Speaker 1: I thought the petrol taker has hit this corner of
Speaker 1: this building, right near where we exploded, and the exploded.
Speaker 2: If we're building up.
Speaker 1: We had light fittings come crashing down around as the
Speaker 1: plaster pieces came around, and dust everywhere, and this noise,
Speaker 1: this huge explosion. A taste of terrorism, wasn't Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the taste of terrorism. That's That's exactly what it was,
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism meters away from from where we were sitting.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrew Rules Life and Crimes. This week as we
Speaker 2: go to air it is exactly forty years since the
Speaker 2: Russell Street bombing, which of course is one of the
Speaker 2: worst crimes ever perpetrated in Australian history. And it was
Speaker 2: the day that our guest in the studio today once said,
Speaker 2: it's the day that we lost our innocence. And he
Speaker 2: would know because Bill Ayres, who's with us, was chief
Speaker 2: police reporter of the Venerable Herald newspaper back in the
Speaker 2: mid nineteen eighties, and Bill and I worked together at
Speaker 2: Russell Street, where in those days reporters who covered the
Speaker 2: crime beat would work, and he was on duty the
Speaker 2: morning of the Russell Street bombing. He's written us a
Speaker 2: terrific piece about his memories of that day, and he's
Speaker 2: very kindly come in to talk to us about it
Speaker 2: all over again. Bill Airs, welcome back to your old haunts,
Speaker 2: although of course you worked at Flinders Street, but you
Speaker 2: are one of the great police reporters of ancient time
Speaker 2: and it's good to see you back here. Your piece
Speaker 2: about the Russell Street bombing was very potent, very powerful
Speaker 2: and quite haunting. Although there are certain names sadly that
Speaker 2: we can't mention, names that are closely associated with the bombing,
Speaker 2: which for legal reasons cannot be brought up at this point,
Speaker 2: so we'll be careful about that.
Speaker 1: We will be careful.
Speaker 2: Bill. Take us back to the day of the bombing.
Speaker 2: What you did, how it unspooled for you? All right?
Speaker 1: Well, as you mentioned Andrew, we worked out of a
Speaker 1: pokey little office at Russell Street. There was a few
Speaker 1: room set aside for the media guys. There was a
Speaker 1: room for the Sun and the Age and the ABC
Speaker 1: and for us at there. We had three reporters on
Speaker 1: that day. There was myself and a young cadet called
Speaker 1: Greg Kerr, and another journo Brian Adams, not related to
Speaker 1: the singer we'd started early in the morning, as was
Speaker 1: the story of the Herald that in those days, we
Speaker 1: had to start early, so wet the meet the deadlines,
Speaker 1: and it just started out. It was a lovely sunny
Speaker 1: autumn day and we just went about doing our business,
Speaker 1: sort of cleaning up what was happening overnight and through
Speaker 1: the rest of that morning. So this is a Thursday
Speaker 1: before he said Thursday, Yeah, which meant I think that
Speaker 1: the morning newspaper people, meaning the Sun and the Age
Speaker 1: people weren't at work because on good Fridays in those
Speaker 1: days there was no paper. There was no morning paper,
Speaker 1: but you worked for an afternoon paper, the Old Herald,
Speaker 1: which meant you were there very early to publish stories
Speaker 1: that would be published later the same day, later that
Speaker 1: same day. Yep, So we were the only ones there.
Speaker 1: There was a blow for the ab so and he'd
Speaker 1: left fairly early.
Speaker 2: Was that Scoby?
Speaker 1: That was Scoby?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: He'd turned right out of out of the office to
Speaker 1: head to.
Speaker 2: The tab.
Speaker 1: And they say beddings bad for it saved his life,
Speaker 1: saved his life. He went he went right down to
Speaker 1: the tab. If he went left, he might have might
Speaker 1: not be with us today.
Speaker 2: If he'd gone to church, he'd be dead, but he
Speaker 2: went to the tab down on the Cartain side. Of course.
Speaker 2: The Russell Street Police Headquarters is an iconic building, cream brick,
Speaker 2: sort of very New York sort of building really, and
Speaker 2: it's at the corner of Russell and La Trobe and
Speaker 2: its opposite the old Melbourne Magistrates Court, and it's very
Speaker 2: close to r MIT, the original r MIT campus and
Speaker 2: was the police center, the heart of the Victoria Police
Speaker 2: for decades until they moved most of their operations down
Speaker 2: and killed the road before building the new one in
Speaker 2: Spencer Street.
Speaker 1: So we were the only newspaper people working at the
Speaker 1: time and had we had already written the lead story
Speaker 1: for the first edition of The Herald, which was of
Speaker 1: course the mandatory Easter Road Blitz story of course, and
Speaker 1: from memory, there wasn't a lot of other stuff going
Speaker 1: on that morning, so you know, we were kind of
Speaker 1: sitting around. It was getting close to knockoff time for.
