Backtrack Boys

The Backtrack Boys documentary has been officially released and is screening in cinemas and other venues across Australia. It’s wonderful to see this inspirational film affecting people’s hearts and minds – Russell Crowe sent out an endorsement through Twitter, and the film won best documentary award at the Byron Bay Film Festival (as well as a string of Audience Favourite Awards at other film festivals). Well done to all the BackTrack boys, to Bernie Shakeshaft and to his fabulous team at BackTrack Youth Works, and to filmmaker Catherine Scott who brought this story together.

From 2007 to 2014, I was a volunteer youth worker/researcher at BackTrack, and I wrote about my experiences in a memoir called Wild Boys: A Parent’s Story of Tough Love (UQP, 2015). For the inside story on how Bernie Shakeshaft and his team of helpers transformed a fledgling grass-roots youth welding initiative into a hugely successful youth work organisation, Wild Boys is the perfect ‘companion book’ for the Backtrack Boys documentary. Bernie’s innovative youth work practices were in place right from the start, and they can be easily replicated to help other young people across Australia to reconnect with their communities.

Over the last two months, the current group of boys in the BackTrack school program have been helping me out with various garden jobs. I’ve really enjoyed re-connecting with the BackTrack boys in this way – they’ve carted compost and mulch, cut down trees, stacked wood, and are building me compost bins and a new clothesline. Along with their teacher, they work bloody hard … and the world feels like a better place when they’re here.

The BackTrack boys rock!

 

The Backtrack Boys is a new documentary about Bernie Shakeshaft and the crew from BackTrack Youth Works. Following on from the early days of BackTrack which I wrote about in Wild Boys, the film features the stories of three boys – Rusty, Zach and Alfie – and shows the life changing transformation they undergo through their involvement with BackTrack and dogs and all that happens at the shed. At the film’s premier at the Sydney Film Festival five days ago, The Backtrack Boys received a well-deserved standing ovation.

Check out the The Backtrack Boys trailer and a recent article from the Northern Daily Leader:

Congratulations to filmmaker Catherine Scott and to all the crew at BackTrack!

Big screen debut: Armidale's highly renowned Backtrack program will be hitting the big screen on Sunday as one of the features of the Sydney Film Festival.

 

Two days ago, an article in The Australian – ‘BackTrack project saving kids from lockup’ – featured the work of Bernie Shakeshaft, founder and manager of BackTrack Youth Works in Armidale. The article, which raised important points about keeping kids out of jail and working on alternative solutions to incarceration, mentioned how Bernie and the team at BackTrack commonly ask young people who join the program about their hopes and dreams in life. ‘It takes them a while to answer,’ noted Bernie, ‘because they’re not used to hearing that [question].’

The story of BackTrack and the emergence of Bernie’s hugely successful programs in Armidale and further afield are documented in my memoir Wild Boys: A Parent’s Story of Tough Love (UQP), and Bernie’s comment about ‘hopes and dreams’ reminded me of a chapter in Wild Boys called ‘The Scent of an Idiot’, some of which I’ll share below:

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Wild-BoysExcerpt from Wild Boys: A Parent’s Story of Tough Love (pp. 11-12)

One day, as Bernie and I sat together on the concrete ledge outside the shed, I’d asked him what the boys were like when he first met them. He shook his head and grimaced: ‘They were the wildest bunch of hoorangs you’re likely to come across!’

I laughed at his pained expression. He found his tobacco and rolled a cigarette, his habitual way of settling in for a chat.

‘There were some damaged kids in that group,’ said Bernie, his voice low. ‘It was almost too late to start with them. Hard-core kids, on the edge of going inside for violent bashings, already identified as hopeless troublemakers, a lot of them living away from home. For sixteen years they’d heard the only thing that matters is getting a school certificate, only to be told: “It’s all bullshit. You guys aren’t going to get there.”’ Bernie gave a scornful huff. ‘The schools hadn’t worked on the strengths and dreams of those kids.’

He paused for a moment to light his smoke. ‘It was like getting a bag full of wild cats and letting them out in one room where they couldn’t escape. The schools kept saying I had to stick with the rules … that the boys weren’t allowed to smoke or swear.’ Bernie whistled through his teeth. ‘For Christ’s sakes, you send me twenty of your wildest boys – all full-on swearers and smokers and blasphemers – and tell me to enforce the school rules? It was wild!’ He grinned, his face alive with the memory. ‘We had knives pulled in the welding shed, and just as soon as you’d be finished with the knife incident, the boss-man from the college would be yelling, “What the hell is that kid doing up on top of that three-storey building!” The boys would show up black and blue, on the piss and smoking bongs. Not all of them ended up here at the shed – some did well, some not so well. One of them died, another’s in jail.’

