Speaker 1: One occasion, I took a suitcase full of sticks. It
Speaker 1: was so jam packed with tire sticks that you couldn't
Speaker 1: get a bloody t shirt on top of it and
Speaker 1: close the case, so it was just wrapped in plastic
Speaker 1: wipe down with methos so the smell wouldn't get out.
Speaker 1: There were two bags left on the carousel, one of
Speaker 1: them was mine, and standing around the carousel were I
Speaker 1: think twenty possibly more, but twenty year Commonwealth Police in uniform.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life and Crimes, and today
Speaker 2: we're going to talk to Rod Helstead, a fellow that
Speaker 2: I would call almost a friend. We met around twenty
Speaker 2: years ago or a little bit less, when we were
Speaker 2: introduced by mutual friend Billy Gray. Billy Gray, of course
Speaker 2: was from Aubury, originally up that way, but he started
Speaker 2: working in newspapers at the bought a mail. Ye we
Speaker 2: bought a mail, and in fact, so did you.
Speaker 1: Briefly.
Speaker 2: That was a brief stopover in a long and colorful career,
Speaker 2: Rod Helstead. And you realize that even back in the
Speaker 2: early two thousands, and thought you might sit down and
Speaker 2: write your memoirs. And we discussed this possibility and finally
Speaker 2: you've delivered. It's been published, hellelujah. It has been published
Speaker 2: by a major publisher. It would be Ellen number correct.
Speaker 2: And it is.
Speaker 1: Called it's called take My Advice. I'm not using it.
Speaker 1: It's a very accurate type.
Speaker 2: It's a very accurate title. Now, Rod, who are you?
Speaker 2: You're flogging your book?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I am flogging the book.
Speaker 2: But you've got some funny stories to tell us.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of funny stories. It's been an
Speaker 1: up and down life without bringing a tear to the eye.
Speaker 1: I've heard a few people along the way, not least
Speaker 1: my two kids and my ex wife, yes, and various others.
Speaker 1: I've done the best I could to make amends. I
Speaker 1: decided to get sober or I was impelled to get
Speaker 1: saber twenty six years ago. In fact, twenty six years ago,
Speaker 1: two weeks ago. It was suggested to me not long
Speaker 1: after I went into AA by Barry Humphrey, who and
Speaker 1: he doesn't mind you, well, didn't mind his name on you.
Speaker 2: He now be fine.
Speaker 1: Now he's a good blake too. He came up to
Speaker 1: me after a meeting one day and he said, tell me, right,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about writing your memoir? Interest in
Speaker 1: stories to tell, and I said, I have, Barry, but look,
Speaker 1: when I write it, I want to get it exactly right.
Speaker 1: Is that give you a word of advice there? He said,
Speaker 1: don't get it right, get it written. And that's stuck
Speaker 1: in my mind. It really stuck in my mind. And
Speaker 1: then I got sober and I started building businesses and
Speaker 1: making a few bob and concentrating on that, and the
Speaker 1: book was in the back of my mind, and eventually
Speaker 1: was about four years ago. I sold one business that
Speaker 1: I kicked off and I thought, well, I got a
Speaker 1: loose end. I'll write the book.
Speaker 2: Finally got around writing the book that.
Speaker 1: We discussed all those years ago. Yeah, yeah, I met
Speaker 1: you with the Billy. I reckon it would be about
Speaker 1: was when I was working for WTFN in Melbourne and
Speaker 1: Bill flew down for it, and I reckon that. I
Speaker 1: reckon that would have been around about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Without doubt, before I came back to the welcoming arms
Speaker 2: of the herald Son. So finally you've written this book,
Speaker 2: and I have to say to explain to our listeners
Speaker 2: that it's not really about the joys of AA, it's
Speaker 2: about the life you led before that. So what happened
Speaker 2: in your life when you were young and younger.
Speaker 1: Look at the stadium the beginning. The old man was
Speaker 1: a stocking station agent in Gannadhar. And I was an
Speaker 1: adventurous sort of a kid. We didn't have TV and
Speaker 1: you know all the implemented telephones and all the rest
Speaker 1: that they've got these days. You made your own fun,
Speaker 1: of course, So you know, Marmon sends us up to
Speaker 1: pork Bone Hill with a box of matches and a
Speaker 1: packet of sausages and say, behme by dark. You sort
Speaker 1: of learned to survive. Really, I mean, I don't mean
Speaker 1: survive she send us off, You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was an adventurous life. Anyway, the old man said
Speaker 1: to me. I wanted to go to the saaliliards and
Speaker 1: work with him in school holidays. He was at he was, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was, and a bloody good salesman. Anyway, I went
Speaker 1: to the sailiards and I got into the sheep trucks
Speaker 1: and open gates, and the sheep are doing what they do,
Speaker 1: you know, and all over me. And I'm bloody loving it.
Speaker 1: And I got paid. I got paid a pound a day.
Speaker 1: Bloody good money for a kid. Anyway, one day, when
Speaker 1: I was about ten, he said to me, yes, and
Speaker 1: he said it's time for you to work with cattle.
