STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 658/10

Full transcript of an interview with

TOM AND MARGARET CASEY

on 4 July 2003

By John Mannion

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 658/10 TOM & MARGARET CASEY

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

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J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 658/10

Interview with Tom and Margaret Casey by John Mannion at Myrtle Bank, South Australia, on the 4th July 2003 for The State Library of South Australia’s Peterborough Oral History Project ‘Relaying Our Tracks’.

TAPE 1 SIDE A

It’s the 4th July 2003, this is John Mannion at – where do you actually live, Tom?

TOM: 16 Coachhouse Mews, 18 Cross Road, Myrtle Bank, postcode 5064.

And I can tell people that it’s not easy to find, but once you’re here you’ll never forget it. (laughter) And I’m here today, I’m talking with Tom Casey and his wife, Margaret. I think I’d be right in saying that Tom would be one of Peterborough’s greatest ambassadors, I think. You were involved in politics for a long time and held the country at heart when you were in politics. And I told you about this project we’re doing, Tom, it’s particularly to do with Peterborough and the rail industry as such. Can you tell me a bit about yourself, Tom, where you were born and what year you were born, and a bit about your parents?

TOM: I was born in Quorn in 1921, when my parents owned the Austral Hotel. From Quorn my people came to Adelaide, where my father bought a house at Young Street, Wayville, and in 1922 he leased the Port Broughton Hotel for twelve months, and then in 1923 he bought the freehold of the Peterborough Hotel and we moved to Peterborough in 1923. That hotel remained in the family’s hands until late in the ’60s, when we sold it. It was in my mother’s name and she was responsible for its sale.

Just go back a bit, you were telling me about your grandfather before. Can you tell us a bit about him and how he got a job in the railway?

TOM: My grandfather and grandmother, Patrick and Bridget Casey, came out from Ireland on the ship called the Hesperus, and they landed at Port Adelaide and they – Patrick got a job with the South Australian Railways at Terowie, where they lived in a tent. They had two children who were born in Ireland before they left Ireland, they were born in Ireland, and then after some time in Terowie they moved to Ucolta where again they lived in tents.

What was your dad doing?

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He was a ganger on the railways, Grandfather Patrick. I didn’t even know him because he died before I came into being. Anyway, he moved then to Yunta and most of the rest of the family were born in Yunta, including my father, James. And my dad, I think he got a job in the railways for a short time. I think he put his age up in order to get into the railways as a job, but then he – he didn’t like the railways and he got a job as a barman at the Peterborough Hotel. And just prior to that he worked in Port Pirie as a sort of an ostler.

To the uninitiated, can you explain what an ostler is?

Well, an ostler is sort of a handyman in the hotels, used to clean the shoes and clean up the rubbish and do odd jobs around the place, and he lived with a family at Warnertown, and he used to push his bike from Warnertown into Pirie every day for this job. And then, as I said, eventually he left Warnertown and came to Peterborough and got a job as the barman at the Peterborough Hotel, and then he met my mother, who was born in Peterborough. Her name was Amelia Malachy. (coughs) Excuse me. They were married in 1916 in Peterborough, and they lived in Peterborough for twelve months, when my brother, Naish[?], was born. They then moved to Quorn, where Dad bought the freehold of the Austral Hotel, which in those days was a single-storey hotel, and during the seven years that my dad was in the hotel at Quorn, he built the second storey, and then he leased the hotel after that and came to Adelaide for a short time, as I said, purchasing a house in Wayville. And then he leased the hotel at Port Broughton for twelve months and then he bought the freehold of the Peterborough Hotel, where we moved to in 1923. And of course I was brought up in the hotel business, and I went to school in Peterborough as a primary school student, and my secondary school was completed at Rostrevor College in Adelaide, where I boarded as a country boarder. There weren’t many boarders in those days at Rostrevor College. As a matter of fact, it’s got to the stage now where my vintage, we’re some of the oldest living members of the Rostrevor College now, although there are several members that go back into the ’20s. But I started off at Rostrevor in 1934.

So were your formative years spent in Peterborough, would you say?

TOM: Yes. Yes. Right up until the war years, and then I joined the Army and I was stationed at Woodside, and my unit was the 48th Battalion, which was an

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infantry battalion, and we moved out of Woodside and went into Victoria for training in very heavily-timbered country outside of Geelong. Matter of fact, it wasn’t very far from a place called Anglesea, which is on the coast. And from there we moved to Sydney and we were training then with a brigade, that’s an infantry brigade, and then all of a sudden headquarters notified the powers that be that all infantry battalions were to be disbanded. I think that was a direct order from General Blamey at that time. And we all went into light anti-aircraft, Bofors, and I did my initial training on Bofors at Richmond. And from there I went to Newcastle – first of all Sydney, and then Newcastle, and then Townsville, where my regiment was – we were defending the Garbutt airfield, which was outside of Townsville, which was alongside of the American assembly base called 4AD, where a lot of the ’planes used to come out from America on flat-tops, and they were reassembled at 4AD and then they were made available for South Pacific.

So they were brought out on aircraft carriers?

TOM: Yes, on flat-tops, we used to call them flat-tops. During that time I instructed, I suppose, a dozen American – young Americans on Bofors, and you would be surprised to realise that these fellows had never seen a Bofor gun. They had no idea of drill, they had no idea of how the gun operated or anything, we had to start off from scratch. And I taught about a dozen crews the basic skills of the Bofor gun and so forth. But that really staggered me, to think that these boys came out from America with no knowledge whatsoever, just forced into this particular area. And after the War Margaret and I were married.

So how did you meet Margaret?

TOM: Well, strangely enough, I met her on my twenty-first birthday. I was on leave in Melbourne for a weekend, and I’d always wanted to go ice-skating. And I went to St Moritz ice-skating rink in St Kilda, and Margaret was there with her sister and another friend and they asked me would I look after their goods while they went on the ice, skating. And I said yes, I’d do that. And feeling a bit lonely, I think, for perhaps conversation, I asked them (clock chimes) would they like some supper before they went home, and they all ordered steak and eggs! Which was about the most expensive item on the list.

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Were you expected to pay?

TOM: Oh yes, I had to pay. Oh yes, yes. And then to finish up with I put them in a taxi and sent them home.

That was a mistake, you shouldn’t have sent them home.

TOM: Absolutely, I shouldn’t have done that at all. Well, that was the beginning of a sort of a courtship which went on for quite some time, was on and off, and it was very difficult during war years to keep in touch, apart from a few letter- writings, and that’s about it. Anyway, we met in unusual circumstances. At the end of the War I was going back to my unit up in Townsville, I think it was, or Cairns, and I said to a friend of mine – we were in Melbourne on leave, we had leave there for the weekend – and I said to them, ‘Well, let’s go up to the Exhibition Building,’ I said, ‘there’s a thousand hostesses up there,’ I said. ‘Surely we can find one out of that lot.’ And it was a Canadian barn dance, I think about the second or third dance when we got there, and I joined in and I got around to ..... and suddenly who should – the girl coming towards me was Margaret. And I said, ‘Oh well, we’ll sit this one out,’ and so we went and sat down. And we talked about things, and then our relationship blossomed from then on. And I came down back to Melbourne to do my Officers’ Training School and I got my commission, went back to my unit and then I came back to Melbourne and we got married. And we were married in Our Lady of Victory’s Church which is now a basilica in Camper[down] – beautiful church, absolutely magnificent – and whenever we go back to Melbourne we always go back and say a few prayers in the basilica.

Was it a big wedding?

TOM: Oh no, just a – you know.

MARGARET: It was a big wedding for those days. (clock chimes, break in recording)

We just had an interlude for the ’fridge. Tom, I asked you whether, was it a big wedding.

TOM: Yes, it was a big wedding, yes.

And did your parents go across from South Australia?

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TOM: Yes, they came down from Peterborough with a cousin of mine called Rosalie Victory[?], and of course my brother and his wife, because my brother was the best man.

Who was that?

TOM: Naish. There’d only be two brothers, only two of us in my family, Naish and myself. And Margaret’s two sisters were the bridesmaids.

And you were telling me you had a bit of trouble, there was a seat shortage on The Overland1.

TOM: (laughs) Oh yes, yes. Yes, we had to do a little bit of wheeling and dealing to get on The Overland, but I managed it.

How much did that cost you?

TOM: It cost me five pounds extra. (laughs)

That was under the – – –?

TOM: Under the ....., yes. Well, that’s what you had to do to get on the train. And of course we were more or less desperate, in order to get over there for the wedding, so I had little choice.

That’s right.

TOM: But everything turned out all right, so that’s the main thing.

And, Margaret, where were you working at this time, when you met Tom?

MARGARET: I worked in an office until I joined up, which only amounted to three or four months in an office, and then I joined the Air Force, WAAAFs2, and I was sent to the medical headquarters and then I was posted to a station, it was a hospital, at Cressy Station down the Western District, and another posting up to operational hospital, and I was there in the hospital area, or medical area, for three and a half to four years, and got my discharge. And instead of buying – I never had a civilian thing to my name, so we made our wedding date to fit in with me particularly, because I had to buy all new clothes because I was coming out of the

1 The Overland – train between South Australia and Melbourne. 2 WAAAF – Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force.

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services, so I made that my wedding trousseau at the same time. And I didn’t want to go back to work – I could have had my office job back, but I didn’t want to do that seeing as I only had a few months to go before we were married.

So you weren’t involved in the nursing side of – – –?

MARGARET: No, I was administration, all administration in nursing. But being in administration in a hospital you were involved with a lot of administering drugs or nursing in the hospital because they were so short of nurses in hospitals in districts, because most of the Registered Nurses were overseas and so they were short of Registered Nurses to handle hospitals. Apart from administration, admitting and carrying out the medical ordered by the doctor and things like that, I still wasn’t a Registered Nurse, I was just in medical administration.

And you were saying a while ago that you’d come across to Adelaide on occasions.

MARGARET: I’d never been to Adelaide before I met Tom, I came across to meet Tom’s family. And fortunately, being in uniform, I managed to get across on aircraft that were flying across, somebody would contact me, one of the pilots would contact me, and they knew I was engaged and they said, ‘Do you want to go across for the weekend to see your fiancé?’ and that’s how I did it. Used to go out from Flemington, they’d ..... from Flemington.

And was that a freebie?

MARGARET: That was a freebie, there was no money exchanged, anything like that, it was just that you had to know the right people at the right time.

That’s right through life, isn’t it?

MARGARET: Right through life. And I would never have got across, I would never have got that much leave to come across by train – if I could have got on the train. But flying across like that, I was over within a few hours and able to meet up with Tom. It was only for a weekend, and I’d go back to the hospital again at Ascot Park, where I was working in the Toorak Hospital, until my discharge. And then they took months to give me my discharge because my surname started with a ‘C’ and they mislaid it by –

TOM: Filing it.

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MARGARET: – filing it under ‘G’, and they had to go through all the alphabet that was looking like a ‘C’ until they found it. So I was in uniform right up till about two or three weeks before I was married.

So what was your maiden name?

MARGARET: Crick, C-R-I-C-K.

Now, where did you come from in Victoria?

MARGARET: Gippsland. I was born in Sale, then my parents went down to what they called Childers, it’s very close to Thorpdale where they had a dairy farm, and grew potatoes. (sound of interference with microphone)

We’ll just leave that on there, I think. If we just put it on here, we’ll get the both of you. (unrelated comments) Now, what did your parents do in Gippsland?

MARGARET: They had a big dairy farm and potato growing, because Gippsland is very big growing potato.

So they were off the land.

MARGARET: Off the land, yes, off the land.

Had you ever heard of Peterborough in your life, in South Australia?

MARGARET: Never, never, no. Oh, when you went interstate those days was like going overseas, you know, it was a big deal. If the money was available. And then in 1933 the big Depression and my people lost everything, and they ended up going down to Melbourne to live. So everybody in those areas up round there that had properties, they did lose them through the Depression. And went to school down here in Melbourne and then I went into an office – after leaving school I went into an office, and then to an office in the Air Force, and that was the finish. There was no such thing as teenage years with the War being on. And I had two sisters, one was in the Navy, a WRAN3 in the Navy, and the other one, the government wouldn’t let – she was in what they called ‘compulsory work’ and they wouldn’t give her a clearance, otherwise she would have joined the Army. And people used to say to my mother, ‘Aren’t you lucky you haven’t got a son that’s joined up in the

3 WRANS – Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service.

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services?’ And she said, ‘But I’ve got two girls in uniform,’ she said, ‘and the third one would be there if she was allowed to go, too.’ But they wouldn’t free her to go.

