"Hallo, I'm Neil McMahon." "In my work as a newspaper journalist," "I meet a lot of remarkable people." "But few have made the impact of the subject of tonight's Australian Story." "Adam Sutton is a quintessential cowboy." "A horse wrangler for whom danger and taking risks are a part of everyday life." "But the biggest risk Adam has ever taken was to reveal a secret." "And it has resonated throughout the bush in a most surprising way." "I love the times when I'm out riding." "Whether it be through the hills or through the trails, or even along the beach, and just taking it all in as it goes by." "That inner peace." "Life always hasn't been like it is now for me" "I sort of had this hatred going on inside me" "I had so much inbuilt anger that was huge and it'd kick off anywhere because of me not liking me." "I know that the times I've spent with Archie and my favourite horses, my release was through them a lot of the time." "I could explain things to them, silly as it sounds." "Because they listen to you." "Horses have taught me a lot about myself and about others" "And I'm so glad that I found my passion, I found my niche" "And I love them, you know." "And..." "I don't know what it would be, my life would be like without horses." "You know, I really don't." "I've had Archie for probably about seven years." "I saved him with five other horses destined for the pet food market." "From that day, there's a connection there." "I loved him." "Went, "Wow, good-looking horse."" "It's a great bond." "It's like a bond you form with a person as well." "And I can see it in him towards me too." "So, it's a special feeling to know that how you feel about that horse is totally reciprocated by him." "It amazes me how much control Adam has over the horses." "Yet, in his own life, sometimes things can be out of control." "It's a skill that he's built up over the years." "Archie knew nothing." "And I could say that Adam knew nothing, really." "Archie was his saviour." "You could say that Archie was his saviour." "'Cause the work and the love that they both share together" "I'm sure has kept Adam alive, in some instances." "Barb and I have got three kids." "There's Adam, Leah and Sally." "We are a close family and we've certainly been through the ups and downs." "And I think that's what's gelled us together." "Adam was a very adventurous kid." "I wouldn't use the word 'wild'." "but full of life." "He's always fun to be with." "Always got something to tell you." "Very loving, ready to listen." "Always ready to listen." "A bit of a prankster as well." "As a kid, Adam was a terror." "He used to make Sally eat ants." "I'd forgotten about that." "Yeah." "And snails." "He used to eat snails." "He used to eat snails in front of us." "We had a great childhood." "Both my parents are unreal." "There were some rough times when my mum and dad sort of, they split up for a little while and" "Adam really took that hard 'cause he was really close to Dad." "I am a Vietnam veteran, from the first intake." "It's impacted on our life." "I had trouble in my mind that I needed to correct." "And I feel that length of time that" "I had to vacate from Adam was probably some of the times when he could have done with a bit of fatherly guidance." "Adam had troubles going through his teenage years." "He was always the roughest, toughest, biggest larrikin." "You know, one of the boys." "He always had lots of friends." "Everyone loved Adam." "Always." "Girls, guys, you know, mates." "They were great." "But you knew there was always something missing." "A girlfriend." "Everyone used to think, "Why doesn't Adam have a girlfriend?"" "He had girls - you know, people used to be my friend just so they could know my brother 'cause Adam Sutton was so hot." "I wasn't experiencing the same feelings that mates were towards females." "I was petrified, scared of it." "I wanted to go there and" "I just couldn't find that sexual attraction that was needed." "And I wanted to have that so I could be just like the rest." "I did feel that there's something different here." ""Why, why aren't I experiencing the same stuff?"" "And I thought to myself," ""It'll kick in." You know, "It'll kick in."" "I was 19 in 1993 and my life changed in a lot of ways." "I was out one day with friends, just waterskiing, socialising, doing what teenagers do." "Having a few drinks and wanting to go in and get something to eat from town." "Me and a mate jumped into my car, not thinking too much of what we'd had to drink that day." "And, coming through a corner in a turn in a road that I'd driven a hundred times before, and the bang of the impact happened instantly without," "I didn't even have a visual of the car that I hit." "I remember, after the accident, hopping out of the car in, like, a daze." "I realised the other driver had been killed." "He's gone, he's dead." "I was devastated." "I said to him that I knew what it's like to have taken somebody's life through my Vietnam experiences." "I thought I could help him." "But believe you me, he's got a lifetime to live with remorse." "There won't