25 AUGUST 1995: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO MARGERY ROBSON
What is your full name Margery?
MR: That is my full name.
What year were you born?
MR: November 1939.
Where abouts?
MR: England, Yorkshire.
Whereabouts in Yorkshire?
MR: Actually I was born in a farmhouse at a place called Leavening.
Where did you go to school?
MR: I went to school in England and then after we came to Australia in 1950 I went to school in Victoria. A State school in a place called Crossover, near Warradale. Then I started at Warradale High School and finished my high school at Yallourn High School.
Where did you go to work first?
MR: After I left school I went to the Library Training School at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. Towards the end of that year I got a job at the Box Hill City Library.
As a librarian?
MR: Yes. As a Library Assistant.
How long were you there?
MR: Not very long because I had to go home, my mother was ill, and I had to go home to Morwell where we lived at that stage. My next job was in the Public Library at Yallourn. After that my next job was at the Boys’ Technical School library in Morwell. After that I went down to South Australia as a Public Librarian, at Woomera.
How did you get into Ansett, or into the credit union? Where did you first hear about credit unions?
MR: From my sister. She worked for the Police Credit Union in Victoria, she has just retired this year after twenty years there.
Did they give her a gold watch?
MR: They gave her a sound system. Have you seen the history of the Police Credit Union in Victoria? She is in there.
I will look her up. What is her name?
MR: Margaret.
Margaret Robson?
MR: Yes.
So you heard from her about credit unions, but when did you go to work for one?
MR: After I was in Woomera as a Public Librarian I got married and my husband was a Camp Manager at the Down Range Tracking Station. I went to live there. Then eventually that was downgraded and eventually there was no job for me and I went to Adelaide at the end of 1978. I was in Adelaide for a year working for a company in the Accounts Department. Then in 1980 I came across to Western Australia and couldn’t get a job for twelve months. I was too old, like a lot of people. Towards the end of 1980 I got a part-time casual holiday relief job with a company, which was the worst job I have ever had in my life. My sister rang me early in 1981 to tell me to look out for an advertisement that was going to be in the paper for this position here. She knew Mr Bell and he had told her that he was going to be looking for a Supervisor for out here. That is how it all started.
Who interviewed you?
MR: Mr Bell did. He came over here and interviewed me at what was at the time McRoberts and Miller Airlines. He walked across the floor and he said, “How are you Margaret? Oh it can’t be Margaret because she is in Melbourne, but it looks like her.” I then had to go over to Melbourne for some familiarisation and we actually opened here on Thursday 12 March 1981.
So you opened the branch did you?
MR: Yes. With help from one of the Melbourne boys called Craig McChonnachy, who came over with me to show me some of the ropes and some of the techniques. He was with me for a week. In those days I did the Airport in the morning and the City in the afternoon. Nearly killed me, mind you. I did that until August 1982 on my own. Then I got a part-timer by the name of June Warmsley. Then in March 1984 we built up enough business so that we could have both offices open full-time and I got another full-timer, a young man named Ken Perkins, who was one of God’s gentlemen.
How long did you have them, or have you got them both still?
MR: June was with me about four years I think. I haven’t brought all my staff lists with me.
You sent them to me didn’t you?
MR: Not my staff lists. Ken left me in August 1986, basically because there were really no career prospects for him here. He is still a credit union member to this day and he is now working for Ansett actually. When he left me he went to Pioneer, which later became Greyhound, but now he is back with Ansett. I can’t remember all the staff that I have had with me. If you want, I can send the list up to you with how long they were with me.
Well if you have got any that you want to mention it might be an idea. You have given me the phone listings, you have sent me that, of the whole of the organisation. That has been very helpful. Incredible. You have done a good job. Also the Ansett News and of course we have the Annual Reports here and you sent the newsletters. I went and had a look at the bound volumes of the previous Outlook before it became Ansett News and before the credit union picked the name up for their publication.
MR: A lot of people don’t know that is where the name came from.
