Former NSW country racing writer Bill Poulos couldn’t help himself.
The award-winning journalist recently published a book, Bush Tragedies, and it has nothing to do with the racing game – except for two of the 23 feature stories in the 528-page paperback.
Poulos said the creation of Bush Tragedies was entirely accidental.
“The book is a classic case of serendipity, given I was working on a completely different project when the idea for this book came along,” Bill said.
“I was researching information on the history of horse-racing in the bush, and I kept getting side- tracked by sensational headlines and news reports about murders, crimes and tragedies in towns and villages across western NSW and the bottom end of Queensland.”
But that doesn’t mean thoroughbred racing doesn’t get a mention.
One feature story, I’ve Got You Now You Bastard, centres on the gruesome murder of one-time jockey James Osborne, known in racing circles as Jimmy the Stepper, at the Royal Hotel in Warialda in 1888.
Osborne was stabbed to death by a travelling companion, Alf Merritt, known as Happy Jack.
Osborne and Merritt had made their way over from Tamworth, stopping at Armidale and Inverell along the way, and had been in Warialda for a couple of months.
They weren’t exactly on the lam, but police had shown pretty keen interest in the pair.
After a falling-out, Merritt stabbed Osborne with a sheath knife he’d purchased the same day.
Exactly when Jimmy the Stepper and Happy Jack teamed up is unclear, but they more than likely found each other on a racecourse.
Merritt escaped the hangman’s noose and his death sentence was commuted to 14 years’ imprisonment.
Bush Tragedies also features a story about stock theft in north-western NSW and southern Queensland – and the two police officers in charge of the investigation.
One of those officers, Alf Small from Sydney, was later responsible for finding controversial racehorse Simba, a former New Zealand galloper used as the pea in a failed ring-in scam at Flemington racecourse on June 8, 1931.
Simba, trained in Sydney, raced in the Rothsay Trial Stakes at Flemington under the name Gagoola. However, the horse was beaten a head by Stephanite when sensationally backed from 20-1 into 7-4 favouritism.
Had Simba won, racing as Gagoola, the collect would’ve been £15,000 – the equivalent of $1.4 million in new millennium dollars.
Afterwards, stewards were told the real Gagoola had broken a leg and was subsequently destroyed. Stewards were shown a pile of burnt remains as evidence.
Meanwhile, Simba simply disappeared. The gelding was allegedly stolen from a set of Hyle Street stables at Sydney suburb Alexandria about five months after racing at Flemington.
Small, at the time a sergeant stationed at Redfern, was aware of the ring-in case but not assigned to it.
While driving through suburban Sydney to his home at Enfield late on March 23, 1932, he noticed a horse peering inquisitively over a fence near the corner of Rawson Street and George’s River Road at Mascot.
The horse looked familiar. Could it be? he wondered.
Small stopped for a closer inspection and immediately recognised the horse as Simba.
The horse, valued at £1500, was seized by police and 41-year-old horse-dealer, Albert McCoy, was charged with theft.
Bush Tragedies is a collection of crimes, murders and tragedies from across western NSW and south- western Queensland that made headlines around Australia many, many years ago.
They have since been long forgotten – until now.
The stories from dark pockets of Australia’s history, are recorded in stark, descriptive detail by Poulos, an award-winning journalist.
Readers travel a gruesome journey across outback NSW, stopping at obscure little towns and villages where these shocking crimes and tragedies unfolded.
Bush Tragedies chronicles historical events from towns, villages and settlements including Goondiwindi, St George, Narrabri, Bingara, Inverell, Warialda, Quambone, Dubbo, Coonabarabran, Biniguy, Gilgandra, Garah, Mungindi, Boggabilla, Terry Hie Hie, Barraba, Collarenebri, Uralla and Moree.
The book, comprising 23 stories, 130,000 words and 526 pages, covers the years from the mid- to late-1800s to around 1950.
The stories are deeply-researched and detailed, and written in a style known as creative non-fiction. “Rather than compile boring, historical essays, I wanted to make these stories as interesting as possible,” Poulos said.
Research over three years included trawling through the National Library of Australia’s incredible resource Trove and sourcing court- and law-related documents from NSW and Queensland State Archives, military and service records from the Australian War Memorial and relevant information from the National Archives of Australia.
Several ancestry and family heritage websites were referred to as well as private documents and information supplied by family members.