Speaker 1: Do you want to do that? And I said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: no problem. So he said, I'm going to have to
Speaker 1: steer around the race here to you. I want to
Speaker 1: hold onto this gate to the pen, and when the
Speaker 1: steer comes up, you go hoo ah hoo ah, and
Speaker 1: it'll go into the pen. And I said, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: no worries. And then this bloody thing came around the
Speaker 1: corner and faired incoman. I thought it was a Spanish
Speaker 1: fighting bull. It was huge, I thought it was anyway. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's trotted towards me, and I thought it was galloping
Speaker 1: at me, and I'm going to hourrah rah, And I
Speaker 1: got one foot on the bloody race of the that
Speaker 1: so I get shitting out of the way and holding
Speaker 1: the gate. And anyway, the thing turned and went into
Speaker 1: the pen, and I closed the gate and slid the
Speaker 1: bolt across, and I looked at the old man and
Speaker 1: he had this look on his face of absolute pride
Speaker 1: and confidence, and I saw it. It was an exchange,
Speaker 1: you know that book that passes between people. And I
Speaker 1: realized years later on he was able to put into
Speaker 1: words when I got into AA, what was that fifty
Speaker 1: forty years later? I realized in that moment that I won.
Speaker 1: I had courage, I could stand aground. Two, I could
Speaker 1: work in a team the old man. Three that I
Speaker 1: could follow directions, and four it's a really good idea
Speaker 1: to have Plan B. Hence the foot on the fence,
Speaker 1: get out of the bloody way, the very nice your
Speaker 1: life has been. Yeah, so that's what's dedicated on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's I have an adventurous spirit. And what
Speaker 2: happened next, Well, we moved to Aubrey and I went
Speaker 2: to high school and I had no interest whatever in school,
Speaker 2: A lot of interest in the mates and playing footy
Speaker 2: and living that sort of life, you know, fifteen sixteen
Speaker 2: years of age, going down.
Speaker 1: To the pub. The old record who played for Melbourne
Speaker 1: years and years ago. Ireca had a pub in Aubrey
Speaker 1: and we used to go in there. Actually it was
Speaker 1: before he owned it. We used to go in there
Speaker 1: and buy Oh I did, because I look the oldest.
Speaker 1: I'd go in there and buy. You could buy five
Speaker 1: cans of VB for a dollar twenty cents each, and
Speaker 1: I used to buy them for the boys, and we
Speaker 1: used to go to the gardens to have a drink.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was. It was a really good life.
Speaker 1: It was terrific life. We didn't hurt anybody, we didn't vandalize.
Speaker 1: We just lived our lives. I had no interest in school.
Speaker 1: I got good passes in maths and English, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to get out. And the old man got
Speaker 1: me a job in the bloody bank.
Speaker 2: Did it four walls? It was national and you're not
Speaker 2: your cup of tea? No, it was had four walls.
Speaker 2: I had to be outside. How long did it last?
Speaker 1: The bank lasted two weeks in Aubury and I resigned
Speaker 1: and I managed and said, you can't do that. Your
Speaker 1: father got you other job. So they sent me to
Speaker 1: Sydney and I had six months up.
Speaker 2: There in the bank in Sydney. Yeah, right in Sydney. Well,
Speaker 2: you know it was in this a turning point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what Aubrey actually was a turning point. My job
Speaker 1: for two weeks was to carry this suitcase full of
Speaker 1: used banknotes with a guard who carried a gun. We'd
Speaker 1: take it up the raid fifty meters to the your
Speaker 1: fifty yards, then to the Commonwealth Bank and we take
Speaker 1: it down into their cellar and they would then take
Speaker 1: the money and they'd count it and stamp holes in
Speaker 1: it and send it off the Reserve Bank. It was
Speaker 1: just old notes that were no good anymore. So I
Speaker 1: spent the two weeks ago, the two times I carried that,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, how can I make this mine? How can
Speaker 1: I can I pinch it?
Speaker 2: I say so, you had an inquiring mind with a
Speaker 2: slightly criminal ban, Yeah, which is only natural when you're
Speaker 2: carrying use banks.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's pretty tempting. It very probably you know,
Speaker 1: thirty thousand pounds or something like thirty thousand dollars in it. Yeah, dollars.
Speaker 1: It was nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2: Yes, conversion. So of course you didn't do that.
Speaker 1: No, No, I didn't. I didn't, but it was interesting.
Speaker 1: The thought occurred to me.
Speaker 2: I'm not a thief, no, but I read that amount
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 1: Certain institutions a fair game, like banks, the tax office.
Speaker 1: Tax tax biker isn't listening now.
Speaker 2: It probably is, Yeah, it probably is. I take that back,
Speaker 2: Take that back. I would immediately we all pay tax
Speaker 2: around here. So you went to Sydney to work in
Speaker 2: the bank, and what happened there.
Speaker 1: Well, I I just drank. I got under the booze
Speaker 1: did Yeah. I had one day out in the time
Speaker 1: I was there, I had one day at the races
Speaker 1: and I won forty dollars, which was double my weekly salary.
Speaker 1: And my mate and I decided we're going to the
Speaker 1: cross for a drink, and we had to walk past
Speaker 1: the Curability Hotel and so we called in for a
Speaker 1: quick one and there were there are about seven or
Speaker 1: eight blakes in there. Yeah, and I've been a lair
Speaker 1: I am, I said, shout the bar. Yeah, you'd always
Speaker 1: wanted to say it, and you were what seven day? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you know media beer was twenty cents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's cheap.
Speaker 1: So I thought I won forty bucks. And the Republican
Speaker 1: or the barman came back and he said that'll be
Speaker 1: seven dollars eighty and I said, I got all, yeah,
Speaker 1: could it possibly be there's only seven blakes in here.
Speaker 1: They're all drinking seven ounce of beers and they're nursing those. Oh,
Speaker 1: he said, they're not drinking those anymore. He said they're
Speaker 1: all drinking skinners now. With the Scots chase.