Speaker 2: Us and looking forward to Big East to break, the.
Speaker 1: East to break, because we wouldn't have been working on
Speaker 1: the Friday, whereas the other morning boys they would have
Speaker 1: come in on the Friday for the Saturday paper. And
Speaker 1: it was it was just gone one o'clock, just ticked over.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I was actually on the phone to an assistant commission
Speaker 1: for traffic to tee him up for the Monday paper,
Speaker 1: to get him to be ready for us to get
Speaker 1: all the figures and what was happening over the recent
Speaker 1: road road road tops, etc. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: all hell broke loose.
Speaker 2: Describe what the sound and the feeling the whole building
Speaker 2: seemed to shake.
Speaker 1: I thought, petrol tanker has hit this corner of this building,
Speaker 1: right near where we exploded, and then exploded, and the
Speaker 1: building up there was We had light fittings come crashing
Speaker 1: down around us. The plaster pieces came around, and dust everywhere,
Speaker 1: and this noise, this this huge explosion. And I hung
Speaker 1: up from from the assistant commissioner, and Brian had had
Speaker 1: left to go and get his Easter haircut, and so
Speaker 1: he was sort of on his way back from his
Speaker 1: lunch break, and so there was only Greg and I
Speaker 1: there and our police rounds driver. Back in those days,
Speaker 1: she actually had a driver. His name is Shepard.
Speaker 2: Shepherd, well regarded by some as wise of the most
Speaker 2: police rounds reporter.
Speaker 1: Yes, he knew his way around Melbourne every lane way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lovely fellow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a great, great bloke and he had
Speaker 1: just put the kettle on and I thought that hit
Speaker 1: my mind. I thought there's been an electrical explosion because
Speaker 1: he's just top of the kettle on. Anyway, this massive explosion.
Speaker 1: So Greg and I just took off out the door
Speaker 1: and there was glass and smoke and the smell of
Speaker 1: Jelly Knight in the air.
Speaker 2: You could just smell that was explosive.
Speaker 1: It could smell explosives. I knew then that it was.
Speaker 2: You knew that.
Speaker 1: I knew that something had blown up in the street.
Speaker 2: Now, you were a young blog originally from Seymour area
Speaker 2: and Heathcott and the Shepherdon. Your dad had worked on
Speaker 2: the railway. So did you have some idea what exploses
Speaker 2: you smell like? Because yes I did because of that.
Speaker 2: Did yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeap just just knew that that smell right with a gunpowder,
Speaker 1: I guess. And we Yeah, So we just raced out
Speaker 1: into the middle of the street.
Speaker 2: And in the middle of the street there was something burning.
Speaker 1: There was a ball of flame about. It was probably
Speaker 1: about forty meters away from us.
Speaker 2: Did you know what it was?
Speaker 1: No idea, I had no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1: Saw this ball of flame and it kind of jumped,
Speaker 1: it jumped over a car, the bonnet of a car
Speaker 1: that had stopped on the street. I learned later that
Speaker 1: was Angela Taylor.
Speaker 2: The burning ball was burning a still living young police.
Speaker 1: Young police woman who was twenty one years twenty one,
Speaker 1: and yeah, she had just come out of the magistrate's
Speaker 1: court and she was heading across towards the Russell Street
Speaker 1: Police complex and she was getting lunch for the other
Speaker 1: for the rest of the crew over and looking after
Speaker 1: the courts and she she walked straight into it. She
Speaker 1: just walked straight towards that car and it just killed well,
Speaker 1: she died.
Speaker 2: She lived later, yeah, about three weeks later. It was
Speaker 2: an horrific thing. It was. It was.
Speaker 1: And there were other explosions happening as well, we thought,
Speaker 1: because back in those days you could park along Russell
Speaker 1: Street right outside the police building, so there were cars
Speaker 1: right along the street. And we saw this car that
Speaker 1: had blown up. But we thought, oh, there's another exploder,
Speaker 1: there's another car's gone. But it turned out it was
Speaker 1: the leftover sticks of Jelick Knight that had been and
Speaker 1: blasting caps that were going.
Speaker 2: Off, going off on one after the other. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: big one had been a bunch of them taped together. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but about one.
Speaker 1: Hundred and fifteen sticks of Jelick Knight.
Speaker 2: Apparently, and there were some stray ones that yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: it's a fairly crude job, I believe. Yeah, all attached
Speaker 2: to a clock which was weighed down by a block
Speaker 2: of timber that defen a bit of red gum yep,
Speaker 2: and that will form part of the big forensic investigation
Speaker 2: down the track before they finally caught up with these crooks.
Speaker 2: What did you do next?