‘It’s hard to believe the boys were like that.’ I thought of Thommo with his quiet dignity. ‘Was Thommo that wild?’

Bernie rolled his eyes and groaned. ‘He was the craziest! He and his mates were riding bikes into poles and dropping garbage bins on each other’s heads from the highest roof at school. Whatever someone did that was dangerous, Thommo did something double-dangerous. Thommo wouldn’t just jump off the third storey of the building – he’d want to jump through three sheets of glass as well. Taking it to extremes. Crazy self-mutilation stuff.’

We sat quietly for a moment.

‘I did a lot of that as a kid myself,’ said Bernie. ‘Hardly a bone in my body I haven’t broken – from having no fear or need for self-preservation. Dealing with those kids rang a lot of bells for me because, all those years ago, I would’ve been one of those wild cats let out of the bag.’

 

Boys, Bernie, Annabelle and Helena[1]

On the 25th August, Wild Boys was officially launched at the BackTrack Shed by Professor Annabelle Duncan, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England. The launch was an exciting day for me … the public acknowledgement of years and years of hard work was very affirming, and what follows is the gist of the speech I gave that day.

Many years ago, when an early chapter of Wild Boys was published in Griffith REVIEW, Bernie Shakeshaft said to me: ‘How lucky are we that you came down to the shed.’ At the time, my response to him was: ‘How lucky am I that I came down to the shed’, and even though writing Wild Boys has involved a significant amount of personal sacrifice and hardship, I can still say: ‘How lucky am I? I got to be part of something – a whole other world – that not many women experience, and I learned a lot about life in the process.

One of the unexpected outcomes of writing Wild Boys is my ongoing affection for the BackTrack boys – both past and present. I’ve come a long way since my first day at the shed – when I rocked up, full of nerves, to find Bernie driving out the gate, saying: ‘I’ll be back soon… just go inside and meet the boys. They’ll show you around.’ It’s fair to say I was completely out of my comfort zone that day, but I soon realised that there was nothing to fear.

Like many things in life, we fear what we don’t know, and fear and prejudice usually arise from ignorance – from not understanding and not being able to feel empathy towards a group of people who are different to you. Part of the reason why I wrote Wild Boys was to provide an insight into the ‘wild boys’ in our community – to shine a light on what it is to be a teenage boy who, for various reasons, struggles at school and can become known as a ‘loser’ early in life, simply because he doesn’t fit the system. That’s a pretty harsh judgement for a society to make upon a young person, so I wanted to write something that would influence the way people think and feel about wild boys, something that might encourage them to care more and judge less.

Recently, I helped set up the school program at the shed, and I got to know some of the boys who are currently at the shed. One day, we had to go somewhere for lunch on the spur of the moment, so I said to the boys, ‘Let’s go to my house and have a BBQ there.’ When we reached my house, the boys jumped out of the troopie and dashed off to the backyard – where they started making a BBQ and cutting up onions and chopping wood and fixing the back fence and cutting back all the overgrown bushes in my garden.

I remember some people were surprised to hear I’d invited the boys back to my house that day, but I didn’t see any problem – because once again, there was nothing to worry about. Those boys were so generous with their help, and open and friendly – just as they’ve always been with me. I’m not at the shed much these days, but one of the joys of my life is when I’m downtown and I hear someone call out: ‘Hey, Helena!’ and I turn around and it’s one of the BackTrack boys. For some reason, that simple exchange always makes me feel like the world is becoming a better place.

The story of the seven original BackTrack boys who feature in this book is very moving. Yes, there’s a lot of swearing, and a few times where the boys lose their way. But when they were given help to get back on track, those boys made the choice to accept that help and move ahead in life – to rise above the trajectory that was set out for them and to emerge as winners, to become known as the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – and that was a wonderful thing to witness. At the back of Wild Boys is a section where those seven boys share the lessons they learnt from their time at the shed. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to read this section without becoming very emotional because the responses are so deep – so beautiful – and this is from a group of boys who, for the most part, struggled at school and were often in trouble with the police.

That’s why the BackTrack shed is so special – it gives young people who don’t fit the system a place to shine, where they too can emerge as winners in life. It’s like one of the boys says at the end of the book: ‘Everyone needs to find a place … and from there you can grow. The shed gave us that place.’

