Gindie Silos

A little over 10 years ago in 2001, I was invited to take part in a Writers in Residence project in Springsure. Along with a number of writers, poets, illustrators and publishers I was flown up to Emerald and then driven down to Springsure. I spent most of the week working in two schools in Springsure itself.

I enjoy both telling and creating stories with students and Springsure was no exception. Of all the stories that we created then, there are two that I still regularly tell. One was from the Catholic School, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Primary School, and the other from the state primary to year ten school.

The state school one was called 'The Gindie Silos'. It came about because I chipped a school student who was sitting up the back of the group. He'd lifted up a bandaid on his leg and was scratching an itchy scab. I told him to put the bandaid back on and asked him what happened.

He told us all what happened in his backyard in Gindie and we worked on creating the story. You can read it as I published it on my website here.

Now I usually try to publish more than just the text. I usually invite students to do some illustrations. Find a Google map reference, maybe some Creative Commons photos and sometimes an audio podcast.

Since 2001 the Google maps and satellite images have got heaps better and so has their street view. Now if you want to have a look at the silos in the Gindie Silos stories you can. Go here and place the 'street view orange man' near the yellow house marker.

Here's a screen grab from the street view.

After the week had finished we were driven back to Emerald to fly home and, of course, drove through Gindie. I had trouble working out which house was David's but we did drive right past the silos and there was some burnt grass around the base of them. Maybe that's why I remembered the story so well.

Thomas Jack Park Magic Goldfish

Everyone in Dalby knows Thomas Jack Park on the main road through the town with its green grass, picnic tables and shady trees. When the Cotton Festival is held every year, great use is made of the park for events and performances.

Some families have their birthday parties there and one day Ben, a student from Our Lady of the Southern Cross College, told his family that he wanted his eighth birthday party beside the water fun feature.

The water feature has a water fall and a small stream that runs between the large rocks and under the ornamental bridge made of concrete and wood.

Ben had invited all of his friends from Our Lady of the Southern Cross College to his birthday party and that afternoon he stood beside the marquee with the food and birthday cake waiting for them to arrive. Everyone thought that Ben looked like the young Harry Potter. He had glasses, was smart, had the same smile but didn't have the lightning scar on his forehead.

'Wonder if Ben's going to do any magic at his Birthday Party,' said Rebecca.

'Yeh! He might disappear just when his mum's trying to take his photograph,' said Tom.

'No. Don't be silly he's not Harry Potter.'

Parents dropped their children off, told them to be good and to listen to Mrs Affleck and told them not to eat too much as they drove off.

The kids gave their presents to Ben wished him a happy birthday and ran over to the water feature to have a look at the gold fish.

"What will we do till everyone gets here?" asked Rebecca.

"Let's see who can count the most gold fish," said Tom as he leaned over the rail of the ornamental bridge.

Something made them look up into one of the trees instead of counting gold fish however. It was the raucous sound of one of the family of kookaburras that lived in the gum trees of Thomas Jack Park. It was laughing loudly from a branch just above the creek. The children laughed back at it but stopped and ducked for cover as the kookaburra swooped past them, splashed into the creek and then flew back up to the tree branch.

Wriggling in its beak was a gold fish. The kookaburra whacked it a couple of times on the branch, flipped it around in its beak and started to swallow it.

"Oh Yuck. Poor little gold fish," said Ben. "How would you feel like it if you turned into a goldfish, you mean kookaburra?"

The gold fish gave one last wriggle as it the Kookaburra swallowed and one of the golden scales was knocked off by the sharp end of the beak.

It floated down towards the childen. "Catch it!" said Rebecca. "I want it," said Ben but, just as he reached up to catch it, a gust of wind blew the golden scale over towards the marquee and the children couldn't find it no matter how hard they looked.

Well the usual party things happened. Games, fruit juice, more games, more fruit juice, sausages and tomato sauce, more fruit juice and then it was time to sing happy birthday to Ben and for Ben to cut the cake.

