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

OH 834/30

Full transcript of an interview with

ANTHONY VAUGHAN

19 April 2007

by Tony Rogers

for the

BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

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 834/30 ANTHONY VAUGHAN

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

This transcript was donated to the State Library. It was not created by the J.D. Somerville Oral History Collection and does not necessarily conform to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription.

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.

This transcript had not been proofread prior to donation to the State Library and has not yet been proofread since. Researchers are cautioned not to accept the spelling of proper names and unusual words and can expect to find typographical errors as well.

AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMEN T

  BUREAU OF METEOROLOG Y

History Unit

Interview with

Tony Vaughan

Interviewer

Tony Rogers

2 February 2007 at Stirling SA

Interview number: 07001vaughan

The History Unit is a volunteer group of experienced researchers and writers assisting the Bureau of Meteorology

Interview with Tony Vaughan on 2 February 2007 Interviewer: Tony Rogers Interview number 07001vaughan

Tony Rogers This is Tony Rogers speaking with Tony Vaughan on the first of February.

Tony Vaughan Second.

Tony Rogers Oh sorry. Ok.[laughs] on the second of February 2007 at Stirling as part of the history project of the Bureau of Meteorology in South Australia to celebrate a hundred years of the Bureau in South Australia. Our thanks for taking part in the project and allowing us to use the recording. It will be transcribed and a written copy will be given to you for proof. Ok. Now, you said you would be part of this project, Tony, why?

Tony Vaughan Well, as I've just mentioned, Well, as I've just mentioned, we have histories of buildings and systems, etc. but we've got very few, if any, notes and stories about people who worked in the Weather Bureau or are still working. But I left ten years ago so I'm going from 1995 previously.

Tony Rogers When did you start?

Tony Vaughan I started in 1965, here in Adelaide.

Tony Rogers Where would that have been in Adelaide?

Tony Vaughan On West Terrace where we had the Observatory next to the Adelaide Boys High School.

Tony Rogers Was it a big organisation then?

Tony Vaughan No, no, I'm not quite sure how many there were there. I was recruited and worked there probably for about six weeks prior to going on the observer's course

at Melbourne the following January. So I was just a fill-in and odds-and-sodder, a clerical assistant, etc., etc. But there wasn't many people there, no, no.

Tony Rogers Who was the Director there?

Tony Vaughan Doc Hogan.

Tony Rogers A good guy?

Tony Vaughan I don't know, only hearsay. He was a very severe strict man, but I understand he was a fair man, but I had very very little to do with him.

Tony Rogers Even though it was so small?

Tony Vaughan Even though it was so small. I was just a fill-in, just a temporary ring-in for six weeks. Tony Rogers Was that your first job or did you. . . ?

Tony Vaughan No, no. I did ten years in the Merchant Navy and then came out here. Because I had done meteorology about ship, I applied and they said, "you're just the person we're looking for, when can you start?"

Tony Rogers Oh great! Just that easy.

Tony Vaughan Oh, in the sixties you could get a job anywhere at any time. It was very simple.

Tony Rogers So when did you actually start. Do you remember?

Tony Vaughan Yes, December '65.

Tony Rogers December '65. Then you went to Melbourne?

Tony Vaughan Yes, then I went to Melbourne in January and did the Observer course, I think that was about six months, it must have been, because I finished up at Cocos Island about July or August of that year, '66.

Tony Rogers Cocos Island.

Tony Vaughan Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Tony Rogers What did you do? did you work there?

Tony Vaughan Yeah - weather Observer. I graduated as a weather Observer and in those days you signed the piece of parchment -you will serve any of her maj - what was it? - something and territories and Cocos Island came up and they said, "Right, single, unattached, you can go there as a single bloke." And it was terrific. In those days, Qantas, and South African Airlines used to refuel, stage, there on their way to Mauritius and Johannesburg. So it was really a little Qantas/South African Airlines refuelling stop. We had the Shell refuellers, Department of Civil Aviation flight service people, air traffic controllers, the met people, of course, which was four of us and a technician, and all the ancillary staff - cooks etc., Commonwealth Bank, post office.

Tony Rogers So it was a little Aussie colony.

Tony Vaughan Oh, no, it was League of Nations! There was all sorts there, there was Germans, there was Poms, there was Aussies, there was a Yugoslav. Oh no, it was good.

Tony Rogers Any Cocos Islanders?

Tony Vaughan Not on our island, this was in the days when John Clunies-Ross was a benevolent despot. He ruled the Cocos Islands and his system, that's not the correct word. The Islanders were quite willing to stay there, as long as they wanted, and then work on the copra plantation, etc., but then, once they left the island, they could never return - like the archipelago. We were on West Island, the natives lived on Home

Island and there was marine base on Direction Island and an air/sea rescue craft in case the aircraft went in either side. But it was wonderful, it was nice.

Tony Rogers Why was it wonderful?

Tony Vaughan It was unspoiled, it was, ten years aboard ship, it was similar to being on a ship, you know, mainly blokes. When the aircraft overnighted, and the stewardesses came off, there was a bit of a competition, you might say. There was a few married couples there. It was good.

Tony Rogers Who were the other Australian people from the Bureau of Meteorology who were there?

Tony Vaughan Bill Lensink [?] who was a Dutchman, who was the IoC/forecaster. There was myself, there was Evan Lee, a chap of Chinese extraction, and a couple of Aussie guys.

Tony Rogers So how long were you there?

Tony Vaughan Twelve months. As a single man it was a twelve-month posting. As a married man it was two years. So they decided, right, Cocos Islands, I'd had enough tropical experience, so you're off to Hobart.

Tony Rogers Change of climate.

Tony Vaughan Change of climate, and I finished up in Hobart airport.

Tony Rogers How long were you in Hobart then?

Tony Vaughan About two - two or three - years and then I got transferred to Launceston and I was there for a couple of years and then I got transferred to Adelaide. They did the dirty on me. My wife, who I met in Launceston doing her midwifery, she's from the Adelaide Hills here. We got married and lived in Launceston and the two lads were born there and a vacancy appeared in Adelaide. I thought, yeah, right. She can

come back home, etc., etc. I started at Adelaide Radar on April Fools day 1974 and by the end of June I was in Woomera.

Tony Rogers Oh no! [laughs]

Tony Vaughan I got shafted! [laughs]

Tony Rogers Yes, you did.

Tony Vaughan They dragged me kicking and screaming into Woomera. I didn't want to go because I'd never been there, of course. You always hear the horror tales about places, you very rarely hear the good ones. But my wife and I and the two little lads, we went there in 74 and we had an absolute ball. It was absolutely brilliant, Woomera.

Tony Rogers Why?

Tony Vaughan Two things. Mainly it was a secure township. You had to have a pass. You had to show your pass to do anything or to get anywhere. If you weren't gainfully employed there, you weren't there. Like there was no tourists, there was no visitors, there were no hangers-on. You were there because you were working there. And for young children, it was magic. There were lots of little kiddies, lots of youngsters. It was very secure, you didn't lock your house, you left your keys in your car, etc., etc., and lots of sport. And lots of drinking as well, of course. That was the other thing which cruelled a lot of people. Yes, it did. But sport was good. I played sport and my wife played sport. She became a netball champion for about four years running.

Tony Rogers What sport did you play?

Tony Vaughan Anything. Cricket, soccer. I didn't want to play soccer. I thought I'm probably past it, but I'll go down and help out and I finished up being a regular and they called us Dad's Army. [laughs] Of course that was the age group of. . .we were all mostly ex-Poms. A lot of the Aussie guys played Aussie rules, of course. And if they got too old, or couldn't hack the injuries, they drifted into soccer. Lots of fun, lots of fun. Now who did we have at Woomera? We had a meteorologist, Peter Blake,

who you met the other day. Peter's the chap who's having trouble with his muscles. He was the OiC. There was myself, seven others, I think, and a radio technician. We had quite a. . . . of course we were doing support for the rocket range so we needed extra personnel. And from there I went to Darwin.

