WEBVTT - Conversations with Cornesy - Grantlee Kieza

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<v Speaker 1>Get everyone welcome to conversations. My guest today is a

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<v Speaker 1>man who I recognize him and remember him as somebody

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<v Speaker 1>heavily involved in the boxing industry. But he is a

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<v Speaker 1>renowned journalist and a prolific author. Has written some amazing books,

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<v Speaker 1>mainly about Australian personalities, heroes and the like. He's in

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<v Speaker 1>town and Adelaide and has wandered into the studio to

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<v Speaker 1>promote his new book at Kellerman, The Australian Mermaid. And

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<v Speaker 1>my guest is Grantly Keyser. Grantly, how are you very well?

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<v Speaker 2>Thank you very much for having me Cornsey. It's a

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<v Speaker 2>real pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.

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<v Speaker 1>You've just wandered down to Adelaide. You're a Sydney sided

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<v Speaker 1>by birth. We don't know if I get them down here.

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<v Speaker 1>Truly appreciative of our city.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh good on you. I was actually born in Ballarate.

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<v Speaker 2>I worked for twenty five nearly thirty years in Sydney

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<v Speaker 2>and now I live in Queensland. Yes, I've been a

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<v Speaker 2>bit all over the place. Why, Oh well, Queensland is

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<v Speaker 2>where I grew up. I was born in ballaratte but

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<v Speaker 2>I grew up in Queensland and I left there I

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<v Speaker 2>left Sidney in about twenty years ago because it was

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<v Speaker 2>getting too busy for me. But now every time I

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<v Speaker 2>go back to promote books or do interviews or whatever,

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<v Speaker 2>I find it's even ten times busy than it used

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<v Speaker 2>to be. There's just so many people these days.

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<v Speaker 1>Are you a full time author?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, very much. I write two books a year.

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<v Speaker 2>We produce a big hardback book every Christmas, and in

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<v Speaker 2>the middle of the year we do a paperback and

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<v Speaker 2>the last few have been about amazing women. I wrote

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<v Speaker 2>about the incredible Vivian Bullwinkle last year, a great nurse

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<v Speaker 2>and a great Australian hero who went to school in Adelaide.

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<v Speaker 2>But she's of course most famous for surviving a massacre

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<v Speaker 2>of nurses in World War Two and coming back to

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<v Speaker 2>Australian and she devoted the rest of her life to

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<v Speaker 2>helping save other lives and honoring the nurses who didn't

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<v Speaker 2>come back. So that was a great book last year,

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<v Speaker 2>and this year I was just compelled to write about

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<v Speaker 2>Anette Kellman, who is just one of the most extraordinary

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<v Speaker 2>Australians of all time, and sadly, fifty years after she's

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<v Speaker 2>passed away. A lot of people don't remember her. She

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<v Speaker 2>was at one stage the greatest female athlete in the

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<v Speaker 2>world and the highest paid movie star in the world.

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<v Speaker 2>And she's Australian and she had a lot to do

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<v Speaker 2>with Adelaide. She performed diving and swimming shows at at

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<v Speaker 2>the Old City Bars in Adelaide. And when she took

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<v Speaker 2>off overseas to make her name in England and the

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<v Speaker 2>United States, she left from Adelaide. She came out to

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<v Speaker 2>Adelaide and left from Largs Bay.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I felt a bit guilty actually, because I remember

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<v Speaker 1>the name. And then the more I looked at your

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<v Speaker 1>book researched her, My goodness, why do we not know

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<v Speaker 1>a little bit more about this? Look, I guess the

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<v Speaker 1>thing that hit me straight away with the salacious aspect,

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<v Speaker 1>because she was a movie star as well, and she

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<v Speaker 1>appeared new She was the first nineteen sixteen Yeah, in

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<v Speaker 1>a movie that I could not comprehend.

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<v Speaker 2>That incredible, it was. It's controversial now, It was incredibly

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<v Speaker 2>controversial at the time, but the censors passed it because

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<v Speaker 2>they said that she was celebrating the human form, just

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<v Speaker 2>as the great masterpieces of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

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<v Speaker 2>those great painters painted new women she was doing the

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<v Speaker 2>same thing. So even though it was very salacious and titillating,

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<v Speaker 2>and she sold millions of tickets to young men and

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<v Speaker 2>teenage boys who flocked to the front row of the

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<v Speaker 2>cinema to look at her form, she passed all the

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<v Speaker 2>senses and when you look back at it, that's pretty

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<v Speaker 2>much what she was doing. She was saying that women

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<v Speaker 2>around the world, you're beautiful, be proud of your bodies,

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<v Speaker 2>and you know, look after your health and fitness, and

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<v Speaker 2>you can be a goddess like me.

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<v Speaker 1>I saw a photo and I don't know whether it's

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<v Speaker 1>in your book still from the movie. Yeah, her private

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<v Speaker 1>part seem to be covered by her long hair. But

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<v Speaker 1>how expressive revealing was it?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh? Well, very much. She was totally newded Later in

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<v Speaker 2>the life in her adies, she got a little bit

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<v Speaker 2>touch the modesty as a very elderly woman. I heard

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<v Speaker 2>several interviews where she said, I was actually wearing a

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<v Speaker 2>body stocking. But there was millions of people that gave

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<v Speaker 2>that movie very close inspection. It was one of the

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<v Speaker 2>huge hit movies of around World War One, and no

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<v Speaker 2>one ever saw any hint of fabric.

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<v Speaker 1>So how did you wonder upon and ed Killerman.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, well I knew a little bit about Annette.

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<v Speaker 2>I knew that she'd been a great swimmer, and coming

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<v Speaker 2>from Queensland, of course, swimmings are used sport up there,

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<v Speaker 2>and we had some great swimmers in the past, and

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<v Speaker 2>I knew and ned had been a great swimmer, and

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<v Speaker 2>I also knew that she'd appeared in movies. But a

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<v Speaker 2>few years ago SBS produced a program called Australian Color

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<v Speaker 2>I think it was, and they took all the old

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<v Speaker 2>news real footage from the early nineteen hundreds and colorized it,

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<v Speaker 2>so it really brought it to life, and some of

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<v Speaker 2>it was Annet Kellman doing diving and swimming routines. And

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<v Speaker 2>I knew that she was a controversial figure of those

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<v Speaker 2>days and it'd sort of broken taboos, and I just

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<v Speaker 2>wanted to explore more about her life, to get to

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<v Speaker 2>know what she'd done. And the more that I delved

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<v Speaker 2>into it, I just found her absolutely extraordinary. And I

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<v Speaker 2>say this, if she was an American or even an

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<v Speaker 2>english woman, we'd be all sitting down to watch streaming

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<v Speaker 2>programs about her incredible fame and her great successes in life.

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<v Speaker 2>And yet, sadly, fifty years after she passed away on

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<v Speaker 2>the Gold Coast in virtual anonymity. She's just an asterisk

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<v Speaker 2>in history, a name people might know a little bit about,

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<v Speaker 2>but they don't really understand.

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<v Speaker 1>She was sickly as a child though, Yeah, you're right,

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<v Speaker 1>yeah she was.

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<v Speaker 2>Her life stories it's so inspiring, you know. She had

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<v Speaker 2>ricketts as a child and she could barely walk and

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<v Speaker 2>she had to wear very painful steel and leather braces

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<v Speaker 2>on her legs. But her parents heard that maybe salt

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<v Speaker 2>water or swimming exercises might strengthen her legs a little bit,

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<v Speaker 2>though they were more or less told by doctors that

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<v Speaker 2>she'd never have really good mobility. But they took her

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<v Speaker 2>down to a place called Cavel's Baths, which is right

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<v Speaker 2>next to where the Sydney Opera House is now, and

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<v Speaker 2>they had in those days a fenced off area as

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<v Speaker 2>swimming bath Sea Baths, and the guy that ran it

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<v Speaker 2>was a guy called Fred Cavell, who was an Englishman

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<v Speaker 2>who attempted the English Channel a few times. And he

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<v Speaker 2>had a big family of sons who are all champion swimmers.

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<v Speaker 2>And they taught little Annette, who was terrified of the

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<v Speaker 2>water at that stage. They taught her to swim and

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<v Speaker 2>she became not only did it strength in her legs,

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<v Speaker 2>but being in the water, she sort of she wrote

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<v Speaker 2>later that she sort of had a spiritual connection with

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<v Speaker 2>the water. She really felt at home, like she was

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<v Speaker 2>a fish, like a mermaid in the water. And it

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<v Speaker 2>was only a few years later that she was setting

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<v Speaker 2>all sorts of world records in swimming at one stage,

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<v Speaker 2>and it's hard to believe now looking back. At one

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<v Speaker 2>stage she had held every female swimming world record from

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<v Speaker 2>one hundred yards to thirty six kilometers. She swam the

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<v Speaker 2>Danube against the world's women swimming champion of the time

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<v Speaker 2>and one into the Danube through Austria's.

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<v Speaker 1>Sure going down street.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but it was it was very dangerous that she related.

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<v Speaker 2>Often they would go over through eddies and all sorts

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<v Speaker 2>of things, over very shallow water, over very sharp rocks,

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<v Speaker 2>so you had to be very very careful doing the swimming.

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<v Speaker 2>And the times that she attempted the English Channel, she said,

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<v Speaker 2>if it was just a matter of swimming thirty eight

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<v Speaker 2>k's from Dover to Calais, it wouldn't have been a problem.

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<v Speaker 2>But she had to face all these changing tides and

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<v Speaker 2>and really rough conditions on their times that she attempted,

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<v Speaker 2>so she was also you know, sports science wasn't the

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<v Speaker 2>thing that it is these days. She was sponsored by

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<v Speaker 2>Cadbury's chocolate, which was really taking off in England at

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<v Speaker 2>the time, and her father would be feeding her through

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<v Speaker 2>a big funnel from a boat hot chocolate. She was

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<v Speaker 2>trying to swim the channel, or sometimes giving a half

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<v Speaker 2>a chicken teat she'd be eating half the chicken with

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<v Speaker 2>one hand and swimming with the other.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there's any vision of that her swimming style, there's.

