13 MARCH 1990: SACUL1: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO CAM LAUGHTON FROM SOUTH AUSTRALIA
I am going to ask, where were you born and when?
CL: I was born in Glasgow in 1927.
What part of Glasgow?
CL: Place called Ruchill, which is in the north-west of the city. I came to Australia in 1950.
What sort of influence did you get from your father? What did he do?
CL: My father was a bootmaker. I was very much under his influence in terms of what I like to think was social conscience. I can remember part of the Depression years and I can remember my father having to do people’s shoe repairs and the like, sitting on his knee in the bedroom in fact. That is all we had, we only had a living room and a couple of bedrooms in a tenement building. I had experience as a very young boy having to go and deliver these repaired shoes and very often people refused to pay him. So he was always very conscious of the fact that the under-dog should get a chance in life.
What influence did you get from your mother, do you think?
CL: Not much in that sense. I had two brothers and a sister, an adopted sister. I always remember my mother having her hands full looking after the family. She played a part in the delivery of these repaired shoes and very often I can recall being trailed along by the hand while she carried a great big case. This was still in the Depression years in my very early days.
What do you remember as you grew up as a young kid in Glasgow? What was it like?
CL: Well Glasgow to me, and it was in fact, a large industrial city. I don’t know what it is like now, but I presume there is still a fair amount of industry. I think the main thing that I remember was after my early years of schooling, having to help push double decker buses out from the side of the footpath because of the ice on the road. They wouldn’t be able to get the buses started, and their wheels would spin and the driver would have to yell, ‘All out,’ and we would all get out and we would push this great double decker bus. We would slide it out to the middle of the road and help him to get started, even when they had chains on. That is one of the things that really sticks with me about Glasgow.
Where did you go to school?
CL: I went to school in Ruchill. I went to the elementary, or primary, school there in Ruchill and qualified for secondary school, which was North Kelvinside, about five or six miles away from where I lived. We weren’t sufficiently wealthy that we could afford tram fares so I used to have to walk back and forth to school every day.
What did you like or dislike about school?
CL: I think one of the things I disliked about school was having to be locked up for so many hours a day. I don’t think I had any favourite subjects except sport. I was never much of a scholar. But of course later on in life I began to realise that it was a very foolish approach, but then I make excuses for myself when I think back in those times because I relate to the things I mentioned earlier about the Depression at the like. If I had been going to school now, with an older head, maybe I would have done much better in life than I have.
The name Cam, is that the name you were christened or is it short for something?
CL: Well it is short for Campbell. My full name, as you may have heard Dermot Ryan mention, he loved to call me my full title, Campbell McPherson Laughton. He just loved it. He would find every opportunity he could to announce, ‘And here he comes, Campbell McPherson Laughton.’ But of course my mother was a Campbell. My father was an Englishman in fact, he came from Northamptonshire. But my mother and her side were all very strong, strong Scottish people and they retained many of the superstitions that came from the old Celtic background.
Such as what?
CL: Well take New Year’s Eve, for example, Hogmanay, no-one was allowed to come over the door after midnight unless they were tall and they were dark and they had a piece of coal in their pocket. It meant bad luck if that wasn’t eventuated.
Yes, I have come across all that as well. Were you a family keen on dancing, did you learn dancing as a child?
CL: No I didn’t. But my brothers did and my sister did. My mother was a very good dancer, I can remember her going to the little local hall and she would traipse us kids with her just for the sake of getting a bit of a waltz around.
My mother was Scottish and she was really keen on having everybody taught dancing. So when you left school what was your first job?
CL: At that time the War was on of course. They had a direction of labour system and I was directed in to what was then the London-Midland and Scottish Railways, the LMS, as a junior porter. Then when I turned sixteen I went into training for the Signal and Telegraph Department.
Did you stay on the railways, or did you get yourself called up?
CL: The reason for the direction of labour was to prevent you from being called up because it was what they considered an essential job. I was very cross about that at the time, because my brothers were both servicemen and I thought there was a war to be won and I should be in there. But later on I realised how lucky I was not to have to be directly involved in it.
How long were you in the railway?
CL: From fourteen to twenty-three, nine years.
You came straight to Australia after that?
CL: Yes.
Had you married by that time?
CL: No. No I married an Australian girl here. It might be worth the mention that, I don’t know whether you are familiar with the weather that they can at certain times get in Scotland and Glasgow in particular? Very severe winters. We had a very bad spell and my brother and a friend of mine, John McCaw, this of course was after the War in 1950, and I was coming off a night shift and they were just going on a day shift and they were standing at the end of the platform waiting for me and they were tossing a coin. The snow was about a foot deep and they had cleared this patch so that the coin would fall on the platform. I yelled out to them, ‘What are you tossing coins for, six o’clock in the morning?’ It would have frozen a brass monkey. The coin dropped tails and they decided well tails was Australia. Heads was Canada. They informed me then that we were going to go to Australia. So we went straight down the platform and we had a bit of a cup of tea in the morning, the immigration office was in the Glasgow Central Railway Station building, and we went straight up there and we lodged our application to come here. Six weeks later we were on our way. So there was a great deal of adventure attached to it.
Did you have a look around or did you stay in Adelaide straight away?
CL: No I fell in love with Adelaide within days of being here. The first few days were a bit of a problem, but I really liked it. Adelaide was just a good size and I liked the people. They didn’t like me very much, but I liked them.
Did you come on a boat or a plane?
CL: Boat. I came on the ss Maloja, which was broken up after that trip in 1950. They reckon the reason it was broken up was because I made a mess of it.
Who said that?
CL: Well my mates used to say that, ‘No wonder they broke the bloody boat up after you’d been on it.’
The name of the Maloja I remember because the first recordings I did, is re the Harbour Bridge and the building of it. The Maloja was on its maiden voyage, or one of its early voyages, in 1932. I believe it was the first ship to go under the bridge after it was opened. It headed the column of ships. From 1932 to 1952, that is thirty-two years old.
CL: 1950.
Twenty-eight years old.
CL: But for me that was the greatest experience of my life. I don’t have any doubt that it was the best move I ever made. I reckon this is a marvellous country. The only thing that is wrong with it is the people you meet, such as Lee Nash here.
He is about to answer back, he is biting his tongue actually.
CL: He’s not allowed too, this is my bloody show.
You wait until I record him in a couple of weeks time, then he will have a go at you. What was your first job when you got here?
