Bejah Plants a Date Seed
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| Genre | drama serial |
|---|---|
| Running time | 15 mins (8:45 am – 9:00 am) |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Syndicates | ABC |
| Written by | Megan Machin |
| Original release | February 6, 1952 |
Bejah Plants a Date Seed is a 1952 Australian radio serial drama by Megan Machin about the Calvert Expedition in Western Australia.[1][2]
The play came second in the ABC's Jubilee Radio Serial Competition.[3][4]
The serial tells the story of Dervish Bejah, Afghan camel driver, who accompanied Lawrence Wells on the ill-fated Calvert Expedition across the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. Machin met Bejah in Marree the previous year.[5]
The serial was played in the morning. The Adelaide Mail thought this would give the show "such a negligible audience that it hardly seems worth broadcasting at all. As quite a number of listeners would be interested In a prize-winning serial. I feel the ABC might have chosen a better time to put 'Bejah' on the air."[6]
A critic from the same paper later said "Machin has written a splendid descriptive and dramatic story of the Calvert expedition... The man who saved it was Bejah, a giant Afghan camel driver, and it is his story that Mrs. Machin tells with rare insight and understanding."[7]