Speaker 2: That was less than one. Yeah, that was don't big note. Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't big note. I didn't land it. No, take my advice.
Speaker 2: Take my advice. I'm not using it. So you get
Speaker 2: to the racis And I loved it part. I ran
Speaker 2: the gamal in at school. I ran the Melbourne cup
Speaker 2: book at school. Yeah, make good money out of it
Speaker 2: and what have you. But it wasn't for me the
Speaker 2: bank life. And I decided to hitchhike over to Western Australia,
Speaker 2: did you And what was the aim of that?
Speaker 1: Well, my mate's father knew somebody over a great bowl
Speaker 1: of gold mines out of cal Girley. He organized job
Speaker 1: for for Phil, and Phil told me that he could
Speaker 1: get me a job too. I said, yep, I'm in.
Speaker 1: And so I hitch liked over. Well, not in the
Speaker 1: minds as a geologist assistant. Oh okay, So yeah, traveling
Speaker 1: trailing out in the country that nobody ever been to before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good stuff. I remember Dennis the geologist. He was an
Speaker 1: odd one. He was one of twins. They used to
Speaker 1: take it in turns to stand for the local seat
Speaker 1: in the state parliament. They never have got any votes,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was a boring sort of a blake.
Speaker 1: But yeah, nice enough so you've got the job.
Speaker 2: You've got that, you got there safely, got the safe adventures.
Speaker 1: But sixteen rides three and a half days, did you
Speaker 1: roll a car or something. I've rolled a number of cars,
Speaker 1: but on that trip, And how long have you been
Speaker 1: working in the bush? And I was only over there
Speaker 1: for about six months. And there are lots of things happened,
Speaker 1: lots of you know, yeah, there were. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of funny moments. There was a very nasty moment
Speaker 1: where a black by the name of Steve was driving
Speaker 1: the years and Scotty and I were the passion is
Speaker 1: in it and he was bush bashing and I said
Speaker 1: to him, better slide down flat country in West Australia.
Speaker 1: But there are rocks everywhere. I said, you can't see
Speaker 1: where you're going. He said, it'll be right. And the
Speaker 1: next thing, three goats emerged and he drove at them
Speaker 1: and we were Scotty and I were sort of thinking, well,
Speaker 1: that's a kind of weird thing. And he accelerated and
Speaker 1: ran over one of them, and we Scotty went off
Speaker 1: his trolley. He said, pull the car up, got out
Speaker 1: and he put the gate out of its misery and
Speaker 1: then he was going to use the knife on this fellow. Steve.
Speaker 1: I had to grab him and hold him. And I
Speaker 1: mean I was big and he was small, but he
Speaker 1: was going to have this fella. And we went back
Speaker 1: to camp and we got in the ute and I said,
Speaker 1: we'll go straight back.
Speaker 2: To strain the relationship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we told the boss we'd never never worked
Speaker 1: with this bike again. Didn't tell him why. I just said,
Speaker 1: we will never work with this fellow again. He turned
Speaker 1: out to be a thief, Steve and got his just desserts.
Speaker 1: Another mile mannered Michael with the glasses, came from a
Speaker 1: family of doctors, sat at the HSC three times so
Speaker 1: I could get the marks to become a doctor, and
Speaker 1: his family incessed to be a doctor. And he just
Speaker 1: said no, I've had enough. And he got over to
Speaker 1: Western Australia and worked in the camps with us, and
Speaker 1: he we didn't know, but Michael was the everyweight boxing
Speaker 1: champion of his own and he just took this boke apart.
Speaker 1: And I know it sound like I'm promoting violence, and
Speaker 1: I'm not, but there are certain moments in time where
Speaker 1: nothing but a good clip on the air, We'll do.
Speaker 2: The job and that's what happened. Yeah, we're going to
Speaker 2: certainly to touch up. What was your next adventure after
Speaker 2: working in six months with a murderous killing.
Speaker 1: Lunatic. I thought I got onto a tip for shares
Speaker 1: and I rang. My man said, by these shares, theseus
Speaker 1: they're going to list in the next few days. And
Speaker 1: they did. They listed in Queensland and West Australian company.
Speaker 1: They were twenty cent shares listed to thirty cents and
Speaker 1: they rapidly went to forty dollars or something. Oh and
Speaker 1: then I was told by the geologist that I was
Speaker 1: with when we discovered this stuff, and he said, look
Speaker 1: it's a dud. So I rang. The old man said
Speaker 1: cell and then I resigned and I thought, I'm going
Speaker 1: back to aubury. I'm going back to a motsa. And
Speaker 1: when I got back, the old man said, now he said,
Speaker 1: we made nothing. He's a stopbreaker. Mate in Sydney he
Speaker 1: went to school with didn't buy him because he hadn't
Speaker 1: seen the prospectus. And that taught me a big lesson.
Speaker 1: Take your chances. Take your chances. If you're going to
Speaker 1: wait for proof, you'll never have a back a winner.
Speaker 2: True. Yeah, good point. That is an interesting story because
Speaker 2: I mean the arithmetic, twenty cents each turning into forty dollars,
Speaker 2: it's a massive several thousand percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so he only had to put a grand
Speaker 1: in and you never ever work again.
Speaker 2: Never work again, yeah, staggering. Yeah, that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't work again for ten years anyway.
Speaker 2: No, I saw, Well, that's sort of why in a way,
Speaker 2: that's why we're here, the descent of young Rod into
Speaker 2: the pit of sin city. So you end up back
Speaker 2: in Sydney.