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<v Speaker 2>Not so much vision. There's a vision of her swimming

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<v Speaker 2>later in life, but there's a lot of photographs from

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<v Speaker 2>her channel attempts. And her father had a very severe

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<v Speaker 2>heart condition at the time and she was always so

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<v Speaker 2>grateful to him. He didn't last all that long, but

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<v Speaker 2>he was always out on the channel with her as

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<v Speaker 2>her coach and I guess as her mentor and manager,

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<v Speaker 2>really trying to inspire to keep going.

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<v Speaker 1>Saying you said she left from Adelaide too, Yeah, well

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<v Speaker 1>what was she doing in Adelaide?

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<v Speaker 2>Well, what happened? She performed in Adelaide. She'd performed at

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<v Speaker 2>the City Bars, which are down in King William Street

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<v Speaker 2>down there, not there now, but she she she planned

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<v Speaker 2>to go from Melbourne, but she went. She had she

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<v Speaker 2>was getting offers to do all these sorts of shows

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<v Speaker 2>all around Australia at the time, and she had a

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<v Speaker 2>show in Bendigo, like diving shows, diving shows and swimming shows.

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<v Speaker 2>I guess aqua ballet synchronized swimming we call it now.

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<v Speaker 2>She was the she was really the originator of those

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<v Speaker 2>kind of shows. And she was doing a show in

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<v Speaker 2>Bendigo and it was quicker to get the train down

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<v Speaker 2>through Balleratte to Adelaide to catch the train to catch

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<v Speaker 2>the ship going to England from from Adelaide. So she

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<v Speaker 2>left from Adelaide.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, grantly. Keyser is my guest, folks. Renowned journalist and author.

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<v Speaker 1>Of course, his new book is called Annette Kellerman Australian

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<v Speaker 1>Mermaid Back shortly. If you just turned into conversations greatly Keyser,

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<v Speaker 1>renowned journalist and author. I remember greatly heavily involved in

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<v Speaker 1>the boxing world when he did you manage Jeff.

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<v Speaker 2>Jeff No, I was very, very lucky in my life.

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<v Speaker 2>I sounds ridiculous. I'm actually in the Australian Boxing Hall

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<v Speaker 2>of Fame and I wouldn't brew a great honors. Some

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<v Speaker 2>people say, oh, he's a good fight, but I wouldn't

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<v Speaker 2>brewis are great. But I used to help Johnny Lewis

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<v Speaker 2>in the gym. He's the great, great trainer of champions.

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<v Speaker 2>He trained six world champions. And I was training at

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<v Speaker 2>the gym with Johnny and he sort of got me

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<v Speaker 2>on as his right hand man. And we had a

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<v Speaker 2>really great team of young amateur fighters at a place

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<v Speaker 2>called the Newtown Police Youth Club in Sydney, which isn't

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<v Speaker 2>there anymore. It's now high rise apartments. But in those

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<v Speaker 2>days it was a police boys club that did a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of great things for the community.

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<v Speaker 1>I still have them police boys here, yeah, yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Here and there, yeah, but I don't think they're quite

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<v Speaker 2>as big as they used to be. But we had

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<v Speaker 2>Jeff Finnick, who went to the Olympics in nineteen eighty four,

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<v Speaker 2>should have won the gold medal, but then knocked out

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<v Speaker 2>the Olympic gold medalist when they had a fight in

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<v Speaker 2>a couple of years later when Jeff was world champ,

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<v Speaker 2>and along came a guy called Jeff Harding who was

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<v Speaker 2>as tough as nails. And I tell this story in

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<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty nine, Donnie La Londe, a great fight from Canada,

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<v Speaker 2>was due to fight a world champ, Dennis Andres. Instead

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<v Speaker 2>elected to fight Sugar Ray Leonard for a huge, multi

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<v Speaker 2>multimillion dollar payday, which was enormous money in nineteen eighty nine.

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<v Speaker 2>So Jeff Harding, our young professional fighter who had been

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<v Speaker 2>to the kom Off Games, we took him over to

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<v Speaker 2>Atlantic City to fight the world champ, Dennis Andres, and

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<v Speaker 2>the shift, the promoter of the fight was held in

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<v Speaker 2>a big casino. It was promoted by the casino owner,

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<v Speaker 2>and he was this fairly shifty, real estate shonkiest bloke

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<v Speaker 2>he'd ever meet, had a dreadful reputation, and his name

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<v Speaker 2>was Donald Trump, and his reputations even worse now. But

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<v Speaker 2>he wields a lot more power than he did, as.

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<v Speaker 1>When you say, shonky, what experience did you have with it?

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<v Speaker 2>Well, you know. He co promoted the fight with a

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<v Speaker 2>guy called Bob Aram who's still promoting fights these days.

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<v Speaker 2>And Bob Aaron promoted everyone from Muhammad al Li to

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<v Speaker 2>the current great fighters in the world today, like Terrence

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<v Speaker 2>Crawf for fifty sixty years. And he always maintains that

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<v Speaker 2>Donald Trump ripped him off for a couple of million

0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.880
<v Speaker 2>dollars over a sponsorship deal that he pocketed the money

0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.280
<v Speaker 2>and Aram never saw it. When we got there. I

0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.839
<v Speaker 2>flew down there with Jeff Phinnick from New York and

0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.439
<v Speaker 2>we flew through really bad weather in a very small

0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.920
<v Speaker 2>plane to this place called Atlantic City. It's a resort town,

0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.640
<v Speaker 2>gambling town or casinos, and the heavens sort of parted

0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.760
<v Speaker 2>through the clouds and we looked down and we saw

0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.320
<v Speaker 2>this big, huge ship with Trump written on the side

0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.120
<v Speaker 2>that was his private yacht. And then when we landed,

0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.000
<v Speaker 2>just about every building had Trump on the top. Trump Casino,

0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:29.200
<v Speaker 2>Trump boardwalk Hall, at the Trump taj Mahal. And believe

0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.719
<v Speaker 2>it or not, like he he built his reputation, I

0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.360
<v Speaker 2>guess on the show The Apprentices, this business genius, he

0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.040
<v Speaker 2>actually bankrupt. He went bankrupt with casinos in Atlantic City.

0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.920
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's like it's like going bankrupt selling ice

0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.640
<v Speaker 2>creams on the Gold Coast, you know, like it's just ridiculous.

0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.080
<v Speaker 2>But he had a terrible reputation as a guy that

0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:49.640
<v Speaker 2>just didn't pay debts and just dudded people. And you

0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.760
<v Speaker 2>couldn't believe anything he said. So was making the President

0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.679
<v Speaker 2>of the United States be too political.

0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:02.720
<v Speaker 1>Amazing haws. He has supporters. Yeah there, yeah, and it killum.

0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.240
<v Speaker 1>And let's get back to I mentioned the swimming style. Yeah,

0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.160
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I didn't think three style swimming sort of

0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.520
<v Speaker 1>became in vogue until Juke can't.

0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well it was Alec Wickman was. Wickham was a

0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.280
<v Speaker 2>pioneer of the free style in Australia, and so were

0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.600
<v Speaker 2>some of the cowle boys who helped coach a Net,

0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.479
<v Speaker 2>so freestyle was sort of taking off there. Alec Wickham's

0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.160
<v Speaker 2>relative as Tracy Wickham, who was a great swimmer many

0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.160
<v Speaker 2>many years later, of course, but Alec Wickham was a

0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.880
<v Speaker 2>great swimmer at the turn of the nineteen hundreds. But

0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.200
<v Speaker 2>a Net favored a lot of swimmers at the time

0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.480
<v Speaker 2>favored a thing called the trudgeon, which you don't see

0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.439
<v Speaker 2>much anymore. Was a little bit like a side stroke.

0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.400
<v Speaker 2>Someone likened it to a cat curled up on a

0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.440
<v Speaker 2>couch and then stretching out with one arm going over

0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.520
<v Speaker 2>and pulling back. It was a very yeah, kind of

0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.240
<v Speaker 2>like a side stroke where the arm comes over the

0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.559
<v Speaker 2>head and then pushes pulls back. Yeah, very unusual stroke,

0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.800
<v Speaker 2>and it's probably no wonder. You don't see it much anymore,

0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.200
<v Speaker 2>but it was very popular at the time.

0:12:57.400 --> 0:12:58.679
<v Speaker 1>How efficient would it have been?

0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.040
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know people wham the English Channel using it,

0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:06.080
<v Speaker 2>so it was really yeah, yeah, it's of course freestyle

0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.800
<v Speaker 2>seems a much much better way of swimming than that,

0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.520
<v Speaker 2>but it was very popular for a long long time.

0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.920
<v Speaker 1>How did your research, Annett Killerman, Well, I was given

0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.400
<v Speaker 1>the fact that you know, it's fifty years since.

0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.360
<v Speaker 2>I was very fortunate and I can't understate how famous

0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.360
<v Speaker 2>she was in her day. I mean, newspapers covered around

0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.600
<v Speaker 2>the world, New York and Britain and Australia covered just

0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.720
<v Speaker 2>about everything she ever did, and it also wrote some memoirs,

0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.880
<v Speaker 2>and she exaggerated a little bit some of the tales.

0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.240
<v Speaker 2>She was telling her story to Hollywood in the nineteen

0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:39.640
<v Speaker 2>fifties and so some of the stories she told were

0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.760
<v Speaker 2>a little bit exaggerated, but I could cross reference them

0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.679
<v Speaker 2>with different newspaper reports. And I was also very fortunate

0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.320
<v Speaker 2>that the State Library in New South Wales has a

0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:52.439
<v Speaker 2>lot of her collection. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney also

0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.439
<v Speaker 2>had a display some years ago of more than two

0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.600
<v Speaker 2>hundred of her show costumes. Costumes that she would wear

0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.680
<v Speaker 2>in movie and the great stage shows that she did.