Speaker 1: Next? I had to had to run back into the
Speaker 1: office and jump onto the phone to let the chief
Speaker 1: of staff know that there's been a massive explosion outside
Speaker 1: the Russell Street Police Station, police headquarters because it housed
Speaker 1: all the squads and the D twenty four Commune occasions
Speaker 1: and everything at that time, as well as being an
Speaker 1: all running police.
Speaker 2: Station, it was a nerve center, wasn't It was absolute's
Speaker 2: where everyone, all the all the top detective and everything
Speaker 2: were based there.
Speaker 1: So I had to ring ring up.
Speaker 2: It was a rock song by the Sports What did
Speaker 2: the Detectives say? And it mentions Russell It was part
Speaker 2: of Melbourne's focalore. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: The Herald was printed in four editions a day. There
Speaker 1: was the first one that came out around about eleven
Speaker 1: thirty twelve o'clock. Then the second one was due to
Speaker 1: go onto the presses about one o'clock, about at the
Speaker 1: same time this thing went off. So it was just
Speaker 1: starting to rumble on the presses down at Flinders, down
Speaker 1: at Flinda Street, down in the basement there, and we
Speaker 1: had to tell them to stop the presses. I've never
Speaker 1: never said that before in my life. In a long
Speaker 1: career in journalism, I never got the chance to stop
Speaker 1: the presses.
Speaker 2: But you did this time, and they stopped them.
Speaker 1: And they did. They said, you know, what's what's going on?
Speaker 1: I said, been a massive explosion. Explained it, do them
Speaker 1: and they said, right, get what you can and jump
Speaker 1: on the phone as quickly as you can because we
Speaker 1: need this to go into our second edition. So both
Speaker 1: Greg and I then jumped on the phones and dictated
Speaker 1: our stories to this magnificent bunch of copy takers that
Speaker 1: were based at Flinda Street. And they could they could
Speaker 1: type as quickly as we could talk. They were so
Speaker 1: good at what they did. But their spelling was better correct.
Speaker 2: Correct, And yeah they were because the Herald and all
Speaker 2: newspapers probably still do. They had reporters based at Russell Street,
Speaker 2: the town Hall, the trades hall. Your age. They don't
Speaker 2: have reporters at any of those places that day, not
Speaker 2: anymore because this century that hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: I've been out of the game for a while. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so we had people, you know, like trades everywhere and
Speaker 1: state Parliament. Of course there was a big press cos
Speaker 1: we still have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, they and these girls were vital to all
Speaker 1: of us for taking our copy, spelling it properly and
Speaker 1: getting it through to the editors.
Speaker 2: So just so our listeners get it. And of course
Speaker 2: most of them are old enough to remember those things.
Speaker 2: You were dictating a story you'd already written with a
Speaker 2: typewriter or even rough notes on your notebook. This dictating
Speaker 2: to somebody who's wearing set of headphones and a typewriter
Speaker 2: and there banging it out there, bang it out a
Speaker 2: kilometer away from where you were s Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't have time to hit the typewriter. We
Speaker 1: just had to off the take, take a few notes,
Speaker 1: and it was all off the top.
Speaker 2: File off the top of those wonderful words, A great
Speaker 2: skill for those that could do it.
Speaker 1: And of course then we had to then race back
Speaker 1: out and continue to witness what was going on because
Speaker 1: there were people screaming, there were people calling for help.
Speaker 1: And I remember Neil, our driver. Last I saw of him,
Speaker 1: he was carrying a young woman who was bleeding fairly
Speaker 1: heavily around the corner away from Russell Street because we
Speaker 1: didn't know what else was going to happen. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the last I saw of him for the day,
Speaker 1: so he obviously was there helping other people to his credit,
Speaker 1: great man and Greg and we just ran back out
Speaker 1: into the street and just tried to witness there was
Speaker 1: there was people bleeding, of people. I saw a young
Speaker 1: police officer being comforted by a woman, a police woman,
Speaker 1: on the steps of Russell Street, and she kept on
Speaker 1: telling him don't look at your legs, don't look at
Speaker 1: your legs, because I looked at his legs and I
Speaker 1: could see the bone on his lower leg protruding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the bone.
Speaker 1: And there are other people running around that. There was
Speaker 1: other policemen in uniform, some who'd never fired a side
Speaker 1: arm in anger, running around with their Repolice issue guns
Speaker 1: out what was going on.
Speaker 2: No one knew.
Speaker 1: It was such a shock, and the shock was to
Speaker 1: a degree that I've never forgotten it. No, And I
Speaker 1: think the piece that I wrote in the Sunday paper
Speaker 1: just the other day, yeah, caught that that and that
Speaker 1: was why I wrote it. I thought, forty years on, yes,
Speaker 1: let's remember what happened and let the readers of the
Speaker 1: Herald Son know what it was like, what it was
Speaker 1: like back then to be there, to actually be on
Speaker 1: the spot.
