Interview Transcript from Illawarra Stories Wollongong City Libraries Oral History Project –
Interviewer: Julie Horton
Interview date: 18 November 2016
Julie: Fred Moore… Aboriginal community and you’re working with it through the unions.
Fred: Yeah, well it was a big thing, the unions played a massive role in ah, looking for equality, then ah, the right treatment of Aboriginal people. In 1957 we attended a big meetin’ in the Sydney Town Hall, to launch a petition to put the Aboriginal people on the Constitution of the ah, federal Constitution. Because the position they was in there were 6 states for 6 different laws for Aboriginal people. They wasn’t counted in the census of the Commonwealth census. And special laws were to be made for Aboriginal people, so we took up the fight and people around the electorate of Wongawilli and Huntley and all the mines along here. Ah we came with a petition, to bring on a referendum, and to get equal citizenship rights for Aboriginal people. Well the unions, I was on the miners’ union, and we played a big part, but all the mines and everywhere ah, supported it. And they signed it, the petition and we got literally thousands and thousands of signatures to bring that on.
It took a long while before the government would make a move on it, but in the final analysis of it from all that work, ah we brought on the referendum. And the Constitution and the Aboriginals who were considered citizens and their land of birth and where they were, and no longer under state laws. We done away with things like the Aboriginal Welfare Board and protection boards.
And they couldn’t move and with the special laws they were ah, roped off in the picture shows they didn’t sit with the white people, they ah they couldn’t get refreshments at interval, they had to bring their own container to get a drink. And ah, with that the people that was behind the ah, servin’, would at the pictures and so on would leave it right till the last minute, an’ then they say ah sorry it’s too late now we’re gunna close, that’s how done they done it.
Ahh, a woman in Nowra, we’d drove all these things out and they were all there. An Aboriginal woman couldn’t go into a dress shop and get a dress unless she had a white woman of the same physique, ah, to fit the thing on. The Aboriginal woman wasn’t to come into the shop even. They stood out and just waited and that. All those sort the things, they wasn’t allowed in cafes – we broke all them barriers down.
They wasn’t allowed in hotels, not so much they didn’t drink, a lot of them were Christians, they’d come off missions and things, you know, they’d been in their earlier days and they wasn’t drinkers as Mrs Henry and all those people that we set up the Aboriginal Advancement League with, they never drank or anything, but if they were comin’ from an estate they were doin’, or anywhere, fruit pickin’ or shearing, some of them are shearers. And they decided to have a little holiday somewhere, they could come like, to the town but they couldn’t get into a hotel. And because, or there was no motels much then that was coming online but they’d, didn’t want them. So, they would sleep on the railway station and if it was wintertime the, ah, station master would put the fire out so that they wouldn’t hang around and they young children.
Yeah, so all those things were there and we broke ’em down bit by bit. We took on the fight ah, by selecting a certain thing and then putting our own resources behind it. The powerful union was this one here, the Aboriginal Advancement League was the strongest of all things because we had steel workers and we had, um, maritime unions, seamen would take the ballot thing with them and take it to Western Australia to get iron ore, an’ [laughs] take it, an’ bring it back filled in everywhere they went, and ah, all those sort of things. The union played a wonderful part in it, but the community did too.
But the Aboriginal people, so in 1961, we set up the South Coast Aboriginal Advancement League and out of that the women of Coomaditchie were living in tents. One woman was living in the back of a car with two little children, three actually, and one died. And, ah, she had little curtains on it and that. Well that woman finished up a citizen of Shellharbour, Mary Davis, known as Aunty Mary Davis. Yeah, well she was shy, very, very shy. Well her husband, Bobby Davis, he was the president of the, the thing. But the great strength of it laid with the women, they had a lot to lose, they had this child stealers and the Welfare would come take their children and everything and they were terrified of that.
But once they knew the protection, and Bobby was a great, um, a great person because he broke down the barriers. And they didn’t trust white people much in the early days, you know, and so he got that going, him and Joe Howard, two wharfies they were and I was a miner and we set it up with 5 Aboriginal women and Bobby, Joe Howard, me self and, ah, we was the, ah, the Aboriginal Advancement League. And we went from strength to strength with it. And we went up and down, we sent a thing down the coast and they came back, there was terrible plights – people were living in cow bales and, you know, they were bean picking and they couldn’t go to school. The kids was barred at schools. It was really a dreadful life for Aboriginal people as regards to the towns and the government.
