Speaker 1: Everyone, Welcome to conversations. I have a special guest today.
Speaker 1: Blanche del Puget is my guest author, writer, wife of
Speaker 1: the late Prime Minister Bob Hawk. She has a new
Speaker 1: book out, a new novel. Now it's a little bit
Speaker 1: different because it's fiction. It's murder mystery, and it's all
Speaker 1: sort of all sorts of sex in it and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But Blanche is more renowned as a writer
Speaker 1: of serious biographies and author of serious biographies and historical fiction.
Speaker 1: Blanche del Puget, welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Fancy.
Speaker 1: I love that name, del Puchet. It is the way
Speaker 1: it rolls off the tongue. Can you tell us the
Speaker 1: origin of it? Please?
Speaker 2: Sure it's from Bordeaux in France. It's typical Bordeaux name
Speaker 2: that get ending. And with my great grandfather who left
Speaker 2: Bordeaux at the time of I think it was called
Speaker 2: the phlox of whatever it was that destroyed the French venue.
Speaker 2: It's the economy of Bordeaux. And he came out to
Speaker 2: the South Pacific game to Australia.
Speaker 1: There was so much to talk about. But I mean
Speaker 1: treat I wish I knew your father. He sounds like
Speaker 1: a really much so sort of a guy. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a bit more about him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was very much Oh he was. He was
Speaker 2: love sailing, was bluebody, yachtsman. He was a champion boxer,
Speaker 2: champion wrestler, champion water polo player. The guy who beat
Speaker 2: him for the Australian title in boxing went to the
Speaker 2: Olympics and won the gold medal, according to family legend history.
Speaker 2: I've never looked that up.
Speaker 1: And the Lifesaver as well.
Speaker 2: I mean lifesaver sure, sure, and in a champion team.
Speaker 1: So tell us about tell us about you, your child.
Speaker 1: Is it true that your dad wanted you to be
Speaker 1: was expecting you to be a boy, or wanted you
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: My mum really wanted me to boy. My dad was
Speaker 2: absolutely love me as a girl. But I grew up
Speaker 2: as a daddy's girl, I think because of that. And
Speaker 2: he did teach me all sort of some things like
Speaker 2: boxing and shoesing, and of course how to catch fish
Speaker 2: and how to kill an octopus. That's pretty dairy.
Speaker 1: If you're such a feminine lady, how did boxing fit
Speaker 1: into it? Did you do you ever have to use it?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't quite Seriously, it's very good for a woman,
Speaker 2: especially as a small woman as I am, to know
Speaker 2: something about self defense and armed combat. It's very good.
Speaker 2: I did have cause to use that later.
Speaker 1: In life against two a.
Speaker 2: Very large Italian male who was bent on doing something
Speaker 2: dreadful to me.
Speaker 1: Can you expand on that? That's intriguing?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure. He was the person of the ship on
Speaker 2: which I was sailing to England. I was twenty one,
Speaker 2: and he invited me to a party in his apartment
Speaker 2: whatever you call it on a ship cabin, I guess,
Speaker 2: And of course the person is a second in command
Speaker 2: on a ship after the captain. And I arrived at
Speaker 2: the party and I looked around as nobody else there.
Speaker 2: It was just him and me, and he was a
Speaker 2: big bloke. I was five for three. I can't do
Speaker 2: that in the new money. He was about six foot
Speaker 2: two and big. And he grabbed me and kissed me,
Speaker 2: and I did. I remembered what I'd been taught. I
Speaker 2: grabbed him by the years really hard and jammed my
Speaker 2: thumbs in his eyes, and he gave a yell of
Speaker 2: surprise and horror. Let go. I went in my life,
Speaker 2: and he wore sunglasses for wite Some.
Speaker 1: Days feel satisfying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very satisfying. Yeah. Well, my father taught
Speaker 2: me some other things to do in that in nasty circumstances,
Speaker 2: but I didn't ever have to employ them.
Speaker 1: So what ambition did you have growing up? Your father
Speaker 1: high achiever, charismatic guy, he's an editor of a newspaper.
Speaker 1: What ambition did you have?
Speaker 2: My only ambition was to travel and have fun. I
Speaker 2: was don't terribly serious.