Speaker 1: I ended up back in Sydney, and I did come
Speaker 1: back and work for the Board of Mail for a year,
Speaker 1: but that didn't work out.
Speaker 2: Now I cent recalled reading the book. I read an
Speaker 2: early version of it that in Sydney at one point
Speaker 2: you'd worked in a pub there and you didn't realize
Speaker 2: you got involved in a card game and you didn't
Speaker 2: realize it was read and you lost them.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a part of it was Bloody Mary's Wine, but.
Speaker 2: Bloody Mary's wine. But when was that?
Speaker 1: That was early days. We had a game of cards
Speaker 1: in my house that I was sharing with a couple
Speaker 1: of other blakes, and one of the bouncers from Bloody Mary's.
Speaker 1: A guy called Mike had the fastest hands you've ever
Speaker 1: seen in your life. I remember in one night he
Speaker 1: placed a candle on the bar and lit it, and
Speaker 1: he had one of those bowl wine glasses on a
Speaker 1: stem with the bowl, and he looked at both and
Speaker 1: in the fastest thing, he flicked his fingers at the
Speaker 1: flame of the candle. He didn't actually touch it, but
Speaker 1: he sucked the air out from under beneath the candle
Speaker 1: and put it out, and in the same motion cracked
Speaker 1: the edge of the bowl of the wine glass and
Speaker 1: break the stem and caught the ball.
Speaker 2: Did he?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's incredibly fast. He was a role he
Speaker 1: partly a little blake, but he was a karate guy
Speaker 1: and he really knew his stuff, and he was he
Speaker 1: could shuffle cards. He could shuffle cards, could he? And
Speaker 1: as well as do karate as handy lad? And what
Speaker 1: was his name? Mike?
Speaker 2: Mike?
Speaker 1: I imagine he'd be dead by now, but who knows, knows?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 2: Is he much older than you, probably about ten years older.
Speaker 2: He may may be just hanging on. So Mike got you,
Speaker 2: got you into a game of cards.
Speaker 1: Mike and he managed to beat it, did he and
Speaker 1: a number of other blakes in the in the game,
Speaker 1: and Gus, who loved to play cards, said no. He said,
Speaker 1: I think he played one or two hands and he said.
Speaker 2: I'll sit out, thinks Oh, And Gus could see Mike
Speaker 2: kneeling from the bottom of the deck and I couldn't, okay,
Speaker 2: And he got me for five hundred. Oh, it was
Speaker 2: quite a few, bob. And what happened then? You couldn't
Speaker 2: really you couldn't pay him because I didn't have the
Speaker 2: five hundred. And he put up a proposition. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: put a proposition up. And what was that that?
Speaker 1: We relieved the wine bar of it's the night's taking.
Speaker 2: So robbed the joint and how did that work out?
Speaker 1: Well, nobody got charged. We did it, and the police
Speaker 1: arrived with the way we did it. He said, look,
Speaker 1: I'll mark you. I'll whack you.
Speaker 2: You know, you open the back door, it's dark, I
Speaker 2: step in, whack you the safe sape and you're about
Speaker 2: to put money in them?
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, right. So he put these.
Speaker 2: Three coins, two bits in between three, and he's whacked
Speaker 2: me and it sort of marked me a bit.
Speaker 1: I said, don't get serious. So he's gone whack, And
Speaker 1: I said, so he's gone three or four, really good
Speaker 1: heart and up and I've got blood run down And
Speaker 1: I then lay on the floor for a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes and I got up and I'm groggy, and I
Speaker 1: call the police and they arrived, and I realized I
Speaker 1: could be charged still out of this matter. Yeah, I choose,
Speaker 1: I could have left it out of the book, and
Speaker 1: I could choose not to talk about it now.
Speaker 2: But you can't do it.
Speaker 1: You can't. Well, yeah, but you can't edit your life
Speaker 1: if you're going to be fair income and want people
Speaker 1: to believe you, if you're going to put yourself up
Speaker 1: as the past a boy for andy drugs, yes, then
Speaker 1: how can you deny your own bad behavior? Well, that's
Speaker 1: very true.
Speaker 2: This is a good point, and at this point you're
Speaker 2: only really putting yourself in, yeah, rather than naming.
Speaker 1: Mike, and I didn't put anybody in. The police used
Speaker 1: to drink in our bar, yes, And two of them arrived,
Speaker 1: one who hated me and one who liked me. Vaughan
Speaker 1: liked me, and the other big I can't remember his name.
Speaker 1: He didn't like me at all. And so the blaker
Speaker 1: didn't like me, is questioned me, and what's your part
Speaker 1: in this? And what did you do? You set this up? No,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. I'm groggy. I
Speaker 1: can't I've got no memory, blah blah blah. And Vaughn said, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: pretty open and shutcase to me. Yeah, you're right to
Speaker 1: get home, Rod, And I said, well, I'm a big groggy,
Speaker 1: said I We'll give you a ride. And the other
Speaker 1: boy said your kid, nuja. He said no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: And Vorm was a senior. So got And what was
Speaker 1: the net take of the It was I think it
Speaker 1: was about fifteen hundred.
Speaker 2: But he wanted his five hundred that you.
Speaker 1: Which will left seven fifty eighth? Yeah, and me painting
Speaker 1: the five hundred, well left me with two fifty, but
Speaker 1: he very graciously said no, we'll split it down the middle.
Speaker 2: Ah. And what happened then, what happened with Mike.
Speaker 1: I was all pretty innocuous. It was just running a
Speaker 1: wine bar and doing stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I moved on to other things. That's when I got
Speaker 1: into the other dealing game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was sort of the first real criminal act.