So farming life wasn’t really new to you.

MARGARET: Not the land, no. I was born in Sale, that’s Gippsland way.

But did that prepare you for what you found at Peterborough?

MARGARET: Probably no, no, but it was the country, you see. I was from the country. The city life – I mean, that’s another kind of life. So when you’re born in the country and you’ve spent your – I think I was about twelve or something when we left the country, so I spent most of my growing up years in the country, and just coming down to the city to finish off my education. And no sooner (clock chimes) I’d got through that than war broke out. And that was about the extent of it then.

You were telling me a while ago about you met a bloke from Yunta when you were in the Air Force?

MARGARET: Oh, that was quite interesting. I was sent to Central Gunnery School, that was down near Colac, and I was posted down there into the RAAF4 Hospital, and there was about probably ten, fifteen miles, there was a – a car came for me, a transport driver, and got talking on the way home, back to the station, and I asked the driver, ‘Where did you come from?’ He said, ‘I come from Yunta.’ And he said, ‘You heard of it?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘All I’ve heard of South Australia is Peterborough.’ I said, ‘I don’t know if you know of anybody at Peterborough, I don’t know where it is, but I don’t know if you know it,’ and I said, ‘His name is Tom Casey.’ He said, ‘Oh yes, I know Tom Casey.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s the fellow I write to.’ (laughs) I said, ‘I met him and I write to him, and that’s all I know about Adelaide.’

So after the wedding, did you have a honeymoon at all?

MARGARET: Yes. Tom was lucky enough to – – –.

TOM: Yes, we went to Sydney.

4 RAAF – Royal Australian Air Force.

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MARGARET: Went to Sydney. He was lucky enough, being an officer in the Army, he was lucky enough to pull a couple of strings and get us to Sydney for a honeymoon.

You were still on active service then, Tom, you were still in the Army?

TOM: Yes.

What year, when did you get married?

MARGARET: It was ’46, January 12, ’46.

Oh, so the War was over but you were still – – –.

MARGARET: It was over, yes, it was over in the August, the War, and it took all that time then to clear up and – – –. A lot didn’t get their discharge as early as I did. I put in for it – since I was engaged I put in for it straight away, and I had a pretty good run through because I was planning on getting married, getting my discharge. And then, after our honeymoon, we came back to Melbourne and then back here to Adelaide because Tom was at the Wayville, he was still stationed over here. He only had certain leave. And we got a nice flat at Glenelg, and he was in the Army, and we lived there until Tom got his discharge later, round the April, round about that time, then we went to Peterborough to live and we were living with his parents there for twelve months until they went back into the hotel. And they went back into the hotel when the lease was up in there, and we had to live with them until the lease was up in the hotel.

Okay, we’ll go back a bit from there. Tom, at this stage where were your parents living?

TOM: Living where?

In Peterborough?

TOM: Living at the hotel. During the war years they were living out at the property, ...... Park.

Yes. Now, we’ll go back to when you lived in the hotel as a boy. What do you remember about growing up in the hotel in Peterborough?

TOM: I remember that I had to take the cow, which we used to have at the hotel for milk, I had to take the cow up to a vacant block north of the hotel, the other side

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of Bridger Street, where there was plenty of grass and so forth, that was my daily chores in the morning before I went to school. And I used to hate it because in the springtime the magpies used to nest and they used to swoop onto me. Oh, they were vicious, absolutely vicious! As a matter of fact, I had a stick one day and I hit one, he came right down so close to me, I hit him with the stick. And I complained to my dad about it and he just laughed, he just thought it was a lot of fun. But they were some of the things that I disliked. Oh, another thing was we used to get a lot of wood sawn up by the Howard brothers and we had to stack all this wood in the sheds. And we really worked, this was at weekends.

Where was the Howard wood yard?

TOM: In the main street, in the main street just west of the Federal Hotel.

And how did it get delivered to your place, to the back of your hotel?

TOM: Oh, usually by some of the wood cutters. I think Alan Crack[?] was one, if I remember correctly.

MARGARET: He had a horse – – –.

TOM: They used to bring it in in truckloads. Oh, we used to have a lot of wood sawn up, a lot of wood, because in the wintertime, you can imagine Peterborough, being very cold, there used to be fires everywhere – in every room that we had in the hotel, practically. In the commercial rooms where the travellers used to do all their homework, and in the parlours we had fires, and in my parents’ office was a fire in there, and then of course in the front bar and the saloon bar we had fires. So you can imagine that a lot of wood was burnt over the twelve months period, particularly in the wintertime.

You mentioned the parlours, what were they?

TOM: Oh, rooms where you could go and sit down and read or play cards. Mostly for the boarders of the hotel. See, there could have been anything up to ten boarders at one time at the hotel.

And did you have much involvement with the hotel, like did you get behind the bar at all as a kid?

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TOM: Oh yes, oh yes. I used to operate in the front bar on occasions, and then also in the saloon bar. And then back in the ’30s we used to bottle quarts, and I used to do all the bottling of the quarts, a quart bottle, for beer. As a matter of fact, one burst one time and hit me in the chin and I had to have five stitches in the chin. I was lucky it didn’t get me in the eye. After that I had to wear a mask.

Yes?

TOM: Yes, big mask over. Just in case as soon as you turned the tap on to let the gas in, if the quart had a slight crack in it of course she’d just blow, she’d burst.

So what was the mask made of?

TOM: Oh, just fine mesh.

Oh, similar to flywire.

TOM: Yes, something like that, yes. Bit stronger than flywire.

So the beer you put in these quarts, that was still beer then you carbonated it?

TOM: No, no, no. Oh yes, yes, it came out of the keg, straight out. First of all you’d put the gas in, then you’d put the beer in, then you’d put the cork in.

And the kegs, were they the wooden kegs?

TOM: Yes, the wooden kegs, yes. And we never ever got, to my knowledge, in all the kegs that I bottled, all the beer out of the kegs that I bottled, we never got the correct amount of beer.

Now, why do you reckon that might have been?

TOM: I don’t know. But a ten-gallon keg, there were four quarts in a gallon, you’d expect forty – – –. You’d only get about thirty-eight.

I’ve heard stories of some of the railway workers tapping the kegs, that could have been the reason.

TOM: Well, that’s possible. No, they used to swipe bottles. Not kegs, bottles.

So how was the beer delivered to your hotel?

TOM: Well, by the Howard brothers. They had a horse and a flat-top tray and they used to load all this stuff onto there and deliver it around to the different hotels

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and so forth, and that’s how the beer was delivered from Peterborough Railway Station to the different hotels and businesses.

So they picked it up from the railway station and –

TOM: Yes.

– delivered it.

TOM: Yes.

And where did they store the beer, was it downstairs?

TOM: Yes, we had a cellar. We used to put the kegs on a chute with ropes around it and let it go down slowly, and then bring another keg. Anything up to perhaps five eighteens and five tens down in the cellar, together with all our bottled beer.

Was bottled beer a big thing back then?

TOM: No, not a big thing, no. You’d often – people would come in and get a bottle of draught beer rather than buy the bottled beer, it was cheaper.

Now, what was the difference?

TOM: What, in price?

No, between the draught beer and the bottled beer?

TOM: Oh well, the same thing applies today. You go into a hotel and you have draught beer, if you go into – and you buy a carton of beer, that’s bottled beer. Not much difference really, except the price structure. And of course draught beer is always cheaper than the bottled beer. I used to also bottle wine out of kegs into 750ml bottles. That used to sell in those days for two shillings. Two shillings a bottle.

So it was cheap drugs.

TOM: Well, yes. There was one fellow used to come out and he used to ask for his ‘bottle of ink’, (laughs) that’s what he used to call it. ‘Give us a bottle of ink.’

So as a kid do you remember any characters around Peterborough then, who really stand out?

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TOM: Oh yes, there was one particular character, a fellow called Horace Nelson. Horace Nelson, he had a wife who developed cancer at an early age and she died and old Horace was left on his own. And he used to deliver the Sunday Mails around the place, he used to look after the women on saleyards, he used to stoke up the copper for the women for their hot water to make tea for the afternoon teas for the chappies in the saleyards. He never did anybody any harm, old Horace, but he was a bit of a recluse, and I used to bring him in kangaroo tails. He used to love kangaroo tails. I think he lived on kangaroo tail. And he lived in an old wooden home down the bottom end of Main Street, and I think what happened was that I think he must have had a heart attack and he knocked over the kerosene lamp and his house went up in flames and he went with it, poor old Horace. And he was buried in the Peterborough Cemetery, and back here a few years ago Sidney Aileff[?], one of the older inhabitants, got in touch with quite a few of us who knew old Horace and asked if we’d contribute towards a bit of a tombstone over his grave, [to] which I was very happy to contribute, because even though he was a bit of a funny old bloke he never did anybody any harm. Matter of fact, anything that he did he did a lot of good. Yes, poor old Horace Nelson. He was probably the most outstanding bloke that I can remember in Peterborough.

MARGARET: How old would he have been in those days?

TOM: (coughs) Excuse me.

How old would he have been?

MARGARET: Yes, I said to him, ‘How old would he have been in those days he used to boil up the copper for us and everything?’

TOM: Oh, I suppose he’d be in his fifties. I reckon he would have been in his sixties when he died, old Horace. But of course he lived – you know, he always looked dirty, old Horace, you know. I don’t think he ever had a bath. He probably had a wash but he probably never had a bath. But anyway, as I said, he never did anybody any harm. Anything he did, he did a lot of good.

And so this was in the six o’clock closing era, wasn’t it?

TOM: Yes.

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So did the pub keep operating after six on a big scale?

TOM: No. No, no, no. The only time you could operate after six o’clock was if you got a special permit, there might have been something on (clock chimes) in the town that warranted a special dispensation from the Liquor people, and we used to get – occasionally we’d get a permit to operate up until eleven o’clock at night. Few and far between.

And what about the boarders who lived in the hotel?

TOM: Yes, they could get a drink any time.

Oh, right.

TOM: That was no problem. And then there came an order from the Licensing Court that travellers that travelled over – I think it was over a hundred miles, I think, in those days, if they arrived at a hotel they could get a drink after hours. But they had to sign a document to say that they’d travelled over a hundred miles, their last port of call was so-and-so. He was a bona fide traveller.

Do you think that system was abused?

TOM: Oh, I think it was, yes. I think it was.

And so you left Peterborough at the end of primary school.

TOM: Yes, that’s right. At the end of primary school I came down here to Adelaide, and then when I completed my secondary education I went back on the property.

Can you tell us about how your dad got this property, where it was?

TOM: Yes. Well, the property was seven miles east of Peterborough, which is about ten k’s5, and it used to be the headquarters of the railway picnic crowd. They used to operate in this property. It was owned by a fellow called Baum[?] and he went broke back in the mid-’30s, and it came up for sale in 1936. And my father took a liking to this property and he purchased it, and I think he had an idea that I might go onto the land because my mother was off the land and I used to show an inclination of going out to my grandmother’s property one mile from Peterborough,

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every opportunity I’d get I’d go out onto Malachies’ farm. So after the secondary school I went onto the property and I worked there for a couple of years until I joined the Army.

So was anyone living on the property prior to that?

TOM: What, prior to my dad purchasing it?

No, like your family – when he bought it, did he live there?

TOM: No. No, he lived in the hotel. And there was a cousin of mine came and worked on the property for a while, his name was Cleat Crowhurst[?], and he used to work the stations up in the north-east, he used to work at Panoramity[?], and I think he used to work on Moonaroo[?] dam-sinking, I think, at one stage.

MARGARET: Who was this .....?

TOM: Anyway, he left and then he came to Adelaide.

MARGARET: Where did Lil get the house called ‘Lil’s House’, where did that come from?

TOM: Oh, during the War, my father leased the hotel at Peterborough because both Naish and myself, my brother and myself, we were in the Army. And Dad engaged a fellow called Harry Lambert and he had a wife called Lil. And there was a little house at the back of the main house at Amelia Park, and because Harry’s wife was called Lil we called it ‘Lil’s House’. But what I didn’t tell you was that, when Dad bought the property, it didn’t have a name actually so he called it Amelia Park after my mother, whose name was Amelia.