Speaker 1: Is that all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Really, I was mad keen on traveling and did
Speaker 2: a lot. I lived basically, I lived outside of out
Speaker 2: of Australia from the edge of twenty one to thirty,
Speaker 2: in various countries, a lot of the time, spending Indonesia
Speaker 2: and Malaysia.
Speaker 1: I read something that I've found quite shocking, and I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'd have to run it past you to
Speaker 1: see if it was actually you said you had your
Speaker 1: first affair when you were twelve.
Speaker 2: It wasn't an affair. I was groomed.
Speaker 3: He was a district court judge who was a neighbor
Speaker 3: and a friend of the family, and he started by
Speaker 3: walking me.
Speaker 2: Home from the school bus stop every day and it
Speaker 2: sort of went on from there. He was a nut.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've I realized that in retrospect. At the time,
Speaker 2: I thought he was wonderful. He was fifty four and
Speaker 2: you're twelve.
Speaker 1: Yes, when you reflect back on that, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of young ladies would be scarred by that.
Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't, partly because I had a father as
Speaker 2: a backup. I knew that if anything went wrong, I
Speaker 2: could go to my father, and I would get into
Speaker 2: terrible trouble myself, but he would walk down the street
Speaker 2: and he would pull that man limb from limb, and
Speaker 2: the man knew my father, and he knew that. He
Speaker 2: realized that too, that he had to be very careful.
Speaker 1: We spoken about your father, tell us about your mother.
Speaker 1: Your mother's influence on you.
Speaker 2: She was a sky blue soul, or I can say
Speaker 2: she was a really lovely woman, terrific sportswoman. Used to
Speaker 2: she done gymnastics, used to go sailing all the time.
Speaker 2: She was just a wonderful, loving mother. And she had
Speaker 2: a terrific sense of humor, very very funny, which was
Speaker 2: important with my dad, who could be extremely trying.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that trying of that of
Speaker 1: the day. Perhaps it was.
Speaker 4: The male of the day, honestly, and he was he
Speaker 4: fell when, when I was eight, he fell in love
Speaker 4: with somebody else, which another a woman journalist.
Speaker 2: Years later he married, but luckily, I regarded it as
Speaker 2: luckily they stayed together because of the child, because of me,
Speaker 2: and as a consequence, I had a much more interesting
Speaker 2: adolescence than I would have had I been living alone
Speaker 2: with my mother. But it was a very great strain
Speaker 2: on both of them, but I think particularly on her
Speaker 2: because he was quite cruel to her.
Speaker 1: It was a sign of the times that I think
Speaker 1: we'ther in a male dominated era. Yeah, how did that
Speaker 1: shape your opinions in your career?
Speaker 2: Perhaps It's very hard for me to know that, because
Speaker 2: except to know that I wouldn't accept being put down,
Speaker 2: my father had always brought me up to never to
Speaker 2: allow myself to be put down, and he himself, I've
Speaker 2: got it. I have to say. It was a terrible bully,
Speaker 2: So it had one very good effect. I grew up
Speaker 2: completely unafraid of men, and I think because of that,
Speaker 2: I was completely unafraid of Bob Hawk when I met him,
Speaker 2: not that I knew who the hell he was. I
Speaker 2: thought he was somebody called Robin Robin Hawk, Robin Hog,
Speaker 2: whom I met in Chakata. But a lot of women
Speaker 2: were afraid of Bob because he was very, very aggressive.
Speaker 2: But I'd grown up with a super aggressive male and
Speaker 2: so didn't find Bob in any way intimidating.
Speaker 1: Butd you pursue your career as a journalist initially? Didn't you?
Speaker 2: Just initially? That's because I had a huge fight with
Speaker 2: my father and ran away from home when I was seventeen.
Speaker 2: I was meant to be studying. I was studying science
Speaker 2: at Sydney University. So then I had to get a
Speaker 2: chop because she couldn't do science and work. So he
Speaker 2: did help me get a job as at a cadet
Speaker 2: on the rival newspaper. I pursued that only for a
Speaker 2: very brief period. I think I was eighteen when I started. Seventeen,
Speaker 2: and then I went to London twenty one and worked
Speaker 2: in their office in London, and then came back and
Speaker 2: then that was the end of journalism really, And he
Speaker 2: got married.
Speaker 5: I got married, but well we used to in those days.
Speaker 5: But also for that same reason that women then did
Speaker 5: need a male protector. We really did, and having either
Speaker 5: a steady boyfriend or a husband was pretty important.