Speaker 2: Was that. Now you mentioned Mary Bloody Mary's one bar
Speaker 2: and whatsuburb.
Speaker 1: Camping down camping down, Yeah, just down from RPA Hospital.
Speaker 2: And so you've been pretty good at working it. You
Speaker 2: were bit of a barman sort of. Oh yeah, I've
Speaker 2: done a lot about talk to it, talk to people.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and I've done a lot of and I
Speaker 1: pull a bloody good beer and I don't spill anything
Speaker 1: into the drip tray into my session. You wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to fill a thimble. The stuff very good.
Speaker 2: And what happened next.
Speaker 1: I ran into an old mate that I played footy
Speaker 1: against in Aubrey, Paul mack Now did God bless him?
Speaker 1: And Paul said, listen, can you do something for me.
Speaker 1: I've got a business. I want you to run it
Speaker 1: for me. I want to take a trip to Mexico
Speaker 1: when I have a holiday. And I said yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: What's what's the business And he said, well, I sell
Speaker 1: marijuana and I said, yeah, I can do that. I
Speaker 1: didn't think twice. I said yeah I can do that.
Speaker 1: I've been smoking for about a year. And so he
Speaker 1: went and he gave me a couple of numbers of
Speaker 1: contact in Melbourne and the headman in Sydney, who in
Speaker 1: the book called gator non diplum. But I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell you his real name because.
Speaker 2: It might be it's a marine type animal.
Speaker 1: It could be something like that.
Speaker 2: Although there are no gators in Australia, but I'll get
Speaker 2: there is an alligator river. So yeah, contact your man
Speaker 2: had gone to Mexico. Yeah, he went to Mexico to
Speaker 2: buy things. No, No, he just went for a holiday.
Speaker 2: And I I said, I'll run it and I'll make
Speaker 2: something and I'll keep something for you. And I met
Speaker 2: this guy and my mate Paul told him that I
Speaker 2: was going to call him. I met him on the
Speaker 2: corner of New South d Raid outside Raised Bow police Station,
Speaker 2: which is an interesting starting point, it is, and we
Speaker 2: we knodded at each other. I hopped into his car.
Speaker 2: We went to the.
Speaker 1: Pub in what's the pub in Double Bay, The Golden Sheath,
Speaker 1: The Golden Sheath. We went the Golden Sheath.
Speaker 2: Called the Golden Sheet. It could begin also.
Speaker 1: And I've had some funny times in there. And we
Speaker 1: remember the guy Robert G. Barrett Rode.
Speaker 2: Had some interesting times once or twice. He was a
Speaker 2: very funny man.
Speaker 1: He was a very funny man. He took bloody good drink.
Speaker 2: It took the mickey out of the literally establishment. He
Speaker 2: came down to Writer's Festival in Melbourne, which is very
Speaker 2: seriously po faced and all that, and he turned up
Speaker 2: with I think possibly two very sort of glamorous women
Speaker 2: who didn't have a lot of clothing on, and he
Speaker 2: took them both of this. That's absolutely shocked them.
Speaker 1: I was. I was in the in the back bar
Speaker 1: with the Gator and a few other blokes one day
Speaker 1: and then through the double doors burst Robert G. Barrett
Speaker 1: with probably different ones, but two girls run under their charm,
Speaker 1: and he ballowed out right boys the Puddigan start, I'm here.
Speaker 1: It was like that he was funny man and he was.
Speaker 1: He was a bouncer on the illegal casino doors.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, that's that's been a butcher and he could
Speaker 2: blue yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Big time. But he didn't look for anything. He was
Speaker 1: just very happy. He knew what was.
Speaker 2: They were funny books. Yeah, yeah, they were funny. They
Speaker 2: weren't bad really yeah, and they have been filmed since
Speaker 2: yeah I should Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, we got on the terms there a Gata and
Speaker 1: I and we sort of became mates, and then I
Speaker 1: started running large amounts of smoke over with tire sticks
Speaker 1: and just for.
Speaker 2: The benefit of our listeners, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: cause any trouble. And also we can edit this. But
Speaker 2: data is a non diplome for a bloke who has
Speaker 2: got a nickname, and he is a very significant figure
Speaker 2: in Sydney crime or in fact in Australian crime. Yes,
Speaker 2: and he's one that people like me and others have
Speaker 2: heard of for decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, that's true. That's right, Okay.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make that clear to our listeners.
Speaker 2: And we're not talking about Mickey Mouse Stuffy, No, No,
Speaker 2: we're talking about a very serious man, very serious.
Speaker 1: And I've got to say I liked him a real
Speaker 1: lot back then and I still like him. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen him for a long time, but I remember.
Speaker 2: But does he like you? That's the problem.
Speaker 1: Last time I saw him, Yeah, last time I saw him,
Speaker 1: he was getting involved in other stuff and outside of smoke.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, this isn't for me, mate,
Speaker 1: I'm out, and it's a trade you don't walk away from.
Speaker 1: But I looked him in the eye and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm out. I'm finished, are we right? And he looked
Speaker 1: at me for a long time and then he smiled
Speaker 1: and he said, yeah, mate, we're right, and I believed him,
Speaker 1: and I've never had a moment's worry since.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so you had to sort of make the
Speaker 2: formal exit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the exitent. Well, I wasn't just going not turn
Speaker 1: up and I wasn't going to promise to do something
Speaker 1: that I didn't do. I mean I always fulfilled the task,
Speaker 1: which was being the middle man between the buyer and
Speaker 1: the seller.