Tony Rogers When did you go to Darwin?

Tony Vaughan I got a promotion in '78. I went there to regional office - and that was different again. I enjoyed Darwin, but I can't say I enjoyed the work.

Tony Rogers Why not?

Tony Vaughan In those days Darwin was a . . . . We got a lot of junior Observers, people who were having issues, you might say. Straight off course. "Oh, we got sent to Darwin." Mind you, promotion was rapid. A lot of the Mets came up as Met 1. After three months they were acting Met 2 and then they became a permanent Met 2. In other places it might take them two or three years to get the promotion.

Tony Rogers Just because they were in Darwin?

Tony Vaughan Well, because it was a difficult place to get people to stay. Then my job was in charge of the plotters. We used to have to plot all the weather observations, international, you know, Australian, Indonesian and Asian. I had a team of communicators and a team of plotters and (laugh) there were some characters, some of them a bit unreliable. Darwin, of course, was a ....I would like to say, a hard winking...hard working, hard drinking, hard playing, but it was more the hard playing, the hard drinking rather than the hard working with my group. But it was good, and again it was a young city just being re-built after Cyclone Tracy, lots of young kids and plenty for our lads....

Tony Rogers How old were your kids when you went there?

Tony Vaughan They would have been....72 to 78....6....6 and 5, 4,5 and 6. Our daughter was born up there.

Tony Rogers And they have happy memories of it?

Tony Vaughan Oh yeah, yeah. One of the neighbours -- we had terrific neighbours - good workmates of mine, you know, at the same level -- good social life and one of the fringe benefits of it was you got around like this all the time. There was no blankets, there was no pullovers, there was no heavy weather gear, it was very comfortable to live; and the rents, the Bureau house was very, very cheap rental.

Tony Rogers Did you get paid more for being out there?

Tony Vaughan Yeah, zone area allowance, we got that and you got a bit of relief -- taxation as well. The biggest bit of a problem was leave, got seven weeks leave, plus a week to drive in and a week to drive out-- which has since gone because everybody flies in and out now. So theoretically you could leave Darwin and drive to Adelaide - which we did - took about 5 days, and then your leave started. When your leave finished you had another 5 days to drive back. But those days are long gone. I don't know what the.....I think it's an air fare , the cheapest air fare to Adelaide. But that was good, now then erm -- managed to fluke of er-- 4,5 months pozzy in Solomon Islands. They were looking for an OIC over there and I applied for it and came second, but the chap who got the guernsey couldn't make it for a few months and er said I "Come on Vaughany over you go", and that was that was er-- in '80, '81. They had just taken independence, but they were used to be the British Islands, British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Do you remember that? And it was still the Civil Service from, you know, the overseas mob was running it and there was all sorts of Poms and gin and tonics and et cetera et cetera and slotted in quite well.[laughs].

Tony Rogers How long were you there for?

Tony Vaughan About 4 months. That was wonderful you know, lovely house and servants....

Tony Rogers No problems?

Tony Vaughan No.

Tony Rogers The Solomons had a few problems after that I think.

Tony Vaughan Er-- a few years after that . Lovely people er…smashing people…you know I am yet to come to grips with er…how the system works as "wontok" they call them like different tribes…its no point…you belong to one tribe and I belong to another it's no point me saying "oh you two will go and serve at one station" because they would never give up. [unclear] You have got to have two of the same ilk serving at the one station and once you have got that sorted it was good.

Tony Rogers So you went there for 4 months, did you go back to Darwin?

Tony Vaughan Yeah, back to Darwin; and then the eldest boy was starting…going to start high school and we weren't very keen on him going to high school in Darwin. State school wasn't real flash and the other one was private school, St. John's, I think, and we weren't quite enraptured with that so it's a ride back to Adelaide. And again, the Weather Bureau, they were wonderful people you know they were as cunning as shithouse rats...(unclear).. You can go to Adelaide we have to go to Woomera first. [laughs]. Forget it! But that was the only way we could get to…down here. So I did another almost two years in Woomera from '83 to 80…turn of '84, two years and that had changed. Just the few years been away they loosened or relaxed the past requirements et cetera et cetera et cetera and er…it was an open village, people could come in and out as they pleased a lot like a country town, you know, and that made a wee bit of difference.

Tony Rogers Better or worse?

Tony Vaughan I personally thought it was worse. You become very protective, you know, this is our little village we don't want you bastards in here. [laughs]. And of course we knew everybody, well just about everybody and then you have strangers coming in and…and you had to lock up sons and daughters et cetera et cetera. And then from Woomera down to the Adelaide Airport Radar on…it used to be at Glenelg

side of the Airport the other radar building and that was good, kids enjoyed it-- good crew-- lots of fun.

Tony Rogers How long were you there for?

Tony Vaughan About nine years, I think. And then I went south. Well, I did a few other jobs. I came into town. I was an Inspector for a while.

Tony Rogers You were into the new building by then, I take it.

Tony Vaughan No. no. Not the radar building. This was the old building. Now let’s get this right. I was down at the radar for a few years, then I came into town for the RFC. Then I went to Antarctica and then I came back and retired.

Tony Rogers Where’s the RFC?

Tony Vaughan The Regional Forecasting Centre. Where you are in Kent Town. Sorry, RFC. I did that for a couple of years. The main thing was to get off shift work. At the airport I was working – I had to do a couple of doggos, two o’clock in the morning starts. Then I was getting, like everything else, you get into a bit of a rut. When you reach a level of incompetence, you think [mutters, unclear].

Tony Rogers So then you went down to Antarctica.

Tony Vaughan Yes, ‘93 I went down.

Tony Rogers By yourself or. . . ?

Tony Vaughan Through the Bureau.

Tony Rogers Yes, your wife couldn’t go?

Tony Vaughan And while I was at Adelaide Airport, I went to Giles weather station three times. I went up there. Again for something different. I think it’s this hankering

– itchy feet or whatever you call it. But the Giles weather station that was something else again in the olden days. It was…it was a country club. We had a bar and we’d sell drinks and postcards and some cigarettes and tobacco, etc, etc, etc, and lots of tourists…gosh, we had millions of tourists.

Tony Rogers Everybody talks about Giles.

Tony Vaughan It’s all changed now. Since the Aboriginals took over the lease in ’91, no grog – well you get your own personal use alcohol and if you want to sell anything to the tourists, it’s cocoa. You’re not allowed to smoke of course in government buildings. But on my first trip in ’87, it was full-on. It was Alan Bond, and Skase, and John Elliott, you know. There was money coming out of everybody’s . . . .in fact, these tourists came through, I was OiC of the station with another three of the best and we had a policy. The first drink was always on the house. You’d come in with your wife, “G’Day Tony, would you like a drink? No that’s alright, this is on us.” Then you’re obliged to buy! [laughter]. I got talking to this fellow, the other side of the bar. It was Bondy’s pilot. Bondy had three, no, two aircraft and about four pilots of these big black DC9s. And if he needed to have a meeting in London or Paris or New York, he’d just say, “Right, who’s rostered on.” Bondy and his entourage out there. The characters we met going through Giles. And of course Len Beadell. Are you familiar with him.

Tony Rogers No.

Tony Vaughan He opened up all the Gunbarrel Highway prior to Woomera releasing the atom bomb and all that. He went in and pushed the roads, in etc, etc, etc. and he was a character he . . . .you would have enjoyed yourself interviewing him. He’s dead now. He never wore socks. He got around with a pair of boots. He was a surveyor by trade. He went out there when he was very young, 21 or 22 and pushed all these access roads into the Maralinga [?], into the [unclear] out to Giles, etc. He was a bit of a cult figure. He used to take tourists through there and all his disciples would tag along and sit at the bastard’s feet [unclear]

Tony Rogers What – you said people came into the bar. Did you guys run the bar?

