Guest blogger: Louisa Duval

‘Let’s get sashed’: How my romance novel research turned into a podcast

I write small town, contemporary romance, inspired by my local rural fire brigade at Ballandean, a small village south of Stanthorpe in Queensland where we have thirty-five acres on the Severn River.

I was outlining my novel about a heroine sentenced by the local magistrate to be an entrant in the Harvest Festival Queen pageant and began researching the history of Stanthorpe’s Apple and Grape Harvest Festival.

To my frustration, nothing had been recorded about the festival in local history books. Nor were any collections or reference materials held in Queensland’s State Library. Hard copy newspaper articles and festival programs were held at Stanthorpe’s Museum. Nothing was digitised.

I interviewed Julanne Neal, a reference archivist at Queensland’s State Archives and went through hard copies of parliamentary reports, correspondence, and photo collections about apple and stonefruit growing in Stanthorpe. But again, found very few mentions about the festival.

Julanne Neal taking me on a tour of the Queensland State Achives

Also, very little was online about Stanthorpe’s festival. Interstate festivals, however, were an entirely different matter. I found news reels, TV interviews, and blog posts about Tasmanian apple festivals, Donnybrook in Western Australia and Harcourt in Victoria and, more recently, online press for the Granny Smith festival in North Ryde, Sydney.

Donated crown of a former festival queen on display at the Stanthorpe Museum

Except for two videos on YouTube, one of which was an ad for the festival from the 1990s, and a photo gallery by Queensland Museum of what was held in display cases at the Stanthorpe Museum, Stanthorpe was largely missing from the record of apple festivals in Australia.

I turned my frustration into an apple festival factfinding odyssey.

An unexpected accolade for the little apple festival that could

I contacted all apple festivals across Australia and made a lovely discovery. Stanthorpe—the smallest apple growing region of Australia—had the longest, continuous running apple festival.

First kicking off with Back to Stanthorpe Week in 1954, it then launched as the Apple Blossom Festival in 1955 and evolved into the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival and was held as a biennial event since in 1966.

The journo in me loved chasing a story. I needed to speak to the festival queens themselves. Little did I know what would come next was a podcast.

Why a podcast and not a book?

I believed former festival queens should tell their stories and a podcast allowed for exactly that. I have a background in radio, and also co-host another podcast called ‘Bluey’s Brisbane’. My co-host Justin was keen to edit and produce another podcast, but getting funding was key to be able to do it well.

With Stanthorpe approaching its 150th birthday in 2022, and the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival being held in March, I thought my festival queen research would be of interest to others. I applied for funds through the competitive Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) to partly finance the project. RADF is a partnership between the Queensland Government and the Southern Downs Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.

‘Beyond the Crown’ is part oral history and part documentary, featuring interviews with former Queens of the Apple Blossom Festival from the 1950s and 1960s to the Queens, Princesses and Young Ambassadors of the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival to present day, including the 2022 entrants.

Rachelle Todd, a Young Ambassador entrant for 2022, posing with a popular landmark, the Big Apple

A time of homemade ball gowns

The first two episodes are with two Apple Blossom Queens from the 1950s, who still have their sashes to this day. Over scones, Dorothy Pappagallo, the 1957 Apple Blossom Queen, spoke with pride about ‘sashing’ the 1958 Queen, Beris Hohenhaus.

Dorothy with her photo from 1957 as the Apple Blossom Queen

Gwen Gloynes, neé Furness, the 1959 Apple Blossom Queen, giggled about ‘sashing’ the strapping bullriders who’d won events at the 1960 Warwick Rodeo.

Gwen with her sashes in her home at Toowong, Brisbane

A ‘new’ phrase was born: ‘let’s get sashed!’

The Drag Queens of Ballandean

In the 1960s, the times were a’changing. I met two blokes at the bar in the Ballandean Hall where a photo of male tweens and teens dressed up in women’s clothing on a parade float was on display.

‘That’s me,’ said Allan Taylor, pointing to the photo where a young lad was crowned ‘Miss Peach Blossom’. He then told me this was a protest of the Apple Blossom Festival by the Ballandean stonefruit growers. They wanted recognition for everything else grown in the region other than apples.

The ‘Drag Queens of Ballandean’, as we nicknamed the chaps, with their protest and subsequent discussions with the festival organisers saw the Apple Blossom Festival transform into the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival by the end of the decade.

The romance of apple blossom

The excitement about seeing apple orchards and stonefruit orchards in bloom is not a recent thing. One hundred years ago, tourist brochures in Queensland advertised the weeks the trees were in bloom, claiming it was a must-see for day-trippers in the 1920s. Mills and Boon published medical romances set in Tasmania in the 1960s and used apple blossom for their book covers.

Not much has changed since. I spoke with Mary-Lou Stephens about her debut romance novel, The Last of the Apple Blossom, and with Sasha Wasley about her 2021 release, Spring Clean for the Peach Queen, to ultimately answer the question: what is the romance of an orchard in bloom? Between the three of us, we knew it was a thing, but the answer eluded us.

I took my question to an apple grower, Stephen Baronio, who hosted an open orchard weekend at Applethorpe (no surprises what is grown in this part of the world!), north of Stanthorpe. I asked Stephen why people pay to come and look at an apple orchard in bloom.

Stephen Baronio of Easter Colour with me in the Pink Lady apple rows

He paused as we both contemplated the rows of apple trees with their beautiful white and pink blooms. Stephen then smiled, scratching his chin.

‘Dunno,’ he said, ‘but there’s something really special about it.’

And he’s absolutely right.

Want to listen? Here’s how to find ‘Beyond the Crown’

The podcast launches on Saturday 8 January with one episode released each week up to mid-March. To find ‘Beyond the Crown’, you can listen online here and find us on Facebook and Instagram. Episodes will also be available on Spotify, Apple and your favourite podcast app.

A non-fiction book is now being planned for 2026 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival, bringing all the interviews, photos and additional ephemera into one publication. The podcast will continue to release new episodes after 2022 in the lead up to the book launch.

About me and my stories

My upcoming four-book series is set in the fictional town of Ballydoon (sound familiar?) and follows the siblings of the Turner family on their historic sheep station as they fight fires, catch an arsonist and find love along the way. The series launches in July 2022. The prequel, ‘Whisky and Sunshine’ is now available and as an audiobook on all platforms.

In April 2022, I’m joining the Queensland Writers Centre for ten weeks as a writer-in-residence for their Fishbowl Residency and will be finishing and editing my romance novel, Harvest Festival Queen as part of this. I’ll be doing a weekly vlog of my progress during my residency via my socials and you can get updates via my newsletter.

And, if you sign up to my newsletter, you’ll receive ‘Memories of Ash’, a free novella set in Ballydoon about a female firefighter who wakes up in hospital with no memory of the fiancé sitting on the end of her bed. You can download your free story and sign up here.

You can find Louisa here: Website | Facebook | Instagram