0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.600
<v Speaker 2>But going through her own personal collections. And I've been

0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.400
<v Speaker 2>so lucky with so many of the books I've written,

0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, like with people like John Monash, or the

0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.720
<v Speaker 2>Great Governor of New South Wales, Lockwom Macquirite, actually have

0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.480
<v Speaker 2>their personal effects that I can go through and it's

0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:17.920
<v Speaker 2>almost like a spiritual connection.

0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.040
<v Speaker 1>They're in archives, different archives.

0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. When I wrote the book, a very large book

0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.400
<v Speaker 2>on John Monash about twenty fifteen.

0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.080
<v Speaker 1>That's the Great Australian in general, the great General.

0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there was one hundred and eighty five boxes of

0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.080
<v Speaker 2>his memorabilia at the National Library in camera and I

0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.400
<v Speaker 2>was able to go through and hold in my hand,

0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, the little pocket diary that he had on Gallipoli,

0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.040
<v Speaker 2>you know, twenty five April, twenty six April, marking off

0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.360
<v Speaker 2>the days, you know, bombs overhead. I hope I get

0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.360
<v Speaker 2>out of it, you know, like quite extraordinary and even

0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.920
<v Speaker 2>the most intimate things letters he wrote to girlfriends, And

0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.680
<v Speaker 2>you know it's just I really love what I'm doing

0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.040
<v Speaker 2>because I have that connection with people of the past

0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.560
<v Speaker 2>and with a net. I went through so much of her,

0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.840
<v Speaker 2>so much of her personal collection of letters and memorabilia,

0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.000
<v Speaker 2>you know, even down to the very last bank book

0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.640
<v Speaker 2>she had. Not long before she passed away. She had

0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.480
<v Speaker 2>fifteen dollars and forty two cents left in the CBA

0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.840
<v Speaker 2>account at Southport. She went down and took fifteen bucks out. Yeah,

0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:19.560
<v Speaker 2>that's all she had. She was an age pensioner at

0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.960
<v Speaker 2>the end of her life, living on the Gold Coast

0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.640
<v Speaker 2>in a flat or are. It's quite amazing. She in

0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.000
<v Speaker 2>her heyday in the nineteen twenties, and even before that

0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.960
<v Speaker 2>she had a big mansion just outside New York where

0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.320
<v Speaker 2>the movie business was centered in those days before World

0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.520
<v Speaker 2>War One, and then later on she had a big,

0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.960
<v Speaker 2>very big sort of glass and steelhouse outside Hollywood at

0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.280
<v Speaker 2>Santa Monica in California. But she gave most of her

0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.160
<v Speaker 2>money away during World War Two, helping raise money for

0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.000
<v Speaker 2>the Red Cross. She put on all these huge stage

0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.880
<v Speaker 2>shows in Sydney and other parts of Australia to raise

0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:56.640
<v Speaker 2>money for the Red Cross and the war effort, and

0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.560
<v Speaker 2>she funded those shows herself. So much of her fortune

0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:01.640
<v Speaker 2>was dissipated and the end of her life, as I

0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.000
<v Speaker 2>was able to go through all her things, even receipts

0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.800
<v Speaker 2>for things like when she was eighty eight she got

0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.360
<v Speaker 2>a hearing aid from OPSM and she had to pay

0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.240
<v Speaker 2>it off in installments of a couple of dollars a week.

0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.280
<v Speaker 2>You know, quite amazing, and you know, I just had

0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.640
<v Speaker 2>that feeling of empathy for her. Here was a woman

0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.000
<v Speaker 2>who was and I can't state that she was one

0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.960
<v Speaker 2>of the most famous women in the world the turn

0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.080
<v Speaker 2>of the nineteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds, and

0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:28.600
<v Speaker 2>yet she was quite happy.

0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.760
<v Speaker 1>Watch how could she achieve that worldwide fame? Was it

0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:33.480
<v Speaker 1>through silent movies or of something else.

0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:35.680
<v Speaker 2>Even before that, she was a great well, she was

0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.000
<v Speaker 2>a great female athlete. So she was the first really

0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.080
<v Speaker 2>well known female athlete in the world. And the things

0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.680
<v Speaker 2>that she did was were quite extraordinary. But then she

0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.040
<v Speaker 2>had huge stage shows in both London and in the

0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.200
<v Speaker 2>United States, different parts of the United States, and she

0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.600
<v Speaker 2>would perform at places like the Big Theaters in New

0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.720
<v Speaker 2>York for six month runs, doing massive shows on stage

0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.320
<v Speaker 2>with lots of glass tanks and diving into tanks, and

0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.920
<v Speaker 2>she'd have backup swimmers by her and they'd be like

0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.600
<v Speaker 2>mermaid aquatic shows on stage. And so her fame was

0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:06.919
<v Speaker 2>extraordinary and that's what led to the movies.

0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:09.560
<v Speaker 1>But one of them did she really worked with Charlie Chaplin,

0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:10.399
<v Speaker 1>oh very much.

0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.119
<v Speaker 2>And Charlie Chaplin Buster Keaton used to be on her

0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:14.040
<v Speaker 2>undercard shows.

0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:14.240
<v Speaker 1>You know.

0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:16.720
<v Speaker 2>She would be performing these big she would be the

0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.560
<v Speaker 2>headline act and underneath would be young Buster Keaton, you know.

0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.600
<v Speaker 2>Or she would be doing a show in New York

0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.159
<v Speaker 2>and Charlie Chaplin would be on the preliminary show, the

0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:25.280
<v Speaker 2>sort of the entree show.

0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:30.160
<v Speaker 1>Charlie Chaplin would have hit on her, tried to work

0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:30.440
<v Speaker 1>I think.

0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.480
<v Speaker 2>I think lots of people tried to work her. Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.920
<v Speaker 2>She was married for nearly sixty years and the man

0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.160
<v Speaker 2>that she was, they were together for nearly seventy years,

0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.520
<v Speaker 2>quite amazing, which is very unusual in Hollywood days. And

0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.960
<v Speaker 2>it's remarkable that later in life you were just saying,

0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:46.960
<v Speaker 2>weird did she live? She turned her back on all

0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.199
<v Speaker 2>that great fame and fortune for quite some time. She

0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.600
<v Speaker 2>actually lived on a little fishing shack and a place

0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:53.960
<v Speaker 2>called Newry Island in the wit Sundays on the Great

0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.399
<v Speaker 2>Barrier reef. And I met some of her relatives in

0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.479
<v Speaker 2>the course of writing the book. Who whose parents knew her?

0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.000
<v Speaker 2>In those days. This is in the nineteen thirties and forties,

0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.760
<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirties, and they said that, you know, Nette had

0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:06.920
<v Speaker 2>have friends on all the other islands in the Sundays

0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.040
<v Speaker 2>as well, that she'd know. But she'd never take a boat.

0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.440
<v Speaker 2>She'd always swim to the other islands to see it.

0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.080
<v Speaker 2>Often several miles of swimming through the ocean. White, quite amazing.

0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.000
<v Speaker 2>The sharks up there, the sharks, and there's stingers and

0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.199
<v Speaker 2>all sorts of things. But yeah, she would often swim, swim,

0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.159
<v Speaker 2>She would swim. She was an extraordinary person. And if

0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:28.120
<v Speaker 2>you see her later in life, she remained super fit

0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.399
<v Speaker 2>well into her eighties. There's photograph in the book of

0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.760
<v Speaker 2>her doing ballet exercises, and she's well into her eighties

0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:35.639
<v Speaker 2>and she's as limber as she was when she was

0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:36.360
<v Speaker 2>in her twenties.

0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.000
<v Speaker 1>You opened the book by describing a movie scene with

0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.359
<v Speaker 1>Esther Williams. Yeah, and she wasn't all that happy that

0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.040
<v Speaker 1>Esther Williams was having an affair with the lead male

0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.119
<v Speaker 1>act of Victim Mature. How on earth would you have

0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:51.000
<v Speaker 1>research that?

0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:57.280
<v Speaker 2>Well? Esther Williams told all Esther, Esther was very much

0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.239
<v Speaker 2>on kiss and tell. Yeah, even at the time things

0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.280
<v Speaker 2>were happening. She was very very forward with her lovely

0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.760
<v Speaker 2>talk with her talk about a love life air and

0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.639
<v Speaker 2>it was no prude, but she was very happy that

0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:12.040
<v Speaker 2>Hollywood was making the movie about her. But if you

0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.280
<v Speaker 2>know the move, if anyone seen the movie, it's not

0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.719
<v Speaker 2>really the story of Antt Kelleman's life. It's a vehicle

0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.119
<v Speaker 2>to show these hundreds of swimming girls in bathing costumes,

0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.840
<v Speaker 2>diving and cavorting in the water like fish and seals

0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.080
<v Speaker 2>and looking really glamorous and beautiful. And it's a real

0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.320
<v Speaker 2>cavalcade of color. It was made by the same man

0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.399
<v Speaker 2>who made The Wizard of Oz and the choreographer was

0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.840
<v Speaker 2>Buzzby Berkeley, like a legend on Broadway. But didn't really

0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:36.840
<v Speaker 2>tell the true story of Anette's life. And that's why

0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.600
<v Speaker 2>I felt, you know, she was really deserving of her

0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.200
<v Speaker 2>book that stated everything that she did in her life.

0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.520
<v Speaker 2>And I really think that the fame and the great

0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.879
<v Speaker 2>deeds that she did really deserve to be recognized in

0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:49.840
<v Speaker 2>this day and age.

0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.639
<v Speaker 1>Grantly Keyser as my guest, folks. His new book is

0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.960
<v Speaker 1>called Annett Kellerman Australian Mermaid. I'd heard the name of it,

0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.400
<v Speaker 1>had no idea of the fame backshort, welcome back to conversations.

0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.520
<v Speaker 1>Everybody who had just tuned in. My guest in the

0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.639
<v Speaker 1>studio happens to be in the studio often we're on zoom.

