Speaker 1: That changes the directory of my life, and no doubt
Speaker 1: without that choice, my feeling is I either would have
Speaker 1: been in jail or Dad, I think. And for Dad
Speaker 1: it was, you know, he'd kept his promise when he'd
Speaker 1: come back to get me, and he just looked me
Speaker 1: in the eyes, and obviously the expectation was that we
Speaker 1: would just go and I didn't answer him straight away.
Speaker 1: When we continue to just stare at each other across
Speaker 1: sitting on different couches.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrew Rulis's Life and Crimes. This is our third
Speaker 2: final episode of the reminiscences of Peter Morris, whose book
Speaker 2: The Bank Robber's Boy is the basis of three episodes
Speaker 2: of Life and Crimes. In this final episode, Peter is
Speaker 2: going to talk to us about how he ended up
Speaker 2: being reunited with his sister in Sheperdon and then embarking
Speaker 2: on a bit of a crime spree which led him
Speaker 2: to a fork in the road.
Speaker 1: Andrew, great to be back, and yeah, let's get this
Speaker 1: going again.
Speaker 2: Peter. When we last spoke, you'd worked at a kmart
Speaker 2: and you become a manager at the ripe old age
Speaker 2: of eleven nearly twelve. Then you were with a group
Speaker 2: of homeless kids in Perth living on the streets. But
Speaker 2: that didn't last either. You'd got back to Victoria and
Speaker 2: was reunited with your big sister Tina in Sheperdon.
Speaker 1: Tina enrolled me into Sheperdon High School, did you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tried to do the right thing, and I went for
Speaker 1: a day one day, and then I day two, I
Speaker 1: decided that I would just start breaking into houses wish
Speaker 1: I had. Oh And the reason for that was that
Speaker 1: I knew that Dad would come back, so I was
Speaker 1: collecting as much money as I could to ensure that
Speaker 1: we had some money when Dad arrived, that we could
Speaker 1: just go back on our adventures. So at that start planning,
Speaker 1: I was planning.
Speaker 2: You weren't as keen on going because he had been.
Speaker 1: Nah, Look, I didn't think you know that. Certainly my
Speaker 1: sister at the time felt like going to school was
Speaker 1: was probably a better path, rightfully.
Speaker 2: So, and funny your dad had been keen for you
Speaker 2: to work in port Headlands, Yeah, rather than embarking a
Speaker 2: life of crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that wasn't always
Speaker 1: the case, you know, if you go into sort of
Speaker 1: earlier life in you know, certainly we were in Melbourne
Speaker 1: and we stayed at a flop house for a short while.
Speaker 2: At Gordon House.
Speaker 1: He'd encourage me to commit a few crimes back then
Speaker 1: just to get us out of there.
Speaker 2: So what sort of stuff the teachers teacher things he did?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Melbourne baths, if anyone remembers that. So he
Speaker 1: had told me that I would be able to go
Speaker 1: into Melbourne bars, and he was spot on, and that
Speaker 1: the suits of the time would put all their belongings
Speaker 1: able to locker and they would connect their locker key,
Speaker 1: which was on a safety into their towel. Right, so
Speaker 1: while they were swimming laps, I could walk along and
Speaker 1: just rip these rip these safety pins off the towels
Speaker 1: because I had a locker number on it, Yes, and
Speaker 1: go in and all their wallets and all their belongings
Speaker 1: were in there. And in a matter of five minutes
Speaker 1: I got out with would have been about eight wallets
Speaker 1: that I had any little backpack goal and just walked
Speaker 1: back out and yeah, said good a to the lady
Speaker 1: out the front, walked out the door, brought the wallets
Speaker 1: back to Dad, and we had a heap of cash
Speaker 1: which helped a bit.
Speaker 2: Longer, I see. So it was a mixture of motives
Speaker 2: and motivations. So life, we've teen up school last one day.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of things here. You've ended up being
Speaker 2: a reader. You were a reader who's written a book.
Speaker 2: At what point did you sort of learn to read
Speaker 2: and become that person that likes to lose themselves in
Speaker 2: a book and to read. Where did that happen and
Speaker 2: who influenced you?
Speaker 1: I think it was the gift, Well, certainly the use
Speaker 1: of the never ending.
Speaker 2: Story, right, the one that that lady gave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one that she'd let me let me use,
Speaker 1: which is one of her son's books that had never
Speaker 1: been touched.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the son's names?
Speaker 1: No? I don't know her husband, No, not really, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so anyway, she'd let me read this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I do remember that when Dad turned up to
Speaker 1: get me out that window, that I had considered taking
Speaker 1: that book with me. And this is another moment, because
Speaker 1: I had that in my hand because I'd loved it
Speaker 1: so much. But then I had her enough respect for
Speaker 1: her for her to put it back on the bed.