So your dad had had no farming experience?

TOM: No, none whatsoever.

You mentioned that he used to drive cattle down through – – –.

TOM: Yes, sometimes he did, yes, with somebody else. He was only a young fellow.

5 Kilometres.

17

MARGARET: Where did the property get – because I’ve always known it as ‘the ranch’. Where did that come from?

TOM: Well, when we were in the hotel business after Dad purchased the property, I think it was Naish said, ‘Oh, we’ll call it “the ranch”.’ It was only ...... because Malachies’ was ‘the farm’. If you were going to go to ‘the farm’ you’d go to Malachies’ farm. But we settled on the word ‘the ranch’.

Just to differentiate between them.

TOM: Yes, that’s right.

Malachies, is that Hillview?

TOM: Yes.

Just south of Peterborough.

TOM: Yes, that’s right.

That’s the family property.

TOM: That’s the Malachie, the old Malachies family’s, yes. My grandmother Francesca and her husband Peter, they lived there. Their whole family were born there.

So after your high schooling down here you went back to the farm –

TOM: Yes.

– to the ranch.

TOM: Yes, for about eighteen months before I joined the Army.

And did you live there on your own?

TOM: Yes. I used to sleep out on the veranda.

And how did you take to the – was it farming, or grazing?

TOM: No, grazing. Oh yes, I liked it, I thought it was great, yes.

Then the War intervened and – – –.

TOM: Yes. It took a big slice out of your life. Particularly a young life, you know. I was only twenty, I think, when I joined up, and (coughs) you get out when you’re about twenty-five, you’ve got all those years that you’ve got to account for.

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It’s a long time. But I wouldn’t have swapped it, I enjoyed it. I met a lot of good friends, made a lot of good mates. I still keep in touch with some of them after all these years.

MARGARET: Well, it’s a bit like me. I’ve got three or four, we’ve kept in touch often, every month or so we give one another a ring. One’s in Western Australia, one’s in Queensland, one’s in Victoria and I’m in South Australia. But we ring, we talk as if we’ve just seen each other last week. And it’ll probably always be like that.

And so when you returned to the farm, did you take Margaret with you?

TOM: Yes.

What did you think when you first saw the farm, Margaret?

MARGARET: Well, as I said, as Tom said, I wondered what things live on up there. All I saw was dust and stones, and of course it was December when I first met Tom’s people. We married in January and went up there to live in the April. I couldn’t believe how icy cold it got in the winter, that was hard to believe. And it’s funny, the north gets into your blood. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to Victoria and I never had itchy feet to go back to Victoria. I just loved the climate, the dry, hot climate, and it used to get so hot up there. And of course then the children, you had the babies, you were busy, and I used to help Tom milk the cows and help him whenever I could outside, and he helped me with the children at tea time, and I’d put them to bed and he’d wash the tea dishes. I mean, we worked so well together – – –.

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE A: TAPE 1 SIDE B

MARGARET: – – – Baptists, and it was very obvious they did not like Catholics. But they were quite good friends – the ladies were. And it was one thing in particular that comes to mind, it was Tom built the woolshed and that was a great day when that was built. But before that they used to always have card –

TOM: Euchre evenings.

MARGARET: – Euchre evenings, and they visited one another’s homes, mainly the Baptists, you know, and they’d invite us along because we were extras in the

19

district. But this particular day the woolshed was completed and we decided to have an opening, and the proceeds were to go to the Red Cross. So it was quite new in the town to have a woolshed and have a woolshed dance, and so all the ladies got together and they thought they’d put on the supper, and we had this dance, we had an orchestra or a band, [whatever] you’d like to call it, and I cleaned out a couple of the rooms in the house and decorated them and got all the rooms all ready for the card players because I knew all the people around us were card players – mostly, ninety-nine per cent of the Baptist people, all euchre players, and I thought, ‘Now, that’ll be something for the oldies’ and the ones that didn’t dance, they could come and have euchre in the home. Cleaned out the house and got it all decorated and everything and that night came and the band arrived and hundreds of people came, and nobody came to the house for the euchre. I thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s later on.” But it got to the stage where we had so many people come to the dance, one crowd used to come in and dance, then they’d have to move out to let the other crowd come in because there were so many of them. But still no euchre players. And it got back to me that ‘They don’t visit Catholics’ homes, Baptists.’ So therefore I never had one euchre player visit the home for euchre, but they were all just people from the town that came out for the dance and the party.

Was that religious bigotry common back then?

MARGARET: Yes.

TOM: It was then. Not so much today. Not so much today.

And it always seemed anti-Catholics, didn’t it?

TOM: Yes, it was. Yes, even the Methodists, they were very anti-Catholic.

MARGARET: But it was very, very evident, to think, going to all that trouble and that lovely supper and the home was all done up and all the tables all ready, all ready to play euchre, and not one soul turned up.

Did that hurt a lot?

MARGARET: Well, those days you didn’t know very much. But one of the ladies told me, ‘You know why, don’t you?’ She was – that was Mrs Lang[?] –

TOM: Yes.

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MARGARET: – Limpy Lang – she said, ‘You know why they didn’t come, Margaret?’ And I said, ‘No, I’ve got no idea, I’ve never come up against anything like this. I thought you all play euchre around the district and I just thought that would be it.’ And she said, she told me, Mrs Lang told me, that was the reason why they wouldn’t come into the home, because it was a Catholic home.

TOM: Yes, that was right.

The Baptist was very strong at Ucolta though, wasn’t it?

TOM: Yes, they were, very strong.

MARGARET: Well, there was, not so long before we left up there, there was a chappie came out to visit us, he happened to be the Baptist Minister. And we had him inside, we had afternoon tea, we had a couple of hours’ chat, and when we took him – he said he must go now, went out and we shook hands, he said, ‘You’re very, very welcome to come across to my church every Sunday.’ And then Tom said, ‘But we have our own religion and we go to our church, so no, thank you for the invitation but we’ll go to our own church.’ He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I used to live next door to Catholics, next door to a Casey family, and they weren’t Catholics,’ and he said, ‘and I just took it for granted that you weren’t Catholic.’ And he never spoke to us from that day to this. We just weren’t the right colour. (laughs)

Same colour!

MARGARET: Same colour, but we weren’t the right breed.

You mentioned Limpy Lang, who was he?

TOM: Well, he had a property at Peterborough. That was his nickname, Limpy, because he used to walk with a bit of a limp. And his wife was a very, very nice lady, she wasn’t a bit bigoted at all. And Limpy, he wasn’t that bigoted either, he was a pretty down-to-earth sort of a bloke, and we used to get on very well as neighbours.

Where was his place?

TOM: Just north of Peterborough, just off the Peterborough-Dawson road.

Was that Dilly’s father, Bob’s father?

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TOM: No. Laurie Lang was the son.

Oh yes, yes.

TOM: Laurie.

Laurie’s still in Peterborough. He sold the place.

TOM: He sold the place. Malachies bought it, I think.

Oh, yes.

TOM: Because they own just about half of Peterborough, Malachies.

MARGARET: She was a lovely lady. She was just one of you, you know, regardless of what religion or anything.

TOM: She was very down-to-earth.

So the shearing shed was a big occasion.

TOM: Oh, absolutely, yes.

MARGARET: And do you know – – –.

TOM: We had several dances at the woolshed.

MARGARET: To raise money for the Red Cross mainly, because Tom’s (doorbell rings) –

TOM: There’s somebody there, Marg.

MARGARET: – Tom’s mother was Red Cross President.

TOM: There’s a lady there. (break in recording)

So the woolshed dance was a big occasion.

TOM: Oh, absolutely terrific.

You said, Margaret, the woolsheds were – like a decent woolshed would have been a bit of a scarcity, was it?

TOM: Oh, it was up in Peterborough, yes. Of course, the old woolshed up at Parnaroo[?], that was a very good Mecca for dancing. That was in vogue when my mother was a girl, and of course since then they’ve put a new jarrah floor in and everything. And Peter Malachie was mixed up with it for quite a number of years.

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But it suddenly died a sudden death, Parnaroo. It used to be a great night out at Parnaroo, ooh, yes.

MARGARET: The floors, you had to scrape candle to get the wax, sawdust, and they really worked on the floor to get it for dancing.

Was this before the shearing or after?

MARGARET: No, this was before. This is when it was opened.

Oh, before there’d been any sheep across the board?

MARGARET: Oh no, no, no sheep had been in that shed before the woolshed was – – –.

TOM: No.

MARGARET: No, it was brand new. And Tom went out with the utility and he picked up hundreds of bottles around the paddock! (laughs)

TOM: Of course, we had to get a permit to say that there was going to be liquor consumed on this property, and they weren’t allowed to drink within a hundred metres of the property or thereabouts. But that didn’t make any difference, they were drinking – – –.

MARGARET: But they were all around, the empty bottles, all around the paddock. (laughs)

TOM: Yes.

So this building of the shed was in the 1950s, you said.

TOM: Yes.

Was that due to a material shortage?

TOM: Yes. It was very difficult in those days, yes. But I managed it.

What was the quality of the material? Like you said a lot of it was Japanese.

TOM: Yes, very good. Very good, yes.

So what was the Japanese component?

TOM: Cement, then galvanised iron.

23

And where did you get them from?

TOM: I go the cement from Adelaide and the galvanised iron, I think that came from Adelaide too. And all the timber came from Geddes at Pirie.

So there was none of this ordering through your local stock firm back then?

TOM: No. No, nothing. I don’t think so. I can’t remember, but – – –. I might have got the cement through Elders, I might have, but I can’t remember. That’s a possibility.

Did you do the building yourself?

TOM: Yes, I did everything except put the roof on. That was too much for me and I got special carpenters to put that up.

Where did you get them?

TOM: There was a contractor called Jim Haines, he had a contract to build some Housing Trust homes in Peterborough, and he used to board at the hotel. And my dad asked him would he make his – when they finished the houses, would he make his carpenters available to put the roof on this shed and he said yes, he’d do that. So Dad paid for the carpenters to put the roof on, yes. But I made fifteen hundred bricks: one thousand, five hundred bricks I made. And it turned out very good, very good.

MARGARET: Well, it’s still standing. (laughs)

What did you do before you had the shearing shed, how did you get on with the shearing?

TOM: Oh, there was an old shed there with a straw roof and mallee uprights. It’d rain and all the water would come down over the shearers – oh, it was terrible. And I put up with it for twelve months and I knew what the, you know, the crutchings we used to do there, and I used to do my own crutching. It’d rain, the water would come down, down your back of the neck and all this sort of business and I said, ‘Bulldoze the whole show.’ So I pulled it all down and started to build this new one. My dad didn’t think it’d eventuate, neither did my uncles, the Malachies. They didn’t think I’d build it.

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Where did you get your building skills, did you just pick them up? Your building skills, did you just pick them up through experience?

TOM: Yes, just through – yes, it’s not difficult. How to use a plumb line, that’s all.

And you were saying before how it was the Casey boys used to shear there?

TOM: Shear there, yes. They shore there for quite a few years. And then we had different blokes over the years, I can’t remember them all now. Murray Abbott was another one.

MARGARET: Mercer.

TOM: Tom Mercer, yes, he was another one.

MARGARET: Peter Malachie.

TOM: Yes, Peter was only there for a couple of years. Taught him how to shear, when we’d taught him how to shear he didn’t come back.

So how many stands did the new shed have?

TOM: Three. Three stands. And for the first few years we only used to use two, and now John’s up there now, he bought more property and runs more sheep, he runs three stands now. The only trouble with it is now there’s not quite enough holding overnight. If it rains overnight there’s only enough there for two hundred sheep, it holds two hundred. Perhaps two hundred and ten, something like that. So it’s only enough there for a run for two shearers. But, oh well, if John wants to build more he’ll have to build more, won’t he?

Right.

TOM: Simple as that.

You’ll have to go and help him.

TOM: No, not now, I’ve finished. No, I’ve done all the helping, I’ve had – gee, I used to go up and help with fencing and putting his crops in. Yes, I did a lot. I can’t do it now.

MARGARET: Well, that was years ago. He was the age where he could do it.

TOM: I was fit.

25

You showed me this newspaper cutting.

TOM: Yes.

Dated 1940. Can you tell me a bit about it? It’s a cartoon, or a caricature, isn’t it?