Well these State laws was bringing that in, and if an Aboriginal come from, ah, South Australia to New South Wales to pick fruit – they were fruit pickers – or they might go from New South Wales to Mildura and that, to go into South Australia and pick grapes and all that. The police would immediately get onto ’em and say. “Where are you going?” And they’d say, might be going to Griffith or they might be going to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, orchards and that, you know, along there. Well he’d say – they would say search ’em and have a look around, check their car, where you got it, where’s your registration – all this as though they’d stole it.
And you report to the police when you get there. And don’t stay in the town, camp out on the reserves and the rivers and other things where that. And, uh, if you’re staying on the orchard you can work it out with there. And then if you drink or anything, well you’ll be arrested and, ah, put out of the town and taken back to where you come from, you know, all that sort of thing. Well we broke down all them things. They could go and, uh, eventually we changed the law, ah where Aboriginals was the same as white people and that if they, after work they wanted to have a drink of beer or something, they could.
But even – it was so strict that men coming home from the War – now Tommy Brown from Coomaditchie was a prisoner of War in Singapore and he came home. And on the ANZAC Day, they were goin’ have a celebration at Port Kembla. And like all other Aboriginals were barred, so he to sit in the park and someone would take him down a drink, but he couldn’t come into the, the thing. So, all that was things that we went on with.
Mrs Henry, she was a powerful woman, and she was living in an old leaky tent with, with Rhonda Davis – ah, Kennedy I should say – and ah, Linda Kennedy – and she um, was living there and Linda had 2 little boys and Ollie had about 5 children, and they’re all living in this leaky tent in Coomaditchie. Well then finally we got ah, workin’ on with the Welfare Board and everything and we put pressure on them to build several houses and they built them on Aboriginal style, you know. But the Aboriginal people didn’t mind that because they, ah, they love the old wood fires and all that and they were comfortable. And we had meetings there, we must have drank thousands of gallons of tea and that. Never, no alcohol was involved in it, and I never drank and, ah, none of them women ah, would drink, you know, they was there and, ah, all great gains were made on that.
So, when the petition come, we took it around the mines and even some of the mine managers signed it. And then bit by bit we broke down all these things and then the Aboriginal people started Reconciliation long before we even knew the meaning of the word by going to the schools, going to the churches, going to the police, politicians – we would take ’em into the politicians. I knew them all. Rex Connors and them and they were all the, ah, things. And they worked on the – he was a State member at the time working on to get the houses off the Welfare board and all that. So finally, we got 6 houses put up there along the front Coomaditchie, you know, on the Shellharbour Road. They wanted it back on the seaboard, but the Welfare Board in its wisdom set it up there and ah… But they didn’t mind at the finish. Well that was the first breakthrough that we had a big thing on that, and from there we plugged along all the time.
And, ah, finally when the referendum come on around about 1967 or something that thing was the biggest majority, 90 percent, voted in favour of the Aboriginal people be recognised their own land and on, be put on the Constitution and not on State laws, see. So that was a great ah, thing, and bit by bit they’ve got their own centres today. They’ve got Aboriginal people that went to university and, ah, before when they were barred everywhere, they never had no chance.
Vic Chapman, he was at a school, won a scholarship out at ah, near Wilcannia and, ah, he went through correspondence and done the school and everything, and he passed his degrees. He went to Dubbo and he had white women and the white people around there said, “Oh, don’t worry, ah, he’ll only teach Aboriginal children not white children.” So, they were worried about it, you know, he was teaching. But he beat all that and he became a very prominent thing and finished up the Principal of Port Kembla High School. So, you know.
Julie: Fantastic.
Fred: So, ah, Vic Chapman, he’s, ah, still alive, and he done all that. And then they became onto other things and got schoolteachers, doctors and everything as the years went on. So that was a great thing. But this area was recognised as the strong south and, ah, everywhere they were known, and every Aboriginal person wanted to come in. We brought people from Yirrkala, the Gurindjis had walked off ah, Wave Hill and gone over to Wattie Creek. And Vesteys is a big meat place and for many, many years they’d exploited them, you know.
And women were treated awful too and they were – never got paid. They had to work on the stations and ah, cattle stations and that, and the men’d work. Well, when they decided to fight, they came into this area looking for support. And we had some wonderful times with them. They came from as far as Yirrkala right up, and all them places. Queensland down to here and between the whole lot of us we put it together and were unbeatable. [Laughter] And we pushed, pushed back all these things over the years, and it’s very well recorded and, you know, with the, ah, publicity and the press and everything on that. But, ah, that there as I’m telling you is the personal part of it and how we went about it and ah, finally the people were recognised.
