WEBVTT - Episode 2: The Colonel 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.439 Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:10.799 This is a production by The Australian and our subscribers 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.440 here episodes first and get full access to photos, video, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.800 news stories and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.439 four to seven. Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.759 a U. This is episode two of The Gangster's Ghost. 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.040 To really get into this story here episode one first 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:32.720 at Gangstersghost dot com dot AU. 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.000 When I went on this venture with Matt, I knew 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.000 that I would find a monster, and I wasn't really sure. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.159 I just knew I wanted to find the truth. And 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.760 so far in John's childhood, I think I have found 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:54.480 a monster, but that monster was certainly not John. What 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.720 I'm finding is a little boy that was brought up 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:03.680 in horrific circumstances, flogged by his grandfather, flogged by his mother, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.039 and then goes on to go to the Gosford's Boys' Home, 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.440 where the head of the boy's home says to one 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.760 of John's friends later in life, oh, we flogged it 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.319 out of him too, Like everywhere this little boy turned, 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.319 he got flogged. What does people expect or is that 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:26.040 what was expected of him. You know, he goes down 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:26.679 to his mother. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.399 This is Kelly Slater Reagan, former New South Wales copper, 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:37.399 sheep farmer, wheat grower, and also the cousin to Johnny Reagan, 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:43.240 one of the toughest, most feared and hated gangsters in 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.680 Australian history. For years now, Kelly and I have been 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:53.320 on the trail of the true story behind Reagan. In 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.800 myth they called him the Magician, the man who could 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.600 make people disappear. They say he murdered between eight and 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:07.560 twelve people, including a child, But who was he really? 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.320 Almost fifty years after he was gunned down in a 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:17.320 Sydney suburban street by three assassins, aged just twenty nine, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.520 Kelly and her family want to know the truth about 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.519 him and given his murder is one of New South Wales' 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:33.160 most enduring cold cases. Who killed Reagan and why? From 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.640 the beginning of our investigation, I asked Kelly to keep 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:41.360 an audio diary to freely express what was going on 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.320 in her mind and her heart as we sifted through 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:51.480 the fact and fiction surrounding her notorious relative. So she did. 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:56.160 He goes down to his mother. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.399 At school with a bloody nurse she wants. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.519 Don't come home to your bloody No hugs, no cuddles, 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.639 no genuine affection or kindness. What sort of damage does 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.200 that do to a little boy? Is what I'm thinking today. 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.919 And the other thing I'm thinking is where was his 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.280 father's family, my family? Where were they? 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:22.360 You know, I've been fascinated by Stuart John Reagan for decades. 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.720 He was the last of the old school gangsters. A 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.720 pimp and standover man in his teens, a rapist and 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:37.080 murderer by his mid twenties, A man so unpredictably violent 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.320 that just the mention of his name struck fear into 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.920 Sydney's criminal miliere, and not just a few police officers. 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.440 Reagan wore a bulletproof vest and was always accompanied by 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:56.000 a bodyguard. According to all reports, he was a bona 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:01.600 fide psychopath with all the cliched traits, cruelty to animals, 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:09.240 no empathy, cold and violent and brutal. When Kelly joined 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.440 me on this journey into the world of her long 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.280 dead cousin, we both knew there had to be more 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:19.279 to him than a couple of brief television documentaries and 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.680 the occasional cameo in true crime books, where he was 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:28.920 invariably described as a man so heenous he thought nothing 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.320 of killing and disposing of a toddler, the child of 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:39.359 one of his lovers, because the infant annoyed him. Stuart 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.760 John Reagan was the worst of the worst. Take this 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:50.120 from Suburban Gangsters, a Channel nine true crime documentary series 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.240 hosted by journalist Adam Shand that went to air in 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:55.720 two thousand and nineteen. 