Different ways of protesting
Caroline Hogg
And I remember going to a party at Jean McLean's place where we all had to fill in a falsie: we had to sort of fill in a registration slip with false names, addresses, details, to just make things as difficult as possible for the authorities.
Alexandra
What sorts of people were at the fill in a falsie occasion?
Caroline Hogg
Yeah, my age or older. I mean, I was one of the really young ones at that stage, I would have just been in my 20s. Jean would have been seven or eight years older. But - Labor people... because the McLeans moved in an arts circle, there were quite a lot of well known and creative people there; there were a lot of people there. It wasn't the only fill in a falsie party that she had, I'm sure, but it was the only one I went to. And it was great fun. We drank and we we let our imaginations run riot.
Alexandra
This episode is something of a miscellany. It’s basically things that were really important, but which haven’t fit neatly into one of the other episodes. For instance, it’s obviously important to mention the story of Peggy Somers and her hunger strike, as well as the ‘fill in a falsie’ parties mentioned at the start of the episode. We’ll basically travel chronologically across this episode, looking at some of the different ways that women in Melbourne expressed their disapproval of both the Vietnam War and conscription. I do want to acknowledge upfront that I haven’t included every single instance of women protesting the war and conscription, because over eight years there was a lot. Many, many women were fined, both for their actions defying by-law 418 - that Melbourne City council regulation that said you couldn’t distribute pamphlets on Melbourne streets, which is discussed in greater detail in the introductory episode - and for breaking federal laws. Several women went to jail, some just overnight and some for a few days at a time. There were women in every street demonstration in Melbourne, and Melbourne women also participated in demonstrations in Canberra, like when a large group sat down in front of the Lodge - yes, the Prime Minister’s residence. The idea for this episode is to give a sense of the range of activities they participated in. You’ll hear from Caroline, Carol, Jean, Sue, Frances, Jan, Marion and Anne, who were born between 1932 and 1949. Marion, born in 1932, was in her 30s throughout this period; the youngest person you’ll hear from in this episode was Sue, who only turned 20 towards the end of the period.
We start in 1966, with Miss Peggy Somers. On March 28, 1966, Peggy attended a meeting at the Kew town hall that Prime Minister Harold Holt was speaking at. She got into the paper, although she wasn’t named in The Age at least, for twice trying to disconnect the microphone and then actually throwing a handful of marbles at him. Yes, throwing marbles at the PM. A report in a Youth Campaign Against Conscription newsletter says that she got fired from her job for that particular stunt [YCAC report, perhaps April 1966, in Political Ephemera relating to Youth Campaign Against Conscription, SLV). A couple of months later Peggy was back in the newspaper because she went on a 48-hour hunger strike on the steps of the US Consulate. She’s 37 years old at this point and involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She actually gave a letter of protest to the receptionist in the consulate before starting her protest, explaining that she was opposing Australian support for the current South Vietnamese regime (The Age…). There’s an article in The Herald about Peggy’s action as well, from June 7, with the headline “‘Burn Yourself’, men told hunger striker”. The article explains that two men offered her a drum of petrol and suggested she burn herself on her first night on the steps of the consulate. I can only assume the men were inspired by the immolation of the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in June 1963 for this particular bit of taunting. The Herald report also notes that the Consul-General had sent Peggy a cup of coffee that morning. A report in the Guardian, a Communist newspaper, from 16 June 1966 reports that there had been a five-day vigil outside the Consulate, starting with Peggy’s hunger strike and then continuing with at least one other woman, Maureen Christie, also going on a hunger strike. The article alleges that Maureen was punched and knocked to the ground in the process of helping someone else, who was being attacked. (“Hunger Strike Girl Punched”, The Guardian, 16 June 1966 - found in Ralph and Dorothy Gibson files, University of Melbourne Archives). I can’t find any other information about these hunger strikes, though, which I find a bit remarkable.
