The Versatile Man: The Life & Times of Don Ross

Born in Barrow Creek, Australia, north of Alice Springs, to an Aboriginal mother and a white father, Don Ross grew up at Neutral Junction station between two worlds: the white settler world of his grandfather and other station owners, and the Aboriginal Kaytetye world of his mother's family. He knew both cultures and spoke both languages, and experienced the uneasy tension of living between the two. Don was an eager eight-year-old when he first started to work in the stock camps on his grandfather's cattle station in the early 1920s. In a series of yarns, he delights in recalling the many colorful characters who crossed his path, and recollects the arduous and often dangerous life of a stockman. The Versatile Man paints a picture of a bygone era of pastoral industry development and technological change in a frontier world where only the strong, the capable, the resourceful, and the adaptable survived.