CL: Within about two or three days I went into the Municipal Tramways Trust in Adelaide, what was then known as the MTT. It is now known as the STA, the State Transport Authority. I went there because when I was in the Signal and Telegraph Department on the railways I always had some degree of fascination for electric traction. I went to the Tramways there in Adelaide working on tram controllers as an electrical fitter. Working on tram controllers and motors and the like. I stayed there for seven years, until 1957. The policy then was to introduce diesel buses and the like. They started to take up tram lines and I could see that this fascination I had was not going to be there very much longer, unless I got myself into a staff-type job and I wasn’t that sort of a fellow. So I left there in 1957 and went to what was then the Post Master General’s Department to the Long Line Equipment Installation Section. That allowed me to travel all over South Australia and into the Northern Territory installing long line equipment on telephone services. I mean carrier telephones and telegraphs and the like, quite a fascinating period of my life.
What do you mean carrier?
CL: Carrier is where a specific frequency is generated and then it is, I can’t even remember the right terms and I was so expert at it, modulated. Frequencies from that base frequency were picked off from the modulation and they were applied to lines and then people’s voice conversations were superimposed on these different carrier frequencies so that you could get a large number of conversations on one pair of wires at one time.
I do understand. I understand the term from an FM point of view, but I didn’t realise it was the same. Was your family politically active at all in any way?
CL: Not directly.
What about religion?
CL: No I was always Presbyterian. My wife is Catholic.
Was your mother keen on any sort of religion?
CL: Only ordinarily. Not strictly.
Your father wasn’t political?
CL: No. He was but not with membership of the Labor Party or anything like that. But he was always very strong Labor.
What about yourself?
CL: Well I am not a member of the Party either, but I am very strong Labor. It would take a lot to change my views. I have seen too many things happen to the little man that I don’t think should be allowed to happen. But by the same token, I have also seen the little man do things that they shouldn’t bloody well do either. So you have got to try and strike a happy medium somewhere. I am strongly Labor-orientated if I can put it that way, but I am not a member of the Party.
So what brought you to credit unions?
CL: Well that’s quite a fascinating thing from my point of view. As I mentioned I was with the PMG Department, which is now called Telecom, and I immediately became a member of the Postal and Telecommunications Technicians Association. It started the credit union in the mid-1960s. I had always believed that if I wanted something I should save hard and pay cash for it and not owe anybody anything. That even included the mortgage on my home in Adelaide when my mother and father were still alive. My father got sick and then my mother died and I went to the extent of paying off the mortgage before my father died so that he wouldn’t have this encumbrance on his pension income. I did all these right things. Then the time came when after having married and lived in the country in South Australia, coming back to Adelaide with my wife and children, and having to expand the home I couldn’t borrow a red cent because I didn’t have a credit rating. This new organisation had just started within the Association and I turned to them and within forty-eight hours I had my problems solved. From that moment on I said that was what I was going to do, not only for myself but for other people. That is it in a nutshell.
What started your actual involvement with the credit union itself? Who put you up for office?
CL: There was a guy called Brian Cate who was the Vice-President of the Association I have just mentioned, and who died just recently. He was a very strong motivater and he was the man who introduced me to the idea. He brought me on to an Education Committee to begin with, so that I would learn about it and so on and so forth. From then on I moved on to the Board. I was appointed as a Director. I got to Vice-Chairman. I represented that credit union on the Credit Union League of South Australia. I was on the Board there and I was its Chairman for five years. As its Chairman I also went on to the Federation and that is when I came into contact with Dermot Ryan and Lee Nash and company. I was Vice-President of the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues for a number of years.
Now your credit union in the first instance, at what stage was the credit union when you first became a Director?
CL: Oh it was only twelve or eighteen months old. I became a Director in 1967 I think it was. I think it started in early 1966.
You weren’t on the Supervisory Committee first?
CL: No.
Did you go to a Chapter? Were there Chapters?
CL: Yes there were Chapters, but I wasn’t directly involved in organising or running Chapters. It was part of my responsibility, if you like, to make sure that all Chapters were kept in touch with the League. I used to have to visit these Chapters at various times and talk to them about how the credit unions were developing, etc.
Was that a special title?
CL: I was Director of Education with the League at that time, and that was part of the function.
So as Director of Education, was it your job to organise Schools and such like?
CL: Yes. I did that for the League, but we also did it for our own credit union. We would hire the dining rooms, if you like, of hotels in local areas so that we took the credit union to where the people lived, rather than ask them to come to a centre. That way the thing grew very quickly and part of that activity was to prepare programs to suit the people who lived in their specific areas and that type of thing.
Where did you get your credit union education?
CL: I went to Schools, being nominated by the Association that I referred to. I went to Schools in Victoria and New South Wales.
Which one in Victoria? Where was it?
CL: Warburton mainly.
Who ran that? Who do you remember from the Warburton Schools? Was Dermot Ryan there?
CL: Well I knew Dermot before then, but I struck Dermot several times.
Where did you meet him first?
CL: I met him first in Adelaide. He came over to a little Supervisory Committee School that I had organised. I rang him up and I asked him if he would come and he said no. I had never really met him before and I thought what sort of guy was this, a credit union man. After saying no, he said, ‘When is it, where is it?’ I told him and he said, ‘I’ll be there.’ I had to go and meet him at the plane when he arrived, never having set eyes on him before. The place was full and this guy came off the plane and he yelled, ‘Where’s Laughton, where’s Laughton?’ That is the sort of man Dermot was. That was my introduction to Dermot and I loved him.
So was he good to lecture at a School?
CL: Dermot? Oh yes.
Did he lecture?
CL: Yes he lectured and he virtually took people by the hand and led them through the steps, the various stages. He would involve the people. He would say, ‘Now one of the things you have to do is this type of thing.’ Then he would encourage them to ask why. He would take them farther and farther and then he would get two or three of them together in little groups. He was very good. That was my introduction to Dermot. I didn’t like him to begin with, I thought he was the roughest, rudest man I had ever met in my life. But then I gradually learned that there was an awful lot in the man. He just was one of the finest men I have ever met, I really mean that. I was very sad when he died, very sad. At the moment my wife and I are staying for a few days with Meggie, Dermot’s wife.
Used you to stay there when you came over from South Australia?
CL: Sometimes. Depending upon the purpose for which I had come. If I had come over here for a specific project for my own particular credit union, yes I would go there. But if it was on Federation matters, well we always liked to keep the group together, so we went and lived in a motel. Kerrs Road was I think the address of the Federation then at Lidcombe, or Auburn, out that way.
Yes, 47 Kerrs Road.
CL: Yes, I think. When that sort of thing happened on Federation matters the Board, or the Executive as we were then, we went together and boarded at the Liberty Plains Motel.
Yes I know that. Just down on the main road there.
CL: Yes, near the railway bridge.
Well I suppose I had better keep you back in the period about your credit union first. When Dermot came down for the Supervisory Committee School that you were running, you kept on running other Schools? For Directors and such like?