Speaker 1: Blanche Delpiget is my guest, Folks. Her new book is
Speaker 1: called The Bunny Club. We'll talk about it. We'll get
Speaker 1: into it in detail, but obviously Blant's life is so
Speaker 1: interesting we have to explore that before we talk about
Speaker 1: her new novel. Shortly, folks, my guest on conversations is
Speaker 1: Blount del puge. She has a new book out called
Speaker 1: The Bunny Club. It's a murder mystery. I've read the
Speaker 1: compelling novel of mystery, passion, and revenge. I can see
Speaker 1: your life was mysterious and it was passionate. Was it
Speaker 1: any elements of revenge in your life?
Speaker 2: Not that I'm aware of, No. Look. It centers on
Speaker 2: a television a morning television diva, a very highly paid
Speaker 2: morning television hostess who is the station, wants to get
Speaker 2: rid of it because she's Her pay rate is what
Speaker 2: set when the television stations were earning a heap of
Speaker 2: money and now they're not. And also she's getting on.
Speaker 2: She pretends to be fifteen years younger than she actually
Speaker 2: is thanks to a lot of cosmetics, and she goes
Speaker 2: off down to Barrel, to her mansion in Barrel and
Speaker 2: for a romantic weekend. What she thinks of as a
Speaker 2: romantic weekend with her lover, who is actually a males
Speaker 2: court whom she pays very well, but she still thinks
Speaker 2: of him as her lover. Next thing, we know, she's dead.
Speaker 2: Whether she's dead from a sex game gone wrong or
Speaker 2: has been murdered takes quite some sorting out. That's what
Speaker 2: the superficial story is about. There's a second underlying theme
Speaker 2: of story there, which I can tell you if you're
Speaker 2: a very nice man.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll try to be a nice man. But a
Speaker 1: couple of questions there immediately in that description. The sex
Speaker 1: game is a Japanese sex game. Firstly, I want to
Speaker 1: know how you discovered this Japanese sex game which involves
Speaker 1: cables and pulleys and the like.
Speaker 2: Well, it's called shibari. It's burning around in Japan since
Speaker 2: the seventeenth century, and it was used for tying up pess.
Speaker 2: But you know, the Japanese like to turn everything into
Speaker 2: a work of art, so they turned this into a
Speaker 2: work of art, and then it became used, as so
Speaker 2: many things do, for sex. It's still used for tying
Speaker 2: up people on trees. I think when you go to Japan,
Speaker 2: all the trees and to retied up. Yeah, how I
Speaker 2: learned about it? Well, I think I've known about it
Speaker 2: for a while. But I interviewed all together four but
Speaker 2: mainly two male escorts, and one of them is a
Speaker 2: shabari master.
Speaker 1: Really, there's such a thing. It's such a thing as
Speaker 1: a master.
Speaker 2: He's a bit modest, and he would say he's just
Speaker 2: a he's just a practitioner, but he he, he really
Speaker 2: knows a tremendous amount about it, and of course it is.
Speaker 2: It can be very very dangerous. You can accidentally murder
Speaker 2: somebody or kill somebody with it. So he showed me
Speaker 2: a lot of videos that he'd made of himself tying
Speaker 2: up people.
Speaker 1: There's so many questions. So you've you hired a mail escort,
Speaker 1: You paid him? I paid him.
Speaker 2: Look, they've only got I believe the worker should be
Speaker 2: paid and so and all they've got to sell is
Speaker 2: their time, and they have a sliding scale obviously what
Speaker 2: their time costs. But for an interview, it was just
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five dollars an hour, or more
Speaker 2: elaborate things, that's considerably more.
Speaker 1: Were you attempted to explore those more elaborate things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen the description of the male escort. You said
Speaker 1: he looked more like a diplomat. Can you describe him?
Speaker 2: Yes, very tall, quite reserved and sharp. An introvert, I
Speaker 2: think so. He's all his friendships were with his female clients.
Speaker 2: He likes women a lot, obviously, and from a very
Speaker 2: good family. Went to the same school as well, King
Speaker 2: Charles as he now is in Victoria. Not a scrubber.
Speaker 1: Oh, the mind boggles.
Speaker 2: The other guy is extrovert, much smaller, mad keen on
Speaker 2: Art say, a real salesman, and he doesn't know anything
Speaker 2: about Shabari though.
