Notes by William Skyvington
June 2002

I imagine that these photos of my brother Don Skyvington [born October 12, 1941] would have been taken at Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory where Don worked as a stockman when he was about twenty. It was while working there that Don contracted hepatitis, and he was obliged to end his career as a cowboy in the Outback.

I believe that the black man in the white shirt is Sabu Singh, half Aboriginal and half Chinese, who had been taken from his parents and adopted by Tom Fisher, manager of Wave Hill Station (brother of Harry Fisher, who had a grocery shop in Grafton). Sabu Singh visited my parents a couple of times when they were living in South Grafton. My sister Anne got to know him well. She tells me that Sabu had been treated rather cruelly at times by his adoptive father. Anne also said that Sabu showed her his black-tracker shoes made from bird feathers.

Sabu Singh ended up marrying a white woman and becoming a station manager. A book was written about him in 2001 by a woman from Darwin. At about the time this book was published, Sabu was killed in a car driven by his son. Anne tells me that this book (which I have never seen) contains a photo of our brother Don surrounded by other drovers and jackaroos.