Musical Dispatch from the Front – Books – November 2025

[Frank Baarda]

Compañeros (Spanish – Companions)

 

In June of this year Red Kangaroo Books in Alice Springs ran a competition. The prize was a copy of Anh Do’s ‘The Happiest Refugee ‘and a full set of Anh’s ‘Wolf Girl’ series.

To enter the competition, one had to nominate a book which had made you happy, and in 25 words or less say why it had.

This was my entry:

Kultitja, Linda Wells’ well written page-turner memoir.

The triumphant final paragraph (which I won’t spoil) made me feel very happy.

 

I won! (punch the air like an athlete). I’m not in the habit of winning prizes. Which is not surprising as I never buy a lottery ticket let alone indulge (heaven forbid) in those news agency scratchies.

I have long sussed out that spare time after retirement is a myth. I’ve only just now opened my prize box, only to be pleasantly surprised. Anh Do’s book tells the story of how a toddler in a leaky boat became a much loved and admired Vietnamese-Australian comedian. It’s a page turner and a delight. It made me happy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlswmbIxos&t=3s

♫ ♫ ♫ Split Enz Six Months In A Leaky Boat live 06

 

Linda Wells’ ‘Kultitja: Memoir of an Outback Schoolteacher’ features a visit to Yuendumu where she met and was much inspired by Wendy B. Years later after she became a prize winning author Linda read Wendy’s ‘Lest They be Lost - A Lifetime of Little Ponderings.’ Her succinct assessment was “Deceptively simple. Surprisingly profound” and she signed Wendy’s copy of Kultitja’ “To Wendy, kultitja extraordinaire.”

 

In my dotage, I’ve become aware that after a lifetime of obsessive reading, I derive much satisfaction from putting thoughts and experiences down in a written form. I’m half way through volume IV (‘More Yuendumu Musical Dispatches’). Not that I kid myself into thinking my output is ‘literature,’ more like plagiarized compendia.

All the same I’d like you to consider purchasing some of our books (preferably Wendy’s) as Christmas presents, as they’re a cut above underwear, socks or neckties. Drop us a line or call into Red Kangaroo Books if you’re near Alice Springs.

 

I’ve already told you how I couldn’t put Arundathi Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’ down. That is what I consider real literature, but it’d be a boring existence if you confine your reading only to exceptionally gifted authors.

 

Lesley Beasley is a (primary) school friend of Wendy’s sister. She wrote an extremely well researched book ‘Where Lies the Land’ which transported me to 1850’s Ballarat, Van Diemen’s Land, Melbourne and a few other places. I’d never been there, not in the 1850s anyway.

 

The Zachary Rolf / Kumanjayi Walker saga has spawned two books by award winning ABC journalists.

Kate Wild swapped her book ‘The Red House’ for my Musical Dispatches compendium. Yet another book I couldn’t put down. I emailed Kate as follows:

Kate,

Wow! A page turner.

Easy to read, factual presentation of complexity and clever and appropriate use of everywhen.

Your journalism shines through.

When it comes to the book swap, I reckon you drew the short straw.

FDB

A month later I read Steven Schubert’s ‘A Death in Yuendumu’. Another page turner. Cheese and chalk: same story, vastly differing styles.

I’m glad I read both, they complement each other.

 

I have a clear recollection of a significant matter which is omitted from Steven’s comprehensively chronicled timeline. Yesterday I checked to make sure I wasn’t dealing with a false memory. Soon after the shooting, I was told the plan was for Dereck Williams (our local Aboriginal Community Police Officer) to effect a voluntary arrest with the pre agreed cooperation of Eddie Robertson (grandfather of Walker’s girlfriend). This fact disappeared into the ‘them and us’ black hole.

When Eddie was interviewed by Kate, what upset him the most is that “they lied to us”

 

The them and us divide hasn’t shifted. Yuendumu’s modest request that police stop wearing guns on communities is stonewalled and out of the question.

They’re not serious about reverting to community policing instead of policing the community. They are them; we are us. They think it’s the other way around

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnryMeJx-YE

♫ ♫ ♫ No fue tan fácil (estudio) original de voces del alma alvizar. Gracias por compartir bendiciones

 

Adios,

Frank