Then his mother took the electric carving knife and cut the cake up for everyone to have a slice. Ben got the slice with the number eight on it. No one noticed, not even Ben, that the gold fish scale was lying on the icing right in the middle of the number eight.

He opened his mouth wide and popped the whole piece of cake into his mouth chewed and swallowed the cake, the icing and the scale.

"I wish that Kookaburra hadn't eaten that gold fish," said Ben, "I like them."

"I reckon it would be fun being a goldfish."

Just then, every Kookaburra in Thomas Jack Park began laughing. The gold fish in the water feature started splashing and jumping out of the water.

"Hey look at that!"

All of the children ran over to the water feature staring at the gold fish, jumping and turning somersaults in the air.

"Wow!"

As they watched the jumping goldfish, no one noticed that one of them was changing colour. He was growing more and more golden. It was Ben.

Some of the kids from the party said that they think he would have turned into a gold fish and splashed into the water feature with the gold fish if his grandmother hadn't grabbed him and whacked him on his back just in time. As he coughed the gold fish scale flew out of his mouth and landed in the water. The gold fish stopped jumping, the kookaburra's stopped laughing and Ben turned and gave his grandmother a hug.

"Thanks Grandma. I didn't really want to be a goldfish."

Created by Daryll Bellingham and the students from year 3A and 3D,
Our Lady of the Southern Cross College,
Dalby, Queensland - 11th August, 2009.

Unlucky Day at Splash

It was Friday the 13th and a group of students were going for a swim at Splash in Acacia Ridge.


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They were lining up at the ticket window when Michaela slipped on a slurpy and crashed in Jaydens back.

Michaela slips on a slurpy
(drawn by Tarley at Sunnybank Library)

"Ow! What did you do that for?" said Jayden

"Don't talk to my friend like that. She slipped on a slurpy. It wasn't her fault," replied Tarley.

So the girls walked into the indoor pool followed by Jayden.

"Let's swim outside it's more fun."

So they all went outside and crashed into the lifeguard. He said, "No running!"

"Oh yeh. We've already had one slip on a slurpy. Some one should clean that up."

"OK. We'll see what we can do about that."

"Last one in the pool's a dead duck!" said Michaela.

So the girls put their stuff down on the grass and ran over to the pool.

"Heh. Stop. There's something down there really shiny."

The three girls all dived in together and swam down towards the bottom.

Tarley was just about to grab it when along the bottom of the pool came swimming Jayden.




The race for the ring. (drawn by Michaela at Sunnybank Library)








He grabbed the ring, swam up to the surface and as he broke the surface the ring slipped over his finger and he said, "Ha ha! Finders keepers, loosers weepers!"

And do you know what happened? Those three girls immediately began to cry. They were weeping and wailing. Their tears were streaming down their faces so much they were filling up the pool!

The lifeguard said, "Hey! What's going on here?"

Jayden said, "Oh, I wish you would be quiet."

And straight away, even though their lips were moving, no sound was coming out. They were as quiet as church mice.

"This is cool. This must be magic."

He tried something else.

"I wish they would just run under the sprinklers."

The three girls ran straight over to the sprinklers and stood there as if they were in a shower.

One of them looked really scared. She said, "Help!"

The other one was angry, "Hey! What did you just make us do?"

The third just stood there going, "Spash, splash, splash."

The lifeguard came running and Jayden turned and smashed into the lifeguard. The ring flew through the air and this time Michaela jumped up and caught it, slipped it over her finger and said, "Now we turn you into something. I wish that you would turn into a dolpin."

Jayden Dophin having fun in the pool

(drawn by Jayden at Sunnybank Library)

Immediately Jayden jumped into the pool and went swimming down, splasing up into the air, doing sommersaults. He was having a ball as a dolpin.

Tarley said, "Hey! He's not meant to be having fun. Let's turn him into something gross."

"Like a toad."

"I wish you would turn into a toad."

