'Black Gold, Kindred Spirits'

Q You were saying that you were attacked during the 49 strike?

Ah yeah well that happened during the 1949 strike, what happened at that time, I was on the Miners Union as a union rep for the wheelers and um the thing that happened was that they wanted to be able to teach your younger miners how to go about fund raising and that for any strike or anything in future strike and that, that would happen in you know at some time in the future and what happened is that we got about a dozen or so of us together and we formed this young miners league and the whole idea was to send us down with speakers, down from Melbourne for the weekend and have a look at how they went about raising funds for the miners down there and also at the same time to give us a bit of experience on how to go about it. You see at that time, what we did we used to have furniture vans arriving all hours of the night up here into Wonthaggi to be able to give the miners something to keep going on while they were on strike, and as this strike lasted from the 27th June to the 17th August you can imagine there was quite a few weeks in between where the miners didn't have the money to be able to a buy the goods, so anyway what we did, we went down to ah this on this particular weekend and um Garry Klupp and I we were billeted out at a place at Box Hill, what happened we went down there on the Friday night and we didn't know anything about it but on the previous weekend, what had happened these people where we stopped out at Box Hill they had been holding a fund raising night for the miners and in actual fact a gang of people came down and they pulled all the pickets off the fence, they smashed all the windows in the house and they had the leader, the leader of the gang had the chap that we were stopping with down on the verandah and he was belting the devil out of him and one of our miners happened to come along, a big strapping man called 'Blood Forsyth' and Blood grabbed hold of the leader of the gang and he give him a belting and of course they all went for their lives you see and they threw out the posts. What happened then was that by 7.00 a.m. the next morning there wasn't a mark on that place everyone had got to and they put the pickets back in place and they put the windows back in and they did that because they didn't want to ah the people that done it to get the satisfaction of being, ah coming back there the next day and having a look and seeing what damage they'd done.

On the Saturday night after Joe and I, remember this is the next weekend, Joe and I - they asked us if we'd - seeing we weren't known in the area if we'd go up and, up near the theatre at Box Hill and there's a milk bar there and apparently this is where the trouble started the week before, where this gang got together, so Joe and I went up there and were keep it on and if anything happened at all that they were getting a get-together to come down to the place again so we had to notify them by phone, so anyway Joe and I sat up there for quite a while and we got some malted milks and that into us and in the end you know we got a bit bloated and that and ah Joe, I said to Joe I said I think we'll see if we can go back down again to the house, so he says right o, so what we did we went and and a……..We headed back to the milk bar from the milk bar to the phone and we phoned up the people to ask them if it was all right if we could go back there and they said yeah we'll send up a relief in a few minutes ah so instead of waiting for them to come up though Joe and I walked down and when we walked into the house into the yard we got the biggest fright of our life cause every bush and shrub there came alive and there was someone standing behind them with ah big pick handles and what not and they were ready there waiting for the ah you know if it was going to happen that night they were waiting for them if they did come and they certainly would have got a surprise. We were really pleased to see the fella come out and say no not them they're the miners from Wonthaggi.

Q Why was there such a sense of solidarity?

Why did they have that feeling, solidarity, well because they were all after the one thing we were all on the same level, we were fighting for one another because we knew if we got a rise well we would all get it and we worked as a very close knit community er close knit family, and everyone knew one another and you know you could certainly have fights amongst yourselves well by gosh when you got outside of the rails like the sort of letting the slip rolls down and we got out well we certainly stuck together as a group. We... even that was proved by the marches that we had down Malvern when we went down ah during the 1949 strike and people were calling you reds and throwing tomatoes at you but we didn't take any notice of it, we were used to that sort of thing.

Q Do you think Wonthaggi has been recognised for it's contribution to working people?

Well I don't think they have enough, I think that the problem today is that everyone seems to think that it's their right what they've had had just been given to them on a gold platter, but that's one of the reasons why I've been Union minded all my life even I've never been in a job unless I've been in a Union and I'm proud of that and ah what happens of course with the Union is that ah you know these people that don't want to be in a Union, well that's okay by me providing they're not getting the same goods and services that we've got through struggling for it and that. But certainly a lot of people don't realise the battle that was going on that until the day arise where the bosses come to the workers and say look we are going to give you a rise you've done such a hell of a good job and that through the year. Well until that day happens well you are going to need Unions to be able to fight to keep those fellows on a reasonable conditions and wages.

Q Do you remember the 34 strike?

Yeah that was, I can remember that as a young boy, when the Grandfather went down there with that gunny sack it was like a big deal in Wonthaggi nothing much seemed to happen you know that was really good but he even as a six year old kid I can remember hanging on to his hand and going down with him ah you go in the gunny sack parade as they called it ah it was like a the back of the Union Theatre and they had trestles up with all the different goods on it and as you'd come past you'd hold your pit bag or gunny sack out ah you'd get a half a shovel full of potatoes off one chap walk along to the next and get some onions off him, custard powder, butter, eggs and I can always remember one of the most popular things and I don't know why but I always reckon I'd never eat this again was Mirah Plum Jam we always seem to have Mirah Plum it was in a green tin the label was green with a purple plum on the outside and I can tell you that I really had my fill of that when I was a kid and I reckon I'd never have that again that I'd had enough of it as it was.