Peggy Somers continued her anti-war actions in 1967 by traveling to Hanoi - yes, the capital of North Vietnam. She wrote a report on this trip for the Beacon, journal of the Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church, in May 1967. In it she described Australia’s participation in the war as quote “a vicious, fascist-like attack” (footnote), and says her purpose was to apologise to the Vietnamese people, to assist them in any peaceful capacity, and to remain in Hanoi for as long as the United States continued bombing it. US bombing continued for several years, but I have found no information about what happened to Miss Peggy Somers.
Also in 1966 and involving the US Consulate is this action from Carol Goldson:
Carol Goldson
Yes, yeah. I remember the night we got news that the first Australian conscript had been killed over there. A friend and I, well, some friends and I went round to - and were sticking tiny little labels on the letterbox of the American Consulate, which was then in - is it Commercial Road? But anyway, one of those streets. And one friend and I got nabbed by the cops in the act.
Alexandra
Okay, so my first question is what was on the stickers? What -
Carol Goldson
Oh, I don't remember just something about, you know, getting out of Vietnam, I suppose.
Alexandra
Right. My second question is, is that - was that like, late at night that you're going around the streets in the dark?
Carol Goldson
Quite late. And yeah, well, we just targeted the American Consulate with that - with little tiny sticker on the letterbox. And this, this was the great act of resistance.
Alexandra
And then you got arrested?
Carol Goldson
Yep. Yep.
Alexandra
And did you - did they take you to jail? Did you get charged?
Carol Goldson
Yeah, we got charged. One other person and I got taken to the police station nearby. And we were questioned and our fingerprints taken and we were charged. And so I've got a - I've got a criminal record. Yes, it was no big deal. They didn't bash us up or anything
1968
Jean McLean of Save Our Sons was involved in innumerable anti-war and anti-conscription actions between 1965 and 1972. In 1968, she was an Australian delegate to a Paris conference for women from belligerent nations.
Jean McLean
And then there was a conference in 1968, the Paris meeting. And we had a fundraising thing. Our movement decided that they’d send me. And I said, yeah, well, let’s try and – we’ll raise, you know, have a fundraiser. But we didn’t have a lot of time. It was in April, I think, we had to make the decision. Anyway, so I said, well, we’ll send it out, and if we get two-thirds of the money in the first week, or whatever, we’ll go ahead. Otherwise, we’ll send the money back. Because we didn’t have the time, and I didn’t have the resources.
So, anyway, it went very, very well, and all the money came in. And they said, “Oh yeah, it’s going very well. We’ve got one cheque here, somebody’s being funny.”
And I said, “Why?”
And they said, “Oh, it’s signed by Nugget Coombs.” You know, who was the signatory on the bank notes.
I said, “Yeah, yeah, he’s against the war. He’s an activist.” [laughing]
Alexandra
That’s fantastic.
Jean McLean
And they thought that this is ridiculous. A cheque with his signature on it. But it actually was. But anyway, so we raised the money, so off I went. I went via the Soviet Union. There was a paper called the – anyway, Tribune, or something. And they had a person in Moscow. And they came and picked me up at the airport. Because I was going to Paris, went via Moscow. Which was very interesting. Met a lot of people there. Then, off I went to Paris. The conference was in a fantastic chateau. Never seen anything like it.
Anyway, so they were all women from belligerent nations. The conference was called that. And out of that connection, those connections, it also got involved in the moratorium, which was, you know, the movement started there and then came here.
But it was there that the Vietnamese women, Madame Binh from the south and Madame Cam from the north, invited me to visit North Vietnam. Which I did. Which was a pretty incredible exercise.
Alexandra
How long was the conference for? In Paris? Was it just a few days?
Jean McLean
A week long.
Alexandra
And was it organised meetings, or just, sort of, hanging around with all the women?
Jean McLean
Well, yeah, no, it was meetings. We discussed the various conscriptions and things in the different countries. The Japanese were – there were quite a few of them there, and they were very vocal. Yes, so we - - -
Alexandra
Did you get to speak very much?
