Project: Sydney Electricity Employees’ Credit Union Oral History
Interviewer: Richard Raxworthy
Interviewee: Des McNally
Date: 2 December 1992
Tape Number: 3

SIDE A
I will ask you Mr McNally where were you born and when?

DMcN: 1926 in Campsie.

Did you grow up around there?

DMcN: Yes.

Did you go to school there?

DMcN: I went to primary school at Campsie and high school at Darlinghurst.

You moved at that time, or did you travel to school?

DMcN: I travelled to school. I managed to win a bursary so I went to Darlinghurst.

What was your family background at the time, what did your father do?

DMcN: My father was in the seed trade, he worked with Arthur Yates. Of course we were at school during the Depression and things weren’t very easy. We owe a lot to our parents because they, along with everyone else at the time, had a terrible job making ends meet but we never missed a meal and we never had holes in our clothes and our parents did a fantastic job.

So what was the influence on you when you were young? Was your father out of work at all?

DMcN: No he managed to retain his position throughout, but it is clearly obvious that he wasn’t earning any great wage so how they coped was a great credit to them. They must have put something away for a rainy day, except it turned out to be a rainy five or six years.

Do you remember during that period seeing other people out of work?

DMcN: No, not really. I don’t recall that to any great extent. The people round about us seemed to be in work but in all cases it wasn’t very well paid.

In what way do you think your father and mother influenced you?

DMcN: Well to be very careful with any funds that one might have and also to appreciate any asset that you might have.

When you went to school were you good at anything in particular, was there anything you liked?

DMcN: Oh I enjoyed maths and English. At high school I developed a interest in French. I had a dreadful first year and then in second year we had a change of teacher who had a particular flair for French and I was able to pick up what I had missed in first year and very soon I was up with the others and from there on, for the rest of the high school days, I quite enjoyed French.

When you left school was there any thought that you could go on to tertiary study or was it for sure you had to go to work straight away, if you could get a job?

DMcN: Well that was a hang over from the Depression years. In those days the Leaving Certificate was taken after five years at high school and I had actually begun fourth year when my father saw an advertisement in the paper for junior clerks for the Sydney County Council. He came home, showed me the advertisement, produced an application form and more or less told me to fill it in. At home I have a letter from the principal pleading with him to allow me to remain, but father had decided it was time I went to work.

What year was that?

DMcN: 1942.

You have been at the Sydney County Council ever since, the whole of your working life?

DMcN: The whole of my working life, yes. I retired in October 1988.

Did you get caught up in the war at all?

DMcN: Only the tail end. I joined the Air Force in December 1944 and was discharged in July 1946.

Where did you go?

DMcN: Never left Australia. Served most of that time on the Darling Downs in Queensland at No.6 Aircraft Depot. We were actually on posting to Mauritai when the Americans dropped the bomb on Japan and those orders were cancelled and we stayed at home.

When you got back to work back to the Sydney County Council again.

DMcN: That was a story too because when I left the Air Force I had accumulated something like twenty-eight days leave and I was ready to have a little holiday. I was discharged on the Thursday or Friday or one week and my father ordered me back to work on the Monday, so my holiday went out the window.

He was keen wasn’t he?

DMcN: He was strict.

So when you came back to work what job did you do?

DMcN: I was a junior clerk in the Stores Branch.

You came back as a junior clerk then. So when did you first hear about credit unions?

DMcN: Well I first heard about credit unions when the then president of the Sports and Social League, Mr Wade, entered a board of management meeting in 1958 or 1959 and laid a document on the table and said, “That gentlemen is the blueprint for a credit union.” The board members at the time were interested, they skimmed through the document and Mr Wade obviously took it into other areas from there and the next we heard about it was when the notices went out for the inaugural meeting.

Where was that held?

DMcN: In the demonstration theatre of the Queen Victoria Building.

Can you remember who was there?

DMcN: Well yes. Mr Pemberton and Keith McRitche, Laurie Stockbridge, Ron Swanson, Percy Ward, they are names that come readily to mind.