0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.800
<v Speaker 1>But Grantly Keysa is in town to promote his new

0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:14.280
<v Speaker 1>book called Annette Kellerman Australian Mermaid, and have you been listening,

0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.080
<v Speaker 1>you would learn a lot about Annett We probably didn't realize.

0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.520
<v Speaker 1>And I'm fascinated that a bit disappointed in myself, but

0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.920
<v Speaker 1>I didn't know more about her. She was disappointed that

0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.800
<v Speaker 1>the movie of her life starring Esther Williams and Victim

0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.200
<v Speaker 1>Mature didn't really that portrayer as she wanted to be portrayed.

0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.280
<v Speaker 2>That's right. She was very disappointed in the casting of

0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.119
<v Speaker 2>Victim Mature as her husband because her husband, Jimmy Sullivan,

0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.879
<v Speaker 2>who she was with for just about seventy years and

0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.040
<v Speaker 2>they were married for nearly sixty years. Victim Mature, if

0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.080
<v Speaker 2>anyone remembers him, was a great star of sword and

0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.400
<v Speaker 2>Sandal epics. He's a big south By fighting the gladiators

0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.240
<v Speaker 2>and whatever, very very serious soul kind of guy, whereas

0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.159
<v Speaker 2>and It's husband, Jimmy Sullivan was a very genial, happy,

0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.280
<v Speaker 2>sort of lovely guy, and the movie portrayed her husband

0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.560
<v Speaker 2>as a slick, carnival hustler hustling people, and he was

0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.480
<v Speaker 2>the absolute opposite of that, and they had a remarkable

0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.359
<v Speaker 2>marriage and a remarkable life together. Jimmy Sullivan just started

0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.640
<v Speaker 2>out as a gopher more or less for Anette's father

0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:13.800
<v Speaker 2>who was acting, who's a manager at the time, and

0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:17.119
<v Speaker 2>it took some years. He had an enormous crush on

0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.600
<v Speaker 2>her net from the moment that they met, because Annette

0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:21.159
<v Speaker 2>at the time was like.

0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.080
<v Speaker 1>The whole world had an enormous crush on.

0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.280
<v Speaker 2>It, and its reputation was as the perfect woman, and

0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.240
<v Speaker 2>that was her billing that Harvard University gave her that time,

0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:32.160
<v Speaker 2>because she was such a glamorous and such a super

0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.520
<v Speaker 2>fit athlete. She was like wonder woman fifty years or

0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.800
<v Speaker 2>sixty years before the movies, and he had an enormous

0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.840
<v Speaker 2>crush on her. It took her some years to realize

0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.239
<v Speaker 2>that the love of her life was right before and

0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.600
<v Speaker 2>they eventually got married and were together through highs and

0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.800
<v Speaker 2>lows and enormous fame, and then at the end, Jimmy

0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:51.520
<v Speaker 2>Sullivan was just as happy to live in a little

0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:53.800
<v Speaker 2>flat at the northern end of the Gold Coast. And

0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.440
<v Speaker 2>back in the nineteen sixties the Gold Coast wasn't the

0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:00.520
<v Speaker 2>high rise and luxury hotels. It was mostly caravan and

0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.200
<v Speaker 2>fishing shacks. But he was very, very happy with that life.

0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:07.440
<v Speaker 2>And they were together until he's passing in nineteen seventy one.

0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.639
<v Speaker 2>And then and Nett passed away four years later. And

0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:14.320
<v Speaker 2>after Annett's husband died, and Net's younger sister, called Marcel,

0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:16.959
<v Speaker 2>she lived just around the corner and a little firebro

0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.960
<v Speaker 2>house that's the suburbs now called Labrador or Ravy Bass,

0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:22.520
<v Speaker 2>sort of on the board of there, and she lived

0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:24.480
<v Speaker 2>just around the corner. And so when Nett moved in

0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:27.440
<v Speaker 2>with her and a little firerow house, this this famous

0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:32.280
<v Speaker 2>glamorous movie star of bygone times living with her widow's

0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.119
<v Speaker 2>sister in this little house. And they did a radio

0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:37.800
<v Speaker 2>interview or recorded an interview with a film story in

0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:39.639
<v Speaker 2>just not long before and it died and I were

0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.320
<v Speaker 2>talking about the great movie days and Charlie Chaplin and

0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.240
<v Speaker 2>Buster Keaton and May Wester and all those people. And

0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.520
<v Speaker 2>while the interview's on, you can hear and Net's sister

0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.080
<v Speaker 2>doing the dishes in the sink right behind her, and

0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:53.159
<v Speaker 2>she'd be calling out, hey, mips, that was Charlie Chaplin.

0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:53.960
<v Speaker 2>That did that, wasn't it.

0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:54.280
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?

0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:58.919
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that was him. You know. Did she have children, No,

0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:03.239
<v Speaker 2>both her and didn't. I think Annette was so in

0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:05.800
<v Speaker 2>love with the stage in the days when the child

0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.000
<v Speaker 2>bearing days that she didn't have children, but she was.

0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:13.399
<v Speaker 2>She was a wonderful mentor to many many young people,

0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.240
<v Speaker 2>young swimmers and young divers and young show people coming

0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:19.800
<v Speaker 2>along who sort of regarded her as a maternal kind

0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:20.480
<v Speaker 2>of figure.

0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.160
<v Speaker 1>Which you've known the Olympic champions of the Dawn Frasers.

0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:26.879
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, she met Dawn Fraser in the nineteen fifties.

0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:28.840
<v Speaker 2>She came out for the Melbourne Olympics as a special

0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.280
<v Speaker 2>guest of Robert Menzies, the Prime minister at the time.

0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:35.520
<v Speaker 2>So she also raced against as a youngster in Sydney,

0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:38.840
<v Speaker 2>she raced against some of the girls who went on

0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:41.639
<v Speaker 2>to the Olympic Games, Fanny Durak and Amena Wiley. She

0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:43.520
<v Speaker 2>beat them in races as well.

0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:45.919
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, she didn't.

0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's right. Well, when Annette was swimming, when the

0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.200
<v Speaker 2>net was at the peak of her swimming prowess, women

0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:53.800
<v Speaker 2>weren't swimmers at the Olympics. Wasn until sometime later.

0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:58.000
<v Speaker 1>You make the point about how she championed the cause

0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:00.440
<v Speaker 1>of the women who wanted to reveal a bit more

0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:01.680
<v Speaker 1>themselves on the beaches.

0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:04.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh, that's right. She was the first. I think

0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:07.520
<v Speaker 2>that she was the first great fitness influencer for women.

0:24:07.560 --> 0:24:09.840
<v Speaker 2>I mean, very common to day on Instagram and things

0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.399
<v Speaker 2>like that, but she was sending out fitness manuals for

0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:15.840
<v Speaker 2>women right from about nineteen ten, and she had thousands

0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:19.040
<v Speaker 2>and thousands of followers around the world. She was so

0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:21.560
<v Speaker 2>popular that the fitness manuals so popular she set up

0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:25.360
<v Speaker 2>an office on Broadway and she was sending out these

0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:27.960
<v Speaker 2>regular catalogs and books on fitness. She wrote books on

0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.200
<v Speaker 2>physical fitness and training and diet. And she also had

0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:35.440
<v Speaker 2>like she reached millions of people because she had newspaper

0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:37.679
<v Speaker 2>columns in the Australian press, in the British press, and

0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:42.120
<v Speaker 2>the American press, and they were all those newspaper publishers

0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:45.800
<v Speaker 2>were so keen to promote her as the one great

0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:49.200
<v Speaker 2>icon of female fitness, and it did so much, I think,

0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.520
<v Speaker 2>to empower women around the world to throw off the shackles.

0:24:52.600 --> 0:24:54.719
<v Speaker 2>She used to say that, you know things when she

0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:58.680
<v Speaker 2>was coming along, that most women walk corsets and cover

0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:00.480
<v Speaker 2>their bodies up. And she was very very much for

0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:03.320
<v Speaker 2>celebrating the human form, as we.

0:25:03.240 --> 0:25:06.600
<v Speaker 1>Saw in the nineteen sixteen movie where she took everything off.

0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:08.159
<v Speaker 2>Yeah it was. It wasn't just in that movie. She

0:25:09.680 --> 0:25:13.600
<v Speaker 2>revealed herself in all the films that she made, and

0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:17.359
<v Speaker 2>I think she just had an absolute great time celebrating

0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:20.040
<v Speaker 2>the human form and encouraging other women to you be

0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:21.760
<v Speaker 2>like this too, you can be like me.

0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:28.040
<v Speaker 1>And when she died, poor well she died. Yeah, famous names,

0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:29.640
<v Speaker 1>those famous places.

0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:32.320
<v Speaker 2>Certainly and reduced circumstances. But she was happy to be.

0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:34.560
<v Speaker 2>I think she was happy just to live a quiet

0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:36.840
<v Speaker 2>life after all the fame. But you know, I was

0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:38.719
<v Speaker 2>talking about the possessions that I went through of and

0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:43.359
<v Speaker 2>it's in the archives. One of them was this really

0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:46.600
<v Speaker 2>beautiful letter from the head of the International Swimming Hall

0:25:46.640 --> 0:25:50.280
<v Speaker 2>of Fame and he writes to her, and it had

0:25:50.320 --> 0:25:53.840
<v Speaker 2>become so anonymous or forgotten, I guess in the late

0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:56.520
<v Speaker 2>in the nineteen seventies he had to put out he

0:25:56.640 --> 0:25:59.879
<v Speaker 2>was in Florida, but he put newspaper advertisements in the

0:26:00.000 --> 0:26:02.280
<v Speaker 2>Austra and Press, asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of

0:26:02.280 --> 0:26:05.480
<v Speaker 2>the famous swimmer and film star and Neett Kellman. As

0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:08.120
<v Speaker 2>someone did, they gave him her address on the Gold

0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:10.560
<v Speaker 2>Coast and the little firebrough house where she was living,

0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:12.960
<v Speaker 2>and he wrote the most beautiful letter to her. He'd

0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:16.560
<v Speaker 2>set up, he said, and we want to induct you

0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:19.840
<v Speaker 2>into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. We've got Johnny

0:26:19.840 --> 0:26:23.840
<v Speaker 2>wise Muller who played and was an Olympic gold medalist,

0:26:24.040 --> 0:26:26.200
<v Speaker 2>and Buster Crabb who was an Olympic gold medalist and

0:26:26.240 --> 0:26:29.240
<v Speaker 2>played Flash Gordon in the movies, those nineteen thirties movies.

