My name is Sonny Massey and I live at 3 George St Berkeley. My Christian name is Walter, the same as my father but my parents always called me ‘Son’ which became Sonny. I was born 16/3/1917. I grew up over where the shopping centre is at the present time. That’s where the old homestead used to be. I went to school at the Berkeley public school, just up round the corner here. I, more or less, wasn’t a very good scholar but I went through school, I went to Wollongong High school. I left there when I was 15 to go fishing, which was 1932, right in the depression years. At that particular time the prawns and fish were still very plentiful.

The school, at that particular time, did not have many children. I think there were only about 15 kids in the whole classroom in the 6^th class that was there. After a certain time the population of Berkeley built up and there was more pupils accumulated at the school.

The only thing I can talk about is the history of the lake and the fishing industry which I grew up with. At age 15 I started work in 1932, when the prawns and fish were very plentiful at the time and there was one particular time when the day prawns were shaping up, and we had a haul of day prawns and we got 84 boxes, it was just on 2 ton really. That was in 1932. The price of everything was very low at that particular time because it was in the depression years. We packed and sent the prawns to Sydney and we got 5 shilling a box which was about a penny a pound. That was good money in those days because I mean to say the basic wage was only about 2 pounds twelve and sixpence ($5.25).

From then on things improved and we started to make a little bit more money in the mid 30’s and we were doing really extremely well in comparison at the basic wage, I mean we were earning big money. From then on after the end of the 39’s the war started, well everything was more or less concentrated into the government.

(At this point, Sonny produced some notes he had prepared for the interview.)

I’ll read the history I’ve got here. I’ll start from the old identities who lived in round the Berkeley area, Ned Barber, Sam Thompson, George Dennis, Joseph Massey who were all in the fishing industries, and their families. In the Kanahooka’s were the families of the William Massey: Ned Clifford, Tom Clifford; who were all in the fishing industry. In those days there was no railway to transport the fish to the Sydney markets. The only way to Sydney was by boat, so they kept the fish alive until the boat was ready to sail. Or they would smoke their fish so they would be fit to eat.

When the railway was built they had to transport ice down from Sydney as there was no ice works in this area. The ice had to be sent down, packed in sawdust so it would not melt and then buried in sawdust until it was ready to be used.

As time passed transport improved. In 1926 the coastal fisheries built a depot at Berkeley for cooking and handling prawns, which was a great asset to the fishermen. Over time the price improved and the prawns were still plentiful.

In 1939 there was a great heap of prawns in the lake and the 19^th of December we had a gale from the west and the prawns migrated to sea in the daytime and night time leaving very few prawns for the rest of the season. We had a very dry spell and the channel closed and there were heaps of fish in the lake which was blocked for 3 years (1942), and in the third year we were catching more fish than in the first year.

In 1942 we had a big haul when the boat in a storm ran on Bass Point (the "USS City Services Boston") and all the fish went to sea, leaving the lake bare.

In 1949 the Minister for Fisheries, T. C. Roughley, put a size of 4(10cm) inches on the prawns which made it very hard. Most of the prawns were 3½( 9cm) inches which was their size before.

In 1950 when the power station was built at Tallawarra, the station used the lake water to cool all their turbines and spill it back into the lake, making the water very warm. After a time there was growth on the turbines and an acid was put on them to kill the growth which killed a mighty heap of fish which congregates in the canal. There used to be a might heap of weed growth in the lake which was a great protection for the fish and prawns, the more the growth, the more fish was in the lake. There was a time when we were catching a lot of prawns in the day time, and they all went to sea at the turn of the tide one day. A man came around to read our meters and told us he and his mate were fishing in the channel and at the turn of the tide the prawns came down the channel and they scooped 2 tin-fulls of prawns. (kerosene tins, which held 4 gallons or 15litres)After that day there were no prawns left.

In 1947/48 the lake was closed and there were no prawns in the lake.

In January ’48 we had a flood which opened the lake and the prawns came in the lake and they started to breed from 1 inch (2.5cm) by March they were a good size (3½ inches long) and heaps were being caught. As the years passed we had good seasons and bad seasons.

