Rick Morton was born the son of a cattle baron in far western Queensland. His backyard consisted of hundreds of thousands of acres, his family home was 500km from the nearest town and his schooling happened via radio.
But in a few short weeks, Rick’s life went from being an idyllic outback childhood to one of poverty and drug addiction.
Less than a month after his baby sister was born, Rick’s older brother, Toby, was involved in a horrific farm accident in which he suffered extensive burns. In the fallout, Rick discovered his father’s affair; an illict relationship that would find the then six-year-old, his mother, and his two siblings fleeing to a housing commission flat in Charleville.
To mark the release of his memoir, One Hundred Years of Dirt, Rick sat down with Mia Freedman for Mamamia‘s No Filter podcast to tell his incredible story.
This is small snippet from their chat.
RICK: Me and Dad drove to Brisbane to see my brother, and I remember just the real despair of the hospital situation for him, which was daily screaming pain as his wounds were dressed and the bandages changed. He’d had all these really painful skin grafts, so his body looked like a checker-board where they’d taken skin from the fresh sites that weren’t burned. And this is a really rudimentary skin graft system in 1994, compared to what we can do now with spray on skin and things like that, so it was painful.
I remember my dad, when he got there, had decided in his head that mum was having an affair with the doctors.
Top Comments
I was brought up in the outback too, Central Australia, same time as Morton.
Cattle station owners screwing the young female governess was commonplace....more the rule than the exception. It was a popular hobby for these men, as was forcing themselves on aboriginal girls. .....Taking a bit of "black velvet".
On many of these properties cruelty, exploitation and ruthlessness was the order of the day. Outback royalty ?.....Really ? Apart from the fact that all of the land they are on was, and still is stolen property, the way they treated their workers, black and white was vile.
I would like to share a story indicative of one of these "barons" attitude to animals.
A mob of brumbies rounded up into a yard and needing to be destroyed because they are of no economic benefit to the station owners is common in the bush and, harsh but fair enough if done humanely.
This particular member of "rural royalty", instead of cleanly and quickly killing with a rifle or pistol head-shot, had a different approach and would order his stockmen to bayonet the horses in the yard then open the gate. The wounded horses would race out into the scrub to die slowly in agony, over many days or even weeks.
This mongrel of a human, "king of all he surveyed", liked it this way because he saved on rifle rounds and the expense of having his ringers pull dead horses out of, and away from the yards. (I knew him personally but for obvious reasons won't name him)
Good on Morton for honestly telling his family's story. We need more tellers of the truth around white man's history in the inland of Australia. In the past way too much white-washing, romantic drivel has been written about these people.
I was brought up in the outback too, Central Australia, same time as Morton.
Cattle station owners screwing their young female governess'es was commonplace....more the rule than the exception. It was a popular hobby for these men.
On many of these properties cruelty, exploitation and ruthlessness was the order of the day. Outback royalty ?.....Really ? Apart from the fact that all of the land they are on is stolen property, the way they treated their workers, black and white was vile, I would like to share a story indicative of their attitude to animals.
A mob of brumbies rounded up into a yard and needing to be destroyed because they are of no economic benefit to the station owners. Commonplace in the bush and, harsh, but fair enough if done humanely.
This particular member of "rural royalty", instead of cleanly and quickly killing with a rifle or pistol head-shot, had a different approach and would order his stockmen to bayonet the horses in the yard then open the gate. The wounded horses would race out into the scrub to die slowly in agony, over many days or even weeks.
This mongrel of a human, "king of all he surveyed", liked it this way because he saved on rifle rounds and the expense of having his ringers pull dead horses out of, and away from the yards. (I knew him personally but for obvious reasons won't name him)
Good on Morton for honestly telling his families story. We need more tellers of the truth around white man's history in the inland of Australia. In the past way too much romantic drivel has been written about these people.