TOM: Yes.

What’s it actually – it’s to do with sport, I can see that.

TOM: Yes. Well, this was just prior to the game when we were going to play Sturt, and it was going to be my first League game with North Adelaide.

This was Australian Rules football.

TOM: Yes. And I met this chappie only about a month ago, Colin Amott[?]. He said to me, ‘You’re Tom Casey, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘I’m Colin Amott.’ I said, ‘Go on, Colin, how are you?’ Yes, that’s him. So this chappie was in the Air Force and I played half back for North Adelaide, and they got me hanging on to the tail, half back. So that was the significance of that.

So these are all blokes in uniform?

TOM: Well, we eventually did go into uniform. I just wasn’t in uniform at that time, I went into uniform just after that, 1940.

So who’s the flying pencil?

TOM: Who’s that?

Tall, skinny bloke, is it?

TOM: I can’t – – –. (sound of rustling paper) Oh, that’s Marcus Oliphant.

Oh, right.

TOM: He was a champion footballer from Victoria who came over here and he played for Sturt.

He went on to be the Governor. Marcus Oliphant, the Governor?

TOM: No, no.

Oh, right.

26

TOM: Marcus – no, not Oliphant. No, another name. But he was a champion footballer in Victoria and he came over and played for Sturt. Can’t think of his name. I think that’s who it is, wouldn’t swear to it.

So just back to the ’50s, you’d settled in to life on Amelia Park. Did you have any children?

TOM: Yes, we had six children. A boy, two girls, a boy, two girls. And the eldest boy, John, he’s on the property now. Our eldest girl, Judy, she’s living in America.

What does she do?

TOM: She’s a stenographer. She lives in Los Angeles. The next daughter, she lives here in Adelaide.

What’s her name?

TOM: Colleen, Colleen Renshaw.

Did she marry Tony’s brother?

TOM: No, she married – – –.

MARGARET: Ralph, Ralph Renshaw’s son.

TOM: Ralph Renshaw, he used to be in the – – –.

Tony Renshaw’s their second son, he’s a CEO in Orroroo Council.

MARGARET: That’s right, that’s right, so it is.

TOM: And then the next one is Stephen, well he’s in America, he’s got a big business in California, he’s got four children.

What does he do over there?

TOM: He’s got his own business which is pre-cast concrete mantels. Around fireplaces, the mantel and the surrounds. It’s all done with pre-cast concrete. And he’s in a big way, a real big way. He’s got about forty blokes working for him, he runs about ten trucks, they go all over California and into –

MARGARET: Nevada.

TOM: – yes, into Nevada, yes.

27

MARGARET: And as far down as Los Angeles, which is like five hundred miles away from Sacramento, where he is.

Oh, so they’ve gone a long way from Peterborough.

TOM: Oh yes, yes.

Or from Ucolta.

TOM: Absolutely. And then the two after that, two girls, Marie, Marie married Adrian Saterno[?] from thue Saterno brothers, you know, the ‘Booze Brothers’? Yes, she married Adrian. And then Bernadette, of course, she was born in Melbourne, she lives at One Tree Hill. She’s got two daughters. And Marie’s got two sons, Paul, who’s assistant manager of a big hotel in Sydney; and Luke has just gone overseas backpacking for twelve months.

MARGARET: And he graduated from university only last month, Luke did.

TOM: So he’s got his degree and he’s going to utilise that to get jobs over in Europe while he’s there. And he’ll come back via the [United] States [of America] – he’ll call on Stephen, say hello to him.

Six kids, did they keep you very busy, Margaret?

MARGARET: Yes, because it was six under ten.

Oh, right, so you were – – –. And you had no washing machine?

MARGARET: No, not for quite a few years. No, it was all hand washing. And when I did get a machine you still had to wring, do the wringing, and then they improved it and it was a Simpson, and then you could – that was –

TOM: Automatic.

MARGARET: – automatic, yes.

That was the agitator with the wringer.

MARGARET: Yes, yes.

TOM: And of course you had to run the motor with your 32-volt because it took too much power, and it didn’t matter what you used on a 32-volt, a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine or whatever, you had to run the motor. Even the ironing. It took too much out of the battery so you had to keep recharging all the time.

28

MARGARET: And I ironed everything, their singlets and their pants, oh, you name them, (laughs) I used to iron everything.

Did you have a Freelight[?] at that stage?

TOM: Yes, I put a Freelight in, I bought one from Brisbane, from Dunlite[?], and I put that up. But that was a sort of, you know, a standby, but it wasn’t a great success.

MARGARET: And as for cleaning, it was all carpet right through and for many years I used to use the old straw broom, and of course now there’s, this age, I think back, I probably caused more dust with this broom than was already there because I’d stir it up. And once I had it all done the dust would settle again. So to think all those days and all those hours that went into sweeping with the straw broom, I probably made more dust than what was already there.

You know that yesterday I was talking to Wally[?]?

MARGARET: Yes.

TOM: Yes.

Actually ...... talking about Wally and Flavi[?], on and off.

MARGARET: Yes.

TOM: Yes.

Can you tell me about how Wally came to be at your place?

MARGARET: It was through Flavi, Tom got to know a lot of these New Australians6 that came out, and it was through Flavi and Tom. Flavi asked you if we’d take her, because it’s the only way he could get her out here.

I’ll just correct you, she was in Bonegilla.

TOM: That’s right.

But she couldn’t leave Bonegilla until she had a job.

MARGARET: Until she had a job.

6 Immigrants.

29

So you knew Flavi?

TOM: Yes, I’d met him through the other railway blokes. Not a great deal with Flavi. He was a very reticent type of bloke, he didn’t converse very much, Flavi. Mainly I think – I don’t know whether it was on account of his English, I don’t know. But he was a very nice fellow, very nice chap, and a good man at his job. You couldn’t fault him as far as that was concerned. He did a good job. And we were only too happy to have –

MARGARET: Wally.

TOM: – Wally ..... Yes. But, as I said, she couldn’t understand a word of English! (laughs)

MARGARET: But she didn’t know – – –.

TOM: But I’ll tell you what, it didn’t take her long to pick it up. She did a good job, yes.

MARGARET: When she came she didn’t know what a broom was, cup, saucer, nothing.

TOM: I remember Bailey[?] came out to see me one day and he said, ‘You know,’ he said, ‘..... should have a day off.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, all right.’ He said, ‘You know, you don’t work seven days a week,’ he said, ‘you get one day off.’ And I said, ‘All right, fair enough.’ And he come out on the Saturday or Sunday, whatever it was, pick her up and take her into Peterborough.

MARGARET: But we didn’t think of having a day off because we never worked her like a domestic, she was – we gave her a home and tried to teach her, and we took her into the family as one, for seven days a week. Never dreamt that she should have a day off.

TOM: I didn’t mind her taking off, that’s all right, nothing wrong with that.

MARGARET: That was all right.

TOM: She was entitled to that.

MARGARET: As long as he came and got her. But at that time she was just one of the family.

30

TOM: I never even gave it a thought, you know. Because I didn’t want to go to Flavi and say, ‘Listen, you’d better pick up your girlfriend and take her out for a day’ or something like that, you know. I had no idea. I didn’t even give it a thought. But when he suggested, you know, ‘Got to have a day off,’ well, that’s all right, you know. (laughs) I’m pleased he mentioned it.

MARGARET: Because we, more or less, it was a kind of favour to start with – not that I really wanted the help. It was wonderful to have somebody there, but half the time (laughs) for a long time there I was teaching her all the time, my time was going into teaching her or showing her what to do. Because everything I did, I had to explain it. But that didn’t worry me at all.

She started to learn English fairly quick.

TOM: Yes, she was a bright girl, yes. She was a bright girl. She could understand you more than she could speak it, naturally; that’s the way it goes for a start.

She mentioned yesterday that she remembered John was about five, and that Mum was going to smack John so John ran to her and – – –. (laughter)

MARGARET: Oh, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Looking for protection.

TOM: That’d be right.

MARGARET: Well, you see, John was five, that meant Judy was four and Colleen was eighteen months after that, so that meant I had the three of them and she was there then. Oh, I might have only had the two – – –.

So you got to know quite a few of the Baltic migrants.

TOM: Yes, I did. Particularly the – oh, I got to know some German boys and I got to know some Polish boys, the one lives down here at Glenunga, Ted Giltoski[?], 0he was a guard there. And I got to know Ted through the fact that – through the Polish community. And there was quite a lot of Poles, I think.

Was that through the church?

MARGARET: No.

31

Did the church play much role in that?

TOM: No, not a great deal, no.

MARGARET: You see, we were out of the town, they had nowhere to go, and it was nice to pile in and come out, and of course I always had afternoon tea laid on. It was only afternoon tea. It’d be nothing for five or six to be in the lounge, just sitting, talking in their own tongue or trying to catch on, learn. And being in the country and being a cook you’d always have plenty to eat, plenty of supper, afternoon tea, and they’d make it their Sunday, their day off, you see? And they’d come out – this is when they’d – pigeons, go for a walk, have a look around – – –. And there was one German chappie there, I don’t remember his name, but he saw my – I’ve got a coffee set there, that gold one, you might see some there – and this German chappie said, ‘My gosh,’ he said, ‘how did you come to have that?’ It turned out that was the best kind of coffee set the Germans put out. And I’d bought it about three or four years after I married in Melbourne, but I wouldn’t have a clue now what it would be worth, I didn’t even – and it could have been quite different the price over there. But he picked it up. He was ..... looking at it, he said, ‘That’s from Germany,’ he said, ‘that’s one of our prize pieces.’

So did you notice, when the migrants came to Peterborough, did they really have a big impact on the area?

TOM: Well, only for the migrants, the railways wouldn’t have been able to run. That happened right throughout South Australia. They were the life saviour of the South Australian Railways, because they had to serve two years in the railways, and most of them went into the railways. They went in as guards or (pause) some blokes worked on the line as navvies working their way up to gangers and all that sort of business and, as I said, Ted Gilskofi[?], he was a porter, he finished up a guard, then he came back to Adelaide and he operated as a guard on the line between here and Peterborough and around places like that. But he was only one of many. A lot of them finished up engine drivers, like Wally. He was only one of many Polish migrants who were engine drivers. Yes, only for the Poles or the migrants came out, the railways would have been shot, absolutely shot. So that’s one good thing they did. And then of course when they’d served their two years a lot of them stayed on.

Yes, a lot of them got married at Peterborough, didn’t they?

32

TOM: That’s right, yes.

MARGARET: Yes.

And did, like Naish, when he took over the pub, didn’t he, with his mum –

TOM: That’s right.

– they used to go to the pubs too, the migrants?

TOM: Oh, yes.

Just mix in socially?

TOM: Yes, that’s right, yes.

Then the soccer club was a big thing.

TOM: No, no, it wasn’t.

Wasn’t a big thing?

TOM: No, no. Matter of fact, there was never a soccer club in Peterborough, not to my knowledge.

Hans Schultz, he was across in ....., he’s got photos of the soccer. They played against Port Pirie, Orroroo –

TOM: Yes, but what years were they?

’Fifty-two, ’53.

TOM: Is that right? Oh dear, I didn’t think they were that ..... Well, of course, I was still in the Army then.

Oh, ’50s, no.

MARGARET: Not ’50s, no.

TOM: Oh, ’40s, I beg your pardon.

MARGARET: We were out on the property –

That’s right, you wouldn’t have – – –.

MARGARET: – and we only came in on Thursdays, which was market day. So any other – and come in on Sunday to Mass – but any other time we didn’t, we were too busy, we didn’t mix with the people, we were too far away.

33

TOM: Yes, I didn’t even know they had a soccer club in Peterborough.

But you were telling me you played baseball a lot.

TOM: Yes, we played baseball just after I – I think the last year I was at school and then after I left school I went out on the property, we – – –. Yes, we had four teams in Peterborough and on one trip, 1936 I think it was, we went up to Port Augusta and we played a game with Port Augusta and then we went across to Whyalla. And Whyalla wasn’t even a town then, it was only tin sheds. As a matter of fact, the workmen lived in tents and they had a galvanised iron shed for their meals. And that was Whyalla. And we played baseball there, then we came back to Peterborough. We went up in the utility, and six of us were in the back of the utility, (laughs) all cramped. When we got to Port Augusta we were covered in dirt and dust, you know – oh gosh, we were in a mess! But we enjoyed it, we thought ‘This is great.’ So not many people can say that they were at Whyalla before it was a town.