So, how lucky am I that I got to see all that happen – and to write about it so that others can also experience the beauty of what goes on down here and understand how positive change comes about in a community. Along with documenting the early days of BackTrack, Wild Boys also describes how Bernie helped me through a pretty challenging time in my life. I never expected to write about myself in this book, but, really, once I started coming along to the shed, there was no way that I was going to come out the other side of this experience without my life being transformed in some way because that’s what happens here – people’s lives are transformed.

I used to rely on Bernie’s help quite a lot, but he’s a good mentor – a good teacher – because I hardly ever need to ring him now. I still run into troubles, of course, but mostly, instead of ringing Bernie for help, I go back and think of the lessons I’ve learnt in the past – and how I can apply that knowledge to the current situation I’m struggling with. Many unique ‘Bernie-lessons’ are in the book – and I’m sure others will find them just as useful as I did.

Like I said, I don’t get down to the shed enough these days – I’m like the dog that runs along the outside of the pack – but I think I will always carry the experiences I’ve had at this shed close to my heart, especially some of those times with the BackTrack boys.

Crowd1[2]

 

 

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In less than two weeks, I’ll be appearing in three separate events at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, and I’m really excited about this wonderful opportunity to promote Wild Boys. On Saturday 5 September, as part of ‘BWF in the ‘burbs!’, I’ll be speaking at the Mitchelton Library, and the following day, I’ll be discussing Wild Boys on the Queensland Terrace of the State Library with my dear friend Edwina Shaw (check out Edwina’s blog for her review of Wild Boys). Straight after that session, I’ll be giving a 3-hour Masterclass in memoir writing – ‘Close to Home’ – where I can share all the tricks I’ve learned from working with some of Australia’s best editors over the years. So, it’ll be a hectic weekend, but lots of fun – especially catching up with Edwina again.

Meanwhile … it’s full steam ahead here in Armidale. The official launch of Wild Boys is being held at the BackTrack Shed next Tuesday. Professor Annabelle Duncan, Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England (UNE), will launch the book in the BackTrack classroom – and this event will bring together two very different parts of my life in Armidale. Wild Boys developed as a parallel project while I was completing my PhD in Creative Research Practice at UNE, and the university has always been very supportive of my writing (click here to see UNE’s recent media release about Wild Boys). I think the launch will provide a sense of completion for this writing project … in a way, it’s almost like I’m ‘graduating’ from BackTrack.

Over the last month, while I’ve been dealing with a range of complex post-publication emotions, I’ve been putting in lots of applications for writing opportunities in 2016. Hopefully, some of them of them will come through for me – and I’ll be able to see a bit more of the world next year. Finally, in today’s Sun Herald, Karen Hardy has written a fantastic feature about Wild Boys.

 

 

Hello again. No news on the writing front, except that an agent has expressed interest in my work and is currently reading the manuscript. I hope to hear some news soon. Meanwhile, through my teaching position with BackTrack Youth Works (the youth work organisation that features in my memoir), I was involved in an inspiring writing-related activity earlier this week when I attended the BackTrack School’s inaugural poetry camp with eight dogs, nine teenage boys, my co-teacher Simmo, three youth workers – Dusty, Blissy and Matt, and one bush poet: Murray (Muz) Hartin. We camped by the Macdonald River at Marinka, a property near Walcha, and slept in swags under the stars.

Four nights after leaving the riverbank, my head is still filled with images of the camp: the oaks along the river; the boys unloading their truckload of firewood; sitting around the campfire sharing songs, stories and poems; the change in Murray Hartin’s face when he recited poetry; Dusty reading ‘The White Horse’ from his note-book of poems; Simmo’s torch-lit rendition of Tonchi’s song Gallipoli; stone sculptures popping up everywhere; a midnight yabbie feast; eight black and white and brown dogs gathered by a tree, watching everything; and a circle of swags around the fire. Murray Hartin was very entertaining, and by the end of the first day, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose cheeks were aching from laughing so much.

After breakfast the next morning, I saw Blissy and a group of boys sitting some distance away – guitars and notebooks in hand – thinking up words to fit the tune of Stand By Me, while others sat back and read their signed copies of A Whole Lotta Muz. Later, we dragged the rolled-up swags into a circle in the shade and shared poems, thoughts and feelings, and everyone rated the camp well into the 80s or 90s out of 100. Before we left, we did charcoal drawings on large sheets of white paper – some people drew the trees and rocks along the river, and others drew what was in their heads. Murray did a tree ‘rubbing’ by holding his paper against the bark of a tree, Matt sketched the sheep’s skull I’d found on my walk that morning, and two of the boys asked if they could move away and spend time drawing in solitude. That’s where we were at by the end of the camp.