CL: Yes, for Directors and for Education Committees. The various committees. I used to open the introductory passages of the School, always basing the whole concept on history and philosophy, so that people would never lose sight of why the credit unions existed. I just couldn’t help myself on that, but I think I did a reasonable job on that sort of thing. But I was virtually brain-washed myself because of the experiences I had mentioned earlier. I could see so much benefit coming to so many people if the philosophy were adhered to.
Your motivation was out of the Depression then?
CL: I think it is fair to say that. But it surprised me really. I found that in Australia the standard of living and life in general was so good, that it was really surprising that there was even a need for credit unions. That surprised me. It was some time before I really woke up to the fact that there were a lot of people who really couldn’t manage their own affairs and they really needed some help to do that.
Well there are people like yourself who had the experiences during the Depression that have got the same feelings as you. People like Ken Miller. You have met him of course. Well he lived in Ultimo and his mother had a little shop. I suppose it would have been the same situation as your father’s during the Depression, not getting paid.
CL: That’s right. Well you mention Ken, there is another example of the sort of thing that happened. It was very similar to the Dermot Ryan experience. My first experience of Ken was at an education session that I was conducting at the University in Adelaide. I had got a tremendous response for this, people from the university as well as others. I wanted somebody who had some authority and some considerable experience in a more developed area of the movement, which was in New South Wales. I had heard a lot about this Ken Miller, so I got on to the phone to Ken Miller and he was almost identical to Dermot, although he wasn’t as rough and ready as Dermot. He said, ‘When will it be?’ and so on and so forth. He said, ‘Look I will give you a call back.’ An hour later I got the call and he said, ‘I will be on such and such a flight on such and such a day.’ That is just how these people helped. We got tremendous help from New South Wales.
Who picked up the bill for the plane and that sort of thing?
CL: New South Wales. They were marvellous. See we were just struggling then as an Association of Credit Unions. We were virtually robbing Peter to pay Paul. We didn’t have a full time Secretary or any full-time staff, it was all voluntary in those days.
The running of your credit union, including the Association was it?
CL: Oh yes. The Association didn’t get off the ground in terms of staff until about 1970. The chap I just mentioned, Brian Cate, he became its first full-time Officer.
What about your credit union, you were still volunteers until when? When did you get your first Manager there?
CL: Well, Brian Nayda was the first Manager and he was appointed about 1969.
Before that it was all volunteers only?
CL: Voluntary wouldn’t be quite right there, because the Association did have a young lass that they employed in the office and her time was divided between Association work and credit union work. The chap who was the volunteer Secretary used to visit everyday and then he would go and do the work at night, all the tidying up and all that.
What sort of accounting system did you have in your credit union?
CL: At that time? Well, I don’t know very much about accounting systems. But I do know that when some people from other States came there to visit us and saw it they laughed.
Who are you talking about?
CL: Well one who comes to mind is Maurie Daley.
Well he couldn’t laugh could he in the first place, because he did it by hand.
CL: Well ours was all by hand too. But by the time this was going on they were already moving onto a computer. They were considering themselves large. It might be worth the mention, talking about large at this stage, that credit union that I belong to is now an amalgam of five relatively small credit unions, but that has a total membership now of something like 70,000 members. So if Maurie ever hears this, don’t ever call that a small credit union.
How long was it before you became computerised then?
CL: Fairly soon.
On the batch system?
CL: Yes we were on the batch system to begin with. But once the League got established and once Brian Cate got full time it began to get organised a bit better.
Where did you meet Maurie Daley first?
CL: I think I met Maurie first in Sydney.
You didn’t meet him at Warburton?
CL: Oh I did meet him at Warburton, but I had met him before then. In fact I owe Maurie a lot because he was the guy who first caused the penny to ding with me in terms of true interest rates. I had the wrong slant. I had the wrong idea.
End Tape 1A
13 MARCH 1990: SACUL1: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO CAM LAUGHTON
CL: Somebody said to me, ‘What do you think of so and so?’ I gave an answer and I heard this voice alongside of me saying, ‘What bloody bullshit.’ I looked at this great big man alongside of me, although I had met him before, and Maurie says, ‘You’re talking a lot of crap.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ Then he spelt out how I had cottoned on wrongly to the application of true interest rates. I guess it was because we had been previously discussing what was referred to as a flat interest rate, and of course there is no such thing as a flat interest rate. Maurie then got out a paper and pencil and he started to write it out. He only wrote a few lines and it dinged, for the first time I really had a real appreciation. So I have always been very grateful to Maurie for that sort of education.
We are back to so-called flat, fixed interest rates now again. They are putting out housing loans now.
CL: You mean credit unions, oh yes.
Well everybody, not only credit unions. The banks have started it.
CL: Well of course. But they shouldn’t talk about them as being rates because they are not rates. Rates are something that change. There is nothing changes in flat interest. Flat interest is simply a flat charge placed right on top of the amount of money that is borrowed and you have got to pay that total amount back regardless. If you pay it back early they will apply the rule of 78 to recompense you for overpayments you have overpaid, but then that is only based on a percentage of the interest that you would have charged otherwise if you had kept it going. It is an unfair system. The only true system is true interest.
Well they are not back to that now. What they are doing now is having a fixed interest rate rather than a floating interest rate. I got that wrong, sorry about that. Now let us get back to your own credit union before we get it finished up. I have got a number of things here. Before you joined the credit union, how did you save? Did you manage to save at all?
CL: Oh yes I was a regular saver with a bank, with what was then the Savings Bank of Adelaide, which is now part of the ANZ Bank.
But you couldn’t get a loan before the credit union?
CL: Couldn’t get a loan. Remember of course in the ’60s there was a period of a credit squeeze time. Many people used to say that they would always let you have an umbrella, you could borrow an umbrella when the sun was shining.
Yes. In your credit union were there any defalcations at all? Ever?
CL: No.
Were there ever any in your Association?
CL: No. Can I just take that a little bit farther. I don’t think I can recall any defalcations, but there were a lot of problem areas developed in the mid-70s, I think around about 1974, when the economy started to get into trouble. People began to become unemployed and as a result of the unemployment a lot of people failed to repay their loans. A lot of small credit unions ran into trouble and there was a great deal of trouble trying to consolidate things. In South Australia there were at one stage something like twelve credit unions that had serious troubles because of loans not being properly repaid. But we had learned from New South Wales how to establish our funds to protect the members’ savings. We consolidated a number of these credit unions into one shell of a credit union and then gradually wound up each of the smaller ones. The end result is that now there is a small number of large credit unions in South Australia. The philosophy, I am a bit doubtful whether that still applies.
Was that the 1970s?
CL: Yes, that was around about 1973 or 1974.
