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Australian.Story.S31E07
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00:15Hello. The Leyland Brothers were household names in Australia in the 1980s. Their folksy
00:22TV shows explored the country with their families in tow. Brothers Mike and Mel were as close
00:29as two people can be until a sad falling out at the height of their fame, one from which
00:35they never fully recovered. We first brought you Mel Leyland's story in 2015. 11 years on
00:42he's facing daunting challenges but with his adventurous spirit undimmed.
00:55Dad and I have always been very close. Dad's always been my hero.
01:07I am an only child so it's just me that has the responsibility of taking care of Dad now.
01:14How are you feeling today?
01:16Oh well it's a good day because I woke up and I'm still alive. That's a pretty good day when
01:20you get to this age, every day counts. The hardest thing has been watching this
01:26man that I idolised my whole life slowly disappear in front of my eyes. I could still have a
01:34conversation with him every single day but he doesn't remember it half an hour later.
01:40So it looks like you've got your bag and your hat out ready to go. You're going somewhere today?
01:44Oh I'm always ready to go. Always. Having dementia is interesting because
01:50it depends a little bit on what it affects. If you've got a good memory of the good things in
01:58life,
01:59the good things are far more important.
02:05Urgently need Land Rover Clutch Plate Series 2. Require water also if possible. And the
02:15signature Lowland Brothers. That's Lima Echo Yankee, Lima Alpha, November Delta Brothers.
02:22Travel all over the countryside. Ask the Lowlands, ask the Lowlands.
02:26Their travel documentaries over the past 30 years made the Lowland Brothers household names.
02:32Hundreds of hours of television, tens of thousands of kilometres over the countryside.
02:43A lot of people, when they're going to go on a road trip around Australia these days,
02:46say, I'm going to go and do a Leyland Brothers. And off they go on their trip. So they go
02:51exploring.
02:53Hey Dad, Frankie's ready. Oh, that's good. That was a good package. Yeah, me too.
03:00He's still aware that he is Mal Leyland from the Leyland Brothers. Yes, definitely.
03:06We've got the Wheels Across the World and a 60th anniversary trip, which we'll be doing this year.
03:12The main reason for what we wanted to do is to honour what my dad did,
03:18and for people to remember what he did and celebrate what he did.
03:32All right. Two, four, six, eight.
03:37The first, it was just subtle things that made us believe that perhaps there might be something going on.
03:45He would be telling stories about things, um, from the past.
03:49And all of a sudden, the stories weren't exactly right. He was getting them muddled up.
03:54Or I'll walk into his bedroom and he's just staring at the ceiling.
03:58Do you remember that John and I weren't here last week?
04:02Yeah. You did notice that we were gone.
04:04Do you know where we went? No.
04:06No. So a few times he would get lost.
04:08And I always thought it'd be ironic that Mal Leyland, this person who explored a lot of Australia,
04:14you know, police are searching for Mal Leyland, who's lost in bushland,
04:17would not be, probably not be very good headlines.
04:21I found a lot more stuff, Mal, for you to go through and have a look at and sort out.
04:27All right, huh? Yeah.
04:29Well, there's a lot of it.
04:30By the time we actually finally got into the specialist,
04:32I wasn't surprised to hear that he had the dementia.
04:35That's out in Central Australia, and, um, it's at Uluru, I think they call it.
04:41And I suggested to Carmen that, you know, maybe it was time that he came to live with us.
04:46We didn't think he was ready to go into a retirement village.
04:50All the memories, eh?
04:52At the moment, I'd say it's classified as moderate dementia.
04:57In so many different parts of the country.
04:59Accepting that dad is going to get worse is hard.
05:03We're definitely dreading the day when it gets to the point where we realise that
05:06we can't take care of him anymore.
05:08I don't feel as though it's getting worse, but luckily I've got a lot of photographs,
05:13so I've got things to remind me of stuff that I've seen and done, so I can always look them
05:18up.
05:22A lot of people think of us as being a pair of Aussie blokes who just grew up in the
05:27suburbs
05:28of Australia, but in fact we started out in England. So we're the original 10-pound POM family.
05:35I think the reason Mike and I ended up as close as we were was because dad got into real
05:41estate
05:42and moved around from one suburb to the next. As a result, we changed schools so much
05:47we didn't really get enough time to make good friends, so we became each other's best mate.
05:57And his very first film we ever shot was at the Olympic Games.
06:00And that's how we got into shooting films. And we ended up filming
06:06little home movies of things that we did, you know, holiday trips and stuff like that.