In the mid 50’s there were very little prawns being caught. By March, that same year, they showed up in great heaps in the day time. Where they came from nobody ever knew.

I never ever mentioned the regatta they used to have in the lake over at Kanahooka. Do you ever remember the regatta being run over there?

No.

Haven’t you ever heard of it?

No.

In the 1800’s when old Bill Beach…

Oh William Beach, yep!

He was the sculling or rowing champion of the world at that particular time, and he and Tom Clifford used to compete in the regattas over there and every year they used to run the regatta right on the point of Kanahooka. I think the last regatta they ever had was in the mid 20’s. I can remember that because I was there. All the fisherman, more or less, used to compete with one another, there were no more outsiders than the fisherman themselves really. Nearly everyone was a fisherman round the lake in them particular times.

The Clifford’s, the Massey’s and the Thompson’s, more or less, were all related. I think nearly everyone was related round here at that particular time. Other than that there’s not a great lot to mention as far as the lake is concerned because over every season the same thing or the same operation went on. (Until well into the 1940’s, Berkeley was known as Fishtown with only a small number of fishermen and their families comprising most of the population. It was not surprising that intermarriages took place. Incidentally, at that time, Cringila where I grew up was known as Steeltown.-- Doug)

Yes, you mentioned day prawns, are they different to the night prawns?

No, they’re the same prawn but there are prawns that show in the day time, but they will also come of a night too.

So there’s no reason why they appear in the day time?

No, they’re just in the lake there and they’re congregating in the day time in bigger heaps, and when they always move around the shores they just rise up and swim, and that’s the way the prawns operated really.

Has that happened in recent years? Have there been day prawns at different times?

Doug

Sonny

When I finished work we were getting quite a few day prawns. Barry Aish and his family, they’re still in the fishing game. They’re still catching quite a few wild prawns now. Barry is my nephew, by the way.

You can’t talk about anyone in the local fishing fraternity!

The lake operates in the same way every year practically, so you can’t express it from one year to another, the seasons come and the seasons go, and the operation is practically the same.

So what type of fish have you caught mainly over the years?

The Mullet used to be the main fish at one time. In the 40’s we have a crop of small Black Bream show up in the lake. Previous to that we never had a great lot of Black Bream in the lake. Where they come from, I don’t know. They started to grow and in 5 years we were catching fish over 10 inches, the same fish. We were catching them by the 100’s of boxes. They lasted for quite a few years and then we culled them down, I should imagine that’s what’s happened. But at the present time, since the lake’s been open here now, the fish seem to be improving. Barry and his crew are hauling at the present time, and they’re picking up a nice few Whiting and Bream, which weren’t there before.

They’re catching Whiting in the lake?

Yeah. They must have come in .

Yeah they used to be down there round the entrance way.

You’ve got to let the lake more or less mature before the fish settle down and grow. But years ago Mullet Creek and Macquarie River used to be deep creeks and the fish, in the winter time, used to migrate into the creek, and leave the lakes completely. They used to go down the channel, down the entrance in droves. That’s when the lakes were closed. You’d get the fish down there and heaps down there. We used sneak a net down there occasionally to get a big one. But that was when old Roy Latimer was the inspector at the present time. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of him.

No.

That was in the 1940’s. He was the inspector then. There was a ??, he came after him.

Do the fish species change a lot? Over the years, do the fish species change?

No. Mullet is the main fish and the Black Fish. When the weed was in the lake the Black Fish, Bream and prawns used to camp in the weeds and I mean to say, it was the greatest feeding place of the world then and the breeding ground, that’s more or less their breeding ground. Way back in history over near where the sports and social club is there was a belt of weeds from there right out to the Hooka Island and the fish used to get into it in droves. You drove through the weeds and they’d be boiling everywhere. But after we got a few floods siltation came down from the mountains and killed the weed off. Inside that Hooka Island there used to be about 6 foot of water. Now you can walk across it.