Why do you think baseball was such a popular sport in Peterborough?

TOM: Well, as I said, my brother learnt his baseball when he went to Sacred Heart College, and when he came back to Peterborough he organised a Northern District Baseball Carnival, and he got Broken Hill to bring down a couple of teams to Peterborough Centre, and we had a team from Port Augusta and then a team from Peterborough, and I’m not too sure whether we got one from Whyalla or not, can’t remember, probably did. And then we got all the officials came up from Adelaide, like Charlie Puckett[?] and a few of the other top boys, and they ran this carnival in Peterborough, which was a huge success. The only trouble is war broke out and the whole thing finished. Didn’t continue. And after the War, well, it never got off the ground again, you see. There’s only a couple of places now that play baseball in the country: Pirie play baseball; it’s a big thing in Mount Gambier, baseball, big thing. And even in Adelaide now they’re negotiating with the state government to make their headquarters out at Gepps Cross, the baseball headquarters. At the moment they’re at Thebarton Oval, but that place is in a real mess, nothing’s been done the last fifteen years and everything’s in a real mess – the roads are potholey and the oval’s not in good shape and the light towers are all rusted and, yes, it’s not a very good venue at all. And the baseball people, even though they’ve got a lease on it,

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they’d never be in a position financially to overcome the problems. And the only money that they’re likely to get from the state government is if they go out to Gepps Cross, so that’s where I’m sure they’ll go. And, as I said earlier, I relinquished my patronage of the South Australian Baseball League this week, I told them that I was getting to the stage where my health wasn’t up to it and I couldn’t put the time into it like I’d like to. So I asked them would they get another patron. So that’s where it is at the moment.

MARGARET: Speaking of sport, I played basketball – it’s called ‘netball’ now – and I played basketball a lot, right through, even through my service days. And I sat for my umpire’s licence when I was sixteen, and I got that. And all those years I played.

Did you play in Peterborough?

MARGARET: I started to, I started to play, and then first twelve months I had John, I had to give it away after a couple of months. So that was the end of my basketball days.

Just talking about John, when we were talking earlier about the Mothers’ and Babies’ health train – – –.

MARGARET: Yes, oh yes.

Did you ever have anything to do with that?

MARGARET: Only visiting, only taking John in. You took your babies in to have them weighed and the sister that ran it – they did have a couple, but there was one particularly – she was, I think she was a bit of a, probably middle-aged, little bit, she’d be picky, and nothing wrong with John but she’d say, ‘Oh, I think you have your baby lying on one side too much,’ she said, ‘he’s getting a bit of a flat head on one side.’ I said, ‘Oh, really?’ And of course, being only twenty-three, I said, ‘Gee, I must look into this, must turn him over every hour or so,’ because I believed her. Well, they were qualified people and I was a new mum, and I thought, ‘Well, maybe she is right.’ Not that I noticed it, but she was – and I did hear from a couple of other mothers, you know, ‘She’s very picky, that lady, very, very picky.’ And all you did was to have your baby weighed to see if they’re growing, and if you had to do any extras, give them any extra.

35

So John hasn’t got a flat head? I’ve never noticed it.

MARGARET: (laughs) No, no.

You must have did the right thing.

MARGARET: But no, it was just one of those things that grabbed me, you know. I remember it very vividly.

We can’t go too much further without mentioning your involvement in politics – can you tell me how that came about, and what year it was?

TOM: The year was 1960 and Mick O’Halloran, who was the member for Frome, he died, and the [Australian] Labor Party had to find a replacement for him. And they only had one object in mind, that was to get somebody off the land because Mick O’Halloran was a bloke off the land, he had property at Belton. And they knew that most of the areas outside of Peterborough and Quorn were all rural areas, therefore they had to get somebody that was off the land. And anyway, they looked around, and the driver of – Frank Walsh7 was coming back from the North- East on one occasion and he went past the ranch, and his driver, a fellow called Cornish, Buck Cornish, said to Frank Walsh, he said, ‘There’s the bloke you want, he lives in there.’ So they turned the car around and they came in. And Frank Walsh had a talk with me and told me what it was all about and so forth, and I said, ‘Well, look, Mr Walsh,’ I said, ‘you know, I’ve got a family of six children,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a property to look after,’ I said, ‘I don’t know whether I can find time to do what you want me to do.’ And he said, ‘Well, give it some thought,’ he said, ‘and we’ll come back and interview you again.’ I said, ‘All right.’ So the next time he came up he brought with him the Secretary of the party – forget his name8 – and anyway, and then all of a sudden who should turn up but Gough Whitlam. So they had a talk with me in the lounge and so forth, and I said, ‘Well, look, I’ll have to talk it over with my wife to see whether I’m available or not.’ And then I finished up, I met Geoff Virgo, and he was the next bloke in line for the Secretary job. And Geoff had a talk to me and he said, ‘You can do it, Tom,’ he said. ‘You know, you can do this, you can do that.’ And I said, ‘All right, I’ll give it a go.’ Just like that.

7 position?

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And then of course we went on the trailblazing then, and we went right up through to Marree, and I was with Don Dunstan, and everybody loved Don Dunstan – he was a real drawcard, right up through that Far North country, and also up in the North-East here.

Why do you think that was?

TOM: Well, he was outspoken and he was very critical of Tom Playford, and he was getting away with stuff and showing Playford up really what he was.

What was he, what was Playford?

TOM: He was an old [batherscot?]. And I’ll tell you how it came about later on. But anyway, we set off on the trail of electioneering. And we had some big meetings, had a meeting at Terowie, which was well-attended – of course I got the vote out at Terowie, which is a most Labor town, because in those days the change of gauge was still there. And then the North-East country, well, that was fifty-fifty, because old Tom Playford, he closed Radium Hill so I wouldn’t get the vote out at Radium Hill. And Quorn was fifty-fifty because the railways had gone from Quorn down to Port Augusta. Marree wasn’t too bad, I got in touch with the chappie who was in charge of the transhipping and railways up there.

Who was that? Was it Dave Miller?

TOM: No, he was a mixture of races. I think he was part-Egyptian, part- Aborigine. I just can’t think of his name. But he was a very, very well-versed bloke and knew his job. I got him on side. And then we had to get the vote out at Peterborough, because the bloke who was standing against me stood against Mick O’Halloran and he nearly beat Mick O’Halloran.

Who was that?

TOM: Max Hams[?], fellow called Max Hams. And Max thought he had the game sewn up here, in Adelaide, which he pretty near did, too. Because he was doing everything right. Well, they had a big meeting in Peterborough Town Hall, and Tom Playford got up and spoke and he said that ‘Next week there’ll be 180’, I

8 name?

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think it was, ‘180 men that’ll come up and start working on the rail standardisation between Peterborough and Broken Hill.’ And that was a deliberate lie, a deliberate lie, because within two days we got the Leader of the Opposition from Canberra, and he disputed this absolutely and called Playford everything, you know, what he should have been called, because what he’d told the people was a deliberate lie. And that turned a lot of people away from the Liberal Party straight away. And that was one of the big things that saved us as far as the voting was concerned. Well, then, when the voting counting was completed, we’d won by something like nine or ten votes, eleven votes, I think it was, we won by eleven votes, and they were going to challenge it, the Liberals. And we found out that there was some skulduggery up at the Peterborough Hospital, where the Secretary had rubbed out voting which was done in pencil and – rubbed that out and voted in biro. Because I had an uncle and auntie in the hospital and they voted for me, and according to the count up there they voted Liberal. Well, you know, when this was going to be brought out it was sort of done under the lap, when the Libs got to hear of it they backed off straight away. So we won by eleven votes.

That’s pretty close, isn’t it?

TOM: It was very close, yes. Well, of course, we’d had to do everything the hard way, we came from behind. Still, that’s the way it went.

I’m just curious as to why a bloke off the land – I would associate you with the Liberal Party, I don’t know why. Why did you go with the Labor Party?

TOM: Well, a lot of blokes on the land vote Labor.

It just seems to be this stereotype: farmers, Liberal.

TOM: Well, it’s a bit of a stigma really, I think. I met a bloke, I was campaigning for the Labor Party down at Mount Gambier on one occasion, and I went into this house. He had a Mercedes car, he had a big boat, I knocked on the door, this fellow came out and I said, ‘Look, my name’s Tom Casey,’ I said. ‘I’m representing the Labor Party.’ He said, ‘Come in and have a cup of tea, Tom.’ I went in there, he was a Labor supporter. And the only reason why he supported Labor was because on account of the Australian Wheat Board. When the Labor Party brought in the wheat stabilisation plan. He said, ‘That saved a lot of cockies

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and,’ he said, ‘I switched from Liberal to Labor.’ He said, ‘I’m a good Labor man now.’ And he was a big, wealthy man in Mount Gambier.

What was the feeling up around Peterborough, you with the Labor Party?

TOM: Oh, well, as I say, it was fifty-fifty in Peterborough on account of Max Hams. He was working a lot of the Labor blokes over to his side. He was telling a lot of jobs[?]. Like he was sowing grass on the oval to turn the oval into a grassed oval, and he used to come to Catholic church Mass during Sunday Mass and he’d talk to the people after Mass, you know.

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE B: TAPE 2 SIDE A

Tom, this was Max Hams, who was the Mayor?

TOM: Yes.

And he was also – – –.

TOM: Chairman of the District Council.

So he wore two hats.

TOM: You can say he was just the Mayor of Peterborough.

Local government hasn’t changed a lot, has it?

TOM: No.

So how did you get on with your neighbours being a Labor politician? Did they accept that?

TOM: I don’t think Eric Samwell[?] agreed with it, he wasn’t too happy about it when I – – –. But they accepted it in the finish.

Just looking back over your political career, did that take you away from the farm a lot?

TOM: Yes, a fair bit, fair bit. Particularly when the House was in session, because I used to have to go down on the train if I had a meeting in the morning so I’d have to catch the Broken Hill express early in the morning, four o’clock at Peterborough, then come down to town. Otherwise I’d get the midday train which left Peterborough about half past one or something like that. I can remember at one time I had the keys of the car in my pocket and I got to Terowie and I found out

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Margaret was – I just grabbed the engine driver, train going back to Peterborough, to take my keys back! (laughs)

MARGARET: He left me stranded.

TOM: Funny, isn’t it, how these things can happen. Yes, but then I used to drive down to town –

MARGARET: Mondays, then.

TOM: – Mondays, midday I used to catch the train, then I’d catch the Broken Hill express back on Thursday night, so I’d have Friday, Saturday and Sunday at home.

MARGARET: Lots of times it was Friday night, too.

TOM: Anyway, that was when the House was in session. And of course when the House wasn’t in session I had all the time in the world at home. Then I used to go electioneering. I can remember I got the AC9 power into Cockburn, because they were on DC power at Cockburn. Anybody got transferred from Peterborough to Cockburn they had to change all their electrical goods. So I said to Tom Playford, I said, ‘Look, the Commonwealth Government are putting in repeater stations along the road from Peterborough through to Broken Hill.’ And I said, ‘There’s one in the Thackaringa Ranges which is going up, which is going to be serviced from the power station in Broken Hill.’ And he said, ‘What power station is that?’ I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘there are two power stations in Broken Hill.’ He said, ‘Are there?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘One is the power station which supplies power to mines, and,’ I said, ‘then there’s the corporation power station.’ And he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know that.’ I said, ‘Oh, well, that’s the way it is.’ Anyway, and I said, ‘One of them is supplying power,’ I said, ‘I think it’d be the corporation supplying power to the Thackaringa Ranges.’ And I said, ‘That’s more than halfway to Cockburn.’ I said, ‘What about completing the line, which is a 2-phase line, into Cockburn so that these people can have AC power?’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘yeah, that’s – I’ll have a look at that.’ And old Tom Playford did it. We got AC power into

9 AC = alternating current; DC = direct current [electricity].

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Cockburn. Which meant that all the people didn’t have to change over their washing machines, their refrigerators and all this sort of business.

You’re the first one that’s ever mentioned that. I’d never realised that.

