It’s good to talk
Former AG online editor Gemma Chilton pitched us a feature on the history of apple growing in Tassie’s Huon Valley after relocating there with her family (see page 70). “I confess, my motives were selfish!” she says. “Journalists are naturally nosy, and after moving here from New South Wales in October 2020, I was curious about the stories behind the honesty boxes where we were eagerly depositing our loose change in return for bags of Pink Ladies and Rubigolds. What an opportunity to get to know our new home!” She was soon having coffee with apple industry stalwarts like Naomie Clark-Port, wandering through orchards with energetic newcomers like Coreen Ung and Matt Tack, and getting behind-the-scenes tours of R&R Smith apples and Frank’s Cider House, both local institutions. “With an AG commission to write this story, it felt like I had the keys to the city. But I also felt the weight of responsibility of doing the stories of these people, and this historic region, justice.”
Long-time AG contributing photographer Brian Cassey felt a similar resonsibility handling the memories of people associated with one of Australia’s worst mining tragedies (see page 92). “Writer Denise Cullen came up with the names of several people who had strong connections to Mount Mulligan before and after the tragedy there in 1921,” Brian says. “A few were then in the NSW COVID Delta lockdown so were out of bounds. But most were fortunately in my home state of Queensland and so began a quest for me around the Sunshine State to locate and photograph these fascinating individuals. I found them, took portraits, and listened, absorbed as they told me their stories in Cairns, Mackay and the Atherton Tableland,” he says. “Arguably the most emotional image for me was found at the end of a journey to Mackay to photograph an object. Stephen Smyth is keeper of something that, for me, summed up the story of the disaster perfectly in a single frame – a battered pocket watch that was on the person of miner George Doran James when he was killed in the explosion. The watch stopped at the moment George, his son and 73 others died at 9.25 that morning. It was a privilege to have been involved in this story that’s part of Australia’s history.”