By John Wilson
Published
Based on over 100 archival reports, this book uncovers the true story of Bob the Railway Dog, an incredibly intelligent animal who navigated a 19th-century era of political "skullduggery" and fierce railway rivalries. His legendary adventures are ripe for a cinematic adaptation, a vision the authors have already brought to life through a 38-minute video featuring a custom orchestral score. While the goal is to keep production in South Australia to boost regional tourism, the hunt is now on for a producer—local or interstate—to share this world-class story of loyalty and history with a global audience.
$95.00
Part of the history of the railways in South Australia is well known, but there are also some stories about Bob that appear to have had no factual origin. This book has collected about 100 newspaper and archival reports which we have analysed and have built a profile of Bob.
As amazing as Bob’s adventures were, his time corresponded with an era of political skullduggery in South Australia and bungling incompetence within the Railways department of the South Australian railways. It was a time of intense jealousies between the South Australian railways chief engineer and the locomotive Superintendent.
The politics of the time were dominated by CC Kingston, who would eventually rise to become Premier and remained in that position for six years. He was a dreadful narcissist.
Our research into Bob and the politics of the time has left us in no doubt that Bob’s story is deserving of a full-length movie or a television series. But we have discovered that the film industry is fickle. We are firm in our belief that as Bob was born and died in South Australia, we should keep production within the State. But we have nearly run out of patience and are now considering looking at production by interstate interests. We have not been deterred by the negative responses we have had from them for we believe that eventually we will encounter a film producer who is looking for exactly this. Bob was a very intelligent dog and was described by some of the railway employees as knowing as much as a man. A movie or television series would be a boon to the South Australian heritage railway operations and would have appeal to go all around the world which would be boon to South Australian regional tourism.
We have produced a video which is essentially a reading of the first two chapters of this book and is of 38 minutes. A feature of this video is Bobong, the music composed by Glen Hadden who is a classical guitarist, and, in the video, it appears many times in different variations. One is a music box version, but our favourite is a synthesised orchestral arrangement by Miho Nankivell that is near the end of the video.