Speaker 2: And really it's not an experience unique to you, but
Speaker 2: it's unique to only a few dozen people were really
Speaker 2: as close as when you were near as close as
Speaker 2: you were, because it happened within meters.
Speaker 1: Of the door of that old press exactly.
Speaker 2: Now. I know you've already said this, but the morning
Speaker 2: newspaper people weren't there. You were really bit of a
Speaker 2: skeleton crew. Yes, we we were. Normally there'd be the
Speaker 2: age people and the Sun people there as well.
Speaker 1: They would have just come in. They would would have.
Speaker 2: Just come in and they'd be sitting and I remember
Speaker 2: doing this for one of those papers, sitting under a window,
Speaker 2: a normal old glass window with thin, nasty glass facing
Speaker 2: Russell straight. Now, what happened to those windows? Bill?
Speaker 1: During one of the times when I was running backwards
Speaker 1: and forwards, I thought I'll just have a quick check
Speaker 1: into their offices and just in case there was someone there.
Speaker 1: And as I had a look in through their doorway,
Speaker 1: there were shards of glass fifteen centimeters long sticking out
Speaker 1: from a cork noticeboard right behind that desk.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So someone would have been sitting there.
Speaker 2: Would have taken their head off, would have taken.
Speaker 1: Their head off, It would have been cut ribbons, terrible
Speaker 1: and that that really shocked me as well, because I
Speaker 1: thought if there was someone there, they could.
Speaker 2: Well have died.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because it was head height. You know the window.
Speaker 2: What's that there?
Speaker 1: Many We used to have that office, Yes, and we
Speaker 1: got moved down a little corridor sort of in behind
Speaker 1: that office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that how it worked?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the ABC was in They were in a
Speaker 1: little nor between us a small bathroom for a large toilet,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: And it was amazing to some extent. You were lucky
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we lost our view, but we probably had our
Speaker 1: lives safe, good Lord, because yeah, draw yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: It was young Greg was working with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Greg a very lovely fellow.
Speaker 2: Yes he was.
Speaker 1: He was a really a very smart young jur.
Speaker 2: Yes, very nice fellow. Of course. He belonged to a
Speaker 2: large family. The Kerr family were well known in Melbourne,
Speaker 2: connected heavily with Carlton Football Club. His father was Laurie Kerr,
Speaker 2: who a well known ex Carlton player and businessman and
Speaker 2: public relations expert and a kingmaker in fact in politics
Speaker 2: and football I think. But that's sort of beside the
Speaker 2: point of and Brian, Brian Adam on the day in
Speaker 2: christ he was walking back, as you said, from having
Speaker 2: a haircut and he look, you know, the lights changed
Speaker 2: or didn't change for whatever fortune to walk across the
Speaker 2: street in your head, he caught the green pedestrian light
Speaker 2: and crossed across. He would have been hit by the way,
Speaker 2: would have been hit them too, and probably killed by it.
Speaker 2: As it happened. He was far enough back that it
Speaker 2: did not injure him physically, but it was a terrible
Speaker 2: shock to him. And I know that he was in
Speaker 2: a fog like a war fog afterwards, and that he
Speaker 2: was sat down by Stephen Price, Steve Price, who was
Speaker 2: then i'll say chiefs of staff for the Herald who
Speaker 2: sat him down and said, right now, I'll write it
Speaker 2: for you and type it, but you tell me you'll
Speaker 2: want to remember yeah, you know, coming out of the barber,
Speaker 2: walking up the street and price. He had to write
Speaker 2: it for him for him because he was so shaken.
Speaker 2: He was naturally of course, he was a person who
Speaker 2: was in shock, in shock, which didn't stop us getting
Speaker 2: the story. But I don't think it did him a
Speaker 2: lot of good.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think it did it. I think it
Speaker 1: affected him pretty badly to the point where he left
Speaker 1: the newspaper industry ultimately and moved to the Northern Territory
Speaker 1: and going away from Melbourne and moved away from Melbourne.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it had anything to do with that.
Speaker 1: He might have had a job offer all what a
Speaker 1: lot of people did leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now you're the rest of your day. You you
Speaker 2: didn't really have time to take it all in because
Speaker 2: you were stay busy filing stories. Yeah, tell us about that.
Speaker 1: We we just had to continue to take our own notes. Ye,
Speaker 1: put it all into our head and then just continue
Speaker 1: continue filing update, update, update all the time. And at
Speaker 1: one stage we were evacuated from the building by the
Speaker 1: Special Operations Group. They came in all armed, and I
Speaker 1: think they were a bit surprised by the fact that
Speaker 1: we were we were there. I don't know whether they
Speaker 1: knew that we had these offices. They may not have.