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.840 This is the story of the magician Stuart John Reagan. 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:05.160 Reagan was a pimp, rapist, standover man, and child murderer 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:06.799 who enjoyed inflicting pain. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:15.120 Stuart John Reagan was a malicious, vicious, violent criminal whom 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.479 I would raid among one of, if not the worst 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.360 criminal I ever came across during my retire police career. 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.279 Of all the criminals I ever knew were dealt with 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.039 as a crime reporter, Reagan would probably have been the 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.920 most vicious and deadly of the lot, the most heartless. 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.080 Stuart John Reagan was born in the quiet country town 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.479 of Young New South Wales in nineteen forty five. Not 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.320 much is known about his early life, apart from his 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:46.520 love of violence. 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.240 Well, if you're ever looking for a psychopath. 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.080 Reagan ticks all the boxes. 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.080 No one was surprised to learn that as a child 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.920 he killed animals. He harmed animals. There was a story 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.800 that he used to pitchfork to kill a possum. He 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.480 killed kittens and dogs, and he just had no empathy 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:08.839 for any living being whatsoever. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.680 These are the types of stories repeated over and over 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:22.760 about Reagan. Kelly has heard them all, but she wanted 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.960 to dig deeper, so we started at the beginning. Who 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:33.960 were his parents, Claire Mary Raul and Alfred Frederick Reagan. 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.920 Was Reagan like a chemical compound, the amalgam of two 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:49.719 evil forces? Was he a natural born killer? Or did 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:55.880 something happen to him in his formative years? What occurred 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:00.000 in his childhood that might betray a future of violence 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:06.040 and a complete lack of respect for human life? This 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:11.320 was the puzzle Kelly and I were faced with. She'd 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.920 also need to take a long, hard look at herself, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.440 So we started our search in the tiny township of Young, 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.960 the cherry capital of Australia on the southwestern slopes of 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.760 New South Wales, where Reagan was born and where this 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:36.880 whole story began. Young is a small country town the 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.120 Reagans were one of the pioneering families in this part 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.880 of Australia, and there are still Reagans in the phone book. 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.960 We needed to go back to his school, find schoolmates, 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.120 if any were still alive, go to his childhood homes 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.720 and discover what his life was like as a kid. 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.080 We had to piece together the birth of a gangster, 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.080 and crucially, we had to uncover that monster that has 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:15.400 haunted this story for decades, Reagan's mother, Claire, the woman 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:22.080 they called the Colonel. I'm journalist Matthew Condon and This 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:28.280 is the Gangster's Ghost, a podcast from The Australian. In 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:33.280 this investigation, we uncover previously unreported facts about the short 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:38.680 lived criminal career of Stuart John Reagan, speak to his family, 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:43.240 friends and business associates who go on the record for 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.720 the first time, link him to one of the most 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:52.800 notorious mass murders in Australian history, and uncover secret audio 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.920 recordings that will bring the ghost of Johnny Reagan back 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:02.720 to life. This podcast started out as a clinical look 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:07.280 at one of Australia's most reviled gangsters, but when the 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.280 Reagan family came on board, the project took on another 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:16.920 dimension and begged the question, how does a family cope 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:21.720 with the generational stain of a murderer whose death was 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:38.520 celebrated by criminals and police alike. This is episode two 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:51.440 the Colonel. In the early days of this investigation, I 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:56.000 took it for granted that Kel, a strong and uncompromising woman, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:02.040 loyal to family and with an unwavering moral compass, would 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:07.160 take this plunge into her family history in her stride. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.880 But as time went on, I understood how deeply the 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:16.240 whole thing affected her. The more we learned, the more 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:21.600 it went straight to the heart. This is another entry 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.360 in Kelly's personal audio diary. 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:31.960 Years later. I'm sitting in a police recruitment interview, being 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.920 grilled on a boy that turned into a monster and 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:39.000 a man. And now I'm starting to think, well, the 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.240 monster was created, and then the myth was created to 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.840 fit the monster, and it's just wrong. It's so wrong. 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:47.720 You know. 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.640 I'm open and prepared to see that John was a 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:55.920 murderer and that he committed atrocious crimes. I understand that, 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.120 But I'm finding a little boy that's stuck up for 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.720 the underdog, didn't allow the big kids to bully the 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.680 little kids. I'm saying that a murderer was created, but 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.520 I'm not saying a child murderer, So I guess we 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:10.559 continue to dig. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.320 That digging took us to the small town of muham Borough, 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:22.640 only about thirty kilometers south of Young Claire. Mary Raoul 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:27.560 was born there in nineteen thirteen. Her father, John Patrick, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:32.000 was a farmer. From the outset, it appears Claire wasn't 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:41.240 backwards in coming forward. In her twenties, she was training 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.959 and racing greyhounds at the murham Borough Coursing Club and 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:52.040 was regularly in the winner's circle. In nineteen thirty eight 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.520 in the Kurrawong Stakes, she came second with her dog 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:02.319 Jim's Lass, and at some point she met sheepsharer Alfred 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:08.920 Frederick Reagan from Young Kelly has vague memories of her 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:10.000 great uncle. 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:15.640 Alf Uncle alf used to be a shearer and he 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.320 used to travel around like all the western areas back 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:20.520 in those days. 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.040 Ready for the first run. Each man bring homes and 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.160 cutters for the hand piece. The rest of the machinery 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:32.920 belongs to the owner of the ship. There were flanel shirts. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.480 Of travel out and you'd cheer four weeks and ended 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.280 at shearing sheds all around this place, like Hillstone and 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.000 Griffith and everywhere else. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.440 In this game, more hayes means less speed and damaged 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:46.120 seap as well. 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.200 So I've been told he was a very good sharer. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.280 But the problem with Uncle Alf was that once he 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.040 finished hearing, he'd come home and then he would drink. 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.160 But I can remember him being down the main street. 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.720 He used to sit outside the old Tafe building which 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:03.800 is just up from the Australian Hotel, which is where 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.080 he drank. And he used to sit out there on 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.080 a bench and wait for us kids to come and 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.559 we run across the road because Dad's shop was over 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.480 the other side, and he'd give us too. 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.680 Bob to go and get some lollies. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.280 He used to always tip his hat to ask the 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.040 ladies as they walked past. He was a very very 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.080 old gentlemanly person like he was always. 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.840 How Alf and Claire actually met is lost to history. 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.439 Was he shearing in her neck of the woods? Did 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:41.760 they meet in a pub? The Regans don't know. Perhaps 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.880 Alf and Claire took the steam train, a short thirty 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.440 kilometer ride between Young and mum Burro when they were courting, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.520 But courting maybe the wrong word to use in this case. 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.640 That would imply a conventional romance, the thrill of falling 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:09.320 in love. Nothing was conventional about this relationship. It was 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:16.120 odd from the start and quickly became peculiar. Alf and 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.560 Claire were married in nineteen forty four at Hillston, a 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:25.360 small town three hundred kilometers west of both Young and Murramborough. