The Polly Farmer Foundation has launched a new book celebrating the remarkable life, legacy and achievements of Graham "Polly" Farmer.
Follow the Dream: The Polly Farmer Story is a new children's book by Steve Hawke and Kim Farmer.
At a launch this week the authors joined Glen Quartermain in a discussion with Ernie Dingo of the inspiration behind the book and Polly's enduring impact on generations of Australians.
At the launch in Subiaco, long the epicentre of WA football, Ms Farmer - Graham's daughter and the vice chair of the Polly Farmer Foundation, noted the Foundation has been around for about 30 years, delivering a school-based program to help Aboriginal students to "reach their goals, whatever that may be, but particularly if it's academic".
"They aspire to go on to university or an occupation that they've been thinking about at school, and we help them support them to get there," she said.
"This story was originally a book written by Stephen Hawke... in 1994. Dad agreed to do the book with Steve on the basis that Steve also helped him create something along the lines of a foundation, so the book is incredibly important because it is the birth of the Polly Farmer Foundation.
"It's been a really enjoyable process."
Ms Farmer said writing the new children's book "alongside Steve was able to bring out a really many of my memories of Dad that was more relatable to myself because it wasn't all just about his success on the ground, but it was the person that I grew up with seeing a very driven man, and Steve, derived from the original book, was able to bring that to life".
"It's been a great process, feeling like Dad's not too far away. I think he would be fact checking it, so it's good that there's some fact sheets in there.
"I do think he would be very proud, and he would see it as a very true reflection of his life and his achievements."
Ms Farmer said the book was "really important to write because the Polly Farmer Foundation is named after Dad, but for many students who are current students, they don't know necessarily who he is".
"This was a way that it could bring the namesake of the foundation to life, that they could relate. I think it's important.
"It's not just if you wanted to be a successful footballer, it's a book about setting goals, working really hard to achieve those goals, and looking back on a life that is well lived.
"I'm really proud to have done this with Steve Hawke. He's an incredible writer. He... brings people their stories with such respect and accuracy and love, and it's been an absolute pleasure working alongside him."
Mr Hawke said Mr Farmer "was the greatest footballer in the 150-year history of the game".
"And each time you come back and look at it and think about it, that reemerges, and between that and the fact that when he agreed to let me tell his story the first time, he made a condition of it that we that I help him to set up this foundation, and to see this foundation 30 years on being such a an amazing success; It's not just a testament to him, and I think it makes Polly one of the great Australians, quite frankly, but it's, it's just a wonderful thing to see grow out of something that you started off as a very small organisation 30 years ago.
"That's credit to Kim and to all the others who have been involved with it along the way, too many to name.
"It brings joy, quite frankly. It's been great fun. I've enjoyed every moment of the collaboration with Kim.
"It's in the title, really. Follow the dream, which is also sort of the theme of the foundation. It's trying to say to kids, here's a great story about a great man, but it's also about exactly that phrase, follow the dream, find out what it is that you want to do in life, and pursue it with all your vigour and all your heart."