Speaker 1: Well, I look, that's an outline of the book, and
Speaker 1: people need to buy the book. It's called the Bunny Club.
Speaker 1: Now let's talk a little bit more about about you.
Speaker 1: You marrit An Anthony Pratt, and you go to you
Speaker 1: live in Jakarta. Yes, did you embrace that?
Speaker 2: For the first two weeks I wasn't sure where Indonesia
Speaker 2: was at that age. He said to me. My husband said,
Speaker 2: go north and turn left, and I'll never forget the
Speaker 2: day we flew into Jakarta together. As the plane came
Speaker 2: towards the landing the airport, the landing field, a little
Speaker 2: flock of brown goats were chopping trotting across in front
Speaker 2: of us, and there was nothing to say except coconut
Speaker 2: trees around it. You couldn't see a damn thing.
Speaker 1: What was your life like as the wife of a diplomat?
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's when he was a student. That's when
Speaker 2: we first went. He was a student studying for his
Speaker 2: masters in linguistics.
Speaker 1: A student is a life of poverty, basically.
Speaker 2: Well it is, except that I got a job in
Speaker 2: the working in the embassy in what was called the
Speaker 2: News and Information Buro, which was actually our propaganda department,
Speaker 2: and I was paid initially. It was funny. I've paid
Speaker 2: initially in rupia, which is worth nothing, and bags of
Speaker 2: rice that didn't last very long. They transferred me onto
Speaker 2: real money. But back in those days it was five
Speaker 2: hundred percent inflation, so our embassy and every other embassy
Speaker 2: dealt in the black market and black market dollars.
Speaker 1: It seems to me as I read stories about your
Speaker 1: life that you really enjoyed living in Chicago, Individeres, I
Speaker 1: loved it.
Speaker 2: It's the Indonesians are terrific people. Number one, wonderful sense
Speaker 2: of humor, very rich culture, and it's just a back
Speaker 2: then it was a very fun place. It was already
Speaker 2: terribly overcrowded. The city had been built by the Dutch
Speaker 2: for I think five hundred thousand, and it was already
Speaker 2: five millions, so it was terribly overcrowded, but nothing like
Speaker 2: it is now.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they were great people when they invaded
Speaker 1: New Guinea. How do they defend that?
Speaker 2: Well, that was the army who did that. Armies often
Speaker 2: very nice to the people there in Fading whoever, whatever
Speaker 2: there the civilians are like the military are different ours?
Speaker 2: Is it no different?
Speaker 1: You didn't like it so much when you came back
Speaker 1: to Camber though.
Speaker 2: Oh after the excitement of Jakarta, where you didn't know
Speaker 2: one day from the next, tip for be electricity, if
Speaker 2: the if the surage would be working. You know. It
Speaker 2: was the telephones I don't think worked at all. We
Speaker 2: all took messages by hand. Well, you see, I went
Speaker 2: there twice. So I went there first with Chiny as
Speaker 2: a student, and then he came back and joined foreign affairs,
Speaker 2: and then we went back and lived in the and
Speaker 2: he was working in the embassy.
Speaker 1: And you met Bob Hook there in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: Yes, when for the first I was an embassy wife
Speaker 2: by that stage, and one of the duties of an
Speaker 2: embassy wave was to take around visiting Australians, whom we
Speaker 2: used to refer to as visiting fireman. And the thing
Speaker 2: that impressed me about him was he did He was
Speaker 2: the only one of all of god knows how many
Speaker 2: I took around who didn't want to go and look
Speaker 2: at the slums. Nearly everybody wanted to see the slums
Speaker 2: in Jakarta, which I thought was creepy, and Bob had
Speaker 2: no desire to as a word, perv on the on
Speaker 2: the poverty of the people.
Speaker 1: Why do you think they would want to visit the slums? Though?
Speaker 2: Oh it made me feel good, really well, it gave
Speaker 2: them a sense of the exoticness of poverty, and it
Speaker 2: was poverty was exotic for people who had had, I guess,
Speaker 2: no contact with our original people back then, back in
Speaker 2: the sixties.
Speaker 1: When you first met him, was there chemistry?
Speaker 2: No? Not on well, apparently there was on his part.
