A brand new wartime remembrance podcast from Megan Spencer
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this podcast (and text below) contains the voices of and references to people who have passed away.
WALKING IN TWO WORLDS is a seven-part audio podcast that explores the powerful WWI story of Ngarrindjeri Anzacs, brothers Cyril and Rufus Rigney. Their homeland is the Coorong in the south-east of South Australia.
Both men enlisted under age and died on the battlefields of the Western Front in Belgium. Neither of them made it to 21 nor came home to Country.
Commissioned by the Virtual War Memorial Australia and funded by the SA Department for Education, the podcast was made as a national digital resource for Australian schools as well as an immersive commemorative podcast for the public to listen to.
The podcast was launched during Reconciliation Week 2023 at the Murray Bridge Library, on Ngarrindjeri Country. It was a very special afternoon which included a Smoking Ceremony and Welcome To Country by Senior Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna Elder, Uncle Major Moogy Sumner AM, and speeches by Uncle Frank Lampard OAM and Aunty Verna Koolmatrie, the great-niece of Ngarrindjeri Anzacs, Privates Cyril and Rufus Rigney.
South Australia’s Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Attorney-General, Hon Kyam Maher MLC, launched the podcast via video. Over 70 people attended, many travelling to be there..
Walking In Two Worlds: The WWI story of Ngarrindjeri Anzacs Cyril & Rufus Rigney is cinematic, moving, historic and powerful truth-telling. Including the voices of family members, historians and and others dedicated to keeping alive the legacy and memory of these First Nations servicemen, this is a story that begins way before WWI and continues long after into now and future generations.
Listen to it now on the Virtual War Memorial Australia website.
Grateful thanks to everyone involved and to all those who contributed to this podcast.