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At a Cost | | by Roy McFadyen | | Paperback $39.95 | | Plus postage & handling | | 323 pages | |
|  | | As a child, Roy McFadyen was placed in Melbourne orphanages for his parents’ convenience. At 15, and in the middle of the Great Depression, he was thrown out of home by his mother into a freezing winter’s night and made an epic 650 km bicycle ride to the Mallee to become a wheat farmer’s labourer. Seeking further consolation in hard work well done, Roy boarded the Ghan with his beloved Indian motorbike for Alice Springs, and then headed east to a cattle station on the edge of the Simpson Desert. Working in the stock camps he survived uncaring employers while getting to know and respect his workmates, the Arundta people. | | | | Review by Ted Egan, AO, Administrator of the Northern Territory (from the Foreword to this book) : | | ‘I see similarities in two great Australian books – ‘A Fortunate Life’ by Bert Facey, and ‘Son of the Red Centre’ by Kurt Johannsen. And now we have ‘At a Cost’. All three books are written by self-effacing men who encountered all forms of discrimination and exploitation in their lives, but rose above adversity to become the owners of stories that deserve a prominent place in Australian literary and social history.’ |
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