radionotes podcast episodes

Melody Horrill author of A Dolphin Called Jock

by | Aug 14, 2022 | episodes | 0 comments

Melody Horrill author of A Dolphin Called Jock

Melody Horrill has more than twenty years in broadcast media, including as a popular weather presenter for Seven. While working at Channel Ten Melody wrote, presented and produced ‘Dance with a Dolphin’. Showing researchers’ findings about Dolphins in their environment and was a documentary that CNN picked up to screen across America.

Now available is the book that tells the story of the solitary dolphin in the documentary and how he taught Melody some life changing lessons.

Hear here our chat with the author of ‘A Dolphin Called Jock’…

Click ‘play’ to listen… may take few seconds to load: 

IMAGE CREDIT: Mike Bossley 

A Dolphin Called Jock is available direct from Allen & Unwin also Dymocks + Imprints Booksellers or any place that sells good books.

Tony Hadley ex-Spandau Ballett Australian/New Zealand Tour in September 2022

SHOW NOTES: Author of A Dolphin Called Jock

To not miss future episodes follow us:

  • PlayPodcast – directs you, to the Podcast app on your device

….or you can search “radionotes Podcast” in your favourite podcatcher/app.

We can also be found on…  Instagram  –  Facebook  –  Twitter

Shout-out: Tony Martin’s Sizzletown on their Sixtieth episode

Feature Guest: Melody Horrill

Domestic and Family Violence Hotline: 1800-RESPECT (in Australia)

Next Feature Guest: From the archives – Mick Hart

Also available on Podbean:

and Spotify:

If you’ve not already ‘following’ radionotes Podcast – we can be found on:

Spotify

ApplePodcasts

Google Podcast

and more…

CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

You can make direct contact with the podcast – on the Contact Page

TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV team member Immanuel C – check to audio before quoting wider

Tammy Weller:
Melody Horrill has more than 20 years in broadcast media, a decade of which was as the weather presenter for 7NEWS in South Australia, a place that is home to the Port River dolphins. While working at Channel 10, Melody wrote, presented, and produced a documentary called, Dance with a Dolphin, showing researchers’ interactions and findings about the mammals in their environment, and was picked up by CNN to be screened across America. Now available is the book that tells the story of one of the dolphins in the documentary and how this one unusually solitary dolphin taught her some life changing lessons. Joining radionotes today is the author of A Dolphin Called Jock.

John Murch:
Melody Horrill, welcome to radionotes.

Melody Horrill:
Thank you so much for having me.

John Murch:
I want to read just an excerpt from the prologue and it’s a very short one, but I think we’ll clock back to in our conversation today. And it is this from the prologue of the book, “Bobbing in concert with the current, I felt an overwhelming urge to reach out to the solitary creature, to reassure him that he wasn’t alone. I want to let him know somehow that I cared, that I understood. For the first time in my life, I felt complete to nurture a relationship.” I won’t take you back to you first arriving here in Australia by just going a few years before that, before you came to Australia, where were you and what was that environment like?

Melody Horrill:
Well, I grew up the first eight years of my life in Saltash in the UK, in Cornwall. The house in which I grew up in was pretty sad, really, there were my two sisters, my brother and myself. And domestic violence really was part of our everyday life. When the violent eruptions didn’t occur between my mother and father, there were these long periods of an unease, and you could almost feel the electricity in the air between them. So even when my mother and father weren’t fighting physically with one another, the air was still tinged with that trepidation, no one was ever comfortable in that house.

Melody Horrill:
And my father, particularly, had a very nasty temper and would take it out on my sisters and my brother. And as for me, well, I just didn’t exist, really. I was just a nuisance, something in the house that he didn’t really even acknowledge. So there wasn’t a lot of love in the house, I have to say. And my sisters stayed in England, when we decided to move out my father decided that we were moving to Australia. And my sisters who were nine years older than I chose to stay in England and not move out with the family. And who can blame them? I don’t blame them for that.

John Murch:
What were the sounds, musically? Was there any escape from the other sounds of the domestic violence that you could tune into?

