Was there ever another life experienced like that of George Hubert Wilkins?
When one looks back at it, the loneliness of Bert Wilkins’s formative years, spent on semi-arable farm land in South Australia’s mid-north, seems to have inspired, rather than dampened a keenness for adventure, a fervour that remained with him all his 70 years.
However, many of the opportunities he enjoyed in pursuit of ‘thrills’ would not have occurred without his fascination, piqued at a young age, for the camera. From manning a cinema projector in Sydney to being first to film from an aircraft, Wilkins grasped its possibilities and utilised them to the full in both stills and moving picture format during his golden period that stretched from 1912 to just before World War II.