Back when I was a kid I loved nothing more than to sit beside my father and listen to the stories he told. Were they true or false? I still don’t know for sure, although some I know were true but still I enjoyed listening and from this I believe is where my inspiration to weave fiction and write came from.

Dad told one story of how he knew where the wild colonial boy Jack Doolan buried his gold beneath a large gumtree in the Beechworth Ranges in Victoria. Dad drove his horse and jinker in there one day carrying picks and shovels to dig up this treasure. He unharnessed his horse, picketing it where it could graze on a little grass. While he camped for the night, this wild, black brumby stallion came out of the scrub and attacked him. He climbed under the jinker to get away, this horses hooves hammered the timber cart as it tried to reach him, eventually it gave up and disappeared back into the scrub from which it came. Dad, climbed out from his hiding place, harnessed the horse, loaded his gear and headed back into town. Forgotten was the wild colonial boys gold, remembered was the huge black stallion that guarded it.

Truth be known John ‘Jack’ Doolan was nothing more than a petty thief. He did spend time in jail and after his release teamed up with horse thief Edward Donnelly and together they went bushranging. Not in the same realm as Ned Kelly, Ben Hall, Harry Power and the like. Eventually their petty thieving came to an end when they were caught in White Hills and sent back to prison. Jack Doolan got fourteen years for his part and after his release disappeared without a trace. No doubt changed his name, easy done back then and moved on in a new life.

The song, The Wild Colonial Boy although depicts Jack Doolan as the hero born in Castlemaine Victoria it’s more likely the bushranger referred to is Irish born Jack Donahue who at best of knowledge never ventured south of the New South Wales border.

Did John ‘Jack’ Doolan bury gold in the Beechworth ranges? Something we’ll never know, not in my lifetime anyway.

True or false? I don’t know, but it sure made an exciting story to keep Dad’s audience enthralled.