And they, ah, they couldn’t go into town, and if they did, they were under suspicion. If they went into a shop everyone’d be watching, you know. And all these sort of things was done. And um, they got ’em off the riverbanks and into houses and they finished up, um, citizens of here. And they’ve all died now, I’m the only one left of the Aboriginal Advancement League, and I’m 94 years of age.
Mrs Henry was a wonderful lady and she was known as Dolly and her family were all in the thing, you know, in the Aboriginal Advancement League as supporters. We only had our committee, and in Sydney a woman named Faith Bandler, she was an Aboriginal woman and they set up things up there and, ah, between us all, and then Walgett and Dubbo and they came – Clarrie ?Beggarman? and all them came down here looking for support and advice [cough] and took it back there and, ah, great things was done. So today the Aboriginal people, and as they said. “The older ones were very frightened, ah, to become involved, but we’ve got to do something.” And they said, “We mightn’t get much out of it, but our children will and grandchildren.” And that’s how it is, and their grandchildren are schoolteachers and everything.
So, in that we just had, the last, or last year, we had the 50th anniversary of the settin’ up here of the ah, thing. But we were working on it before but when we got it goin’ officially it was, um, 50, uh, 50 years about two years ago now. So, we won it and filled the Town Hall with people, and, uh we had a big, ah, thing that the, ah, Council like and all that, the Aldermen they came a lot of them, and schoolteachers and people and nurses and everyone that associated with Aboriginal people, you know. And that was a great thing, yeah.
Julie: So, there was a majority of the community.
Fred: Yeah. So, ah, that was that part of the story. But the union never, ever let up on it, and always to this day Aboriginals want any help, it’s always there, you know. They got their own big centre in Kenny Street, and I go in there. And, ah, they initiated me into the Guringai tribes – I’d be the only white person anywhere around and they had – took me up and we stayed all day and all the night and they give me a great big snake on a stick, and I’ll show it to you one day. And that was me totem, and um, I’m ?Daya?, Aboriginal um, as far as they’re concerned, and they call me Uncle and everything else, you know.
Julie: Oh, that’s lovely.
Fred: Yeah, so, ah, I go down the coast and, ah, I’ve been given – I was the only white person ever to be made a life member of the Aboriginal community of the Illawarra, it’s never, never been… but “Uncle Fred” done it, you know. And “Pop”, you know, a lot of them’d call me Pop, and now they’re adults with young children of their own and grandkids and that, but, ah, they were always taught to, ah with manners, you know, that the Aboriginal people were there and always tell them to say thank you and please and excuse me and all that, you know. And they went through their life, like that and today if you go into the Aboriginal Centre in there, you’ll meet all types of people come there. You get students and everything from the University to talk about Aboriginal rights and that, you know, they learn…
So that part was all there and, uh that’s about the ah, the story of that, and how it was, and ah, but today it seems entirely different for Aboriginal people. They’re ah, allowed anywhere at all now, they’re citizens. And no one would dare to, ah, to do them things now, you know.
Julie: That’s a result of your perseverance.
Fred: Yeah, well yes that was done by the district, and that, that included everyone too. It’s not only the unions, but, ah, people, like they would come on to it. And see the union covered nurses, schoolteachers – in them days there was 42 people under the, ah – on the Labour Council covered by the, ah, thing. And the unions were powerful and “one harm all” sort of thing, you know. And the old slogans that we used to carry around, you know, we used to “United you stand, divided you fall,” which was very, very correct because they knew that if you stood fast you had a chance, but if they broke you up into little groups they’d annihilate ya. So, unity was strength, you know. “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day,” you know. [Laughter] They had these big banners goin’. I was involved all my life. Me Dad and them were unionists. I was born in Cobar actually and started work at 14 in the mines out there, you know, and, ah, worked them.
And I’ve been in the Illawarra 65 years after Christmas in the house over there. They cut the farm up there and built the houses, and we got one. Miners coming back into the thing after the War and that, you know, they were building places and I got one, and been there ever since, you know. Me wife died 5 years ago, but, ah, I’m still in the place, and it’s a quarter acre block and it’s worth a lot of money now to what it was, you know. Because they’ll pull it down eventually, I suppose and put high apartment buildings on it in years to come. All them things that – not so much big ones, but they cut up 5, took 5 houses in the estate there, along just over here, and they built 16 units two storey ones, carparks, gardens and everything – [laughs] so they’re big blocks of land. And you go out to some of the places now they’ve only got about, about a 30-foot yard, you know. But the blocks of land they’re massive, you know.
