Bush mailman dies aged 96

Esmond Gerald (Tom) Kruse, MBE 28 August 1914 – 30 June 2011 was a former mailman on the Birdsville Track in the border area between South Australia and Queensland. He became known as the result of John Heyer's 1954 film The Back of Beyond, and in the year after the film's release, in the 1955 New Year Honours, Kruse was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "services to the community in the outback".

Early life

Kruse was born at Waterloo in South Australia to Harry (Heinrich) and Ida Kruse. He was the tenth of their twelve children. He left school when he was 14 years old, and worked as a casual labourer on local farms. However, due to the Depression, he "went 'bush'" around 1934 to work in John Penna's haulage business which ran out of Yunta in the mid-north of South Australia. 

Kruse married Audrey Valma Fuller (known as Val) on 24 January 1942 in Adelaide, South Australia. They had four children: Pauline, Helen, Phillip and Jeffery.

The Birdsville Track and The Back of Beyond

In 1936 Harry Ding bought the mail contract from John Penna and Kruse began his first run on 1 January of that year. Kruse bought the mail contract in 1947. He sold the contract in 1963.

Kruse worked the Birdsville Track mail run from 1936 to 1957, driving his Leyland Badger truck. He delivered mail and other supplies including general stores, fuel and medicine to remote stations from Marree in north-west South Australia to Birdsville in central Queensland, some 325 miles (523 kilometres) away. Each trip would take two weeks and Tom regularly had to manage break-downs, flooding creeks and rivers, and getting bogged in desert dunes.

Tom Kruse came to fame with the release of John Heyer's documentary The Back of Beyond in 1954. While the film follows a "typical" journey made by Kruse, showing the various people he met along the Track and the sorts of obstacles he faced, this particular journey was closely scripted and includes a number of re-enactments and a 'lost children' story. John Heyer had undertaken a research trip with Kruse earlier. Shooting on the film began in late 1952. He was appointed MBE in 1955.

The Leyland Badger

Kruse abandoned the truck on Pandie Pandie Station near Birdsville in 1957. It was located in the desert in 1986 during the Jubilee Mail Run re-enactment, and retrieved in 1993. A group of enthusiasts led by Neil Weidenbach, with the help of Tom, fully restored the Badger between 1996 and 1999. The truck is now kept at the National Motor Museum, at Birdwood in the Adelaide Hills.

Later life

Tom retired in 1984, and moved to Cumberland Park in Adelaide. In May 1986, South Australia's 150th Jubilee, Tom re-enacted his run, with 80 vehicles joining in the northbound convoy. There was a second re-enactment In 1999, and in October of that year the Leyland was trucked to a few kilometres out of Birdsville so Tom could drive it into the township for celebrations. The next morning it was loaded with mail for "The Mail Truck's Last Run" to Marree. A major reason for the event was to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This run resulted in another documentary, Last Mail from Birdsville - the Story of Tom Kruse. As well as this a book written by Kristin Weidenback entitled Mailman of the Birdville Track was also written about Tom's life.

In 2000 Tom was inducted into the National Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Springs, and in 2003 he was officially recognised as an Outback Legend by Australian Geographic magazine. Also in 2003, Tom and his truck, the Badger, were nominated South Australian icons by the National Trust of Australia.

In 2008, bronze busts of Tom were placed in the National Motor Museum at Birdwood, at Waterloo (his birthplace), and at Birdsville and Marree.

He died in Adelaide, aged 96, on 30 June 2011.