Jerilderie Letter Soundscape Script

From the Director

This immersive audio is a fictional account of the events that led to the acquisition of the Jerilderie Letter by Edwin Living on Monday the 10th of February in 1879. The words in this recreation have been fictionalised; however, the incidents depicted are drawn from historical sources.

A detailed eyewitness account of the Kelly Gang's raid on Jerilderie can be found in Jerilderie 100 Years by Rev HC Lundy, 1949.

Cast

(in order of appearance)

Rosemary Johns	Mrs Gill, wife of the local newspaper editor
Mike Szuc	Mr Tarleton, Bank Manager
Michael Jeffery	Edwin Living, bank clerk
Mick Cahill	Steve Hart, Kelly Gang member
Michael Davoren	Ned Kelly, bushranger and leader of the Kelly Gang

The action takes place on Monday afternoon 10 February, 1878 in the town of Jerilderie, Victoria.

Prologue - as introduced by Mrs Gill

Scene 1 - upstairs in Mr Tarleton's private apartment in the Royal Mail Hotel

Scene 2 - downstairs in the bank (the eastern portion of the Royal Mail Hotel)

Scene 3 - walking to the home of Mr Gill, editor of the Jerilderie & Urana Gazette

Scene 4 - on the front veranda of the Gill home

Epilogue - as summarised by Mrs Gill

[Music sets the mood of memory.]

Prologue

Mrs Gill

Oh no, those terrible Kelly’s? No, we’d never have anything to do with them at all. No no. Oh yes, they came to town alright. Held the whole place up. Locked the police in the logs and held up the bank, even cut down the telegraph poles. And that silly letter of his. No, we’d have no hand in that at all. Young Edwin Living, I remember, was junior at the bank then. He took that letter and handed it straight over to the Melbourne police  I remember he used to tell of it…

[Music sweeps us back in time. ]

Scene 1

Mr Tarleton's private apartment above the bank.

[Sounds of a man in a bathtub.]

Mr Tarleton

Ah Mr Tarleton, there’s nothing quite as relaxing as a bath in the middle of the day.

[A knock on the bathroom door.]

Mr Tarleton

Leave off, I’m in the bath.

[Door to the room opens. Edwin Living enters.]

Edwin Living

Mr Tarleton, I…

Mr Tarleton

Living, what’s the meaning of this? How dare you…

Edwin Living

Pardon sir, please. This man here with me is Steve Hart.

Mr Tarleton

And...?

Edwin Living

With the Kelly Gang. They’ve bailed up the bank.

Mr Tarleton

Nonsense.

Edwin Living

There’s no nonsense about it sir, they’re holding up the whole town!

Mr Tarleton

Damned foolishness. The whole of Jerilderie? What on earth would they do that for?

Steve Hart

For the money in your bank Mr Manager and the money at the post office too. Plus Ned’s got some plans of his own.

[Steve Hart cocks his gun.]

Mr Tarleton

[Gasps.]

Edwin Living

Oh God, don’t shoot.

Steve Hart

Your clerk tells us we need your other key to open the safe.

Mr Tarleton

I don't suppose you’ll let me finish my bath first?

Steve Hart

Be quick about it and get dressed. Ned’s anxious to move on to the printing press.

[Music makes a transition back to the narration.]

Mrs Gill

And then the ruffians took poor Mr Tarleton, still pink and wrinkled downstairs to the bank.

[Music returns us back in time to the scene of the action.]

Scene 2

The Bank of New South Wales, which occupied the eastern portion of the Royal Mail Hotel.

Ned Kelly

Good of you to join us, Mr Tarleton, now, to it and open that safe.

Mr Tarleton

Ned Kelly, you’ll not get away with this.

Ned Kelly

That’s for me to worry about then. Open it.

[We hear keys open the safe door.]

Steve Hart

What’s that do you think? Six hundred, seven hundred?

Ned Kelly

Could be.

Steve Hart

What do we do with these here papers?

Ned Kelly

What are these papers?

Mr Tarleton

Deeds, bonds, mortgages. Nothing of any value to you.

Ned Kelly

Take 'em out back and burn 'em.

Mr Tarleton

What!

Ned Kelly

Banks are slavers. These are how the banks crush the lifeblood out of the poor struggling man.

Steve Hart

Right.

[Music underscores the end of the scene.]

Ned Kelly

I’m off to the newspaper office. Who knows the way?

Edwin Living

I know it.

Steve Hart

Right.

Ned Kelly

Come on then.

[Music makes a transition back to the narration.]

Mrs Gill

And so that dreadful Ned Kelly dragged poor Mr Living all the way through the town ranting and raving his murderous lunacy all the way.

[Music returns us back in time to the scene of the action.]

Scene 3

On the road to the home of Mr S Gill, Editor and Proprietor of the Jerilderie & Urana Gazette.