Needeep, needeep, needeep, needeep.

There he was, a toad, sitting on the edge of the pool with his white L.A. hat on, shaking his head and wondering what had happened.















The lifeguard discovers the toad.
(drawn by Priscella at Sunnybank Library)
Just then, the lifeguard came up with a rubbish bin, popped it over the top of the toad and said, "We can't have toads in the Splash pool. I'm going to throw this toad in the rubbish compactor."

"You can't throw him in the rubbish! He's Jayden."

'Bring him back!"

"I wish that he turns back into Jayden"

And straight away, that's just what he did. The rubbish bin was so heavy, the lifeguard dropped ito on the concrete. Jayden stood up with the rubbish lid on his head, saying, "What am I doing in here?"

"Yeh!"

They helped him out of the bin, cleaned off some of the rubbish and they even gave him some money to by a slurpie at the shop.

And do you know what? From that day on, they were best of friends and they always met up at the Splash centre at Acacia Ridge.

© Daryll Bellingham and the participants of the Qld Book Council Harmony Week Digital Story Publishing workshop at the Brisbane City Council Sunnybank Hills Branch Library, 22nd March, 2009.

Special thanks to Tarlia, Mischaela, Jayden & Priscilla.

Raisin Toast, Brianna from Bribie and the Fish

Here's a story about a young girl called Brianna who lives on Bribie Island with her grandfather. Brianna helped me create the story when she was a patient in the Mater Children's Hospital in Brisbane in 2001. You can find the original story at http://www.storytell.com.au/lpstories5.html.

		Once morning Brianna was having raisin toast for breakfast with her Grandma and her Grandpa on the front verandah of their house at Bribie Island. Brianna really liked staying with her grandparents. One day her Grandpa took her fishing. Brianna caught a fish and Grandpa, who said that he was the boss of the world, put the fish into a bucket full of water so that Brianna could take it home and show her mum. When everybody had a look, Brianna brought the fish back to the water and let it go. As they were sitting there eating their toast, they heard a strange noise. It sounded like - 'rrrrrrrrrr, clunk, eeeeeeeeh, bump, sssssssssh, urrrrrrrrrrh, eeep.' "What's that?" said Brianna. "Oh, that'll be Garry the Garbo," said Grandpa. " I told him that it was our turn to have our rubbish picked up today, so here he is picking up the wheelie bins." "Can I go and have a look?"said Brianna. "Sure. Don't fall in." Brianna ran down the steps and onto the footpath and watched as Garry the Garbo pulled the levers on the truck that sent the pickup arm out to grab Grandpa's wheelie bin, flip it upside down above the garbage truck, give it a good shake for the rubbish to fall out and then put it carefully down on the footpath again. Garry gave Brianna a wave as he drove on to the next house where he did it all over again but it wasn't just rubbish that fell out of the truck this time - a big, silvery fish flipped through the air and landed with a bump on top of the truck cabin. "Hey. What's on top of my truck," called out Garry the Garbo. "It's a big fish Garry," said Brianna. "It so looks funny!" Garry the Garbo got out of his truck and had a look. "Oh what a little beauty. Now will I take him home to cook or put him back in the sea?" "Put him back, oh please put him back," said Brianna. "I'll get a bucket off my Grandpa." Well that's what they did. Garry put the fish into the bucket of water and together they took it across the road, under the paperbark trees and over the sand to the waters edge. They carefully tipped the fish into the water and watched it as it flipped a little and started to swim away. "Goodbye fish," said Garry the Garbo. "Oh, I forgot to give you a kiss." The fish swam in a circle and came right back to Garry the Garbo's feet. Garry bent down and gave the fish a kiss on its lips. "Oh yuck," said Brianna. "Well better get back to work," said Garry as the fish swam away and Brianna went back to finish her raisin toast with her Grandma and her Grandpa. A 'Sweet Stories in the Pop' Story created by Daryll Bellingham, storyteller and Brianna, a patient in the children's ward at the South Brisbane Mater Hospital during a storytelling session in the Radio Lollipop studio with the Thrilling Thursday Team. 29/11/2001 © Daryll Bellingham. ('Sweet Stories in the Pop' is a Queensland Storytelling Guild project funded by a Year of the Volunteers grant.)

