SMOKY DAWSON − A LIFE (Page 294-300 − The Final Round Up)

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com FROM ADVERSITY TO ACHIEVEMENT Smoky was a born optimist. It was his bright view of the goodness in people and things that lay ahead that kept him going through those dark years: as a kid growing up in Reservoir, battling malaria after the war, and coping with the devastating loss of the Ranch. He’d just smile his infectious grin and, with a positive word or two, carry on confident that there was always goodness to come. ‘Without adversity there is no achievement,’ he said during a recording session for Homestead of My Dreams. ‘The greater the adversity, the greater the achievement and success. I always think that through your adversities, you should consider that’s what you need in life to put you on your way.’ It was a sentiment that Lorenzo Toppano cleverly worked into the album on the final track, Where the Waterlilies Grow. Achievement rang down the line the day Smoky received a phone call out of the blue from Tony Jablonski, who had big news to share. As a boy in the late 1960s, he came to the Ranch for a three-week summer camp and stayed on and off for three years, as he remembered fondly. Dot and Smoky took him under their wing and taught him how to care for himself, for others, and for animals; to believe in himself; and of course, how to ride. It was a confident young kid who left the Ranch behind in search of a new life and broader horizons. Fast-forward to September 2000 and the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. One hundred and twenty riders wearing iconic Drizabone coats galloped their stock horses into Stadium Australia for an intricately choreographed musical ride, each carrying aloft an Aussie flag. The Opening Ceremony, described by Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, as the most beautiful the world had ever seen, captivated the 110,000 spectators in attendance and an estimated global audience of 3.7 billion television viewers, including Smoky and Dot Dawson. As they sat in their recliner-rockers, marvelling at the skill of the riders, tears of pride welled in their eyes – because, as he’d told them in the phone call, Tony Jablonski was the man staging that epic routine. He had scaled the Olympic heights after becoming one of Australia’s most gifted horsemen, in demand for films and TV series, as well as training horses and other animals for Movie World on the Gold Coast. Sitting back taking it all in, I wonder if Tony’s involvement in the grand spectacle took Smoky back to 294

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com that night in 1963 when he too was a key part of an historic pageant on horseback, the one marking the 175th anniversary of First Settlement at Sydney Showground, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Playing a bushranger who was meant to hold up a stagecoach in a recreation of the lawless 1800s, Smoky got the ride of his life when gunfire spooked the coach team and his mount too. As he recalled the drama in Chapter VIII, he careered towards the royal box in a wild gallop and almost landed in Her Majesty’s lap – saved at the last second by managing to wrench his mount away, “like a greyhound after a rabbit”. Tony was also the horse-master for the Australian Outback Spectacular, a major tourist attraction on the Gold Coast operated by Village Roadshow Theme Parks. Smoky and Dot were the guests of the CEO, John Menzies, at the official opening in 2006, and to the very end they were never far from Tony’s heart. Australia lost a special son when he succumbed to cancer in 2015 and was given a send-off by his Outback Spectacular colleagues worthy of a world champion. The boy who learned about life at Smoky Dawson’s Ranch went on to earn the sort of professional respect normally reserved for statesmen and superstars. No wonder Smoky was so proud of Tony Jablonski. LOST FOR WORDS People have been changing their names since time immemorial, for all sorts of reasons. In Smoky’s case, it is perhaps not widely understood that after he ran away from the orphanage in 1926, at the age of thirteen, he changed his surname name from Brown to Dawson so he could simply disappear in the northern ranges of rural Victoria, where he found employment. However, as his fame grew, Dawson became his stage and recording name. It wasn’t until he enlisted in the Army in July 1943 that the thirty-year-old Herbert Henry Brown became Herbert Henry Dawson officially and legally, while known to all and sundry as Smoky. But to at least one person he remained Herbie, as shown by this rare and highly personal insight into Smoky’s past that can now be shared. He twice recounted it to me late in his life, and it dates back to the mid-1950s. In one version it took place after an Anzac Day march, possibly in Sydney. The other location put 295