Speaker 2: Good boy, but ignited something in you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, since the story could be written and Jesse, you
Speaker 2: could lose yourself in that in that infected you. It did,
Speaker 2: and it never really got disinfected.
Speaker 1: No, no, And this is why, you know, the only
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted to you know, when I was
Speaker 1: working at Game Out, the only thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: buy was something to read. And at the time it
Speaker 1: was comic.
Speaker 2: Book, which is fine as long as you read stories,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what they And when you were at Shep,
Speaker 2: when you're out pinch and stuff, did you pinch books?
Speaker 1: I didn't pinch books, but whenever I had money, I
Speaker 1: used to go to the secondhand bookshop and buy copies
Speaker 1: of foot Rock Flats and all those sort of yeah, so,
Speaker 1: you know, and at the time they were obviously that
Speaker 1: was a good yeah, but they were great. So I
Speaker 1: was always buying something from the bookshop.
Speaker 2: I interviewed him.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: And how do you sort of negotiate that from twelve
Speaker 2: to adulthood?
Speaker 1: Where so I got caught breaking into a detective's house.
Speaker 1: So that was a really great choice. I don't know
Speaker 1: in Shep in Shep.
Speaker 2: Not Norm Gillespie, not ken Mansell.
Speaker 1: The reason I don't know is because I got caught
Speaker 1: by his son. So I got caught in the house,
Speaker 1: so there was nobody home and his wife and his
Speaker 1: son came home. So I remember I was in a
Speaker 1: room which was clearly a boys room, and there was
Speaker 1: some martial arts trophies and things in that and it
Speaker 1: was strange because.
Speaker 2: It was a nice house out in the edge of town.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, And I remember Dad had always told
Speaker 1: me to have an escape, make sure you know if
Speaker 1: you and that was one thing, you know, always make
Speaker 1: sure you've got a way out before you you know.
Speaker 1: And this house had a deadlock on the back door,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know at the time, and I'd broken
Speaker 1: some louvers to get in in the around the backyard,
Speaker 1: and I'd completely forgotten about how I would get out
Speaker 1: of someone come home, just just completely forgotten. And anyway,
Speaker 1: a car pulled up in the driveway and I heard
Speaker 1: a front door opening, and I ran to this back door.
Speaker 1: It was deadlocked. I had no way out, ran straight
Speaker 1: back into the bar room and there was a small
Speaker 1: window which I had to stand on the vanity to
Speaker 1: get out of, and by then this boy had flowing
Speaker 1: into this bathroom. I got out, and he ran outside
Speaker 1: and pulled me down off the fences. I was climbing over.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this lady sat me in the backyard on
Speaker 1: a chair and rather than being angry man that I
Speaker 1: think the young fellow wanted to punch me in the nose.
Speaker 1: And she just looked at me and said, you know,
Speaker 1: what's what's a boy? Your what are you doing? And
Speaker 1: I was just probably a little bit defeated at the time,
Speaker 1: and just said, look, I'm just waiting for dad. I'm
Speaker 1: just stealing some things until Dad gets back. And then
Speaker 1: the way they really police turned up. They called the
Speaker 1: police and they called her by name, oh right, and
Speaker 1: then things started a click, and then they put me
Speaker 1: in the police car and they went, yeah, well done,
Speaker 1: an idiot. That's a detective's house. And they drove me
Speaker 1: around shepherd In for a bit because they'd been this
Speaker 1: breing of breakings.
Speaker 2: This would be about eight mid eighties. Yep.
Speaker 1: I should look because I've got all these five and
Speaker 1: I haven't actually been through them. So I've got my
Speaker 1: state ward case file, so all the police officers involved
Speaker 1: in this will be listed in that. That's amazing, So
Speaker 1: I just need to probably open them up. Man, It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all in there, so I will be able to
Speaker 1: know who it was and who interviewed me when I
Speaker 1: got back to the station, and all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So it was the son of big strong, redhead sort.
Speaker 1: Of black's fair haird I remember that. I don't know
Speaker 1: about red hair, but he was a really strong I
Speaker 1: knew I had not all.
Speaker 2: These red head, reddish fair head boys, blue eyed, big strong,
Speaker 2: cuugh floks right, and all footballers. And one of them,
Speaker 2: I'm for murdering Perth. Yeah's doing time over there now,
Speaker 2: the cropper's bad son. Maybe I was lucky, So you're
Speaker 2: getting the stripe over that. Did you go into an institution?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, I didn't actually, So what happened was
Speaker 1: this wife of the detective. She knew of a foster
Speaker 1: family who potentially would take me in for three weeks.
Speaker 1: It was just not a predetermined term at that stay.