Apart from that they obviously deliberately used the Outlook before, then when the name became changed to Ansett News, they took the name for the credit union newsletter. Thanks to you I have got it covered always, which is very good.
MR: You didn’t think it was a lot of junk then.
Certainly not, as I say one of the most helpful things is that telephone listings, you have filed over them rather than flinging them out. Nobody else has got anything like that.
MR: Well we had some wonderful staff Richard. I don’t know whether they would be willing to talk to you or make some contribution, but we had some wonderful people.
Is there anybody you can think of particularly?
MR: Leo Porter.
Did he start over with you?
MR: No, Leo was with the credit union when I started. The first person to greet me when I walked into the credit union office for my familiarisation, when I had to go to Melbourne in February 1981. John McNamara, our first Loans Manager. Don Barker, another of God’s gentlemen. Colleen Maskell, wonderful girl.
What was she?
MR: Oh she was various things at various times.
I have got her on the list as all sorts of things at various times.
MR: She was a wonderful help. She was there when we first went on-line here in 1986. Talk about trauma.
What do you mean?
MR: We had had the old AWA terminals connected.
What did you do before that, by the way?
MR: We would get a print-out from Melbourne which was done on a Friday morning of all the accounts in Western Australia, with their balance. We would receive that on Monday morning. We had to work out balances manually, bearing in mind what people may have done in the interim. We didn’t get another print out until the next week. So I would have to go through my daily record.
I suppose you could telephone if you wanted to?
MR: You could, but it wasn’t such a good a system in those days. Nothing was processed here. It all had to be packed up and go to Melbourne each day, and they would process it over there.
You couldn’t grant loans or anything like that?
MR: No. We used to help with the filling in of the loan applications to make sure they were done as comprehensively as possible. Of course it wasn’t so pedantic as it is now. The requirements as far as paper work were much more lenient. In those days the general attitude was that we believed what our people told us, despite the fact that some of them told us lies, but in general we believed rather than demanding proof of everything.
Any interesting stories, no names, no pack drill?
MR: There was one bloke. I reckon he should have been a novelist, the stories he used to tell. Mr Bell and Mr Porter were also involved in that story. He was an inveterate gambler, congenital liar, but had a touch of the Blarney Stone, I don’t know whether he was Irish but he could tell a good yarn. He used to borrow from his workmates and then forget to pay them back. In the end the credit union took over his finances and he wasn’t allowed to make any withdrawals from the account. I had to make a cheque payable for his rent and for any expenses he had he had to show me the invoices. I used to have to give him the cheque for his rent and the rotten so and so used to take it and he didn’t always give it to the landlord. He used to make up some story and get it cashed at some pub somewhere. Then the landlord would say he hadn’t got the cheque, so then I had actually had to physically post the cheque to his landlord. I never knew what actually happened to him. Eventually he was terminated by Ansett and I don’t know what happened to him after that.
Got any more like that?
MR: I have got all sorts of stories, but they don’t come to mind just straight away Richard. It is probably one of these funny things that I can’t think of them off the top of my head.
Well if you think of any you can phone my number in Sydney and record on an answering machine, if you think of anything you think I should know. Dale has gone to Sydney today and I think that the Manager has also gone, so there is nobody around here.
MR: With all those young people there now, nobody has got any sense of history and nobody knows about it.
You have appointed yourself as the historian obviously, the archivist for the credit union.
MR: Well I hate throwing things out that I think one day might be useful.
What we have got is practically ideal, as long as I get time to photocopy what is here before the end of the day, then I will be pretty well right.
MR: I don’t mind Richard if you take it back with you. Some of the things they are the only copies that exist, like those staff lists.
There is no point in me taking all that back. What I did I took one every six months. I have copied that and taken them with me. I have now copied the main parts of the newsletter and I am just now doing the Ansett News, the parts that I think we might need, and I haven’t quite finished doing the Annual Reports which are course are from here. What about Directors? Have you ever had a Director from Western Australia?