They were put up for the board, can you remember how come they were put up for the board, who picked them out?

DMcN: It is my understanding they either volunteered or they were nominated from the floor.

I understand that Mr Pemberton was a nominee of the management of the Sydney County Council, so he told me anyway.

DMcN: That might well have been and they couldn’t have had a better nominee.

Do you remember anybody from outside addressing the meeting?

DMcN: Well there may have been people from the Municipal Employees’ Union, because the Municipal Employees’ Union and the Sports and Social League were more or less sponsors of the credit union at that time.

Do you remember Brian Radcliffe at all?

DMcN: Yes. We knew Brian Radcliffe. Brian Radcliffe was the secretary of our Sports and Social League until such times as he left and went into local government.

Of course he was over at Sydney Credit Union as well.

DMcN: That’s right.

What about people like Stan Arneil, was he there for instance?

DMcN: I couldn’t say. I wasn’t aware of Stan Arneil at that time. In fact my only memories of Stan Arneil were not so much as seeing him live but for some reason or other a later chairman, Maurie Ryan, had very definite opinions about Stan Arneil and wasn’t backward in letting us know them at any appropriate time. I don’t recall ever meeting the man. I might have been in his presence once at a general meeting of the association.

So at that inaugural meeting did you join?

DMcN: No. It was my boss at the time who encouraged me to join some time after that meeting.

Who was your boss?

DMcN: My boss there was Jack Bell, who was the chief storekeeper in the Stores Branch. I was working at Five Dock at the time and he often called and gave me a lift home and it was on one of those afternoons that he said to me, “As a married fellow you should join the credit union and you should have a loan.” We had only been married about four years at the time and he said, “Young married people should have something that they can draw on for emergencies and the limit at the moment is $400.” So it must have been after decimal currency because he clearly said $400.

After 1966 therefore.

DMcN: I said, “Well before I start thinking about a loan perhaps I should join,” so I joined at that time.

Were you aware of the need for a credit union within the County Council? I mean did you see any people who got themselves in trouble?

DMcN: No not at that time. After I joined and after I became a director I heard on more than one occasion that management viewed the credit union in a very kindly light because it certainly put the brake on people leaving and seeking employment elsewhere, in more than one position at times. The availability of quick loans seemed to be an incentive for people to stay and management saw that as a plus.

Did you see anybody in trouble from gambling or from hire purchase or any of the finance companies that used to be offering loans at high rates of interest?

DMcN: Not until I became a director and was appointed to the Loans Committee.

So who asked you to become a director?

DMcN: Well it was coming up to the Annual General Meeting in 1971 and I was on the Board of Management of the Sports and Social League at the time and word came through that at least two directors of the credit union were standing down at the Annual General Meeting, one was Bill Wilson through ill-health and the other was Bill Radford; and I am not too sure whether Bill Radford had lost interest at that time or whether he had decided that he would leave the council; so there were going to be two vacancies. After a meeting of the Sports and Social League one night the matter was kicked around and three members of the board decided to nominate for the vacant positions and the three nominees were George Wilson, John Dwyer and myself. At the Annual General Meeting we three were elected and one of the sitting directors, Frank Fryirs was defeated.

It wasn’t long after that that one of the sitting directors, and I can’t remember now who it was, approached me and said, “You defeated Frank Fryirs so you will have to do his lunchtime job.” I was rather surprised that he was able to nominate me as the one who defeated Frank Fryirs because three were elected and how he managed to choose me as the one who defeated Frank Fryirs escaped me at the time. I said, “What did Frank Fryirs do at lunchtime?” It was very early days in the credit union still and apparently Frank went in at lunchtime and countersigned the cheques that were ordered during the morning by members. They had been signed by the manager at the time and it needed a countersignature and Frank used to go in at lunchtime and do that. I said, “Well I am prepared to do that but I don’t see that I was the one who defeated Frank Fryirs.” Anyway that was to be a pretty important decision later on.

So did you have to go from Five Dock into the city everyday?

