Jimmy and Pat meet the Queen
By Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike
Backroom Press, 1997
Desert Dog
By Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike
Magabala Books, 1997
Review by Stephen Langford
I have waited before writing this, partly because my usual "thing" is East Timor, partly because I know Pat. I had the good fortune of meeting her in Broome in 1983, We were the only two poms there at the time and have kept in touch since.
Her partner Jimmy Pike is the artist who has brought fame and fortune to Desert Designs. He is an accomplished artist and someone who recently, with other Walmajarri people, submitted a painting to advance the claim to their own land.
I believe some of his best work is in the books Pat and Jimmy have worked on together. Check out Jilji: Life in the Great Sandy Desert (Magabala Books, 1990) to see what I mean.
Jimmy and Pat meet the Queen is Jimmy and Pat's book about native title, a wryly humorous book about Queen Elisabeth's visit to the Kimberleys. No, she has not really visited Broome and Fitzroy Crossing but, as Pat writes "The story is true, although most of it hasn't happened yet".
But it is not too hard to imagine the queen's cake-fed corgis being molested by Kilu (Pat and Jimmy's actual dog whose name means mouse in Jimmy's language). Multi-talented, Kilu is able to bark in Walmajarri as well as English.
The rather whimsical, and very funny, story is based on the serious premise that whoever knows the land are the people who own it. As they explore Walmajarri country it becomes obvious who knows the land and where every jurnjarti (one kind of waterhole) is.
You could say this book, with its great illustrations, is for kids, but it is for all of us who need a laugh, and a politically correct one at that. Count me in.
Desert Dog is the story of Spinifex, a dingo taken as a pup and trained as a hunting dog. Yinti takes Spinifex when he goes to find out about station life. But the cattle, cars and noise there are too much, and he escapes back to the bush and finds his way back to Yinti's family.
Pat and Jimmy bring the dingo on the page to life. Did you know that dingoes do not bark? I didn't. It has Jimmy's great illustrations again. Based on a story Jimmy told Pat, it is a natural sequel to Yinti: Desert Child (also in Magabala Books).
At heart, Pat and Jimmy's books are about Walmajarri life and culture and the struggle to keep or regain what is theirs. Pat is also one of the people behind Kimberley Environs, which is defending the Kimberleys against plans to dam the Fitzroy River and kick-start a potentially ruinous cotton industry in what is naturally a semi-arid region.
As much as Jabiluka, this could well be the Franklin River campaign of the '90s. Both deserve our support. To find out more, write to Kimberley Environs, PO Box 309, Broome WA 6725.