Yeah, so we’re going to have a little break and anything you want to ask me, well… You got any questions?
Julie: No, I don’t. [laughter]
Fred: We went over the, ah, town. When I came here the old post and rail fences and horse troughs and everything was all around, you know. The bakers big old bakehouse was over there and the stables of a, used to be a blacksmith’s shop further up, you know, and you’d still see old horse shoes and that there where they used to shoe the horses, you know. The road was on both sides, there was gravel, you know, so the horse and carts could go along it. Everything was brought, like the milkman used to come with his horse and cart, and the baker with his basket and the old horse out the front you know.
Julie: And Fairleys, quite a few people have talked about Fairleys store.
Fred: Fairleys was wonderful you know, they, they struck with their everyone, the miners and that, and um, we all dealt at Fairleys. It was fortnightly pay, and things were hard, you know. But there’d be a strike or something else, a stoppage at the mines, and you might go 3 or 4 days, 5 days, before you’d get back to work and then you’d have to go and see Fairley and, Jack Fairly, and you’d say. “I’ll catch up with you next week,” or something and – but he never ever worried about it. He trusted us and we trusted him. Because – and the old timers would say as soon as there’d be a strike sometimes, might be an important item or, and they’d say, “Don’t forget, soon as you get your pay, square up with Fairleys or the Co-op,” you know, and that was it.
And they done it for years and years, and they could buy all their stuff there, their oil for their lights, and, you know, you could buy anything anchor – “a needle to an anchor” sort of thing, you know, that was the old saying. They had everything and they’d deliver it, and come around, a fellow would come around on a motorbike and sidecar and get the order, you know, and you’d have the order ready for him if you didn’t go down to the shop, you would get, you know, seven pound bag of flour and all that. And he’d bring it up on the bike, you know, on the, on the, ah, sidecar and, ah, get the order. And they’d come around, Fairleys, with the truck and get it.
They used to have seed potato and then all that sort of stuff, you know, they’d grow it. People’d have gardens everywhere. But Fairleys was the big place at Dapto at that time, you know. And as I said you had the bakehouse there and then you had a factory down the back there, um, what’s-a-name, oh I forget the name of it now, it was there for years and it was a clothing factory, and all the women got jobs there and, you know, it went for a long while. It was originally in Wollongong, they had it there and then they brought the big one out here and people worked there. They worked down in the produce store and the milk factory. There was a bit of work around, you know.
Julie: So, there was quite a bit of work around.
Fred: Yeah, but there was horse troughs there was a horse trough over there. That wasn’t there, the street that goes up from around to the roundabouts and that, that was just a paddock through there. There was an old built tennis court there that used to belong to the church, and they’d be playing tennis in the big old poles cut at the bush, you know, and cheap wire on it. Horse troughs out the front and ah, all that.
And ah, Dapto was just a you know, it was just a village more or less then. In population, I think there was 1800 people, and that took in everywhere, all around. But now there’s suburbs like, oh, Brownsville an’ – Brownsville was always there, but Hayes Park, Koonawarra, Kanahooka was there. Well you go right along them all up to Mt Brown and down to, ah, Avondale and the other place that was there they changed the name of it.
Julie: Penrose.
Fred: Yeah, Penrose and all that. But they’ve all got the 2530 code, haven’t they, you know, even Wongawilli, right out. So, Dapto now can say they’ve got about 7 or 8 suburbs.
Julie: Absolutely, even Haywards Bay.
Fred: Ay?
Julie: Even Haywards Bay.
Fred: Yeah, that’s right, that’s comin’ on-line, all that now, isn’t it, you know.
Julie: Yes.
Fred: Yeah, they all had that, ah, and up the back like Koonawarra, and Lakelands, the school Lakelands, and the place there, you know. So, it’s changed, and I was telling Jo that when the, ah, circuses would come to town up where the 7-11 is now, that used to be a great big paddock there belonging to the school. There was an old school there built but more of the style of the church, you know, sandstone built there, and then the old back yard of it, I used to go up there a lot and get bougainvillea cuttings and that, they could say, take what you want, you know. No one owned it, it was just the school, the government and, ah, in the old schools the desks of all thick made of cedar wood and that, you know.
Julie: Oh, yes, yes.