DMcN: No by that time I was working back in town. I had left Five Dock in 1967 and had taken a position in administration.

What was Five Dock by the way, was it just a shopfront office?

DMcN: Five Dock was what they called Western Area Establishment. There were a number of branches there and they served the customers in the inner-western area of Sydney.

So what committees were going at that time and which ones did you get on when you came on the board?

DMcN: Well there was the ordinary board meetings every second week and the loans committees were in existence. The directors were divided up and allocated certain nights on which they would attend loan committee meetings and that seemed to continue for as long as I was a director.

Have you got any stories you can tell, without mentioning names, about particular loans or loans committee meetings?

DMcN: Not really. Perhaps if you had given me some notice I might have been able to recall some. The overall thought was that the shocking situations that some people were able to get themselves into and how lucky it was that there were organisations like credit unions to help them out.

Did you do any loan counselling at all in those days, or budget sessions with people?

DMcN: Initially I was just processing loans and the difficult ones were passed out to the more experienced directors. But as the time wore on I joined the interviewing committees of the Loans Committee and we got to know the people who were coming regularly and others who were in serious trouble but after a plan had been laid out for them they managed to stick to it and we never saw those people again. There was that hard core who kept coming back.

The gamblers?

DMcN: I don’t know that they were all gamblers. The reasons given were domestic reasons, certainly gambling was part of it, others spending too much time and money in hotels and clubs, they were the main reasons for them having to come to see us.

What about door-to-door salesmen, say Waltons salesmen? Did they sell people more than they could afford?

DMcN: Well they might well have but that didn’t show in the reasons for the loan.

When you were consolidating people’s loans was that the sort of thing that you might find?

DMcN: I don’t know that the door-to-door salesmen came into it, I don’t remember one of those. Finance companies, bank cards and the problems which stemmed from domestic arrangements where the wife or the husband might have spent too much, and the drinking and the gambling.

Waltons and the door-to-door salesmen that was a finance company too, NFCB Waltons.

DMcN: The problems with the stores seemed to come from people who actually shopped there and not shopping at their front door.

What other committees were you on?

DMcN: There might have been the occasional ad hoc committee, but I was only ever a board member and a member of the Loans Committee.

Never on the Education Committee?

DMcN: Might have relieved there but not to any great extent.

So when you got on the board in 1971 what were the issues at that time, do you remember?

DMcN: Not really.

Well the contentious one I can think of is the insurance issue re CUNA Mutual.

DMcN: Well I wasn’t privy to what that problem was. As I indicated to you in the preamble over the phone certainly these matters were brought to us as a board level, but as I remember that insurance one the executive and the management had thrashed it out and they came with a proposal, more or less a fait accompli. That is the way we seemed to get most contentious matters at the board level, presented with a resolution and that was debated.

Right I understand. Now when you were first on the board the chairman was Stan Hatton?

DMcN: No the chairman was Col Dade and then Stan Hatton was chairman for one year and then Col Dade regained it. Later on he decided he wanted to become manager so when he vacated the chair and was actually appointed manager then Maurie Ryan became chairman.

Was there any factionalism on the board at that time between Col Dade, Maurie Ryan and Stan Hatton? Were they vying for the top position?

DMcN: Well I think Col Dade he liked to be the chairman and I think it was a disappointment when Stan Hatton defeated him, but it was only for twelve months and Col Dade regained the position. As for any animosity between Maurie Ryan and Col Dade I wasn’t aware of anything there.

What were they like? They were quite different I understand.

DMcN: Oh they were very different. Col Dade of course, he was a field worker, he came to us from the field, whereas Maurie was always in the office. Maurie was very definitely white collar and Col Dade had some blue collar and some white collar. They were very different personalities. Col Dade could be reasoned with and would change his mind, Maurie was very determined and liked to make a decision and then be unswerving, but at least you knew where you were with him.

What about Stan Hatton, how was he different?