The same thing happened in New South Wales but a lot later, I think. The amalgamation of a lot of credit unions.
CL: It took time. But it began about that period. That was when the troubled times started. I guess they didn’t really get resolved until about 1977 or 1978.
Well they still are amalgamating in New South Wales. But they were amalgamating strongly between 1976 and 1982, that was the main time.
CL: Well of course there were always very many more credit unions in New South Wales, because there is very many more people of course.
The attitude was to start a little credit union for every municipal council.
CL: That’s right.
Mind you a lot of those have survived by taking in the community as well.
CL: Well, yes, and become what they would call mutual credit unions.
Did that happen in South Australia?
CL: It did. One in particular that happened to was the ABC Staff Association. It started as an Association and it eventually went community, a mutual. There was another one that went community from a church organisation, which was St Mary’s. It is still going, although it is going under another name now. But mainly because the people who were involved became tired and they couldn’t get new people to come along. I think, for what it is worth, my personal thoughts are there is an element of greed in the community today that didn’t seem to be around so much prior to the mid-1970s. Of course that means that credit unions then had to start providing higher interest rates for people’s savings. Savings became investments rather than
Did they have to? They changed to compete with the banks didn’t they, but did they have to do that?
CL: Well, I sometimes query myself whether they had to do it. With hindsight I would say that they didn’t really have to do. With hindsight I would say there was no reason why they couldn’t have kept going small and just retained the membership who were genuinely concerned about the basic concept of a credit union. The title credit union itself tells you what it is, it is people joining together to help each other through providing credit to each other. They can’t do that unless they provide the savings for each other.
Did you talk to Dermot over the last few years about what he felt about credit unions, whether they had gone the wrong way?
CL: Well not specifically. But I think I can credit myself with having a fairly good understanding of how Dermot thought. I think one of the reasons we got on so well was because our thinking was similar along those lines. I don’t think there was any real reason why a credit union shouldn’t go large and yet still retain the basic philosophy. But it becomes extremely difficult the farther and widespread the membership gets and the more concerned they become about interest rates. When credit unions started up, people in general weren’t really very much interested in interest, how much they were getting for their money. But when this credit squeeze period came in the mid-1970s they became very aware of it. They were actually handling more money and the tendency was for them to see themselves as investors rather than regular savers.
Yes well that is true. But I mean in Australia the credit unions, generally speaking, are public service credit unions aren’t they?
CL: Well yes.
Is that the same in South Australia?
CL: Well it is the same except they didn’t have the same philosophy. Those that were public service credit unions were known as savings and loans societies. They refused to call themselves credit unions. I can understand that.
But yours, the Telecom one for instance, they were a credit union weren’t they?
CL: Yes. But all of the members who were eligible to belong to that credit union could also belong to the Commonwealth Savings and Loans Society. The Commonwealth Public Service Savings and Loans Society. But all of those who joined the credit union chose not to and we like to think it was because of the philosophy we had. The Savings and Loans Society, while it is still going and is still a sound organisation, it did all these things we talked about earlier in terms of flat interest charges and the rule of 78 and so on and so forth. The cost of the loan didn’t reduce with the payments.
Yes. Because in New South Wales savings and loans have disappeared, they just changed their name. But of course the original ones were the Antigonish ones out in the Western Suburbs. Did you have Antigonish credit unions in South Australia?
CL: Not strictly speaking. There were one or two church organisations who called themselves Antigonish because they got the idea from Father Gallagher I think out at Lidcombe.
There was somebody else too in Victoria, I don’t know his name. Begins with B. It is an unusual name. I think it almost sounds like a Latin name.
CL: Yes. Not the one I am thinking of.
Lee Nash: They did have up there the church the one to do with Santamaria movement?
The movement? Yes the Social Studies Movement.
Lee Nash: There were a number of credit unions formed through that. No relation to the Antigonish movement. Nothing to do with Father Gallagher.
Right. I knew he was nothing to do with that movement. Although Kevin Yates originally spoke around New South Wales at the instigation of Father Paddy Ryan, Dr Father Paddy Ryan, who was the leader of the movement in New South Wales.
Lee Nash: Dr Ryan? No he started it off, but he didn’t play any active part in it. He was Director of ????
That’s right, but the movement was the Social Studies Movement, that was the full name of it.
Lee Nash: But the actual credit union movement.
No Kevin Yates was separate from that yes. But he originally started talking around about setting up credit unions at the instigation of Dr Father Paddy Ryan and the Social Studies Movement. But then of course once he got his credit union, the Universal, started and a number of others started then he was nothing more to do with it. As I was saying, did it apply to South Australia?
CL: Well it did in the sense that there was an institute in South Australia which was organised by the Catholic Church. It was known as the Newman Institute of Christian Studies and its soul purpose for existence was the pursuit of social justice. Archbishop Gleeson in Adelaide was directly involved with the formation of that. Part of its purpose was the formation of credit unions based on the Antigonish thinking, which included cottage discussion groups and the like.
Well that was the same in New South Wales. But the cottage discussion groups that was based of course on the Antigonish in Nova Scotia, Father Coady. Father Gallagher here. Your education discussions that you were holding in South Australia must have been a secular version of the same sort of thing.
CL: Well I think it was. But this institute that I am talking about wasn’t known very much at the time that I was involved. A lot of this I didn’t learn until later. There was a guy called David Shinnick, who was one of the founders of the St Mary’s group that I mentioned, and he was the Secretary of this Newman Institute of Christian Studies.
Right. I will just bring Lee in. We have got Lee Nash here as well. You are getting fed up with us anyway. You seem to be much involved with the education of credit union people. You took it into the credit unions generally and also not only for the Directors and Supervisory Committee, etc.
CL: Yes, we took it to the membership as well as people who were involved in committees and Boards of Directors. I got a great deal of my, if I can use the term, educational skills from people in New South Wales. From the likes of Dermot Ryan. Many a session I had with Dermot, just he and I, in his home. We would talk about this and that and the next thing. Dermot was never backward in coming forward when he wanted to make a point. A lot of those points stuck well with me in terms of my reproduction of them, and I make no apology for that. I reckon that Dermot was probably the best informed man on credit union affairs in the country, perhaps with the exception of Stan Arneil. But of course then at that time Stan became directly involved with the insurance.
Did you become involved with the insurance?
CL: No.
You didn’t. South Australia learned from New South Wales was it?
CL: Well New South Wales and Victoria. But I guess we played a part in as much as we could see the benefits for the member credit unions of going to private insurance. It appeared to us that the original promise was not being met. When they went to private there was a considerable reduction in costs of the insurance to the individual credit unions. But that caused a lot of trouble in South Australia because there were many people who were devoted to CUNA Mutual, and good luck to them. But if memory serves me correctly, the promises of the insurance scheme weren’t fulfilled.
