Speaker 2: money given to the company from the government to as
Speaker 2: a training incentive, he wasn't he wouldn't last, so they
Speaker 2: didn't give me my money. So at the turn of
Speaker 2: the I love. That's why I love the end of
Speaker 2: the financial year, because the first six months of me
Speaker 2: at and doing apprentice, the boss held all that money back,
Speaker 2: thinking that I wouldn't last into the new year. So
Speaker 2: when I did last into July, I got all this
Speaker 2: back pay.
Speaker 1: That was a sign writing apprentice.
Speaker 2: Sign writing apprentice back back in the day. But that's
Speaker 2: all right. I love my art. Still observe with them.
Speaker 1: Can you still draw it.
Speaker 2: If underneath the desk is still a bunch of brushes
Speaker 2: and pain dirty in the place? Anyway, So I went.
Speaker 2: They told me that this the state basketball. You can
Speaker 2: go and do tryouts if you're any good. But the
Speaker 2: only trouble is I'm on a limited wage. So from
Speaker 2: Mount Lawley to Perry Lakes it's about five k's. I
Speaker 2: just walk it. I used to walk to training. Turned up.
Speaker 2: I trained for a week with the under sixteens because
Speaker 2: I was only a young fellow, and they said when's
Speaker 2: your birthday? I said July. They said, well, you can't
Speaker 2: be at under fifteen's you're over the limit. So he
Speaker 2: got to play in the under eight ens. And the
Speaker 2: difference between a fifteen year old and seventeen year old
Speaker 2: is too bloody foot. So I have a crack at
Speaker 2: and went to Melbourne to play. That was right down
Speaker 2: to the final ten I made the team, went to Melbourne,
Speaker 2: stayed under eight ens nineteen seventy three basketball for West Australia.
Speaker 2: And while we're there, met a young blake shooting in
Speaker 2: the courts by the name of what's his name? That
Speaker 2: number ten for Australia.
Speaker 1: Andrew Gays, that's the blake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I knew him. I knew him as about
Speaker 2: a ten year old. Eleven year old was Drew.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Bat, we've got to get you. We've got
Speaker 1: to get you on the stage and the TV.
Speaker 2: We've otherwise, well that's what I was doing. When I
Speaker 2: was playing basketball, because we had to deal with a
Speaker 2: lot of crap from a lot of opposition players and
Speaker 2: a lot of umpires and teams and supporters that we
Speaker 2: had to go through like the Globetrotters and put on
Speaker 2: a show. Our team was called Panthers and then Wildcats.
Speaker 2: That was the main team we played under, and yeah,
Speaker 2: we're all Aboriginal team and we caught a lot of
Speaker 2: crap from left, right and center, but we just had
Speaker 2: to button our lip and make it count on the scoreboard.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've played in games when we were with
Speaker 2: that bad that there there was only two of us
Speaker 2: left on the field to play against the full team.
Speaker 1: Everybody got failed off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because let the umpires get to them. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that was that was fun. And the same Blake that
Speaker 2: did Welcome to Country with which Rich and I were
Speaker 2: the only two players on the field playing five blokes
Speaker 2: and they've got half a bench full of full of
Speaker 2: blokes as well. We didn't care. How'd you go five?
Speaker 2: We come second in a lot of those games, and
Speaker 2: we've got We've played one team Sterling for instance, one
Speaker 2: particularly at a carnival, and I had five pairs of
Speaker 2: shorts on for five fowls. I was still on the
Speaker 2: field at the end of the game because every time
Speaker 2: I got a foul, I'm just going drink another. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I was wondering how many shorts have I got on?
Speaker 2: Will I get down to my jocks because black feathers
Speaker 2: in those days didn't wear jocks.
Speaker 1: So well, I'm gonna fast. I'm gonna fast, fast forward
Speaker 1: because you've been in so many productions. You've been You've
Speaker 1: been in movies, movies, You've had television shows with fringe,
Speaker 1: d well, fast forward, mister elect have done all sorts
Speaker 1: of things you're currently doing, going places. When he did
Speaker 1: know the big big backyard quiz, somebody must have seen
Speaker 1: something in you and identified that talent. You're skirting around
Speaker 1: the issue. You've got to tell me who that was.
Speaker 2: I'm not a drinker. I used to dabble in smoking
Speaker 2: or dabble in a couple of I used to drink
Speaker 2: unleaded beer. Couldn't do full strength because I am silly
Speaker 2: enough without it. Never done drugs. I always look at
Speaker 2: my traditional law sight. I just like being who I
Speaker 2: was had. I've had a great upbringing from the bush.