Fred: And everyone used to sit along like the long desks the kids and that. But, ah, in the yard was the – still had the old hostler thing for the tying the, ah, horses up and then they’d release them in a little bit of a paddock for the kids to ride home of an evening, and get home in time for the milking, you know. [Laughter] As I said the thing, I think it was 1875 or something writ up on the old thing. They pulled it down eventually. But the big paddock that used to be the playground and the place to keep the horses for the kids and all that from school. And ah, Wirths Circus would come they had a train and they would bring it to Dapto and shunt it all down there. And then you’d hear the band coming and they’d play up, right up the centre of the street – elephants and everything.
Julie: Elephants?
Fred: Yeah. [laughter] And they’d all go right up into that paddock and then the elephants would be sometimes walking right along, and they’d walk them on the soft stuff along the side of the road. And the clowns would be handing out papers and kids would be grabbing them, and they’d get in for nothing when they run around and put ’em in the letterboxes, and that. So, they were days, you know, you’d look – well now that was the main highway right through there in them days. There was no freeway and everything went through there, and, ah, you could imagine now what the traffic would be like if you was bringing a circus up the middle of the day. You could hear the band start to come around the corner and the bloke in front leading them and… [laughter]. Yeah, and there were services on the night or the next night or whatever it was, they’d be yellin’ out you know. They’d stay a couple of days and next thing they were gone, you know.
Julie: They’d moved on to another town.
Fred: Yeah, next year and then another one’d come – something else. But I, ah, talkin’ about elephants, I had some trees all along the fence there, you know, over near the where you, ah, where the houses start, you know, there in Heininger Street, where you used to assemble sometimes if there was an emergency, or when an emergency would happen you’d go there. That fence, well along down a bit further, I had these oleanders at the time, and other trees there, and the sewer wasn’t on in them days, it was, ah, still the sanitary carts coming around.
And, ah, me daughter said to me, “Dad,” you know me young one, she said “I think I’ve seen an elephant.
And I said, I said “It’s up at the circus.”
She said, “No, no, there’s one gone.”
What had happened, two elephants had got out, and they come along, looked at their trunks over the fence, and whoosh! Out come me trees and… And the blokes come down, you know, and then they were talking, and they said. “Oh God, we’ll fix ’em.”
And they did, and they done ’em better than they were really. They planted them back in and straightened the fence up and everything for me.
And they said. “How many have you got?”
And I said, “I’ve got 4, 4 children,” you know, and there was another one coming later. I had 5 girls.
And, ah, he said, “We want you to be our guest.”
So, all the people were wondering who we were, we were only battlers. We’re sittin’ in the best seats in the house. Every time they done anything they’d come up and they’d bow in front of me, and I’d say, “Good job!” [laughter] They’d come with refreshments, drinks and chips, you know, what’s-a-name, crisps, Smith’s Crisps, or whatever they call them, and all that.
And all the people were saying, “God, how did Fred and them do that!” You know. And they’re all sitting in the hard seats around and the band had played, they’d looked at me, and I’d go, “Good. Nice show!” [laughter] They enjoyed it, you know, it was, ah –
But the, ah, circuses when they come, they’d all the kids’d nearly all get in for nothing because they’d put leaflets in the letter boxes and went around, you know, and take ’em to school and whatever they had to do with them. And then the circus’d be on. Take ’em all day to rig up and then they’d set their time to, to go, and you’d get up the next morning and they were gone, you know. Yeah, they’d just pack up and away they’d go, back down to the, back down to the station and get there, um, things on the train and head down the coast somewhere, you know. Might go to Berry or somewhere next, and then on to Nowra, or you know, they couldn’t get across to Nowra, so they’d come back and travel by train.
And then in later years they had big trucks. Bullen Brothers came there and all the other services and buck jumpin’ shows. They were all in that paddock in Dapto, you always, you know, it was entertainment then.
Julie: So, it was like a central hub?
Fred: Yeah, it was, you know, because they always, they got there and nothing like this [?] and nothing were there then, that was all the old bakehouse and that. There was a big one right along there and over here was, ah, some old shops.
And Billy Vining’s father, old Billy Vining was old local. He was older than me, and, ah, he used to, ah, his father used to make big, ah, water tanks and take ’em out onto the farms and set ’em up and that, you know. And that was over there, all the old soldering irons and stuff was still laying around, you know.