Speaker 2: And so just described to listen to what that would
Speaker 2: involve on a given Wednesday or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: Well, and that term that's just reminded me my old
Speaker 1: man said to me when I went to West Australia.
Speaker 1: He said, I got two things for you. One was
Speaker 1: thirty bucks, was a lot of money. And I said,
Speaker 1: what's the other thing? He said a word of advice,
Speaker 1: He said, the well's full of buyers and sell has
Speaker 1: become the agent middle Often you'll get paid both ways.
Speaker 1: And I did, and I became a very very good salesman.
Speaker 1: And so would you travel to places like Griffith by No, No, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't travel anywhere. Stuff. I picked it up in Sydney.
Speaker 1: It was all organized, mostly imported from Thailand. And Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and elsewhere, those buddhisticks and hash hash oil, and I
Speaker 1: would then take a couple of times. I picked it
Speaker 1: up at the airport at the customs, i should say,
Speaker 1: and they were two loads of one was tire sticks,
Speaker 1: the other was hash oil, and they we required my
Speaker 1: utility to transport both players. Why were you a good
Speaker 1: choice for this?
Speaker 2: Did they already have people at the customs who were
Speaker 2: on side that were being bribed or were you able
Speaker 2: to just sort of disarm them with they did?
Speaker 1: Certainly with the stuff with the hash oil in it.
Speaker 1: That was a large box. And when I went to
Speaker 1: pick it up, they said, you said, I was just
Speaker 1: in a bloody p the box paid me, buddy fifty
Speaker 1: bucks to come and pick this up. Can I get
Speaker 1: it done? I'm in a hurry, And they said, you
Speaker 1: just wait to turn. And they've emptied the box all
Speaker 1: sorts of goodies, you know, and some wooden things which
Speaker 1: they took a drill and drilled into see if there's
Speaker 1: anything in it other stuff. They if it could be
Speaker 1: opened it, They opened it and they completely emptied the box.
Speaker 1: And they said, all right, well you can go now.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'm going to put it in the box.
Speaker 1: I'm only paid the body transport it. So I said,
Speaker 1: you can put it in the bloody back in the box,
Speaker 1: which they did, and I said, can you give me
Speaker 1: a handle of it? And they did have your hand
Speaker 1: to put it.
Speaker 2: Where was the actual oil? It was in the framework
Speaker 2: of the box. In the framework of the box. That's
Speaker 2: that old, that old wolf joke about it. They're stopping
Speaker 2: the bloke with a wheelbarrow full of store every days
Speaker 2: at the end of six. I've seen wheelbarrows from Doc
Speaker 2: one and straw from Doc three. It was in the
Speaker 2: framework of the box. They didn't drill that amazing your men, Gaeta,
Speaker 2: he had parents. You met the parents now, just to
Speaker 2: make it clear again, Gaeta is a serious heavy known
Speaker 2: to many many people around this country. He has been
Speaker 2: nominated in books, films, whatever as a heavy dude. You
Speaker 2: are reasonably close to him at some point. This is
Speaker 2: before Adelaide. I suppose this is before the Adelaide adventure
Speaker 2: where you left Pound to get away. Okay, so you
Speaker 2: have met Gaitera's parents up the coast somewhere. You may
Speaker 2: tell this with unexpegated language, and we may have to
Speaker 2: do some beeping.
Speaker 1: But I'll have to tell it with language. This is
Speaker 1: the time we brought the oil in the framework of
Speaker 1: the box. We jumped into the gator's jag. There was
Speaker 1: Gaitera's minder, his ma, and there was me and we
Speaker 1: went up the central coast. We pulled up this house.
Speaker 1: Mum and Dad were waiting for us. Yep, very humble home,
Speaker 1: firebro home.
Speaker 2: What were Mum and dad like?
Speaker 1: Mum and Dad were It's four thirty in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Mom's in hair curlers. She was a lovely lady. She's
Speaker 1: in hair curlers, a nighty, a night sort of gown
Speaker 1: over at the top of it. And Dad was in
Speaker 1: his stripe pajamas and he's dressing gowns with a gold
Speaker 1: tessel cord? Did he four thirty? A little sleep and
Speaker 1: ready for sleep? I think we went into the house.
Speaker 1: We put the framework into the freezer. I still had
Speaker 1: no idea what we were, what we were carrying. We
Speaker 1: put the framework into the freezer and then we sat
Speaker 1: down for dinner at five o'clock and Mum had cooked
Speaker 1: chops and three veg and it was bloody nice too.
Speaker 1: She came out and served us and then she went
Speaker 1: back into the kitchen and ate on her own, left
Speaker 1: the men to talk, and am I allowed to bang
Speaker 1: this table?
Speaker 2: Well, it'll come through on the recording. There.
Speaker 1: God. So the old man's there and he's eating his
Speaker 1: chops and what have you, and he's telling us about
Speaker 1: this time he's doing some business with the boys from
Speaker 1: Griffith and he'd obviously been well, yeah he was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: where Gaya learned his trade. Anyway, the old man is
Speaker 1: telling the story about you. He did this with Griffith
Speaker 1: and we went up there. And at the same time
Speaker 1: he's picked up a piece of bread and he's buttered.
Speaker 3: It, white bread and he's buttered it, and then he's
Speaker 3: he's look puzzled and he's looked around the table, and
Speaker 3: then he's gone bang.
Speaker 1: Slapped his hand on the head really loudly.
Speaker 2: Where's the much?