be a day goes past that Adam doesn't feel some form of loss for that young man that he killed." "I was charged with culpable driving causing death, under the influence." "It was a mid-range reading." "I think Adam was suicidal." "We were extremely worried about his psychiatric state at that stage, I'd already started counselling services with Vietnam Veterans and we agreed to send Adam along to one of the counsellors to see if they could help him." "I can remember getting up some nights going and just seeing if he was still breathing." "I just really felt that it'd be any time and he would do something and just take his life." "The day before the sentence, that was where it just got all too much for me." "came up onto this mountain, because this to me was the only way out for a huge situation to me." "The torments from killing somebody, the prospect of going to jail, the inner torments of my sexuality that I had no idea about..." "Coming up here, this was the answer for me." "I was here to jump off of here, and, um, because to me, that was the way to fix it all." "And I was actually sitting down on here and had a little bird come up beside me and sit on a tree and sing a song, and just busted my bubble and brought me to absolute sobbing tears." "And that bird was that one little thing that just..." "I saw the beauty in something so innocent and pure like that, and thought there's so much more to life than stopping it and ending it." "It must have been eleven months going through court systems." "My parents were really supportive." "I think I pushed it away a little bit, and I didn't want to be pampered." ""Don't tell me I'm OK, because I'm not." "I'm a bad person because of what I've done."" "Dad gave an unbelievable speech in court about himself and Vietnam and and knowing what it's like to take a life, and tried to convince the jury that his son's a good guy." "To see your dad up there, um, saying the things he did..." "But the worst thing was" "I put him up there to say that, you know?" "For not the wrong... for the wrong reasons, you know?" "And, um, um..." "He said beautiful things that day." "He says them all the time, though." "So, it's good." "I was given a 6-month sentence with a 12-month parole period." "He deserved to go to jail." "He did." "But he was in with a pretty rough breed, as a 19, 20-year-old." "I think it changed him emotionally." "I think it changed him psychologically." "Probably not for the better." "You know, not what a parent would want out of his child." "I could see a sort of anger in Adam that was sort of manifested, I suppose, for the length of time he was in jail." "After I was released from prison," "I wanted to get away, run away, so to speak, and be somewhere where I wasn't known." "I travelled to some of the remotest parts of Australia working on fishing boats, pearling boats, mines, properties, on outback Aboriginal community stations." "During that time I got involved with rodeos." "That got in me." "I'm whoo-hoo, like this." "The thrill and the excitement and there was also that, um... that rough side." "And that gave me that, you know, sort of that sense of accomplishment." "After the rodeo had finished, you know, there's always cowgirls hanging around." "And everyone's having a few drinks and everyone's got their girl, and" ""Where's yours, Adam?" you know, and you'd have to go and pick up for the night." "A lot of times what I would do is go and get drunk, and have an excuse, go curl up in your swag and go pass out for the night." "And then if anyone was sort of chasing you that night, you always had the cover of" ""Oh, I was pretty drunk and had to go to bed early," you know?" "I was sexually attracted to guys." "I was always looking at them, you know." "And I tried to get that out of my head." "All the time." "But we used to have the best times and muck around and mates, and, you know, "Ya, ya, ya!"" "And it was good." "But I always knew that," ""Hold on a minute." "I'm looking at this person in the wrong sense," you know?" ""And it's not right."" "I remember times when I had that self-hatred in me about how I felt about possibly being gay." "I totally didn't want to accept it." "Some mates and I were at a pub one night playing pool, then realised that we were in a gay bar." "I'd never met a gay person before, or never knew that I had anyway." "My head was spinning." "And I had a guy come and try to hit on me, and it took me back, but I thought," ""I can't let this be right."" "And grabbed the poor guy's fingers and snapped them backwards." "And...to prove a point to the people that I was with that" ""Hey, you don't do that to me."" "I started up my own horse business six or seven years ago, breaking in, pre-training horses, doing lessons." "Sorting out people's problems with their horses and things." "And they were my release of my love." "But I held out hope within myself that somehow or other I'm going to find the passion in myself to be able to love a female correctly." "And I did have ambitions and want to get married, have the family and live that life." "He