Emerald Dragons

Emerald in Queensland is a nice place to live. There's plenty of work for parents and the children can play lots of sport. One day, some children were kicking a football around at Emerald North School and one of the boys said, "Hey! Want to play a game that my Dad used to play when he went to school?"

"What's it called?"

"Force-Em-Back. You see there are two teams. One team kicks the ball to the other and, if they catch it on the full, they can advance 5 steps and kick it back but, if they don't, they have to kick it from where they stop it. Eventually one of the teams is forced right back to the fence and they lose."

Well that's what they did. The game was going fine until one of the kicks went so high it went right over the school fence. No one knows whether there was a sudden gust of wind or what but that ball flew over the neighbouring houses and towards the river with the team in hot pursuit.

They saw it flying over the trees on the river bank and thought, "Oh no, someone is going to have to swim for it."

When they got to the river bank however, the ball wasn't floating on the water or anything. They couldn't see it anywhere. All there was in sight was a bearded dragon sitting on the grass.



One of the girls said, "That bearded dragon looks a bit strange. Its got marks on its back."

"Maybe the ball landed on top of its back and left those marks. They look like the marks of a football."

"No," said the girl, "The marks are on the inside. Hey, guess what, I think the football has turned into a bearded dragon."

"Ha, ha! Don't be silly. How can a football be turned into a bearded dragon?"

"Yeah. I know but let's pretend. We'll take it back to the school and pretend it's the football. Should be a laugh."

Well, that's what they did. They picked up the bearded dragon and took it back to the school fence and said to the other team, "Sorry it took so long but the ball turned into a bearded dragon and we'll have to kick it instead."

They held it up and pretended to kick it but the bearded dragon flew from their grasp went sailing up into the air and down towards the other team.

'Catch it! Catch it!"

As the bearded dragon bounced the whole team dived on it and grabbed hold but they could not stop the dragon. It flew up into the air with the students holding on. Higher and higher it went and they all went flying up through the air and back over towards the river.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Call the Principal! Call the teachers! Help!"

The other students ran into the office and called out "Emergency! Emergency! The kids have disappeared! "

Admin dialed 000 and it wasn't long before there was police, ambulance and fire brigade in attendance. Every one headed down towards the river and started searching for the missing students. They couldn't find them any where.

Once the police and fire brigade had gone home however, the students saw 10 little bearded dragons sitting on a log. They took them carefully back to the school and fed them all their favourite foods - pies, sausage rolls, chocolate and ice cream - and eventually they started to grow slowly back into children again.

Do you know what though, every single one of them had long skinny finger nails and marks on their backs like football laces.

It's not surprising, I suppose, that no one plays 'Force-em-back' at Emerald North School these days. They do take special care of bearded dragons though.

Here's where it all happened -
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(Story created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller and students from year 1b/2a at Emerald North School, following a Chinese folktale about a magic tortoise with a special mark on its head.)


Emerald Dragons by Daryll Bellingham and students of Emerald North School is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at austoryplace.blogspot.com.


(Bearded Dragon image, a Flickr Creative Commons download by Arthur Chapman)

The Sleeping Dragline

Now every knows that around the town of Emerald in Central Queensland there are lots of coal mines. Underneath the earth there is so much black coal that the miners dig it up with huge machines called draglines and load the coal onto trains to take to the ships waiting to take it to China and Japan.

One morning three children were sitting at home in Anakie on the Gemfields near Emerald eating their breakfast and watching their Dad pack some lunch to take to work at the coal mine.

"Are you going to dig up lots of coal today Dad?" asked one.