DMcN: Well Stan was only there for the one year and as I remember Stan he was a real gentleman. He was happy to go with the decision of the majority and he didn’t lose any opportunity to remind board members of the time of his experiences in the Depression days. He actually rode the rattlers. I am not sure whether it was only within New South Wales or whether it was further around Australia but some of his experiences in that regard were hair-raising. He was obviously a product of the Depression and had become quite forgiving of almost everybody as a result of that.

How was he on the Loans Committee in that case?

DMcN: I didn’t work with him on the Loans Committee but I would have thought that from what he went through anyone who came to the Loans Committee would have got a very sympathetic hearing.

Did you have many bad debts in those days?

DMcN: The experience during the whole time I was there as far as bad debts was they were kept to an absolute minimum. For many, many years it was a fraction of one per cent and I am not aware of them ever reaching any worrying point the whole time I was there. I think that was a credit to the directors who did the interviews at the time and the staff who followed them up.

What about the premises of the credit union over the years that you were there?

DMcN: Well, until 1969 they were in various places in the Queen Victoria Building. Then the changeover to the building on the corner of Bathurst and George Street took place and there were at least two moves there. When they settled on the sixth floor, that seemed to work reasonably well. But nothing works as well as the present set-up where the credit union owns its own building and has its branches throughout Sydney Electricity distribution area.

Were you in on the decision to buy the building?

DMcN: Yes.

Did you agree with it?

DMcN: Most certainly. I couldn’t see anything more tangible than bricks and mortar and I think it has proven that.

Was there anybody against it?

DMcN: Not to my knowledge. We were taken on an inspection of the building when a decision was being taken and as I remember the roof area wasn’t the most attractive looking and needed some work done but the rest of the building seemed to be quite solid and substantial. It was certainly in a very central position. I am pretty certain the decision to go ahead was unanimous.

What about the move when you went down to Rodan Cutler House briefly, what was the idea behind that?

DMcN: Well things became rather cramped in head office. I don’t know if it was suggested to the management of the credit union that they might move, or whether an area became available at Rodan Cutler House. They were certainly nice premises down there and I think the staff enjoyed working there. The only thing was they were removed from the core of the members. Even though it was only two city blocks away, they weren’t inclined to visit the credit union and inquire about the services to anywhere near the degree that they are in the present situation.

SIDE B

Now Des re the purchase of the building, do you remember whether there was a committee that did that, or was it all just a straight board decision?

DMcN: From memory the executive and the manager of the day negotiated with the consultants, or the agents who had responsibility for the sale of the building. Having arrived at a price that was then presented to the board and the board unanimously decided to go ahead with it.

What about the various managers that you’ve worked with here as a director, how were they different?

DMcN: Well we’ve mentioned a couple of them already. Col Dade was very much the fellow-next door, the chap you’d speak to over the back fence, the chap you could always ask to do a favour and he’d never let you down. The next one I think was Mr Cooper, is that right? I don’t know that Ray ever had the full confidence of the board. The board seemed to be always concerned that he would make a decision that the board didn’t agree with and then the board would be stuck with it. He was that kind of manager, likely to go off at a tangent and make decisions for himself. Maurie Ryan, as I said, was very determined. He would discuss things at the board level but he would make a decision and he would press his wishes and more often than not they were carried, but at least as I said you knew where you were with Maurie.

As you pointed out Maurie Ryan was never the manager. Col Dade was after Ray Cooper and then do you remember who was after that? There was another fellow, Emmanuel Anasis.

DMcN: Correct.

He was only very briefly again.

DMcN: That’s right.

Do you remember the circumstances? He resigned it says in the papers, but I understand he was actually dismissed, or asked to resign.

DMcN: Well that is going back quite some time. I know that Maurie Ryan and the board members were not satisfied with his presentations to the board and I feel that the chairman, Maurie, felt that he was not carrying out the duties in the manner in which he, the chairman, would have wished. I think perhaps it might have been through mutual agreement.

Paul Ryan said to me that Anasis didn’t feel that he could do the job of manager and he didn’t want it but he’d been persuaded to take the position.

