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 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. 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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? 3 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 4 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.