Melody Horrill:
Music wasn’t played in our house, but I used to love going down to the pebble beach at the end of our road and hiding under boats and sitting on the shore and skimming stones and listening to the sound of the wave slapping on the shore. So to me, that was my music.

John Murch:
The tunes that you were hearing at that location, what were they telling you? What were they assuring you of?

Melody Horrill:
Well, I guess, in a way they were luring me away to another place. I desperately wanted to get on a boat and sail off into the sunset and away from the situation that I was in. And the sound of the waves just lapping at the shore was reassuring, yet enticing me away from somewhere that I wanted to escape from.

John Murch:
You did find yourself on a boat, but it wasn’t alone and it wasn’t your choice of journey. It was a Russian boat, as well-

Melody Horrill:
That’s true.

John Murch:
… if I remember. That’s the first time you introduced to the mammal known as a dolphin?

Melody Horrill:
Indeed, it was. It was a Russian ship. It was a crusty old Russian ship really, but my brother and I were on this ship and lo and behold, these dolphins appeared out of nowhere by the side of the ship. And I remember racing to the railing saying, oh my God, there are dolphins. They were so sleek and so beautiful and so fast. And they kept up with the ship. And I was so excited. I guess that’s when I really first fell in love with the sight of these majestic sleek creatures who seemed to be leading me away from home to the promise of another land, which I’d hoped would be better for us as a family. It was just my brother and myself and my mother and father. And I had high hopes that things would change when we got to Australia. But that was not to be.

John Murch:
When you first arrived to Adelaide, you thought it was colourless and lifeless. Did anything change?

Melody Horrill:
It was the middle of summer, and you’ve got to understand that we stopped by Singapore. And I came from very green lush part of the UK. I remember looking down from the plane thinking everything was brown and there weren’t that many houses. And I wondered when I was going to see a kangaroo hopping across the planes and very, very different to where I’d come from. I worried, I thought, oh gosh, I’m going to a desert. And I stepped off the plane and it was one of those 40+ degree days in Adelaide and everything felt hot. I felt I was melting into the asphalt as I walked off the plane down the stairs. So my first impressions weren’t that great. I’ve got to be honest, but obviously I grew to love the place as I stayed there, with the winter, going up into the Adelaide Hills, seeing the lush greenery and realising that there was a lot more to Adelaide than those first impressions that I had flying in for the very first time.

John Murch:
We won’t go through everything, but there’s so many beautiful moments apart from the Russian cockroaches in this book. The fact that the first real South Australian you met was Shaza. And Daza, of course, you learn about his music years later with the horses. And speaking of horses, you had horse riding lessons.

Melody Horrill:
I talked my mom into taking me to horse riding lessons, giving me horse riding lessons, paying for it because I’d always loved horses really. So off we went, up to Woodside, and Jilly was just beautiful, docile horse who allowed me to clamber onto her and she didn’t flinch. And she was just gentle. And I remember that smell of grass and hay and her whinny and her soft nose. And she was just this gorgeous, gorgeous animal. And of course I learnt to ride on her. Then I upgraded to Thor, who was a little bit more flighty. I guess I honed my skills, but I just loved horses. And I’m sure lots of little girls do, but at least I was lucky enough to have been given the chance to learn how to ride and to ride through Woodside, that beautiful parts of the Adelaide Hills.

John Murch:
I also get a sense through this book is that you’ve always had a very strong connection to animals and their wellbeing.

Melody Horrill:
Well, I was lucky enough to actually adopt a horse that was in a bit of trouble. He was a rescue horse, really. He was being given away by his owner. I adopted that horse and you were right in regards to animals. There’ve been a massive part of my life. In many ways saviours, really. They’ve been the things that I’ve turned to for moments of sanity and love, unconditional love. So when I was able to adopt my own horse, I would go galloping through the fields. Not far from Brighton, actually, there was a whole lot of vacant land in that area at that time, there was that the sound of the hooves hitting the ground and the sound of the air whisking past my ears and the sound of Eddie, which was the rescue horse, his puffing, and his grunting, his panting, that combination, it made you feel free. For the first time ever, I think, during those times, particularly with Eddie, I felt a sense of freedom.