DMcN: Well that might have been known at the executive level, I wasn’t aware of that.

Were you aware of the circumstances of the defalcation at that time, 1978?

DMcN: What defalcation are you referring to here?

I am referring to the occasion when there was an investigation and a prosecution of the treasurer, Keith Davidson.

DMcN: Well the board members were told as much as the executive and manager of the day felt they should be told. I don’t know how many times questions were asked at the board level and the reply was that that matter was sub judice, so we only had a very sketchy outline of what was actually happening. I don’t know that I know now exactly what Mr Davidson was up to. Perhaps there are a couple of little stories on the fringe of things which other people might not have been privy to and might help to fill out this matter.

The first one was, when I was carrying out the duties of Frank Fryirs, as I had been told I had to do, I was sitting in the office with Col Dade one day and Keith Davidson came in and the end of his lunch break and he put his head in Col Dade’s office and he said, “I just won on the first race,” and Col Dade said that was good. It was a mid-week race meeting and he said, “What did you outlay?” Keith said, and I can’t be absolutely certain of the figures but the figures are more or less in the ratio, “I outlaid 15,000 units in order to win 500.” So Col Dade said something like, “Well at least you won.” That night there was a meeting of the Sports and Social League and we used to have sandwiches and something to drink after and George Wilson was there, and of course he was a current credit union director. I said to George, “Something funny happened today,” and I told him about the bet that Keith Davidson had told Col Dade that he’d had. George’s reply was simply four words, “I don’t like it.”

On that daily routine I did pay rather close attention to the withdrawal forms which had to be checked against the cheques and I noticed this one which had quite a strange signature I felt and I showed it to Col Dade and he made a note of the name. Some time later I wasn’t particularly happy with the signature on another withdrawal form and I raised the matter with Col and he said he’d have it checked. At that time the credit union kept a list of membership cards with the members signatures on them and he said he’d have it checked against the card. When the wash-up came with Keith Davidson it appeared that these were two of the accounts on which he was operating. Once again at that time, and in talks with George Wilson, we tumbled to the idea that Keith Davidson was probably operating on every letter in the alphabet because of the accounts which had been thrown up there was only one in each letter of the alphabet. As I say, how that fitted into the jigsaw I don’t know because I was never told.

Another interesting thing was at that time the print-outs were being kept down at Kent Street and the credit union office was in the head office building. During the inquiries that were being made, unbeknownst to Keith Davidson as I’m led to understand, information was obtained from a cleaner in Kent Street that Keith Davidson was coming in early in the mornings and was searching through these computer print-outs. So whether that formed part of his plan, whether that was where he was getting his accounts from, and just what accounts he was looking for and what he was doing with them I don’t know.

These were just little snippets that I picked up on the way. It appeared that ultimately they were part of the whole. That is what I meant earlier in this interview, when I was told that I had to take over from Frank Fryirs and countersign the cheques at lunchtime that is what I meant when I said this was to have repercussions later on.

So you did get a little bit of a hint but you didn’t know what it was, didn’t know where to follow it up. As a matter of fact Paul Ryan was telling me that Anasis mentioned to him that he couldn’t balance the books and they went to one of the directors. Paul at the time was the chairman of the Internal Audit Committee and they went to one of the directors, I’m not sure which one, and from then on it was on. Did you know that Anasis realised there was a problem when he took over?

DMcN: No, I didn’t.

Paul reckons he argued with Maurie Ryan over the resignation of Anasis. He reckoned that they shouldn’t be asking for his resignation when he found out he had problems when he took over. Didn’t hear any of that?

DMcN: I wasn’t privy to any of that.

What I am trying to do is get some corroboration or otherwise on what Paul Ryan said. He said that he brought this up at a board meeting and that Maurie Ryan got voted a special amendment that the Internal Audit Committee people were only allowed to bring up matters that were within their province and Paul was shut up. Remember anything like that?

DMcN: I can’t recall that. But if that was the case then I would imagine that it is in the Minute Book somewhere, if Paul Ryan was to identify the period.