Did you have an insurance scheme through the Association, the League in South Australia?
CL: Through the New South Wales League we had it.
Did you. So you were actually involved in that, second-hand to some extent?
CL: Yes, second-hand.
Were you involved with the insurance in the New South Wales League at the time when there was the split in New South Wales?
CL: Oh yes.
So you were very much involved then.
CL: Oh well we were only small though. Every credit union didn’t have it. It was only just two or three credit unions that were involved in that scheme. Those that existed before were the savings and loans societies and they already had insurance schemes that weren’t involved with CUNA Mutual at all. So it was a minor thing in terms of South Australian involvement, because they were so small, so few of them. It was just a question of turning over. Well some didn’t turn over and some did. ABC, for example, they stuck rigidly to CUNA Mutual. I think so did mine, originally, if I remember rightly.
Was that do you think because of their loyalty to Stan Arneil?
CL: Oh yes I think so.
He had a great influence in South Australia did he?
CL: Oh yes very much so.
How about on you?
CL: Yes. I felt that their loyalty to him was justified at the time. But then of course as things developed, there was better ways, or different way, to go that could be more beneficial to the individual credit unions. This proved to be so except there was a bit of a problem developing. As credit unions sought to move into the private area the insurance companies began to try to sell the insurance based on their experience rather than a group scheme, a group plan. It caused so many problems that eventually the South Australian movement sort of backed right away from it and virtually said, ‘Do what you bloody like yourselves.’ We could see there was a big row going on in New South Wales, with New South Wales and Victoria. We were small so we virtually kept out of it. But it was a trying time for the whole movement.
At that time, that was the time of the start of AFCUL too.
CL: I think AFCUL was 1966.
That is when Queensland and New South Wales got together. When did South Australia join in?
CL: Oh immediately. Immediately it was formed. I think it joined in the same year. There was a bit of a problem there. AFCUL considered the South Australian League too small, I think, at the time. There was a bit of conjecture whether they should allow us into membership. But there was a fellow called Alan Hodgson, who was an announcer with the ABC, and he was Chairman of the ABC Staff Association Credit Union. He came over and made personal representation on behalf of the South Australian movement. There were only about half a dozen credit unions and they were all small. AFCUL decided to allow us membership but I think they were a bit frightened that we were so small and so inexperienced that we could cause them troubles when they were trying to get started themselves as a national association, I mean.
Was the South Australian one called a League in the first instance?
CL: Yes, Credit Union League of South Australia.
Were you ever a national Director.
CL: Yes I was.
Which year did you go first from the State?
CL: I can’t be a hundred per cent certain, but I think it was 1971. Then in 1973 I went with the AFCUL delegation to the World Conference in St Louis, I think that was 1973. But I think I went on to the national Executive in 1971 and I stayed there until about 1975, 1976 or there about. Then I only had another three years in the movement after that in South Australia. When the savings and loans societies and the credit unions were being brought together under one umbrella there had to be room made for some of the people who were in the savings and loans societies area. I had been Chairman and I stood down out of the Chair in favour of John Feetham. Then when the joining together came I stepped out altogether to make room for other people. I had had my chips by then, anyway. I was a tired man.
What were the battles you had to fight? What was your position on the League in the first place? You were a Director on the League were you, and were you Vice-President then?
CL: I went on the League first up in 1969, I think it was 1969. I became Vice-President in 1971, the same year I went onto the Federation. I became Vice-President to a fellow called Tom O’Meara. Tom retired I think in 1972 and I took the Chair in 1972 until 1978, I think it was, when I stepped down. That is Chairman of the Credit Union League of South Australia.
But you stayed on the AFCUL Board?
CL: No. No the same year I finished with the AFCUL Board.
Well let us separate it out if you don’t mind. Were you involved with Dermot at all in the attempts, successful attempts in the end, to get the tax exemptions?
CL: To say I was involved would not be right, but I was on the Executive at the time. I knew of all of the work that he had been doing, the negotiating he had been doing. I was on the Executive at the time the announcement was made down at Tasmania by Frank Crean. So I remember all that detail, but I wasn’t directly involved in any negotiating or anything like that.
When you were on the Executive of AFCUL through that period, were you much involved?
CL: Not directly involved in that type of thing.
So what were you involved in as part of the Executive then?
CL: Well we were aware and we made the decisions relating to what Dermot would do and when he would do them, but not how he would do them. I don’t know how well you knew Dermot, but Dermot was probably the best negotiator under the sun. He had a tremendous skill and in those sorts of areas he was left completely to himself. He organised the whole show himself as far as that was concerned. I always saw my position as a member of that Executive was to accept the legal responsibility for what the Secretary or the Chief Executive Officer, as he was called at that time, had to do to achieve the things that we had promised to do.
When Dermot resigned were you aware of why he resigned? I know he was in bad health but there was a bit more to it than that wasn’t there?
CL: I think there was, but I was never ever privy to a lot of that sort of stuff. There was a lot of that went on and it was only kept within a certain group and I wasn’t included in that group.
In spite of the fact that you were on the Executive.
CL: That’s right.
When you say you were on the Executive, the Executive changed didn’t it during that period?
CL: The National Board.
Were you on the National Board?
CL: Yes I was on the National Board.
Was there an attempt when the National Board came in to sort of tighten up the control of the Board?
CL: There was a considerable amount of dissent, especially from Queensland. A lot of feeling that things should be done differently. But it was very difficult to get people to pin down exactly what they were getting at when they wanted these things done differently. I am not even sure when it was that Dermot actually finally resigned.
1974, the end of 1974.
CL: 1974, did he?
His farewell was in 1975, April, at the Annual Meeting.
CL: I wasn’t at that.
He had already resigned by then.
CL: Who was the guy, John Feetham I think, no Terry Fitzgerald I think, succeeded me on the National Board. I think I went off the National Board the year after it was formed, or two. Round about 1977 or 1978, I am not quite sure about that.
The National Board was formed in 1974.
CL: Oh well. Bill Robson was on from Queensland I think wasn’t he.
Lee Nash: Bill Robson was at one stage. Bill Robson was on the Board. He was a delegate.
End Tape 1B
13 MARCH 1990: SACU2: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO CAM LAUGHTON
Now you have got a correction to make I understand.
CL: Yes, I think I took my so-called experience into the Federation much too late. I can’t recall ever sitting on a National Board that Dermot wasn’t the Executive Officer. I can’t even recall Kevin being the Executive Officer.
It was actually November 1974 when Dermot retired.
CL: Well it must have 1974. It must have been the year when I discontinued there and our representation then was taken up by Terry Fitzgerald. That must have been it.
Terry Fitzgerald? He is New South Wales now isn’t he?
