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M Durack, Sons in the Saddle, 1983; W Linklater & L Tapp, Gather No Moss, 1968; J Makin, The Big Run, 1970; Australasian, 29 July
1916.
ROBYN MAYNARD, Vol 1.BRAITLING, DOREEN ROSE nee CROOK (1904–1979), pastoralist and pioneer, was born in Colchester,
England, in 1904. Her father, Bill Crook, left England in 1906 to seek work in Australia. This he readily found and,
having saved enough money, sent for his family. Mrs Crook, with Doreen, Sonny and Kathleen, embarked on the
Oratava and arrived in Adelaide in September 1907.
In 1909 the family travelled by train to Oodnadatta and then by wagon to Stuart (Alice Springs) and on to
Glen Helen cattle station. Doreen’s uncle, Fred Raggatt, then owned Glen Helen and gave the family work until
they moved to Hermannsburg.
Late in 1911 they left Hermannsburg for Alice Springs, partly riding and partly walking. Their means of
transport was one camel and a horse, and later another horse borrowed from the Hayes family at Owen Springs.
For the next three years the family lived at the telegraph station, and Doreen with her sister and brother walked
to school to be taught by Mrs Ida Standley, the first schoolteacher in Alice Springs. The schoolhouse was the
warder’s quarters, which were situated at the south end of the old Stuart Town Gaol.
In 1915 the Hatches Creek and Wauchope wolfram mines were booming, so the family set out to try its luck.
In his book, The Man from Oodnadatta, the Reverend Bruce Plowman relates how he met the family travelling
in a wagon, and the two little girls were wearing sunbonnets. Failing at Wauchope the family moved on, seeking
somewhere to work and settle.
At Wycliffe Well, near Wauchope, the family took work watering cattle of the drovers’ mobs travelling from
the Top End of the Territory to market. This was a very arduous job as the water had to be raised by a whip in
12-gallon (55-litre) buckets and poured into the long trough. Poddy calves left behind by the drovers helped the
Crook family establish Singleton Station.
In 1928 Doreen met Bill Braitling, who was droving cattle through to Alice Springs, but was held up near
Singleton because of a drought. They were married in Adelaide in 1929 and then went droving till 1932, when they
shifted to their new pastoral lease, Mount Doreen, some 370 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs. For many
years they lived in a bough shed on the banks of the McKenzie Creek adjacent to the soakage dam.
From the first days at Mount Doreen in 1932 till her retirement in 1959 Doreen was deeply involved in the care
of the numerous bush Aborigines who drifted into their station. In the pre-Royal Flying Doctor era many owed
their lives to her untiring efforts in tending to their physical needs, whilst her understanding of their tribal ways
earned her their full respect. Often food and medical supplies were stretched to the limit, and goats’ meat and milk
were the basic food for both black and white. For many years she, with the help of one or two Aboriginal women
and one Aboriginal man, tended to the needs of some two hundred people.
When her husband died in 1959 Doreen retired to Alice Springs. Though by this time a frail woman worn out
by hard work and hardship, she soon became involved in community affairs. She was particularly distressed by
the demolition of numerous historic buildings in the town she had known for so long. With others she instigated
the formation of the National Trust of the Northern Territory Inc. She even took it upon herself to drive to
Tennant Creek to confer with Mrs Hilda Tuxworth, MBE and to establish a branch of the Trust there in 1972.
When the old Stuart Town Gaol was threatened with demolition to make way for the proposed new courthouse
she wrote to everyone of influence from the Prime Minister down, protesting against the destruction of the oldest
building in the Alice Springs municipality. She was very gratified when it was decided to retain the old building
and to restore it. In the latter part of the 1970s she was heavily involved in the formation of the National Trust of
Australia (Northern Territory) that replaced the former Trust, and she was elected its first President.
Late in life Doreen took a course in writing and wrote several short stories. She was often called upon to
broadcast short talks on the history of Central Australia. However, she was at her best when writing poetry and
several of her poems were set to music by Ted Egan. In delivering the Doreen Braitling Memorial Lecture for
1980 he said, ‘An important part of the Doreen Braiding story to me is her song ‘Cattle Going In’, written in her
seventies when she was obviously contemplating the difference between the old droving days and the present,
when huge road trains take cattle to the markets.’
Doreen Braitling was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) early in 1979 but unfortunately died before
the presentation.
The Braitling School and the suburb of Braitling in Alice Springs are testament to the high regard that the
Alice Springs community had for Doreen.
B Plowman, The Man from Oodnadatta, 1933; Doreen Braiitling Memorial Lecture, 1986, National Trust of Australia (NT); Braitling family
recollection and diaries.
T J FLEMING, Vol 1.BRAITLING, WILLIAM WALTER (1889–1959), grazier, was born at Aturus Downs in the Springsure district
of Queensland. William (Bill) was one of ten children of Charles Christian Braiding and Elizabeth, nee Bradley.
Charles Braitling had left London to go to sea, but decided to settle in Australia. He arrived in Rockhampton,
Queensland, in 1880 and in 1881 met—and married—Elizabeth, an Irish immigrant from Armagh. After working
for a time as an overseer Charles managed to settle on his own property near Springsure.
Bill Braiding left school early and when 16 years old left home on horseback to earn better wages in the
Northern Territory. He worked his way through the Barkly Tableland to the Victoria River District. He became an