PREFACE
Roy Walker was born in Bunbury in West Australia. In his teens he ran away to the North. During his life he has worked on many stations as a stockman, horse-breaker, yard builder and saddler. He was once head stockman on Argyle Downs for the great pioneering family, the Durack’s. 40 years ago, Roy set up his own paradise close to Lake Argyle, which had drowned much of the country he knew. Using local hand-cut timber and stone from the surrounding countryside he built a pioneer dwelling on Spillway Creek, reconstructing it from his memories of a great pioneering past. Roy was a poet and a great character from a bygone era of the true stockman days. Many of his poems are about the Aborigines, who he called his mates. " I have a lot of time for the natives, they were some of the smartest stockmen I have ever seen, but I feel very sorry for them because I know what they were – good, smart and they knew their game.<\p>
The 20th of November 2006 marked Roy’s passing. His last wish had been to be buried at ‘Roy’s Retreat, his favorite place. Barbara, Leanne and Jacqueline fulfilled his dying wish and pushed and pulled Roy’s dead body in a wheelbarrow through the bush from Barbara’s dwelling to the grave.
Just as Roy failed to live conventionally while he was alive, so, even in his death, he also refused to conform.
Listen to one of his poems "The stockman"