Speaker 1: I heard a story. Now you can tell you can
Speaker 1: correct me or tell me that it's inappropriate. But when
Speaker 1: he first met you, did he proposition you in an
Speaker 1: inappropriate manner?
Speaker 2: Not when he first met me that was when he
Speaker 2: second met me, or I mean when he met me
Speaker 2: for the second time in.
Speaker 1: Jakarta, and that was nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2: No, No, that were nineteen seventy one, the following year.
Speaker 1: When a male proposition is an attractive lady like yourself,
Speaker 1: surely that's an inappropriate manner. Is that not a turn off? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I ignored it. I mean he did it in public
Speaker 2: in front of a whole lot of people, and we
Speaker 2: all just they we're all diplomats, we all just pretended
Speaker 2: it hadn't happened. And somebody said, oh, are that bunt
Speaker 2: is just going to London, and the conversation went on.
Speaker 2: It was something like that.
Speaker 1: So you decide to pursue, You decide to you start
Speaker 1: to write, and your first book is called Mediator, a
Speaker 1: Biography of Sir Richard Kirby. Now that's not what is
Speaker 1: that what you said out to write?
Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely, And it was because of Kirby's contact with Indonesia,
Speaker 2: and he was head of something that doesn't exist anymore,
Speaker 2: the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, which oversaw wages for workers.
Speaker 2: And so I was interested in him because of Indonesia,
Speaker 2: because he had so much to do with the first President, Sakano,
Speaker 2: who was a real bogeyman in a street Australia. But
Speaker 2: he also to write the book, I had to study
Speaker 2: the trade unions a lot, and that's when I became
Speaker 2: really interested in the trade union movement.
Speaker 1: Was your first interest, was it Albert Monk the first.
Speaker 2: Albert Buns was the first president, Bob was the second.
Speaker 1: Yes, But you couldn't get access to Albert Monks.
Speaker 2: Yes. So I wanted to do as a second biography
Speaker 2: Albert Monk's biography because all his papers he kept an
Speaker 2: enormous trove of papers in a special shorthand he'd developed
Speaker 2: in the State Library of Victoria. But his wife wouldn't
Speaker 2: give me permission to have access to them. And ages
Speaker 2: later I discovered it was because she was his second
Speaker 2: wife and she and people didn't know, and she didn't
Speaker 2: want anybody finding out she was his second wife. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's how stitched up we were back in those days.
Speaker 2: So I thought, oh, well, if I can't do the
Speaker 2: second one, because I was still mad on about the
Speaker 2: importance as it was then of the trade union movement,
Speaker 2: I'll try the current president. I met Bob Hawk.
Speaker 1: We need to take a break, because it gets really
Speaker 1: interesting after that. Blanch dal Pouget is my guest, folks.
Speaker 1: Her new book is called The Bunny Club. It's fiction.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the biographies that she has
Speaker 1: subsequently written or written previously. Back after the break, folks,
Speaker 1: welcome back to conversations, everybody, if you'd just tuned in,
Speaker 1: and it's a great chat. That's even greater when the
Speaker 1: microphone's turned off. I guess it is Blanche del Puge.
Speaker 1: She's an eminent author, there's no doubt about that. Some
Speaker 1: of the great books that she's written. Most significant, I
Speaker 1: think is Robert J. Hawk, a biography that's probably famous.
Speaker 1: And we're talking Blanche about meeting Bob in Jakarta, in Indonesia,
Speaker 1: and again a year later you meet him again in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. Now can I quote? I'm quoting your words?
Speaker 1: So the business just not a prurient interest. I'm quoting
Speaker 1: your words.
Speaker 2: Okay, it could still be a prurian interest.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I confess it is. With mutual wordless consent.
Speaker 1: It was agreed we would become lovers as soon as possible,
Speaker 1: which happened to be in a different city. The following night. Now,
Speaker 1: why are you so brazen about that?
Speaker 2: That's not brazen, that's honesty.
Speaker 1: Well, it's brazen honesty.
Speaker 2: I was just telling the truth.
Speaker 1: But you knew the man was a womanizer.
Speaker 2: What's that got to do with it? You're very twey
Speaker 2: and squeamish.
Speaker 1: I like, well, maybe I am, Because then I go
Speaker 1: on it don't go slowly dreadfully. I came to realize
Speaker 1: he was having affairs with women all over the country,
Speaker 1: that his love life was kind of free willing, decentralized harem,
Speaker 1: with four or five favorites and a shoe saile queue
Speaker 1: of one night stands. Now, surely you would have tried
Speaker 1: to pull him into line.