Tony Vaughan Oh, yeah. No, I’m not saying anything more! [laughs]

Tony Rogers Was it legal?

Tony Vaughan Well, no.

Tony Rogers They can’t get you now!

Tony Vaughan I think everybody knew about it, but nobody did, if you understand what I mean. It was one of the perks of going there.

Tony Rogers Oh, OK.

Tony Vaughan It was never mentioned in recruitment, but, in fact, before you went there, you had to buy your share of the business, you might say.

Tony Rogers So what was Giles like? What was the accommodation like?

Tony Vaughan Pretty basic. It was just a meteorological office stuck in the middle of nowhere with a generator room, meteorological office and the accommodation and the mess.

Tony Rogers But what was the accommodation?

Tony Vaughan The accommodation was a series of single men’s quarters. I think it was six in a row, galvanised walls and that. Two lots of that and just a bed, wardrobe and a communal shower/bathroom at the end. Well, probably a good way away from the accommodation. Then we had the mess, which was a dining room, kitchen and a billiard room and a spare, like a space, an area. Then we had the bar. Then we had a store room, a cool room, huge generator room with three generators, machinery shed and then the actual meteorological office itself. Then we had the met office, the radar, moon [?] tracking radar. And in those days we had to generate our own hydrogen, which was a bit of a bugger really. We had these huge gas cylinders, generating

cylinders with a big metal screw top. We’d pour in a mixture of caustic soda and, what the hell was it, iron filings roughly - caustic, iron filings and water – and screw the bung on before brew blew the whole thing up. And a chemical reaction would take place and hydrogen was formed under tremendous pressure and you had to keep shaking the cylinder to stop the residue solidifying at the bottom because when it was empty you had to chip the residue out before you made the next brew.

Tony Rogers It sounds dangerous.

Tony Vaughan It was. It was fraught. Not often, but it did have a little safety gauge on the top of the cylinder, a little bursting disk, a little copper disk, and occasionally it would go whing! bang! and the thing would . . . you know. It’s a wonder nobody was killed because in those days we were pretty lax about safety. In fact, when I was on Cocos we made our own gas. We had a rainwater tank and from the tank to the cylinders there was a pipe across the ground and we were generating hydrogen in just a pair of shorts and a pair of thongs with bloody near boiling water. Geez! Nobody thought anything of it.

Tony Rogers So how many people would have worked there?

Tony Vaughan At any one time we had the Officer in Charge, then there was two Observers, a mechanic - no three Observers. Officer in Charge, three Observers, a mechanic and a cook. Six people.

Tony Rogers What about cleaning staff?

Tony Vaughan Oh, you did your own. You were rostered on for cleaning and that. The cook cleaned the mess and the kitchen and that and we took it in turns to clean the met office and the toilets. And rostered overtime on a Sunday for toilet cleaning.

Tony Rogers Did you do a good job?

Tony Vaughan Oh, it was dead easy, you know. And the mechanic was responsible for everything – everything mechanical, electrical. In fact there were some useful lads went up there. They could turn their hands and fix just about everything.

Tony Rogers How long were you there?

Tony Vaughan It was a six month tour so I did three six-month tours, ’87, ’89 and ’91.

Tony Rogers Did you make a lot of money out of the bar?

Tony Vaughan You might think so, I couldn’t possibly comment. In ’91, of course, they had this big ceremony where the Commonwealth signed over the lease of the land to the local Aboriginal people and everything changed.

Tony Rogers Why were so many tourists. You said there were a lot of tourists?

Tony Vaughan Well, Giles, where it’s situated. Usually from Perth to Ayers Rock…and they had [unclear] and the Gunbarrel Highway and the romance of Len Beadell etc., etc. And we were a wonderful. . .a watering hole. You couldn’t get anything to drink anywhere else. And, in fact, there were a couple of times people would say, “Just stopping over, just coming in for a couple of hours,” you know. We’d show them round the Mess section, etc., etc. etc. We’d sell them t-shirts and caps and they’d say, “We’re only staying for a couple of hours,” and three days later. . . .[laughs] They’d spend all night in the bar.

Tony Rogers What was the road like?

Tony Vaughan The road was - - pretty ordinary, very ordinary.

Tony Rogers Gravel or. . . ?

Tony Vaughan Oh yeah, just a dirt road. The Laverton Shire was theCounty Council or whatever you call it. They used to do a good job of grading sort of towards . .from Laverton up to Giles. To Docker River actually where the border stopped, Western

Australia. From Docker River to the Rock was pretty horrendous at times and from the Olgas to the Rock was the worst of the lot because all the buses used to go to the Olgas and then turn around and go back again.

Tony Rogers How did you get in and out then?

Tony Vaughan Flew. The Aborigines had Nanajarra Air, unkindly called Coon Air and the pilots were some religious folk - can’t think of the name of them. I’m not sure if they flew voluntarily or not, using little twin engine Cessnas. We’d fly in with the stores and the mail. We’d get the plane twice a week with stores and groceries. In those days they were ordered from Woollies in Alice and air-freighted out. I don’t know what they do now. I think it comes by truck to Docker River and you have to go and pick it up.

Tony Rogers Did you get out while you were there or were you there for the six months non-stop?

Tony Vaughan Locally. We did local trips and if you were very lucky you might get a trip to Ayers Rock. That was about it. I don’t think anybody really wanted to go.

Tony Rogers But you had family back in Adelaide.

Tony Vaughan Yeah, I could never come down here, no. It was in the too-hard basket. There was nothing to stop my family going up there, providing nobody knew about it. The usual thing. There was the odd occasion, you know, somebody’s girl friend would come up.

Tony Rogers But it was under the table, sort of thing?

Tony Vaughan Yeah, but it was good. It was a lot of hard work at times, but. . . .

Tony Rogers Was the Bureau pretty good at closing its eyes? I mean the bureaucracy. Were they good at closing their eyes?

Tony Vaughan Oh yeah. Mind you we were governed from South Australia, Giles, even though it was in Western Australia. It was run from South Australia. You’ve met little Morrie Moncrieff the other day. Morrie was in charge of the purse strings. An unkind story! Morrie used to come up, annually I suppose. He’d come in with a new crew occasionally and go around with his little notebook. “This needs doing. Yeah we’ll get a new one of those. Yeah, we’ll do it.” Then halfway between Giles and Alice Springs you’d see all this confetti coming down again. [Laughs] But he kept a pretty canny eye on things. But we had some, oh what can I say…the Laverton police, the Western Australian police based in Laverton used to do a - I suppose it was part of their beat – the longest beat in the world. They’d come to Giles, I think it was every week or every fortnight, and we’d put them up overnight. And occasionally they’d take a prisoner back, one of the local lads who’d been misbehaving. The beggars, they used to break into the grog store. They were as cunning as shithouse rats. We had a roller door and one day there was a little gap at the bottom of the roller door where it had been forced. Bloody hell! Bottles of brandy and cartons of beer going missing. Some little fellow had got in. We’d go down and get the local chairman, the head man. We’d say, “Look, John, what’s going on here?” The thieves are daft, they’ve got no idea. They’re all barefooted, of course. Ivan goes round and says, “Yeah, yeah, that’s Billy Bartholomew and Craig so-and-so. You can tell by the footprints,” And sure enough it was those two lads who’d done it and we got onto the Area Administrator, [unclear] and said “Look, mate, we’ve lost five cartons of beer and two bottles of rum” and he reimbursed us about twice the value or he reimbursed us the retail. But that was ongoing. In fact they snuck into the bar – we used to keep all the keys above the bar for the vehicles -we had three vehicles - and the next thing the vehicles disappeared. And of course there was a chase on and we finished up going [unclear]

Tony Rogers How did you get on with the Aboriginal people?