CL: He is the Manager of Prospect Credit Union. He is now the Manager.
That is the one Lee Nash is on.
CL: Then I think after that John Feetham then became the member for South Australia. The representative from South Australia when Terry moved over here. Then John Feetham, I think, became the President of the Federation, I am not sure. But he was Manager of the BHP Credit Union in South Australia.
So it seems likely I should record Terry Fitzgerald as well.
CL: I think that would be a good idea. In terms of national experience Terry would have a fair bit.
His name came up several times. He looked so young.
CL: I reckon he came on the credit union scene around about 1969.
Well that is fairly early by Australian standards.
CL: Well by South Australian standards certainly, yes.
Well by all Australian standards I think, because after all apart from the few early ones, 1949, 1946 were the first. Anyway. Now there are some areas that we haven’t covered. Were you involved at your League in the early times of electronic banking, or was that after your time at the League in South Australia?
CL: Yes it was after my time. I was involved in terms of the early rationale towards it, but it didn’t get going until after. I think the police were the first people to enter the automatic teller machine area in South Australia. In fact I think they had a machine before any of the banks. One of the reasons we weren’t in the automatic transfer system was because of the multiplicity of types of machines that were available and what people wanted to do and so on and so forth. So it didn’t actually take place in electronic terms until after I had left.
Were you aware of the attempt by the Queensland Teachers’ Credit Union to start a national arrangement in 1978?
CL: Yes I vaguely remember that being discussed. Lloyd, Lloyd, oh I can’t think of his name. I think he was Assistant Manager. I think I remember him talking about it and sending some written material around the States.
I have seen it New South Wales but I wondered if it had got to South Australia. Do you know if the Police Credit Union in South Australia picked up on that? Is that how they started early?
CL: I don’t think so. I think they were on the move even before that.
That would be worth finding out, wouldn’t it, yes. What about the movement to EDVEST by setting up at the Federation level?
CL: I don’t know anything about that.
It is a scheme which is run by AFCUL.
CL: No, that was after my time. It must have been because I don’t remember a thing about it.
So you weren’t involved with that. On an international level, when you went overseas to the World Councils. The first time you went overseas was that to a World Council?
CL: To a World Council meeting. I went as an observer.
So where did you go?
CL: St Louis.
You went with Jack Coyne did you?
CL: Jack Coyne yes.
Was Ken Miller there, or was it Jack Coyne instead?
CL: No I think Ken Miller also. I think Ken Miller was a member of the International Board, I think then.
Jack Coyne went one year when he got burnt.
Lee Nash: Dermot, Jack Coyne and Ken Miller went from New South Wales.
That was before the World Council started.
Lee Nash: Yes that was.
Incidentally were you aware of the negotiations and the proposals put forward by Dermot Ryan and Ken Miller and George McCready and a number of others for the restructuring of CUNA International?
CL: No.
So your first involvement with the World Council was after it was set up?
CL: Yes, it was the World Council then. Previously it was the CUNA World Extension I think they called it.
Well that was the Foundation wasn’t it. Were you aware that Ken Miller and Dermot Ryan and a number of the others did have some input to the foundation of the World Council. The restructuring of CUNA International?
CL: I knew that they were heavily involved, but I didn’t know to what extent.
So didn’t have any personal experience. We have covered the CUNA Mutual insurance, CUMIS insurance split.
CL: To the best of my knowledge, yes.
What haven’t we covered? There seems to be that there must be a large area that we haven’t covered of your credit union involvement. Were you involved with any of the changes in legislation in South Australia?
CL: Yes.
In what way?
CL: The chap who I mentioned earlier, Brian Cate, as being our first Manager in South Australia, was the originator of getting the credit union legislation introduced in South Australia as opposed to what was then known as the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. But it wasn’t until after Brian left in 1974 or 1975, I think, we then had a chap by the name of David Dinning, who came from Queensland. He became our League Manager. With David I met with Peter Duncan, who was then the Attorney-General of South Australia, and who is now in national Parliament, to discuss some of the factors related to the type of legislation we would like to see. In fact I think in the wash-up, I think, we probably finished up with one of the best Credit Union Acts in the country, if not in the world. Peter Duncan went to the extent of making inquiries, even sending somebody over I think to Canada, to investigate the Act that they had. We finished up with what we thought at that time was an excellent Credit Union Act to protect the members as well as protect the credit union. I think was introduced in 1976.
What about a Reserve?
CL: Yes, it included the Reserve. It is not known as the Reserve. Originally it was called the Stabilisation Fund.
Were you involved with the setting up of that, the Stabilisation Fund?
CL: No, John Feetham. That was John Feetham’s responsibility.
Were you involved on an Australia-wide level of setting up the central banking system?
CL: No. What we did there was we used the system as it was then. We applied the same scheme in South Australia as there was applied by Les Robinson here in New South Wales.
Were you involved with Les Robinson at all?
CL: Oh well I knew Les. I had never been what I would say involved with him. But I have known Les for a number years. In fact I met up with him again just about twelve or eighteen months ago. I was invited up to Albury to the Annual Meeting of the Credit Union Managers. Les and I were both invited up there, as was Tom Kelly. I met up with him there again.
Have you been involved with the Institute of Credit Union Directors?
CL: No. Once again the only involvement I’ve had there was an invitation from the Victorian Institute. I went there and addressed one of their meetings. But I don’t think they liked what I had to say.
Why?
CL: I have never been back.
What did you tell them that they didn’t like, do you think?
CL: Oh well, when I say they didn’t like it, you know it is the old story. When somebody is saying the sorts of things that people want to hear, he is the best guy in the world. I am not saying for a second that they ill-treated me in any way. They gave me a great reception and I was very welcome and they fed me well. They provided for my wife’s presence as well, so I had a very good relationship with them. But I was talking about things that they had hoped were forgotten.
Such as?
CL: Well I was mainly talking about the philosophical approach and how sad I felt at the loss of a lot of the philosophy. What I saw as being people running credit unions from their ivory towers these days, rather than getting among the people. But of course I had to temper all that with the fact that.
There appears to be a break here
Well there is one thing that I think I should ask you. Do you think your credit union involvement has taken a toll on your health of your family life?
CL: Well I certainly began to experience some health problems during my period of involvement. But I don’t think I can blame the movement for that. I think one allows oneself to be sort of dragged from one scene to another and he finishes up doing a whole lot of things that probably somebody else could have done if it were better organised. But it never affected my family life. My wife was always very understanding. I think it helped me to give my children a better appreciation of how to handle their financial affairs when they grew up. That incidentally is one of the things that I was very sorry that we were never able to do in South Australia, introduce an educational program into the school curriculum so that people when they left school knew more about financial matters than they do today.
