Welcome to Dreamtime Cowboy
The Life and Legacy of Francis Firebrace
With Adrian Beckingham, Biographer

Created from hundreds of interviews and painstakingly transcribed into prose by award-winning Editor-in-Chief Adrian Beckingham, this labour of love honours the extraordinary life of Aboriginal elder Francis Firebrace.What if your earliest memory was bush survival… not in theory, but in practice? What if you had to hide your identity because your very birth could spark social rejection — or worse? What if the wisdom of a 60,000-year-old culture lived within you, yet the world refused to acknowledge your humanity?

Dreamtime Cowboy is a rare, intimate audio biography unlike anything you've heard before — a powerful blend of bushcraft, ancient Dreamtime knowledge, lived poetry, and raw Australiana. It’s the real-life story of Francis Firebrace, one of the most influential living Aboriginal Australians, told through over a decade of exclusive interviews with biographer and master storyteller Adrian Beckingham.

Francis’ life began in hiding. With a white mother and an Aboriginal father, his very existence defied the laws and racial taboos of 1930s Australia — a time when Aboriginal people were still classified under the Flora and Fauna Act. His family fled society on horseback, surviving in the wilderness for years using his father’s deep bush knowledge. As a child, Francis thought the world ended at the riverbank — until he saw a chaotic crowd of Depression-era settlers across the water and thought, “I never imagined that many people existed.”

From outback isolation to inner-city racism, from cowboy droving to international acclaim, Dreamtime Cowboy charts Francis’ breathtaking odyssey. You'll hear how a small-town police constable taught a bullied boy to box, how Francis became a real-life cowboy from the saddle, and how he went on to become Australia's first Aboriginal filmmaker to win the Moomba International Film Festival — all while hiding his heritage to survive.

But the journey doesn’t stop there.

Following personal tragedy, Francis withdrew from society and began a spiritual reawakening. Embracing the sacred teachings of the Dreamtime, he re-emerged as a cultural ambassador, artist, storyteller, and educator. His voice would go on to echo in schools, universities, embassies, townships, and palaces. His paintings adorned Australia House. His image appeared on stamps in both the UK and Australia. He stood as a mascot for the Olympic Games, spoke at the 250,000-strong Sydney Harbour Reconciliation Walk, and worked with the sick, the impoverished, and the elite alike.

This podcast invites you into that extraordinary legacy.

🎧 Why Listen?

• Experience a first-hand portal into a lost world of wilderness survival and ancient cultural wisdom.

• Discover the healing power of oral tradition and the resilience of the human spirit.

• Witness the personal cost of hiding — and the transcendence of reclaiming — cultural identity.

• Uncover Aboriginal philosophy, art, storytelling, and bush lore directly from one of its most passionate champions.

Dreamtime Cowboy is not just a podcast. It’s an education. A journey. A restoration. A defiance of history through story. It’s a bridge between ancient soul and modern heart — between a man once shunned and the world that came to celebrate him.

For lovers of oral tradition, spiritual insight, and real-life heroes forged in fire and silence, this show is your next profound listen.

🎧 Endnote
If you’ve enjoyed this first glimpse into Dreamtime Cowboy, you can help me continue editing and proofreading the full story — both for print and this podcast, and eventually for the audiobook to come. Every bit of support helps me bring Francis Firebrace’s remarkable life to completion and share it with the world.

Support the project here:
👉 ko-fi.com/adrianbeckingham

Thank you for walking this journey with us — keeping the fire of story alive.