Melody Horrill:
There were no other sounds. There was just the sounds of the thumbing hooves and the wind whistling past me, the exertion from the horse, which was Eddie. And in those moments, you get completely lost in nothing but the moment. I think that’s probably the first time I ever realised that living in the moment is a very important thing to do and appreciating the moment for what it was.

John Murch:
And also the expression of care, as well, because when you first got Eddie, he was a little emancipated. He did need that care at the time. And so you would’ve heard the different sounds of him struggling, possibly, not the long way, but in terms of just getting stuff done, to being full bodied and that whole whoosh.

Melody Horrill:
Well, he wasn’t in a good way when I adopted him. I spent quite a long time feeding him up and getting some meat on his bones and retraining him, making sure he had shoes and he was in a good way. But he just used to love to run. He used to love me almost letting go of the reins and going, okay, just go for a run. And I’d just be holding onto him, really, holding onto his main and just letting him go. And when he got his vigour and his health back, he just seemed to love the open spaces and just being a horse, being allowed to run, being allowed to feel free. I just happened to be his passenger really. And wasn’t I lucky. And those were amazing, amazing times with Eddie. I loved that horse beyond measure was an amazing animal.

Melody Horrill:
And he’d greet me every day with a lick on the palm, his big thick, rough tongue would come out and lick me on the palm. And I felt I had a real bond with him. And I’d take him down to the beach and we’d ride along Seacliff and go into the ocean and then he’d come out, he’d roll on his back like this big shaggy dog with his legs in the air, just rolling in the sand, seemingly, luxuriating in the nice warmth of the sand on his back. And people would stop and stare and say, oh my gosh, look at that horse, because it’s not often that you see a horse on the beach rolling on his back, but he just seemed to revel in it. He just seemed to love it. And for me, it was a huge escape from the violence and the terrible stuff that was happening at home. He was my escape and I spent as much time as I possibly could with him.

John Murch:
So those 18 months with Eddie, I guess, were an entree to the relationships that we’ll be talking about later that you started to form with dolphins. Around the same time you are heading into high school, what was wrong with the bass guitar? Why did it not do it for you?

Melody Horrill:
I just wasn’t that talented. I didn’t have an aptitude for music, really. Despite my name, everyone assumes that if you’re called Melody, that you’re going to be good at music. Well, no, I just wasn’t. Being Brighton Hgh School, I had to do some musical activity. So I learned to sing in the choir and that was my musical activity because I was just a terrible bass guitarist. Another One Bites the Dust is the only one that I actually remembered getting right. When I hear that song today, I still think, yep, that’s the one song that I can play on a bass guitar. I just wasn’t good at it. And I knew it.

John Murch:
Did you get anything out of music at a high school level?

Melody Horrill:
I loved listening to music and I enjoyed the choir. I’d listened to music at home. I’d spent a lot of time listening to my little cassette recorder, trying to drown out the sounds of my mother and father in the next bedroom.

John Murch:
When did you get a chance to do that? Maybe in the UK, not so much. Did it happen when you came to Australia, you got that opportunity to drown out those sounds?

Melody Horrill:
Yes, it did. As I got older, started listening to the radio. Back in those days, you’d pop in a tape and you’d record the songs that came up on the radio. And so I really got into it.

John Murch:
How much we hated those announcers and how did I become one that used to talk over those songs?

Melody Horrill:
Oh no. I used to just wait and then hope that you didn’t miss the beginning of the actual song when you pressed record on your tape player. I used to love listening to the radio. I used to love listening to my tapes and they did actually drown out the sounds of the house and they added new life. Something, once again, that I could escape into. And there’s some songs from that era which remind me of good times and bad times. One of the songs was Australian Crawl, Downhearted, which became my Christmas theme song. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Just sitting on the bed every Christmas day because Christmas days were always the worst days of the year. The biggest fight always broke out on Christmas day and I would just shut my door and I’d listen to that one song.