Tony Vaughan Good. yeah, they’re terrific, especially the old fellows and they’ve got a wonderful sense of humour. The young bucks were a pain in the arse, you know, bored out of their brains, didn’t know what to do and they used to get into mischief. But it began to get a bit more serious then – vandalism - and they started thieving and things like that and petrol sniffing, of course, was a – still is as I understand – a

continuing problem. But it’s the way of the world. You’d imagine the olden days when they used to go kangaroo hunting. They’d probably go a 40k radius around Giles with the spears and then get 303s and rifles and that and now it’s a 200k radius in the back of a ute. Everything’s changed. But Giles is good. We did three trips there and tripped down the ice. I had one year when I could leave the family. The daughter would have been – ’93 - she would have been 15ish...14 or 15. I thought if I don’t go now, I’m not going, you know, you can’t leave. . . . so I applied and then got a guernsey. I went to Casey, the Australian base at Casey. Left here in…I think it was August ’92 and got back in March? – February of March ’94. I was away for a good 12 months. And it was good. Sent us to Hobart for pre-Antarctic training and down there, then back again for leave and then came back to the radar and that was my undoing really. I went back to the Regional Forecasting Centre after having been down there and, bloody hell, it was like coming back to kindergarten. Petty politics and - what’s the word - immature attitude of a lot of the staff, you know. And I thought, I don’t like this and so, when I was 55, I retired. I’d reached my level of incompetence. There were no promotions, there was nothing I hadn’t done that I wanted to do. So I thought – and I worked it out, the salary, financially I was about 20 bucks a fortnight worse off retiring than I was working, by the time you take all your super and all that and I said, “I’m not coming to work for 10 bucks a week” and not be happy so I did it and have never looked back.

Tony Rogers Were you living in Nairne then?

Tony Vaughan Yeah. We lived in there as soon as we came back from Woomera and, of course, once they had opened up the South Eastern Freeway - it only used to go to Hahndorf which used to spear off…where are we? Stirling, Hahndorf, yeah…and that made a huge difference. But the characters…no…which characters did we have? Start from the start, training school in Melbourne…little chap called…I think it was - Kevin Lomas…little fellow (unclear).

Tony Rogers Kevin Lomas -- L-o-m-a-s

Tony Vaughan L-o-m-a-s -- he was addicted to…remember those Vincents powders, like Bex powder, you know these things? They would be in a little packet and Kevin

used to throw his down. I think it was when he was under stress. He used to…we had a…a lot of our lecturers, he was a young pommie bloke…ex…ex…I don't think he actually flew for a company or he had his private pilots licence, he was a very keen flier…Bill Constable was his name. He had as much idea of teaching meteorology as flying to the moon but anyway we all got through but one of the characters, one of the course members, was a chap called Frank Dance, he was an ex patrol officer ex school teacher up in New Guinea and I don't know why he never went away but Frank came on course with us. Probably him and I were probably one of the older guys on course and he had a half share in a Gypsy Moth…Tiger Moth…Gypsy...(unclear)... aircraft kept at Moorabbin and er one day he said…he said er…you know 'Do you want to come for a spin'? I said 'Oh yeah, I'll be in that'. So one morning I went round to his place, he had a little Beetle and we drove out to Moorabbin and man-handled this aircraft out and give me the leather helmet and he said, you know, he said “better put some warm clothes on”. So I got this scarf round my head and on the Tiger Moth the passenger seat is in the front and the driver sits at the back and the joystick between your legs and this little lever throttle thing on the fuselage. Comedy of errors, the radio contact radio wasn't working (unclear) we'll have the voice back between (unclear) away we go. He said 'We will just go for a spin'. I said 'Right, this is it'. You know, Biggles and all this, Douglas Bader, and we take off from (unclear) and up we go and this little cumulus cloud in front says you know 'watch this' sort of …powered through it then it goes twice the size and you power through it again and it goes twice the size again or you power through it and it just fits, you know, you burn it up. Anyway, great fellow this, the next thing he says is 'I am going to do a loop' he says ‘right, not a problem'. (Unclear and verbal engine noises)…pulls the stick back, this is all (unclear) you know, the sticks moving between my legs and we are doing a loop and (more verbal engine noises) and there is just a (shhhhh - verbal) as the air goes through the rigging, they didn't tell me it was a gravity feed petrol tank when you are upside down the engine (unclear) . My whole life went past my eyes (unclear) [laughs]. (More stuttering engine noises) (Unclear). I don't know what I looked like but I says “Wanna go down…wanna get out”. He said “Oh! You wanna go down'. (More verbal engine noises) - pushed the stick forward. I managed to convince him I wanted to land. You might have…or you have heard the expression your legs were like jelly, I got out of that aircraft and my legs – literally - were like jelly. God, I was scared. Relieved myself and he said 'Oh, for God's sake, Frank, you should have told

me'. You know, he says, “well look, OK, but get back aboard and this is I am going to do some stall turns and this and this and this”. I got back aboard when I knew what he was going to do. It was brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Back we went and landed at Moorabbin. I will never forget that day (unclear) I thought I was going to die. But he was a card he…he was one of a kind. He finished up as a aviation forecaster up in Townsville and he's since died as far as I know, but he…he was a character. Cocos Island characters are just having me a little Chinese chap he was a -- (unclear) keen sportsman -- (unclear) keen sportsman. His brother used to run the chemists shop at Essendon Airport…um…lots of characters at Cocos but non of them weather blokes…um…Hobart…2 characters there. The OIC in the airport was an Englishman called JohnWhitehead…had a had a gammy leg, one stiff leg but…ah…this is a bit of a criticism of John but he had no idea of man management “there's the book, they are the rules, that's what we're going to do”. But his offsider was Commander Nils Lied [Unclear discussion of name]

Tony Rogers Lied, how do you spell that?

Tony Vaughan L-i-e-d, yeah, Nils N-i-l-s - L-i-e-d ---- and he was totally different from from John and Nils and I got on really well and the others married a Hungarian lady I think it was his third marriage and her second or something or other and he was laid back, irresponsible was probably too strong a word but he was pretty…pretty laid back. He said he had been through the war, he had been captured, he escaped you know et cetera, et cetera what's a bloody (unclear) you know, this is nothing. It was like the old Keith Miller story, you know, about pressure…playing cricket…he says “pressure, you are talking about pressure playing cricket” he says “a Messerschmidt up yer arse is pressure mate” [laughter]. Nils was like that (unclear) whereas John was a stickler, he was a stickler. That was at the airport…erm…another chap we had, Barry Peterson, I think he might still be alive, he must be close to 90 if he is. He was immaculate…be on the night shift there, 6 at night or 6 in the morning and Barry would rock up at 6 o'clock in the morning with his blazer, collar and tie reeking of Old Spice and a briefcase with a bottle of beer and a tin of sardines [laughs]. It was his breakfast. Yes, he was a card.

Tony Rogers About people here in Adelaide when you were at the airport.

Tony Vaughan Who were they?

Tony Rogers Yes were they......

Tony Vaughan Oh yeah, in the olden days when I first come over here there were lots of characters they are the old fashioned…ex war-time you might say…Observers… Frank Waller, Syd Murren, Archie Ryan, Rigger Ryan, can't think of his first name, there is 2 Ryans…erm…Alan Ashton. For me these were old blokes and then and then......

Tony Rogers Were any of them mates of yours?

Tony Vaughan No just workmates. They were a different generation.

Tony Rogers Did they talk about the old days at all?

Tony Vaughan Not really, no, can't remember them doing that. They're bastards (unclear). Not like Howard Frosterly where a couple of the oldies all they talk about is RAAF mines and flying boats and you know so and so. Charleville Airport in the olden days......

Tony Rogers He said guy called Logan was it was Director when you started, Hogan or Logan?

Tony Vaughan Ben Hogan, Hogan (unclear) Doc Hogan

Tony Rogers Who…now…you said you didn't know him well, who was the Director when you came back to South Australia?