Speaker 2: I've had always, always had different people in my backyard
Speaker 2: that they were sort of like outcasts, and they were
Speaker 2: still present. Every now and then one person would come
Speaker 2: through that was different and not of the not so
Speaker 2: I was. I was always treated differently because they couldn't
Speaker 2: work me out. I didn't. I'd listen to anybody out.
Speaker 2: You sit down and have a yarn with anybody. Black, white, male, female, short, tall,
Speaker 2: fat skin. It didn't matter to me. There were only
Speaker 2: two types of people, salt water and fresh water. You
Speaker 2: come from the coast, you come from inland. That's all
Speaker 2: that mattered, and that's what I enjoyed. Whatever. The first
Speaker 2: question is to somebody, that would determine your conversation to them.
Speaker 2: If somebody says you're a dickhead, you can say what
Speaker 2: and then it's fisticuff, or you can turn around and
Speaker 2: say that's mister dickhead to you. Then you put the
Speaker 2: footback on, you know, showing the footback where it belongs,
Speaker 2: kicking back on the teeth, but gently, and they realize
Speaker 2: it's their own bloody feet that's kick and there to it.
Speaker 2: I learned at an early age don't bash your head
Speaker 2: up against the wall, and don't bash somebody else's head
Speaker 2: up to tell them that there's the wall, put your
Speaker 2: head on it. So when I arrived into Sydney on
Speaker 2: back in eighty three, I spent two weeks in Canberra
Speaker 2: at a conference. Monday, I spent an extra day in
Speaker 2: Canberra with my cousin Tuesday, arrived in Sydney Wednesday. I
Speaker 2: got a script Thursday, I got an agent Friday. They
Speaker 2: told me I had the job and I started on Monday.
Speaker 2: What was the role Cara Breakout, which is a big,
Speaker 2: massive breakout of Japanese prisoner war in the world, the
Speaker 2: biggest breakout in Cara in Australia. Australian don't teach you
Speaker 2: about a history. So that was a job. There was
Speaker 2: an Aboriginal guard Johnson family in the original Cara Breakout,
Speaker 2: and I was hired by Kennedy Miller, famous Kennedy Miller
Speaker 2: to play the role to honor this particular abordin as
Speaker 2: the guard from the Johnson family. And my character's name
Speaker 2: was Johnson surname because in the war they're called by
Speaker 2: their surnames. So that was my start. I loved a
Speaker 2: bit of comedy at the time. I just reversed all
Speaker 2: the Irish jokes into Aboriginal jokes, and I started taking
Speaker 2: the mickey out of myself.
Speaker 1: You know, do you regret doing that now?
Speaker 2: No, we'll see. I went down to fast forward and
Speaker 2: there was at that time there are only two black
Speaker 2: fellows on television, man Kamal. There wasn't anybody there. Used
Speaker 2: to be a girl on Channel seven who would play
Speaker 2: the records back in the old days. But she just
Speaker 2: as a model, would put the records on and you
Speaker 2: listen to the music back in the old old notes
Speaker 2: when Telly's first came first came out, and she is
Speaker 2: the she works out out of Victoria there in the
Speaker 2: movie The Sapphires. She was the one of the lead
Speaker 2: singers in the Sapphires. So she's more famous than I am.
Speaker 2: I'll get a bigger mouth so theater. I'd have a
Speaker 2: crack at anything because I can. It's like football. You're
Speaker 2: contracted to play that season and then you take a
Speaker 2: jumper off at the end of the game, put your
Speaker 2: civs on and go and be a buffet.
Speaker 1: We're run out of time. I know this is leaving
Speaker 1: us unfulfilled, unrequired, but what have we got to look
Speaker 1: forward to? With this season's going places? With any dingo,
Speaker 1: what are we looking forward to?
Speaker 2: Me taking the mickey out of a old bunch of bushies.
Speaker 2: It would be probably a good one. But them showing
Speaker 2: me all the beautiful places where they are. This country
Speaker 2: has got so many beautiful pockets that we The best
Speaker 2: place to do is to sit at home and watch
Speaker 2: it on the telly. All the different shows that do
Speaker 2: out back shows. I mean every network is doing travel
Speaker 2: programs from around the country. Mine's no different to them.
Speaker 2: So have a little at them and see how beautiful
Speaker 2: this country really is.
Speaker 1: Great to catch up. You're looking fantastic. You always did.
Speaker 1: You joked about being a good looking dude, but there's
Speaker 1: no joke. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: No Ori Scoronsa. You have a good day, and one
Speaker 2: day we'll have to sit down and have a good
Speaker 2: bloody yarn.
Speaker 1: We'll have no time moving on it. That would be great.
Speaker 1: All the best, mate, and he didn't go National Living
Speaker 1: Treasure and he didn't go. I am thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks mate, you have a good one.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.