06:13So I bought an old Land Rover and set off on a trip to Ayers Rock.
06:18These days some people might think it offensive that we climbed the rock,
06:22but in 1961 not many people made the trip and everyone did it.
06:26We had fallen in love with the desert and become completely charmed by Ayers Rock.
06:31We'd made a movie too, an amateur movie, The Lure of the Centre.
06:37Mike showed Lure of the Centre to the news editor and landed the job of Channel 3's first news cameraman.
06:44For a while, Mike and I were rivals. Using this camera, I started work as a cadet photographer
06:50with the afternoon daily paper here, The Newcastle Sun. But the rivalry didn't last long.
06:55With only one year's professional experience, we joined forces to make our first commercial film.
07:02And all the books that I'd read said the secret to selling a documentary was to actually do something
07:07for the first time. So I picked up a map of Australia and thought, well, what can we do that's
07:12not going
07:12to be too expensive and too far away? And looked at New South Wales and there was this
07:16wriggly line going through it and it was the Darling River.
07:26We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. And so inexperienced were we, we never
07:31even had a pair of oars with us. We had an outboard motor only. And it gave us trouble. It
07:38kept
07:38breaking the propellers. Then we thought, well, if we get some baked bean tins and tip the baked beans
07:43out, we could flatten the tin out and cut it to some sort of shape resembling a propeller.
07:48We managed to sell our Down the Darling film to the Nine network and the film became so popular,
07:54it was repeated within two weeks and got huge audiences.
08:00There isn't any doubt that the success of Down the Darling prompted us to believe that we could
08:04make a living out of doing it. Adventurers who are actually going out and paying for their adventure
08:10by selling the film to a television station. It was just unique in those days. And they told me
08:16they used Super 8 film. They were doing it almost home movie style, which everyone loved. There was a
08:21charm to it and it meant they could make really good money out of it. Five young Australians set
08:25out on an expedition never made before. A journey across a waterless continent.
08:32We had to come up with something better, something that no one had done before. And that's when we
08:37decided we'll go right across Australia from one side to the other. And then away we had to cross the
08:43Simpson desert. Ahead lies 300 miles of hard slogging over Simpson sandhills with no water holes at all.
08:51I think the most spectacular, most impressive thing we saw was airdrop in the rain.
08:57We were there, we arrived on one day and it was bright and sunny and then next day at port
09:03we had six inches
09:03of rain and this broke the eight year drought. One tourist in a hundred thousand has seen such water
09:13spilling from Ayers Rock and no cine cameraman has ever filmed it until now. Nobody had ever filmed an
09:20event like this before. Those pictures became the most famous ones I ever took. We decided we would
09:27roadshow the film. We'd take it around the country and hire town halls, cinemas if we could and advertise
09:36it ourselves and see how we went. Well to start with everybody said I was mad you know I was
09:40throwing
09:40the money down the drain advertising it and putting it on and in Newcastle the theatre manager said you
09:44know two days we'll finish it. And the end of two week season we'd recovered
09:50fifteen thousand dollars, enough money to buy three houses at the time. We've just come back from
09:56the Kimberleys shooting a new series one off the beaten track. And that's when we started calling
10:00ourselves the Leland brothers. We had a bit of a rough time didn't we? Yeah we had a few breakdowns
10:05and
10:06Land Rovers rolling over and things like this but we've come now to sort of accept these as part of
10:11the business really that's what makes our films interesting I think. Mike and Mal as brothers had the most
10:17strong relationship that I've ever seen between two people ever. We then moved on to make a new
10:25television series called Ask the Leland Brothers. That was a program where viewers wrote in and asked
10:30us to film anything anywhere in Australia and we travelled there to film it. And we're going out to
10:35Rat's Nest Island in answer to this request.
10:44We travel with our wives now in two vehicles and we all work together as a team just Mike does
10:50all
10:50the camera work I do the sound. Another good item is a well equipped picnic set. Both of the wives
10:55were
10:55attractive girls and both Mike and Mal were a bit sexist and so they used their wives as a drawcard.