I asked you, and you answered, whether you thought the credit union movement had taken a toll of your health and your marriage, but you didn’t think so. Have you got any regrets about your time spent in the credit union movement?
CL: If you want to ask me that one, I would say that I should have got involved earlier. I would not only have been glad to be involved earlier, but I should have probably encouraged my family to become involved.
You did have family membership. The one thing that you couldn’t get was credit union education in schools.
CL: That is right. That was one of the great sorrows.
It wasn’t long here you know. It was only in about six months here and then the Government shut it off, cut it off. The Premier at that time was a former banker of the Bank of New South Wales. So it didn’t last here either. Who do you think are the outstanding people you met in the credit union movement?
CL: In South Australia?
Everywhere.
CL: Well I have already mentioned Dermot. I had great respect for Stan Arneil. Lee Nash, a man I have always respected. But in terms of people with whom I was directly involved most frequently were Brian Cate, who has just died recently, John Feetham, who was the Chairman of the Association in South Australia which was the League. Terry Fitzgerald who is now Manager of the Prospect Credit Union. I think they are the main people. Kevin Murray I had great respect for him. I think in terms of health and family damage, I think he was one of the casualties of the movement. I don’t know all the detail, in fact I don’t know any of the detail. But I know that that man worked so damned hard and he spent so much time that it just had to affect his family life. Same thing with Brian Cate, I think his family life was affected. But I guess that is the sort of thing that happens when people get wrapped up in such people organisations.
Tell me were you involved with the Foundation at all?
CL: Yes. I was involved to the extent that I was its representative in South Australia. I did as much as I could to encourage people, encourage credit unions to commit themselves to the Foundation.
You didn’t do any trips at all?
CL: No. I never did anything like that. I was a great believer in of it of course, and I still believe in it.
Do you think that the credit union movement has stuck by its principles?
CL: Well I am not directly associated with it now. But I suspect that there has been a falling-off of principles. I think maybe this has been brought about because of the state of the national economy and international economy. As I mentioned earlier about the tendency towards greed rather than need and people seeing investments rather than regular savings programs and the like. I think when you have that sort of thing people are looking for what they can get in return for their money. Most people feel they have got to do that in order to stay ahead and that has probably put a great strain on the movement sticking to its principles. But in a short answer to your question, I am very doubtful.
So what do you think are the challenges of the future of the movement?
CL: Well now if I had anything to do with it, and given hindsight, I would allow the credit unions to become absorbed into the bigger financial world, because that is what is going to happen to them anyway. It is happening. But I would be moving now to start afresh to re-establish the basic principles and philosophy of the movement and keep the organisation small. Have them, because of the value that they have for people rather than how much money they can make for people. Make sure that they never, ever loan money into business, to develop business, because I think that is a very dangerous area. Credit unions were intended to be for people and only for people. Just for ordinary people, families and the like. I think they are getting in very dangerous ground when they start lending large sums of money for projects, as has happened in some of the other States. I don’t know about New South Wales. But it did happen in Western Australia. I think there were large amounts of money loaned by I think it was the Teachers’. I could be corrected on that. But I think it spells trouble when they are lending large monies like that.
Do you think that the credit union movement should provide more services for members? Or go away from that travel service and so on, investment services?
CL: Well I suppose, but within limits though. I couldn’t put down specifically where I would limit it, but I fear that the cost of providing a lot of the modern day services itself limits the degree to which the credit union is a credit union. You mentioned earlier the electronic funds transfer and ATMs and the like, that must be an enormous cost. If you have got large costs you have got to be prepared to have professional people and to have the professional people you have got to pay them.
Do you think credit unions should go out of the banking system as such then?
CL: I think that what is happening will continue regardless of what I think. They will be absorbed in the banking system. I think they should start again anew, because there will always be people who have need for the basic credit union idea. At some time in the future they will start again, maybe under another name. They will start again and that’s what they should be doing, the present movement should be doing because of their experience in these areas, is using that experience to make some credit unions available with the type of service that people need.
What about co-operative supply systems?
CL: Yes, I think the principle is good.
Do you think credit unions should be involved with it or not?
CL: I don’t see why not. I think that is good, but only in terms of the types of materials that credit unions need to use.
So that is the League thing, the Association thing. Do you think that the World Council is doing the job as it should? Do you think that should be reformed?
CL: Well once again I am a bit disconnected from that. But I mentioned David Dinning earlier. David Dinning left South Australia as Manager of the Credit Union League there and he went to Victoria. Since then he has finished with Victoria and he is now with the World Council. The World Council have sent him to Kenya and I think the sort of work he is doing there is re-establishing, or establishing, the credit union idea among those third world people. That, I think, is good work. As long as the World Council is doing that type of thing and not encouraging credit unions to become too involved in big business type things, I think there will always be value in having the World Council there.
Have you got any constructive criticism that you can make of your League, for instance, your South Australian Association now? Do you think there is anything they should or shouldn’t be doing? That they are, or haven’t got into?
CL: No. I am not really familiar with what’s happening now. I have been disconnected for so long. Disconnected in the sense that I haven’t had any involvement. Before I would make any criticism of that I would like to learn a little bit more about what John Feetham was telling me. There is some scheme called Renewal, I think. I would like to learn about that Renewal first and then I might be able to make a comment on that. But I really don’t know what they are up to at this stage.
Do you think there is any way, I mean credit unions when they first started used to help the people at the bottom of the barrel so to speak, but they are not now?
CL; I don’t believe they are.
They are helping the people who have got further up, so to speak. They helped them get up mind you.
CL: That’s right. But then it is the old story, once you help a child, OK, you bring that child up, one day that child has to find its own way. You just hopefully educate that child sufficiently so that he or she will live within society to the best of their ability with the teaching that you have given them. It is the same thing in this circumstance. Too many people are allowed to let their greed take control and that is why we have the problems today. People want more and more and more for less and less and less. But I feel the credit union concept should be to educate these people in money management. Help them in family life without being involved in religious things or whatever. If it so happens to be a religiously-based group, good luck to them. But the basic principle of social involvement for the common good is what I think it should all be about.
As you have said, you think they should go back and start again.
CL; Yes. If I had the chance, I would do that.
That is what Dermot believed you know. He said they had to get back to tors.
CL: Well I didn’t know he said that, but yes, I agree with him. He and I saw eye to eye on so many things it doesn’t surprise me that he would say that. There was a lot of things we didn’t see eye to eye on too.
Such as what?
CL: Oh well we had different ideas about how things should be done. Dermot would often just bait you just for the sake of having an argument. We would finish up arguing about something and as long as he thought he won, it didn’t matter what it was about. There were no specific things. Dermot was just that sort of guy.
