WA’s Pilbara region is known as the engine room of the country – and in the town of Newman, one woman has spent more than a decade carefully documenting its historic significance.
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00:00I can remember the trip to Newman. I remember the surroundings changing and the bush looked
00:11beautiful. I think it was an exciting time for those young people.
00:16What began as a whale-shaped mountain on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert is now the jewel
00:21of mining giant BHP's iron ore empire, worth more than $24 billion a year. But when Lisa
00:27Rickett returned to Newman after a stint away in 2013, she was worried the human stories behind
00:32this immense mineral wealth would be lost. I was helping a lady called Margaret and she was going
00:38to organise a Newman reunion and we realised that a lot of the records had just disappeared. So yeah,
00:46I thought that was such a shame. Miss Rickett got to work recording more than 100 interviews with
00:51current and former residents and collating their stories, including Charlie Snell, who came to
00:55Newman in 1966. He was known as the snake man. In those days, there was two men to a tent at Tent
01:05City, but no one would share with Charlie because he usually had a reptile on his person. And he,
01:12along with the help of the local First Nations people, collected seedlings and started Newman's
01:18first nursery. These stories have now moved from online to the physical world. Miss Rickett recently
01:24bought one of the first homes built here, decorating the walls with photos of iconic Newman characters.
01:29Being so isolated back then and so far away from family, which we are today, you know, the people,
01:36the friends that you make in town, they sort of become your family. Preserving the value of an Outback
01:43community.