A labour of love for the people of Bourke

Bourke’s Outback Historian, Dr Paul Roe will be in Bourke soon to launch his new book. Photo Noel Fisher

Historian Paul Roe has been telling the unique stories of the bush for over thirty-five years and his love for the characters who lived around Bourke have now been captured in his book, ‘Tell Me Another’.

Paul is a masterful yarn-maker with a keen eye for the ‘true blue’ bush people and his book is the culmination of a lifetime of listening, meticulous research and a genuine passion for Bourke and the outback.

‘Tell Me Another’ was launched in Dubbo on Saturday, and it has already garnered much praise and interest, but Paul is modest when it comes to his abilities as a writer. He said telling the stories of the remarkable pioneers of the outback was a sacred trust, and he was grateful for the opportunity to handle their stories and put them in context.

“Bourke was my apprenticeship in history,” he said. “I came here with the Cornerstone faith community and spent more than 30 years in Bourke, which really shaped me as a storyteller.

“The thrust of the book is how I journeyed with stories as a child and how they shaped me.

“The people who were my storytellers were friends, school and Sunday school teachers, professors, and lecturers and then I became a storyteller, as a historian.

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