Jean McLean
We – I only did – we only had one presentation. The rest of it were group meetings, trying to work out what to do and how to do it. But in Paris, at that conference, I met Jean-Paul Sartre he was running a draft resistance! He had this little office in an old French building.
Alexandra
That’s incredible.
Jean McLean
I went up the stairs – you know, so I’m sitting there, talking to Jean-Paul Sartre about draft resistance. But he was just like everybody else. He was working away. And they were helping American soldiers get to Canada. So maybe from Germany. I haven’t really thought that out. I think they were – you know how the NATO troops are everywhere? Americans everywhere. And probably – probably – they would have been soldiers who were being taken from there to - to Vietnam. And then they’d go AWOL. Or before or after, they’d go. And Sartre was helping to get – you know, keep them in and then to Canada.
Alexandra
To my astonishment, I can find almost no information about this conference, who organised it, who else went, nothing. There’s a challenge for someone else to chase.
1969
Alexandra
So you went to Vietnam a couple of years later, was it?
Jean McLean
In 1969. The next year.
Alexandra
Just the next year. How long did you have in North Vietnam?
Jean McLean
Two weeks.
Alexandra
Was it amazing?
Jean McLean
You know, I’d think twice about tearing into a war zone now. It didn’t seem – I thought it was perfectly all right. Well, because they said, “We’ll keep you safe.” And I thought, they’re such nice people, they’d know what they were doing. And, of course, they did. But I travelled right up with them, right up to the Chinese border. And to Hai Phong. Something like that.”
We’re now in 1969, and of course that was Jean McLean again, discussing her visit to North Vietnam. Involved in a very different but very significant way in 1969 was Sue McCulloch, who was one of the few women or indeed people who actually got paid for their contribution to the peace movement. You’ll hear her mention her involvement with the draft resisters, which is explored more in the episode about draft resisters. She also mentions having to roneo things, that’s an early form of photocopying that’s a lot more physically demanding than just pushing the buttons on a machine.
Sue McCulloch
I left university in nineteen sixty – I think ’69 – and got a job in the anti-war headquarters, which became, later, the headquarters for the moratorium movement. And it was an organisation called the CICD – Council – gosh, I’ve got to remember what CICD stood for.
Alexandra
Something International Cooperation and Disarmament? Is that it?
Sue McCulloch
Disarmament, yep. Council for International Cooperation and Disarmament, which had been – it became a kind of natural organisational structure, really, in which a lot of the – well, all the Vietnam moratorium demonstrations were organised through. Because there’s an awful lot of, you know, it’s all very well to say, people, just go out on the streets. But to be effective as demonstrators, it was really important to have this, kind of, very boring office structure that was set up.
And, you know, it taught me a lot of skills, I have to say. I think my pay was something like $25 a week, or something. But it was a really very dynamic and very – obviously, very interesting time. And I actually learnt a lot of skills, which – just, you know, general office skills, you had to do everything from writing things to Roneoing things off, and organising the distribution of leaflets. It was a very big organisational job, as well as a sort of political job.
And as it evolved, we later set up a shop, which I became the director of, called Super Dove, to raise money for the cause. And Peter Carey, who is a novelist, or – you know, famous novelist, he actually did the graphics of this Super Dove. And I probably can’t even find one of the original leaflets for Super Dove, which is very annoying. But it had a – you know, it got a lot of attention. We used to sell T-shirts and all sorts of items to raise money for the antiwar movement. So there was a lot of that, you know, the kind of infrastructure was really significant. So it was this odd job of being, you know, like, a 9 to 5 office job, mixed in with, I guess, really, quite subversive activities in terms of, you know, organising subversive activities. Particularly around the draft resisters movement.
So my main occupation, which, of course, was not just 9 to 5, it involved, you know, weekends of organising car cavalcades, as things progressed, down to various jails where some of the draft resisters had been caught and were in jail. And it involved organising demonstrations, and bailing people out. Being arrested myself, many times. And I had 19 convictions for various misdemeanours.”