Oh, my memory in that is quite a bit in regards to that '49 strike. What happened of course, what the miners were after was the 30 shillings a week rise, or $3.00 a week rise. They wanted to try and cut out afternoon shift. They didn't want machinery in pillars because it's one of the most dangerous sorts of mining that you could have. And above all the Wonthaggi miners had a long service leave. They had six months for twenty years service and the Federation of course none of the miners had that. So that was one of the items that was put on the log of claims that ah, that the Federation be granted right throughout Australia, a service grant similar to the one that was in Wonthaggi. And of course what happened then; we knew it was going be a big battle, because previously to that the ah, the Arbitration Court Judge Gallager had already stated, if left no doubt about what he thought, he said that the basket's empty, there's nothing else there for the miners. And what the employers tried to do was to take us back to 1939 levels, both in wages and conditions, sick leave and all that sort of thing. So we knew that we had a fight on our hands, and certainly we did it started, as I said before on the 27th of June and went right through until the 17th of August. And that was one of the things that I thought to myself well gosh it took memories back when I used to hang on to my Grandfather's hand and go down, not thinking or dreaming that I'd been in it myself one day; which we were in 1949. And that of course what happened there apart from everything else was the political question, am and it was quite obvious that Bob Menzies had set out to frighten everyone, all the citizens of Australia to voting for him on the pretext that there was a red under the bed sort of syndrome. What in effect that meant was that, ah he tried to connect the Labor party with the Communist party, which in a way it was true to the sense because a lot of the communists were Union leaders, because they .... we really had to have them to be able to progress and ah I can still remember we went down to Melbourne at that time; and we had a meeting in Unity Hall. And one of Wonthaggi's greatest orators, a chap called Jeff Goldsmith he got up there, and I think he put this in a nutshell , and when people talk about Wonthaggi being red or run by communists and all that , I think he put this in a very good thing; he nearly bought the house down with it. He said: "They can call me black, they can call me blue, they can call me pink and they can call me red", but he said "they will never ever be able to call me yellow." And that I think says it all that a lot of the people certainly didn't, weren't concerned about what they called us. We went down as I said before, we went; into marches on May Day we got tomatoes thrown at us; called commos, all this sort of thing, but it didn't deter us in any way . We knew that we didn't have a hope in hell of just getting money given to us unless we went out and demonstrate what we were on about; why we wanted it.

When I was working over here at the tourist mine the eastern areas State Coal Mine as it is called now and I think this sums it up pretty good too I took a lady down that had never been in a mine before she was very quiet all the way round, didn't look as if she was interested and I thought gee I've got a bit of a job trying to get through to this lady but when I come back up again after about an hour down below ah she said to me, she said, "Fred I am going to tell you something", she said "when I came over here today I was always under the impression the miners were a pack of ratbags" she said "but after going down there and seeing what, how, they worked and what they done, she said I can tell you now there is no way that I would allow my husband to go down and work under conditions like that," she said "I reckon its humiliating and very sad to think that people have got to earn their living like that."

The comradeship for one thing they were a lot, as I said a very close-knit community and um even today you know there are some thing's that still continue on for arguments sake normally we have tea at a 4 O'clock and that used to be the time between four and half past when you come home from the bus, you get of the bus with your bag and you'd come home and your tea would be ready on the table and that's the sort of you know, that you'd got used to. And that still carries on even with us with today that we normally have our tea between 4 and half past.

Q The women were great supporters?

You'd be amazed at how the women supported the miners all right they were a 100% behind them and you know a lot of the time you'd wonder how they'd be able to survive when the miners go out on strike. But to give you an idea of the solidarity of them, I can remember one time that was rather comical, this fellow put his hand up to go back to work and the women they used to come to our Union meetings in those days and he put his hand up to go back to work and his wife got up and she got her handbag and she slapped him all over the head and she said "you bugger" she said, she said "what are you doing going back to work now, you've been out for three weeks and got nothing and you going back with bloody nothing" she said.

Q So it was a close knit community?

When I refer to crib, a lot of people mighten know what it means the lunch that we had usually at 12 o'clock in day shift or 8 o'clock in afternoon shift and ah and our crib used to be put into tins special tins that were made for them and they had to be put into tins otherwise the rats or the horse would eat through your bag and get to your crib and many a time a wheeler went to get his crib and it had either been eaten by the rats or the horse um…When the miners, you know they were that close and that down below, you know as I said such a close knit community that if someone accidentally left their crib at home and of course that'd be a sin as far as the miner himself's concerned but I guarantee that by the time that crib time came along he'd have a better crib that when he went down because everyone would dob in with something a piece of cake whatnot you know just to help him out and ahs I say he'd have bigger crib than what he would've if he'd have bought his crib to work..

Q Tell us about McLeish?

A horse was a very important way of transport down below and they couldn't do without them and am, I can always remember when McLeish had made the statement that a horse was much more valuable than a man he said if we ah loose a man, if a miner dies we can replace him but not a horse and needless to say that went down like a lead balloon, but nevertheless it did show that ah a horse was a very important part of mining as far as Wonthaggi was concerned.

END OF INTERVIEW
Date: September 1995