I learned a thing about Australian Slang today. And a guy named Buckley and his various chances.

Now you get to learn about a thing too

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen to them while I drive, while I'm cooking dinner and even while I'm out distributing pamphlets for my gym.

Podcasts are great, but there's a weirdly high number of "true crime" podcasts out there. So I'm learning way too much about crime and crime related things.

_{It's real, I promise}

Today, I stumbled across a podcast about Australian prison escapes right after I finished a podcast about a guy who reads chapters from the porno that his dad wrote. So, obviously I simply had to learn about Australia's prison escapes. Even though it couldn't possibly beat a podcast about a guy reading chapters from his Dad's porno.

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The podcast about Australian prison escapes was actually really fascinating.

And it taught me a thing or two about Australian slang. Well one thing. One really interesting thing though.

So today, we get to learn about Buckley, and his chances. And the Australian slang type phrase that is "You've got Buckley's chance" and other variants. After listening to the podcast, I did a little more reading. So the quotes below are taken from the page where I did that reading.

William Buckley was born in

Cheshire, England he’d served in the Napoleonic Wars where he was wounded in action, before being convicted of receiving stolen goods (a roll of cloth) and sentenced to transportation for life in 1802.

He was sent to Port Phillip Bay in Victoria, Australia where the English were attempting to establish a settlement. Interestingly, this settlement was the first official settlement in Australia, but was abandoned after a few months.

As the settlers prepared to leave for Tasmania, Buckley escaped with 2 other convicts. But after reaching the other side of Port Phillip Bay his tired, hungry and scared companions turned back for Sullivan Bay.

But Buckley was made of tough stuff, so he continued on, living on shellfish and other food that he could scrounge for a number of weeks. After a period of time he was befriended and taken in by the Wathaurang people who were the local indigenous people of the region.

The indigenous people thought Buckley was a reincarnated leader of the Wathaurang people as he was very tall, much like their leader, and carrying a spear that he found on a grave.

Over the next 32 years Buckley lived with the Wathaurang, learnt their language and customs, married and had a daughter.

Another colonising party arrived from England in 1835. And it was at this time that Buckley came forward to greet the settlers. By this stage though, Buckley could barely remember his language or name and could only identify himself by the initials WB which were tattooed on his arm.

For a period of time Buckley acted as an intermediary and interpreter between the English and the Indigenous people. And also worked to resolved disputes. After a little under 2 years however, he felt that he wasn't trusted by either side so moved to Tasmania. And it was here that he died after an accident in 1856.

Buckley's story has been interpreted many times over the years, but he was only known to recount his life on two occasions as he was a very private man.

Apparently, many of the images of early European settlement in Australia include Buckley standing tall and strong while wearing Animal skins.

_Source

And today, his name lives on in Australian slang with the ironic saying “you’ve got Buckley’s chance” or “Buckley’s hope”. It's great that this larger than life character managed to find some form of immortality. I'm not so sure that I'd be a huge fan of being immortalised in this manner though.

Learn more in this slightly better recount of Buckley's story here. It's only better due to there being no mention of pornography though.

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