We’ve got the period because that is when the investigation started. I’ll have a look.

DMcN: If that was done it is important enough to have been recorded in the Minute Book.

I’ll look that up. Now as far as from that point on Maurie must have been fairly upset. Were Col Dade and Maurie Ryan upset about this? After all Keith had been a foundation treasurer.

DMcN: I don’t think there was any doubt in the world that Col Dade felt he had been well and truly betrayed. I think it might well have contributed to Col’s illness and it might well have resulted in Maurie Ryan’s illness too. Everyone in a key position at the time, including Barry Waterhouse, were under tremendous strain. That is why I say at the board level we were only told as much as it was felt we should know and people like Col Dade, Maurie Ryan and Barry Waterhouse were privy to information which was vital and key and probably contributed to catching Keith Davidson in the finish. We realised that we just couldn’t be let in on everything that was happening. As a matter of fact, Barry Waterhouse had it landed in his lap while Maurie was on a trip to America and he had the onerous duty of keeping Maurie informed while he was overseas.

When that was all sorted out, what was the next problem you might have had?

DMcN: Well there was no problem to come near that but there is always a silver lining. Up until that time the record keeping had been, you might say, almost archaic. It began in 1963 with the directors doing the recording once a week by hand and things hadn’t progressed too far up to that point. Once that happened the credit union changed overnight and it went almost into the twenty-first century in a very short time, even though it was still only around the 1970s.

Of course the insurance company paid out so in actual fact the three quarters of a million didn’t get lost. The credit union was going on very respectably up to that time. I mean the assets in 1974 were nine million, eleven million the following year, twelve million the following year, thirteen million and so on, sixteen million the following year. That was the year that the defalcation was discovered.

DMcN: There is no doubt that the general management of the credit union was very prudent, has always been prudent, and I think that has shown in the results. The fact that there was sufficient insurance in place to cover the defalcation was evidence of that.

It is quite amazing that they were managing to keep the books by hand at a time when the assets were nearly $14 million.

DMcN: You are able to tell me that they were still being kept by hand at that stage. They didn’t have the assistance or the technical back-up that they have now, but I’m not sure that it was all done by hand at the time. Certainly once that defalcation was put to rest the credit union very quickly went in another direction altogether and became very updated and consequently a lot safer.

Were you aware of how the records were kept? I know they were using the department’s computer, but were you aware of the details of that.

DMcN: I knew they were sharing it, but as to what the arrangements were I couldn’t say, I was right out with everything that was happening there.

What about the decision to buy your own computer and to operate on the FCS system?

DMcN: That met with general approval. I think everybody was shocked out of their minds by what happened and anything that was able to be done to tighten things up the board was unanimous in that.

Ken May as a manager, how did you find him?

DMcN: Well Ken May was an accountant, he was a professional, he also was an empire builder and I thought that perhaps he wanted to go too far too quickly. The fact that I thought he was an empire builder I think is evidenced by the fact that he left here to go to an even bigger credit union in the Railways. He came to us from a smaller one and he certainly had the carrot in front of him all the time. I think he just wasn’t satisfied here with the rate of progress we were making and consequently he looked elsewhere. I don’t think we can cast aspersions on anything that he did while he was here, he seemed to me to be quite a sincere man but felt frustrated because the board wouldn’t travel as quickly as he wanted to.

What about the different chairmen you have served under, how were they different?

DMcN: Oh I think we had that earlier. I mentioned Col Dade and Maurie Ryan.

Now we’ve got Barry Waterhouse.

DMcN: Well Barry Waterhouse was a very sincere type, a worrier, but he tried to have all the information at his fingertips that we might want. He did a very sincere job. John Gormley, of course, he came to us with a background of having been a staff training officer in his particular branch and he was ideally suited to the position of chairman. A very good spokesman, a very good front man. Once again, had no lack of information. I am not sure that from time-to-time he didn’t drag a red herring across the trail in order to secure a vote for what he was rather anxious for.