MR: No we haven’t. We did have one who stood for election, the Personnel Manager.
Who was that?
MR: That was Joan Downey. She was pipped at the post. Then we had another one of the Supervisors from the Reservation Department and he stood another year and he didn’t get in. In general, it is because the general feeling is, one they will vote for the people who are there now; and two, what is the point of voting for anybody because you don’t know them. Even when we did have candidates from here, not sufficient people voted for them to be enough to out-vote any of the candidates from there. It would have been a very onerous job mind you. The other one was Harold Calladine, I don’t remember the year that he stood.
What about Directors, do you know any of them? Who?
MR: Yes.
Creighton Kaye, he would come through there as a pilot periodically wouldn’t he?
MR: No. I know Mr Crooke, calls in occasionally now. I know Mr Bell of course. I knew Angela, she used to come over here to the Wages Department and she would pop in when she was on the Board. I know most of them to greet, but I don’t know them well enough to be friendly.
They all know you.
MR: Do they. I open my mouth a bit too much at times.
Well if anybody says Margery everybody in the place knows you, even if they haven’t ever met you.
MR: I have been around for a long time. There are lots of stories going around about you, whether they are true or not doesn’t matter, but while they are talking about me they are leaving somebody else alone.
Incidentally, I suppose this is putting something a bit on you, do you know the State Library do you?
MR: State Library here? I know where it is yes.
Well they have got a very active oral history section and the credit union movement isn’t going historically in Western Australia, we haven’t got anybody actively collecting history of credit unions in Western Australia. We don’t have a Director over there, the Credit Union Historical Co-operative. I would be obliged if you might think of who might get things going over there. I have recorded a few people over the phone like Arthur Carter and Doug Caldow, Brian Paterson and Reg Beale, about six of them. Dennis Hagan. Other than that there hasn’t been much done, nobody else has had a go really. There is nobody doing anything. If you can think of anybody who might do any recording and get the local credit unions doing their histories.
MR: Well you see because I am mainly, for the greater part of my time here been a one person office, you know after the pilots’ dispute our office was due to close. Did I send you one of those letters about that one closing. That closing was brought forward, because of the pilots’ dispute, because the lass that was there at the time, Val Higginson, contacted Melbourne and said she was just wasting her time there because there was just no people going in, so she recommended that the closure be brought forward, which it was. It meant I had to go in from a week’s leave actually to help pack up, but that is beside the point. It was supposed to be an agency run by the Ansett people, but they refused to do it after a couple of months. There was a lot of bitterness about it, the fact that the City office had been closed. They had all believed the promises that had been made, that if they all joined the credit union they would have an office in the Perth City. When it was closed that rankled very much. Now the Ansett staff refused to run the agency, with their Union’s support I might add. Since then the City people have mainly done it by telephone and/or mail, internal mail and postal mail, and in general it has worked. For the people who wanted it to work it has worked very well. By that time of course we had the cards and the personal cheque books. The people who wanted it to work, it worked for. The people who found it all too difficult, well it would have been too difficult if I had held their hand every five minutes of the day. But since Rowan Dowland, the bloke over there, ???? Development, has been here, and since I have had Colin with me, one of us goes in there once a month so we go in and show the flag. A lot of the times, Richard, I have been on my own. I have only had a part-time assistant.
Who have you got now?
MR: Colin Bridges. He is the one that there is an article about in the Ansett News about him being a disk jockey, when he was the Manager at the Ansett Hotels Airport Concession. A lot of the time I have felt it is more important to be available here in the office for when people ring up and/or come in specifically to see me, rather than to get out. I know in some businesses it is important to get out and sell, sell, sell, but because I have been here on my own I felt it has been important to be available here. At least people knew where they could get me.
I don’t know what to say about the history there, because this is not just your credit union although you have helped greatly in saving this stuff. As I say it is all the other credit unions around too, they aren’t doing anything about their histories.
