Episode 255. Allan Hagan – 90 Years in the Making (Part 1)

Imagine growing up on a cattle station in the Northern Territory during a time when the world was at war, and the events unfolding hundreds of kilometres away would eventually reach your own backyard.

Allan Hagan remembers seeing smoke on the horizon from the bombing of Darwin, and being evacuated from the station on horseback, picking their way through flooded rivers during the wet season.

Now 90, Allan has a lifetime of memories from a Territory that has changed enormously since those early days.

His childhood was spent at Waterloo Station, where life looked a vastly different to what most of us would recognise today. Later came a move to Helen Springs, where Allan began his working life as a jackaroo.

In this first part of our four-part series, we wind the clock back to the beginning, as Allan shares memories of his childhood and the experiences that set him on a path in the cattle industry.