Col Hardy is a living legend of Australian country music. He was the first indigenous Australian to win the golden guitar.
Col and I met through his son Jeff who, as well as being a Dragons legend, started the Clontarf Academy at Endeavour High which I was pleased to help him get started many years ago as the local member for Cook.
This led to an great ongoing relationship with Clontarf that has seen the programme go national in a big way, changing lives of indigenous young men all over the country.
Today I caught up with Col and Jeff along with Brendan Maher, who worked for Clontarf for many years and did an awesome job, at Shane Heal’s (4x Olympian Ex NBA/NBL) cafe AJ’s in Cronulla.
Col is well into to his eighties now and has lived in The Shire for many years. He’s still performing and is just such a special guy.
We’ve even played a few songs together around a Clontarf campfire.