Speaker 2: I wasn't so foolish. I mean, he was a larger
Speaker 2: than life guy, as you would know. He wasn't somebody
Speaker 2: that could be pulled into line by a woman who
Speaker 2: was fourteen years younger than he and had was just
Speaker 2: one of the cure of women. He had taken a
Speaker 2: fancy too. Of course, later when we were married, that
Speaker 2: was quite different. But by then he was madly in
Speaker 2: love and he was truly truly committed to me.
Speaker 1: But going back to those days, you were a strong beautiful,
Speaker 1: attractive woman. Would you know you're not going to tolerate
Speaker 1: your lover having multiple affairs?
Speaker 2: Why did you what's to say he was my own lover?
Speaker 1: Well, here we go, Come on, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to answer that.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm glad to see you blushing.
Speaker 1: Were you still married at the time, yes, Well, what
Speaker 1: was your relationship with Anthony? Your husband?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Well, that was praying badly? It was a marriage that Look,
Speaker 2: we met when I was seventeen and he was twenty
Speaker 2: and fall in love and by that stage I was
Speaker 2: I don't know, thirty something, and the marriage was really
Speaker 2: very badly fraid And is it achieved what I think
Speaker 2: it was destined to achieve? And that was we had
Speaker 2: a son and whom I absolutely adored.
Speaker 1: And still do you have these discussions with your son
Speaker 1: when he would read things and hear those things about
Speaker 1: his mother? Would you have to explain yourself to your son.
Speaker 2: No, he's not a judgmental person. If anything, he was
Speaker 2: a very wild boy.
Speaker 1: I suppose it was in the jeans.
Speaker 2: Perhaps I think it was because dad was too, and
Speaker 2: so was my grandmother, and he was wild as hell
Speaker 2: and before he got married. Now he's got married, he's
Speaker 2: got a little he's got a daughter, I'm a grandmother,
Speaker 2: and he's settled down too, But he didn't become a
Speaker 2: father until he is fifty or forty nine.
Speaker 1: Probably not the right expression, but I'll say you found
Speaker 1: fame with your biography of Bob Hawk. Robert J. Hawk
Speaker 1: a biography, and there was difficulty getting that published. And
Speaker 1: I'm trying to work out why that would have.
Speaker 2: Been prejudice conservatism and so don't forget how much Bob
Speaker 2: was a bogey man for a lot of conservatives. He
Speaker 2: was also a drunk, a seriously bad drunk, and people
Speaker 2: just thought he was going to implode and being nothing.
Speaker 2: Very good journalist Matt Such, who was famous in his day,
Speaker 2: said to me, well, you'd better be quick there, because
Speaker 2: he's going to be Bob Hawk, very Bob who very soon.
Speaker 2: It was just thought he was a rocket who was
Speaker 2: going to burn out. There's a lot of money that
Speaker 2: has to go into publishing a book, and they just
Speaker 2: didn't want to risk their money.
Speaker 1: And the fact he's still alive that I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the comments was biographies when someone's alive probably don't
Speaker 1: read as well. It was that true.
Speaker 2: It's not that they don't read as well, but they're
Speaker 2: more difficult. And indeed the distance of history gives you
Speaker 2: a better look at the importance of the life. And
Speaker 2: in fact, if you looked at Bob now, you'd say
Speaker 2: it was even more important.
Speaker 1: So when you're researching the book and you're writing it,
Speaker 1: are you having an affair with him at the same time.
Speaker 2: No, because we'd had one of our many rows. We're
Speaker 2: both follow tile. So it was in and interregnum at
Speaker 2: that stage, and I didn't think it would ever resume.
Speaker 2: And when I finished the biography, I couldn't wait to
Speaker 2: get out of Australia and get away from him and
Speaker 2: went to live in Israel. I was living in Israel
Speaker 2: when he was elected Prime minister.