Speaker 1: Mom came out with a jara spread, put a hand
Speaker 1: on his shoulder and said there, now, do you don't
Speaker 1: you get upset? You'll give yourself a heart attack? He said, well,
Speaker 1: side a man wants he looks for the veggimon. There's
Speaker 1: no vegimon. What the fus going on? I levitated out
Speaker 1: of the chair. Geidor's minder who was sitting next to
Speaker 1: the old man. He's just looked across at me and
Speaker 1: he's muttered out the side of his mouth. You get
Speaker 1: used to it, cheers. I hope I do. I hope
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: It was very funny. It was Gaeta.
Speaker 1: Oh he was so you know, just that was the
Speaker 1: way it was. Probably he was. I actually liked him.
Speaker 1: I thought they were a lovely family. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: a bit weird, but every everything in the same place, and.
Speaker 2: That'd be a very good scene in a certain sort.
Speaker 1: Of I wouldn't be a ripper.
Speaker 2: I'll chop aresk and a bit like two hands, you
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I teach something else about is that We're
Speaker 1: driving along with just himself and me one day and
Speaker 1: he burst into song?
Speaker 2: Did he?
Speaker 1: And I was done?
Speaker 2: I could sing?
Speaker 1: Oh he had a voice like a male Nina Simone.
Speaker 2: Did he?
Speaker 1: Oh he could sing? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm no expert at the caper, but I know I
Speaker 1: know what's good and what's not. Yeah, and he was good,
Speaker 1: I mean top top. Yeah. He did seem Australian idol.
Speaker 1: Every family.
Speaker 2: It didn't look like an ange prety good thing, like
Speaker 2: is that a fact? Well, it's a great story about Gator.
Speaker 2: Now at this stage, your early twenties, if that early
Speaker 2: to mid Yes, from Aubrey. Your father's a stocking station agent.
Speaker 2: You've got red hair and freckles. You would sort of
Speaker 2: front up in that time, as I say, of a
Speaker 2: country boy, sort of bloke.
Speaker 1: I played on it, yeah, and you'd have all.
Speaker 2: That pair of bluntstones or something. Although on Friday nights,
Speaker 2: I mean I did go shopping in Double Bar and
Speaker 2: I'd buy Italian silk shirts and Gabandine trousers and where
Speaker 2: those out, you know, opened to the navel with a
Speaker 2: gold chain.
Speaker 1: Of course, when you're on the dance.
Speaker 2: Look look, look look at where I'm flying, you know.
Speaker 2: But but when you're in the ute you go the
Speaker 2: other way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was a working man. I was in a
Speaker 1: single it or a rough shirt and pair of jeans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that twice. Pick those up there and I
Speaker 1: would take then take the stuff down to Melbourne to
Speaker 1: the contact down there.
Speaker 2: You drive down, yeah.
Speaker 1: Always drive. And then we decided we'd fly it occasionally
Speaker 1: we sort of there weren't any sniffer dogs and on
Speaker 1: one occasion I took a suitcase full of sticks. It
Speaker 1: was so jamm packed with tire sticks that you couldn't
Speaker 1: get a bloody t shirt on top of it and
Speaker 1: close the case. So it was just wrapped in plastic,
Speaker 1: wipe down with methos so the smell wouldn't get out,
Speaker 1: and then the case was locked. I wore a three
Speaker 1: piece suit when I took stuff by my hair, and
Speaker 1: I carried a copy of the Financial Times, and I
Speaker 1: had a briefcase.
Speaker 2: I was a businessman and an act, don't you yeah?
Speaker 1: And I got off the plane and I went to
Speaker 1: a phone to ring my contact, and I stayed on
Speaker 1: the phone too long, and when I came back there
Speaker 1: were two bags left on the carousel, one of them
Speaker 1: was mine, and standing around the carousel were I think twenty,
Speaker 1: possibly more, but twenty Commonwealth Police in uniform. And I
Speaker 1: had a decision to make walk away and suffer the contact.
Speaker 1: No I know, I know, I had to pick up
Speaker 1: my bag. So instead of me going over in amongst
Speaker 1: the thirty or twenty police and picking the bag up,
Speaker 1: I hobbled over to a lame copper standing on his
Speaker 1: own and I said, mate, I've got a crooked lead,
Speaker 1: do you reckon? You could go and grab that big bag,
Speaker 1: can't we And he said, yeah, sure, and he went
Speaker 1: over and he picked it up and he willed it.
Speaker 1: He couldn't carry. He wheeled a time that is gold,
Speaker 1: and I said, thanks very much, and I kept wheeling it.
Speaker 1: At Melbourne Airport there used to be a big glass
Speaker 1: window and it was reflective, of course, and I just
Speaker 1: kept looking at the glass to see if they came
Speaker 1: for me, and they didn't. If they'd come for me,
Speaker 1: I was going to abandon and bolt, but they didn't
Speaker 1: come for me, and I wheeled it off and I
Speaker 1: got the deal donee that was seen in today's.
Speaker 2: Terms buddhistics, there'd be a lot of money in today's terms.
Speaker 1: I think it was a round one thousand and then.
Speaker 1: So what's that forty five almost fifty years ago? Was
Speaker 1: fifty years ago? Actually that would be I would have
Speaker 1: to be in the millions.
Speaker 2: So this is very early seventies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seventy three, seventy four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's a lot of money. I was a
Speaker 2: cadet journalist earning very small money. But I earned about
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars in a year in nine to seventy five.
Speaker 1: And yes, I know, I shake my head still to
Speaker 1: this day when I think about it, Where did you
Speaker 1: deliver that? I can't say. No, tour Blake, it's a
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, we're dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no.
