Letters to the editor, The Daily Advertiser, July 20, 2022

Some readers may be unaware that "Fried" is what the "F" in the brand means, with the full horrifying word being used in the olden days, before cooking in boiling oil was demonised and any public reference to deep frying had to be cancelled. Even though the oil fried on.

The new ad is an exciting breakthrough and makes me hope that one day we also might be allowed to use words like man, woman, husband, and wife again: or even the various proscribed pronouns (like he and she perhaps) currently on the Woke Klux Klan's blacklist.

It's a glimmer of hope in these dark ages anyway.

Australian First Nations and Torres Strait Islander people are advised this story involves deceased people.

It was told to me many years ago at Mount Archer (within sight of Queensland's Glass House Mountains) by a man named Hickey who lived in the district.

As a 17-year old, he had jackarooed out west, mustering cattle in the channels of Coopers Creek. The stirrup-up iron chafed his ankle and he was retired to the homestead. The wound turned septic and blood poisoning a potential fatal reality.

That night an Aboriginal man applied a poultice, drawing-out the poison. Later the patient asked his saviour why he saved his life. His reply was: "What would your mother think of me if I had left you to die?"

After a time, I drove a Honda sedan to find the homestead (Kungeramungera?) out past Roma, Charleville and Quilpie to near the Coopers Creek Crossing and Windorah.

After the turn-off to the station I was seeking, the road was for cattle-trucks, not my Honda, but I did speak to a Tully, who was married to a daughter (or granddaughter) of legendary pioneer cattleman "Patsy" Durack.

At a servo, I spoke to a man who had known "Uppity" - the only name I had for the hero mentioned.

I spoke to others who knew and worked on the station with him; I found one in the pub. One spoke of Uppity sitting in the darkened end of the mess hall.

His story is that his tribe (possibly with the same name as the property) had probably been there from the Dreamtime.

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Tragedy struck when the two sons of the station boss violated a couple of girls. The universal law of all the tribes was death for that crime. Those two lads were speared.

So the white station owners and stockmen organised a dawn raid on the sleeping tribe - men, women and children slaughtered.

The only survivors were the chief's wife and her child, who hid under a bush.

She later was given a job as a cook at the station. When she died many years later the burial rules were that all went to a cemetery.

An enlightened English station manager had the rule relaxed so that she could be buried on her own country.

I believe that Uppity was later buried with her. While he lived he was a valued part of the station. He knew every inch of the place - where the good cattle feed was etc.

For years the bones could be seen at that spot on Coopers Creek.

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