[Footsteps on the dirt road and the midday sounds of birds and insects on a hot summer day.]

Edwin Living

If it’s not too presumptuous, Mr Kelly…

Ned Kelly

Ned.

Edwin Living

Ned, then. Might I ask what your interest in our humble little paper is?

Ned Kelly

Printing press.

Edwin Living

I see. What is it that you’d have printed?

Ned Kelly

A letter I penned with the assistance of some of my brothers.

Edwin Living

To whom?

Ned Kelly

To who ever’ll listen.

Edwin Living

Saying what?

Ned Kelly

The truth, that's what.

Edwin Living

[After a moment's thought.] About the murders in Stringybark.

Ned Kelly

Those were done square and the beggars what got it asked for it plain.

Edwin Living

That's not the way we heard tell of it.

[Ned stops walking and turns to Edwin Living.]

Ned Kelly

All Police lies. And if I hear any more of it I will not exactly show the lot o' them what cold blooded murder is, but wholesale and retail slaughter - something different to shooting three troopers in self defense and robbing a bank.

Edwin Living

I stand corrected.

Ned Kelly

That's why I got Joe Byrne to take this down.

[He pulls the entire letter out of his pocket and finds page 43. Music underscores the significance of this quote.]

'I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent. And is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also, who has no alternative, only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big, ugly, fat-necked, wombat-headed, big-bellied, magpie-legged, narrow-hipped, splay-footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as officers of Justice or Victorian Police, who some calls honest gentlemen. But I would like to know what business an honest man would have in the Police, as it is an old saying, It takes a rogue to catch a rogue.'

[Ned puts the letter back in his pocket.]

Edwin Living

Well I suppose…

Ned Kelly

But you see Living, I’ve a great faith in the power of the press. I’ll get my side told if I have to spread the printed word to every house in Victoria and New South Wales myself.

[They continue to walk toward the house.]

Scene 4

[Out front of the Gill house.]

Edwin Living

Here we are.

Ned Kelly

Knock.

[Edwin walks to the door and knocks. Mrs Gill opens the door.]

Mrs Gill

Yes? [She sees that it is the famous outlaw Ned Kelly] Oh.

[Tense music underscores this scene.]

Ned Kelly

I’ve need of your husband Mrs.

Edwin Living

This is the outlaw Ned Kelly.

Mrs Gill

I can see who he is, thank you Edwin.

Ned Kelly

Bring out your husband then.

Mrs Gill

I’m sorry to disappoint you Mr Kelly, but Mr Gill is not at home. Perhaps by this time, he is dead down the creek.

Ned Kelly

Look here, Mrs Gill, I do not want to injure your husband in any way. I want him to do some printing for me, and I intend to pay him well for it.

[He pulls the letter out of his pocket again.]

I want him to print these pages in his circular and a further five hundred to be distributed about the place by me and mine.

Mrs Gill

Well, I’m sorry but my husband’s not here and I can’t work the press myself.

Ned Kelly

Now Mrs, I haven’t all day to sit and have tea with you, I’ve a hotel full of Jerilderie’s townsfolk waiting on our departure.

Mrs Gill

You’re simply wasting your time, Mr Kelly.

Ned Kelly

[Takes a step toward her.] More than time can be wasted Mrs.

Mrs Gill

Now see here…

Edwin Living

Uh, Ned. Once you’re gone, Mr Gill will undoubtedly return here. Why not give the letter to me, I’ll see that it’s printed.

Mrs Gill

You will, will you?

Edwin Living 

I’ll see that Mr Gill is delivered of it. It’s only fair at least that his side be put to the public, wouldn’t you say Mrs Gill?

Mrs Gill

Oh. Oh, yes, that seems reasonable.

Ned Kelly

And pay particular mind to this here part.

[He shows Edwin a particular passage in the letter.]

Edwin Living

[Reading from the letter page 49.]

'I have never interfered with any person unless they deserved it, and yet there are civilians who take firearms against me, for what reason I do not know unless they want me to turn on them and exterminate them without medicine. I shall be compelled to make an example of some of them if they cannot find no other employment.'

Ned Kelly

Come on, Living, back to the bank. We’ll see if your Mr Tarleton has behaved himself.

[Mrs Gill shuts the door and we hear Ned and Edwin leaving.]

[Music makes a transition back to the narration.]

Epilogue

Mrs Gill

Of course we didn’t print it. The ravings of a lunatic outlaw, never. The things they wrote about the old country, ranting about injustice, calls to armed insurrection and all that nonsense about horse thieving. When they’d murdered men by the dozen and robbed whole towns’ blind. Besides, everyone knows the Irish are just a bunch of no good horse thieves.

Credits

Conceived and Directed by John Paul Fischbach
Script by Robert Reid
Recorded and engineered at I-SONIC Institute by Tim Prince
Orchestrations by David James Nielsen