News

The fifth of five bronze busts of 95-year-old Birdsville Track mailman EG (Tom) Kruse MBE will be unveiled by Ted Eagan AO at the National Road Transport (NRT) Hall of Fame in Alice Springs on Sunday, 29 August 2010.

Tom Kruse has been invited to participate in the ceremony. The unveiling will be one of the highlights of the 2010 Reunion Public Open Day at the NRT Hall of Fame and will be held the day after Tom’s 96th birthday.

Birdsville, Marree, the National Motor Museum (NMM) at Birdwood in the Adelaide Hills and Tom’s hometown Waterloo in the Mid North of South Australia are the locations of the first four life-sized bronze busts.  

“Tom’s travelling OK at the moment and the organising committee is keen to have him participate in unveiling the bust at Alice Springs if he is well enough to attend,” Bust Appeal Co-coordinator Ian Doyle said.

Written and directed by John Heyer in 1954, The Back of the Beyond docudrama introduced Tom Kruse and the 1936 Leyland Badger and Blitz mail trucks to a generation of Australians.

Most never forgot the extraordinary images of the men and the battered trucks doing battle each fortnight with the sand and isolation along the 500-kilometre Birdsville Track – outback Australia’s toughest mail run.

The double-set DVD The Back of Beyond Collection is available for $54.95 from the Royal Flying Doctor Service on
08 8238 3333.