It was really only a village, more or less. There was nothing unusual for the pound keeper to be coming around, cows or it’s a horse or something that’d broke the fence down and took off. And he’d be cracking the whip and the old cow would be running along, and he’d round it up with a lasso rope and tie it up and then take it back up and then put it in the pound garden. The people that owned it would have to come and get it out and pay 10 shillings or somethin’.
Julie: To get their cow back.
Fred: Yeah, well Heininger’s farm was here and it was very old, 100 year old or something. And then they built the ah, old house, and, ah, they called it Ashton Vale. But Mrs Heininger, the old lady and him, Con, he said. “You call me Con and I’ll call you Fred.”
And I said. “Good.”
But Mrs Heininger herself was a very old woman. And she used to put a block on the saw, you know, the saw blocks where they got ’em on a thing and they put the log in and she’d be [laughs] sawing up, you know, yeah, and she was an old lady. And then she used to say. “Mr Moore…”
And I’d say. “Yes Mrs Heininger?” You know, fence right, that’s all it was. And they told me to take three palings out and just make a little thing for it and I used to hook it on if I wanted to go in there I’d go there.
She’d say. “There’s a nice cuppa tea been made. I made some scones this morning.”
And I’d say. “Oh, I’ll come over.” And I used to go over and sit on the verandah and have a talk with them. And she bring these beautiful, ah, scones out and we’d have a cup of tea and talk. She’d tell us about the old times and when she was a young woman. She was born way out here, and her brother was a jockey, he used to ride horses and that around, you know, breakin’ them in and all that sort of thing. And they used to talk to him, he was only a little fella, and he was about nearly 90 then in them days. But he had a clear mind and he used to talk about, ah, horses. He’d been down to Melbourne and everywhere riding and that.
But there were great days, and I had a beautiful vegetable garden because I couldn’t, couldn’t do anything better than that. I got all the cow manure and if I wanted horse manure. And they had an old fowl house, and in that old fowl house it had all manure underneath. But it was built of big panels and that, and it was cedar, all cedar, yeah, and I asked him why, and he said that cedar, the cut cedar, they had a saw mill up there opposite, ah, 7-11 on that side of the road, a big one. Bruneros and Clarks owned the mine, Avondale, and they had this big sawmill, and the bullocks used to bring it in, old Con told me, and bring it to there and they would saw it up. And the hard wood, like ironbark timber and that was more valuable than the cedar. They’d get the best of the cedar and cut the cedar out and the other scrap pieces, well you could do as you liked with them, you know, and it was cheaper to get them than it was the ironbark. So, they built their fowl houses and everything out of cedar. You wouldn’t believe it, would you. It’s very old, yeah. You got no questions?
Julie: No.
Fred: Yeah.
Julie: Thank you very much for coming in to tell us your stories Fred, they’re wonderful stories. And the, um, building the community, indigenous community and uniting them, um, the white, the whites and the…
Fred: Exactly, and telling the politicians that we’ve got ’em on the roll the first time ever you know, and they can vote. And when they passed them laws and we put them on the thing, you know. Yeah, when you look back it’s, ah, a long way back now, but, ah, we done the job that had to be done.
Julie: Absolutely, and Aborigines, are still reaping their reward. They’ve got, um, teachers, doctors, nurses.
Fred: Everything now.
Julie: Everything.
Fred: Aboriginal people and they’d go and do that. And see, they, ah, they used to say Aboriginals couldn’t learn and that, you know, but they were just the same. Some of them were brilliant, you know, they had the minds and that, and they could do things. And when they got on and selected them and they went through and they’re still there. Well Barbara Nicholson, she’s at the University and she’s one of the coordinators. And her father was, ah, was a great old fighter. He was on Coomaditchie. But he says their ah, we asked him and he said. “I’ll help Fred.” He said. “But I don’t want to get on no committees. I’m getting too old. And, ah, but I can keep with us.” And he was a great asset, you know. And his brother was the same, he was under the name of Roy Burns, a big old fighter in his early days, you know, they’re good boxers. Some of them Aboriginal people were great fighters, Australian champions and that, you know, but they wasn’t recognised. The Aboriginal Welfare Board still had ’em, and they couldn’t leave the country and Championships or go interstate or nothing. They couldn’t come from Queensland or Victoria there and back to there to fight and that, you know, ‘cos different laws, different states. But when we got all broke through for that they, ah, they become, well Lionel Rose become a world’s champion, you know.
Julie: Yes.
Fred: But anyhow, that’s that, so all the best.
Julie: Thank you very much Mr Moore.