I think I’m still absorbing the experience – which was right up there in the 90s out of 100 for me. In our ‘outdoor classroom’ at Marinka, we may have learnt about rhyme, rhythm and rap, but, for me, the poetry camp also offered a lesson in cooperative living and respecting each other and our environment. I’d never been camping with so many men, boys or dogs before, and it’s not common for a woman to be on a BackTrack camp either, but I felt an accepted and welcome member of the group. I also noticed that whenever the word ‘black’ was used in any context, like describing a black horse or a black container, someone was sure to joke: ‘Don’t be racist!’ – but as far as race relations were concerned, I thought we lived in harmony during our time by the river, and we can all take that lesson away into our everyday life.

Thanks to Regional Arts NSW for funding the poetry camp, thanks to Murray Hartin for being such a fabulous guest artist, thanks to Sally Denyer for providing us with a range of nurturing and delicious food – to sit by the fire and eat pavlova with local berries and freshly-whipped cream was probably worth 100 on the rating scale – and thanks also to BackTrack’s Jen Kealey and her family for sharing their beautiful property with us, and for joining us in poetry and song. All in all, the poetry camp was a huge success and we’re keen to organise more professional artists – starting with a singer/songwriter – to join us in 2014. Check out some of our photos at http://backtrack.org.au/1000-words/

This project was made possible through a Quick Response Grant provided by Regional Arts NSW through the Regional Arts Fund, an Australian Government initiative supporting the arts in regional, remote and very remote Australia.

quick reponse picture

Hello again. No news regarding the memoir – and perhaps that’s why I’m feeling like my literary dreams have come to a standstill. I’m working hard to ‘keep the faith’ and to keep believing that I will one day get published, but this is not always easy to do. A friend of mine often advises me to ‘trust in the universe’ at times like this, and I’m working on that, too. My turn will come … soon I hope. Meanwhile, I’ve been going along to the BackTrack Shed as writer-in-residence, and I’m now also teaching one day a week at the new BackTrack ‘school’, an alternative education centre based at the shed. Teaching a group of boys who don’t fit into mainstream education is both exciting and challenging, especially as we have little in the way of resources and equipment. Some days I could burst with enthusiasm about the possibilities of this work, but other days I wonder: how the hell did I end up back in this shed?

I first arrived at the BackTrack shed in 2007 and began an immersion research phase that lasted nearly two years. Readers of this blog would also know that I’ve spent the last six years writing a memoir about the life-changing events that came out of this experience. I submitted the memoir to a publisher earlier this year, and since then I’ve been contemplating my next major writing project. My thoughts were leaning towards finishing a novella I’ve been working on for the past seven years, and then settling into a family history project that would take me to Barcelona, Manila and Amsterdam, where I would uncover exciting secrets about my family’s involvement in the Spanish Inquisition. Momentarily side-tracked, I took the opportunity to be a writer-in-residence at BackTrack, where I imagined travelling over the countryside attending rural shows with a group of boys and dogs. Yet here I am every Wednesday – standing in a noisy welding shed less than two blocks from where I live, trying to speak over the shriek of a drop-saw, surrounded by boys who eat nothing but devon and tomato sauce sandwiches.

Trust in the universe, Helena.

The next few weeks should sort out my current confusion about what the universe is trying to tell me. As usual, I’m waiting on a few applications, and if any of them come through for me, I’ll follow the signs. In the meantime, I’ll try and keep the faith.

Hello again. The big news is … [drum roll, please] … I finished the memoir. Yes, after all this time! How did it happen, you wonder? Well, I had my final phone-meet with Judith, my ASA mentor, two weeks ago. Judith loved the new version – and even though she’d read my story before, she just didn’t want it to end this time. Her words made my spirits soar. What a relief! I don’t know what I would have done if Judith had said: ‘Sorry, Helena, I think you’ve still got a long way to go with this manuscript.’ Judith had a few further suggestions on how to improve the narrative – proposed so tactfully that they almost seemed like my own suggestions – but these were only minor and I managed to knock them off during the next ten days. Then, on Thursday night, after I’d read through the draft once again, I said to myself: ‘I think I’ve finished the book.’

One time, when I asked Anne Reilly, my supportive and ever-so-patient editor at HarperCollins, how I would know when to send her the memoir, she said: ‘You just simply submit it to me when you feel you’ve got it as beautiful and polished as possible.’ I was a little concerned about how I would know when that time came, but that’s exactly how it felt on Thursday night … like I couldn’t do anymore. I sent the memoir through to Anne yesterday, and it was a big moment in my life. As I pressed the ‘send’ button, my heart beat fast, and for a moment I thought I was going to have a mild anxiety attack. I’ve since calmed down, of course, and am feeling much lighter. Time to make way for the new. And now … another period of waiting, as Anne reads the manuscript and decides whether it is ready to be given to one of the publishers. As I’ve said before, much of a writer’s life is spent waiting.

