Show Steps Back In Time

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday June 23, 2005

KILMENY ADIE

In the debut episode of Outback House, shepherd Bernie Kennedy stood over the lifeless body of a young lamb he had named Ali.

The program showed how Kennedy had spent hours trying to save Ali's life - rather than slit his throat and feed him to the dog as he was told by overseer, Glen Sheluchin.

But, after finding him dead, it was clear Kennedy was struggling with his emotions.

This is just one of the incidents in the new ABC Television series, which started June 12, that makes fascinating viewing for city folk.

Kennedy is one of 18 people who opted to take a step back in time to the 19th century for Outback House.

For the program the men and women offered to return to the life of 1861 and live for three months on a sheep farm.

"It was the best thing I have done in my life without a doubt," Kennedy says.

"I have lived and worked in the bush but having to work with people with no experience was entertaining and challenging, but pretty rewarding too."

Kennedy says his brother's girlfriend had sent in his application for the program but he never expected to be selected out of more than 5000 people for the experimental television series. But the chance to learn how his farming forebears worked was too good to resist for the sheep farmer from Uralla, just outside of Armidale.

"There's a part of me that thinks I was born too late because I have an affinity with horses, dogs and sheep but I'm hopeless with anything mechanical or modern technology," Kennedy says.

"The program highlighted the importance of people as people and that everyone on it was their own small community and dependant and reliable on each other."

Kennedy was one of the few participants who had knowledge of the land to draw upon for the program. But there ware many things he'd never experienced or seen - like a bullock team.

"You see horse wagons today, but not a fair dinkum bullock team in true working conditions. Modern ones are soft. That was the thing that really touched me and stayed with me," he says.

Kennedy relished the experience and has fun watching the program on television.

"This is a living documentary on Australian history and it's as close as you can get to the times," he says.

Behind Outback House

* The farm, Oxley Downs, has been purpose-built and all the aspects of life in the 19th century have been considered; the participants must learn to live as their forebears did.

* The squatter family has brought some freehold land and taken over the lease of the surrounding country from another squatter who has hit hard times.

* The squatter hopes to make enough money to buy more land in the next year and needs to double the size of his flock. However, he has no knowledge of rural matters.

* Each of the participants were volunteers who offered their time and energy to see how modern citizens could handle the challenges of running a sheep station.

© 2005 Illawarra Mercury

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