Speaker 1: It is said that your book helped you to become elected.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: Well, yes, and I actually know it's true because two
Speaker 2: men who were on the National Executive, John Button and
Speaker 2: Nigel Bowen, who loath Bob all the polys, loathed him
Speaker 2: well because he was a show pony coming in from
Speaker 2: the outside, you know, and he hadn't done them hard
Speaker 2: yards that they had they were on the National Executive
Speaker 2: and thought he was just a show pony and a
Speaker 2: immediate tart and they read the book and realized that
Speaker 2: he was actually a very serious person and very very
Speaker 2: serious about the well being of working people, and it
Speaker 2: changed their view of him dramatically. So at that famous
Speaker 2: meeting and breakfast Creek in Queensland when it had to
Speaker 2: be decided, would the party stand behind Bill, who may
Speaker 2: or may not have won against Fraser.
Speaker 6: Bill Hayden, or would they switch to Bob, who certainly
Speaker 6: would wipe the floor with and would get Labor into
Speaker 6: government after many years out of government and would beat Fraser.
Speaker 2: They decided to switch to Bob. It was a hell
Speaker 2: of a wrench for them because loyalty is very important
Speaker 2: within politics.
Speaker 1: Bluche del Puget is my guest. Folks. Look, we're on
Speaker 1: the premise to talk about her new book, The Bunny Club.
Speaker 1: We've organized interview, but it's lots more interesting stuff as well.
Speaker 1: So back after the break, my guest today on conversations
Speaker 1: is Blunt Delpugee. In the break, she said she's sick
Speaker 1: of being defined by Bob. So does that mean we
Speaker 1: can don't talk about Bob work anymore?
Speaker 2: Just about yes, Well.
Speaker 1: You've got to got to get him married. You've got
Speaker 1: to get married to him, and you got.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got married to him in nineteen ninety five
Speaker 2: and get and we lived happily ever after. It was
Speaker 2: terrific marriage. He was a wonderful husband second time round.
Speaker 2: His pretty terrible husband first time round. Hazel had to
Speaker 2: put up with a pretty terrible Bob, except he did
Speaker 2: do what he promised her, and that is he took
Speaker 2: her to the lodge, and so she that was good
Speaker 2: because he wasn't drinking, he wasn't womanizing much a.
Speaker 1: Much much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that made her She had a very delightful
Speaker 2: life during during that period, but she'd had a difficult
Speaker 2: time before then.
Speaker 1: Were you on good terms at the end?
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, we're quite good terms.
Speaker 1: Yes, And of course Bob has now gone. How has
Speaker 1: your life been since?
Speaker 2: It was very very difficult initially because I loved him
Speaker 2: so much and I was in very poor health for
Speaker 2: about Look, I'm still getting over it, still physically recovery.
Speaker 1: Bob's passing or your health, my health. You had COVID,
Speaker 1: you had breast cancer, you had Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Had COVID twice, had ammonia twice, had breast cancer. I
Speaker 2: had long COVID. What else do you want.
Speaker 1: Written your book yet?
Speaker 2: Well, actually somebody is, but it's not published yet.
Speaker 1: And are you as frank in that as you have
Speaker 1: been with us?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm too frank. I'm going to see the look
Speaker 2: at the paid for it and cut down a few things.
Speaker 1: I think, what are you what are you going to
Speaker 1: cut out?
Speaker 2: Well, that would be a very foolish question to answer.
Speaker 1: We've come to this current book. Yes, you want to
Speaker 1: talk about the book. You know you've indulged this with
Speaker 1: our you know, salacious questions. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: more about the book, the research that went into it.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, there was a lot of research. I had
Speaker 2: to spend a lot of time. The male escorts were
Speaker 2: very useful, but that a particular former detective was super
Speaker 2: wonderful for me. I also had to talk to IT experts.
Speaker 2: I had to talk to a woman who was an
Speaker 2: advocate for people of short stature then would otherwise be
Speaker 2: known as dwarfs. As a dwarf in IT, I had
Speaker 2: to know a lot about I had to go down
Speaker 2: and stand barrel and investigate the Southern Highlands. I had
Speaker 2: to learn about the ins and outs of the suburb
Speaker 2: of balmains from friends, So lots and lots of research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you go to the Bradmann Museum in Bowl?
Speaker 2: Look? I didn't. I wasn't even aware it was there.
Speaker 2: One of my editor told me.
Speaker 1: What did the detective teach you?
Speaker 2: Well, how they look at things, It's absolutely extraordinary. I
Speaker 2: showed the manuscript to about ten people before I'd revealed
Speaker 2: at the end who done it and why done it?
Speaker 2: And from a very early point the detective picked it.