0:26:29.480 --> 0:26:31.320
<v Speaker 2>We've got both of them lined up to induct you

0:26:31.359 --> 0:26:34.280
<v Speaker 2>at the ceremony. He'd lined up Esther Williams to meet

0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:39.280
<v Speaker 2>Annette in Los Angeles when the flight came over. He'd

0:26:39.280 --> 0:26:42.520
<v Speaker 2>also lined up a big interview with her on national

0:26:42.520 --> 0:26:46.040
<v Speaker 2>television there with Barbara Walters, the famous American journalist, to

0:26:46.080 --> 0:26:48.639
<v Speaker 2>talk about the great days of working with Chaplin and

0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:50.840
<v Speaker 2>Buster Keaton and those guys in the movies and what

0:26:50.960 --> 0:26:53.640
<v Speaker 2>she did to empower women's liberation. I guess you would

0:26:53.640 --> 0:26:56.200
<v Speaker 2>call it in those early days. And at the end

0:26:56.200 --> 0:26:59.240
<v Speaker 2>of the letter he says more or less, he writes,

0:26:59.440 --> 0:27:01.639
<v Speaker 2>I'm begging you, please come on it. I don't know

0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:06.040
<v Speaker 2>your circumstances, but you absolutely must come because nobody, he says,

0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:09.399
<v Speaker 2>nobody did more for the image of swimming in the

0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:12.000
<v Speaker 2>world than you did in the early days. And she

0:27:12.119 --> 0:27:15.840
<v Speaker 2>was so toughed did she go Sadly, her health was

0:27:16.160 --> 0:27:19.400
<v Speaker 2>in very rapid decline at that stage, but they did

0:27:19.440 --> 0:27:21.479
<v Speaker 2>induct her into the Hall of Fame, and she was very,

0:27:21.600 --> 0:27:24.320
<v Speaker 2>very very proud that they had done that. How well

0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:28.080
<v Speaker 2>was she when she passed she was nearly ninety. Yeah,

0:27:28.280 --> 0:27:31.560
<v Speaker 2>good life, a good life, and a life really well lived.

0:27:31.560 --> 0:27:35.760
<v Speaker 2>And she, as I say, until she got very ill

0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:38.359
<v Speaker 2>at the end, and her husband had passed, And of

0:27:38.359 --> 0:27:39.879
<v Speaker 2>course that's sort of knocked the wind out of her

0:27:39.920 --> 0:27:43.280
<v Speaker 2>sales quite a bit. He'd been like her best friend

0:27:43.359 --> 0:27:46.800
<v Speaker 2>for seventy years. Until then. She was swimming every day,

0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:49.840
<v Speaker 2>walking on the beach and doing her ballet exercises. There's

0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:51.439
<v Speaker 2>a photograph in the book. As I say, she's in

0:27:51.480 --> 0:27:53.800
<v Speaker 2>the late eighties, still as limber as she was in

0:27:53.800 --> 0:27:54.320
<v Speaker 2>the twenties.

0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:57.600
<v Speaker 1>So when we look at all those old MGM, the best,

0:27:57.600 --> 0:28:00.600
<v Speaker 1>the greatest of the years, and we see those Spectacarresta

0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:03.760
<v Speaker 1>Williams swimming shows and I don't know how they did

0:28:03.800 --> 0:28:06.199
<v Speaker 1>it or how they even filmed, and how the girls

0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:10.080
<v Speaker 1>can breathe and perform. It's all because of Annett Kellman,

0:28:10.200 --> 0:28:10.440
<v Speaker 1>is it?

0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:12.639
<v Speaker 2>Well? She was the one who instigated that, you know,

0:28:12.680 --> 0:28:14.760
<v Speaker 2>even the sport of synchronized swimming. She more or less

0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:18.840
<v Speaker 2>started that with her stage shows the Cavalcade celebrating the

0:28:18.920 --> 0:28:22.560
<v Speaker 2>human form and female athleticism, and it was the forerunner

0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:25.520
<v Speaker 2>of that, and she really lived up to the tag

0:28:25.560 --> 0:28:27.359
<v Speaker 2>at the human Mermaid, the Australian Mermaid.

0:28:27.840 --> 0:28:30.640
<v Speaker 1>Grantly Keiser is my guest, Folks, This book is called

0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:35.919
<v Speaker 1>Annette Kellerman Fascinating Australian Mermaid so much we didn't know

0:28:35.960 --> 0:28:38.800
<v Speaker 1>about it back shortly. My guest in the studio is

0:28:38.920 --> 0:28:44.280
<v Speaker 1>Grantly Keyser, renowned journalist. I remember him, a journalist heavily

0:28:44.280 --> 0:28:47.280
<v Speaker 1>involved in boxing and reporting on boxing and managing boxes,

0:28:47.520 --> 0:28:51.880
<v Speaker 1>a significant author. I counted sixteen books, Grantly, are you

0:28:51.920 --> 0:28:53.160
<v Speaker 1>saying there's more like five?

0:28:53.360 --> 0:28:55.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's well over twenty now because the last couple

0:28:55.920 --> 0:28:57.479
<v Speaker 2>of years I've been writing, the last few years I've

0:28:57.480 --> 0:29:00.760
<v Speaker 2>been running two a year, so the numbers stack up

0:29:00.760 --> 0:29:03.120
<v Speaker 2>pretty quickly. But I just love doing it. You know,

0:29:03.120 --> 0:29:05.800
<v Speaker 2>I love immersing myself in Australian history. And I always say,

0:29:06.360 --> 0:29:09.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, whenever I'm doing events or talking at libraries

0:29:09.560 --> 0:29:13.200
<v Speaker 2>and things, or you know, in this country, we have

0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:16.360
<v Speaker 2>so many phenomenal stories, even in my own family. So

0:29:16.400 --> 0:29:18.360
<v Speaker 2>many people sit down and watch it an American TV

0:29:18.400 --> 0:29:21.880
<v Speaker 2>show about American historical figures or British historical figures. I

0:29:21.960 --> 0:29:24.040
<v Speaker 2>watch it for hours. You know, we have so many

0:29:24.080 --> 0:29:26.440
<v Speaker 2>great stories about our own people in this country. We

0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:28.560
<v Speaker 2>should be celebrating them and the people we live in.

0:29:28.600 --> 0:29:30.800
<v Speaker 2>You know, like I wrote a book about Matthew Flinders.

0:29:31.280 --> 0:29:35.320
<v Speaker 2>You know, there's over a hundred major geographical landmarks around

0:29:35.320 --> 0:29:38.080
<v Speaker 2>Australia that bear his name, and just about every town

0:29:38.160 --> 0:29:41.520
<v Speaker 2>and a city we've got a couple in Australia has

0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:45.720
<v Speaker 2>a Flinders Street or Flinders Road or whatever. And yet

0:29:46.160 --> 0:29:48.720
<v Speaker 2>I guarantee most people in Australia wouldn't even know that

0:29:49.200 --> 0:29:52.360
<v Speaker 2>Australia got its name from Matthew Flinders. He drew up

0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:55.400
<v Speaker 2>a map. He was the first man to circumnavigate the

0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:58.200
<v Speaker 2>whole continent of Australia, and he drew a map that

0:29:58.240 --> 0:30:02.000
<v Speaker 2>said Australia or terrorists on it, and that's how we

0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:04.080
<v Speaker 2>got our name. But most people would know that. They

0:30:04.160 --> 0:30:06.720
<v Speaker 2>might drive down Flinders Street every day, or walk down

0:30:06.760 --> 0:30:10.480
<v Speaker 2>Flinda's Street, or see the Flinders University or the Flinders Range,

0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:13.320
<v Speaker 2>but they don't really know much about this incredible man,

0:30:13.600 --> 0:30:16.160
<v Speaker 2>you know, this man who was as a child his father.

0:30:16.480 --> 0:30:18.000
<v Speaker 2>And that's why I try and in all my books,

0:30:18.040 --> 0:30:21.360
<v Speaker 2>I try and humanize these subjects. You know, Matthew Flinders

0:30:21.400 --> 0:30:23.160
<v Speaker 2>isn't a statue out the front of a train at

0:30:23.160 --> 0:30:26.560
<v Speaker 2>the Flinder's train station. He was a living, breathing person

0:30:26.560 --> 0:30:29.680
<v Speaker 2>who's got relatives who are very live in England, are

0:30:29.800 --> 0:30:31.760
<v Speaker 2>very proud of their ancestor. One of them helped me

0:30:31.800 --> 0:30:35.000
<v Speaker 2>with the book, Rachel Flinders. She's a schoolteacher in England,

0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:38.080
<v Speaker 2>very very proud that her great great great grandfather actually

0:30:38.200 --> 0:30:40.760
<v Speaker 2>named a continent. It's not a bad feather in your

0:30:40.760 --> 0:30:44.080
<v Speaker 2>family cap. But you know, as a child, Matthew's dad

0:30:44.120 --> 0:30:46.719
<v Speaker 2>took him out and showed him the Aurora Borealis up

0:30:46.720 --> 0:30:50.120
<v Speaker 2>in the sky and Flinder's you know, like you could

0:30:50.200 --> 0:30:53.040
<v Speaker 2>just see, you could just imagine his mind exploding at

0:30:53.080 --> 0:30:55.280
<v Speaker 2>wanting to know more about the universe and the world

0:30:55.280 --> 0:30:58.720
<v Speaker 2>around him. And so that's the sort of ideas I try.