MR: Well there are a lot of people, and I absolutely forbade Rowan Dowland to go anywhere near that box on pain of death.
Well there may be a problem. I am not certain how many of the photographs I can use. You as I see it the most important ones for reproduction purposes are going to be not the Ansett News but the Outlook newsletter. They don’t seem to have a set of them here, or that you can find. I hope today to go through the photographs the negatives they have got here to see what they have got from those Outlooks. I think that the photos from the Outlook newsletter are going to be the best thing, and what is in the Annual Reports, for producing a book.
MR: Are you interested in any photographs, there were just now and again photographs taken at functions.
As long as they are good photographs. You can’t use rubbish. You can look at a photograph and think it is historic, but if isn’t any good there is not much point you if can’t use it. If there is anything good around yes. Those that you sent over and we will be sending back, the quality of those is good enough to reproduce again. What I am saying is I don’t know if they have got them here, so hang on to them in case they do need to reproduce them. But that box is good. I keep on telling people you don’t need more than one box, you can get a picture from that.
MR: Well one of the things I came across, purely by accident, was the order form for the cash envelope system we used to have. It is in that box. When I first came here, Richard, the maximum amount that anybody could have as a deduction from their pay to the credit union was $99.99. The Ansett system did not have provision for three figures. That meant the amount of money we were able to get from Ansett through pay-roll deductions was limited. It wasn’t until that program, or whatever you would call it in those days because they weren’t computerised, was changed. I think I told you, the letter that I sent with that form, people could have more than $100 or if they wished their whole pay. It was because of those people who had their whole of pay had to come in and get cash receipts every three weeks, we set up this system that if they wanted a fixed amount every week they did that cash envelope authority and the envelopes were actually prepared in Melbourne. There was a computer print-out compared for the name, membership number and the amount of their cash envelope, and I used to get them ready for them and they would just come in and sign this print-out to say they had received the envelope every Wednesday. Then that went by-the by because of the introduction of cards and cheque books.
What about the changes in loans over the years?
MR: When I first came here the maximum loan that you could get was $5,000 and there was a three-month waiting list that first year. The interest rate was 15.75 per cent, effective.
How much again?
MR: It was either 15.25 or 15.75 per cent.
What year was that?
MR: 1981.
That was bad then. It got worse afterwards as well.
MR: That first year was terrible.
You just had to process the application and send it on. When did that change?
MR: That is all I still do.
You can’t grant any loans over there?
MR: Until this year. This year we load the loan application onto the system and then we fax through, depending on what time of day we get it, we fax it through to Adelaide and they do what is called the general work up on it, the CRA report, capacity to pay, they have got all that equipment there. We haven’t got it and we don’t do any of the approvals. We can make recommendations. Say we get one at 4.00 o’clock in the afternoon here, we don’t fax it to Adelaide because they have gone, so we put it in the mailbag that night to go straight to Melbourne. The time difference is one of the worst factors for an organisation which has interstate branches.
It is from your end, but it is not so bad from the other end. In actual fact if I want to do some recording on cheap telephone rates I can do it from 4.00 o’clock in the afternoon on Friday. 4.00 o’clock in Perth, 6.00 o’clock in Sydney.
MR: That is why I do a lot of my calling before 8.00 o’clock in the morning if I know I have to do an STD call. There is an awful expression over here which I do detest, but just for once I am going to use it, when the eastern States are on summertime, that three hours is a killer. From 2.00 o’clock in the afternoon here you just have no hope of getting anyone over there for anything.
Well they always call it the wise men from the east. By the way, the name of the lady who is in charge of oral history at the State Library is Ronda Jamieson. She won’t do anything herself, but she will help people, tell them how to do it, but they have still got to do it themselves. She is probably the greatest expert on oral history in the whole of Australia, and nobody from the credit unions have availed themselves of her advice to do their credit union history.
MR: How many people say, “That’s out of date, chuck it out.”
