Copyright (c) Bob Magor 2011
ISBN 9780958570244
Other books by Bob Magor:
Bush Poetry Books
Blasted Crows
Blood on the Board
Snakes Alive
Donkey Derby
Caravanning Bliss
The FMG
The Exodus
Sumo Mick
Co-publisher of
A Thousand Campfires
For orders contact:
Bob Magor
PO Box 28
Myponga SA 5202
Phone 08 8558 2036
Mobile 0408 883 770
Designed and Printed by
Openbook Howden
www.openbookhowden.com.au A number of people who appear in these pages, I have been advised, are deceased. I have made every effort to contact all others who are mentioned in this book to obtain their permission to be included.
Digital distribution: Ebook Alchemy
ISBN: 9781742981567 (ePub)
Conversion by Winking Billy
In researching and compiling this book I must thank a number of people for their enthusiastic assistance. Some were on a different side of the fence from Roy but were keen to have the story recorded and to have all the facts correct.
Firstly, thank you to Roy Wright himself for his patience through many days of delving into his past and recording. He kept insisting that his memory had faded - I don’t think so! Also for supplying photos.
Allan and Anne Sluggett for their invaluable help and photos.
Dave Lindner for his version of events and for photos.
Phil Mitchell
The NT News for their permission to reproduce extracts from court cases and quotes from their paper.
To Ted Egan for writing the forward and for all his encouragement.
Leo Maine
Bruce Johnston for photos.
Tommy Teece
Kevin (KG) Greig
Ronny Ball
Michael Derrick
Roy Wright Junior
Clem Goodman
Bob Prosser
And a huge thank-you to Mark Svensen for his advice and enthusiasm during the many weeks of editing.
As I researched the amazing life of Roy Wright I was constantly confronted with outrageous stories, and the further I dug the more bizarre they became. Just when I began to wonder if Roy was tampering with the truth, the incidents would get substantiated by independent sources that were with him at the time. Perhaps, from the different perspective of someone who was chasing Roy, or from an accomplice who was being chased with him. The stories were never contradicted. Even so, it was sometimes hard to convince myself that I was writing fact and not fiction. It’s that sort of life.
In writing the biography of Roy James Wright I have tried to give a ‘warts and all’ account of his remarkable life. In no way do I suggest the reader condone his life-style. I do, however, hope the book provides an insight into a way of life that existed in the Top End during this period.
I have made no apologies for his behaviour because there is no need to. He was only doing what a lot of other men of his ilk were doing in the Top End at that time – only Roy did things on a much grander scale. It must be realized that as far as ‘poaching’ barramundi was concerned, at the time Roy was involved it was considered by most Territorians as their right.
Wow! What can I say? I thought I’d met all the larger-than-life characters of the outback, but I’d never come across Wrightie, the dodger of Cops and Crocs, the wearer of Leopard Skin Jocks, until I was asked by Bob Magor to write the Foreword for this book. My eyes are still popping as I recall the many outrageous exploits Bob records of this famous (infamous?) man, Roy James Wright. He is nowadays verging on the respectable as he still does a bit of crabbing on the Wearyan River. But ten of his seventy-two years have been spent in gaol for a range of offences that would make Ned Kelly look like a poofy choirboy. He’s fathered countless children to a series of mainly Aboriginal women. Those into political correctness will deplore Wrightie’s treatment of some of these women and some of the children, but he treated them no better or worse than he treated all the people he has encountered in his long life. In some instances I found myself cheering him on as he took on the world and its vicissitudes.
Roy Wright always felt that he was victimised by the police, but they all say that, don’t they? It’s hard to respect a man who admits to so many outrageous things with such breezy candour, yet I couldn’t put the book down as I marvelled at his bush skills, his capacity for sheer hard work, his toughness, his refusal to show pain or admit defeat. I really enjoyed the exchange between the former deadly adversaries, Roy Wright and Fisheries Inspector Dave Lindner – surely one of the best duels ever unravelled in a literary work.
I’m not sure if I want to meet Wrightie or not. Bob Magor said to me: ‘Ted, he’s just an old pussy cat at this stage of his life.’ And Bob Magor’s a good judge of outlaws, rogues and eccentrics as his delightful poems have indicated over the years.
This book is not for everybody, but if you want to consider the rawest frontier life imaginable, ponder the enormous problems of isolation and brutality, reel at the knowledge that this is going on in today’s Australia, you will probably be like me and read the book in one sitting. The language of Wrightie and his associates is shocking, totally deplorable (and this is Ted Egan speaking!) but it’s nonetheless colourful, authentic, incomparable in the worst sense of the term. Bob Magor has faithfully recorded it: in