1969 was also the year when the campaign to encourage young men not to even register for national service really hotted up. One of the things that the CICD, the Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament, did was organise for statements to be printed in newspapers and elsewhere with the names of people who agreed with the statement in defiance of the National Service Act - and doing this, defying the National Service Act, was an illegal act. In a box of CICD ephemera at the Melbourne University archives I found a note from a young woman saying she can’t help to organise events because her husband has deserted her and the baby, but still she is sending $1 and her name for inclusion in the statement of defiance (Congress for International Cooperation and Disarmament, Box 20, University of Melbourne archives).
Fran Newell
And then, of course, there's the whole of 1969, which was just - which began in January with the Don't Register campaign - again, quite specifically seen as an act of civil disobedience. That was illegal to urge young men not to register. So -
Alexandra
Were you involved in handing out pamphlets and talking to young men who might have been considering doing that?
Fran Newell
Yes. So I was, along, you know, with Michael and Harry, in particular, involved in organising that campaign in Melbourne. It meant writing leaflets and going down to the GPO to hand them out because the GPO was Commonwealth property, and it was a Commonwealth Act that we were protesting. So that then brought us into conflict with Melbourne City Council with the bylaw 418. So there was a whole lot of - it was just days and days, days, day after day after day, we would hand out leaflets, get arrested, go back to the Centre for Democratic Action in Palmerston Street, run off more leaflets and repeat again the next day. So it was just an incredibly intense time. And initially, what we were arrested for was the bylaw 418. So in order to keep the attention on the Don't Register, you know what - why it was that we were doing this - we took to standing on steps of the GPO because that was Commonwealth property. So there you had to be arrested for incitement under the Crimes Act. So, you know, that - we were, arrested under the Crimes Act, and eventually we went to court for that. Yeah - in fact, so that was - that was about January, February. And around May, I think, we went to court, and were fined $50, for incitement. And in retrospect, I think the magistrate felt he had no option but to convict us, but it was the minimum penalty that he could impose. So the Commonwealth appealed that. So even though we'd been to court and convicted, we didn't serve jail time for that, because it was then on appeal, I think - I don't remember it ever going back to court. So it was just on appeal. But then, in July that year, we were busy organising sit-ins at the National Service Office. So you had a demonstration, organised for the US Consulate. But you also had this sit-in organised at the National Service Office, again, focusing specifically on conscription, but also specifically using civil disobedience strategies. And so again, that - of course, were arrested. I was also jailed for that sit-in as well. So that was in September, September '69. After that, the rest of 1969 - there was a lot of travel, between Melbourne and Sydney, and a lot of students from - well, Michael and I, and others from Melbourne going to Sydney to support the draft resistors there and vice versa.”
That was Frances Newell, and the Michael she mentioned is her husband, Michael Hamel-Green, who was one of the more well-known draft resisters and again you can hear more about their experiences in the episode on draft resisters. Harry is Harry Van Moorst, another significant activist.
1971
A National Anti-War Conference was organised in Sydney from 17-21 Feb of 1971. There were several Victorian delegates, and as far as I can tell there were three Melbourne women who gave presentations. Pauline Mitchell spoke on “Youth and the Anti-War Movement”. (Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament, Box 16, Item 4/9, Melbourne Uni Archives); Jill Jolliffe, who had been at Monash University, spoke on “The Anti-War Movement and revolutionary social change” (CICD box, 2012.0286 Unit 48, 2012.0286.0028 6-7, University of Melbourne Archives). Finally, Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo spoke on “Locality Organising”. I have no evidence for this but I’d bet money that women were heavily involved in most if not all aspects of the organising of this conference too.
