00:05Hundreds of kilometres north of Broken Hill in the harsh, dry outback is where Jim O'Connor
00:10has spent his long life.
00:15Age 94, the stockman enjoys reciting poetry over the UHF radio to keep workers on his
00:22property entertained. Impressive for a man who never learned to read or write.
00:26He never went to school, as far as I can figure. It was a long time ago, around about the
00:31age
00:31of six or seven.
00:33Jim can't work stock the way he used to, but remembers running cattle on his own when he
00:37was just ten years old.
00:39Two or three days, taking a mob of cattle somewhere and I was only ten years old. Then as I
00:45grew
00:45older I started to wonder how I'd done it. So it was no good telling anybody else about
00:49it, no one else would believe it.
00:51His story is now celebrated at the Stockman's Hall of Fame in Longreach, after being nominated
00:58by a former neighbour.
00:59Never hear him swear, never hear him or see him get upset. It's just a gentle man.
01:06I had no education, so perhaps I didn't know any different. I didn't know what life would
01:12be like anywhere else.
01:14Recognition of a life on the land welcomed by the O'Connor family.
01:18He just gets up, goes to work, and he seems to have done that for eight or nine decades.
01:25Jim's knowledge of the bush has been passed down to the younger generations. Now his legacy
01:30will continue to live on, on the walls of the Stockman's Hall of Fame.
01:33It's a great honour to be one of his grandsons, I can tell you that much.
01:38Mark the Chifford
01:40...
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01:43You