The biggest problem is putting their historical records with their records that have to be culled every seven years. What you need is a box that is separate. One or two boxes will do the whole of a credit union and put one set of newsletters, one set of Annual Reports, keep two of them in different locations. If the have the Minutes they can microfiche them.
End Tape 1A: 3897 Words: 1 hour 15 minutes.
25 AUGUST 1995: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO MARGERY ROBSON
MR: It is when we are just chatting informally that you can probably pick up a few other things.
Have you got a tape recorder?
MR: No, I haven’t got anything.
Well somebody has surely. Haven’t you got a dictaphone or something like that.
MR: Why would I use a dictaphone, what would I do with it.
Record your mother or something.
MR: She’s dead.
Well you can’t do that then. Record your children.
MR: Haven’t got any and my husband’s dead. I am a very quiet living person.
Get married again or something.
MR: Oh God no. Been there done that.
What about retirement investment how do you handle that from Western Australia?
MR: Outlook has a firm over here that they do recommend, called James Doogue Associates and people are referred to James. Some of the Ansett people actually go across to see Tim or Rob from Melbourne because they get cheap flights you see.
James Doogue is the local investment adviser, is he?
MR: Tim would be able to tell you more about him.
Some go to Tim and Rob. Right. Did you send me over the XYZ retirement planning kit? It is not in your pile and it is not on your list, so it may have come from Adelaide.
MR: I made the list up from the first things.
Yes I see the Super Saver stuff and what have you. It is just that on top of a pile of stuff I have got the XYZ retirement plan kit, which is very helpful actually because I didn’t know when it started. It started in 1981, do you remember that?
MR: No.
Peter Bowman sent it to me.
MR: We haven’t had James Doogue for ever. We used to have Godfrey Weston. Then that went by the board.
I came across that in the Annual Reports. Any other areas that you can think of that we haven’t covered. What about Managers, you only knew Roger didn’t you? There was John Carson as well wasn’t there.
MR: Well yes. John Carson was a sweetie, but it was difficult for him after Mr Bell left and staying on the Board. I did say to Mr Bell, “Listen your baby has got to the age of twenty-one now, it is time you left it and let go.”
You told him that.
MR: Yes.
What did he say.
MR: He looked at me with one of his looks. That did create some problems. I have got to be diplomatic haven’t I. Roger was one the of the best things and one of the worst things that has happened to this credit union.
I like that. I can see what you mean though, I have known him for a little while and this is the second time I have interviewed him. The first time was for the VCCA. He is a bit much sometimes isn’t he.
MR: He is a wonderful salesman. I mean he could probably sell ice to Eskimos without even trying, but people either love him or loathe him. Change of subject. I found a copy of my letter, it was a letter that went to all the members in Western Australia about closing this Perth Airport branch. I can send that to you. That created all hell and people were ready to slit his throat.
Send it to my home address, please.
MR: We are supposed to be getting a decent photocopier here, the only one we have got at the moment is attached to the fax machine and of course those copies don’t take very well.
I don’t have a good photocopier either, I end up going to the newsagent. I have done cost studies on whether I should get one and I am just on the border now.
MR: Costs you 10 cents a copy does it?
You’re joking costs me 20 cents and I get a discount, proper price is 30 cents. There are various places I can sort of call in and do a bit when I am on my rounds doing my work.
MR: The uproar that created. We actually knew about it. Mr Bell and Mr Carson came across here and at that time I had a lady called Jess Dixon with me. They swore us to secrecy, we weren’t allowed to say a word about it until the letter was sent to the members. Well when the first letters arrived I had people in here thumping the desk. “What do we have to do to close our accounts? If this office closes, I am not going to keep my account here. That’s it.” I just had to say, “No you are not, you are not closing your account today. You are not closing it yet.” There were faxes and phone calls and things flying all over the place. The people who took the most of them were Pauline Powell and John Carson. Ultimately the decision was reversed. But it created an awful lot of uneasiness, in view of the fact that other financial institutions had closed their doors through collapse, a lot of the people felt the credit union was in trouble. It created a bigger stir than the closing of our Perth City office. I have tried to explain to various people that it’s the result of that sort of thing happening, and people remembering it, that sometimes it is very difficult to over sell things. Rowan says to me, “That’s history.” I say, “Look you have to understand history to be able to help what is happening now. You have to understand why the people feel as they do.” Because they weren’t part of it they don’t understand the amount of feeling that was involved.
