Still Travelling: My Life as a Leyland Brother and Beyond

Next year is the 50th anniversary of the making of the Leyland Brothers' ground-breaking documentary, Down the Darling, which records Mike and Mal Leyland traveling down the Darling. Their film was sold to Channel 9 and later to the BBC. It was shown in 65 countries and selected by the Australian Government to be shown at Expo 67 in Canada. Unless you were alive and watching Australian TV in the mid-60s through to 1980, when they were at the peak of their popularity, it is hard to convey the impact of these two pioneer outback adventurers and film-makers. An obituary written when Mike Leyland died, in 2009, their numerous TV programs were described as a "quirky travel show," watched by more than 2.5 million people at its peak. It featured the brothers in unusual or far-flung places around Australia, which viewers had asked them to visit. Neil McDonald in the Melbourne Herald-Sun in 2007 wrote: "Almost everyone in Australia older than 25 has heard of the Leyland brothers, Mike and Mal. At a time when the Outback was still a forbidding, remote frontier, they single-handedly brought it into people's homes through their documentaries and a successful television series. In doing so they persuaded thousands of Aussies, including the grey nomads, out of their retirement homes and on to the road. The Leylands have been credited with starting the four-wheel-drive revolution and huge recreational industry. Through its informative, relaxed content, the brothers' Channel 9 series Ask the Leyland Brothers set the style for today's glossy TV travel shows. Their often-quirky Super 8 home-movie style of filming won a legion of fans here and abroad." This book will be Mal's memoir, who'll tell tales tall and true from the road, and from their lives during and beyond the iconic show.