“There are many people who helped along the way, none more so than the researchers at Western Sydney Records Centre. My requests for information were never a problem, and responses were prompt, efficient and always on the money – they are an incredible team,” Poulos said.
Reviewer Judith Flitcroft, the author of Walk Back in Time, said Bush Tragedies was a “meticulous and well researched work of brutal and sordid crimes, and accidents of awful, immeasurable and diverse events that tore many outback towns in western NSW to pieces”.
“In a quiet way, it is an incredible tribute to country law enforcement officers and judiciary ‘back in the day’,” she said.
“Bill Poulos uses a genre of creative non-fiction to recreate all the happenings in his book. The reader becomes the witness to these scenes.
“I found the re-enactments noteworthy: ‘A cavalcade of vehicles carrying the police magistrate, police officers and the accused and his solicitor made its way into town’.
“The recounting of ‘The headless body’, left an unusual query hanging as to who exactly was the dead man.
“The Murulla train disaster of 1926 is quoted from the Newcastle Sun newspaper: ‘The town awoke to pulsing life and the streets were filled with the screech of cars and the shouts of men. Breathlessly they dashed into the bush to succour the victims of disaster’.
“Bill Poulos has mastered, (and to quote one of the characters in the book, Inspector Goodwin), one hell of an investigation,” Flitcroft said.
Reviewer Kenneth N. Price, a retired Vietnam veteran and author of Broken Lives and Kokoda Mist, said: “Bush Tragedies is a collection of short stories that brings to life the early settlement of western NSW and south-western QLD. Bill Poulos does a magnificent job researching primary source material and bringing it together in a clear and succinct way.”
“Bush Tragedies will amaze you, shock you and on occasions bring a tear to your eye,” Price said. Bush Tragedies, published by Sid Harta Book Publishers, is available from bookstores and retail outlets as well as online at Booktopia.
The author urges readers to support their local bookstore, where possible.
“Please check with your local bookshop or retailer about the availability of Bush Tragedies – there’s nothing better than over-the-counter sales to support small businesses, especially in country areas,” he said.
Bush Tragedies back cover
Award-winning journalist Bill Poulos delves deep into Australia’s turbulent and lawless past with this collection of stories recalling crimes, murders and tragedies that once made headlines around the nation.
His detailed research takes the reader into townships, settlements and the wide-open spaces of the outback where there is no escape from the shocking and often brutal events he vividly recreates. Bush Tragedies throws a light on shocking events that occurred far from the country’s big cities – tragedies that disrupted and divided tight knit communities in obscure towns and settlements, splitting families, testing loyalties.
The author takes us well beyond the bare facts of crime and punishment. Postscripts add fascinating backgrounds and outcomes to those involved – the cause and effect of the brutal deeds he describes. Readers become observers at inquests and trials, even joining the witnesses at the gallows.
We are introduced to rogues and villains, their unfortunate victims, and the lawyers and judges who decide their fate.
This rollicking time capsule brings to life the truly appalling crimes and tragedies that horrified a nation all those years ago.
They are retold in graphic detail from start to finish, complete with the cut and thrust of cross- examinations by police and lawyers.
It can be a tragic world out there in the bush…
About the author
Bill Poulos is a former freelance features and sports journalist based at Moree in north-western NSW. His passion is the thoroughbred racing industry, and he wrote extensively on this subject for numerous magazines, newspapers and websites across the eastern states of Australia for more than thirty-five years.
Bill’s research for a book on the history of horse-racing in north-western NSW was the reason Bush Tragedies serendipitously evolved — historical stories of crime, murder, misery and heartache kept dragging him away from the project at hand.
Bill won the John Newfong Award for Outstanding Indigenous Affairs reporting at the 2016 NRMA Kennedy Awards for Excellence in NSW Journalism and was also nominated for three Racing NSW Awards for Excellence in Media (2003, 2005 and 2010), winning in 2010.
Bill lives in Moree with his wife Cindy and stepson Yang. Bill and Cindy own and manage a small business in Moree, and Bill writes every chance he gets.
Book details
Featured book title release: Bush Tragedies
True Stories of Crime, Murder, Misery and Heartache from Western New South Wales True crime
Author: Bill Poulos
140mm X 216mm; 526 pages
ISBN: 978-1-922958-40-2
SID HARTA PUBLISHERS, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
RRP: $34.95
To buy Bush Tragedies now, click here.