Tony Vaughan The Regional Director was…erm…it would have been Alan Brunt. Who was before him? There was Graeme Furler, and prior to him was Lynn Mitchell and prior to him was Alan Brunt and prior to him must have been Doc Hogan but Morrie Moncrieff's your man to…he knows all the ins and outs of the Regional...

Tony Rogers Did you know the Regional Directors much or did you avoid them?

Tony Vaughan Well being at Woomera you didn't have much contact…very, very little contact with them (unclear) the radar. If somebody left we would have a barbeque or something would happen, you would occasionally see them. But no, they had much more important things to do. You kind of think there is a bit of a feather in your cap because they didn't need to. (Unclear) because things were going along swimmingly (unclear) there was no need for them to get involved.

Tony Rogers So who would you have dealt with mainly, you know, who would have been sort of your Officer in Charge?

Tony Vaughan Oh Graham, Graham, Graham probably the last few years, when Lynn was there there was probably up at Woomera. But Graham mainly the RD I had most to do with. He is a good man, a good bloke…and they had the…these erm…what do they call em these days…Supervising Meteorologists…and we had…errm…John Armstrong he was (unclear) You met Vicki the other day, a little chubby…erm…erm ex…ex…he's died. But he is a smashing fella.

Tony Rogers Oh OK, why?

Tony Vaughan Ah! He got on with people. Do you know he didn't talk down…not like a lot of the meteorologists used to talk down at the other ranks in inverted commas but John was (unclear)......

Tony Rogers Meteorologists think that they are at the top of the ladder do they?

Tony Vaughan Oh in the olden days there was…there was…certainly was. You know they were 3rd Division and we are only 4th division in the Public Service and et cetera et cetera and oh yeah. But John was good, his name is very political (unclear) he could get on with any strata of society.

Tony Rogers So a lot of the growth in the Bureau in Adelaide because it apparently grew quite fast you would have been up in Woomera or somewhere else...(unclear)

Tony Vaughan I would have been away when that happened. I am trying to think when they moved into Kent Town I think that was '78 was it?

Tony Rogers '77.

Tony Vaughan '77, well I would have been way up (unclear) in Woomera and then up in Darwin. Because there weren't that many people employed at the Observatory on West Terrace, in fact that got too small and they had to spill out into the Western Offices. There was, you know, lots of work done then…done there and of course we had 2 offices at the…at the airport where the WSO which is the Weather Services Obse…where the aviation forecast is…and a couple of clerical assistants used to be that's right on top of the old terminal, used to be the office there and we were way across the other side of the airport at Radar releasing balloons and et cetera and doing observations.

Tony Rogers So when you came back, when you finally came into the city to work did it seem strange to have so many people?

Tony Vaughan Oh yes, yeah. Yes it was a…you had these 3 levels. You had downstairs where the radio techs were and then you had the next level where the boss was and then the hierarchy and the administration and then, of course, the next level was the forecasting and the operational centre and then it was the…what did they call it… records, the climate section where they had all the records and data and public weather (unclear). Oh yes, there was all sorts of people there.

Tony Rogers What you have spoken about, it is all men.

Tony Vaughan Very few women in those days. Yes, ah, lady Observers. I think the first one must have been…must have been in the late 70's. Could be wrong there.

Tony Rogers Late 70s? And who was that?

Tony Vaughan Oh, I don’t know. Ailsa Grady rings a bell. I think she might have been one of the first ones. I had very little to do with female Observers. We had female plotters in Darwin. There the ones, clerical assistants, and female communicators, but again, clerical assistants. There were female Meteorologists. We had them for a while. Female Observers, female Radio Techs – gosh – I can’t think of the first one. Claire, Claire Richards, she was one of the first ones. She grew herself to stardom and she’s in Sydney somewhere as one of the Bureau’s public faces. I’m not sure if the Bureau – if it was equal opportunity, some legislation was enacted. But you can see the problems. They do have female Observers up at Giles now which is OK now because they’ve re-built the station and everybody’s got their own little room like a motel unit. But in the olden days there wasn’t a ladies toilet as such but just fortunately the old toilet, which the tourists used to use, the shower and toilet - that was for the ladies - that’s the female cook. That was the only female up there. No female Observers.

Tony Rogers So if somebody had a girlfriend come up, you said that happened sometimes, where did she . . .?

Tony Vaughan Oh, we had so many single rooms, you know. I expect they would put two beds, or make two beds into a single double bed. No, the women didn’t come on the scene until, like I say, Darwin, but they were mainly clerical assistants and not at the radar until Claire rocked up. There was a bit of a thing about women being on their own on the night shift and some of these remote places, you know, could have been dangerous.

Tony Rogers I can understand that, I suppose, though you said it was a very safe environment.

Tony Vaughan Woomera was but at the radar down there on the other side of the airport, there was no security. Anyone could wander in off the street. It was like a sort of [unclear]. Places like Charlick [?] Or [unclear] or [unclear], you’d have to be a bit sensible about it.

Tony Rogers Yes. You mentioned the bar at Giles as a bit of an illegal perk. Several people have mentioned sort of little perks in the system. Where there any other going on that you knew about.

Tony Vaughan There was an illegal perk in Forrest [?] [Coughs] (I’m going to get a glass of water).

Tony Rogers I’ll get if for you.

Tony Vaughan Thanks, Tone. At Forrest they used to re-fuel the aircraft.

Tony Rogers [interrupts] Do you want water or tea?

Tony Vaughan Water will do.

Tony Rogers OK. Keep talking!

Tony Vaughan They used to re-fuel the aircraft and I think it was the re-fuellers perk. I think he got 2 cents a litre, or something, for putting 150 litres in an aircraft. What other perks were there? [Pause]. There was just the re-fuelling at Forrest. That wasn’t illegal, that was part of your contract. We used to re-fuel the aircraft at Giles but that was a military thing. The Flying Doctor would come in and he’d need to be re-fuelled. That was another thing. The Flying Doctor used to come in once a fortnight in his aircraft, taxied right up to Giles. We put him up for the night and the doctor would see the local community and then fly off to the next place.

Tony Rogers Probably end up in the bar as well.

Tony Vaughan Well, occasionally, but you know, they’d got to be pretty sensible [unclear] Then again, one of the interesting tasks was putting the emergency lights out. There might be a medical emergency and the aircraft’s got to land at Giles. No lights, no nothing, so we had these lights stored in the transmitter hut and so we’d organise to put these…remember the old night watchman’s lantern on the roadworks? Something similar to that and every 100 yards or so down the runway we’d put these

lights. We usually had plenty of notice, so in daylight we’d put them out. Somebody driving the truck and me or somebody running alongside, you know. Then an hour before they were due to land, somebody would go down and switch each one on. Then he’d come in. And when he’d taken off and we’d got the all clear, we’d go down and switch them off and [unclear] and put them away again. That was…the batteries, keeping the batteries up for that was nothing to do with the Weather Bureau, that was the Aboriginal community problem. That was another one of the unofficial tasks. I enjoyed that. The Flying Doctor would occasionally have a lady pilot. There was one lady pilot used to fly. They used to have a nursing sister as well. The pilot, the doctor and a nursing sister and occasionally another trainee or somebody getting a familiarisation thing. Depending on the nursing sister or who was involved, single lads so, usually the pilot made a play for her.

Tony Rogers They all came out panting when they came in, did they.

Tony Vaughan Oh, no, not quite that bad.

Tony Rogers Did you have TV up there.

