STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 721/4 Full transcript of an interview with KEITH LASLETT on 24 April 2005 By Robert Thompson 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 721/4 KEITH LASLETT NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT This transcript was created by the J. D. Somerville Oral History Collection of the State Library. It conforms to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription which are explained below. Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. As with any historical source, these are for the reader to judge. 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OH 721/4 Interview with Mr Keith Laslett recorded by Robert Thompson at Mount Gambier on 24th April and 1st May 2005 for the The State Library of South Australia’s Mount Gambier Region Oral History Project. TAPE 1 SIDE A We’re talking to Keith Laslett today. It’s the 24th April 2005. Could you tell us, Uncle Keith, when you were born? LS: Robert, I was born on the 23rd January in 1927 at Mrs Robertson’s Nursing Home in Sturt Street, Mount Gambier. It’s perhaps ironical that I spent so much of life in Sturt Street, as that’s where I had my joinery factory and building headquarters. I was the sixth child, the fourth son, of William Manger and Lillian Rose Laslett. My brothers and sisters were John Lacey, Reginald Thomas, Rosa Grace, William Langford, Emily Lillian, and Una May. My father was a farmer and we lived on Kingsley Road, Allendale East. The home we lived in is still occupied; it was the home of my grandparents. My father purchased his first motor car in the year I was born from my Uncle Charlie Earle. It was a 1914 T–Model Ford. It was customary in those days, on fine days, to let the hood down to reduce the wind resistance. My father was also a very keen cricketer and, particularly on a fine day, took the family, including the new baby, in the new car, with the hood down, to play cricket at Kongorong. I have been told that this outing probably contributed to my contracting bronchial pneumonia, and apparently I was quite ill and fears were held for my survival. Right. Well, you’ve obviously survived that incident, Uncle Keith, and I’d just like to ask you about what do you remember about the Laslett history, the origins of the Lasletts in England? Do you have any stories about those people? LS: Well, the story is, Robert, that we originally came from Normandy to England – With William the Conquerer? Is that the time? LS: – yes, that’s the time. And I don’t know, I have been privileged to visit a number of the properties which the Lasletts owned or controlled in England, particularly in Kent, and I don’t know. I wonder whether they might have got a bit of a kickback for services rendered! (laughter) 3 Well, they may have done! This is near Canterbury, isn’t it? LS: Yes, yes. My grandfather’s old home was ‘Vale’ or sometimes called ‘Hole’ Farm in Sturry, which is in Kent, and near Canterbury and that part – – –. How many miles from Canterbury would it be? Ten, or fifteen? LS: I would say fifteen to twenty, something like that. Yes, it’s not far, is it? LS: I’ve been privileged to visit the old home, which is still there, but the property where my grandfather lived as a boy had been sold some probably thirty years ago to the English Water Board to become what would be called the Great Oak Dam. It hadn’t happened until a few years ago, because the people protested that it was wrong to flood this good quality farmland, and there was a school of thought that thought that really it wasn’t a dam that they wanted but a playground for the rich and famous. However, with some recent very dry years, I think probably its eventual fate will be to be a dam. The old house that was there, and I’ve visited a couple of times, was the same as the one that was in the picture above our mantelshelf at our old home on Kingsley Road at Allendale. Now, I’ve also spent a day or two looking around some cemeteries, particularly in that area of Kent. There are a lot of Lasletts there – they’re all laying a bit still now – but at the door to the church, the church door at the Ash Church, there are a number of tombstones and they are all of Lasletts, and they date back I think to 1500 and something, the eldest ones of them. Where is Ash in comparison to Vale Farm? Is it close vicinity? LS: Yes, wouldn’t be far away, no. It’s all the little villages, one sort of seems to go into the other and you’re sort of in one before you’re out of another. But there were a number of properties there that history tells us were controlled by the Lasletts, who were yeoman farmers. They were for centuries, weren’t they? LS: Oh yes, yes, it was a long time. And there’s still some live ones there, Robert. Oh, that’s good! 4 LS: And they have, for I think centuries, been agriculturalists, fruit and veg people. The present generation, some of them grow the produce, others transport it and still others sell it. But it’s very, very rich soil and they can probably grow up to three crops of vegetables in a year so it’s very good. We have come to know one family in particular, Bill and Linda – Lasletts? LS: – yes, Bill and Linda Laslett – and they live at Little Weddington Farm in Kent, and they are farmers and they have sons who have produce stores where they sell it and generally they are marketers, growers and marketers, of their own produce. Now, I’ve also said I looked round and there was a lot of them laying very still, including my great-grandfather, and it was not hard for me to imagine, to stand by that grave of George Laslett, to imagine my grandfather – a lad of probably seventeen years of age – standing there beside the grave with his mother and brothers and sisters at my great-grandfather’s funeral. And that grave is still there in the Surrey churchyard. I don’t know that they would have known at that time that my grandfather and his family would not have been able to inherit the lands that they farmed. Under English law in those times the descendent or the heir had to be twenty-one years of age, and of course my grandfather was not that old.