Something that happened over several years, as far as I can tell, was attempts to ruin the administration of the National Service Act. At the start of this episode you heard Caroline discussing her attendance at a fill in a falsie party held by Jean McLean, which was one way that people hoped to overwhelm the registration system. Lots of people would get together to fill in registration papers with false information. In his book Draftsmen Go Free Bob Scates notes that “Ann McPherson got her horse registered” (p55), while the graphic novel Underground by Mirranda Burton, from 2021 was partly inspired by the story of a wombat being registered. There were also other I guess mundane things that women were involved in, too, as you’ve already heard from Sue McCulloch with regard to the CICD organisation. Here are a few more reflections along those lines:
Alexandra
What other sorts of activities were you involved in? You know, was it – were there pamphlets or letters, those sorts of things? Or were you more into the, I guess, the more active side of physically protesting?
Jan Muller
Both. I never missed a demo if I could, which is why I always voted for demos being at five o'clock rather than two o'clock. But I was also a writer of the – we never signed any leaflets, so I can't prove this. But anyway, I wrote a lot of leaflets, co-wrote a lot of leaflets. But, worse than that, we had the printer and Gestetner at our place. So I typed all the leaflets. Everybody’s leaflets. I was the typist because the blokes, despite the fact that they're the ones that get all the credit, because they used to take the microphones and talk at the rallies, and used to hand out the leaflets, they never wrote – they never typed them. They never printed them. That was me. And because we had a passion for what was going on, we set our own needs aside and just did it. And I did put a curfew on 11:30 for bringing leaflets to be typed. But I do remember some chap coming at midnight, and me saying, "I have work tomorrow morning." I'm a night person, so that doesn't – staying up late didn't bother me. But getting up in the morning was always a struggle for me. Always. And so that's why I'd set the curfew. But I do remember someone coming at midnight and saying that we need this leaflet done tonight. So I remember doing – typing a leaflet and then printing. Probably finished about two am, because I wasn't a fast typist. This is the other thing. I was a two finger typist, and I used to say, "I'm not a typist. You know, get someone who can type fast." No, they used to bring them to me. So I'd laboriously type up these damn leaflets, and being a perfectionist, I'd make sure that that – oh, and the other thing is, you had to type on wax stencils. And if you made a mistake, you had to correct – it was corrector fluid, this pink corrector fluid. So you'd have to correct it and then type over it and get the – you know, line it up perfectly so that didn't look shithouse. It was a hell of a lot of work. I don't know how I did it.”
Alexandra
Did you keep up your writing and being involved with publications across that whole period?
Marion Harper
I think I did. I can't remember. But I mean, I've always written. I'm one of the editors of the Unitarian Beacon now. I've always written but I can't remember - I used to write for the party and newspaper. Really, my memory of it's not as sharp.
Alexandra
The pamphlets and so on that you were writing, did you hand those out on the streets like that Communist newspaper back in the day?
Marion Harper
We did. We did. And one one day we did - another lady and I went into, I think it was the Manchester Unity building in those days in Swanston Street. And there was an empty office up on the top floor. And we took a whole wad of pamphlets and threw them out of the window to the crowd. And they just all went fluttering down and people were picking them up. It was great. Yeah. I tell you, I was petrified. I was not - I'm not brave. I was really scared to death that we were going to get arrested. But we didn't.
Alexandra
So how did you have the courage to do it then if you were so scared?
Marion Harper
I don't know. You just do, don't you - do things. I grew up in the war in England in the blitz of London. And you just do. Don't you; you just do. ….
And I ended up working full time in the peace movement for quite some time.
Alexandra
What was the organisation called who officially employed you?
Marion Harper
It was the Victorian Peace - Victorian Peace Council.
Alexandra
And what job did you do within that?
Marion Harper
Organised rallies, organised meetings, had speaking - speakers. I went, I spoke on the wharf a couple of times.
Alexandra
How was that?