0:30:58.600 --> 0:31:02.880
<v Speaker 1>To bring all that's the tenth century. Yeah, you wonder

0:31:02.920 --> 0:31:07.520
<v Speaker 1>how on earth they could pursue those the danger of

0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:10.800
<v Speaker 1>actually getting on a ship and sailing with great bravery.

0:31:10.840 --> 0:31:12.920
<v Speaker 2>You know. You look at his map of Australia that

0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:16.240
<v Speaker 2>he drew in about eighteen oh four or eighteen o three,

0:31:16.280 --> 0:31:19.880
<v Speaker 2>eighteen oh four. He drew the map and he made

0:31:19.880 --> 0:31:22.880
<v Speaker 2>all those calculations of where every little inlet and bay

0:31:22.960 --> 0:31:26.640
<v Speaker 2>and range was while on a ship, rocking around, holding

0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:28.600
<v Speaker 2>on to a railing so he didn't fall over, and

0:31:28.720 --> 0:31:32.400
<v Speaker 2>holding a spyglass to his eye or some other sort

0:31:32.400 --> 0:31:35.440
<v Speaker 2>of navigational instrument as he's making calculations, you know, and

0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:37.360
<v Speaker 2>then going back and jotting them down on a map.

0:31:37.600 --> 0:31:41.200
<v Speaker 2>It's quite incredible of the bravery that was all.

0:31:41.000 --> 0:31:44.240
<v Speaker 1>These things, given the fact we've got the satellite satellite

0:31:44.280 --> 0:31:47.200
<v Speaker 1>imagery these days. Yeah, how accurate, very accurate.

0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:50.280
<v Speaker 2>There's not that much difference. I mean, obviously with depths

0:31:50.320 --> 0:31:54.280
<v Speaker 2>of water and things, there's been modern technology to help

0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:56.960
<v Speaker 2>with those kinds of things. But for a guy that

0:31:57.680 --> 0:31:59.760
<v Speaker 2>was on the move all the time on a moving ship,

0:32:00.040 --> 0:32:02.040
<v Speaker 2>they are very very accurate, the maps that he drew.

0:32:02.520 --> 0:32:05.280
<v Speaker 1>Why am I thinking of Peter fitz Simon when I'm

0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:09.040
<v Speaker 1>talking to you? He has a similar first flour Australia. Yeah,

0:32:09.080 --> 0:32:12.000
<v Speaker 1>heroes he does. Yeah, do you collaborate with him?

0:32:12.040 --> 0:32:15.440
<v Speaker 2>Not really? Are you a rival or not really? Rival?

0:32:15.760 --> 0:32:17.520
<v Speaker 2>He was planning, I know he was planning a book

0:32:17.520 --> 0:32:19.280
<v Speaker 2>on Matthew Flinders and I sort of gazumped him. And

0:32:19.280 --> 0:32:21.880
<v Speaker 2>he's a little bit and that he just about finished.

0:32:21.880 --> 0:32:23.360
<v Speaker 2>I think that he says it's coming out in a

0:32:23.400 --> 0:32:25.760
<v Speaker 2>couple of years, so we'll wait to see. But if

0:32:25.760 --> 0:32:28.000
<v Speaker 2>you no need to buy his, you just go out

0:32:28.000 --> 0:32:30.520
<v Speaker 2>and get mine. All the bookstorts.

0:32:31.440 --> 0:32:33.960
<v Speaker 1>Did you wrot write a book about the number? Not

0:32:34.040 --> 0:32:37.720
<v Speaker 1>so much Ned Kelly, but the policeman who share Ned.

0:32:37.600 --> 0:32:39.760
<v Speaker 2>Kelly actually did two books. I wrote one about the

0:32:39.800 --> 0:32:42.920
<v Speaker 2>Kelly family called Missus Kelly, which was centered around his mother.

0:32:42.960 --> 0:32:45.800
<v Speaker 2>Because you know, I think a lot of writers who

0:32:45.840 --> 0:32:48.400
<v Speaker 2>had come before hadn't really looked at the fact that

0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:51.680
<v Speaker 2>Ned Kelly was a character with a family, with people

0:32:51.680 --> 0:32:54.880
<v Speaker 2>who loved him despite all his sins and these crimes.

0:32:55.200 --> 0:32:57.400
<v Speaker 2>You know, the effect that his family had on him

0:32:57.400 --> 0:33:00.440
<v Speaker 2>and the effect he had on his family. I mean,

0:33:00.960 --> 0:33:03.560
<v Speaker 2>his criminality got his mother into all sorts of trouble.

0:33:03.640 --> 0:33:05.240
<v Speaker 2>She went to jail, and she was actually in jail,

0:33:05.320 --> 0:33:07.480
<v Speaker 2>the same jail where he was hanged. You know, imagine

0:33:07.480 --> 0:33:09.760
<v Speaker 2>that morning. You know, she was in the laundry where

0:33:09.760 --> 0:33:13.120
<v Speaker 2>the sons being hanged in the at the same time.

0:33:13.160 --> 0:33:15.640
<v Speaker 2>They were in the same jail together, and she was

0:33:15.680 --> 0:33:17.960
<v Speaker 2>only really in jail because she got caught up in

0:33:18.040 --> 0:33:21.400
<v Speaker 2>some of his plans. He brought police attention to them.

0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:25.440
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, so he had a very very disastrous effect

0:33:25.440 --> 0:33:27.920
<v Speaker 2>on all people around him. Was a hero villain, well,

0:33:27.920 --> 0:33:29.400
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of both. I mean, I think you

0:33:29.480 --> 0:33:31.560
<v Speaker 2>can be a bit of both. I always kind of

0:33:31.720 --> 0:33:34.360
<v Speaker 2>think that those kind of a quait ned Kelly in

0:33:34.400 --> 0:33:37.600
<v Speaker 2>my mind, to an outlaw motorcycle gang leader. Now, you know,

0:33:37.680 --> 0:33:40.680
<v Speaker 2>I think he was head of a criminal, small criminal empire,

0:33:42.080 --> 0:33:45.240
<v Speaker 2>a horse stealing empire and a cattle stealing empire. But

0:33:45.280 --> 0:33:48.600
<v Speaker 2>he had a lot of noble, gallant sort of qualities

0:33:48.640 --> 0:33:50.480
<v Speaker 2>about him as well. You know, he was never known

0:33:50.520 --> 0:33:55.400
<v Speaker 2>to have heard a woman. He was extremely brave or

0:33:55.400 --> 0:33:59.120
<v Speaker 2>perhaps even fool hardy, but there was certainly a great

0:33:59.200 --> 0:34:02.560
<v Speaker 2>disregard for other people's lives. When he was enraged, and

0:34:02.640 --> 0:34:05.080
<v Speaker 2>I think he had an extremely violent, dangerous temper.

0:34:05.600 --> 0:34:09.799
<v Speaker 1>When you compare him to a motor cycle gang leader.

0:34:10.920 --> 0:34:14.800
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, like a leader of a criminal enterprise. Yeah,

0:34:14.880 --> 0:34:17.879
<v Speaker 2>that's the way I see him. Maybe the old style, Yeah,

0:34:17.920 --> 0:34:19.200
<v Speaker 2>I mean.

0:34:20.400 --> 0:34:22.480
<v Speaker 1>It's a bit more sinister to these days with the

0:34:22.880 --> 0:34:24.320
<v Speaker 1>you know, the drug.

0:34:24.040 --> 0:34:26.200
<v Speaker 2>Being Oh yeah, yeah. But you know, at different times,

0:34:26.239 --> 0:34:29.480
<v Speaker 2>I mean, ned Kelly thought nothing of stealing people's horses,

0:34:29.800 --> 0:34:32.040
<v Speaker 2>even if there were farmers that needed the horses. He was,

0:34:32.640 --> 0:34:33.800
<v Speaker 2>he was involved in lots.

0:34:33.600 --> 0:34:36.000
<v Speaker 1>Of having said that there's a lot of bikeers you

0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:37.680
<v Speaker 1>go to war with, is that's right?

0:34:37.760 --> 0:34:39.600
<v Speaker 2>That's right? And I think I think you can be

0:34:39.680 --> 0:34:42.120
<v Speaker 2>both hero and villain. I don't think it's as I

0:34:42.120 --> 0:34:44.920
<v Speaker 2>don't think it's really black and white. He was a

0:34:45.000 --> 0:34:47.560
<v Speaker 2>dangerous person, but he had lots of good qualities as well,

0:34:47.680 --> 0:34:50.399
<v Speaker 2>as you know, there's probably lots of people in jail

0:34:50.440 --> 0:34:51.879
<v Speaker 2>with lots of good qualities as well.

0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:53.800
<v Speaker 1>How do you go about your research?

0:34:54.440 --> 0:34:56.960
<v Speaker 2>It was very very long process with with a net

0:34:57.040 --> 0:35:00.800
<v Speaker 2>and people like John Monash I mentioned earlier and others.

0:35:00.960 --> 0:35:03.799
<v Speaker 2>I've got so much archival material and that really does

0:35:03.840 --> 0:35:06.759
<v Speaker 2>help me with Vivian Bullwinkle. I wrote her story last

0:35:06.840 --> 0:35:09.320
<v Speaker 2>year and I was so proud to so proud and

0:35:09.360 --> 0:35:13.360
<v Speaker 2>happy to do that. Her closest relative, her nephew, John Bullwinkle,

0:35:13.640 --> 0:35:17.080
<v Speaker 2>Lovely Chap lives at the New South Wales Southern Highlands

0:35:17.080 --> 0:35:20.560
<v Speaker 2>down Barrel Bundanoon Way. He gave me so many letters

0:35:20.880 --> 0:35:25.920
<v Speaker 2>and diaries pertaining to Vivian, including this wonderful letter. I've

0:35:25.960 --> 0:35:29.560
<v Speaker 2>mentioned it before in talks I've given. It was written

0:35:29.640 --> 0:35:32.480
<v Speaker 2>by a guy in an age care home. He was

0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:35.920
<v Speaker 2>eighty five years old and he'd been on Banker Island

0:35:35.920 --> 0:35:39.600
<v Speaker 2>with Vivian when the nurses were massacred. The Japanese also shocked.