Tony Vaughan Yes, oh yes. That was another wonderful thing, TV. We had a big satellite dish and it had to be pointing toward the satellite. It was alright when it was installed, that was no problem. We could get ABC on three channels. It was ABC- Adelaide, ABC-Northern Territory and ABC-Perth and we could get Imparja which was the local. . . .So if there was a show on ABC you particularly wanted to watch, you could watch it on Adelaide, as soon as it finished turn across to Darwin and as soon as it finished turn across to Perth. And you could see the same show three times. But we had to move the satellite dish to a new location and that was a bugger of a job trying to . . . having the telly on and swinging the little horn. I don’t know who it was, but somebody had a brainwave and said “Look, down at the roadhouse there’s an ex- telecom tech. He’s got to know something about this.” So we went down there. I think Chris was his name. He came up with his multimeter and said “Ah, this is a piece of piss. Connect the multimeter up and when you get the strongest signal, that’s where it is.” Cos we were doing it, “What’s the picture like now?” “Oh bugger it, now it’s too far.” [laughs]. Usual thing. Anyway we got that sorted and, of course, we had a lot of

videos sent up. Another great story of Giles. You may remember the London taxi, a black taxi drove from London to Sydney.

Tony Rogers Vaguely.

Tony Vaughan Ian Berkely’s the chap who was OiC at Giles when it happened. You may be able to contact him. He’d be retired but he works as a gardener for the Bureau. Anyway they played – the taxi mob, they stayed in Giles for two or three nights – and they challenged them to a game of cricket and whoever won kept the taxi.

Tony Rogers You’re joking!

Tony Vaughan You now what you do when you’ve had a few.

Tony Rogers Yes.

Tony Vaughan Anyway the boys won but of course the taxi had to carry on and they won a taxi number plate. I don’t know where it is. Somebody might have souvenired it or it might still be up at Giles. And there’s a brilliant video of this trip from the UK.

Tony Rogers And does Giles feature in the video?

Tony Vaughan Oh, Yes. They showed you . . . There must be lots of videos about Giles. I can’t think of the names of them at the moment, but I was very disappointed one of the clips that was on. We had lots of visitors and some of them were very appreciative. One lady from Brisbane sent a twin pack of the story of Ernest Giles and his explorations. It was a lovely bound volume which was in the Giles library. And when I went up there, it had gone. Somebody had pinched it which was a real shame.

Tony Rogers It was. So what other people that are still around did you know?

Tony Vaughan That are still around? All the ones at Frosterley, of course.

Tony Rogers When you look at them do you ever remember any stories about them or scandalous events, or happy events, or sad events?

Tony Vaughan Probably not off-hand, but like I said, that’s the beauty of the Frosterley luncheon. Somebody says something and “Yeah, that reminds me. Yea do you remember so-and-so. Do you remember when we did that?” But just asking off the top of your head. . . . Lots of daft things happened in the olden days. There was this one time . . . no, no, that doesn’t matter.

Tony Rogers No, go on.

Tony Vaughan No, no. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not going to say that one.

Tony Rogers It doesn’t matter now, they can’t do anything to you.

Tony Vaughan No, that’s true. It was over at Woomera and in the olden days when it was very secure and there was a place called Red Lake. The wife and I and the two lads decided we’d go out and go for a picnic. And you’re not supposed to take cameras, you know, out there and we took one of the other blokes. And we were out there and saying “gee this is nice” and we’d got the group there and the kiddies and that and we take this snap and the next thing this bloody Commonwealth cop appeared. I don’t know where he’d come from. He said, “ I hope that’s not a camera I saw you with,” and Joe, quick as a flash, said “It’s one of the kids.” The kids had one of these plastic cameras. He said, “It was just the kiddies one.” And the copper looked at him, and looked at me and a bit of a wink and, you know. I, jeez, I felt awful. Jee whiz. We shouldn’t have done it, it was stupid.

Tony Rogers Why wouldn’t they allow cameras in?

Tony Vaughan Well this was in those days it was all hush-hush and strict-strict, a prohibited area, etc., etc. [unclear] Way down the range they used to have laboratories, experimental huts etc., and one company from England, a UK company, had a problem, an electrical problem in the test job. So the electrician had to go in there. This electrician, he’s a little Pommy bloke, he’s since retired. He says,

“Security, you’ve got nothing like it.” He says, “I went in there and there were two big lads one each side and they said, ‘just you look straight ahead. Don’t you dare look to left or right.’” And they frogmarched him to where the electrical fault was. [Laughs]. Mind you, I didn’t believe him until . . .. Where the Met office was - was in the technical area which is about 5 or 6 kilometres down the road from the Woomera village - and one night, I’m on the night-shift, 2 o’clock until…2 o’clock to ten, I think it was. We used to send up a balloon at about half past 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and I think it was the SAS, one of the military mobs, were doing trials and blowing up things and throwing stun grenades, etc. etc. and I’m in the balloon-filling shed and I can see these soldiers [unclear] and I filled the balloon and got it ready and the next thing [raps on table] on the door and I opened the door and there’s this bloody great - what do you call them - military policeman and he says, “I hope I didn’t see you looking at my lads when you were filling that balloon.” “No, sir, not me.” And he says, “Well, good.” And away he went.

Tony Rogers How odd.

Tony Vaughan I don’t know where he was. Someone must have dobbed me in. And another time . . .. how the shift worked. You’d do the early morning balloon flight and then you’d go in for breakfast about half past 7 and come back out about 8 o’clock to release the big balloon about 9. Where the big balloon was, it was like a big…the balloon shed was like a hangar and the SAS, or one of those mob were in there and they’re all playing cricket and kicking around, and our work car, government car came past and as soon as they saw our car they all turned away, did their shoe laces up or coughed in their hands [demonstrates]. Joe Hopkins was about, he’s an ex- commando. I said, “What’s all that about?”. He said, “Look Dave, don’t ask me but nobody sees their face.” Just like that.

Tony Rogers Strange.

Tony Vaughan He’d hear all these bangs in the middle of the night [demonstrates with a series of noises] and I thought, I’m not going out of the office. They can go on with it.

Tony Rogers You say it was a good place to be?

Tony Vaughan Ah, there was always something happening. I loved it up there, especially down in the ranges where there were rockets launching and you were involved. Whereas in the RFC, it’s just…mundane’s probably too strong a word…it was just an ordinary, you know, sort of existence. Nothing exciting happens whereas up there it’s full on.

Tony Rogers Is the Bureau a good place to work for?

Tony Vaughan I found it so. A lot of people didn’t like it. Maybe you could say I was fortunate, you know. Being at boarding school and then being aboard ship, I didn’t give a stuff where I went really. In fact, after a while I became a paid tourist. That was my attitude. If they wanted to send me there, I go there and I get paid for being there. Isn’t it bloody marvellous, etc., etc., etc. [unclear] There’s lots of square pegs in round holes in the Bureau. Lots of people in jobs they weren’t suited for. Let’s put it that way. And lots of people out of jobs, you know, who could have been in those jobs and made a better fist than the incumbent did. I’ve been in the public service for…once you’re in your job it’s very difficult to get out.

Tony Rogers Why do you think there are so many in the wrong positions?

Tony Vaughan It was probably in the olden days. It was probably Johnny-on-the-spot. I suppose it’s a chip on my shoulder now. I’m still angry about it. You know a hierarchy. There were grade 1s, grade 2s, grade 3s, which were your station OiCs, your Inspectors who were in the regional office who inspected all the Met stations – the cooperative Observers and training etc. – they were grade 3s, and then we had the senior chap. I was an acting Inspector for a few months and then they decided they’d – what’s the word? - recalibrate’s not the word…but restructure the inspector’s side of it in the Bureau. So I wrote what I reckon was a brilliant screed and argued the point why we should be upgraded to the higher level etc., more responsibility, and, sure enough, yes, great. They agreed, “What you said was right. All the Inspectors positions will be upgraded from level 3 to level 4 but the person who’s permanently in the spot will get the promotion.” I said, “Bullshit, you’ve got to fill the position and put the most efficient person for the job in there so he gets promotion” but no, they

wouldn’t do that. It was going to cost too much over and above whatever I allowed. And I got a real shitty on because I sweated blood to get the position upgraded with a view to being promoted into it. And the chap who got it [wry chuckle] well he was in the job, fair enough, but he was the wrong lad.

