The Back of Beyond: Tom Kruse’s 110th Birthday Screening – SOLD OUT

This event is now sold out, you can add your details to the wait list in case of any cancellations.

To celebrate Tom Kruse’s 110th birthday, the National Motor Museum will be hosting a screening of the 1954 documentary ‘The Back of Beyond’, using the original 16mm film given to Tom Kruse in 1962 by the Shell Film Unit. The film turns 70 this year and looks at Tom Kruse’s life as he makes his way along the Birdsville Track, delivering mail in the Australian outback.

Hear from Curator and Tom Kruse expert, Ian Doyle OAM as well as National Motor Museum Curator Matthew Lombard and get up close with Tom’s 1936 Leyland Badger in the Sunburnt Country exhibition.

Date: 31 August 2024
Time: 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: Shannon Street, Birdwood, SA 5234

Tickets include museum entry. Ticket price includes beverages, snacks and platters.

Ian Doyle OAM

Ian was born and educated in North Queensland. He holds a degree in Economics and a Diploma of Education. After teaching in Charters Towers for a few years, he joined the ABC in Sydney in 1981 and worked as a radio and television journalist and executive producer with the Rural Department for 16 years.

During his time with ABC Countrywide and Landline, he produced a number of award winning overseas reports from locations including Egypt, eastern Africa, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. His African documentary Seeds of Hope was nominated for the Berlin Film Awards. He is a past winner of the National Dalgety Award for Excellence in Rural Journalism and the Telstra Rural Media Award for Online Journalism.

He made significant contributions to a number of radio documentary series including Blue Hills Revisited, Great Working Dog Stories, Great Working Horses Stories and The Bloke From The Birdsville Track – the George Bell Story.

Ian resigned from the ABC in 1997 to present the weather on Channel 7 and to establish an Adelaide based media production and consulting company, Doyle Media Services. In recent years he has produced a number of TV documentaries, aired on ABC, SBS, Qantas InFlight, the History Channel and commercial TV.

The documentaries include The Last Mail from Birdsville – the Story of Tom Kruse (1999), Source to Sea – the Story of the Murray Riverboats (2001), The Back of Beyond Collection (2004), Three Men and a Boat – the MFV Tacoma Story (2013) and The Mailmen Back of Beyond (2014).

He has presented various local, state and national ABC and commercial radio programs including Australia All Over, Tony Delroy’s Nightlife, ABC Early Mornings and ABC Adelaide breakfast.

Ian supports Trees for Life, the Adelaide Festival’s Chairman’s Circle, and his preferred charity is the Royal Flying Doctor Service. He is a foundation board member of Australia’s Open Garden Scheme, a former board member of the Barossa Music Festival and is a life member and was President of Rural Media SA for 33 years. He was made a Rural Media Icon in 2014 and in 2021 Ian was awarded an OAM for his services to journalism and the community.