Speaker 2: Anyway, they were pretty basic in those days. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: were just black, black, armed black pajamas. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, they gave us a bit of a fright when
Speaker 1: they came storming in and and got us out of
Speaker 1: the building. And so then we had to then find
Speaker 1: phone boxes, continue filing us stories.
Speaker 2: Oh, I see mobile phones. Then no computers, so you'd
Speaker 2: have to fish out ten cent coins and all the
Speaker 2: rest of it.
Speaker 1: I've always had a pocket full of coins, as you know,
Speaker 1: you would have had to have.
Speaker 2: And so this went on all afternoon.
Speaker 1: All after from from one o'clock through to six o'clock.
Speaker 1: We made our way back to the office, to the
Speaker 1: main office in Flinders Street and headed straight for the
Speaker 1: Phoenix Hotel, where we knew that most people would be.
Speaker 1: Just because there was a lot of journals thrown onto
Speaker 1: this story. After we file our initial peace, a lot
Speaker 1: of journeys were sent out of the office and to
Speaker 1: walk around the area.
Speaker 2: The Phoenix of course was the pub very close to
Speaker 2: the old Herald and Sun building. It was facing Flinders Street,
Speaker 2: not far from the corner of Flinders.
Speaker 1: And Flinderson Exhibition vision.
Speaker 2: And it was owned in the before the it's not
Speaker 2: at this stage, but earlier by lou Richards the Football
Speaker 2: and it was known to the Lose.
Speaker 1: Lose that's so we knew it.
Speaker 2: And you'd have to walk up those thin stairs, stick
Speaker 2: carpet to get to the bar with drink, and that
Speaker 2: was where you sort of decompressed.
Speaker 1: Yes, that that that's where it was that night, headed
Speaker 1: up the stairs.
Speaker 2: What did you drink? Pots of beer?
Speaker 1: Yeah, k didn'apped to buy one. Chief of staff was there.
Speaker 1: He was He was put his hand in his pocket
Speaker 1: for the crew, for the crew and sat us down
Speaker 1: at the table. There was me and Greg and Brian
Speaker 1: and and it was of staff then Hugh Crawford.
Speaker 2: Very good.
Speaker 1: He was a very good a good chief of staff
Speaker 1: and good journo too, because I think he operated out
Speaker 1: of a Sydney office for a long time and then
Speaker 1: then came down. I know Price he was chief of
Speaker 1: staff some stage, but I don't know whether Hue was
Speaker 1: replacing Price. He at the time but so they set
Speaker 1: you down and had plenty of beers. Yeah, did you
Speaker 1: start to feel it?
Speaker 2: Did it? Yeah? He started?
Speaker 1: Then it hit me. I was running on adrenaline up
Speaker 1: until up until I got up there, and no food, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: And yeah, they put beers in front of us, and
Speaker 1: and then you know, people would come up and talk
Speaker 1: to us, want to know what had happened, and pat
Speaker 1: us on the back for a job well done, yep,
Speaker 1: And Brian and I just fell into each other's arms
Speaker 1: cried really yeah, not ashamed to say it. And we yeah,
Speaker 1: so we just held each other for a while and
Speaker 1: then you know, then then we kind of decompressed a
Speaker 1: bit and talked about it, and you know, just recalled
Speaker 1: what had happened and why it happened.
Speaker 2: And how long before you got home.
Speaker 1: There's another couple of hours before I got home, be dark.
Speaker 2: By then it was dark and taxi.
Speaker 1: I think I think they did actually concede a taxi
Speaker 1: ride for us this time. They did, because they didn't
Speaker 1: always do that. You would often be out on a
Speaker 1: story and you'd jump into a phone box and file
Speaker 1: your yarn, and then the church that start would say, well,
Speaker 1: there's a tram stop nearby, just jump on the tram
Speaker 1: come back to the office. But this day they actually
Speaker 1: sent us home in a.
Speaker 2: In a cab. Where were you living then?
Speaker 1: We were in box Hill. Then my wife Dawn, and
Speaker 1: our two very young children, Connor our daughter, and Liam,
Speaker 1: our son. She was about five and he was about two,
Speaker 1: I think, and they the kids kids love watching play
Speaker 1: school in the afternoon because they turned the TV on.
Speaker 1: They'd been out and went to turn the TV on
Speaker 1: and called out the mum, play schools and on They've
Speaker 1: got some news thing happening. Of course they were. They
Speaker 1: were covering the the bomb in the A B C.
Speaker 1: And then Dawn saw that this was happening. And then
Speaker 1: shortly after that at Russell Straight and Short, she got
Speaker 1: a phone call from a mate of ours who knew
Speaker 1: that I was working at Russell Street and she said,
Speaker 1: is Bill all right? And Dawn then Dawn on her yeah, Jess,
Speaker 1: I better make sure that because he works out of
Speaker 1: Russell Street. So she contacted the Chief of Staff, Secretary B.