TOM: Yes. Well, that’s what happened, yes, from DC to AC power in Cockburn. Well, you do a lot of these things, and if you haven’t got a political reporter with you then none of this gets reported. See, it’s like this fixing up the South Australian dog racing headquarters out here at Angle Park. See, I did all that and it was never ever mentioned that I was responsible for doing all that sort of business. It’s like there was a girl on TV the other night, she’s the winemaker at Chapel Hill wines, her name is Pam Dunsford. Now, the Principal at Roseworthy College, a fellow called Bob Herriot, came to me and he said, ‘There’s a girl wants to do an oenology course at Roseworthy.’ He said, ‘Are you inclined to agree with it?’ He said, ‘Would you give your sanctions to this girl being admitted to Roseworthy College to do an oenology course?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course I am.’ And we went ahead and did it. Now, when you hear Pam Dunsford give her rendition she never made any mention that the Minister gave her permission to do that. You can’t get in there unless you get permission from the Minister. I can remember another case – – –.

So would you say it’s a pretty thankless job?

TOM: Yes. Well, you see, if you’ve got a good PR bloke he’d give you credence for that in the press, but I didn’t have anybody like that. And then it was like Bob Herriot came to me on another occasion, he said, ‘Look, two blokes have just run amok down here.’ He said, ‘They went into Gawler and they got drunk and they came back and they tore the flywire doors off their hinges, they smashed windows.’ He said, ‘They vomited all over the place.’ He said, ‘I suspended them.’ I said, ‘Good on you, Bob,’ I said, ‘I agree with that.’ He said, ‘You do?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll back you all the way.’ Well, the next day my secretary came in, Bob Walker[?], he said, ‘Hey, there’s a bloke on the ’phone, Clark. He wants to talk to you.’ And I said, ‘What does he want to talk to me about?’ He said, ‘Oh, one of those boys out at Roseworthy College is his son and he wants him reinstated.’ And I said, ‘Well, you tell Mr Clark that he’s got no hope in hell of getting his son reinstated.’ I said, ‘What he did out at that college,’ I said, ‘was nobody’s business.

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He doesn’t deserve to be there.’ Well, he was going to take me to court and everything. He kept ringing up Bob Walker about every second day and said, ‘I’m going to take the Minister to court.’ Bob would come in and he’d say, ‘He’s saying he’s going to take you to court.’ I said, ‘You tell him, take me to court, that’s all right.’ He never went to court. So about four weeks later I got another ’phone call. It was a bloke I used to go to school with at Rostrevor. And he said, ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a problem.’ And I said, ‘What’s your problem?’ He said, ‘One of the two boys that was suspended at Roseworthy,’ he said, ‘one’s my son.’ And he said, ‘What’s the possibility of getting him reinstated?’ I said, ‘You’ve got Buckley’s.’ I said, ‘Now, if your son, or if we’d done what your boys did out at Roseworthy,’ I said, ‘if we’d done that at Rostrevor,’ I said, ‘Brother Mackie, what do you think he would have done?’ He said, ‘Thanks, Tom, that’s all.’ Never heard anything more about it. Finished. So they were two sort of things that stick in your mind about, you know, some people who don’t do the right thing and when they’re caught out they can’t handle it, they want you to do the right thing.

Regarding Peterborough, did you have much input into the Peterborough area as a politician?

TOM: Into the Peterborough area?

Particularly with the railways, roadworks?

TOM: I don’t think so, not to my knowledge.

MARGARET: There wasn’t anything – – –.

TOM: There was nothing you could do because it was all Railways. I did get that what’s-the-name built up at Peterborough, that recreation centre.

The Max Hams Recreational Centre?

TOM: Yes, well, they wanted to put Max Hams’ name on it. I said, ‘Well, that’s all right with me.’ But I did it through my department, the Department of Sport.

So you were the Minister for Sport –

TOM: Yes.

– and Recreation?

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TOM: Yes, at that time. Prior to that I was Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Forests. I was that for five years and then they transferred me to the Minister of Lands, Minister of Irrigation, Minister of Repatriation, Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Sport, which was a hell of a big portfolio. Anyway, they said – you know, Max was the Mayor of the town, you see, and I said, ‘Oh well, that’s all right, if he wants his name on there then I don’t mind, that’s neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned.’ But he didn’t have anything to do with it. I think that was – (pause) who was the Mayor at the time?

Bruce Lock[?]?

TOM: No, before him. Dave Dowd.

MARGARET: Dave Dowd.

TOM: Yes, Dave Dowd was the Mayor at the time when I built the show up there, and in recognition of Max being a previous Mayor he said, ‘We’ll call it the Max Hams.’ I said, ‘That’s all right, I couldn’t care less.’ It was like the Heysen Trail. The Heysen Trail used to come under my jurisdiction as Minister for Sport, and I had a bloke that was working on it in my department and he came to me on one occasion, he said, ‘Mr Casey, we’d like to continue the Trail from point A to point B.’ I said, ‘That’s okay. What’s it going to cost?’ and so forth. ‘Have we got the money to do it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Right,’ I said, ‘well, go ahead and do it.’ And then it came up that the opening came about and they said, ‘Well, Minister, we’d like you to open it,’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t want to open it.’ I said, ‘Let’ – what’s his name? Oh, he was mixed up in the trails at the time – I said, ‘Let him open it.’ Well, he took full credence of the whole thing, he got all the publicity, I got nothing. But anyway, that was all right, that was fine.

MARGARET: We had a –

TOM: I wasn’t looking for credence at that stage, I was just looking to do a job that wanted to be done and had to be done, and for the benefit of people. And it was like Carrieton School came to me on one occasion and they said, ‘Mr Casey, we’re a bit pushed for room up here at Carrieton,’ he said. ‘There’s so many school teachers and,’ he said, ‘the head, and I’ve got a lady teacher.’ And he said, ‘We’re teaching about seven classes.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s no good.’ He said, ‘We’re doing it in two

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rooms.’ He said, ‘We could do with another classroom.’ I said, ‘Good.’ And I came to town and I said to Tom Playford – and of course he knew that Carrieton was a good Liberal area, you see – I said to Tom, I said, ‘Tom, I’ve had a request from the Carrieton School Council to approach you to give them another classroom at Carrieton.’ I said, ‘The school is over-crowded and,’ I said, ‘the headmaster’s in’, you know, ‘real trouble.’ ‘Ooh,’ he said, ‘is that a fact?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Right, I’ll fix it, Tom.’ He fixed it. Got a new classroom up there. Baden Paterson[?], the Minister for Education, he came to me about a week later and he said, ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you come to me for the school at Carrieton?’ And I said, ‘Well, Sir Baden,’ I said, ‘what happened was that the School Council approached me and asked me would I approach the Premier so,’ I said, ‘that’s what I did. And,’ I said, ‘I’ve notified the Council that I did what they requested me to do,’ which was a lie on my part but Baden Paterson, he probably would have asked permission from Playford to get a school up there anyway, so I was only cutting corners.

So despite being opposing Playford you got on all right with the man?

TOM: I got on very well with Tom Playford, yes. I did.

MARGARET: Both names are Tom. (laughs)

TOM: I think I was the only one that ever got a half a case of cherries out of him.

He was famous for that, wasn’t he?

TOM: Yes, he had a very good cherry orchard. I kept saying to him when I was Minister for Agriculture, I said, ‘Hey, Tom,’ I said, you know, ‘and all the good things I’ve done about you,’ I said, ‘I’ve given you permission to shoot some parrots and stuff,’ I said, ‘What have you done for me?’ I said, ‘I’ll take half a case of cherries.’ He said, ‘Righto.’ Sure enough, his driver gave me half a case of cherries the next day. (laughs)

MARGARET: We did a lot of social functions receiving debutantes. When Tom used to come home for the weekends, it was always a Saturday night, debutante balls.

TOM: Hawker.

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MARGARET: We’d travel many, many miles to receive deb[utantes] and return home two and three o’clock in the morning.

Did you find that draining?

TOM: No, not really.

MARGARET: Not really.

TOM: We were young, we handled it, no problems. We used to go to Leigh Creek, St Patrick’s night ball was the big dance show up there. That was run by – what’s his name? – Len O’Toole’s brother, he was in the Post Office, the Postmaster up there. O’Toole.

MARGARET: But there were – – –.

Not one of the Peterborough O’Tooles?

TOM: Yes, brother.

Oh, right.

TOM: Brother to Len O’Toole.

MARGARET: But we went to Hawker, went to all the country places. And we’d come home the same night, we’d get in one, two, three o’clock in the morning and have to get up and start just the same the next day.

This was a lot of dirt roads, was it?

TOM: Yes, all dirt roads.

What sort of car did you have?

TOM: I had a big Pontiac. It was a beautiful car, and it done about 220,000 I think when it started to miss a bit. I decided to get rid of it. But it was a wonderful car, really good car. Oh, I wore out a lot of cars. I used to do two trips to Birdsville every year in my utility. John used to come with me, we used to take two long planks about an inch thick, eight inches wide, we get bogged we’d just jack the back wheels up, put them in and back out. Some people used to go up there with nothing, they used to try and dig themselves out. They got into real trouble.

Was that all on parliamentary duty?

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TOM: Yes. I used to call into the stations on the way, the Oldfields. We used to stay one night at Dick Oldfield’s at Cowarie, which was just off the track from Mungerannie Station. In those days young Eric Oldfield had Mungerannie, but the dogs cleaned him out, just about, in the finish. Eric finished up, he was a fencer, a fencing operator, I think he used to operate out of Marree. Then he arranged that big drive for Birdsville. Good stockman, Eric. And I see where they’ve got a motel, hotel at Mungerannie. God!

The bush has changed a lot.

TOM: Yes, absolutely.

So looking back over your political career, what would you say was your most proud achievement?

TOM: I would say the introduction of TAB10 into South Australia, when I went to all that time and energy and –

MARGARET: Travelling.

TOM: – travelling at my own expense. And to get it through Parliament with three votes, old Tom Playford called me ‘the High Priest of Gambling’, and I don’t gamble. And Lloydie[?] Hughes, he was the Member for Wallaroo, he was a reader in the Methodist Church, and he got up to make this powerful speech against TAB, introduction of TAB gambling and so forth, and he referred to me as the ‘Member for Rome’. (laughter) Instead of ‘Frome’ it was ‘Rome’. Poor old Lloydie, he brought the house down, he was getting mixed up. He got onto the religious ....., do you see, and he got caught out, instead of ‘Frome’ it was ‘Rome’.

The Rome and the gambling, it all goes together. Hotels, racehorses.

TOM: Well, you’d be surprised the number of people that I spoke to interstate. I can remember there was one little bloke, he was the Presbyterian minister in New South Wales, and he was in a little den, office, it wouldn’t have been any bigger than half of this room, quarter of this room just about. And I said to him, ‘Well, now, everything that I’m asking you,’ I said, ‘is not for publication,’ I said, ‘it’s just between you and me.’ And I said, ‘Do you think that the TAB in New South Wales

46

has stopped a lot of the illegal gambling?’ He said, ‘Oh yes, it has.’ And he said – ‘In point of fact,’ I said, ‘you are in favour of it?’ And he said, ‘Under those conditions, yes.’ So, you know, that was the sort of reaction I got from these people that would, outwardly they’d condemn it straight away, you know, saying, ‘This is gambling, no good.’ But when you got down to tin tacks and said to them, you know, ‘Has this reduced the illegal side of the gambling?’ they had to say yes, because it was, and has proved itself in Victoria. When I interviewed these blokes with the TAB agencies, these Italian blokes, and I said, ‘You know, you making more money now?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘not more money.’ And I said, ‘Well, are you happy?’ He said, ‘Yeah, very happy,’ he said, ‘this is legit.’ (laughter) He said, ‘I can take money, don’t have to worry about the police, nothing.’

So illegal gambling was rife before the TAB?

TOM: Oh, absolutely. Every hotel had an SP11 bookmaker, every hotel, right throughout the state. Yes. Peterborough, you had four pubs there, they all had SP bookmakers.

Was that just to look over – – –?

TOM: Oh well, they used to bring up the Vice Squad from Pirie every now and again and make raids in Jamestown, Orroroo, Peterborough, all around the place to try and catch these blokes.

So you reckon the TAB would be one of the – – –?

TOM: Well, that cut out the illegal gambling, yes.

Was that ’67, somewhere round then?

TOM: No, about ’65.

Was that when the Lotteries Commission – – –?