Melody Horrill:
And although the lyrics don’t necessarily resonate with what I was going through at the time, there was something about this whole idea of being downhearted, again, as I was every Christmas day. So that song, still to this day, takes me back to those times when I was huddled on the bed, trying to drown out the thumps on the wall next door, and just feeling pretty low.

John Murch:
To read the lyrics, “It seems all wrong back here at home, there’s no end in sight.” And at that time-

Melody Horrill:
Yes.

John Murch:
… there was no end in sight of what was going on.

Melody Horrill:
No, there wasn’t. No, there wasn’t any end in sight. But things were progressively getting worse. So after one particular fight, I said to my mother, look you two are going to kill each other, really, one of you is going to die here so I think we should leave. And we did. I knew that my mother was not going to make the move. I knew that she didn’t have the strength to get up and leave my father by herself. And I knew that, I guess, I had to take the reins, again, and someone had to have the strength to make that decision and it wasn’t going to be mum. So at that point, our roles reversed somewhat. Actually, I had to be the adult and I had to look after my mom and take that role on. I was determined, it had to happen. I just knew that the two of them just couldn’t coexist anymore, without someone getting seriously hurt or killed.

John Murch:
We’re currently listening to a conversation with Melody Horrill. If you need to have a conversation regarding domestic violence in Australia, 1800-RESPECT, that’s 1800-737-732. They also have a website available worldwide, 1800respect.org.au.

John Murch:
So let’s talk about music in this term because I thought you were really cool. I think the whole of South Australia watching you on the news, reading the weather, filing stories, you had a very homely cool sister kind of vibe in terms of you’re very welcoming. We’ve of course spoke with Jessica Braithwaite, who also has that down to earth tone to them as well. And yes, they do something about the weather, I guess. You were very much a smoker and into the nightclubs and staying up late and having a few drinks.

Melody Horrill:
I was.

John Murch:
While we thought you were quite innocent-and reporting and all that stuff. What kind of Nightclubbing are we talking about? Are we talking about Sugar nightclub, like techno or are we talking dingy hits and memories?

Melody Horrill:
This all happened during a period of my life that I was trying to escape, actually, really, not face my past off. Off I went underage. I was underage, let me set that straight. And there was one particular, very popular nightclub in the 80s on top of the pub in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs, great pizza bar across the road, too. I used to just love getting onto the dance floor. I was the first one on the dance floor with my girlfriend and it was otherworldly. It was like being transported into another realm where you’ve got the lights and the thump of the music and the beautiful people around you. And this hypnotic sway.

Melody Horrill:
And once again, it was that form of escapism for me, I just loved being transported into this loud rocking, buzzing world, even though, yes, I was underage and yes, I had the occasional drink and yes, I would be one of those people standing around their bags in the middle of a dance floor, having a cigarette and a drink and bopping away to Phil Collins and Spandau Ballet and Icehouse and a million wonderful bands, actually, back then where music was great.

John Murch:
And for the young people, yes, it was smoking inside. There was no issue about cigarette smoke.

Melody Horrill:
No, there wasn’t. In fact, the whole place just smelt of it. You couldn’t get away from it and because you couldn’t afford… Well, I certainly couldn’t afford to drink. So you’d smuggle in a little bit of this, a little bit of that and buy yourself a Coke over the bar and just top it up in the ladies toilet. So I did all of the naughty things. Yes, I did some naughty things, but I had a really good time and there was always pizza on the way home. In many ways, it kept me grounded and kept me sane.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about some of those artists. You did name a few of them there. We’ve mentioned Australian Crawl obviously was more of the Christmas tune, that particular tune. Phil Collins, you mentioned there. Duran Duran obviously was huge at the time.

Melody Horrill:
Oh, I love Duran Duran. But I’ve got to tell you that there were so many great bands. There were so many and Spandau Ballet were one of my favourites. I remember actually saving up enough money, I was working spinning fairy floss at a local amusement park and I saved up enough money to go to the Spandau Ballet concert, Memorial Park it was, and I went there with a girlfriend and she fainted and they had to drag her over the fence under the stage. And I couldn’t bear to see her being dragged over. So I gestured at the bounces to come and get me as well. So I held up my hands and the bouncer came and grabbed me by the T-shirt and the whole thing came off. That was just a little embarrassing. That was my memory of the Spandau Ballet concert in Adelaide.