0:35:39.280 --> 0:35:43.200
<v Speaker 1>Just recount that story briefly though, and they were rounded up.

0:35:43.239 --> 0:35:45.239
<v Speaker 2>And in nineteen forty two there were a group of

0:35:45.239 --> 0:35:49.279
<v Speaker 2>Australian nurses tending to wounded Australian soldiers in Singapore. And

0:35:49.320 --> 0:35:52.239
<v Speaker 2>because the Japanese were known to use rape as a

0:35:52.280 --> 0:35:54.520
<v Speaker 2>weapon of war and they raped their way through a

0:35:54.640 --> 0:35:57.799
<v Speaker 2>hospital in Hong Kong, the Australian High Command ordered all

0:35:57.840 --> 0:36:02.280
<v Speaker 2>the nurses out of Singapore. Sixty five of one group,

0:36:02.480 --> 0:36:04.560
<v Speaker 2>including Vivian, got on a ship called the viy in

0:36:04.600 --> 0:36:07.160
<v Speaker 2>a brook took off for Singapore, hoping to get to

0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:10.279
<v Speaker 2>what's now Jakarta was called Betaviy in those days, because

0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:12.080
<v Speaker 2>the Japanese weren't there and they thought that would be

0:36:12.120 --> 0:36:15.200
<v Speaker 2>a safe haven. They got halfway there when they were

0:36:15.280 --> 0:36:18.480
<v Speaker 2>hit by Japanese dive bombers and their ship was actually

0:36:18.520 --> 0:36:21.680
<v Speaker 2>blown out of the water. Some of the nurses drowned

0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:24.040
<v Speaker 2>in the water. Some of them washed up on all

0:36:24.080 --> 0:36:27.080
<v Speaker 2>different parts of this place. Banker Island, where Vivian and

0:36:27.160 --> 0:36:30.560
<v Speaker 2>twenty one other nurses washed up, they encountered almost immediately

0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:33.200
<v Speaker 2>a group of Japanese soldiers who marched them back into

0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:34.879
<v Speaker 2>the water and machine done them all in the back

0:36:35.160 --> 0:36:37.319
<v Speaker 2>and all of them were killed except Vivian, who were

0:36:37.360 --> 0:36:39.880
<v Speaker 2>shot in the back, but somehow managed to survive, and

0:36:39.960 --> 0:36:41.720
<v Speaker 2>she crawled up the beach and hid in the jungle

0:36:41.760 --> 0:36:46.040
<v Speaker 2>for a few days, and eventually she was eventually captured

0:36:46.040 --> 0:36:48.239
<v Speaker 2>by another group of Japanese soldiers and she spent the

0:36:48.280 --> 0:36:50.680
<v Speaker 2>next three and a half years in prison camps with

0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:53.719
<v Speaker 2>some of the other nurses who had survived in absolutely

0:36:53.760 --> 0:36:56.279
<v Speaker 2>hellish conditions until the end of the war until they

0:36:56.280 --> 0:37:00.400
<v Speaker 2>were rescued. But some of the other people who had

0:37:00.400 --> 0:37:03.120
<v Speaker 2>washed up were also shot and bayoneted by the Japanese,

0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:05.160
<v Speaker 2>and there was a man who survived. His name was

0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:07.880
<v Speaker 2>Eric German, and at the age of eighty five, he

0:37:07.960 --> 0:37:10.960
<v Speaker 2>wrote a letter from to Vivian from a nursing home, saying,

0:37:11.320 --> 0:37:13.400
<v Speaker 2>you may not remember my name, but I'm sure you

0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:16.160
<v Speaker 2>remember that awful day on Banker Island more than fifty

0:37:16.239 --> 0:37:18.239
<v Speaker 2>years ago. And at the end of the letter he says,

0:37:18.680 --> 0:37:21.920
<v Speaker 2>both of us have have had many, many great years

0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:24.080
<v Speaker 2>since then, and he is to many more. You know,

0:37:24.280 --> 0:37:26.480
<v Speaker 2>he is a man of eighty five, had been shot

0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:28.840
<v Speaker 2>and bayoneted by the Japanese, and he's writing to a

0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:30.680
<v Speaker 2>woman who had been shot machine gunned in the back

0:37:30.719 --> 0:37:32.799
<v Speaker 2>and somehow survived. It was just a beautiful thing.

0:37:32.960 --> 0:37:36.160
<v Speaker 1>You just wonder how on earth they survived? Do you

0:37:36.239 --> 0:37:38.880
<v Speaker 1>even you hear the stories of the you know, the

0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:45.760
<v Speaker 1>Burma railway, and then this lady's been shot and still survived.

0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:47.200
<v Speaker 1>How serious was the wound?

0:37:47.280 --> 0:37:50.000
<v Speaker 2>Well, did you the bullet went straight through it. She

0:37:50.040 --> 0:37:52.160
<v Speaker 2>felt that she'd survived because she was the tallest of

0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:54.040
<v Speaker 2>the group and most of them got hit in their

0:37:54.120 --> 0:37:56.280
<v Speaker 2>vital organs, whereas she got hit a little bit higher

0:37:56.440 --> 0:38:01.040
<v Speaker 2>at mister lungs and heart and she was very, very

0:38:01.760 --> 0:38:04.520
<v Speaker 2>very lucky to survive. She was lucky to survive the

0:38:04.520 --> 0:38:08.120
<v Speaker 2>bullet wound and then the subsequent she felt that she

0:38:08.200 --> 0:38:10.560
<v Speaker 2>was in the water for quite some time and she

0:38:10.600 --> 0:38:14.000
<v Speaker 2>felt the salt water may have helped helped preserve her

0:38:14.800 --> 0:38:16.400
<v Speaker 2>Wow by cleaning the wound.

0:38:16.440 --> 0:38:20.200
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she did gain fame and not fame, and I

0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:23.240
<v Speaker 1>was gonna say notoriety, but fame later on when people

0:38:23.480 --> 0:38:25.759
<v Speaker 1>truly appreciated and she was decorated too, I.

0:38:25.760 --> 0:38:28.480
<v Speaker 2>Think, oh she was. She received many, many awards and

0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:31.680
<v Speaker 2>it's remarkable. Thirty years after the end of World War Two,

0:38:31.719 --> 0:38:34.200
<v Speaker 2>she was the matron at Fairfield Hospital in Melbourne and

0:38:34.280 --> 0:38:35.960
<v Speaker 2>she got a call asking if she'd go back to

0:38:36.000 --> 0:38:37.840
<v Speaker 2>a war zone, you know, after all the horrors that

0:38:37.880 --> 0:38:40.640
<v Speaker 2>she experienced, and she did. And the operation was to

0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:44.920
<v Speaker 2>bring back orphan children from from Saigon, the fall of Saigon,

0:38:45.040 --> 0:38:47.520
<v Speaker 2>and she she got on a Conus jet that flew

0:38:47.520 --> 0:38:50.719
<v Speaker 2>to Bangkok and then a Hercules aircraft that flew up

0:38:50.760 --> 0:38:53.080
<v Speaker 2>to Sigon. And when they arrived at Saigon, it was

0:38:53.400 --> 0:38:56.160
<v Speaker 2>there was machine gun fire and bombs going off, and

0:38:56.280 --> 0:38:59.040
<v Speaker 2>all the horrible horrors that she'd experienced in single came

0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:01.239
<v Speaker 2>back to her. But they arrived and they found all

0:39:01.239 --> 0:39:03.640
<v Speaker 2>the little babies lined up, all the orphan babies lined

0:39:03.719 --> 0:39:06.320
<v Speaker 2>up in shoe boxes, and they put the shoe boxes

0:39:06.320 --> 0:39:08.200
<v Speaker 2>on the plane and brought them back to Australia.

0:39:08.360 --> 0:39:09.919
<v Speaker 1>Famous that story, is it.

0:39:09.880 --> 0:39:12.919
<v Speaker 2>Not, Operation Baby Lift? Yeah, it's amazing how many lives

0:39:12.960 --> 0:39:13.480
<v Speaker 2>they saved.

0:39:14.280 --> 0:39:16.120
<v Speaker 1>So what's your next project.

0:39:16.640 --> 0:39:19.040
<v Speaker 2>Well, while I'm in Adelaide, I'm doing some more research

0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:21.600
<v Speaker 2>about Mary Penfold and the birth of Australian wine and

0:39:21.840 --> 0:39:23.920
<v Speaker 2>so that book will be out at Christmas time. And

0:39:23.960 --> 0:39:26.680
<v Speaker 2>it's the story of Mary Penfold who left a very

0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:30.439
<v Speaker 2>comfortable life in England to come to the frontiers, still

0:39:30.440 --> 0:39:34.120
<v Speaker 2>a frontier place in those days, Adelaide in eighteen forty four,

0:39:34.560 --> 0:39:37.600
<v Speaker 2>and she built up a great wine business.

0:39:37.400 --> 0:39:42.240
<v Speaker 1>In eighteen forty fours, eight years after yeah, colony was founded.

0:39:42.320 --> 0:39:45.600
<v Speaker 2>Yep, Yeah, and they planted some iron grapes they brought

0:39:45.640 --> 0:39:47.680
<v Speaker 2>from the south of France, her and her husband, and

0:39:47.840 --> 0:39:50.440
<v Speaker 2>Mary's sort of never really got the recognition. She was

0:39:50.480 --> 0:39:52.520
<v Speaker 2>actually the winemaker and the person that turned it into

0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:53.520
<v Speaker 2>a very very.

