OH 833 KANCK, Sandra [USE COPY
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STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 833 Edited transcript of an interview with SANDRA KANCK on 26 October 2007 By Alison McDougall For the EMINENT AUSTRALIANS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT 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 1 OH 833 SANDRA KANCK 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 833 Interview with the Honourable Sandra Kanck conducted by Alison McDougall on 26th October 2007 for the Eminent Australians Oral History project of the National Library of Australia and the State Library of South Australia. DISK 1 This is compact flash card one of an interview with the Honourable Sandra Kanck. Sandra has followed a distinguished career in politics and related fields, and is currently the leader of the Democrats in South Australia and a member of the Legislative Council. Sandra will be speaking with me, Alison McDougall, for the Eminent Australians Oral History Project conducted by the National Library of Australia and the State Library of South Australia. On behalf of the Director-General of the National Library and the Director of the State Library of South Australia, I would like to thank you for agreeing to participate in this program. Sandra, do you understand that copyright is shared by you and the libraries? I do. This being so, may we have your permission to make a transcript of this recording should the libraries decide to make one? Most certainly. We hope you will speak as frankly as possible, knowing that neither the tapes nor any transcripts produced from them will be released without your authority. Yes. This interview is taking place today, Friday, 26th October 2007, at the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide. Now, can we begin with your full name plus your date and place of birth. Okay. Full name is Sandra Myrtho Kanck, born in Broken Hill Base Hospital on 20th April 1950. Can you explain the origin of ‘Myrtho’? Not really; it was my grandmother’s name. When I was at high school somebody showed me a French poem, which referred to Myrtho as being some sort of deity or something, perhaps Greek, because just past Renmark there is a little town of Murtho 3 – spelt differently to mine, mine’s M-Y-R-T-H-O and the Greek spelling for this little Greek settlement beyond Renmark is M-U-R-T-H-O – so it’s all a great mystery. And what was your maiden name? Well, it’s Swedish in origin. We pronounced it ‘Cedarblade’, but I understand its pronunciation in Swedish may have been ‘Kedderblood’. And do you have Swedish parents or – – –? Both my parents were born in Australia but antecedents are Swedish, German, English and Cornish, although the English has got a fair bit of German in it, as I understand my great-great-grandfather was a deserter from the Prussian army and fled across to (laughs) England eventually. Now, how did your family come to be in Broken Hill? Well, if I go back to my Swedish grandfather, he was a seaman and jumped ship at Port Adelaide and moved as fast inland as he possibly could, so I’ve got an illegal immigrant background (laughs) – I’m proud to say – and he got to Burra, which was a mining town, and found that he had a career ahead of him as what they used to call in the mines in Broken Hill as being part of a ‘sailor gang’. The sailor gang were the people that were responsible for lowering horses up and down into the pits, and to do that you needed to be able to tie knots that wouldn’t come undone when the horse was being put down in the pits or taken up from the pits, and as a seaman, of course, he was an expert on ropes and knots and so on. So he then went from the Burra mine to I think Thackaringa up to White Cliffs and eventually to Broken Hill. And I think while he was at White Cliffs he met my great-great-grandfather – no, one ‘great’, I think – by the name of Prenzel and he told my grandfather that he had a single daughter and thought it might be worthwhile for him to consider marrying her. So it was virtually an arranged marriage, I don’t know that she got much say in it. So that was where the German came from, because Prenzel was German, and they met up there at White Cliffs and so – I think he, Prenzel, lived in Broken Hill and so he invited my grandfather, Carl Cederblad, back to Broken Hill and that’s how the Broken Hill connection started. 4 On my mother’s side, her father was a Methodist minister and was transferred to Broken Hill and that’s where she met my father. And her surname was – – –? Guthberlet. And what was your father’s first name? William. William Hilding Cederblad, the Hilding being a German name, I understand, or it could have been Swedish, but anyhow they kept that somewhat Germanic–Scandinavian link going with most of the names of their children (laughs). And what job did your father have with the mine? He was an electrical fitter on the Zinc Mine, and was all his life basically and, you know, most people then didn’t travel very far and so on and an electrical fitter was a reasonable job – I guess it was working class but it was educated working class, and it gave a reliable income and he was there until he took early retirement – when was that? – about 1984, I think, that he took slightly early retirement of a couple of years, because they were starting to reduce numbers on the mines and encouraging people to go early. So he retired and he and my mother moved down to Adelaide at that point. And did your mother work outside the home? No; in Broken Hill that wasn’t allowed. The mining unions in Broken Hill had a policy that married women could not hold down jobs unless there was no-one else who could do it, and this was a sort of a ploy, I suppose, to make sure that – this was a time when labour was really, really crucial in the industry, and this ensured that if there was a supply of women willing to be wives, this also ensured then that there was a supply of labour from the men.