Melody Horrill:
But they were a great band. Got to actually meet one of them when I was working for Channel 7 as a weather presenter and reporter, they were playing across the road at the governor high marsh. And I just said to the Channel 7 publicist, I would so love to meet the band. And this was years and years and years on. And she said, I’ll see what I can do. So I went into work, I took my Spandau Ballet album, the actual album-

John Murch:
Yeah, yeah.

Melody Horrill:
… and ran across the road and I got to sit down and have a chat with him. And it was just amazing. I felt I was back at Memorial Drive and just listening to them again. And I really was like a little kid in a candy shop going, oh my God, I can’t believe this, so that was a highlight I have to say. It was great. So there were a lot of great bands. And music was a big part of my life. And it was an escapism on so many levels at so many different points in my life.

John Murch:
Mondo Rock was also on that list.

Melody Horrill:
Loved Mondo rock. I mean, I think that Mondo Rock’s Chemistry is one of my favourite songs. One of the greatest songs in my view. Come Said the Boy yeah gets played a bit too much.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Melody Horrill:
Chemistry is just a great song. Great song.

John Murch:
What is that song that reminds you of the best of times?

Melody Horrill:
Look, I can’t pinpoint the time when I came across this song, but every time I hear it, I think about my days out on the water in the gulf crossing over to Kangaroo Island on a friend’s boat. We used to run dolphin tours across Kangaroo Island to raise money for the Dolphin Foundation. And I used to love hanging off the front of that boat and watching all the common dolphins just swarm in from nowhere and playing the bow and turn around, almost fly through the air. It was just so magical. And Sailing by Christopher Cross, I love that song. It is just evocative. I totally get it. I totally get his love of being out there on the ocean, feeling that feeling of serenity. And I love the line, the wails of my brothers, and I just totally get it. There is something about being out on the water, just with the wind pushing you forward and nothing else, but having nature around you and feeling that feeling of oneness and connectedness with it all, really, so that song just resonates with me. I’ve always loved that song.

John Murch:
Melody Horrill is our very special guest, A Dolphin Called Jock through Allen and Unwin. I want to ask about the other thing that you’ve done in terms of documentation, the film that you did.

Melody Horrill:
Well, I was working for Channel 10 at the time. I was the environment reporter, occasional with a presenter there when Jane Riley was on leave or sick. My boss, the news director, Grant Heading, came up to me, he said, do you want to do a doco, Mel? And I said, oh, sure. What can I do it on? He said, well, I don’t know, what do you want to do it on? I said, well, I’d like to do it on the Port River dolphins because I’ve been involved with them for all these years. And there’s this one particular dolphin, Jock, that had a massive effect on me. But look, I won’t talk about that. I can just do a documentary on Jock and the Port River dolphins and the threats that they face. So he said, all right. So I managed to get a hold of a whole lot of old VHS tapes that Mike Bosley had taken.

Melody Horrill:
I went through those and I saw all this footage, which took me back to my amazing time with Jock. And I was sitting in this room, just looking at this video footage thinking, wow, yeah, I remember that. It was such a emotional time, really. I put this documentary together with the help of a man by the name of Tony Morabito, who was a producer there at the time. And it was an hour long documentary, which aired across Australia. And CNN picked it up, which was amazing. So the next thing I knew I was on a plane being flown to Atlanta to showcase this documentary to the world. And that was just unbelievable. I couldn’t believe it. Just could not believe it. They loved it.

John Murch:
Part of that documentary, you had a feature song, which was written by Mel Watson at the time, just out of Fruit and doing the Into One project. Can you talk to us about the decision for using that very song in the documentary?