Incidentally, I asked Roger if he had made any mistakes and he said, “No, I don’t make mistakes. However, can you tell me one.” I said, “Well I can’t unless it is the first branch.” He dropped that. In actual fact there are a lot of traps around in Victoria for credit unions at various times and he managed to avoid all of them. The business of Teledata and CUE Card and all the things that didn’t work. There were various retirement investment device services, which didn’t go anywhere, that he tried and dropped in favour of doing it themselves. So in actual fact I can’t to any real big mistakes. Can you point to any?
MR: I think that would be a bit presumptuous of me and not diplomatic, seeing you are taping me.
Have you got any stories about him, you must have a million stories about Roger?
MR: Yes, but. As I say he is one of the best things that happened to this credit union and one of the worst.
Can I quote you?
MR: Well I have already given you written permission haven’t I. You had better say, “one person”. He is a mixture, a very complex man. As long as you agree with Roger you are all that is wonderful. As long as you praise him. But under no circumstances must you disagree or present another viewpoint, he doesn’t want to hear it. I learned that to my cost, into details of which we will not go.
I will quote you on that too. What you are actually saying is really good quotable stuff about Roger, although you are not laying it on the line.
MR: In some ways Richard, I must admit that I admire Roger, but in other ways let’s be honest, he can be a bit of a beast. He had a habit of when people came to us they were all that was absolutely wonderful and when they left there wasn’t a good word to say for them. We had a Loans Manager that was a very naughty boy, now who appointed him. You had the kafuffle with voting that time for the AGM. Everybody had done their voting and there were some votes that were deemed to be illegitimate. The whole thing had to be conducted again.
What was that over?
MR: The voting for the Directors. There was a young man who we had been talking to during the day who disappeared that night and we never saw or heard from him again. There has been staff that have disappeared. You have heard the old story of the DCM haven’t you? On Friday you get a letter that says “Don’t Come Monday”, we have had a few of those. The credit union has.
From Roger?
MR: No he didn’t usually write the letters. He made the bullets and got somebody else to fire them.
Literally?
MR: Yes.
Well I was in the manufacturing industry and with us it was usually a week in lieu the week before Christmas.
MR: We have had some very good staff and we have had some absolute money-hungry, ambitious at all costs type people, and people who have not had an inclining how to handle staff. They have ruled by fear and divisiveness rather than uniting and leading and joining.
The Loans Manager, I am not asking you to name him, but what did he do?
MR: Funded loans to himself under fictitious names.
That is not new. Did you ever hear about any defalcations in the credit union, any money missing?
MR: Yes.
Anybody caught?
MR: We never ever heard. That is the trouble with some of these things, we never ever heard the outcome. It is like this Loans Manager he was charged, but we never heard what happened. Big sums of money too, some of them.
All right what else?
MR: Margery has got the best job in Outlook. The reason why you have got such stability in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth I will leave you to judge, I think. I will leave you to make a decision from that.
You have never got a DCM yourself?
MR: No, but came near it though. In fact I can actually remember saying, “Are you saying Mr Bell that you don’t want me to work for you any more.” “Oh no Margery I am not saying that.” “Well that is what it is beginning to sound like to me.” Anybody else can to hear these tapes except you.
To be honest I doubt it, but there will be a copy sitting at the credit union. But I don’t know if anybody will go through them, I very much doubt it myself. If I drop dead and they gave the job to somebody else I suppose they would listen to them wouldn’t they.