TOM: No, no, that was later. Yes, the Lotteries came later. The Lotteries didn’t come in until the – oh, dear – oh, round about – yes, the Lotteries came in round about the late ’70s, I think, or mid-’70s.

10 TAB = Totalizator Agency Board. 11 SP = starting price.

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MARGARET: Around ’67.

Yes, it was something to do with the hospitals, wasn’t it, it was to raise money for the hospitals.

TOM: Well, it was supposed to be.

MARGARET: And cut out, also was supposed to cut out this Friday badge day, and it didn’t.

TOM: No, never did.

MARGARET: Remember how people used to sell badges for charity every Friday? It was supposed to cut that out too.

TOM: I know Jim Toohey, he was appointed the Chairman of the Lotteries Commission here in South Australia, Senator Toohey, and he came to me and he said, ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘we want to buy a property in Rundle Street.’ He said, ‘What do you think about the idea?’ I said, ‘I think it’s a good idea, Jim. And,’ I said, ‘the place I’d go for is the old picture theatre.’ I think it was called the ‘York’ or something, and that’s where the Lotteries started off. And I see now where they’re going to close it down, they’re going to go somewhere else. I don’t know where they’re going now.

MARGARET: Coming out of town.

TOM: I reckon they might come down on Greenhill Road.

MARGARET: Yes, I was just going to say that, on Greenhill Road.

TOM: You know, where the –

MARGARET: ETSA.

TOM: – no, not ETSA. Where Medibank Private used to be, that building is not occupied, I don’t think so. Could be the bottom of ETSA, I don’t know, but anyway they’re talking about somewhere on Greenhill Road.

So how long did you stay in politics for?

TOM: Twenty years. Nineteen sixty to 1979, late December ’79.

And you lived in Peterborough all that time?

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TOM: No. We lived the first ten years in Peterborough, and then when I became a minister I represented the Southern Districts and we moved down to Grange, and we were there until –

MARGARET: ’Eighty-three.

TOM: – I retired from politics, and then we moved up here to Pitcairn Avenue, Urrbrae, and we were there until six months ago. And because our health has been deteriorating we decided that the home in Pitcairn Avenue was too big, too big a garden, too much to look after, so the daughters, they swung into action, said, ‘You’re going down here.’ And we had no option.

MARGARET: Well, I had a slight stroke and that’s what made them move. So when I came out of hospital they said, ‘We’ve been looking, we’ve found the place.’ And they did it all.

This place, who runs this place?

MARGARET: The Southern Cross.

It’s a big area, isn’t it?

MARGARET: Yes, it’s about twenty-two houses in this area.

Well, it’s very quiet.

MARGARET: Yes, it is. We’ve got the park back there, they can’t build that way, and, as I said to you, we’re the last house, ...... , right in the corner here. So it is nice. I missed the – it took me a while to get used to the smaller home, because we went from a big home at Peterborough down to here, even Grange was a big home, and then up here to the – I don’t know why we went for the big home up here. But still, the children would come down, the kids were down, there was always somebody calling in, and I felt more comfortable with more room. And Tom, he didn’t want to leave over there, but when I had that slight stroke the girls said, ‘Mum can’t be doing any more.’ And I kept saying, ‘Tom, I’m only two years behind you.’ You know, he got the impression probably, or expect me to just carry on the way I’ve been carrying on. But it just got too much for me.

TOM: Another thing that I accomplished when I was Minister for Sport, I introduced into South Australia for the first time a system whereby (pause) people

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could become accredited to coach teams of different phases of athletics, whether it be in swimming or whether it be in running in athletics or whether it be some other type of sport, and these courses they had to do examinations at the end of the term, and if they passed they’d be accredited as a full-time coach. Now, I got that idea from London when I was there, because I said to the powers that be in Great Britain, I said, ‘How do you get on teaching all these kids different .....?’ And they said, ‘We have an accredit[ation] system whereby the coaches have to go before a panel and they’re examined and so forth, and if they pass they’re accredited as top coaches.’ And I did that when I came back to South Australia. And that was the first time that was operated in Australia as far as I can remember, which was very good. It went through in flying colours. So these are the sort of things that you don’t always get a lot of publicity with, but we used to have some good evenings when I’d go along and hand out these certificates to these people that were passed in the examinations – plus men and women too, not just one gender. Didn’t make any difference as long as they fulfilled their obligations and went through the necessary procedure and passed their examinations, then they were accredited, yes.

You were saying before how your interest in politics was driven a bit by Mick O’Halloran, what can you tell me about Mick? I don’t know much about him.

TOM: Well, I didn’t have that much to do with him, either, because he was a lot older than I was, he was an elderly man when I was only a young bloke. But I found out that Mick was a pretty cluey old bloke and, from what I can gather since my term in politics, was that there was a lot of skulduggery used to go on within the Labor Party and some of the blokes used to try and get stuff out of Mick to use against Playford, because Mick and Playford were very close and they used to sort of weigh things up and if Mick O’Halloran thought that it was a good idea he’d support Playford. But of course a lot of the Labor blokes didn’t want to do that and they tried to undermine Mick on many occasions. They’d probably give him a couple of extra scotches which he shouldn’t have had. But you only find out these things when you get into politics. But you can never trust some of these blokes, they can switch – they can turn off one minute and turn back another. For example, we had a hell of a job getting Don Dunstan elected as Premier because there was a lot of hatred against him, mainly because he was so brilliant and he wasn’t a trade

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unionist, and unless you were a trade unionist you weren’t accepted in the Labor Party and I found that out very quickly. Very, very quickly. Yes, it’s incredible. And that’s one of the problems that the Labor Party’s got. I can remember when I first got into politics, I used to talk to a lot of the – didn’t matter who was in the bar, if I went into the bar to have a drink – and I never drank very much, I used to drink a soft drink mainly – if there was a Liberal member in there I’d say ‘g’day’ to him. I got chatted on one occasion, said, ‘What do you want to talk to him for? He’s a Liberal.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t even ask him what he is,’ I said, ‘he’s just a human being as far as I’m concerned and if I say “g’day” to him and he says “g’day” to me,’ I said, ‘that’s as far as I’m concerned.’ But, you know, these people, they’re funny.

Narrow-minded.

TOM: Oh, gosh, terrible. I know Howard Venning, when he was the Member for Rocky River – – –.

END OF TAPE 2 SIDE A: TAPE 2 SIDE B

TOM: We used to do a lot of pyramid work at a big galvanised iron shed where Jim Davis’s house is now, and there was a chap in the Railways called ‘Bruiser’ Reynolds – I can’t remember his Christian name, but that was his nickname, Bruiser, Bruiser Reynolds – and he formed this mouth organ band. And a lot of people learned at that band how to play a mouth organ, which was something unique at the time but it was a good pastime for people in that era. And it went on for many years. And then, when some of the old people bowed out, the mouth organ band folded and that was the finish of that, but it was quite a novelty back in the ’20s.

And where did they use to hold their performances?

TOM: Oh, in the shed, which was quite a big shed. And they’d have probably one night a week when they’d all get together and have a bit of a practice, and then perhaps they might perform up in the hospital, go out there and have a few tunes with the patients in the hospital or something like that. Yes, it was quite something unique. But I don’t think any of them were Laurie Adler class, but they apparently got a lot of kick out of it.

You were saying that that’s before they had the YMCA gymnasium.

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TOM: Yes, that’s right. And then when the YMCA got built, then they built the shed alongside of it, and it’s the recreational centre and that’s where we used to go as small boys to do our gymnastics.

What sort of gymnastics did you do – – –?

TOM: We used to do mostly pommel horse, and then a lot of running around, tunnel ball and all that sort of business. But we didn’t do much on the horizontal or parallel bars. I didn’t become acquainted with those until I came down to Rostrevor.

Do you remember who the instructor was?

TOM: George Brady, that was his name, George Brady, his name just came to me there. Yes, he was from England and he was, as I said, he was the instructor from the YMCA. And he organised all the basketball matches. They had four teams in Peterborough, they had the Australs, the Railways, the Town and the Allblacks, I can remember as a boy. And oh, they were good, they were good matches, very good matches. They’d play alternate teams about every – I think it was every Wednesday night they used to play.

And George Brady, was he the one who used to have the boxing – – –?

TOM: Yes. He was a very good boxer. When the Peterborough Shows were on and George Sharman would bring up his boxing troupe, George Brady would always come to the fore and he’d clean them up. Oh, he was very – yes, he was a real pug, George, and a very nice chap, too, very nice fellow.

So who are some of the boys that you remember from those days, are any of them still around?

TOM: No, I can’t remember a lot of them. A lot of them – you’ve caught me on the hop now.

Well, there’s not many actual locals left, is there, as such?

TOM: No.

What would you say if I was to tell you that they’re going to pull the old gymnasium down?

TOM: Oh, terrible. I think that’d be one of the worst things in the world they could do. It’s memorabilia, as far as Peterborough is concerned. It has a lot of

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history and it could be utilised as a museum piece or even, if they don’t want to do that, they could use it as a place where people go and perhaps play badminton or something like that if they can’t use the other place down below, the recreational centre.

But I almost think that it’s unique in South Australia to have a gymnasium constructed by the YMCA in a small town.

TOM: Yes, I think it is too. I think it would be a shame. Oh, you can have a lot of stuff, you can have a museum piece in there and something for the people. I mean, they talk about tourism, well, you’ve got to have something to show them. They’re not going to go and see a kiddies’ playground in the main street, that’s crazy, but they will go to see a museum, see what’s in there, some old photographs, something like that.

What are some of the other things that really stick in your mind about growing up as a boy up there?

TOM: We used to like going on the train to the Jamestown Show, and we used to like catching the train to go out to Ucolta to the Railway Picnic, which was once a year. Matter of fact, that Railway Picnic, they used to have special trains that used to come down from Cockburn and bring the railway people all the way down from Olary and Mannahill, Yunta, to the Railway Picnic Ground. And it was very, very well-patronised for years, and they used to have a Sheffield12 and a high jump and a greasy pole and, oh, they had a few sideshows there.

And was it a big day for the men and the women?

TOM: Oh, absolutely, they really enjoyed it, it was a good day out. And of course in those days there were a lot of pine trees which was a lot of shelter, and a lot of them were cut down later on. As a matter of fact, you couldn’t see the homestead on Amelia Park from the Railway Picnic Ground when I was a boy, it was just a mass of pine. But I think Glen Baum, the owner of the park at that time, I think he cut a whole lot down for fence posts.

And how long since you’ve been back to Peterborough now, Tom?

12 ??

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TOM: It’s about twelve months since I’ve been back.

And what did you think of the place the last time you were there?

TOM: Oh, I thought it had gone downhill badly. I was surprised at the number of shops that were empty. And there was no life in the place, it was dead. And with the railways not operating, and now steam trains gone, I think it’ll be even worse. So anything that they can keep in Peterborough as a memento, such as the shed alongside the YMCA, should be maintained, absolutely maintained. It’d be a great pity to do without it. And any move to demolish it ought to be, you know, vigorously defended. Absolutely.

Well, I’ll try and do that.

TOM: Good man, good man.

So do you still look upon Peterborough as home?

MARGARET: Yes.

TOM: Up to a certain extent, up to a certain extent, yes. Because most of my days were spent at Peterborough as a boy, right up until you might as well say manhood, eighteen years of age, nineteen. And then after we were married we raised our family up there. So it has a great affinity for us.

And you were telling me you’ve already booked in to the Terowie[?] Road [cemetery?] (laughter) So you’ve got it all sorted.

TOM: Yes, absolutely.

Nobody’s immortal.

TOM: Absolutely.

And what about you, Margaret, how do you feel about Peterborough since you’ve been back?

MARGARET: I miss it, I miss it. Lots of happy days up there, family growing up. I really do. I still class it as home. Because before I got married and went up there to live I was away in the services so long that really it was home. You came from the services to home. And I made some nice friends up there, I was in a lot too, and I played the bowls. I made a lot of nice friends up there and I enjoyed it.

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Do you remember when you went there as a bride, the shopkeepers that were in the main street, do you remember many of them?

MARGARET: To name them?

Yes.

MARGARET: Not so much to name them. Kip Hall[?] and the Cravens and Matthews, all those stores, shops, you used to go into just to shop. But you didn’t get to know those kind of people because we were out of the town so therefore you didn’t get a chance to mix with them socially or to take it any further. But you had your CWA13 and your school, you know, your school – friends’ parents, and then Tom got into politics, I was playing bowls then and just after that. The family were growing up then, that’s when I was, you could just say ‘free’, you just felt that you had that little bit of independence, and then I took up the bowls and I made such a lot of nice friends there.