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com the incident in Collins Street, Melbourne. Wherever and whenever it occurred, and whatever the public event involving Smoky was, there is no doubt it was a poignant experience that touched his soul. A crowd of admirers had gathered around Smoky, and an old man with a hunched back and a white beard pushed his way through the throng. He walked up and said, ‘Hello, son.’ It was Herb’s estranged father, Parker Frederick Brown. It was a very brief and public and highly emotional moment. Smoky, the survivor of that cold and abusive childhood, recalled his reaction. ‘First of all, I realised that at last my father really was sorry. And secondly, I realised that I really had forgiven him.’ He never saw his father again. R.M. WILLIAMS AND THE STOCKMAN’S HALL OF FAME Smoky enjoyed decades of mateship with another great Australian, Reginald Murray Williams, who rose from swagman to millionaire by creating a distinctive style of bush clothing and footwear recognised worldwide. He had watched with great interest as R.M. pursued an abiding passion, which he shared with the prolific bush artist Hugh Sawrey, to build the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach. There’s an amusing aside to this story. Smoky joined R.M. and Hugh on a trip to Parliament House in Canberra to petition the government of the day for financial support for the project. After a fruitful meeting they were invited to the Members’ Dining Room for lunch. Apparently, Paul Keating had heard of Smoky’s presence in the building, and came in to see him. It must have been quite a sight as the future Prime Minister pulled out a chair and began sharing memories with Smoky, to the delight of all in attendance. Then came the comment that summed up Smoky’s philosophy to a tee. ‘Gee, Smoky,’ Mr Keating said. ‘You’ve still got such a great memory.’ ‘Well, with respect, Mr Keating,’ he quipped, ‘when you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember much.’ The dream of R.M. Williams and Hugh Sawrey came to life when the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame complex, dedicated to the memory of the teak-tough men and women who toiled amid the deprivations 296

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com of the unforgiving Outback to make Australia great, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II during the celebrations for the 1988 Bicentenary. One of R.M.’s first creations, when he was diversifying from saddle making into boots and clothing in the early 1930s, was an elegantly fringed cowboy jacket tailored in soft tan suede. It was designed and handmade especially for the handsome young star of the travelling rodeo circuit, Smoky Dawson. No doubt that jacket clocked up thousands of miles and hundreds of performances in those early days on the road, but it had long since been retired. However, never one to throw anything away, Dot kept it (and many others) wrapped in brown paper and camphor, stored in a bedroom cupboard. Smoky was glad to present the jacket back to R.M. for inclusion in a permanent display in his honour at the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, a rich collection of memorabilia that grew to include his original throwing knives and axes, copies of his 78 recordings, sheet music, comics, a performance outfit – coat, shirt, trousers, scarf, belt and boots – one of Smoky’s old guitars, Flash’s saddle and elaborately studded bridle, and other priceless souvenirs, even a snakeskin tie. A PAIR OF COLT 45 Missing from that exhibit was the pair of pearl-handled Colt 45 Peacemakers which had been handcrafted especially for PEACEMAKERS HAD Smoky in the United States in the Kellogg’s days and engraved BEEN HANDCRAFTED with the initials S.D. He used to wear them in his gun belt, do the quick draw and shoot blanks – always proud of the fact that ESPECIALLY FOR SMOKY those Colts never fired a live round. Smoky had long since IN THE UNITED STATES surrendered the six-guns to his local police station after he retired from the travelling cowboy act. What they would be AND ENGRAVED WITH worth today is anyone’s guess, and he occasionally regretted his THE INITIALS S.D. decision to be so responsible and civic-minded. But in his ever- positive style he had accepted the fact that they were gone, relegated to his memory bank. In 2004, Smoky and Dot were due to visit Longreach to unveil his plaque on one of the large boulders lining the walk from the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame to the new Qantas Founders’ Museum. Country music artists, adventurers and other living legends were all being honoured with special plaques, and Smoky 297