There’s, no depth there at all. After that flood I think it was 1984. Of course all of Kembla Grange golfing course was flooded, even the golf house was flooded out at the time. There was a chap come down and he was scooping golf balls up inside that Hooka Island and he had scooped up to about 3 or 4 dozen golf balls. That’s how the flood brought them down.

Sounds like the rubbish coming from there.

But after that, the lake has deteriorated, that’s for sure, but it’s the growth of weed. There was one year we had a growth grew all over the bottom of the lake and it was a greenish colour. It wasn’t bad at all, it was good for the fish, and they used to feed on it. But it was that bad we couldn’t haul our nets. The only way we could catch fish was right up on the shores. We used to come right up.

As far as the lake is concerned, I think it’s been a great lake, and I still think it will be eventually, after a few years after it picks up, since this channel’s been opened up.

I don’t know whether I ever told you about the big entrance we had there years ago. It was pre-war I think. Of course the Reddall Parade was only a metal road in them times and the edge of the lake was only about 10 foot away from the road. We got a big flood, the channel opened and it went out both sides of the Windang island. The channel was about 200 yards wider at that particular time. We got a big sea and the high tide, and the waves are breaking over Reddall Parade. That’s how big the sea came in. Since the channel’s been open well that might eliminate to a certain extent. Some people have got the idea if the lake’s open, if the flood waters, they keep the lake low in the flood time, but that’s not a fact because if you get heavy weather you won’t get it on the high tides, and when we get the big seas, before the water can’t get down from the mountains the lake rises about a foot before the water gets down, and the water from the mountains stops that, and that’s what you get when you get a high lake.

I think there was a big flood in 1949 and it topped all that over there and this side of Mullet Creek, it was all under water. Kembla Grange itself, the race course, was all under water too.

There was a big flood in ’84 too, that did it.

Yes, and we had one in ’69 and ’98 too.

Yep, ’98 was a big one.

When that lake closed at the end of 1939 we had a very dry spell, and all the mountains from Wongawilli right through to Bulli Pass were on fire. Do you remember that?

Well this was in the war years when it all happened, all about 1941, the fire.

There were no houses built in the mountain side in those times. There was only one house that went up.

Well, when we get the next fire there will be 100’s of houses that will go. Those built right up in the bush now.

I think you can blame the greenies for a lot of this destruction on the houses because down in Victoria there’s no bush at all there at the present time. In those townships growth had been cleared from around them, they’d have still been there. It’s only common sense. I first bought this house, it was a forest around it, and look at it now. I know my tree’s close to the house. The previous owner, George Parkes, he had gum trees growing right along side of the house here and they were big. I cut them all down. There was just a mass of weeds up the back there and of course he used to always have a cow. In those days everyone had cows to milk them because no milk men come around.

Yeah, we used to always go up to the farms to get our milk.

We use to go down to the dairy as kids on a Sunday and they would let us milk our own cows.

Yeah, we always had a cow over there or ride across to the shopping centre, we had 60 acres there.

In the war years were you allowed to fish? I’ve heard stories about the government confiscating the boats and so on.

They confiscated the boats that they reckoned you didn’t need to use but we were still fishing, but they took control of the boats. Down here on the foreshores all the fishermen’s boats that they weren’t using were pulled up on the shore and they more or less disintegrated. They were the war years. All the Italians, all their trawlers were confiscated and the Italians put into concentration camps over the war years. They were the greatest fishermen in the world where they come from.

Fishing’s their life.

That was their livelihood. When the markets started in here the government made the markets in the late ‘49s ‘50s I think, they took over the markets in Sydney and of course they put a market down in the harbour where it is at the present time. The Government controlled that until we decided to form a co-op. Fish at that particular time, there was no price in them. The trawler men were catching those gem fish. They were catching them by the 100’s of boxes. They were getting anywhere from 10 shillings a box for them. They (the Government) put a charge on at 10% to pay for all the handling. They had the same on the prawns. The prawns they were getting anywhere from $100 a box and we had to pay $10 at the markets. The Italians were getting 10 shillings a box and only paying 2 shillings and I reckon they were ripping us off, they had to be. There was a bit of a dispute about that and they formed the co-op down here then. We did far better than them. I used to take my fish, prawns and lobsters, at that time, straight through to Sydney. Whatever charges they used to put in here.