You were telling me last time I spoke to you on the ’phone about the school bus. Can you just retell that story?

MARGARET: Well, the school bus, the children used to walk down there, of course. That was a godsend.

What happened before then?

MARGARET: Oh, when the children – no, none of the children were at school before that school bus came in. Our children missed going to – like today they’ve got kindy14 and pre-school and all those kinds of things, well, they never had anything like that. When our children started off school instead of going to kindergarten and having, say, twelve months at kindergarten, they went straight into school which was, took up there – they called it ‘the babies’, and then grade one, so you felt that they missed that first twelve months.

TOM: We were lucky to get that school bus. Vic O’Halloran was the ringleader of it. They weren’t going to let Catholics on the bus, because they went to a private school. And if they hadn’t let the Catholics on the school bus then there wouldn’t

13 Country Women’s Association. 14 Kindergarten.

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have been enough kids to run the bus. So it got to the stage where they had to either let the Catholic kids on the bus or cancel the bus altogether. So, through the auspices of Mick O’Halloran, we eventually got the bus and it didn’t matter what nationality you were (laughs) or what religious group you belonged to, you were allowed on the bus.

And Flavi was saying yesterday that Wally used to catch the bus out on a Monday.

TOM: Yes, I wouldn’t doubt that. Yes, that’d be right.

MARGARET: Us, yes.

Out to your place?

MARGARET: She’s had the Sunday off and then come back on it, yes.

TOM: That’d be right.

So where did the bus use to operate from?

TOM: It used to operate from Oodla Wirra.

Is that after the school closed at Oodla Wirra?

TOM: Yes, yes.

MARGARET: That was the idea, picking the ones up from there to bring them in to school.

TOM: Yes, there was a couple of children on the way through from Oodla Wirra, and then there was a couple of kiddies from Ucolta, and then our children, and that was it. The Malachie boys, Peter and John, they used to go to school in a horse and buggy, horse and jinker.

MARGARET: But when I came up here they used to ride bikes, too.

TOM: No, they used to use the horse and jinker.

MARGARET: Yes, but I’m talking about Peter and John Malachie.

TOM: Yes, that’s who I’m talking about.

MARGARET: Oh, I thought they used to ride their bikes.

TOM: No, no, they used to take a jinker.

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They used to live at Tunnel[?] Hill, didn’t they, right up there.

TOM: That’s right, that’s right.

And Leo? Leo was probably only a boy when you were there.

TOM: Oh yes, he wasn’t even born when we were there.

So you saw a great many changes with the standardisation. Can you tell me, Tom, about the time you went up the track on the ..... car? Who did you go with?

TOM: I went with the Superintendent of the Railways at Peterborough, and I was absolutely astounded at the state of the track, the narrow gauge. The railway lines had so deepened into the sleepers that the outside of the sleepers were sticking up like wings. And I said to the Superintendent, I said, ‘How the devil can the train run on this track?’ I said, ‘It’s unbelievable.’ And I said, you know, ‘Can’t you do it up?’ He said, ‘There’s no money to do it up,’ he said, ‘all the money’s going into standardisation.’ So it wasn’t long after that that the standardisation started, and it was the best thing that could have happened (laughs) because that three foot six line was in a real mess! Oh dear, oh dear, how those trains stayed on the line I’ll never know. But they did. And they had some really big engines, too, those Garretts. They were big.

MARGARET: It was a nice sound, to hear the whistle of the trains go past, and I’m sure there were some drivers who said, ‘Oh, Casey’s over there, give him a whistle.’ (laughs) And it was a nice sound, to hear the train go past.

Did you have much to do with the railways actually, as delivery of wool and livestock?

TOM: No, we used to send our wool down by road to Terowie. A fellow called Jack Cockshell from Terowie used to cart our wool down to Terowie and we’d put it on the rail at Terowie.

That would save costs in transhipping?

TOM: Yes.

MARGARET: Double handling.

TOM: That’s right, yes. If we’d take it into Peterborough we’d have to load it onto the flattops, onto whatever it was there, and then it would have to be

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transhipped again at Terowie, so we used to send it straight to Terowie. And this was one of the problems that the railways had in the transhipping of wool from the North-East. The station owners used to like motor transport better because they’d pick the wool up and deliver it straight to Port Adelaide. Whereas they’d put it on the rail and they’d have to be loaded onto the train at Olary or Mannahill or Yunta, wherever the case may be, and then it would have to be transhipped at Terowie again. It was a real mess. I tried the Railways to compete against road transport by bringing in their own road transport, but they wouldn’t do it, so they suffered as a result, in my opinion.

They operated it for a short time, didn’t they, they used to go to Quorn to pick up wool and bring it back to Peterborough.

TOM: Yes, for a short time.

Yes. Out to Pitcairn.

TOM: Oh, I think that was when the railway closed between Peterborough and Quorn, there was no railway.

...... yes, possibly that’s why. Leo Malachie used to drive that truck.

TOM: Oh, yes?

Well, I’d just like to thank you for your time.

TOM: That’s all right, John.

Is there any other thing?

TOM: It’s been a pleasure.

MARGARET: No. There’ll probably be things we’ll think of after you’re gone and thought, ‘Oh, that could have been of interest.’

TOM: No, I think we’ve covered everything pretty well.

MARGARET: Oh, yes.

You’ve covered a lot in a short time, and I’d just like to thank you for putting up with me and feeding me and watering me –

TOM: That’s all right, John.

MARGARET: That’s all right.

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– in a short time.

TOM: If you want to know any more, give us a call and we’ll sort of fill you in over the ’phone rather than make a special trip out.

How do you feel about this project in general? Do you think it’s a worthwhile project? Have you enjoyed being –

TOM: Yes.

– talking and – – –?

TOM: That’s no problem, yes.

MARGARET: Oh, yes! I mean, my goodness yes.

TOM: It’s been very good.

MARGARET: That is the only way you get the history. That’s the only way that you’ll be able to pass that history down to future generations.

We were talking before – you don’t feel as if I’m a crow, picking at the bones? (laughter)

TOM: No! As a matter of fact, this is one of the problems with the Far North. Just after I left school I got a job as an employee at the wool stores down at Port Adelaide and I worked in the bulk wool classing department, and I got in tow with the Chief Classer down there, a fellow called Hughie McIntyre. And he used to class a lot of the big stations, the wool from the big stations. And we went up to Eudnapina[?], two stations there, one the Eudnapina Station and then the one at Hesso, and we shore about 50,000, at 25,000 sheep on both, and then we went up to Lumpiyowie[?] and they brought in a lot of sheep from Cadella[?] Downs down at Andamupi[?] because the dogs were coming in. And we shore 66,000 there. And what’s his name, Dunn from Lyndhurst, he had the pub there.

Jack.

TOM: No, not Jack.

Alan, his son Alan?

TOM: No, Alan’s father.

Oh yes, he was the one between.

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TOM: Alan’s father, he had the pub at Lyndhurst. Jack had the – with his mother at Lyndhurst.

Copley.

TOM: Copley.

Alice.

TOM: And Mrs Pear.....[?].

MARGARET: Yes.

TOM: They were great supporters of mine, incidentally, out there. And I settled an argument in the pub at Lyndhurst on one occasion. Dunn came out and he said to me, ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘you were at Muppi[?] when they shore there and,’ he said, ‘I carted the wool.’ And he said, ‘When was that?’ And I said, ‘That was in 1939.’ He said, ‘That’s what I told that bloke,’ he said, ‘he wouldn’t believe me.’ Sixty-six thousand they shore there.

So what were you doing there?

TOM: I was a rouseabout.

Oh right, yes. With Elders? No, just as a rouseabout.

TOM: Just as a rouseabout, yes. But I went up there and Hughie McIntyre was my friend, he was the classer, and then every now and again he’d say to me, ‘Come up here, Tom,’ and he’d say, ‘Where does this go, where does this fleece go?’ And I’d tell him, and if I made a mistake he’d say, ‘No, have another look at it.’ And he taught me a lot about wool, a lot about wool, which has stood me in good stead in later years.’

That’s when you got a job at the wool stores.

TOM: No, that’s how I come to get this job at ...... I got a job at the wool stores through a fellow called Grundy[?], he was the travelling stock man. So he was quite happy. It worked out all right in the finish, worked out very well.

Oh well, that’s good. We could probably talk for days, but we’ve probably covered a lot of things.

TOM: Yes. Anyway, thanks, John.

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No worries.

TOM: Thanks for your company.

Oh, it’s been good.

MARGARET: That’ll be nice for the kids to look back on.

Yes.

MARGARET: Talking about looking back on old roots or anything like that, I had a family tree done on my father’s side, and I’ve never bothered to take it any further, and Bernadette, a fortnight ago, Bernadette took me over to – where is the place, Tom?

TOM: Edenhope.

MARGARET: Edenhope in Victoria. They came out in the early 1800s. And I found out this month I had two second cousins, I’ve met them, and I’ve found out the hotel where my grandfather had and he died there, and a whole lot of the history. I’ve never been back there, and here I’ve waited till I’m nearly eighty and I’ve found out now where my roots are. That’s what I said, it’s a shame that people wait till they get so old.

Well, like you said before, you were too busy living your life then.

MARGARET: Well, everybody has got the same problem, if you like to call it a problem, but everybody’s the same.

There are some eccentric people who are obsessed.

MARGARET: Yes, but I tell you what, it takes those, they are exceptional because who would go to that much trouble to do it? But I found out where my great-grandfather, huge big ....., died in the late 1880s. Oh, they come out here about 1840s, just when they first came out from England. Just amazing.

I asked Tom what his proudest moment was. What was yours in your life, do you think?

MARGARET: My proudest moment. To think – no, when I look back at the beginning of my married life and I had six children and they were something I was very proud of. And to think they’re all with us today, even the ones overseas, and also the grandchildren, and there has been no problems, no sickness, you know.

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Some people have a little bit of unhappiness, something – no, that’s mine. Success of marriage and the family.

Excellent. You’ve done well.

MARGARET: That’s good. (break in recording)

TOM: – – – Operate down the bottom there, then he’d put ..... in that. And I went up there when Donald Campbell had the Bluebird, and the Bluebird was in the woolshed. And I went up there and I said to a bloke, I said, ‘Oh, I’ve just come up to have a look at the Bluebird,’ and he said, ‘You’re not allowed to have a look at it.’ I said, ‘Listen, I’m the Member of Parliament for this district, I want to have a look at the Bluebird.’ ‘Oh, you should come right in,’ you know. (laughter) Couldn’t open the bloody door quick enough! I had to pull rank on him! (loud laughter)

So it does work.

TOM: Oh, too right – it did up there, anyway.

MARGARET: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Yes, always. So you had a bit to do with Fred Hux[?]?

TOM: Oh, a lot of – yes, Freddie, he put down a couple of bores for me and he pulled up a lot of pipes for me. Lost a damn good pump down the bottom – yes, brand new it was, too. We tried to fish it out but we couldn’t get it and I said, ‘Oh, Freddie, don’t worry about it.’ And then we hired the council bulldozer to clean out my dam and I said to Freddie, I said, ‘Now, look, Fred, be careful,’ I said, ‘the dam’s not quite dry,’ I said, ‘you know, it’s pretty muddy.’ I said, ‘You’d better take it gradually on the side.’ He went straight in and we got bogged, wow! We had a hell of a job to get out. We had to get sleepers, tie them onto the tracks and then gradually back out. Oh, God, it was a job. Took us nearly all day, half a day to get out. I said, ‘What the hell were you doing going in like that, Fred?’ He said, ‘Oh, I thought I’d just go in there, you know, boom.’ That’d be Fred, you know. He went in where angels fear to tread. (laughter) But that didn’t worry Fred. We got the dam cleaned out eventually.

He knew the North-East country, didn’t he?

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TOM: Oh yes, yes.

Okay, well, that’s that.

MARGARET: Okay, John.

Hope you enjoy your peek in the book and – – –.

TOM: Oh, we will.

MARGARET: Oh, this is ours?

You can have that, yes.

TOM: Yes, and that’s very good – – –.

END OF INTERVIEW.

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