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com Above: one of Smoky’s two pearl-handled Colt 45 Peacemakers donated to the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach Right: the Smoky memorabilia in the Hall of Fame includes Flash’s saddle and one of Smoky’s outfits

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com was sharing his boulder with the intrepid aviator Nancy Bird-Walton. ‘At last I’m going to be a rock star!’ he declared. Just before taking the flight from Sydney to Queensland for the dedication ceremony, Smoky received a telephone call from a retiring police sergeant that made him cry tears of joy. It was about the twin Peacemakers, and this is how he related it to me: ‘I just couldn’t chuck the guns in the bin for destruction when you handed them in,’ the sergeant confessed, ‘so they’ve sat locked in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet for the past twenty-odd years. I finish up in the job on Friday and I thought you might like them back. Would you like to come in and collect them, Mr Dawson?’ The old cop with a big heart, like so many entertainers, academics, at least one Prime Minister, and almost a million other kids – an extraordinary number, given Australia’s total population of around eight to nine million in the 1950s – had been a card-carrying Deputy Sheriff and a fully paid-up member of the Smoky Dawson Fan Club during the golden age of Smoky’s radio adventures. No wonder he defied the official protocol for gun disposal and secretly held on to the precious Colt 45s for all those years. The recovery of the revolvers made that trip to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame even more special. They were placed into Smoky’s exhibit, along with the rest of his prized memorabilia. And after officially becoming a “rock star”, he and Dot enjoyed a romantic sunset cruise on the MV Longreach Explorer up the scenic Thomson River, where the loving couple posed for some of their most treasured and beautiful photos together. In recalling the importance of R.M. Williams to his career, it should be pointed out that Smoky prospered at a time before lucrative sponsorships became commonplace in the entertainment industry. As he mentions in The Battle for Work, in the 1930s Pepsodent Toothpaste became his first official broadcast supporter, leading to the Smoky Dawson Pepsodent Rangers, his groundbreaking radio creation. Later, when the Pepsodent brand vanished from the Australian market, he would joke: ‘My teeth outlasted the sponsor.’ Other than to make a living, Smoky never attempted to cash in on his popularity by commercialising his image as he became an Australian idol. But over the course of his career he was fortunate to enjoy the backing of two very successful names in the business world: Gibson Guitars as well as R.M. Williams. While 299

Review copy only. Please do not share. www.imprint-inprint.com there appear to have been no official agreements put in place to underpin these partnerships which lasted for decades, Smoky acknowledged them in his own way where possible. For example, he had a keen awareness of the value of merchandising and product placement and would often say, ‘Gibson always look after me,’ or lift a leg in the air to show off his R.M. Williams boots (and display his fitness, of course). The good folk at R.M. Williams, the outfitters who exclusively supplied Smoky with his high-top cowboy boots, maintained Reginald Murray’s commitment to his cowboy brother right to the end. Maybe the relationship with Gibson Guitars stemmed from a chance meeting or another personal friendship, someone at the company Smoky also knew in the early days. We don’t know of any formal association, other than a mutual affection and respect which saw Smoky treated like family when it came to acquiring his guitars. Perhaps the best opportunity for him to show off his Gibson was on the dust cover of his memoir, where he is photographed strumming it as Flash leans over his shoulder in perfect pictorial harmony. The photo is a beautifully framed amalgam of a singing cowboy with his showy palomino and his acoustic six-stringer. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, some genius in the publisher’s art department thought it was clever to reverse the image and have Smoky, a right-hander, playing left-handed on a guitar with the Gibson brand on the headstock appearing as “nosbiG”. If the nosbiG company fretted over it, Smoky didn’t let on. Smoky’s compilation CD, A Life How the cover on Smoky’s 1985 in Song, released in 2005 memoir should have looked 300