If we put our lobsters into the market here, in Wollongong, they were sure as hell discounted 1 or 2kg taken off us. When I went through to Sydney, cause the lobsters were about $5 a kilo at that particular time. I could run to Sydney and home again at $5, which was very cheap in them days.

Yep, where did you catch the lobsters?

I was working with Kenny Dunlop from up Austinmer way and all those places. We used to go through, past Austinmer really, up to Botany Bay.

You’d have lobster pots?

We did, yeah, they were all lobster pots. But we didn’t go into the Botany Bay but just this side of the point that runs out there. These skin divers used to help themselves too.

I enjoyed it but it was a rough game. You didn’t know whether you were going to get caught in a big sea or not. We went up there one day, we went out from Bulli, that ramp, and there wasn’t one swell on the beach. It was just like this table. We steamed up to the Austinmer way and while we were up there the sea starts to roll in. We got back down to Bulli and the seas were breaking about 400 yards out. I said to my mate, "How are we going to get in here?"

He said, "We’ll make it."

Because when the big seas are on there’s always about 3 big seas come in and then it calms off. Well you follow that last big sea in, you’re inside the break then and that’s the way he done it. We got in quite safely. When we got inside the break I looked out and it was at a mass of foam outside.

Do you have any recall of the old dance floor on Gooseberry Island?

Oh yes.

Tell us about that.

This is what that what’s his name came round here for.

Oh the chap on the MAP scheme.(Memory and Place)

Well that’s my history.

Oh, fair enough. That was Richard Clifford.

Do you want me to read it?

Oh if you have a copy of it, that’ll be fine.

No, no, I haven’t made a copy.

I could scan it if you have the pages.

It’s only my history, there’s not much about the fishing industry.

Oh, but it’s all history.

No but it’s all of interest.

I used to do a lot of rifle shooting in my day. I started competition shooting in 1993 when I was 15. I gave it in 1980 pre war. It was controlled by the army and any members of the shooting club could be called up immediately. I used to shoot at the Dapto Rifle Club, the range was where Mount Brown is. But it was only farm land back in them days. Every Saturday we’d get to go shooting. It was a real social turn out. I was champion of the club for 11 years. Once every 12 months we used to shoot at the Anzac Range.

In Sydney people came from all over, some even from overseas. It was like the Australian titles. One year we had 1,000 shooters and I came 19^th in the clean shoot.

Well done.

So each year the champion of each club would shoot against each other. Three times I got the gold medal, and once I came second in the champion of champions. I know I should have won it. I could have. I could have been in the Olympics but there was the second World War. Before the war the government used to give people 2 shillings or 2 and 6 for shooting shags. We used to hide in the islands and shoot shags and we made a fair bit of money that way. We shot rabbits and ducks for the table so it was a useful skill to have. I didn’t use it in the war, though I was called up and also my friend. They kept him but they turned me away because fishermen were primary producers, and we had to keep on fishing.

But the Italians who were all on the trawlers were put into holding camp so I had to catch all the fish, my friend became a Japanese prisoner of war. But the dance hall on the island.-- There used to be a hall on the big island.(Gooseberry Island) From the late 1800’s to the mid 1930s about 4 or 5 times a year there would be a dance in the hall. The people would be all dressed up, you didn’t go out anywhere without getting on coat, collar and tie and hats, and the girls would wear their best dresses. They’d go across in boats from Mullet creek, or from the jetty at Kanahooka. They’d come from all over. Even as far as Helensburgh, the dance hall, that’s all they called it, was a huge hall as big as the Dapto Agricultural hall. There was an annex on the side where you could have a meal. You could get 300 – 400 people in with no trouble. The dances started before sunset and when you’d come home the sun would be rising. My father, Walter Massey, would play the fiddle, Benny Everitt played the squeezebox and Bill Thompson played the bones. Every one would join in. They were always so keen,. There was always a keg or two but everyone behaved themselves. The dance stopped in the mid 30s and the hall was pulled down after the war. As the building materials, the corrugated iron and rafters and such were taken.