In the meantime, I keep applying for things. I missed out on the Hazel Rowley Fellowship, but over the past month, while everyone else in Armidale was holidaying at the coast, I spent my days sorting out a budget and answering questions for an Early Career Residency grant with the Australia Council. I’m just about finished, thank goodness – and it’ll be worth it if it comes through – but jeez. My proposed arts project is to develop ‘Stories from the Shed and On the Road’ (which I mentioned in my last blog post) into a much larger project that will firmly establish a creative writing culture at the BackTrack Shed. By the way, I had my first day as writer-in-residence with BackTrack today – attending a Paws Up dog jumping event at the Armidale Racecourse for Australia Day – and I really enjoyed being back in the world of boys and dogs and circle work and good-natured humour. Soon after I got to the racecourse, though, one of the dogs peed on my leg while I was leaning against a pole. I was a bit embarrassed, but then decided to see it as a friendly initiation gesture – a sign of welcome – and didn’t even bother running off to a tap to rinse my leg. This is the new tolerant me, and after today, going on the road with those boys and dogs doesn’t seem quite as daunting anymore. I reckon 2013 is going to be a very good year. Hope it feels that way for you, too. Until next time …

Hello again. No news on the memoir – I’m still waiting for Judith, my Australian Society of Authors mentor, to get back to me with her final report, but that should be coming through soon. In the meantime, life has felt like one long application form – for jobs or for funding grants – and I’m either doing that or sending off submissions to journals or competitions, or trying to get my head around the huge and sometimes insurmountable task of writing my PhD exegesis. But it’s a lovely feeling indeed when all the long hours spent hanging over a computer answering application questions and working out a budget are rewarded with a successful result. A few days ago, I heard my funding application for the Country Arts Support Program (CASP) – organised through Regional Arts NSW – has been approved, and in early 2013, I will do a stint as writer-in-residence at BackTrack Youth Works in Armidale. What a wonderful Christmas present!

With the ‘Stories from the Shed and On the Road’ project, I’ll deliver a series of writing workshops to young people involved in a range of activities at the ‘Shed’. Participants will create prose or poetry which will be published on the organisation’s website, and I’ll also creatively document some of BackTrack’s rural and shed-based activities. The funding news gave my recently-flagging spirits a huge boost, although when I read the media release about the project, and when the ‘idea’ suddenly became a ‘reality’, I began to feel somewhat daunted by what lay ahead. How the heck am I going to do this? I thought to myself. Did I really say that I’d go on the road with a truck full of boys and dogs, and sleep in a swag at truck stops on the way to rural shows?

Did I mention that I’m scared of dogs?

While I was in this state, though, I remembered a Woody Allen line from Manhattan that I saw in the paper a few weeks ago – ‘talent is luck; the most important thing is courage’ – and I reminded myself that I’ve been in this place before, and that writers need a certain amount of courage when starting out on a new project and following an idea through. Five years ago, I came up with an idea to write a story about a youth worker and a group of boys in a welding shed. Finding the strength to begin that project was an enormous undertaking, and I had much the same sort of fears when I put on my King Gees and boots for the first time – me in a welding shed? With a group of wild boys who didn’t fit into mainstream anything? I knew nothing about welding or power tools, or even youth work for that matter … but I gathered up my courage and walked into that shed and set to work. I might have been shaking in my boots, but I forced myself to have faith in the process, and that initial idea has led to so many positive opportunities down the track – including this latest round of CASP funding.

Another funding application I put in to further develop the same ‘Stories from the Shed’ project was the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship. Hazel Rowley, who died in 2011, was an Australian biographer. From reading some of her articles, essays and books, I learnt a lot about the sort of person she was, and I remain full of admiration for the way she lived her life. Hazel Rowley wrote about people who were courageous, who were ‘outsiders’ in society, and each time she embarked on a new book, it invariably involved an act of courage for her, too. The literary fellowship was formed to commemorate Hazel Rowley’s ideas and interests, and the selection committee mentioned they were particularly interested in projects that were about ‘risk-taking and expanding horizons’. My 2013 writer-in-residence project certainly fits that description, and whatever happens, and however I work it out, ‘Stories from the Shed and On the Road’ is going to be a grand adventure, and I just need to take a deep breath and enjoy the ride. Until next time … courage to all writers!