"No. I don't think so. We've got to repair the dragline. It's not working. I think it's gone to sleep."

"Maybe if you say the right magic words it'll wake up," said the girl.

"Maybe it's like Sleeping Beauty and you have to give it a kiss on it's mouth and then it'll wake up," said one of the boys.

"Well maybe I'll have to do one of those if we can't get it started," said their father, "Now don't forget to clean your teeth before you go to school. I'll see you after work."

"Bye Dad."

Their father jumped into his four wheel drive ute and drove off to work at the mine as the children got ready for school. He drove out of town, through the bush and into the coal mine. He parked his ute in the carpark, put on his safety helmet, picked up his tool kit and joined the work crew in front of the huge dragline down in the open cut mine.

"Look at it," said one of the miners, "You great, ugly, expensive bit of machinery get to work, you lazy machine!"

He turned the key in the switch to start up the dragline but it just lay there like it was sleeping.

"My boy said I should try giving it a kiss and then it might wake up like sleeping beauty."

"Oh yuck, I'd rather try magic words. Abracadbra, Abracadabra, Abracadabra. Wake up, Wake up, Wake up - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

No knew whether it was the magic words or the scream but the dragline woke up and began to move. The huge scoop opened and closed and began to swoop down towards the men.

"Watch out. That scoop is coming for us!"

The men started to run but they weren't quick enough, the scoop had turned into a giant claw and had grabbed them. The big treads had turned into legs and out of the body of the drag line had sprouted wings. The drag line had turned into a dragon.

It leapt out of the coal mine and flew off with the men, roaring as it went.

Back in Anakie, the children were lined up at the school parade listening to the Principal telling them all about the GemFest that was happening that week.


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They heard a roar and looked up into the sky and saw the dragon flying towards the school.

Bigger and bigger it got as it flew closer. "Look at that!" Every student and every teacher looked up into the sky. They saw the huge wings beating the sky with sound of drums, the long tail swishing from side to side, the enormous mouth with its cruel curved teeth and its sharp claws holding ....... holding ............ five struggling coal miners. "Help! Help!"

"Hey! That's Dad! That dragons got our Dad!"

"What are we going to do?"

"It's probably flying towards the old volcano. If it gets up there we'll never find them."

"We'll have to lassoo it as it goes past. Anyone got a rope."

"What about the tug-of-war rope? It's with the phys-ed gear."

Five students ran and got the rope. One climbed up the gum tree with the rope and dropped the end down by the tuck shop. They tied a big knot and then stood in the front yard of the school near the gate.

They started to sing out - "Ha, ha Dragon. Ha, ha Dragon. You can't catch us. You can't catch us!"

The dragon looked down and saw the children. He roared a roar so loud the children's teeth shook and their hats blew off in the blast of the dragons foul breath.

"He's coming! Get ready to duck!"

The dragon flew down towards them with his spare claws stretched out to grab them, his eyes glowing red like burning rubies. His head and neck flew through the loop of the rope but his wings and body were too big.

The rope snapped tight around the dragon's wings and he crashed to the ground. The coal miners rolled out of the dragon's huge bucket claw and ran under the school with the children.

The dragon opened his mouth and the flames burnt the rope. He beat his wings and leapt into the sky again. The children watched him flying towards the old volcano.

"Hey Dad. You woke up the Dragon .... I mean the Drag-line."

'Yeh, kids. Thanks for that. We owe you one."

No one really knows what the dragon did at the old volcano although there have been reports about it terrorising students and tourists who visit there. Just ask ask the Year 6/7 students at Anakie about their excursion. Some people say though that the dragon flies back to the mine every morning to dig in the coal. We found this photo of a dragline blowing smoke at Ensham mine


(Photo courtesy of Ensham mines and www.gtp.com.au)

The Sleeping Dragline was created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller with the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students at Anakie State School - 12th August 2008.


The Sleeping Dragline by Daryll Bellingham and students of Anakie School is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at austoryplace.blogspot.com.