One day there were 3 blokes in a boat it was made with corrugated iron. There was no wind in the lake but the boat sank and they were all drowned. Not many people remember that hall now.

Back in the mid 1940s there was still the shell there. A friend and I used to camp every weekend out there. We built ourselves canvas and wood kayaks. We used to come over to Gooseberry Island every weekend from Warrawong.

Was the dance hall there then?

The shell was still there. That was in the mid 40s.

What, did it just have a roof, or walls?

From memory it had a roof but it was pretty dilapidated.

While the war was on building material was hard to get, and people were just going over there and helping themselves.

No, with galvanised iron people would be after it, yeah.

Yeah.

Who built the dance hall originally? Did you know anything about that?

I think Wollongong Council built it actually. But that was built way back in the 1800s.

I could never work out why they would build a dance floor on Gooseberry Island.

You would have seen the boats go with all the ladies dressed up.

Oh yeah.

They’d go from this side of the lake here at Berkeley?

Down where the harbour is at the moment.

Oh, all right, ok, so it’s not where we thought it might be.

My childhood: I was born in 1917 in the homestead which was built in 1914. It was where the shopping centre is now. My name is Walter and that was my dad’s name too, so they always called me Sonny. We lived in the corn paddock. We played in the corn paddock, ran around catching birds and what have you. The paddock used to be full of water when it flooded. When I was 5 years old I was playing there and my mum came to the gate and called me, and I wouldn’t come. Stood at the gate with a belt but I was too quick and I flew past her. She swung the belt at me but missed me. I can still remember that. I hid my head behind the lounge but my backside was still sticking out so I got a whack on the backside. When we did the wrong thing we got a good belting but they never hurt us.

We learned to swim before we could walk. Even before I went to school we’d go swimming down in the lake. Us kids lived in the lake. We rowed all over the lake with all our nets and we made them ourselves. Me and a cousin would go prawning at night for pocket money, sixpence a pound so we could get 25 shillings for a nights prawning.

We’d go for picnics on the island. We were always on the lake. Sometimes we’d hunt rabbits up in the hills above the house, and rabbits would get that thick that the whole paddock would move. There are all houses there now.

My wife was Hazel. I met Hazel Hamilton in Wollongong, her sister used to go with my cousin and when we met that was it really. When we were courting I used to book the best seats in the pictures in Wollongong, 2 and 6pence for the best seats and 2 and 6 pence for a box of chocolates, and we’d eat the chocolates and watch the show.

Hazel worked on a farm and when her brothers went to war she was up and 3:00 and 4:00 o’clock to milk the cows, which was bad if we’d been to the dance the night before. Sometimes I could help her. She stopped working there when we got married, and her dad sold the farm then.

We married in 1943. We lived at first in the one room, 18ft x 12ft wood shack where the depot was. I had to work much harder after I got married and I saved up for this house, and for my red truck, enough to buy them both in 3 years. We bought this place in 1946, moved in, in 1948, and I’ve been here ever since.

The eldest boy was born in 1945. Next bloke was in January ’47 and the next in 1950, 3 boys and not one of them would go fishing, Hazel saw to that. She used to come out with me sometimes when we first got married, to catch prawns. I remember one time I chucked an eel in the boat and she nearly jumped out. She looked after me and reared the kids.

Hazel died 3 years ago when she was 80. She’d been bed ridden for 3 years and I looked after her. I lost weight during those years and I was down to 63 kilos. We had our 62^nd wedding anniversary in Bulli Hospital, she was bright as anything, a few days later she was in a coma and never came out. In 62 years we never had a falling out, sometimes we had words but it was never serious. I have a photo of her with a beer. She liked to have a beer.

