Too Late to Say Goodbye

Life has often been hard in Australia's Northern Territory, but it can be tougher if you can't hear. ST Daly's life over the last 30 years has been a series of battles: trying to hold down a job in a world that depends so much on sound - driving trucks, raising a family, racing stockcars. This personal account gives an insight into the Northern Territory before and after Cyclone Tracy, through side avenues even Territorians might not have been through, and up and down the roads of outback Australia.

Abused, beaten, sometimes bloody but always unbowed, the author's story will draw you into the quiet world of someone who would never quit.

Here's part of his recollection of the night Cyclone Tracy hit - when he was playing in a band as "Darwin's only deaf guitarist...":

My ever present fan was blowing in my face, often sending my cap into the maze of cables and microphones behind me. Even though we were still playing at about 9 o'clock that night, we left a radio on that would interrupt us every hour to tell the people what Tracy was doing.

 

When the pub started to shake rattle and roll about 10 or 11 o'clock the management suggested that those who wanted to go home before the storm, as we thought it was, should do so now. Many patrons, including myself, chose the warm and comfy spot where we were rather than go outside into that. But the lights flickered yet again, and the rumble and crash of tables and chairs from the outside beer garden and the endless flapping of corrugated iron started to get even worse. The windows and doors rippled in the glow of hastily grabbed torches or kerosene lanterns.

 

A bunch of us decided to stay at the pub - it was just too dark and windy outside. Every so often there would be an almighty flash of lightning and a rolling clap of thunder that shook the floor we were standing on - you could see the tables shake and the odd glass or two go over. The equipment we were using was mostly valve operated stuff and even before the power went the main amplifier had blown big time....

This book describes the life, loves and losses of a Territory battler whose sharp eye more than compensates for his lack of hearing in the tough world of the Australian outback.