Outback Tales

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 824, 13 May 1955, Page 15

Outback Tales

ATHER more than 30 years ago 7 Cotsford Burdon left the army and | came back home, where he immediately | fell a victim to "the bland enchantments of the landscape and the engaging | qualities of my fellow countrymen." | Here, indeed (he thought), I must live | and die. But to what should he turn his | hand? With farming’ in his blood (and | malaria in his veins) he tried a brief — spell at school mastering befbre,. con- | vinced that he was neither pedagogue nor policeman, he took up a sheep farm, far up a valley and 30 miles from the nearest post office. Some aspects of his sojourn there are discussed by Mr. Burdon in Back Country Medley, six talks now running from 1YC and 3YC and | later to be broadcast from the other YC stations. Mr. Burdon’s talks are in lighthearted vein, as listeners will know who have already heard in his first talk his accounts of the iourneys of the "Virgin Queen," the Model T in which he visited his friends, called on his banker, his wine merchant, or, indeed, any ‘tradesman who would give him credit. From 3YC this Sunday (May 15) Mr. Burdon will discuss some of his experiences with horses, and from the same station on May 22 and 1YC on May 17 he will talk about rivers.