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.920 The family can only speculate why they married so far 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:37.240 from their respective homes. Perhaps Alf was shearing in the 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.680 region at the time. There's a theory that Claire was 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.000 working as a bar maid at a hotel there. Still, 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.240 it was an odd start to a marriage that very 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:53.240 quickly proved to be a mistake. In every family, there 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:57.359 is an outlier, a person whose life becomes a satellite 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.680 to the main family game, a curio not worthy of 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:07.440 consideration or even basic respect, just as sick pigeons are 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:13.320 rejected by the flock. Alf's life upon marrying Claire seemed 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.000 to have been jettisoned from the normal functioning of the 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:23.240 Greater Reagan family. In fact, Claire's existence was completely ignored. 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.440 This is Kelly talking to her dad Lindsey about this 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:34.560 strange affair. 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.520 I never knew that Uncle alf Ever got married. I 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.680 didn't know that Uncle alf Ever was involved with the 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.080 woman because I'd never ever seen him with the lady. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.840 Tell me what this seems extraordinary? Given the size of 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.200 young in the nineteen forties and the influence of the Reagans, 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:59.000 how could they not know about the Colonel Kelly suspects 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:03.280 the family may have rejected Claire Raoul outright, given the 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:08.680 families deep and some might say pedigreed roots going right 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:13.360 back to the foundations of the town. Claire, as they say, 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.400 did not come from the right side of the tracks. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.160 Here's Kelly with her dad again. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:20.600 I'm down? 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.600 And what about the comparisons? Like the three Reagan boys 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.160 all married Carwell girls. Now back in the thirties, the 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.440 call Walls were quite a well to do family, you 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:32.840 could call them land a gentry. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.040 They were both pioneering families. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.400 I would imagine that those three weddings would have been 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:44.960 quite celebrated and compared to the Carbel girls, Claire would 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.240 have been fair to say if she felt intimidated when 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.360 she's coming into a family of that dynamics, do you reckon? 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.720 Certainly would just from my experience, once again, I didn't 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.280 know her or in their girls, but I don't think 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.760 that she ever was in the family setting. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.280 So never come for Christmas, never family gathering, never. 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.520 Ever, never ever, I would say she was never asked, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.400 never even spoken of, because I know they well as 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.679 I saying it was fifteen or something, and I never 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.520 even knew he existed? Was John Reagan? 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:26.560 Claire and Alf settled in young not long after their marriage, 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.720 or did they. Some family members say now that Alf 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.760 never stopped living with his mother, even when Claire was 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:40.200 residing in town as his new wife. Still, there were 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.840 very early signs that this was a fatally mismatched couple. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.440 Alf disappeared for weeks at a time on the Shearing circuit. 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.480 Claire took a job as a barmaid at the Australian 0:17:54.520 --> 0:18:02.920 Hotel in the main drag Burrower Street. This pub, formerly 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.679 the Shamrock Inn back in the gold rush days, would 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:12.720 inevitably become the sinking ship of the Reagan marriage. When 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.920 he was in town, Alf had his favorite stool there 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:34.959 while the Colonel captained the bar. Today, the Australian Hotel 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:39.200 is a vibrant family pub with fantastic food at very 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:43.040 reasonable prices. We paid a visit and had lunch, and 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.080 quickly learned from the new owners that it, like almost 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:52.920 everyone and everything in this story, had its ghosts, Claire 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:54.840 and Alf included. 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.760 My grandmother used to work here, and my mom did 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.359 so work upstairs, jens and cleaning, and I. 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.080 Used to drink here all the time. But it needs 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.640 to be a brothel in the early early days. 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:07.919 This is what I've. 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.440 Been informed of late eighteen hundred. 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:12.840 Where did your mum wear? 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:23.760 Oh my god, your grandmother would have worked here, Claire raw, Claire. 