Speaker 2: Warren.
Speaker 1: She ran ran the entire office.
Speaker 2: She was a World War Two veteran. She was Warren
Speaker 2: and she had a lot of character. She was strong.
Speaker 1: Wills she very strong. Will you didn't cross her, would
Speaker 1: wouldn't be allowed to. I was back in the days,
Speaker 1: because she was the one who told all the female
Speaker 1: journals that you work for the Herald, and you don't
Speaker 1: wear trousers and that sort of thing. Yeah, there's all
Speaker 1: those skirts and dress. Gives them advice about them and yeah.
Speaker 1: So and so Dawn found out from her, of course
Speaker 1: that she I was okay, okay, and he's filing and yeah, yes.
Speaker 2: Please don't. He can't call you. I was too busy
Speaker 2: and you got home in a taxi yet, you know whatever.
Speaker 2: It was after the kids were in bed, I suppose yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and what happened.
Speaker 1: Again, Dawn came and opened the door and I just
Speaker 1: fell into her arms. And then I think that's when
Speaker 1: it dawned on us that I was pretty close that day.
Speaker 1: Anything could have happened, you too, could have been a
Speaker 1: lot worse matter of meters, yeah, read us, some serious injury,
Speaker 1: that's right, or death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he could have lost legs.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, cut, bleeding, bruised, whatever, Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so that was that was a bit.
Speaker 2: Tearful as well for both of us, of course, because
Speaker 2: she she was grateful that I was able to walk
Speaker 2: through the door that night. We're not doing anything here
Speaker 2: about PTSD, which was a term not probably known back then.
Speaker 2: We didn't use that post traumatic stress.
Speaker 1: There was certainly wasn't any professional help for that sort
Speaker 1: of thing back then.
Speaker 2: Did it Did it affect you for a while? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did, just I was fearful for a long time.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: If on that day, one thing I did notice was
Speaker 1: every street tree was stripped of leaves, and as autumn
Speaker 1: continued along, if any leaves fluttered to the ground in
Speaker 1: front of me, I would I would jump back righted itself.
Speaker 1: It had yet the little images.
Speaker 2: Even though there's no great logic to.
Speaker 1: That, nobody none at all. It was autumn anyway, so it's.
Speaker 2: An automatic reaction. Yeah, the danger, Yeah, it gets imprinted,
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 1: And thunder would set things off again, big lad claps
Speaker 1: of thunder. Very fearful of that, yep. And any expert
Speaker 1: even backfire and cars backfire for years. That for years.
Speaker 1: It was for years, and you know, ultimately you get
Speaker 1: over it and and things move.
Speaker 2: On without Did you ever dream about it? Yes? And
Speaker 2: still do really, I still do. Yeah, is that a fact?
Speaker 2: Have you ever discussed this with other people that were there,
Speaker 2: like Greg or No, No, I haven't, I haven't. I
Speaker 2: lost contact with them down the trap because they used
Speaker 2: to change over the police rounds pretty regularly, so you know,
Speaker 2: I would get transferred to a different section or go
Speaker 2: back to the main office for general news, and the
Speaker 2: other guys would go somewhere else, So we kind of
Speaker 2: didn't get much chance to decompress. And I often wonder
Speaker 2: how they're going and do they still remember it as
Speaker 2: clearly as I did. Yeah, that'd be interesting too. I
Speaker 2: hadn't realized the out Greg for some reason, but I
Speaker 2: knew about Brian because for somebody, I reckon, I saw him.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I know this man, I reckon.
Speaker 2: I saw him later that day or something, and he
Speaker 2: was in the office and very he was shaky. He
Speaker 2: was shaky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he made his way straight back to
Speaker 1: the office. Yeah, that's what he might He might have
Speaker 1: jumped into a phone box and mentioned it to the
Speaker 1: Judi of staff as well, and then yeah, he would
Speaker 1: have been told, that's what I come to, get back here,
Speaker 1: get back here, and they sat him down, and as
Speaker 1: you say, that helped helped him write his.
Speaker 2: Story the first person person. Yeah, it was really something
Speaker 2: I've always been grateful I wasn't up at the round,
Speaker 2: which I'd left by then, but yes, you had, I
Speaker 2: still been working there. You know, if it had been
Speaker 2: a different day, you have the week, et cetera, if
Speaker 2: all the things. It's exactly when you'd step onto the
Speaker 2: street to go and get saying to eat, it was
Speaker 2: whatever was that time of day when you walked down
Speaker 2: the streets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything could have happened. Yeah, it was a terrifying day.