Speaker 1: And he's got a memory of this blake. He's a
Speaker 1: nasty fella, is it? Yeah? But roughly with suburb to Iraq?
Speaker 1: Is there right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And did he live that?
Speaker 1: He lived around the corner from there. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the suburb. But he had a business into Iraq that
Speaker 1: he ran the business from. Did he He took me
Speaker 1: on one occasion. I would let him have more of
Speaker 1: a now like two thousand sticks on consignment, and I'd
Speaker 1: stayed at his house and he brings the money back.
Speaker 1: But he wanted to do it five thousand stick or
Speaker 1: something like that, and I said, no, I can't let
Speaker 1: that go. You'll have to take me with you. So
Speaker 1: he drove me in this convoluted track all over the
Speaker 1: place to get to this place. And we walk in
Speaker 1: it so dark and it's a big establishment, big room,
Speaker 1: and there's a Blake sitting in there with a pile
Speaker 1: of cash on the table. We delivered the five thousand
Speaker 1: sticks to him. He hands the money over. We go
Speaker 1: out and we hop in his car and he drives
Speaker 1: off and he goes back to his house and he said,
Speaker 1: that went pretty well. And I said, yeah, look, next time,
Speaker 1: why don't you go directly to the place. And I'd
Speaker 1: picked up it was a reception center and I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Let's call it White Dove. I can't rember. It's called
Speaker 1: And I pulled a leaflet off the desk a White
Speaker 1: Dove reception center. I said, or I could deal directly
Speaker 1: with the baker White Dove. What do you reckon? He
Speaker 1: was embarrassed. He was embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that contact inter Iraq would appear to the world
Speaker 2: to be a legit businessman.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: What background was he?
Speaker 1: He sold?
Speaker 2: He sold goods. Yeah, that's all I'll say. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't identify much.
Speaker 1: And what about what other place that was over? That
Speaker 1: was the kind of time I visited there. There there
Speaker 1: was obviously the blake ran the show and he was
Speaker 1: making some money on the side. A lot of people
Speaker 1: in lots of different businesses, fronts, genuine fronts, were making
Speaker 1: a lot of money out of smoker. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. I don't know whether those people get
Speaker 1: involved in powder in smack or I saw.
Speaker 2: Meth so your guesstimate is that there's there's a lot
Speaker 2: of substantial fortunes been propped up or made much much
Speaker 2: bigger than just those those guys running their businesses to Iraq.
Speaker 2: There are national businessmen and I'm not even going to
Speaker 2: go close to try to identify them, and I don't
Speaker 2: know for sure that I'm right, but the people one
Speaker 2: or two got knighted, I think possibly the people I
Speaker 2: mixed with did business with these people. And there is
Speaker 2: no doubt in my mind that there are people who
Speaker 2: have got huge fortunes based on illegal activity, just like
Speaker 2: Joe Kennedy in American Fortune. Very interesting, isn't it, And
Speaker 2: people who probably had no great They weren't sort of hippies,
Speaker 2: they weren't. They weren't they weren't keen on drugs. Business businessman,
Speaker 2: pure and simple, and some of them might have come
Speaker 2: out of war torn Europe as young.
Speaker 1: And some of them, I think you may be well
Speaker 1: correctly so there it's pretty hard cases. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that it was in many cases. I think it was
Speaker 1: the idea of being involved with the hard men. They
Speaker 1: as they saw at the hard men of the game,
Speaker 1: rubbing shoulders with out and out killers, and criminals, and
Speaker 1: I think they enjoyed the game of keeping the authorities
Speaker 1: at bay, even taunting the authorities at times, denying their
Speaker 1: involvement in these matters, but making it quite clear that
Speaker 1: they were more or less saying catch me if you can,
Speaker 1: I reckon. Yeah. And none of them have ever been
Speaker 1: brought to book, is that right? Well, none have been named,
Speaker 1: not to say.
Speaker 2: You can recall several of these people, but you've never
Speaker 2: seen them come undone. Yeah, Yeah, that's interesting. So they
Speaker 2: were the money by silence. Yeah, we hear about the
Speaker 2: ones that come unstuck. We don't hear about. What you
Speaker 2: don't hear about is the invisible because it stays invisible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't. And I think if you're in that game,
Speaker 1: you have no scruples and you'll sacrifice anybody as long
Speaker 1: as you get out of it, okay. And I think
Speaker 1: there have been people who've had to pay a price,
Speaker 1: and it's been explained to them quietly that they either
Speaker 1: cop it on the chin or things will be nasty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And everybody's got a family, Andrew, Yeah, so we want
Speaker 1: to protect it, don't you.
Speaker 2: That's right. People kept backing the wrap.
Speaker 1: And this is all here saying I wasn't involved in
Speaker 1: any of that, so that's not part of my book,
Speaker 1: but it's les that's part of this The too.
Speaker 2: Writer it is podcast to writer Rod, we've heard about
Speaker 2: your adventures in Sydney, and next week I think we
Speaker 2: might hear about your adventures in Adelaide when you were
Speaker 2: hiding out there keeping your head low but not that low.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was an interesting time in Adelaide And here
Speaker 1: I am. They didn't get me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald
Speaker 2: Sun production for true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnny Burton.
Speaker 2: For my columns, features and more, go to harold'sun dot
Speaker 2: com dot Au forward slash Andrew Rule one word. For
Speaker 2: advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts sold at news dot
Speaker 2: com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts
Speaker 2: sold And if you want further information about this episode,
Speaker 2: links are in the description.