was always going out with different girls on a weekend." "But there was never the thought of," ""I'm staying over at this girl's place tonight."" "He always come home." "So that was a bit of a worry, you know?" "Never come home first thing in the morning smelling of perfume or anything like that." "I'd talk to him about, was there anything that maybe might have happened in jail that turned him around?" "But it was always an anger that came out." "There was always sort of "No!" "There's nothing wrong with me." "Why do you ask me?"" "So it was always a form of denial." "And I plucked up the courage to ask him." "I said, "Adam, are you gay?"" ""No, Mum, I'm not gay!"" "So he answered me in a way that I had no reason to doubt him." "Every time somebody would say something to him" "I said, "No way." "He's not gay." "He's not, he's just not ready to have a girlfriend yet."" ""He's too busy with his horses."" "I remember saying that." "I can remember Mum saying, "No, he's just..." "If Adam was going to marry," "He's going to marry something with four legs and a tail."" "Eventually I stopped riding rodeo, and after that I picked up trick riding." "And that was that next adrenaline rush, that next buzz." "I've had quite a few accidents." "It is dangerous." "In 2002 I was lucky enough to be recommended to go down and work on the feature film 'Ned Kelly' as a wrangler." "Then it was just "Action, action."" "The actors come out for their lessons." "Heath Ledger came out." "We had Orlando Bloom out there." "So it was our job to tighten their nuts and bolts and get them riding right." "I became friends with Heath through riding and being on set every day." "He's great." "Really good." "Pretty easygoing, down-to-earth sort of guy." "And easy to get along with." "I was also a bit of a larrikin on set." "I burnt my face off and I bogged a truck." "And there was always some drama." "They were always the people, before I looked at it - they're 'arty-farty' - but the way they see things is different, and I think they were quite broad-minded people." "It's very hard to be completely yourself sometimes." "Because people have a stereotype of what you should be like." "My mates, um, were all homophobic." "And you overhear these conversations." "You know, "poofter this" and "gay guys" and blah, blah." "And they're downgraded and talked badly about." "I was presenting them me, this happy person, but inside, it was dynamo inside." "And it scared me as well." "You know, that aggression." "Because I knew that that wasn't part of me." "It's not part of my nature at all." "Looking back now, that angry, violent, cranky person that I was could be set off with a hair trigger, you know?" "I met with a good friend, Leigh, one afternoon, where it got to that bubbling point inside where it was like a volcano has got to pop." "I remember coming down here to this spot and talking to you about it that time and nearly pulling the dashboard off and kicking and screaming like a kid in a tantrum." "I could just see so much anger in him, and I started crying, and I said," ""Adam, look, we really need to talk."" "He said, "Leigh, I'm in love."" "And I said, "Oh, Adam, that's so beautiful." You know." "He said, "I'm in love for the first time."" "And I said, "Oh, you know, that's so special."" "And he said, "But Leigh, it's not with a...with a female."" "She cuddled me and laughed and said, "What are you worried about?"" "Something along those lines." "And told me it's all OK and, um you know, just loved me, give me a big cuddle, and told me, "It's all alright."" "And then, um, it felt so good." "It felt so good." "Parts of that aggression left me that day." "You know." "You could stand taller." "That was one of the words you said to me." "So proud of you, yeah." " Thank you" "I was the first person he told and I knew for a couple of years before anyone else did and I knew one day that he would come out and tell his family but it was just his little steps that" "he had to take to get the courage." "The hardest thing for me was to tell my parents I was gay." "And I knew in telling them I was going to hurt them." "I came out to my sisters first." "And they were pretty good." "Shocked, I think." "But also, they were happy for me." "I told Mum." "She broke instantly down into tears and, um, screamed at me and said, "No, you're not!"" "And I said, "Yeah." "I think I am."" "I had this dreadful fear I was going to lose my son that I know." "I just thought, "He's going to change." "He's going to take on a new direction in his life." "Things are never going to be the same again."" "That was my big fear." "I did have trouble talking with Adam for a while." "I think my struggle was the fact that" "I had asked him and he said no." "And the way I interpreted that, Adam had been lying to me." "We looked forward to having an heir to the name." "Um, that whole family picture that you have." "Barb's religious, and it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." "And I think it took a long time to sink in." "I was hoping that maybe there would be a