11:05Before we look at packing consider saving weight in the food department. Dehydrated food is good but
11:11only in areas where you can get lots of water. I got pushed in front of the camera you know
11:15talk to
11:16these people. What about? But I learnt to start asking questions and that. And these days portable gas can
11:23be acquired almost everywhere. It was just part of what the viewers started to like but what I think
11:29was the secret to it was actually the fact that it was a family, an average family. We didn't do
11:34things
11:34that the ordinary bloke couldn't do. I need it. I need it up. Of course you do have to inflate
11:42the airbed
11:42each evening but don't try blowing it up with your mouth. It's far better to save your lungs for
11:47breathing in the clean country air you've travelled so far to enjoy. When we went to sign up with Nine
11:54for the Isolated Brothers series they said to make sure that we didn't make it too slick because they
11:59want it to look like the boys next door, sort of an amateur home movie look. The old saying about
12:07hard
12:07work not hurting anybody seems to be true. We discovered this when we were down here in Tasmania.
12:12The ratings were phenomenal. About 40% of the number of people that are watching TV on any
12:17one night watching our show. That amounts to about three and a half to four million people.
12:23If there's anything you want to know about this great continent of ours,
12:27then ask the Leyland brothers. What do you reckon we are? I'm like...
12:33How could he want to know? Two guys have disposed of their Kodak
12:37rappers properly all over Australia. I don't think Mike and Mal ever complained about the parodies
12:43and the put downs. They were always put down as these amateurs and so forth and it just gave them
12:48more and more publicity. Look at that, the Leyland brothers putting a smile across Australia. That's
12:53the kind of guys you are, eh? The biggest advantage was that they had a positive image, a very positive
13:00image. No one ever said no. As soon as you mentioned Leyland brothers, it was, oh, oh yeah, because
13:10they were almost seen as family and friends. In 1983 we decided to make a new direction for our
13:17career. Instead of just continuing with television, we wanted to get into tourism.
13:25Mike and I had looked at the idea of building a big tourist park for quite a few years and
13:29then
13:29one day Mike confronted me with the idea that he thought that what we really needed was some
13:33really big thing to attract people. So instead of building our little timber building, we eventually
13:39decided to build a replica of Ayers Rock. And we ended up having to borrow a lot of money to
13:47do it.
13:51The next thing you know, the interest rates had gone up to 26% and what we'd borrowed had just
13:56doubled
13:56and then it started to get like a big snowball.
14:01And it was a nightmare. It started out as a dream and it turned into a nightmare.
14:08Just before we opened Leyland brothers world, we had about 26,000, I suppose, in checks that hadn't
14:16been yet presented to the bank. And they fronted up and said that they weren't going to honour these
14:22checks unless we provided additional security. Well, we didn't have any additional security.
14:28And then they said, oh, what about your houses? We said, well, no, those are always going to be
14:32protected. They're in the girls' names. And I said, it's my house. And they said,
14:38well, you can't open if you don't sign your house over. And I ended up doing the one thing I
14:45really
14:45regret. I talked her into it. So in the end, after much persuasion, I signed the house over and I
14:54said,
14:54well, that's my house gone. And it was. They took it.
15:00And we opened. We were making a lot of profit. It was going like a rocket. But things were getting
15:05a bit tense with Mike as well. Mistrust had crept into our relationship and it had never been there
15:12before. And inside, it's just like an outback town. Lorraine and I had done a trip to Central
15:17Australia, which was a private trip. And then later he accused me of putting all those expenses for that
15:22through the company. And I couldn't believe that he didn't trust me. Of all people, of all things,
15:26what we'd been through. And then he turned around, accused me of ripping him off.
15:33The partnership that Mike and I had for 29 years was crumbling before my eyes. And
15:39and I knew it would never be the same again. Our relationship was damaged permanently after that.
15:46And it never really recovered.
15:52So the bank walked in, sent the receivers in, put new locks on,
15:55give us 20 minutes to get off the place. And it was the most devastating day I reckon I've ever
16:00gone
16:01through. We were absolutely broke to the point where I had to go bankrupt.
16:09That's the day my life collapsed. Everything we'd worked for, all our lives, everything was tied up in
16:15that one project. And on that day, the receivers walked in and took possession of the whole lot.
16:27I felt like shit, to be perfectly honest.
16:32In hindsight, Lone and Brothers World was a huge mistake, biggest mistake we ever made.
16:40And we walked away with $5,000. That's all we had. It was a lifetime's work and our personal estate
16:48was
16:48worth $6.5 million before we built the park. And I didn't really mind losing the money.
16:56I objected to being treated like a criminal because I lost the money. And that's what really hurt.
17:02The receivers, though, claim the Leylands are far from being down and out. They say that though totally
17:09legal, Mike and Mal transferred more than a million dollars of assets into their wives' names over an
17:1618-month period. It was during that period that the media started chasing us.
17:22Who's come off worse? Leylands that still live in their big houses? Or the people?
17:26The bank. The local people that have lost their jobs?