Tony Rogers And you were the right man?

Tony Vaughan Well, everybody expected – the boss said he wrote me glowing testimonials, wonderful, just the man they were looking for – you know. I got shat off for that and I’m probably still a little bit pissed off because the other positions, they spilt them, and put their best man, or woman, in, but they didn’t this time. And that’s happened a lot of times in the Bureau – the incumbent – it’s like politics, isn’t it. The incumbent always has the advantage.

Tony Rogers Would they have been dictated from Melbourne or would they have been regional?

Tony Vaughan Oh would have been head office. They decided not to spill the positions. I don’t know where the pressure came from. And so, that’s it. Good luck to the blokes who got it. At least we got upgraded. That’s one thing to be thankful for.

Tony Rogers Now you started in ‘65 and finished in ‘95, so you were there thirty years. And you’d been 10 years before in the Merchant Navy – British Merchant Navy – so you came out to Australia in ’65.

Tony Vaughan Came out in ’65 to marry this lovely Australian, Adelaide lady actually, but we didn’t. We didn’t get married. So I thought what am I going to do?

Tony Rogers Where did you meet her? You met her in England, did you?

Tony Vaughan No, I met her out here, aboard ship. And I thought Ehh! I wanted to be an Air Traffic Controller and as I was 24 at the time…25 and I applied and they said, “Oh, just the chap we’re looking for, but you’ve got no aviation experience at all and you’re too old to take on without experience, you know. If you were 26 or 27 and had

some aviation background, fair enough, but because you are 25. . ..” So that fell through and then this job with the Weather Bureau came along.

Tony Rogers So you came out in ’64, did you?

Tony Vaughan ’65.

Tony Rogers And where were you born and brought up then?

Tony Vaughan Oh, the UK. Near Hexham, Northumberland. That’s where I was born and then I went to boarding school, away from home. My Dad was lost at sea during the war and then there’s the Royal Merchant Navy School. That was the schooling and it was for anybody who had lost one or both parents at sea. Usually, like, Merchant Navy and I think the only cost involved was that your Mum or Dad had to get you there. Everything else was free.

Tony Rogers Very good. Where was it?

Tony Vaughan The junior school was way down at Bexhill-on-Sea. So we had to get from Newcastle to Kings Cross and then from Victoria, I think, and down there. That was for a couple of years and then the senior school was near Reading. A chap called John Walters, who founded the Times newspaper. It was his country mansion. Magnificent place, beautiful. Then somehow or other it got bequeathed to King George the IV Merchant Navy Fund, or something. Anyway, it gradually finished up as the Royal Merchant Navy School. Boarding school, co-educational and the provided everything. You wore uniforms and you drilled and saluted and did all that.

Tony Rogers Did you like it?

Tony Vaughan No, hated it, but in hindsight, it’s probably terrific. You know what it’s like at school. Met some terrific people. I didn’t apply myself, I suppose, a bright child but the usual thing, “Could do better if he only applied . . .”, you know. But we were having too much fun. It’s now Bearwood College. Bearwood was the name of the estate. It’s B-E-A-R wood. It’s now Bearwood College, six thousand pounds a

term. It was pretty posh. So from there, with Merchant Navy in the family…I was always going to go to sea, and I wrote to my Dad’s company and they said, “Yeah we’ll give you an apprenticeship.” So I did and that was that.

Tony Rogers When did you start your apprenticeship?

Tony Vaughan December ’56, when I was 16. First trip to sea. The lowest form of marine life is the first trip deck apprentice. An a hundred and five pounds per annum. That was it.

Tony Rogers But you got your keep as well.

Tony Vaughan Of course, everything, but you had to provide your own clobber. They only fed and watered you and paid you. But I must have showed potential because I didn’t quite finish three year’s apprenticeship and they made me 3rd Officer without a certificate and I went from probably 10 quid a month to 10 quid a week and I thought I was bloody rich. It was bloody extraordinary. I gained a couple of certificates and joined another company. The Haines Steamship Company who I joined was a tramp. You didn’t really know where you were going. You signed on for two years and you could go anywhere in two years. Then I got Second Mate and joined the Ellerman’s Lines. They were the city boats. City of Melbourne, City of Chicago, City of Edinburgh. They were more a liner company and had designated routes.

Tony Rogers And then you . . . .Why did you leave?

Tony Vaughan I don’t really know. I’ve often asked myself that. Maybe I was prescient, you know, because the shipping companies were going to the wall. Containerisation had just started and within two years the Haines Steamship Company had gone, they amalgamated with James North and were called the Haines North Company and within five years [pause, then blows raspberry] gone and instead of being 500 ships there was probably about 60. So you’d got 450 crews, masters, mates, engineers, seamen, and stewards…so it was a blessing in disguise or I would have been on the beach.

Tony Rogers But you specifically came to Adelaide because of the. . .

Tony Vaughan Because of this lass. She lived up in the Hills. Anyway, it didn’t work out so I stayed here and got all sorts of jobs. Tony Rogers Is she still around?

Tony Vaughan I don’t know. She was a schoolteacher. Then, it was quite funny because my wife she comes from the next village. She lived in the Hills and she knew of the first one. Knew the family and so on.

Tony Rogers So where’s your wife’s family?

Tony Vaughan They’re from Flaxley. They had a dairy. Her maiden name is Kuchel, K- U-C-H-E-L, and there’s a million of them around Flaxley way. That was the original family. And she went to Launceston to do her midwifery, which they did in those days in the late 60s, and at the QV in Launceston there were girls from Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Tassie, of course. We happened to meet and that was it.

Tony Rogers So when did you get married?

Tony Vaughan ‘71. Put it off and put it off and put it off.

Tony Rogers Was that just before you went to Woomera?

Tony Vaughan No, no, that was just after I got to Launceston. I got there in ’69 and left in ’74. We had two kiddies quite quickly. Two in eighteen . . .. What was it? David was born one year and nine months later after his brother was born, sort of thing. They were very, very close together and then five years later our daughter was born.

Tony Rogers Five days?!

Tony Vaughan Five years!

Tony Rogers I thought you said days. I was going to say – that was clever!

Tony Vaughan Her keel was laid in Woomera and she was launched in Darwin. That’s what we like to say. [laughs] No, the Weather Bureau was a lot of fun. And one thing I noticed towards the end, the fun side of it seemed to drop right out. We used to have a social club, we used to play social footy and social cricket and there’d be some barbecues and go to the movies, social cinema nights. It doesn’t happen any more. I don’t know why, probably the person who organises it has gone.

Tony Rogers Who was that? Was there one?

Tony Vaughan Well, Jack Kehoe used to and I used to organise a fair bit. My main plank of success was the Corporate Cup, this running thing round the River Torrens. It’s only about 5k or something. Businesses, departments etc. put in a team and the idea is to improve and the more you improve, the more points you get and at the end of the year the winning team wins the cup donated by Santos or Adelaide City Council. So when it first started, I was a mad-keen runner, I used to run marathons and all sorts of things down at the radar there at Camden Park, Novar Gardens. It was lovely for running. And another one of the lads was a runner and I said, “Right we’ll form a Corporate Cup team. Everybody be in it?” “Yeah, we’ll be in it, yeah, yeah.” And we called ourselves ‘The Weathercocks’ and I organised the lads. Our children went to school at Mount Barker High and I organised the Art teacher, chap called Juraviscus [?] if he would design for our running singlets and he had this lovely big blue weathercock. One of the Meteorologists, a chap called Laurie Marsh, he was fanatical about it. Laurie would run at the drop of a hat. I says, “Come on, you’d better get yourself a team.” So they got themselves a team and it’s a pun on hectopascals, they called themselves ‘The Hector-rascals’. I went to Graeme [Furler], Graeme was the boss and said, “Any chance of some money to defray the costs?” He said “oh yeah” he’d be in that and so we had the two teams, a bit of competition between the radar lads and the regional office. In the first year it was very keen, everybody did it and everybody went into it etc. etc. The second year we were still keen but the regional office sort of drifted off and the third year, that was the last one. People moved, you know, got transferred and all that and [unclear] generated a lot of enthusiasm. In fact the chap who was a mad runner at the radar, he transferred to

Darwin and it took over his life. His missis kicked him out of the house and said “all you live for is running” and you have your special meals away from her and the kiddies. Well. And some people you’d think, “You should be running” and we got them running. A couple of them have since stopped and got fat again but…we organised that and the fellow in the Weather Bureau, a chap called Jack Kehoe, a wonderful old fellow, he was in the bureau for a long, long time, he was the chap who used to organise all the social events. He was a mad keen golfer.