turnaround." "Maybe he'd found romance in some other man that, as soon as that was over, he would turn back to being heterosexual again." "But, you know, that's not to be." "A new release later in January, is what I predict will be one of the best film of 2006," "Angley's "Brokeback mountain" which stars Heath Ledger..." "It was a few years ago that Heath Ledger came back into town and he said," ""I'm just reading a script and it's about a gay cowboy." "It's sort of like it's all about you."" ""This thing grabs all of us again in the wrong place"" "I was lucky enough to spend a little bit of time on location with 'Brokeback Mountain', and it's an amazing movie." "I could directly put myself in the shoes of those two people in that film." "It was like my 'Brokeback Mountain' story, myself." "I met Adam three years ago." "When 'Brokeback' came out and had the impact that it did," "I thought the great untold 'Brokeback' story was that Adam's friend Heath was pretending to play a gay cowboy, and he was the real one and they were mates, and nobody knew." "The story ran on the front page of the paper two days before the Oscars when Heath was nominated for Best Actor." "It flew off the shelves and was a 5-year sales record." "I think what touched people was his courage." "The fact that anyone would be willing to put themselves on the line to that extent." "Yeah, no, I was a bit apprehensive about it, but..." "Not as nervous as I was." "I felt so proud." "You know, I really was." "This will help other people, maybe, in that predicament that I went through." "A lot of gay kids leave home." "A lot of gay kids run far away." "Some of them kill themselves." "And I think for someone like Adam to stand up and do what he's done has got to have a huge impact on those kids out in the bush." "It's good that now that our family has got so much closer since it." "This article coming out has really cleansed the whole thing." "Oh, for sure" "It's drawn a final closure." "Mm." "Yep." "For sure." "It's good and it's the way, It's fantastic." "It's very important." "For us, for everybody involved with it, you know, it's really, really good." "I think Adam's parents have a much better relationship with him now purely because it's based on honesty." "There's a lot of regret that I feel that he had to lie." "He had to sort of misinterpret his homosexuality." "I wish I'd have been there for him more often in his adolescent years to help him through his troubled times." "Give him somebody to talk to." "Give him somebody to communicate with." "I find more love from him now than I did then." "And I only wish I could have been around him more often." "Dad is an inspiration to me." "Without his help, without him in my life, I couldn't do what I do." "I couldn't do it." "There are no words that I can put on that man" "He's unbelievable." "I've developed an amazing group of gay friends now" "And it's opened my eyes from the person I was a few years ago thinking they don't exist and we're all out there." "To see the way that a group of friends care for each other and are there for each other, it's pretty unique." "I have been in one serious relationship since I've came out." "I'm not in a relationship now." "But I do hope to find that partner in life, soulmate, best buddy..." "It's good for me to see couples like that." "It's good to see that side of a relationship, living together, and how it works" "The dynamics are a little different." "But the concept of two people loving each other hasn't changed." "I think the acceptances have taken place." "I don't say I understand everything." "But you love your children no matter what." "Yeah, ultimately, I think Adam will find a soulmate that he can sort of settle down with." "And that's one of the things we'll have to accept when it comes." "I think Adam thought it would be a lot harder than it has been to live as a gay man in the bush." "A group of us recently went to a country ball in a small town, and you wonder what the reaction's going to be." "There are a lot of people in society with extreme views on homosexuality who think gay people are perverts and deviants." "But the reaction was amazing, nobody cared and they embraced us and we had a terrific night." "I think the country has got to put up with Adam whether they like it or not." "He's a country boy." "He loves his horses, he loves the land, he loves the sky." "And I could never see him going anywhere else." "I'm now putting myself in touch with my feelings and my emotions instead of arguing with them." "And that has made me a braver, stronger person because" "I now trust in myself, what I think, what I think is right and what I think is wrong." "There is a stereotype cowboy sort of person" "That rough and rugged ready-to-go sort of type." "And there's your stereotype gay person." "And I know that I've now been able to to combine the two and break both moulds." "And I look back and I think how silly I was sometimes for maybe keeping those secrets and bottling them up inside." "Now they're out, it's a wonderful feeling." "Subtitles by Viandel218"