Speaker 2: And of course we've seen bad things happened since, but
Speaker 2: to actually happen in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: That's that's probably what shocked us as much as anything
Speaker 1: This happened in this Yeah, it was a big, busy city,
Speaker 1: but we'd never experienced that sort of thing. You know,
Speaker 1: people who had a rust I called it a rusted
Speaker 1: on hatred of police. Yes, to actually decide that this
Speaker 1: was what they were going to do. They were going
Speaker 1: to take as many people down as they and as
Speaker 1: many coppers down as they could.
Speaker 2: This was really, i mean, historically speaking, one of the
Speaker 2: biggest things, you know, since the Kelly outbreak, the Kelly
Speaker 2: shot in free policemen. Yeah, yeah, Stringy Buck Creek way
Speaker 2: back in seventy eight or a year it was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and just over a century later here were going has happened.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's not often that we have something of
Speaker 2: that scale strike in the nineteen twenties. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 2: violent and scary. Yeah, but in a civil situation, non
Speaker 2: not war exactly. Frightening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's just a taste of terrorism, wasn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a taste of terrorism, That's that's exactly what
Speaker 1: it was, domestic terrorism meters away from from where we
Speaker 1: were sitting, and their aim was simply to they wanted
Speaker 1: to drive that car loaded with this bomb. You might
Speaker 1: remember there was a driveway.
Speaker 2: So this could have been worse. Yes, what were they
Speaker 2: what was their intention?
Speaker 1: Their plan was to drive it up this driveway off
Speaker 1: Russell Street into a.
Speaker 2: Courtyard inside the basic inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically a courtyard between the police buildings, the old
Speaker 1: Russell Street police buildings which are still there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those brick ones are quite beautiful. Really in their way,
Speaker 2: they had this little lane way separating the two buildings.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2: It was a bit of a courtyard which was which
Speaker 2: we didn't go into really because.
Speaker 1: Because it was only forever zone for the police cars.
Speaker 2: It was private yea. And they wanted to drive in
Speaker 2: there and put the carriage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they had a big iron gate and it
Speaker 1: was shut. So plan B was then to cart out front,
Speaker 1: out the front.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 1: So it could have could have been a whole lot worse.
Speaker 1: The fact that one police officer tragically died it was
Speaker 1: a miracle. Yeah, there weren't any There weren't anymore that
Speaker 1: just with the glass that was flying around on its own,
Speaker 1: A lot of people got injured by that. It broke
Speaker 1: glass for a block a block, the whole city block.
Speaker 1: Just about every building in that block their window shuttered.
Speaker 1: That's how violent that that first last Yeah yeah, sonic,
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'll never forget it. And so that plan
Speaker 1: was thwarted, to thank God, because that could have been
Speaker 1: a whole lot worse, because you know above that that
Speaker 1: car was all the officers that we can't mention all
Speaker 1: the names of those who were undoubtedly involved and served
Speaker 1: time over it, and another one beat the charges that went
Speaker 1: on a peal, I think, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: But one person who we can talk about is the
Speaker 1: late Stan Taylor. Now Stan Taylor was an old crook.
Speaker 1: He was an old crooked, old crooker and what police
Speaker 1: call a good crook.
Speaker 2: He was. He'd been around a long time, he'd done
Speaker 2: all different crimes, knew his way around the system. But
Speaker 2: Stan Taylor and fairly intelligent and a good a good
Speaker 2: con man as well as a violent.
Speaker 1: Man, yes, and a lot of it. He was certainly
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: In the acting profession knew him well, and I can
Speaker 2: remember talking to one of them. She said he'd stand
Speaker 2: did up my kitchen. He was a good, you know,
Speaker 2: a good joiner and he renovated her kitchen. Had some
Speaker 2: mother he did have some skills. Now, he was a cynical, lying,
Speaker 2: evil piece of work, but you know, he had a
Speaker 2: degree of raffish charm. He could tell the wide people
Speaker 2: that he wasn't such a bad guy, and he'd sort
Speaker 2: of got himself a bit involved as a as an
Speaker 2: old crook who got out of jail with that sort
Speaker 2: of Hector Crawford television industry that turned out cop dramas
Speaker 2: like Homicide and Division before at Matt Block Police, and
Speaker 2: he was one of those sort of characters that could
Speaker 2: do bit parts, probably do a bit of set building,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, and he managed to manipulate things
Speaker 2: so that he said himself up as some sort of
Speaker 2: figure who said, look, I'm an old time crook who's
Speaker 2: given it away. I can help young blugs go get
Speaker 2: on the right path, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And I think he and others set up some sort
Speaker 2: of wasn't boy Scouts, but they set up something where
Speaker 2: they were trying to allegedly take young blugs who were
Speaker 2: it's a juvenile delinquents and put them on the right path.
Speaker 2: The reality was they used it as a recruiting ground,
Speaker 2: and Stan Taylor hooked in with a couple of brothers
Speaker 2: whose names we won't mention this some people will remember them,
Speaker 2: and another young fellow maybe, and that he under the
Speaker 2: guise of showing them a better way and to work
Speaker 2: hard and be good citizens, he was actually corrupting them,
Speaker 2: to teaching them, teaching tricks, bad stuff, very bad stuff.