17:28It's a big joke, it is. Our main house was in her name, but the bank took that anyhow.
17:34Apart from that, we had another terrace house in Newcastle, which had a debt on it, but that was sold.
17:42We all have this impression of people who go bad in an industry that they've got it all
17:48away somewhere in their wife's name and they haven't really lost anything. Well, they did.
17:54You know, it wasn't that they walked away and were still wealthy people.
17:59They had absolutely nothing. They'd lost it all.
18:08Mike and I had our differences prior to that. And since there was now nothing left that we jointly
18:15owned, there was no need for us to stay together in partnership. So for the first time we went our
18:20separate ways. For a while we didn't communicate with each other at all. I said, look, forget the
18:33what ifs. That's all finished. Look ahead. That's the only way you can go.
18:37And then I realised that times were very difficult when Mike wrote a book and Mel told me he wasn't
18:44going to read it. And I realised then that there'd obviously been a complete split up, which was very,
18:49very sad. Yeah, well, Mike came out of it financially better than me in several ways.
18:55He went into a couple of different business ventures, all of which were very successful.
19:04Well, Lorraine and I ended up with very little money, but we had enough to buy a little bit of
19:07land.
19:08And we moved on to 25 acres of pretty rugged, poor quality bushland just out from Glen Innes.
19:15We had nothing. We had to start from the ground up. Lorraine and I were living in a couple of
19:20shipping
19:20containers. Look, I was shocked when I went up to see Mel and Lorraine. It was absolutely clear to me
19:28that they were in a terribly desperate financial situation. And they'd gone from being very,
19:34very wealthy, being multi-millionaires in a period of about 15 years to being close to destitute.
19:41And then a week later, I went to the mailbox out on the road and there was a letter from
19:48Dick. I
19:48opened it up and inside was a cheque for $10,000. I thought it won the lottery. I couldn't believe
19:55it.
19:55And he just sat on it to help with your project.
20:04The place Mel built at Glen Innes was absolutely indicative of his attitude to life. He just got
20:11out and went back to basics. And with whatever little money he had, they started to build the
20:16place literally with his own hands. He bought a mill, he cut the trees down on the property,
20:23he milled the timber, he built the building. He did it all. It's a big, big effort. And I'm not
20:32100%
20:32fit, so I have to time myself and pace myself very slowly. Well, not long after the collapse of
20:40Leland Brothers World, I discovered I had cancer in the bladder. I had a huge tumour,
20:50which required surgery to be removed. I've had some success with potatoes already. And that's
20:57encouraged us to think the soil here is probably pretty good for us. I think growing our own food
21:04and living off what we grew ourselves, getting rid of all the chemicals out of our lives, made a huge
21:10difference to my health. And I defied the odds.
21:20I wanted to get together with Mike and bury the hatchet a bit.
21:26I hadn't seen Mike for a few years, probably four years or so.
21:32One time we were home, I was out in the kitchen and I heard this, hello, hello. And I thought,
21:37who's that? And I heard a car pull up and there was, Margie got out of the car
21:45and started walking towards us. And then there was this old man behind him who I didn't recognise.
21:52And I got a shock when he got closer and I realised it was Mike. He was all stooped over.
21:58He looked ill.
22:01And one side of his face was sort of drooping.
22:04And that's when we found out he had Parkinson's disease.
22:08And he knew he didn't have long to go. And he wanted to come and see me before he did.
22:14He wasn't aware of people much. Well, you know, it's terrible to see him like that.
22:23Some time later, I got a call to say we should come down and see him because he wouldn't have
22:28long to go.
22:30He was sitting in his chair and I said, how would you like to do one more trip?
22:34And this little glint came in his eye and one side of his face moved.
22:39And he mouthed the only two words he said while I was there. He said, one more.
22:45I tell you, that really, that really, really hit me.
22:51And I just turned around and I said, I've got to go. And I did this thumbs up thing like
22:57that,
22:58that we used to do to the camera together. You know, I just did that. And he tried to raise
23:02his arm to do it.
23:04And I knew it was the last time I'd see him. So I just said, I've got to go now,
23:09mate.
23:10I can't stay any longer. And it was the last time I saw him alive.
23:15And then I got a phone call a few months later saying he'd died.
23:22Mal just about collapsed.
23:27And unfortunately, it meant that I couldn't have the discussion with Mike that I wanted to have.
23:33I wanted Mike to know that I had never been that dishonest person he thought I was.
23:38I want him to understand that that wasn't what had happened.