Marion Harper
Oh, it was scary, scary. Because I'm only five foot. And of course, they couldn't see me. So they had to put this big crate up, and I had to stand on the crate. And I'd never spoken at a big meeting like that before. And you know, wharfies are big, tough guys, you know, and some of them were quite reactionary, and called out, you know, go back to Russia and comments like that. And then the others saying Shut up, let's see what she's got to say. So I’d say I was petrified but I did it. You know, I don't know if you've ever done - well, of course, you're a teacher so you're used to speaking - but when you get up in a scary place like that, you can hear your own heartbeat; your heart beats so loud, you can hear it. And yeah, I was - my mouth was dry. And I thought I'm never gonna be able to do this. But anyway, I did.
Alexandra
And you said you did it a couple of times?
Marion Harper
I did. I did one wharf meeting. And I did one at the Assembly Hall in Collins Street, which was packed to the rafters and I remember I kept burping. Now, what happened was I had a headache, because I was so anxious. And somebody gave me a big tablet-y looking thing, which was fizzy. And then I started getting burps. Thought I'm never going to be able to speak because I'm just gonna burp all the time. But anyway, I did. Yeah. But yeah, it's very scary, if - your heart beats and your mouth's dry and, and you think I wish I was anywhere but here. But yes, you do it because you have to do it.
Alexandra
And you were - you were speaking about things like why Australia's involvement in Vietnam was wrong, those sorts of issues?
Marion Harper
Why predatory wars are wrong, and that people have a responsibility to fight against government policies if they believe they're wrong. Yep.
Alexandra
What sort of reaction did you get at Assembly Hall? Were they mostly people who were already on side? Do you remember?
Marion Harper
Well, it's a bit hard to tell. I remember Joan Kirner was there. And she came up to me afterwards and said, You should join the Labor Party. I said no, way past that. But yeah, once you start speaking, then you're fine. Once you get, you know, once you get over the first few words, then you're fine. But yeah, the reaction was really thunderous. I was so chuffed.”
So Sue McCulloch and Marion Harper were being paid to help organise peace activities. Anne Sgro was also organising things, in a voluntary capacity.
Anne Sgro
There was a little Northern Group Moratorium Movement that used to meet in Coburg and we'd have Saturday morning little marches - the Coburg post office used to be in Sydney Road, then it got demolished when Australia Post sort of whatever happened to it, semi privatised, and would go then just walking down with our placards, have a meeting out the front of the post office, then walk down and up the other side and then go home but - have leaflets, and there were - at one stage part of the campaign was 'stop work to stop the war'. And I somehow got myself involved in - I can - going to a couple of meetings at lunchtime. At lunchtimes - one I remember was at the railways, those poor blokes, they must have been totally bemused, because I don't know if they stopped - they probably didn't stop work, but they were very, very kind of receptive and kind. And listened to what I had to say. And they would have all been basically Labor men anyway. Yeah, just to get the - spread the message whichever way you could do it, I think.
Alexandra
So what sort of people were involved in your Saturday morning marching?
Anne Sgro
Just ordinary old people.
Alexandra
Pretty much all of the women I’ve spoken to were involved in doing these less spectacular but incredibly necessary actions, like writing letters to newspapers and politicians and anyone else who might be influential or otherwise needed to hear that there were people who objected to what was going on. In that final excerpt, Anne Sgro mentioned CICD - that’s the Congress for International Cooperation and Disarmament, the group Sue McCulloch worked for. Many women were involved in this over the years, attending meetings, passing motions, writing letters, and helping out with all the minutiae that make such organisations work. There was also the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign which had branches all around Melbourne. Pauline Mitchell was the secretary of the Moorabbin group, while 13 of the 23 local groups with contact details listed were women, all of them “Mrs”. (Ralph and Dorothy Gibson, Box 1, University of Melbourne Archives). Other female-specific groups who opposed the Vietnam War were Women for Peace, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Finally, let me mention the women who over a few years put their names to full-page spreads in various newspapers where they announced their defiance of the national service act, which was, as I said, an illegal act. That was a bold move.