Speechification

Kate Grenville’s ‘The Secret River’ is an enjoyable historical novel based around the sporadic, often violent settlement of the Hawkesbury River outside Sydney, as the penal colony expanded out into the bush. Based on Grenville’s family history, the story is pitted with the deep dark scars that epitomise those early brutal years of white Australia. Grenville’s novel more or less stops as this wonderful documentary starts, which explores the more recent past, present and future of the river. Today’s Hawkesbury is both tourist attraction and development opportunity, yet still winds through the all-encompassing Australian wilderness and is also still home to the traditional practices of oyster production, only slightly evolved over the last 200 years. Indeed, in the same place as the aboriginal practice, which dates back tens of thousands of years, the remnants of which are still visible in the vast middens along the shore.

We hear from old timers at the trade, born in humpies on the river - one in particular has a wondrous way with a story and a voice to match - and learn how the oyster production has recently been decimated by a ‘foot-and-mouth equivalent’ for oysters, a mysterious new disease called QX. There’s speculation here that the water quality has been hit by the double whammy of increased sewage from new development and the 15-year drought on the river.

But fear not, listen to the end and we hear it isn’t all eco-disaster. This is also a beautifully produced bit of radio - impressionistic field recording, oral history interspersed with poetry (which I don’t usually care for, but here works perfectly), and little or no presentation or narration. Just gentle nudging of interviewees and a meandering edit that propels history down the curving river. The sound recording is wonderfully evocative. Over the backdrop of insects, birds and the river gurgling through mangroves, listen for two sounds in particular: the metal-on-shell clink of grading the oysters and the lapping of water on the underside of the shallow skiffs. Wonderful stuff by the sound engineer, Steven Tilley.

Radio Eye: The Oyster Farmers (mp3)