Speaker 1: He had broken into an old mine northern western Victoria
Speaker 1: a few weeks earlier. I remember writing a story about
Speaker 1: this raid on a mine and JELLYG.
Speaker 2: Knight being stoped right out in the Southern Malley or
Speaker 2: the Northern Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, birching out nothing else around, that's right. And
Speaker 1: he'd robbed this mine of boxes of jellig Knight and
Speaker 1: that's what he used. So he'd been planning this.
Speaker 2: He was along with his young young recruits and he
Speaker 2: used them as soldiers cat's paws. Yes, of course there's
Speaker 2: no loyalty among these people, because there was a bit
Speaker 2: of a scramble to be the first to put the
Speaker 2: hand up and debby in others. And an old crook,
Speaker 2: a very bad man, an old crook of stands vintage
Speaker 2: or thereabouts. Yes, I think he got in for and
Speaker 2: said I didn't do it, it was them, because I
Speaker 2: think he'd been involved with them, Yes he had. He
Speaker 2: pointed the finger and that enabled the police to prosecute
Speaker 2: Stan Taylor and others. Whereas if Standard got in first,
Speaker 2: clearly Stan Taylor would have lagged on this other old
Speaker 2: crook because that's the way they were. And I think
Speaker 2: the idea was they were pulling robberies. Robberies, yes they were,
Speaker 2: and the part of their evil plan was to blow
Speaker 2: up Russell Street, yeah police station, and create a massive diversion.
Speaker 2: So every copper in Melbourne was focused on that while
Speaker 2: they were going to pull a bank robbery out in
Speaker 2: the outer suburb. That's right, is that right? Yep?
Speaker 1: That was Ultimately they apparently had sort of walked away
Speaker 1: from the car after they parked it and walked away
Speaker 1: from it, knew what knew when it was going to
Speaker 1: go off, and they apparently pattered themselves on the back
Speaker 1: the the fact that the job well done, job well done,
Speaker 1: But they would have been disappointed in the end. They
Speaker 1: only yeah, they only killed.
Speaker 2: One terrible, terrible crime, the death of Angela Taylor, it
Speaker 2: seems to me, is the most haunting aspect of it.
Speaker 2: It really is. Anybody that we know you, I mean,
Speaker 2: you were close to it. But I think Bernie Farmer
Speaker 2: might have been Clark of the courts in those days,
Speaker 2: later became Bernie the attorney criminal defense in those days,
Speaker 2: a young clerk Clark for Darcy Dugan and other magistrates.
Speaker 2: And he talks about that day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he cradled Angela and the pictures that he painted
Speaker 1: were when he was interviewed, were awful. And there's another
Speaker 1: man who'll never never forget that day.
Speaker 2: And Bernie the attorney it burn it so it affected
Speaker 2: a lot of people, some of whom we don't won't
Speaker 2: even know. We don't know their names, but people are
Speaker 2: working up and down that street in courts and in
Speaker 2: the police station and other people, other officers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just coming out and going on their lunch break.
Speaker 2: The old Melbourne jail, the police garage in there. All
Speaker 2: sorts of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, lots of Yeah, other officers down further towards towards
Speaker 1: the center of the city. Just people wandering around, going
Speaker 1: into cafes, they're getting their lunch.
Speaker 2: And they'd be dozens of people that are exposed to
Speaker 2: it in a sense, roughly like you were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll all have their own memories of it,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's an awful day, a sad chapter in Melbourne history,
Speaker 2: sad and tragic and awful. But it was good for
Speaker 2: you to sit down and write that piece for us,
Speaker 2: for our readers, to remind them of what happened, and
Speaker 2: to give an honest, firsthand description of it, and also
Speaker 2: to make time to come in and talk to us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was happy to be offered the opportunity. I'd written
Speaker 1: the piece yep, with you in mind, yep, because I know.
Speaker 2: Loyalty to the paper, loyal Well, this is the son
Speaker 2: of the Herald that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's still called the Herald Sun, which
Speaker 1: I like.
Speaker 2: Well. On that note, billais we're going to wind it up.
Speaker 2: But this has been one of the more interesting Thank you,
Speaker 2: I hope so sessions for a while.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Andrew, thank.
Speaker 2: You, thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday
Speaker 2: Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our producer is
Speaker 2: Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to
Speaker 2: Heraldsun dot com dot au forward slash Andrew rule one word.
Speaker 2: For advertising inquiries, go to news Podcasts sold at new
Speaker 2: dot com dot au. That is all one word news
Speaker 2: podcast's soul and if you want further information about this episode,
Speaker 2: links are in the description.