MR: You had better not drop dead then, had you.
If you hear the 5.00 o’clock plane to Sydney has gone missing. Well you have just alerted me to something actually. I normally do two tapes on the spot and give you the copy, but I have not recorded tapes of these one on the phone, so I am taking the only one with me. If I get to Sydney it will be copied and you will get one back.
MR: You had better make sure you make your will. What happens to all your research material.
When you clean out my flat, it is packed everywhere with all sorts of stuff.
MR: What do your wife and family say?
They have moved out long ago. Mind you we are on good terms. There is work everywhere around the house. Have we got anything else we should discuss?
MR: I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. A lot of the information I have got is specific to Western Australia and when you are doing a history of the credit union as such, are you doing a section on the interstate branches or is it just going to be incidental?
There will be something on the interstate branches for sure. I might do it chronologically, or I might not, I might do it by subject. There might be one section on the branches and will be quoting you people at the same time as using material from the newsletters and Annual Reports and such like. So that is what you do, you put it together from what you have got. I don’t normally get all this stuff transcribed because it costs too much. I quote a flat fee which is quite small actually. If they want more they have to pay me more. As a matter of fact they are talking about a book about the size of the Victorian one, but I don’t know whether they can afford that. I think Dale will be glad to know that I think we have got enough for that. But whether I can do it in the time, that much, I don’t think I can. Also I have learnt by experience that it is no good just sort of doing the material and leaving to other people to finish it, without doing the proof reading and all that sort of thing, because then you can end up with your name on something you don’t agree with.
MR: That is inaccurate.
My first book they got my name wrong on the cover.
MR: Oh no.
The publisher was owned by Rupert Murdoch so I could hardly sue him. That means forever and a day it has got my name and then the original name.
MR: How many books have you written?
About six or seven, the published ones. Unless they produce a proper book with an ISBN number, I wouldn’t count them but I have probably done dozens of them.
MR: Have the books all been on credit unions?
None of my published books have been on credit unions.
MR: What do you write about then?
All sorts of things, the first one I did was on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The biography of an engineer, history of an army unit, family histories. The only one what would be in the library over there would be a thing called The Unreasonable Man, it is the biography of an engineer, the bloke who was responsible for the Sydney Railway and Harbour Bridge in Sydney. The other one was the Proud Arch, that is the Harbour Bridge again. I think those are the only two that would be in the library over there, in a library all over the place. The rest of them would be limited editions that were put out for small purposes, as I said like army units. You would find that in the War Memorial and a few other places. Yes you would find me on the catalogue. Don’t forget if you do think you could do some oral history or encourage someone else to do it, get them going in the credit union movement over there then contact Ronda Jamieson to help. She won’t do it. What is more she will want a copy of the tapes. The master tape that you are doing today will end up in the Australian Credit Union Historical Co-operative which is currently in the Railway Institute in Sydney. It will have to move soon, it has got to get out. That is the master. A copy of the tape will be at the credit union here. I will send you another copy of the tape for yourself to keep. That is normal.
MR: I will probably say, “No, I didn’t say that.”
Well there it is on tape. I have got something very quotable about Roger, oh yes. “The best and the worst thing that ever happened to this credit union.”
MR: I thought before this started, keep a still tongue in my head, not say anything that I might regret.
The other one is about selling ice to the Eskimos.
MR: Don’t you think he is a good salesman. Excellent.
Yes he must be. But there is only one problem with this credit union history, it is going to have too many photographs of Roger Bell in it.
MR: Well you know over here they used to call him the Bag One because he had his photograph in everything. Do you remember the ????? When they got the newsletter they would go through and say, “My God there are only seven photos this time, what’s happened? Didn’t the other ones come out?” To a lot of people in the early days Roger Bell was the credit union.
There was only one other person who was behind the scenes and that was John Hope. Do you know him?
MR: That was before my time.
