Samantha Elley
When Graham Smith started writing Red Earth Red Blood, he was in his 70s.
Now at 95 years young, the Tuckurimba author has published part one of his historical story centred on the pioneers of Alstonville.
The story is about ordinary people in an area that grew from being virgin rainforest to one of the most sought after areas on the North Coast today, Graham said.
This is Graham’s first fiction piece. He has already published the non fiction book Sweet Beginnings about the sugar industry on the Northern Rivers, in 1991.
Graham worked at the Broadwater Mill for most of his working life, dealing mainly with figures.
“Figures were always probably the least desirable commodity in my education,” he said.
“But for 40 years I had to put up with them.”
Preferring words over numbers, Graham knew he could write and research well.
“I was the secretary of many organisations,” he said.
“A lot of it required writing reports and I wrote reports for blokes who employed me at the mill.”
Graham has dabbled in poetry and biographies, writing well-researched stories of people in his family and in the local area, which were mainly for a small audience of family and friends to read.
When it came to Red Earth Red Blood, Graham felt the Big Scrub area of the Northern Rivers was an interesting place.
“The interesting thing about it really to me is the fact it disappeared so quickly,” he said.
“It was a vast area that people thought would probably be there for a long, long time, but once cedar became very desirable, it disappeared quickly.
“The story is entirely fiction but for all that, I knew all the people, probably, that fitted the bill about what I wrote.”
Graham said he has no plans to write any more books, but potential readers of Red Earth Red Blood who become invested in the lives of the O’Reillys, Riordans and Baillies will be happy to know there is a sequel, already written.
Red Earth, Red Blood can be bought at:
Hemlocks Bookstore, Woodburn
Mid Richmond Historical Society, Coraki
The Book Warehouse, Lismore and Ballina