Melody Horrill:
Well, I have to send credit to Tony Morabito, the producer for that one. I didn’t have a lot to do with it, but we were looking for songs that would just touch people’s hearts and go with the documentary. And we both sat down and listened to this song and it just seemed so apt, really, it’s a beautiful song, Into One. It just seemed to fit with this whole theme of connecting with nature and connecting with the dolphins and the dolphins connecting with each other and it was beautiful. It was perfect. The Americans over at CNN, they loved it too. Documentary went around the world. Ted Turner watched it and he thought it was pretty good, which for me was a huge deal. And then of course, that documentary helped convince the South Australian Government that we really needed to form a dolphin sanctuary in the Port River. So the Port River became Australia’s first dolphin sanctuary, which was amazing.

John Murch:
I read the book all on Saturday, I was there in the Port River and there was just dolphins. I’m reading Jock’s life and your life and there’s just dolphins in that sanctuary as they do. It’s amazing.

Melody Horrill:
As they do. It is amazing. And people don’t realise how lucky South Australia is to have dolphins living so close to a capital city, honestly. Very few places in the world have dolphins on the doorstep like Adelaide. Yeah. We need to take care of them.

John Murch:
The sad fact, which you shared with Matthew Pantelis on a FIVEaa last year is that 1 in 13 of the calves are surviving there in the Port River. So clearly there’s a lot more that needs to be done. What’s your gut feeling right now in terms of the future of the dolphins in the Port River?

Melody Horrill:
When I first found out from Mike Bosley about the number of calves dying, it was only one in 13 was surviving, which was appalling. I got a head of steam and fire in my belly and I thought, right, this is good enough. So I wrote a piece for the Weekend Australian magazine in the hope that it would bring the issue to the attention of people who could help. That magazine article then led me to write the book and that’s how it all happened. And as you know, there’s been a spate of dolphin deaths there the past 12 months where there’ve been mostly healthy male dolphins who are just so emaciated that organs shut down and the results of the autopsies have basically found that their immune systems have been suppressed. But by what? That’s the question. No one seems to know. Look, I’m not a scientist and I don’t know, what’s going on.

Melody Horrill:
Whether it’s a virus, whether it’s a pollutant in the water, whether it’s runoff from a particularly wet winter last year, because there’s been a lot of development around the port. And I’m sure a lot of that soil contains contaminants, who knows. I can’t explain it and the authorities can’t explain it. So until you figure out what’s going on, you don’t know how to fix it. And I can only hope that they keep on digging and doing more tests on those samples to find out what it is that’s been killing these dolphins. Port river itself, as you know, is a fairly industrialised area and it’s a working port. So well, there always has been issues with boat strikes and fishing line entanglements. When I was down there last time and I was doing a story with The Project and I was on the boardwalk, near the garden on a boat ramp and they were getting their shots and I was walking along.

John Murch:
Yes.

Melody Horrill:
People were fishing and I thought, why aren’t there any bins on here for people to get rid of their discarded fishing line? Didn’t make sense to me. So the ranger, a lovely man who we were out with, I said to him, listen, mate, I think you need to get some bins here, it’s a simple thing and where are people supposed to put their fishing line? And he said, well, they should perhaps take it home with them. And I said, well, yeah, but if you put bins here, it might go in the bin. So I can only hope that even small steps like that will certainly help make a difference in regards to entanglements, which are a big problem in the Port River. But as for what’s impacting the dolphins, I just don’t know. Nobody seems to know.

Melody Horrill:
And I think that, personally, all of the community groups, and there are a number of community groups now and industry and recreational bodies and fishing bodies just need to work together to make sure that the river is a good place to be for the dolphins, for the fishes, for the boaties. And I’m sure it can happen with will. I really am very hopeful that it can be. I’d love to see a decent interpretive centre down there for instance. But it’s a big ask. The first step, perhaps, is to bring all of those interest groups together to create a forum in which we can all work cooperatively to make sure that there are good outcomes for the dolphins, as well as the river users.

John Murch:
Melody, I want to ask you about your first experience of receiving a dolphin sonar wave or sonar response.