That sounds very much like our married life. We lived in a garage while we built the house.

Ours is bigger than yours, 18 x 12(5.5 x 3.6m), ours was 24 x 12(7.3 x 3.6m). We lived in that for 7 years.

We had a verandah and we had a kitchen and that on the side too.

Oh right, you were flash.

We were pretty comfortable really.

We were too, it didn’t hurt us.

It made life the way it was in them days.

We had 7 years in the garage while we built the house to lock up stage behind us.

Where you are now?

In the same place. We moved there in 1949 when we were married, we’re still there.

We eventually sold the garage. The garage was in front of the house and when we sold it, it went up to the other end of the Dapto on a truck with the curtains flapping and another young couple lived in it then.

Well the basic wage wasn’t so hot them times was it?

No.

No, well I served my time as Fitter and Turner and tradesmen’s wages was 4 pounds 10shillings. When I was an apprentice I got 1 pound 2 and 6 from memory, from the first year.

Yeah, well the basic wage when I started was only 2 pound 12 and 6.

(Sonny again read from his notes)

I went to the public school at Berkeley. It was built in 1918. I was hopeless at school except for sports and maths. After school I played football for Dapto. When I first started school there was one teacher and 6 classes. We had a teacher by the name of George Sheppard, and he was the crankiest man you could have come across. This cousin of mine, Jeffrey, didn’t do his homework so the teacher whacked him with the cane. He had bruises all over him and his mother came to the school, stood at the door and abused that teacher off, right, left and centre. He was shifted after that. I never enjoyed school.

My brother, Vincent, never had his head out of a book. He didn’t play sport. He studied all the time. He got straight A’s at high school, and at Uni he got a scholarship to Cambridge University in England. He ended up a professor of Biochemistry at the Michigan University in America.

I was different, I went to school because I had to go, and after school I didn’t have time to do my homework. I was too busy helping dad out. I left and started on the lake when I was 14 or 15 in 1932, and I worked on the lake till 1987. After that I repaired my nephew’s nets until about 4 or 5 years ago when I gave it away.

Just getting back to the prawns, you said the prawns had to be 4 inches (10cm) long.

The Minister of Fisheries, T.C. Roughley, his name was, he was a bit arrogant and he come down here one day and he told us the prawns had to be 4 inches. But they are the size of 3½"(9cm), or most of the prawns were 3½ inches long in them particular times.

That’s still a good prawn, yeah.

Yeah, it worked out about 3½ inches was a fairly sizeable prawn. You’d get 10 boxes of prawns and you’d pick one box of 4 inch prawns out of them. That’s how big the prawns were.

Unusual, yeah.

That was in 1950. The prawns were that thick in the lake here, well if you send 3½" prawns to Sydney you got them confiscated. So there were a lot of prawns in the lake down the coast, down at Coila Lake at a particular time, and they were big prawns. There were prawns 8 to the pound we were catching. They were all big king prawns. The first night we were there we got down there at dark and we didn’t notice the areas where the prawns used to, more or less, come in. But the next night we went out there and we studied out the area and I think the first night we got 74 boxes. The price of prawns them times was only 3 and 6 a pound.(80c/kg)

It’s a bit different now. They are over $20 a kg.

But in those days it was big money really.

Oh yeah, it’s true.

As far as the basic wage was concerned.

There’s no size limit on prawns now is there?

No. There is a few small prawns showing in the lake now but whether they’ll come to anything or not, it’s still late in the season now. But that season I was telling you about; there were no prawns in the main part of the season, up till March.

That’s late. (In 2009 there was a good run of sizable prawns in late April with prawns in the fish shops into early May, which is most unusual)

The day prawns showed in down off where Talawarra is, we nearly starved through the prawn season that particular time.

I think the best we had, my dad and I went out and we were down near where the Yacht Club is now. We got a box and a half. That was on Christmas Eve. In January, February where there was no prawns, we used to always go on the beach. It was for travelling fish out in March, March is the time when the fish travel along the beaches. While we were over there a fisherman from Kanahooka, they got onto the prawns down there and we heard about it. We were catching anywhere up to 30 and 40 boxes in one hit. Where they come from no one knew.

