From my good friend Roger Garwood: Bill Bright featured in Off Like Flies, the book published by Roger Garwood and Trish Ainslie thirty years ago. Both Outback Family History and the WA State Library have featured some of the stories and pictures. This is the ‘back story’ to the picture of Bill Bright shaving, written by Roger Garwood for Outback Family History. The story of my connection with Bill Bright goes back well before Off Like Flies. I had started to take photographs in the goldfields in February 1975 and made a few trips to the region for various reasons. One trip was commissioned by the WA Tourism Commission in about 1979/80.
A small team, including art director Michelle Blakeley, went to Kookynie where Jasper Bright and his brother Bill lived. They were regulars at the Grand Hotel. We had a young model with us who eventually starred alongside Jasper, enjoying a beer at a table outside the Grand. The advert went worldwide and arguably played a key role in attracting early tourism to the goldfields in 1980-81.
Early in 1988 Trish and I spent a week in the goldfields to prepare a magazine article and then decided we should produce a book on the characters in the region. The Grand became our occasional HQ from which we could roam around the region. Around sunset Trish and I would return, and we’d sit on the front porch, and Kevin or Margaret would bring us a bottle of Champagne, neck deep in ice, in a red plastic bucket. Luxury! A great way to unwind while we chatted to the Grand’s regulars about where we’d been, who we’d ‘shot’ and so on.
On one early trip we learnt that Bill was in hospital, having been burnt because he’d chucked a cup of petrol onto his wood burner stove in the old school house, where he lived, to ‘help it along’!
We visited him in the hospital in Kalgoorlie. He chatted happily and was looking forward to getting home. As we talked, a young couple, who had apparently bought a prospector’s lease in Kookynie, more or less barged into Bill’s ward, spread a map of the area on his bed and started to question him as to where they’d find gold. Bill happily chatted away for some time as more questions were asked. The couple left when they apparently felt they’d found the shortcut to a fortune. Trish said, “Bill, you shouldn’t have given them all that information.” There was a real twinkle in Bill’s eyes when he replied,
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them everything.”
A few weeks later we caught up with Bill at his school house and asked if we could take a portrait of him. It was late in the afternoon, and he said, “Aw, you’d have to come back tomorrow when I’ve had a shave.”
I asked, “Bill, can we come and take a picture of you shaving?” He was bemused at the idea and agreed, so we fronted up the next morning, not long after sunrise. Bill was ready to shave and had his kit set out on the table. There were two tea cups full of water. He used those to rinse his brush, which was short of a few hairs. An old mirror was propped against the cups, and a razor waited for a bit of action. Close by was a small bottle of Betadine and a large bottle of Dettol.
Bill explained he used three blades to shave, starting with a blunt one, then a slightly sharper one and finally a new one. It became apparent why the Betadine and Dettol were on hand. I commented in Off Like Flies, “It was a massacre”.
When we left, we noticed the ground outside the school room was littered with hundreds of rusting razor blades!
Moya Sharp
And a memorial to Bill Bright can be still seen at Niagara Dam where a tree has been planted in his memory.
I think, if my memory serves me well, a former boss of mine was once married to Bill’s daughter.
We forget what a huge part people like Bill Bright have played in the greater Goldfields, as prospectors, honest people, custodians of the shared land & the respect they earnt by being true pioneers of our harsh & unforgiving land, not all of them survived, only the lucky ones & those with nine lives & a few tales to tell, so to speak;