Melody Horrill:
It’s a very strange thing. When I first was in the water, it’s actually with Jock. You’re probably aware that dolphins use their echolocation, their sonar, to check things out. Sound waves bounce off things which gives them a mental image of what they’re looking at. And so he was obviously checking out what an earth I was. And fair enough I’m in his environment, I’m this gangly, uncoordinated human that’s really not meant to be in the water, but I’m trying my best to stay afloat. And he’s very adept and very attuned into his environment. So he approached me and his head moves slightly left to right. And it’s like this beam that you can’t see, and it comes out of him and it goes through your skin and it feels your insides are jingle-jangling.

Melody Horrill:
It feels you’re being turned into a cocktail shaker in a way. It’s a very strange feeling. Your insides vibrate. And you know that you are being examined. It’s a deep, intrinsic thing you just know. And it’s not an unpleasant experience. It’s actually quite a pleasant experience in a way, because the vibration, it’s not jarring. I wouldn’t say it was soothing, but it feels quite natural, it doesn’t feel unnatural. It just feels a bit weird with this jingle-jangling vibrational thing happening inside of you. Jock would use his sonar as all other dolphins do to check out what their environment is. Well, I became very used to it and became part of seeing him. And every time we’d turn up, he would also blow us raspberries and have this whole repertoire of various raspberries that he’d blow.

Melody Horrill:
I’m sure it’s his way of saying, ‘hi, how you doing?’ It’s you guys again. I wasn’t the only research assistant that swam with Jock. Mike Bosley spent a lot of time in the water with Jock as did other research assistants, but when he saw the boat, he’d blow these raspberries. And there were times when Mike would drop down and underwater, mike, and record Jock because you could hear his sonar underwater as well. You could actually hear it. And you could hear some of the bubbles that he would blow underwater and his raspberries, as well. We took it as a form of communication. I just wish that I could have understood what he was trying to communicate. Martin Jacka, the famous photographer from the advertiser that took those amazing photos of Jock, used to bring out a piece of pipe and hang over the side of the boat and blow bubbles into the water when Jock was around hoping that Jock would blow bubbles back and they’d somehow communicate.

Melody Horrill:
Pretty much, one way, Jock looked at him, rolled on his side and just swam off and probably thought, what on earth are you doing? And why are you blowing bubbles? And none of this makes sense. So kind of funny watching Martin over the side of the boat blowing bubbles into the water and having a dolphin say, I got no idea what you’re doing, I’m just going to move on now. But we tried to communicate and the method of communication we ended up using was touch and play, really. And that was very powerful.

John Murch:
I want to know about that idea of finding identity through loneliness. And what I mean by that is finding a soul in another to actually further yourself and got a deep feeling. That’s what you found with Jock and then Jock found, possibly, read the book, with someone else in his life. How would you then connect that with music? Because I’m guessing there are songs throughout your life, and you’ve mentioned briefly, that have given you a sense of not feeling lonely anymore.

Melody Horrill:
There’s been a lot of songs throughout the years that have really spoken to me. I mentioned the Christopher Cross song, which really does resonate with me. And I’m a big fan of Jim Steinman. In fact, when I was writing this book, going through some pretty difficult times in writing this book, it wasn’t easy, I would sometimes listen to Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through by Jim Steinman. And that would resonate with me because that is a song about hope. That is a song about overcoming your scars and moving on and having your dreams come true. And for this book to be published, really is a dream come true for me. So thank you, Jim Steinman. I prefer his version to Meat Loaf’s, actually. Much better version of Rock and Roll Dreams. Every song which talks about finding your power, I guess, in your voice after difficulty, those songs have always resonated with me. And I’m not a fan of any one particular artist, it’s really the songs that have really helped me along the way and encouraged me and given me a good nudge in the right direction when I’ve needed it.

Melody Horrill:
But in regards to your question about finding a soul, connecting with a soul, in the water. Jock, wow, I guess in many respects, he was such a deformed… And he was badly deformed through years of being caught up in fishing line and nets and hooks and solitary and seemed so lonely that when I first saw him, and as I got to know him, I connected with those parts of him. His disassociation and inability to connect with the world around him and go with other dolphins was something that I could relate to because even though, sure, I had friends at the time and I had a boyfriend at the time, I just felt somewhat disconnected from the world around me in lots of respects.