He got me going on a few occasions, I can remember clearly. Well all right I think that just about covers it, unless you can think of anything further that we should cover that we haven’t. You have been very concise in your answers. Have you got any memorabilia that you want to donate to your State project. Presumably you will take a tape back with you. Perhaps you might think about what you might give to your own project.
CL: Yes I will. If you don’t mind, and as long as I don’t tread on anybody’s toes, and our people see any value in what I have been saying here in response to your queries today, I would like to include it in the work I am doing in South Australia. Although we don’t have as long a history as New South Wales we still had the same basic traditions and the same ideas. It is all part of this historical, hysterical society, that we have formed.
Incidentally were you involved in the start of the Credit Unions Historical Co-operative with Dermot?
CL: Well very much.
How did that come about?
CL: Well we had been disconnected for a considerable time, when I say we I mean me and the movement, I had moved out of the movement. Out of the blue, I received a letter one day from Maggie Niven at AFCUL inviting me to write a little article for the magazine. I was astonished at receiving this because I am a back water fellow, you know. Anyway I responded to it after she had rung me up two or three times wanting to know why I hadn’t done it. This evidently got into the magazine, as it was intended, and Dermot got a copy. I hadn’t spoken with Dermot for I wouldn’t know how many years. I got a phone call this day, ‘Oh you so and so this, and you so and so that.’ He was on about the thing and that is how we got back together. I said, ‘Well how about coming over to South Australia. Bring Meg and stop at our place. I will get a few of the people we used to know together.’ We did that. We went for a walk one day. I had been doing a bit of credit union history off my own bat without any co-ordination and I was making a terrible hash of it. I had a tape of a fellow who was in the New South Wales area, I had had it for years. I played this tape back to Dermot and straight away Dermot said, ‘That’s bullshit. That’s bullshit.’ I argued with him you see. I didn’t know the detail, whether it was bullshit or whether it wasn’t. But I was defending the man’s right to say what he thought was right. So the following day we went into Wakefield Street and we were going to take Meg and Dermot to see the Cathedral. But there was a wedding on at the Cathedral and of course the two women, my wife and Meg, stopped to have a look at the wedding and Dermot and I strolled along the street and we sat on a window ledge, it turned out to be an undertaker’s window ledge. We got back on to this argument and I won’t use the language Dermot uses, but those who might hear this tape might have some idea of the sort of thing he was saying. He started to thump me on about this. ‘If you are going to do this, get the bloody thing right.’ Of course I am defending the man’s right to say what he thought was right.
End Tape 2A
MARCH 1990: SACU2: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO CAM LAUGHTON
So discussion compiling a history of the South Australian credit union movement, Dermot was saying you have got to get it right.
CL: Oh yes. If you are going to do this you have got to get it right. My intention at that stage was to write the thing from tapes I had got from around and about the place. I had been doing it off and on for a long time and I really wasn’t getting anywhere. I was in no way an expert.
That is the way to go.
CL: Of course it is the way to go.
But to transcribe them, that is what they are not doing here.
CL: Well that is what I am doing, and transcribing as well.
It is important you know. You get lots of viewpoints.
CL: That is exactly right and that is why that was discussion that Dermot and I came up with. Almost exactly what we are talking about. Although, I was taking your viewpoint and he was taking his. Eventually I said to him, ‘Dermot you’ve begun to sound as if you are the only so and so that knows anything about this bloody game,’ and we were going to face off, just a bit of bull. Eventually it dawned on him that really what I was saying was right. He hadn’t thought about the taping business. He said, ‘What we should do is get together and do this bloody thing right.’ That is as far as it went except that evening when we were having tea in my place and he was going home the next day, I said, ‘Well let’s not forget this Dermot. Think about this and try and get the thing done properly.’ When he came back here to Sydney he rang me up a couple of days later and he said, ‘How about if we do this? You come over to my place. That’ll let me reciprocate from you having us. I will get a few bods around the place and if everyone is in agreement we will call that an official meeting and we will getting this thing started on ???????? in advance.’ That was how it came about. As soon as he said that I got in touch with oral history people in Adelaide, Beth Robinson. She gave me all the help under the sun and I was well-armed with the sort of information I needed when I came over here. Of course inevitably that night Dermot got stuck into me again, but this time I knew what I was talking about. I loved those arguments. Anyhow, on the Sunday all these people got together and we had this official set-up and we formed the thing, not knowing whether we were going to make anything of it or not. But if they hadn’t done it, I don’t think that we would have got as far as we have got now. In South Australia I am not doing all that well, although I have recorded probably a hundred hours of a range of people.
That is more than they have done here you know.
CL: But it is difficult to get other people to do their own areas, their own credit union areas. The only reason I am doing it is because I was scared to put the hard word on them to pay somebody professionally to get thing done. They back off, they shy off. All the people who are past, they are willing to be in it, but the new people in the credit union tend to say, ‘Oh, OK, get in touch with so and so,’ but when it comes to putting up hard cash they are not that keen. But anyway, I have got a start and as I say I have done about a hundred hours and I am going to transcribe all of them. I haven’t done it yet, because of illness I haven’t done anything for twelve months or so, but I will be getting back to it.
That is very good. You are doing very well. You are doing better than in New South Wales, because we have not transcribed anything here. Clarrie Murphy has done a few interviews. I think Dermot did one with Merv Callaghan and I think that is it. Then there are the ones I have done, which I was paid to do. So they haven’t transcribed any. The Sydney Credit Union have got me to write it up, but that is not transcribed. I have just written something out of the tapes, that is all. An edited version which doesn’t go with the transcription at all. Transcribe and then edit, that is the way to do it.
CL: That’s the way I’m doing it and then sending it to the person who has been interviewed.
That is the correct way to do it. Of course even then it is often wrong. You can never think of the dates on the spur of the moment. But then if somebody has got the transcript of that and then it has been amended and then they go and do some research as well, you are getting somewhere near it aren’t you. Well students will get into it once they have got it written down. That will be all right.
CL: It is not generally known, but I intend when I get mine finished to place them in the local library over there because there will be a better chance of somebody locally doing something about it.
Credit unions often have people who can do transcription in between times if they make up their mind that it can be done. That is the way to go. Anyway, we shall see. Well have you got any criticisms or suggestions for this project? Have you got any criticisms about the way I have gone about it, shall we say?
CL: None at all. I think the content of this is probably better than it would have been if I had prepared for it. Yes probably because it is a bit more natural. When Jack mentioned to me, he said, ‘When you come down Richard Raxworthy will interview you,’ I thought he was having me on. The thought never entered my head that anybody would want to hear anything I had to say.
Well I think we have just about covered the project then. Thank you very much Mr Cam Laughton.
End Tape 2B