ALICE SPRINGS SCHOOL OF THE AIR TURNS 70!

This special school has been teaching outback kids for seven decades

- Brigid Auchettl

For Tanya Heaslip, hearing the crackle of the radio as it started up was her favourite part of the school day.

Living with her family on a Northern Territory cattle station, Tanya, now 58, was one of a hundred students from across the country who attended Alice Springs School of the Air, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.

“For half an hour we got to talk on the radio to these voices we didn’t know but felt like best friends because we were from the same outback world,” says Tanya, whose classmates lived on stations and settlements across the country.

BEST TIME OF HER LIFE

“I could paint pictures around their voices and imagine their faces, which was so exciting. It was one of the best times of my life,” she says.