Melody Horrill:
I didn’t feel like a fit in. I never felt as if I belonged anywhere. And yet when I was in the water with Jock, I felt I belonged. And I felt this unconditional acceptance and friendship and love, I guess. I’m not suggesting for a second that Jock loved me, but I loved him. But this unconditional trust on his part was remarkable because I’d never experienced that in my life. Even with the other animals I’d had in my life, there’s always that sort of transaction isn’t there? There’s-

John Murch:
The carrots.

Melody Horrill:
I’ll feed you, I’ll look after you.

John Murch:
Yeah. The carrots and yeah.

Melody Horrill:
You’ll come to me when you want some food. I’ll give you some love, you’ll give me some love, but I’ll still feed you. But with Jock there was none of that. It was purely just hanging out and enjoying the experience for the pure sake of it. It was totally unconditional and I’d never experienced that before. I’d never experienced that kind of relationship before. And he opened me up to the idea that I could actually trust again, trust myself and trust the world in which I was living. He also showed me how important it was to live in the moment and not focus on what had been. Jock and the other dolphins didn’t think about what happened yesterday or the day before that or the day before that, they were living in the moment. And he taught me the importance of living in the moment and revelling in whatever joy you can find in that moment.

Melody Horrill:
And of course, when he, eventually, did venture out to see other dolphins, he taught me about bravery and venturing out of my own self-imposed borders and boundaries and becoming brave enough to reenter the world, deal with the scars that I had. Yes, I had them. Okay. They weren’t going to define me. I was going to move on. He showed me how to do that. And it was that remarkable relationship, which completely transformed my life.

John Murch:
It’s all available in the book. I do want to quickly get back to music. I want to talk about Linda Ronstadt. You were meeting your friend, Sissy, at the beach, listening to her. This is your introduction to Australia and how we grab music by the horns. Do you still listen to Linda Ronstadt these days?

Melody Horrill:
No I don’t. And my friend wasn’t a particularly good singer, but you know, listening to her was much better than listening to what was going on at home so it was fine. And we were on the swings and we were both very young. So no, I don’t listen to Linda Ronstadt anymore. I became a massive fan of Blondie and I love Pat Benatar, a whole lot of female artists, but Linda Ronstadt? No, I never went back to Linda. She was a one time only.

John Murch:
Melody, you’ve definitely had that life, leaving the UK and then finding yourself in a place like Adelaide, South Australia, which I think, over the years, treated you okay.

Melody Horrill:
It did. I remember I really fell into TV at Adelaide. It wasn’t something that I intended to do. My work with the dolphins and the Dolphin Foundation, which I quit my first job out of uni to form, led me to a career in the media. And I learned my trade on the job the hard way. And I loved reporting on environmental issues. And that was my passion. And I was so lucky. But I always felt really quite humbled and that people would actually be at home watching it. I couldn’t quite believe it. I’d be doing these stories or presenting the weather and people would be writing in or ringing in and I’d think, really, you’re watching me? You’re listening to me? I couldn’t quite grasp that. So I’ll always be grateful to the people of South Australia for giving me a shot and for bearing with me. And I made some mistakes but at the end of the day, it was someone at Channel 9, Kevin Crease who told me.

John Murch:
Like, the big news reader at Channel 9. Yeah.

Melody Horrill:
Yes. He was a legend. And he took me under his wing while I was there and he said to me, look, don’t try and be something you’re not, don’t try and fit into this, what you think is a TV mould. He said, because people will see through it, just be yourself and if that’s not good enough for the viewers then stuff them, you’ve got to be yourself. And that’s what I tried to do. And I’ll be forever thankful that people embraced me for that because it took quite some time to find out who I was and be comfortable with that. And when I did the public of South Australia was there and I’ll always be grateful.

Tammy Weller:
Melody Horrill, A Dolphin Called Jock is out now, published by Allen and Unwin.

 

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *