I tracked down the matador in Australia's first bullfight

Pedro Sidoti has led the sort of life which makes you feel as though you've squandered your own in comparison.

I first found the footage of the 1975 bullfight in Luddenham, NSW, not long after witnessing a real corrida in Spain, wondering if an Australian had ever had a go.

More than a year later, in a job where bulls are the topic of conversation most days, I was suddenly reminded of it.

I wasn't sure if Pedro was alive, but I was determined to find out the story behind Australia's "first bullfight" and how it came to happen at an agricultural show.

It's simple enough, with clever search terms and a few inferences, to discover an incredible amount about most people in a short amount of time.

In fact, many are shocked when confronted with the breadth of information available about themselves online.

Finding out about the elderly, with little to no digital footprint, is a different story.

With a hand from the state libraries, I dug through newspaper archives to find out as much as I could.

Working under the assumption Pedro was Spanish or of Spanish heritage, I got in touch with cultural organisations in the hope somebody recognised the name.

Fortunately and surprisingly, Pedro had more of an online presence than one would think.

A Sydney cafe had posted a video of one of their "loyal customers" a few years ago, an "Australian-born matador".

I inadvertently gave the manager a scare Pedro had suddenly passed away, but I was reassured the bullfighter had been seen on the main street not long ago.

A different side of Pedro's story, his devotion to Catholic life, was also well-documented in an online blog.

I managed to reach out to the man behind the blog - and even Pedro's local priest - and was assured my number would be passed on.

In place of social media, the advantage lies in the traditional annals of newspapers: births, deaths and marriages.

Ancestry sites and cemetery indexes are also valuable.

Records stating Pedro's mother and father were born in Sicily and Sydney, respectively, and he himself in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, suggested contemporary reports about his background were not correct.

That same birth notice gave me the name of his twin brother, who passed away years ago.

An online obituary led me to his children, who I reached out to via Facebook in a leap of faith that they were Pedro's nephews.

Again, I didn't hear back from Pedro.

But at last, after months of searching, I received a direct line to the bullfighter through his brother.

Until that moment, I had become anxious Pedro had closed that chapter of his life for good.

As it happens, he was simply recovering from a medical procedure and wasn't yet feeling up for a chat.

The day before our interview at his home in Kogarah, Pedro told me he could barely lift the capes, let alone perform passes with them.

It seemed the memories brought something back in him - without warning, the 82-year-old was on his feet, spinning and twirling like a dervish on his patio.

We spoke for more than three hours about bullfighting and his life beyond it, and my research paid off more in the enthusiasm in Pedro's voice as he relived those days than any story could.

There were enough stories to write an entire book, most of which were well beyond the remit of an agricultural newspaper.

Despite modern alarm around AI and deepfakes, misinformation is a tale as old as time.

Australian articles described Pedro as an immigrant or at least of Spanish heritage, while the New York Times went a step further and claimed he had killed two bulls in Spain.

The assessment of whether the bull depicted was in fact a "Brahman-cross" was also up for debate.

The Sydney Morning Herald said he was "handicapped" in having to use a wooden sword, but any aficionado would know the real sword is only brought out in the final moments.

Even the whole kerfuffle around Pedro's supposed plan to execute the bull seemed to be the product of hysteria - and clever marketing.

It was a privilege to have the opportunity to sit down with someone with as much of a storied past as Pedro.

While he might not have made it as a matador in Spain, he's certainly lived with no regrets.

In November last year, Pedro's service to the community was recognised in parliament by NSW Premier and state member for Kogarah Chris Minns, although there was no mention of his earlier career.

Fifty years on, in Luddenham, the famous bullfight almost seems like a myth or a folk tale.

And for me, to be able to play a part in putting Pedro's extraordinary life story to the record is an infinitely rewarding feeling.