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STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 657/5 Full transcript of an interview with DEAN EVANS on 11 December 2002 By Karen George Recording available on CD Access for research: Unrestricted Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library OH 657/5 DEAN EVANS NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT This transcript was created by the J. D. Somerville Oral History Collection of the State Library. It conforms to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription which are explained below. Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. As with any historical source, these are for the reader to judge. It is the Somerville Collection's policy to produce a transcript that is, so far as possible, a verbatim transcript that preserves the interviewee's manner of speaking and the conversational style of the interview. Certain conventions of transcription have been applied (ie. the omission of meaningless noises, false starts and a percentage of the interviewee's crutch words). Where the interviewee has had the opportunity to read the transcript, their suggested alterations have been incorporated in the text (see below). On the whole, the document can be regarded as a raw transcript. Abbreviations: The interviewee’s alterations may be identified by their initials in insertions in the transcript. Punctuation: Square bracket [ ] indicate material in the transcript that does not occur on the original tape recording. This is usually words, phrases or sentences which the interviewee has inserted to clarify or correct meaning. These are not necessarily differentiated from insertions the interviewer or by Somerville Collection staff which are either minor (a linking word for clarification) or clearly editorial. Relatively insignificant word substitutions or additions by the interviewee as well as minor deletions of words or phrases are often not indicated in the interest of readability. Extensive additional material supplied by the interviewee is usually placed in footnotes at the bottom of the relevant page rather than in square brackets within the text. A series of dots, .... .... .... .... indicates an untranscribable word or phrase. Sentences that were left unfinished in the normal manner of conversation are shown ending in three dashes, - - -. Spelling: Wherever possible the spelling of proper names and unusual terms has been verified. A parenthesised question mark (?) indicates a word that it has not been possible to verify to date. Typeface: The interviewer's questions are shown in bold print. Discrepancies between transcript and tape: This proofread transcript represents the authoritative version of this oral history interview. Researchers using the original tape recording of this interview are cautioned to check this transcript for corrections, additions or deletions which have been made by the interviewer or the interviewee but which will not occur on the tape. See the Punctuation section above.) Minor discrepancies of grammar and sentence structure made in the interest of readability can be ignored but significant changes such as deletion of information or correction of fact should be, respectively, duplicated or acknowledged when the tape recorded version of this interview is used for broadcast or any other form of audio publication. 2 J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 657/5 Interview with Mr Dean Evans recorded by Karen George in Adelaide, South Australia, on 11th December 2002 for the Adelaide City Council Balfour’s Oral History Project. TAPE 1 SIDE A This is an interview with Dean Evans being recorded by Karen George for the Adelaide City Council’s Balfour’s Oral History Project. The interview is taking place on 11th December 2002 in Adelaide, South Australia. First of all I’d like to thank you for agreeing to an interview and taking the time to come over here today. Good. Can we start by you giving me your full name? Dean Evan Evans. Evan Evans? Good Welsh name. What’s your date and place of birth, Dean? Twentieth of the eighth 1943 in Adelaide. Can you tell me just a little bit about your parents, what their names were and their backgrounds? My mother’s name was Mary Effie Orr – she was actually the name Orr, O-double-R – from Goolwa, and my father was William Henry Evans, who has been a little bit of a secret to me. My mother and father got married late in life and my father was in the first landing on Gallipoli, so he was quite old by the time I came along – I think he was about fifty-four. My mother died when I was quite young. But he was a cake decorator, and that’s how Balfour’s came into it. Tell me a little bit about his business, I suppose. He was what they call an ornamental cake decorator. After the War he couldn’t settle down so he kept going back and forth between England and Australia, and he was a baker by trade. He then went over to England, to Glasgow, and he did his trade over there as an ornamental cake decorator. In those days it was like the wedding cake tops that go on wedding cakes, and that was very big in those days. A 3 lot different today. And his main thing was he learnt by one of the best cake decorators in the world at that stage – Who was that? – called Lampard. Guy by the name of Lampard. He brought out a lot of big decorating books. They were quite unique in those days. So Dad studied under him for a year or so. And then he come back to Adelaide, tried to settle down, couldn’t, went back to England again, and what I’ve found out [is] that he travelled most probably about twelve times back and forth to England, even to the point of being in the merchant navy. And in the end he’d gone through a divorce to a lady in England, come back here, met my mother, who lived at Goolwa, and he bought the bakery at Goolwa. From there they come to Adelaide – I think that was round about the time I was born. He had a deli on Goodwood Road, which was quite a large deli in those days. In those days delis were like the mini-supermarkets. Like the one on Goodwood Road that he had was just over the tram crossing there and it was – at one stage I can remember maybe four to five girls working in it, so it was quite a big type of deli. In that he used to do a bit of decorating. He made moulds, what they called moulds, for – they were made out of plaster-of-paris, which you would make up a plastic icing and you would make these – carve these things and you’d mould them. And that became the bridegroom and all those. He used to supply Balfour’s in those days. We then shifted around to fourteen Devon Street, Goodwood, and that was early ’50s, I think, early ’50s. He built a warehouse – or not a warehouse but a factory – at the back of the house. It was quite a big factory in those days in that sort of area. And he employed three girls and they used to make wedding cake tops, he used to go all around Australia interstate, and one of our main suppliers or one of our main people were Balfour’s that we used to supply Rundle Street, King William Street, the shops. And I remember when I was a kid I used to get in the car with my father. We’d batch them up in boxes and bring them in, deliver them, in an Austin A-40 car. So it was quite a – not like today, you couldn’t get away with it, but we used to put them in the boot and on the back seat and you name it, that’s where they used to go. And we used to bring them into town. When I’d done my – in those days – I did my schooling at Goodwood, Goodwood Primary. I then went on to Goodwood Tech, and then from 4 Goodwood Tech I was going to go on further. My mother had taken a massive stroke and was very, very sick. So for three years we virtually had to do everything for her. So my father tried to run a business and look after Mother at the same time. So in the end I just turned around and said, ‘That’s it. I’ve got to go out and work and help.’ The idea was to work at Balfour’s, get an apprenticeship. But in those days, to be quite honest, I had about three jobs I could have gone to. In those days you didn’t have to worry about where you were going to work, it was what you wanted to do. Had you had an ambition to follow your father’s – No. – in your father’s footsteps? No? No. What did you want to do? I wanted to travel more than anything, because I think I got in – it’s Dad’s brain about it. I wanted actually to become an electrician. (laughs) That was one of the things I wanted to do. And I really had no ambitions of going into the bakery because I’d seen the hours my father used to work, so it was like ‘I don’t really want to do that’ because your social life was not – in those days I was, you know, like most kids, pretty wet behind the ears but a bit wild in some ways.

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