Is there one spot in the lake, the best place for prawns all the time?

No, they’d just shift around everywhere. Actually they’d congregate down Oak Flats way and after a bit of time they’d move up round this area. The Greens they were fishermen, old Billy Green because he’s more or less a relation. They were always fishing from down round Albion Park way, and they were always catching big heaps of prawns down that way, early in the season really.

As I said in the early parts, in the 30’s, the prawns were that thick that you couldn’t get any great price for them. We used to sell them to the public for 6 pence a pound (15c /450gm) There could be more than a pound in them, we used to have a quart tin and we’d fill it up with prawns and we’d estimate that as a pound, and for 6 pence.

In the 1920’s I must have been only about 10 years old, my dad and mum and that, we went over and we camped on the foreshores of the entrance there, right along side Redall Parade, and of course everyone used to come down in them times, because that was the best place for the camping areas at them times. They used to have a circus that used to come there. I can still remember this. I was keeping around the people that were down the circus, anyhow there was a pound note on the ground, it didn’t stop there long and I got it, because that was a lot of money them days.

That red truck I got, I paid 600 pounds ($1,200) for that because that was big money them days of course.

You mentioned your shooting. My uncle and cousin were both very keen shooters, they always used to go to the annual Queen’s Shoot at the Anzac Range.

What were their names?

Evans. They came from Mudgee.

I know the name.

My cousin, Rodney, I’m not quite sure but he might shoot as a senior now, but until just a few years ago he used to go to the shoot, not necessarily competing in the Queens, he used to go to the various competitions around Melbourne and he’s not married.

I used to go to Melbourne, Brisbane.

I don’t think they were ever in your class.

I used to go to Mudgee too and I used to have a shoot out there.

Yes, a very keen group up there. Norm and Vin Evans were my uncles, and Rodney is the cousin. He’d be in his 70’s now. But he’s been shooting still until recent years.

I liked to go but…

You mentioned that you could have gone to the Olympics,

There wasn’t any Olympics them days.

Yeah, that’s right, well you had the skills.

Yeah, well this is right.

The Queens was the big shoot.

Yeah, well that was more or less where they come from overseas and all.

It would be the equivalent of the Olympics here.

Yeah, well they got a high placing, they were very proud of that sort of thing.

While I was shooting in the State Championship that particular time, I was out in front, I don’t think I could have been beat actually, cause sometimes your rifle‘s elevation, varies unbeknownst to yourself, and I was shooting on land I had about 5 bullseyes and next thing I get the Magpie straight over the top. I thought to myself that’s not right I couldn’t have kept into the bulls, more or less put it there, but I didn’t alter the sight I left it that it was and I got another shot straight through where the first one was (2 Magpies) when I was only beaten by one point.

Well there’s nothing wrong with your eyes.

Not in them days, no, I had perfect eyesight.

Well you’re doing pretty well now, you’re reading type and you’re not using glasses, and I can’t do that.

My kids can’t either.

Unless I put these on I can’t see type clearly.

Well these glasses they’re for distance, my distance is not as great as it used to be so I put them on for long distance.

Was your brother older or younger than you?

He was 10 years younger than me when he passed away.

While you and your father were supporting the family he had the time and the ability then to study.

Yeah well, in those days I think he was more or less subsidised to go to these universities and what have you and of course the family used to more or less give him a hand out so he could manage more or less, cause he was living in Sydney.

He met his wife at the university in Sydney and she was a German too. She was in France in the war years and when she was 12 years old her Grandmother transported her across …

TAPE CHANGE

… person ??? person. Well I’ve got the relatives over and I never ever met them, over in America. Cause my eldest boy he went over there and visited them quite a few years ago, but my brother passed away there about 4 or 5 years ago.

Well that’s a tremendous career.

Yeah well I don’t think there’s much I could more or less tell you really.

Well that’s pretty good. Many thanks, Sonny.