Bejah Plants a Date Seed

Bejah Plants a Date Seed is a 1952 Australian radio serial drama by Megan Machin about the Calvert Expedition in Western Australia.^[1][2]

Bejah Plants a Date Seed

Genre	drama serial
Running time	15 mins (8:45 am – 9:00 am)
Country of origin	Australia
Language(s)	English
Syndicates	ABC
Written by	Megan Machin
Original release	February 6, 1952 (1952-02-06)

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]

References

1. "WOMEN'S INTERESTS". The Mail (Adelaide). Vol. 41, no. 2, 062. South Australia. 8 December 1951. p. 38. Retrieved 13 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
2. "Outback figures in radio serial". Weekly Times. No. 4315. Victoria, Australia. 5 March 1952. p. 37. Retrieved 13 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
3. "Jubilee radio serial awards". Daily Mercury. Vol. 85, no. 283. Queensland, Australia. 27 November 1951. p. 1. Retrieved 13 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
4. "Jubilee Radio Serial Winners", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC, 1 December 1951, retrieved 13 February 2024 – via Trove
5. "AFGHAN CAMEL DRIVER", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC, 2 February 1952, retrieved 13 February 2024 – via Trove
6. "Radio Round-up". The Mail (Adelaide). Vol. 41, no. 2, 070. South Australia. 2 February 1952. p. 24. Retrieved 13 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
7. "Radio Round-up". The Mail (Adelaide). Vol. 41, no. 2, 072. South Australia. 16 February 1952. p. 26. Retrieved 13 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.