NORMAN DUFFY Joan Bock 11/04/1995 E0099 - E100 Disc 1 1:02:54 – Disc 2 20:21 Lisa Iles 20/10/2015 City of Joondalup 1:01:57 This is an interview with Norm Duffy for the Australia Remembers project, at his home in Wanneroo, on 11 April 1995. JB: Would you like to tell me your first name and where you were born? ND: Norm Duffy. In Perth, West Australia. 23 March 1917. JB: What about your parents, Norm? ND: Well, the Dad’s father, he came out from Ireland and of course the father was born in Perth and in his schooling days he was… his schooling days were, especially the high school, was the Christian Brothers College in Fremantle and he attained the Dux of Christian Brothers College during his education. And, of course, in his later years they shifted out to Wanneroo and took up residence at the Twelve Mile and that’s where he market gardened. In 1903 he was appointed the first Secretary of the first Wanneroo Road Board and he held that position until he passed away in 1924. During his… and during that period, I’d say 1923 to ’24, he was also the Secretary of the Wanneroo Race Club, he was Secretary of the Wanneroo Agricultural Society. In 1906 he, 1907 I should say, he married Eva Matilda Cockman. They had eight children, there were seven boys and one girl and unfortunately the Dad died at the early age of 49, he died in 1924. JB: And he left your Mum a widow? ND: He left Mum a widow with eight kids, eight children, the eldest was 16, that was Bill and the youngest was 12 months named Norris. JB: What about your education Norm? ND: Oh, my education, well. My education was, all my education was done at the Wanneroo School, Wanneroo Primary School up at the Fifteen Mile. JB: Was that Dundebar Road? ND: That’s the corner of Dundebar Road that was the old Wanneroo School. Now, at the, whether I was brilliant or not, I don’t know. At the age of 10 I was in the highest standard of class that they would teach out in Wanneroo. If you wanted to go to a higher education, which my Dad did have mapped out for me, he was going to send me to college, but of course he passing on, that omitted me from going there because Mum just couldn’t afford to send us. But if we had wanted to go to a better education, we had to go to Perth Boys’ School which is in James Street, Perth. Well, we were poor as the proverbial church mice and Mum, well, she just couldn’t afford to send me there, so that’s all about it. As I say I reached the standard, the highest standard for the school would teach, when I was 10. And I done four years of the one class because the teacher wouldn’t teach any higher. JB: And you couldn’t leave because you had to… ND: I couldn’t leave because I had to, 14 years of age was when, that was the age before you could leave school. When I was about 13 I suppose, around about 13, our headmaster, Herbert Speers, I only had two, Herbert Speers’ wife in the bubs division and himself in the, say, third, fourth, fifth and sixth standards. As I say before, when I was 13 he used to say to me, ‘Well Norm Duffy, it’s not much use of you staying here in class because you’re just learning the same lesson over and over.’ And he had a, he was a bit of a greenie in those days and he used to say to me ‘Well look, I’ve got a lot of pine, young pines,’ he says, ‘You and Cecil Cockman and Roy Ashby,’ (we’re about the same age) he said. ‘You three boys go and dig holes and plant these pine trees,’ and that’s what we did. All those pine trees were up in the Wanneroo School grounds where the holes were, they were planted by me and Cecil Cockman and Roy Ashby. And the Forestry Department did, when they took over, they did cut them down and they got an enormous amount of timber from those pines that us kids planted. JB: Did the funds go the school? ND: I don’t know. No, well the Forestry had taken it over, I mean the school had shifted and it belonged to the Forestry Department. I think they sent it to the mill for their own purpose. JB: What were you doing in the lead up to the war, Norm? ND: Well, I had a contract, a mail contract, delivering mail from Perth to Yanchep daily and I also had a small poultry farm which was about 500 fowls just to supplement my income. But the majority of my time was, I’d say, was taken up with 5, 6-day a week from Perth to Yanchep delivering mail, also newspapers, bread, parcels, meat, any goods that the people from Wanneroo to Yanchep required. If I was able to supply, I did, because possibly I was the only contact those days between Wanneroo and Yanchep of the people. That was on ‘til I was joined the Army in October 1941. Prior to me going in, I mean the war broke out and I think I was playing tennis down in North Perth on Sunday 3 November 1939. And we listened to the radio and the news came over that the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, was going to broadcast a message to the people of Australia - important message. So we knocked off our tennis early, all rushed home and had our ears tuned to the wireless and the 7 o’clock news came, Menzies came on, and he says the Germans had invaded Poland, Britain had declared war on Germany and consequently seeing that Australia was a part of the Commonwealth of Nations, Australia was at war also with Germany. The reactions, well, I think as far as the people around those times, they were a bit bewildered really, but as the weeks wore by, they said ‘Oh, it will be over in a few days,’ and ‘They’ll soon knock the Germans,’ but that didn’t eventuate. But seeing that Australia was 10, 12 thousand mile away from you, the impact didn’t seem to hit us because we had no, we didn’t, I mean you know, we weren’t, we had no bombs dropping on us, we had no aeroplanes, we had, you know, there was no inkling of war in Australia. The only thing that you read in the newspapers or listened to the wireless and of course every time when the news came on we all listened. I mean, things we getting a bit grim, a couple of the boys out here in Wanneroo joined up and a lot of the youngsters gave it thought, whether we should or we shouldn’t or, then the AIF, it was formed overseas, and people, should we? A lot of the youngsters, should we join or should we produce food or, you know. Run functions and collecting money for the comforts funds for the troops. I mean, that was to my way of thinking that was the impact it really had on people. I don’t think people really, really understood. I do really, I’m sincere, I don’t think they understood until, oh, that would be over I would say 1939 it started, I would say just in the early, of course I joined in… well I was called up in October 1941. But early in the ‘41s, the compulsory training came in and then I think people realised then, well things are not as rosy as we thought, because the powers that be must have known something that the people who didn’t know when they start calling youngsters up, you know for the compulsory training. Anyway I was called up in ’41, I lost my mail contract, I lost my poultry farm, but the powers that be wouldn’t listen, they said ‘No, you gotta go in the army.’ So that’s all about it, you know, so as I say, I lost my poultry farm and the eldest brother, Bill, took over the mail contract when my turn expired, you know. JB: Were you married at this time, Norm? ND: No, no, no I was single, no I was single then. But of course when we went in the army and that we were only greenhorns and this marching and pack drill and rifle drill, I mean it was something new to us all, but eventually we all took it like duck taking to water. But, in December 1941, when the Japs came in, then we thought, well the powers that be must have known something to call us all up because the Japs coming in on the side of the Germans. But really, I still don’t think the people visualised the gravity of it, really, especially the people of Wanneroo. After about six months, I mean we were bivouacked from pillar to post and from Dandaragan to Moora, Northam, sent for our training. If the people had had’ve only known how close the Japs were to Wanneroo, in the early 42s, they would have been worried. Because in the end of April in 1942, our battalion or the 13th Brigade, the lead Battalion the 44th and the 16th Battalion, we were bivouacked up around Moora, Dandaragan, Geraldton and, oh, would have been late April, one night we were called into the CO and I was a corporal then, why they give it to me I don’t know, but there you are, I must have been good looking.