Speaker 2: Only the detective really, everybody else that very intelligent people
Speaker 2: read and still had no idea who it was. But
Speaker 2: there is something special in their their training and their
Speaker 2: way of looking at things.
Speaker 1: So is the is the culprit mystery to the end?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you can't. You're not going to give that away,
Speaker 1: aren't we?
Speaker 2: Well, certainly I'm not, So.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. That's half the fun
Speaker 1: that is going through the book and try to absorb
Speaker 1: all the clues you and come to quick clue. Is
Speaker 1: that half the fun of the book.
Speaker 2: That's why people read murder mysteries because there's an unwritten
Speaker 2: contract between the writer and the reader that at the
Speaker 2: end all will be revealed. So the reader spends the
Speaker 2: entire book guessing is it him? Is it her? Is
Speaker 2: it them? And they're following what they hope as a
Speaker 2: little thing of bread crubbers, but actually is often read herrings,
Speaker 2: and it's hard for them to tell the red herring
Speaker 2: from the bread grumb the little trail of bread grumbs.
Speaker 2: But this book is about has got another level of meaning,
Speaker 2: which I really would like to say, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of hiding in plain sight. But people just read are
Speaker 2: taken up with the superficial, with the fun of it,
Speaker 2: the color and movement. But the other level of meaning
Speaker 2: is much more serious, and it's about our founday, the
Speaker 2: foundational myth about culture, which is original sin, expulsion from paradise, suffering, repentance,
Speaker 2: and then redemption. And that's all there underneath.
Speaker 1: And can I identify that if I go a bit
Speaker 1: more deeply into the book, If.
Speaker 2: You've had some if you have some knowledge of the Bible,
Speaker 2: you'll see it.
Speaker 1: Well, not a biblical student, but most of us have
Speaker 1: a good idea of what the Bible's about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if they've read some of it, they should
Speaker 2: pick it up.
Speaker 1: Your previous works of fiction have had an historical base,
Speaker 1: like a lot of interesting authors. You know, they could
Speaker 1: be true, they could be historically true. This is a
Speaker 1: bit of a departure from that, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's a complete departure, and it's very difficult for me.
Speaker 2: A murder mystery is totally different from a regular novel,
Speaker 2: historical or otherwise. And I had to learn by a
Speaker 2: series of mistakes and rewrites. I had to do seven
Speaker 2: drafts of this book before I got it right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what sort of patience does that require? How do
Speaker 1: you spend your day these I mean you have your
Speaker 1: been ill with COVID and the mainia twice, you've got
Speaker 1: long COVID? How do you spend your day these days?
Speaker 2: I'm very busy Somehow.
Speaker 1: Are you social?
Speaker 2: Not very social? Because I like to be asleep by
Speaker 2: ten o'clock and I've never been a lady who lunches.
Speaker 2: So but I got heaps of friends and I spent
Speaker 2: three days a week I go to the gym, terrific gym,
Speaker 2: which is full of gay guys or covered in tattoos
Speaker 2: and very loud and pumping music. There's great big guys
Speaker 2: with you. Two call each other, she oh, she's going away,
Speaker 2: And I think I'm the oldest person there. I'm kind
Speaker 2: of the local pet.
Speaker 1: It seems that that would be a safe environment for
Speaker 1: you though too.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a very safe environment. I've got a
Speaker 2: very good trainer.
Speaker 1: It's been so good speaking to you. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: been able to admire you from Afar and you know,
Speaker 1: observe your life up and down. You know, the controversies
Speaker 1: and the joys and the tragedies. So I hope the
Speaker 1: book goes well for you. I guess it's your for
Speaker 1: your own satisfaction that's been written. But you'd like some
Speaker 1: commercial success with it as well.
Speaker 2: I'd imagine, Oh absolutely, I want to see this movie
Speaker 2: really well, of course it would make a good movie.
Speaker 1: Blanch is thanks for time, good luck. Thank you, Blanche
Speaker 1: delpige with my guest, folks. The book is called The
Speaker 1: Bunny Club, but a popcorn press. I've never heard of that,
Speaker 1: Blanch popcorn press.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's a new small indie.
Speaker 1: Well, good luck with it The Bunny Clublands. Thanks for
Speaker 1: your time, Thank you, folks. Thank you for your time
Speaker 1: as well.