Tony Rogers Somebody was saying, on Friday I think, that there used to be a group which used to go to the pub for lunch quite a lot.

Tony Vaughan Especially down in Kent Town. Oh yeah, until they became all plastic and poofters, as they say. Ah, in the olden days Kent Town was a watering hole. It was a wonder anybody…now what was it? “Just down at the western office” or eastern office, or something. Oh, occasionally on Fridays some might overstay, you know. That was traditional, the boss would go down on a Friday afternoon and shout a round and then they’d go back to work or some would flex off or some had finished anyway. But that’s all gone by-the-by now, especially, I think, since drink-driving, they’ve really tightened that up, that spoiled a lot of things.

Tony Rogers Does make it hard, doesn’t it?

Tony Vaughan And we used to have a. . . , well, down at the radar we had our own cleaning service. The bureau used to employ cleaners to come in. And I was down there one day and said, “You know, we could be doing this on shift and getting paid for it.” So found out how much the tender went for and the next time the tender came up we undercut it and got the job. And it was the Nairne Cleaning Services, in my name and I opened up an account with Westpac, down at Glenelg, and all these cheques used to paid in there. Oh! Out of the cleaning fund we bought a television, we bought a barbecue. We used to buy loaves of bread and cheese, tomatoes and vegetables. And once a month we’d buy a dozen beers or something and have a barby. And it worked very well and then a couple of the boys got a bit, “ Oh, no, I don’t want the bloody cleaning, we shouldn’t be doing this and then. It wasn’t a hard job so long as you kept on top of it.

Tony Rogers Was it legal for you to do your own cleaning?

Tony Vaughan Oh, well, I don’t suppose it was, but it was in the missis’s name and Nairne Cleaning Services and nobody gave a toss, but then they called for new tenders and it was getting a bit iffy with the tax man and declaring income and all that so it just lapsed. But again, what was a bit disappointing, as soon as the new tender was called, this was just coincidental, they re-carpeted the whole of the met office and it would have been a doddle to clean. There was no lino to mop and [unclear]. Anyway new people came in and I think they charged twice as much as what we did. And then, of course, out of the bosses fund, a television appeared and another barbecue and this and that and it was all official that each station had to have a telly, and each station had to have a video.

Tony Rogers Oh really.

Tony Vaughan Prior to this we used to rent them from Radio Rentals. It was so much a month, which came out of the cleaning cheque. Then everybody thought it was a brilliant idea.

Tony Rogers Anything else you can think of? You’ve been talking a long time.

Tony Vaughan Oh, this is me, I just waffle on.

Tony Rogers That was excellent.

Tony Vaughan There were some characters in Darwin. There was chap called, gee I can’t think of his bloody name, he was a clerical assistant who couldn’t accept responsibility, Kevin O’Brien. Brilliant! His brother was a wheel in the Northern Territory Public Service, you know, a head of department or something like that. But Kevin – I don’t know what had happened during the war. He’d gone to sea in the Royal Navy…and stories…he could tell you stories about cricket, about anything and everything. A wonderful character. Unfortunately he lacked his, you know, he lacked his guile. He had a very menial task but that’s all he wanted. He was quite happy.

Some of the Meteorologists…there was a couple of them…well one of them – two! Two of the communicators, ex patrol boat radio blokes, they were characters, Reg Burford and Bob MacLellen, they’ve both since died and they’re interesting fellows. McLellen’s still with the bureau.

Tony Rogers Why are they interesting?

Tony Vaughan Oh, the stories they used to do and the devilment they used to get up to in Darwin. The daft things they’d do. And there was one fellow, I won’t tell you his name because it might embarrass the living. They used to get on the drugs, I don’t know what drugs they were in those days, marijuana I suppose. The regional office was on the seventh floor and eighth floors of the MLC building in Smith Street in Darwin. You know, in the CBD. And one night this fellow rocks up, gets out of the lift and he’s got a garden gate over his shoulder and he was spaced out of his bloody mind. He doesn’t know where he is and he was politely told to turn around and go right down in the lift and take this gate back where he found it. And he came to work a couple of days later and he can’t remember a thing about it. He can’t remember a thing about it. Dear oh dear.

Tony Rogers So the gate went away again.

Tony Vaughan God knows where it came from. It was just a little, you know, where the wire a galvanised bloody garden gate. What else? Terry Lawrence was up there then. Terry was there, Steve Martin – some [unclear] out at the airport, but I wasn’t out there long enough to really get involved with those. A little Scottish gentleman called Graeme Firth. Wee Graeme from the Shetland Islands. We had great difficulty to understand what he was talking about. But O’Brien, he was a character.

Tony Rogers Did you overlap Reg Shinkfield at all?

Tony Vaughan No, no. The name rings a bell. Peter Blake was a bit of a character in his own way. He was at Woomera. He was OiC.

Tony Rogers What about the ones who are still at the bureau and have been there for a long time? Bruce Brooks.

Tony Vaughan Didn’t have much to do with Brooks.

Tony Rogers and Gene Vecchio.

Tony Vaughan Oh, Geno? Again, we were just a couple of years in the RFC. There was John Corbett, Peter Blake, Allan [unclear] Brooksy. Who else was in charge?

Tony Rogers Merv?

Tony Vaughan Merv. And wee Morrie. Merv did well for himself. He started off as a clerical assistant and finished up as the regional admin officer. He did very well for himself. Again, he chased it. He went to Darwin, I think acting, and then he got a permanency.

Tony Rogers Do a good job, did he?

Tony Vaughan Oh yes. Yeah, Morrie was a bit of a. . . . In the public service you could claim for certain things, expenses and travelling time and all this. Merv would tell you what you could claim for, Morrie wouldn’t. He said, “You didn’t claim for it, so I’m not paying you.” We said, “Well, that’s your bloody job to tell us what we’re entitled to,” but you know, he upset a lot of Observers by thinking it was coming out of his own pocket, you know, whereas Merv would say, “Look you’ve got to claim for this, you should be claiming for that.” He looked after you. I’ve always maintained that if you don’t claim for it, they’re never going to pay you, so claim for everything. They can only say no.

Tony Rogers You’re spot on there. We should probably call this to an end. I’ll just say: I’ve been talking to Tony Vaughan in Stirling on the second of February. Thank you very much for talking with us and I’ll send you the transcript and you can approve it, I hope, and the release form and I can also send you a cd of the recording. We can always do another one later.

Tony Vaughan Yeah, we can add bits as we remember. You’ve been talking to Tony Vaughan, you’ve been listening to Tony Vaughan [laughs]. I waffle on and try and think. Of course, as soon as I get out the door I’ll think of all sorts of things.

Tony Rogers Well, that’s next time.

Tony Vaughan Next time. Well at Frosterleys you’ll hear a few stories especially the old blokes. Ted Morris and Terry Lawrence. Those guys, they’ve got some wonderful memories of the olden days.

Tony Rogers Well, I’d say yours were pretty good, mate.

End of interview with Tony Vaughan on 2 February 2007