23:42I wanted to bury the hatchet on that. I wanted that to be gone and dealt with.
23:50It was something I never got the chance to do.
23:55G'day, I'm Mel Leyland. My wife, Lorraine, our daughter, Carmen, have already completed
23:59one full circuit of Australia on a caravan and camping odyssey that most people only dream of.
24:04I often get asked the question of what's it like growing up with, you know, the Leyland brothers,
24:10or one of them as your father.
24:11A great feature of the Tokyo Mall area is that they not only have beautiful strawberries,
24:16but you also get the chance to pick your own.
24:18For me, I grew up with a camera in my face. I grew up travelling and apparently I would run
24:25around as a two-year-old and go, shh, we're filming.
24:32It was 2018 when Mum passed away.
24:37Dad really, really struggled to move on with his life. He felt very lost. My mum was the centre of
24:42his life. He had many ideas of getting back and filming and doing what he loves,
24:50but one way or another, it just didn't come to fruition.
24:54Over here, we've got copies of Mel's books and a lot of his old bits and pieces that he used
25:02for
25:02all the filming. He definitely remembers the past. He has talked a lot about one particular trip,
25:09Wheels Across a Wilderness, which is when they went from Steak Point, the most westerly point
25:14of Australia, all the way across to Cape Byron. It seems incredible, but these five people have
25:20succeeded in crossing for the first time the Australian continent at its widest point. So it was
25:26only recently that my husband and I realised that the 60th anniversary of that Wheels Across a Wilderness
25:32journey is coming up soon. And we went, wow, what an opportunity to recreate that trip 60 years on.
25:41So we've got Where Dead Men Lie, which is your original book. And of course, you've got in here
25:47the map that you originally followed roughly. We're planning to follow the original route as closely
25:54as possible, going to all the places that they stopped at. Up through here, up to the border and
26:01then you cross over and you end up at Birdsville, a big town. We thought it was a big town
26:08because
26:09it had a pub. Still does. So we're hoping to go in the middle of the year around the same
26:15time that
26:16Dad did the original trip back in 66. The trip like this is a real eye opener to anyone who's
26:22never done it.
26:22You realise what a great country we live in. Yeah, definitely.
26:26So we have managed to get 10 vehicles that are prepared to come along with us and they have paid
26:32to tag along. The money that we raise from that trip is going towards creating a photographic museum
26:42and gallery in Cairns. So this is the space that you were looking at. I think it'll be perfect to
26:48do what you are looking for. We're currently looking for possible venues. So it will have
26:53a museum element to it where people can hear the story of both my dad and my mum.
27:01We're going to have a cafe in the back of it called Lara's Cafe because my mum was a passionate
27:06cook
27:06and always wanted a little cafe. You could put the cafe along the back wall bay and gallery
27:12would all fit out here. It was always my dad's dream to open up a gallery and showcase his work.
27:20Because he's actually a still photographer by trade, but everyone knows him as a documentary filmmaker.
27:26I would hate to think how many photos there are.
27:29I think it's great. I mean, it's got plenty of room and it'd be very nice to see a lot
27:36of the old stuff
27:37on display and people coming in and appreciating it. Looks like ginger.
27:47We're really hoping that dad will be well enough to come on the trip.
27:50We are involving him as much as we can in the planning. I mean, as far as his physical health
27:57is concerned, 100% he's ready to go. It's just, we'll see where he's like, where he's at with his
28:02dementia at the time, but hopefully he doesn't decline any further.
28:08Well, it's better in there than it does then.
28:13Although he won't necessarily remember the trip at the end, he will enjoy the trip in that moment
28:19and that's what's important to us. I like this one here because it's got that little,
28:24it's sticking out of it. Maybe it'll be my last trip, I don't know, but I think
28:31one day there will be our last trip, I suppose, because one day I'm going to fall off my perch.
28:39I think I've had a pretty good run. I think my life has been full of ups and downs a
28:44bit,
28:45but I think I'd like to be remembered as a person who was a traveller, photographer and lover of life.
28:57Yeah, one more trip would be pretty good.
29:11I remember the wonderful time I had with Lorraine, my wife. The best thing that ever happened to me
29:16was meeting her and marrying her and living with her. It was wonderful.
29:21I sometimes have dreams with her in it and I feel like she's basically there, you know,
29:26and you wake up and you realise, of course, it's a dream. Meeting her was the highlight of my life.
29:33She was the highlight of my life and in my memory she still is.
29:36We looked forward to that.
29:37You know what?
29:38You know what?
29:39I don't know.
29:40It was the travellers.
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