He kept on influencing behind the scenes, but only for the first years. He was never a Director. He was Personnel. It was at his instigation that the credit union was started and the job was given to Roger. That is the story of it. He was behind the scenes. It was him that went to Sir Reginald Ansett and Sir Reginald asked him what a credit was. So John Hope explained to him what a credit union was and he said it sounded like a good idea, if it worked.
MR: Well everything large once had a small beginning, didn’t it?
All right if there is nothing further we will ring off, but don’t be afraid to contact me on my home phone.
MR: If there are any more details that you want from me, give me a ring.
I can’t ring you at 4.00 o’clock in the afternoon in Perth because you will be busy.
MR: Yes, but 4.30 will be all right. Also Richard I do have an answering machine myself at home. If you do want me to contact you.
I might have a few things that I can ask you, we shall see. By the way hang on to that box, the idea is to keep it going you understand. I will try and impress this on Dale, that you don’t need to keep masses of stuff, but you should have an historical box or an historical file in the cabinet with ‘DO NOT DESTROY’ or whatever.
MR: You see the whole idea of this thing came because Margaret gave me a copy of the history of the Police Credit Union. I was talking about it to some of my colleagues when I was over there for the AGM last year and I said I thought it was time Outlook did something like it. It has gone from there. She is one of those people who take lots of photographs of things and a lot of that photos in the Police History were taken by her.
Have you taken any photos?
MR: I have taken a few of the staff and different functions, but not a great many because I am not a super-dooper photographer, I have just got a point and press camera.
You know what the secret of being a good photographer is? Take plenty of shots and throw away the bad ones.
MR: I am still trying to get a decent photo of me for this.
Do that, and make it one of when you were young and beautiful.
MR: That was never the case mate. I am under no illusions about the looks that I haven’t got.
You know how they try to insist on giving a bit of a biography and they want a photograph of you for the cover of the book that you wrote? Well I once sent one of a picture of me when I was six and they used it.
MR: Serves you right.
On another occasion I didn’t have anything half decent that I could send, so I asked my son to come outside along the cliffs to see if he could take one. Out of a role of film I got one photo.
MR: It is just as well they weren’t all failures. Are you coming to Melbourne any more Richard.
Only if I have a job to do.
MR: Well I am going to suggest to Dale that you come down for the AGM.
When is the AGM? With any luck it might coincide with my son’s graduation, he is down at RMIT.
MR: Is he? It is November I think, just off the top of my head. Where is that newsletter, I just can’t lay my hands on it.
I will find out anyway, it will come up.
MR: I think it would be good if you could come. You could meet the people and know who you are talking to. I do hope that you are able to get in touch with some of those people from the earlier days, some of the good ones.
Like Leo Porter, John McNamara, Don Barker, Colleen Nashville.
MR: Dale wouldn’t know how important they were in the early days. I mean they may not be willing to be interviewed, I don’t know.
I don’t see why Don Barker should object, do you?
MR: No, but there again there is a story attached.
Is there? There is another one who I wanted to interview, but doesn’t seem to have come to the party we don’t know where he is, Des Vivien. What are you laughing at?
MR: I wonder why, I wonder why?
I believe that he had a bit of an argument with the Ansett management and finished up and was not very happy about that.
MR: That is what I mean about the unsavoury stories, I will change that word from scandal. He didn’t do the right thing by us either. I will tell you another Director, the Doctor.
Several people have suggested him and I haven’t got to him either, Doctor Dai Lewis.
MR: I knew he was coming over here and I hoped he would come up to the credit union. One of the Ansett people saw him down there and he said I was hoping he was going up to the credit union, the quote that came back to me was, “Oh I am steering clear of her.”
Did you have any reason to chase him.
MR: Yes I wanted him to see at that time we had the most grotty little office, it was dreadful. It was only about six feet by six feet with a counter down the middle and a filing cabinet behind and a table. I wanted him to see what a grotty place it was to see whether we could get anything better.
End Tape 1B: 3752 Words: 1 hour 10 minutes.