We set out to tell a story about first contact in Sydney Cove that would offer a different voice from the partying planned for the 250th celebrations of Cook’s voyage along the east coast.
We floated the idea in 2019 and despite the lack of a budget 2SER generously taped our discussion just before covid threw the country into chaos. Pauline somehow found time to edit the raw material and although a little more recording would have been nice, that simply wasn’t possible with on again/off again contact restrictions.
Cook’s celebrations were cancelled, our project stalled, and then sadly, that gentleman scholar, Keith Vincent-Smith, who reported more Aboriginal / European history from the first century of modern Australia than anyone else, passed on to the Dreamtime in November 2022.
Keith had a long career as a journalist, author, joint editor of Earth Garden magazine which also closed in 2022, and was a key contributor to the reconstruction of Sydney’s lost Aboriginal language. He was an inspiration to us all. He set standards that we scrabbled to match, was incredibly generous in sharing knowledge, and we thank him for his wisdom.
Perhaps the delays in our podcast were meant to be. As they will now be released in 2023 the year of the referendum on the voice to parliament.
We hope that our discussion will assist with your decision.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We dedicate this series to our friend and historian Dr Keith Vincent Smith who sadly passed in November 2022. His love for the history of Sydney and especially the Aboriginal peoples of the cove is shown in this series of Bennelong Revealed. The series was richer for his contribution and we knew we had something special with the team that came together when we recorded.