Within a few short years after the First World War, over the heads of horses donkeys camels and bullock teams, a new sound could be heard in Australia’s interior: the droning and spluttering of aircraft.

First it was the 'barnstormers' offering thrills and first flights to small country communities. Then came airmail services, then passenger routes were opened.

It was Sir Norman Brearley, with his Western Australian Airways who first made it to airline status, with a route from Geraldton to the far north-west of Australia's largest State.

As he told John Francis during an interview in 1971, Sir Norman, born 1890, was 13 when the Wright Brothers first took to the air. In the early days of World War One after less than two hours instruction, when his flight instructor refused to go up with him again, Norman said he 'taught myself to fly'.

By June 1916 he was in action on the Western Front, during which time on what was considered a 'suicidal mission' he shot down an observation balloon, and later with another pilot attacked seven enemy aircraft, before being shot down in No Man's Land with a bullet through both lungs.

Sir Norman's many aerial adventures and later prominent role in military pilot training, saw him awarded a Military Cross, a Distinguished Service Order, and the Air Force Cross.

As you will hear in this first of a two-part series – and even more so in the second part to follow – Sir Norman Brearley was a fighter, both in the air and later in establishing his airline.

Opal miner Franko Albertoni was born in 1883. He was 88 when John Francis interviewed him in 1971, but still jumping around in the crushing heat like a little pixie.

In 1920 Franko and his brother were among the very early miners at the Coober Pedy Opal Fields in South Australia. Then in 1930 they were among the first 12 to dig for opal in Andamooka.

Franko was still living in the same mud and stone hut they had built there. A hut so tiny he just had room for one chair, and so dark, he cooked over his open fire by feel. His prized possessions were his button accordion and tin whistle.

Franko was scathing of his ‘lazy’ older brother George, a womaniser who lived in the city and made a lot of money gambling. Citing the poem, ‘Paddle Your Own Canoe’, he preferred the simple joys of digging for potatoes in earth so dry and hard he had to use a use a pick, and drawing a little muddy water from the well he dug when he was 70.

Also in this episode, goat carts and drought years in the Flinders Ranges. And before we meet Franko, we go underground in search of opal.

It was 1919, and Charlie Gill was 12 when he started work on a cattle station east of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. It was a tough but joyous life for a boy.

Charlie was an acute observer, with the memory of a steel dingo trap, and a great way with words. In this 1968 interview he talks of sleeping rough when mustering, of dealing with cranky camels, on the dingo hunt, the joy of working with cattle, and why donkeys are sweeter than mules.

As a 21 year-old Mr Gill joined the police force. He recalls the hard line he was forced to take with the hordes of desperate swaggies heading west during the Depression years.

This is the first edition of Red Dust Tapes, where former radio documentary maker John Francis takes us on a journey through Outback Australia to meet now long-gone, colourful characters whose lifestyle has now all but disappeared.