Kate Holden - The Winter Road: A Killing in Croppa Creek

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing this book has been an exceptional education for me: very daunting but an enormous satisfaction. I am honoured to tell the story of Ian Turnbull and Glen Turner, the sorrows that came from their encounters and the lessons that may be learned. From the twilight scene on Talga Lane and my writing desk in suburban Melbourne I came to walk outwards in my research to the distant lands of Britain, the deep past of the First Nations legacy and the wide, gleaming wheatfields of New South Wales. It has been a revelation of place, identity and history to me. I finish it in a new home, in a new part of the continent, hearing the sea in the distance and looking out to a mountain dark with forest.

Ive come, too, to a new understanding of my own creation: grown in a city that often resembles Europe, raised fond of lawns and English flowers and romantically habituated to the bare flanks of stripped country, Ive learned to notice our native landscapes newly, and to comprehend my own shifting baseline as I contemplate the future of the nation my son will grow up in, compared to the one I knew as a child; my lifetime alone covers nearly one-fifth of the period of white settlement in Australia. We face existential crisis with climate change, and everything is now to be reshaped. I was a city girl: now I see that I am as formed in nature as any brigalow.

The story of Ian Turnbull and Glen Turner is such a painful one that many involved struggled to speak of it. I am very grateful that Alison McKenzie, Fran Pearce, Rob Strange and Les Slater all generously agreed to share their experience and recollections with me. Phil Spark and Chris Nadolny were both endlessly patient with their expertise and recall of events, and Alaine Anderson took time in her busy day to talk. Others spoke cautiously on condition of anonymity, and I would like to thank JD, BO and JM, women of the northwest who spoke of life on the land and offered a female perspective on a very male narrative. From the OEH, former staff Simon Smith, John Lemon and John Benson, and Leah McKinnon at the Border RiversGwydir Catchment Management Authority, lent their insight, while Andrew Picone at the Australian Conservation Authority also contributed information. Appreciation, too, to the four blokes at a Moree cafe who invited me to sit, bought me a coffee and told me of local life.

Inexperienced in research in legal archives, I was enormously and patiently helped by Anna Cooper at the Office of the Department of Public Prosecution; Sonya Zadel at the Office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales; and Linda at the Environment Line enquiry service at the OEH, who helped me untangle the OEHs evolution. Michael McNamara at the Gwydir Family Historical Society, and the staff and archives at the Moree Community Library, were very helpful as I delved into the towns past.

I would like to acknowledge the diligence, insight and work of Gregory Miller and Georgia Wallace-Crabbe for their documentary, Cultivating Murder, and Tanya Howard, who wrote the article that encouraged Morry Schwartz at Black Inc. to contemplate a full-length book.

Here, too, is my chance to show appreciation for the devoted and clever journalists on whose work I have hugely relied: Peter Hannam of The Sydney Morning Herald; Michael Slezak, Anne Davies, Adam Morton and Lisa Cox of The Guardian; Brianna Chillingworth of Moree Champion; Kerry Brewster, then of Lateline; and the various others who covered Ian Turnbulls murder trial and its aftermath. I also thank George Main and Cameron Muir, who wrote thoughtful and attentive histories of Australias landscape; and Tom Griffiths, Libby Robin and their son, Billy Griffiths, who have all inspired me with their robust environmental histories, not to mention friendship, encouragement and example.

Julia Carlomagno and Chris Feik at Black Inc. were steady, exquisitely patient editors: Julia in particular never wobbled, even when I presented her with a manuscript twice as long as expected and a hundred times more complicated. Her attentiveness, canniness and expertise, even during national crisis, was a lesson in editorial virtue. Im also thrilled to have Mary Callahans beautiful cover design.

This book was written and edited on the country of various First Nations: the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation in Narrm (Melbourne) and particularly the Yalukut Weelam (Port Phillip); the Gayemagal people of Kaiymay (Manly); and the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal/Tharawal Nation in the Illawarra.

In my personal life I am always grateful for the presence of the following, and especially for their support as I toiled over this work: Vanessa Cross, Alice Williams, Matt Pritchard, Simon Tong, Ravenna and Shoshanah Keller, Cheryle Moore and Jeff Stein, Stacy Hoffman and Gino Mazzone, Daniel McGlone and many others for indelible friendship and just for taking an interest; Lee Kofman, James Norman, Chloe Hooper, Don Watson and Anna Krien, for friendship, writerly sympathy and advice; Jane Novak, for being my agent and friend and writing me the most encouraging email Ive ever had; mentor and exemplar Erik Jensen; mentors and friends Anna and Morry Schwartz; Simeon and Tritian Glasson for hospitality as I visited court in Sydney; Julie and Mark Mills for the amazing house; Isabella Tree and Sir Charlie Burrell for hosting us at Knepp; the Fondation Segr and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva for accommodating us; St Kilda & Balaclava Kindergarten for keeping my son safe and joyful as I worked; my cousin Tracey Callander, for the wise conversations about the world and help with my son as I wrote; everyone who asked kindly how the book was going, and listened as I told them. And as always, Im full of gratitude for my gorgeous parents, Margot and Geoff, who helped with transcriptions and research and who provided love and coffee, and my patient and funny sister Jen, who bravely took the cat.

With all of the above guidance and help, it goes without saying that any errors contained in this book are my own.

I always write to music, and I encourage people to share with me the cinema soundtrack wonders of Max Richter, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, Hildur Gunadttir, Ramin Djawadi, Clint Mansell; Justin Hurwitzs score for First Man; and the melodies of folk musicians Davy Graham, Duck Baker and Bert Jansch, Barry Dransfield and Fairport Convention, Shirley Collins, Pentangle, Anne Briggs, Judee Sill, Sibylle Baier, June Tabor, Linda Thompson, Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy. If anyone wants the sound of a countryside road in winter twilight, I recommend Richard Skeltons eerie soundscapes.

Last of all, I thank my incredible partner, Tim, who had the library I needed in his head or on the bookshelves, who made me lunch and listened to me, who has written his own exemplary histories and who is a beautiful, loving, exciting part of my own. And to our shining son, who will inherit all of our life, and live in the Australia that we have made and the one yet to be loved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Articles

Albrecht, Glenn; Sartore, Gina-Maree; Connor, Linda et al., Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change, Australasian Psychiatry, vol. 15, 2007, s9598.

Austin, Peter & Tindale, Norman B., Emu and Brolga, A Kamilaroi Myth, Aboriginal History, vol. 9, 1985, pp. 921.

Barclay, Elaine & Bartel, Robyn, Defining Environmental Crime: The Perspective of Farmers, Journal of Rural Studies, vol. 39, 2015, pp. 18898.

Barnes, Andrew & Hill, G.J.E., Estimating Kangaroo Damage to Winter Wheat Crops in the Bungunya District of Southern Queensland,