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.080 And you're over lunch In the noisy pub, we discussed 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:35.600 Claire and ELF's doomed marriage. So why does a couple 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.359 not get married in the town as they have to 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.760 go somewhere else to actually get married? In the pub, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.439 like everywhere else in Young it felt as if you 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:50.520 could almost reach out and touch the past. It didn't 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.280 require a great stretch of an intimation to see Claire 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:59.920 here behind the bar pulling beers, and her still the husband, Alf, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:06.000 drinking away his wages across the counter. They must have 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.800 glanced at each other over the damp via mets and 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:14.800 wondered about their future together. Perhaps they sensed it was 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:21.360 finished before it had even started. Then Claire fell pregnant. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:39.320 A short time ago, an American aeroplane dropped one bomb 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.760 on Hiroshima. It is an atomic bomb. 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.560 The Japanese have accepted our terms fully. This, ladies and gentlemen, 0:20:48.680 --> 0:21:00.200 is the end of the Second Worldwide. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:07.320 It's August nineteen forty five, and the world rejoiced when 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:14.280 Japan formally surrendered on September two. Even in rural Young 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.119 in western New South Wales, with its statues in the 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.520 main street commemorating the sacrifice of local men in the 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:28.200 First World War, they would have been celebrated too, blowing 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.760 the froth off a cold one at the Australian Hotel. 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.640 Less than two weeks later, on September thirteenth, nineteen forty five, 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.720 Stuart John Reagan, the only child of Claien Alf, was 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.960 born in Young. It should have been a happy moment 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.639 for the extended Reagan family in the immediate wake of 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:58.119 peace across the world, but it appears nobody in the 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:02.200 wider Reagan clan even you of the birth, just as 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:07.880 very few were aware that Alf was even married. Alf 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:11.040 built a ramshackle house for his new family by the 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:15.120 Creek in smythe Lane a couple of minutes walked from 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.600 his mother's house near the corner of Thornhill and Spring Streets. 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.520 But there's a curious dispute in the family as to 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:30.240 whether alf Ever domiciled with his wife and son. I 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.879 talked to Kelly about it and asked the question where 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.240 was alf living when baby Johnny came home from the hospital. 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:47.920 Alf would have been with his mother. I don't think 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:49.720 he ever moved out, to be honest. 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:53.560 So he might have still been living with his mother 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.919 while five hundred meters away his wife and son are 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:57.800 living by the creek. 0:22:58.200 --> 0:22:58.840 Correct. 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:01.240 She does mention in and there's documents that he dropped 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:03.040 in and out when he felt like it. 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:05.520 Maybe at the very beginning he might have lived with 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:07.080 them when he built that, But I think he built 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.320 the house for Aaron john Yeah. Dad certainly doesn't remember 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:14.879 Uncle ELpH being anywhere but with his mother or away hearing. 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.719 So this was little Johnny Reagan's strangulated world in a 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:27.280 small country town, his father coming and going, and his 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:34.000 mother the colonel ruling the roost. Reagan attended the local 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.640 Catholic school, Saint Joseph's, not far from his home, by 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:42.960 the Creek from kindergarten to grade three. He then went 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:48.400 on to the Christian Brothers College. We went and saw 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:53.080 Father Alan Crowe at Reagan's old college. You could almost 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:55.480 see the site of the former Reagan home from a 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.959 corner of the school playground. Father Crow had gone to 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:05.720 the school himself. He explained how Reagan would have started 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:09.760 kindergarten in nineteen fifty at Saint Joseph's and by year 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:16.119 three transitioned to the nearby Christian Brothers College. In preparation 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:20.600 for our visit, Father Crow had retrieved some old yearbooks 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:29.080 from the library we set up in his office. 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.159 So he would have started king year nine fifty, wouldn't it. 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:32.840 Yes, you were behind John. 