Can you give us an example of that?

DMcN: Not off-hand. As a matter of fact some of the others that you talk to might be able to because over the period that John was chairman the red herrings were inclined to be numerous but they were only red herrings and meant to enforce his particular viewpoint. He was so keen on having those particular decisions made and consequently these things happened in the debate and he won some and lost some, but things were always interesting with John Gormley in the chair.

What about Paul Ryan and Jack Stone, how are they different in the way of chairing meetings and the chairmanship of the credit union?

DMcN: I’m wondering whether I actually had any experience under Jack Stone. I left in 1988.

I had you down as 1989.

DMcN: 1989, sorry.

Jack Stone became chairman in 1991, so you didn’t. Paul Ryan was only just starting when you resigned.

DMcN: Yes he was elected chairman after the Annual General Meeting at which I stood down.

Did you stand down?

DMcN: They were the rules, that when you retired from Sydney County Council you completed your elected term and then stood down. I had retired in October 1988 and completed my elected term in September 1989.

Were you involved at all with the Electricity Industry and Local Government Credit Unions Association?

DMcN: Only as a participant, not on the organising side. John Gormley and George Wilson were the chief convenors. That was an organisation in which I was very greatly interested. I was sorry to see the demise of that really and it really bears things about as to why it ceased. Initially some of the delegates would have got some of the smaller credit unions offside because at the meetings each credit union submitted their financial accounts for the period. At that time the Electricity Industry met quarterly. Some of the bigger and more successful credit unions tended to pontificate on the smaller and battling ones and it was almost like the copped a smack on the wrist and were told they had to do better next time. This was a bit off-putting for some of the smaller credit unions in the early days, but to the credit of the bigger credit unions as that association aged they became more helpful to the smaller ones and I think they got around to an operation which was the real intent of that organisation.

The big plus for it was in chasing bad debts because time and time again it came out the meetings that if anybody left Sydney County Council without telling us they were more likely to show up in another country council because it was all that particular person could do. So you might have someone leaving here and bobbing up at Prospect, but even more likely showing up at one of the credit unions on the north coast, or something like that. At times we had interstate credit unions actually taking part in those meetings and the information in that regard that came out was quite enlightening. I saw that as perhaps the biggest plus for that organisation and one that should have kept it operating. But once again, whether the same people who were to the fore in most of the organisations within the credit union movement found that it was just too much for them and something had to give that was what gave out I am not sure. Perhaps that was the reason. The meetings with directors from similar organisations to ourselves and the advantage of being able to trace defaulters who left us unannounced, I saw those as the big pluses for the organisation.

Were you much involved with the New South Wales Credit Union League and with AFCUL? Were you a delegate for a while?

DMcN: No. I attended the Annual General Meetings of AFCUL but I had no part in the organisation from the head office at the league. The main delegate out there once again was John Gormley. I think Col Dade was there for a time but John was certainly the longest serving one.

There was one other area that John Gormley was keen on, I don’t know what you thought about it, and this was the idea of service centres around the place which represented a number of credit unions, although it actually failed he was one of the people that was pushing it. Was it suggested that this credit union join?

DMcN: I can’t recall any details of that, Richard. I think what happened there as far as we were concerned was that our management was happy to provide us with service centres in our own depots throughout the distribution area. Consequently we were in a situation where our requirements were being satisfied and that might have been one time when we didn’t look at the wider picture. As for sharing the service centres I can’t comment on that because my memory of that is not good.

We are coming towards the end of this tape, is there anything that we should have covered that we haven’t as yet that you can think of?

DMcN: Not really except that if I have a disappointment it is the fact that in eighteen years on the board I was never elected to a position on the executive. I filled in on a couple of occasions for people who were away, but they were only for single meetings and they were spaced fairly well apart. I rather felt that anyone with any length of time on the board should have served a period on the executive and been privy to the decisions that were made higher up. Some of the most successful organisations change chairmen annually. I am not sure that I would have gone that far.

6581 Words: 2 hours 20 minutes