0:39:53.360 --> 0:39:56.760
<v Speaker 1>God the vineyards up McGill up at McGill.

0:39:56.840 --> 0:40:02.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, amazing from those humble origins she presided over

0:40:02.080 --> 0:40:04.080
<v Speaker 2>a company that really just grew and grew and grew,

0:40:04.080 --> 0:40:07.280
<v Speaker 2>and by the time that she retired from the business,

0:40:07.280 --> 0:40:10.560
<v Speaker 2>she was way up in years, getting up towards eighty.

0:40:11.120 --> 0:40:13.880
<v Speaker 2>Penfolds was producing a third of the wine in South Australia.

0:40:13.960 --> 0:40:16.560
<v Speaker 2>So she turned into a very, very big operation. But

0:40:16.640 --> 0:40:19.200
<v Speaker 2>it's also the story of Australian wine right across the board.

0:40:19.200 --> 0:40:21.319
<v Speaker 2>I mean, the very first fleet that came out in

0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:23.520
<v Speaker 2>seventeen eighty eight, they brought wine cuttings as well to

0:40:23.640 --> 0:40:25.760
<v Speaker 2>establish vines in New South Wales.

0:40:26.360 --> 0:40:29.160
<v Speaker 1>Would she have had any idea that a bottle of

0:40:29.239 --> 0:40:32.360
<v Speaker 1>grange would sell whatever it sells for.

0:40:32.680 --> 0:40:35.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know, thousand bucks or thereabouts, maybe more.

0:40:35.680 --> 0:40:37.839
<v Speaker 1>Did she have any idea that they.

0:40:37.640 --> 0:40:40.160
<v Speaker 2>Were mostly making wine for medicinal purposes in those days?

0:40:40.160 --> 0:40:42.759
<v Speaker 2>And then you know, they realized it was pretty good

0:40:42.800 --> 0:40:45.400
<v Speaker 2>stuff and they started bottling and selling it commercially, and

0:40:45.440 --> 0:40:48.520
<v Speaker 2>they were exporting it. Before too long, they were exporting

0:40:48.560 --> 0:40:49.080
<v Speaker 2>it overseas.

0:40:49.160 --> 0:40:51.880
<v Speaker 1>Australiers went really into them. They had more like the

0:40:51.920 --> 0:40:54.840
<v Speaker 1>ports and the well fortified wines.

0:40:55.040 --> 0:40:57.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's right. A lot of the colonists saw wine

0:40:57.040 --> 0:41:00.880
<v Speaker 2>as a real sophistication as a real civilization rather than

0:41:00.920 --> 0:41:03.880
<v Speaker 2>the grog in the early days that you know associated

0:41:03.880 --> 0:41:06.280
<v Speaker 2>with the first fleet. In those early days of convicts

0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.640
<v Speaker 2>and drum drinkers and gin drinkers, Wine was seeing seen

0:41:09.680 --> 0:41:11.719
<v Speaker 2>as civilization coming to the frontier.

0:41:12.560 --> 0:41:14.920
<v Speaker 1>She must have had a husband, yea.

0:41:14.960 --> 0:41:17.799
<v Speaker 2>Her husband was doctor Christopher Raws and Penfold and there's

0:41:17.840 --> 0:41:20.880
<v Speaker 2>Raws and retreat Penfolds make that. But he he is

0:41:20.920 --> 0:41:23.520
<v Speaker 2>often seen as the as the brains behind it was

0:41:23.520 --> 0:41:26.480
<v Speaker 2>actually Mary Penfold. She was the woman who was the

0:41:26.520 --> 0:41:27.200
<v Speaker 2>driving force.

0:41:27.680 --> 0:41:28.839
<v Speaker 1>So that when is that out?

0:41:29.160 --> 0:41:32.480
<v Speaker 2>That will be out at the end of October, just

0:41:32.480 --> 0:41:33.440
<v Speaker 2>in time for Christmas.

0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:36.399
<v Speaker 1>I passed before. It's like saying which one is your

0:41:36.640 --> 0:41:41.160
<v Speaker 1>favorite child? You must have a favorite book, a favorite

0:41:41.239 --> 0:41:41.480
<v Speaker 1>you know.

0:41:41.480 --> 0:41:43.799
<v Speaker 2>I've loved them all. I loved. I loved writing story

0:41:43.800 --> 0:41:45.839
<v Speaker 2>of Hudson Fish, the guy who started a quantas I

0:41:45.840 --> 0:41:48.040
<v Speaker 2>loved writing story of him. But I love writing the

0:41:48.400 --> 0:41:52.080
<v Speaker 2>Hudson Fish story because his it. Hudson Fish is the

0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:54.480
<v Speaker 2>guy that started quantity, started with two little biplanes and

0:41:54.520 --> 0:41:56.520
<v Speaker 2>a place called long Reach in Queensland in the middle

0:41:56.520 --> 0:41:59.400
<v Speaker 2>of the desert, and his two children still alive. His

0:41:59.520 --> 0:42:03.320
<v Speaker 2>daughter Wendy, she was just so happy that her father

0:42:03.400 --> 0:42:05.839
<v Speaker 2>had been forgotten. He started his airline nineteen twenty called

0:42:05.840 --> 0:42:08.120
<v Speaker 2>it the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service. It was

0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:11.080
<v Speaker 2>just an air taxi service for people who going stations

0:42:11.120 --> 0:42:13.080
<v Speaker 2>way out in the middle of nowhere. And she was

0:42:13.120 --> 0:42:15.040
<v Speaker 2>just so proud that her father had been forgotten for

0:42:15.080 --> 0:42:18.360
<v Speaker 2>so long was being celebrated in a book. And I

0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:20.600
<v Speaker 2>was very very proud of that, not just because it

0:42:20.640 --> 0:42:23.160
<v Speaker 2>was a great story about one man's drive. He was

0:42:23.160 --> 0:42:25.359
<v Speaker 2>a war hero from World War One. He came back

0:42:25.360 --> 0:42:27.160
<v Speaker 2>to Australia and he thought he didn't have a job.

0:42:27.160 --> 0:42:29.680
<v Speaker 2>He thought he'd go rabbit trapping to make a few quid. Instead,

0:42:29.680 --> 0:42:31.799
<v Speaker 2>he started an airline that you know, when he was

0:42:31.840 --> 0:42:34.560
<v Speaker 2>running it was the greatest and most respected airline in

0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:34.879
<v Speaker 2>the world.

0:42:35.200 --> 0:42:37.960
<v Speaker 1>But how did he make that quantum leap from that

0:42:38.239 --> 0:42:42.880
<v Speaker 1>small air service to one of the most respected airlines

0:42:42.880 --> 0:42:43.320
<v Speaker 1>in the world.

0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:45.480
<v Speaker 2>He started well, he started off as it was just

0:42:45.520 --> 0:42:47.920
<v Speaker 2>doing aerial taxi work for a while between places like

0:42:48.000 --> 0:42:52.759
<v Speaker 2>long Reach, clon Curry, those places way out west in Queensland.

0:42:53.120 --> 0:42:55.520
<v Speaker 2>But eventually they got the contract to bring the mail

0:42:55.600 --> 0:42:59.160
<v Speaker 2>from London. The mail would come from London to Darwin

0:43:00.080 --> 0:43:02.520
<v Speaker 2>little aircraft wild pick them up in Darwin and bring

0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:04.640
<v Speaker 2>them to the rest of Australia. Then he got the

0:43:04.640 --> 0:43:07.080
<v Speaker 2>contract to actually bring the mail all the way and

0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:10.040
<v Speaker 2>he got government support to make it an international airline.

0:43:10.200 --> 0:43:13.440
<v Speaker 2>Before too long, Quantas in the nineteen thirties was making

0:43:13.520 --> 0:43:14.480
<v Speaker 2>international flights.

0:43:15.440 --> 0:43:17.080
<v Speaker 1>How long would it have taken to get them?

0:43:17.680 --> 0:43:20.839
<v Speaker 2>Well, several days, yeah, and how dangerous, very dangerous yea.

0:43:20.960 --> 0:43:23.600
<v Speaker 2>And Hudson Fish risked his life many many times to

0:43:23.640 --> 0:43:25.920
<v Speaker 2>get that little airline going. And you know, Quatus has

0:43:25.960 --> 0:43:28.719
<v Speaker 2>been very controversial the last few years. They had a

0:43:28.760 --> 0:43:33.080
<v Speaker 2>managing directors making millions and millions of dollars. Hudson Fish

0:43:33.120 --> 0:43:35.399
<v Speaker 2>for ten years lived in a house with a tin

0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:37.759
<v Speaker 2>roof in Long Reach, was hotter than hell. And every

0:43:37.920 --> 0:43:39.759
<v Speaker 2>set he made out of the airline he poured back

0:43:39.760 --> 0:43:42.279
<v Speaker 2>into it. So I was very very pleased with Hudson Fish.

0:43:42.320 --> 0:43:44.000
<v Speaker 1>But I love it.

0:43:44.000 --> 0:43:48.840
<v Speaker 2>It's called Hudson Fish. Fish is spelled fysh. Yeah. But

0:43:48.960 --> 0:43:51.600
<v Speaker 2>you know, a Nick Kellerman, what an amazing woman. I

0:43:51.600 --> 0:43:53.319
<v Speaker 2>was so proud to tell her story as well.

0:43:54.000 --> 0:43:56.759
<v Speaker 1>Great chat gradly, thank you for coming in and made

0:43:56.760 --> 0:43:57.560
<v Speaker 1>the book go well.

0:43:57.719 --> 0:43:59.440
<v Speaker 2>All the best My pleasure Thank you very much for

0:43:59.480 --> 0:44:00.000
<v Speaker 2>having me corner.

0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Antley Keyser, the author of Annette Kellerman Australian Mermaid, and

0:44:03.840 --> 0:44:06.960
<v Speaker 1>lots of other books about Australian Thank you so much

0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:07.520
<v Speaker 1>for joining us,