It’s a photo that captures the outback spirit. More than 50 years after The drover’s wife was taken, Glen Williams heads to the Northern Territory to find out what became of the young couple.
For the last 53 years, her hauntingly beautiful eyes have stared out from a distant, sepia world. There is something in those eyes that compels you to stare back. With a battered Akubra on her head, she sits resting against her husband in his tattered shirt, nursing their three-week-old son. A sense of serenity permeates the scene.
This photo, one of the most acclaimed images of life in rural Australia, was taken by the late photographer and author Jeff Carter in June 1958. Woman’s Day became mesmerised by The drover’s wife when we stumbled across the photo at a recent exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales.
The couple were Ron and Mavis Kerr, and their little bub was named Johnny. Jeff Carter had found them at Urisino Bore in western NSW, while they were droving a mob of 3700 merino ewes between Tibooburra and Coonamble. There they sat in the shade of their old Bedford truck, “just having a spell”.
What happened to the Kerr family? Did this young mum stay the drover’s wife? Or did she seek an easier life and move to the big smoke? Hardly. Mavis, now 69, and Ron, 75, live in remote Borroloola in the Northern Territory – a small town of around 700 about 950km south-east of Darwin.
“I’m still the drover’s wife,” Mavis laughs. Today, as Mavis and Ron arrive in Darwin to relive their experiences, they are instantly recognisable. They look at their old truck, which resides in the hangar at Darwin airport, and are transported back to the dusty stock routes that were their way of life.
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