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:37.160 Worne fifty four, more than the year he started at 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:38.600 Christian Brothers. 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:44.560 Reagan appeared sporadically in the yearbooks, a serious young boy. 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:48.600 In his black and white class photographs, he did not 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:58.080 smile in a single picture. Kelly tracked down several of 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:05.080 Reagan's old schoolmates. Some remembered him fondly, others had a 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:12.200 harsher assessment. However, all of them, bar none, recalled with horror, 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:14.439 even after seventy years. 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:16.359 The Colonel. 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:24.160 One of those schoolmates was Brian English. 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:31.320 John was a slightly lonely, sort of angry kid, not 0:25:31.480 --> 0:25:34.480 many friends, and kids were a bit frightened of it. 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:36.560 I'm not saying he was a bully, but you wouldn't 0:25:36.560 --> 0:25:41.040 cross it, and the teachers in the school were afraid 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:44.639 of Claire. I remember on one occasion we used to 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:48.679 play cricket in the schoolyard and kids would take its 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:51.240 turn to be in the bat and John was not playing. 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:54.240 He was just standing in the yard and Suddody belted 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:56.840 a cricket ball right up in the air, came down 0:25:56.840 --> 0:25:59.320 and hit John right on the top of his head, 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:01.960 knocked him out there. He went down like a kind 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:04.680 of bricks. I was standing about two meters away from 0:26:04.680 --> 0:26:09.120 when that happened, and one of the Christian brothers came 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:12.880 over and another kid and I sat John up and 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:15.240 we said, you know, his mother lives over there, and 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:17.919 the teacher said, I'm not going there. Other kid and 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:21.520 I took John hame to Claire and explained what had happened. 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:24.240 And John was a bit adult, but we took him home. 0:26:24.600 --> 0:26:27.800 So the teachers didn't want to get involved with Claire. 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:30.439 The colonel still haunts Brian. 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:33.600 On another occasion, there's a bit of a gully that 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:37.400 runs down behind the old house into the tree, and 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:41.720 my brother, sister and I were there with him, playing 0:26:41.880 --> 0:26:46.600 around there, and Claire apparently had been calling for John 0:26:46.640 --> 0:26:49.480 to come out, and I can honestly say not one 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:51.919 of us heard it, but we literally did not hear Claire. 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:54.800 But the next thing, she came down the lane with 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:58.320 a stockwhip and she felted him home. She drove him 0:26:58.359 --> 0:27:02.760 home like he was being so he had a tough mother, 0:27:02.880 --> 0:27:04.000 a tough tough lady. 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:09.679 David Pattinson, who sadly passed away shortly after speaking to 0:27:09.800 --> 0:27:13.240 us during the making of this podcast, was in the 0:27:13.280 --> 0:27:18.280 same primary school class as Reagan. He too heard about 0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:22.159 the monster that was the Colonel. 0:27:22.640 --> 0:27:23.320 I remember. 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:23.640 He god. 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:26.920 He actually had a fight at school with Paul Gibson, 0:27:27.320 --> 0:27:32.800 who all gave him my bloody nose. Then another took 0:27:32.840 --> 0:27:34.879 him down to his mother and she's worked with the 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:39.320 behind the bar and she came out with it with 0:27:39.520 --> 0:27:44.639 the cloth of the bar wiped his face, said you 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:46.480 get out of him and get back there and give 0:27:46.560 --> 0:27:47.520 him a bleating nose. 0:27:49.880 --> 0:27:54.320 Another of Reagan's school friends, Michael Rule used to have 0:27:54.359 --> 0:27:58.360 a sleepover at Reagan's place. When Johnny and the Colonel 0:27:58.800 --> 0:28:05.720 stated her parents farm just outside town. During Alf's drinking belts, 0:28:07.600 --> 0:28:11.560 Michael said if he and Johnny did anything wrong, Claire's father, 0:28:12.119 --> 0:28:17.600 Johnny's grandfather would chase them with a stock whip. Real 0:28:17.720 --> 0:28:25.000 confirmed that the Colonel also whipped Johnny. That violence, it seemed, 0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:30.000 had rubbed off on Stuart John Reagan, who told his 0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:40.920 friend about his inner tiger. Michael explained it to Kelly. 0:28:39.160 --> 0:28:40.640 Jarley, I don't think you played. 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:43.840 He used to take people because he. 0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:44.239 Is to fly. 0:28:46.000 --> 0:28:49.800 He liked people, and then again you don't know what 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:51.959 city want and they have become a bisiness. 0:28:52.920 --> 0:28:54.520 He wasn't that good dad either. 0:28:55.400 --> 0:28:58.280 Short pees I said to me one day, I said, 0:28:58.360 --> 0:29:02.600 you had the shortest fo years to go a buy her, 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:11.680 he said, he said, I've learned to control. When you control, 0:29:12.160 --> 0:29:15.760 Beena Tiger, you have got a lot of control. 0:29:17.560 --> 0:29:21.920 Brian had pitiful memories of Reagan's father Alf. 0:29:23.800 --> 0:29:26.600 The other thing you had with John was that Alf 0:29:27.560 --> 0:29:31.280 was apparently a good worker when he wasn't drinking. But 0:29:31.480 --> 0:29:35.880 Alf was a fiendish drinker. Other kids than I used 0:29:35.960 --> 0:29:39.600 to see Alf in the city in the gutter outside 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:44.160