Speaker 1: She just said, I think it's you know, rather than
Speaker 1: being too hard on him, yeah, or rather than go
Speaker 1: back to Tina, let's send him off to this family
Speaker 1: and just see let him cool down. Was a bit
Speaker 1: of a hot head as well, and I yes, I
Speaker 1: was sent to a family on a dairy farm in
Speaker 1: a small dairy farming community of Gagary, which is small
Speaker 1: small town outside of Abram, not far away from Sheperdon.
Speaker 2: How was that look?
Speaker 1: It was meant to be three weeks beautiful family. They
Speaker 1: had six biological children of their own, two girls and
Speaker 1: four boys, ready to take another one in. And in
Speaker 1: that three weeks I stole their car. So one night
Speaker 1: wieldered out of the push out of the driveway and
Speaker 1: took it for a driving into Kyabran, which was about
Speaker 1: twenty kilometers away, and took it for a spin and
Speaker 1: was just a need. It got caught doing that by
Speaker 1: the police a few other things in that three weeks,
Speaker 1: and so when that three weeks was up, I'd expected
Speaker 1: that they would have been pretty happy to see the
Speaker 1: end of me. But Joan Dullard was her name, the
Speaker 1: mother and Jack Dullard and the dairy farmer sat me
Speaker 1: down and said, would you like to stay and go
Speaker 1: to school and start to live a normal life, play
Speaker 1: forty and do all those things? And I think it
Speaker 1: was probably at that time, when my brain was starting
Speaker 1: to tick a little bit differently, that I knew it
Speaker 1: was time to make some better choices. So I said yes,
Speaker 1: and you did, and I did. You stayed with the
Speaker 1: dull Art and I stayed there.
Speaker 2: How good is that? How long did you stay there.
Speaker 1: For the rest of my childhood?
Speaker 2: That was it? You're still friends? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely? Ye Jack Dulla my foster father died
Speaker 1: of cancer. She's she's in her nineties and living on
Speaker 1: our own in a little, a little unit in Abram.
Speaker 1: Blind but still kind.
Speaker 2: Of still says hello when you're got Yeah, it was yeah,
Speaker 2: due to go back. Are you younger than her children?
Speaker 1: I was that she had one child, Elizabeth, younger than me,
Speaker 1: so we're all about Yeah. So I went to year
Speaker 1: eight at Saint Augustin's in Kyabram. That's where they sent me.
Speaker 1: The youngest daughter was in grade six at the times. Okay, good,
Speaker 1: great family.
Speaker 2: And so you went to which school?
Speaker 1: St.
Speaker 2: Augustin Agustine? You just said, I'm sorry and you went
Speaker 2: there to what level?
Speaker 1: So that that school finished in year ten and then
Speaker 1: we all transferred across to cai Abram High School where
Speaker 1: I finished. You Yeah, Kai Hi Kai High played played
Speaker 1: foot you cay Abron Bombers.
Speaker 2: Even though you're from the north, turned into an a play. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hadn't sort of touched a footy until year eight.
Speaker 2: About that age.
Speaker 1: You got the right bill for it, got the right
Speaker 1: bill for it, and I played center for it, Kai.
Speaker 2: Did you. Yeah, that's the that's the big position. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, as a six foot one or whatever,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't you wouldn't hold that down these days, you'd
Speaker 1: be lucky to be your midfield of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that's good, Peter.
Speaker 1: You are managing what CEO of Club Coora, which is
Speaker 1: you know, a licensed club license hospitality venue with poker
Speaker 1: machines and bars and restaurants.
Speaker 2: How many staff are you running there?
Speaker 1: Almost one hundred.
Speaker 2: So this means that Warren't import Headland had you pegged
Speaker 2: as an eleven year old as that sort of guy.
Speaker 2: He did. He worked it out. How many years it
Speaker 2: to take you from eleven to when you got the
Speaker 2: big gig at Coroa y Corral.
Speaker 1: Yeah, took a little while. The Dullard family, who were
Speaker 1: so nice to me, you know, had to take me
Speaker 1: to court for all those break ins that i'd performed,
Speaker 1: And I remember the judge at the time said to me,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether you're the worst twelve year old
Speaker 1: criminal I've ever come across, where you're just a kid
Speaker 1: who's had a bad starting life. And again that was
Speaker 1: a bit of a pivotal message for me that it
Speaker 1: was time to make some changes.
Speaker 2: Was that in Shep?
Speaker 1: I was in Shep?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was that Magistrate's caught a ship magic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a good thing. It was a good thing
Speaker 2: you gave you. I looked at you, and you didn't
Speaker 2: look like a complete reptile. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I think probably saw something in
Speaker 1: me that, well.
Speaker 2: You've got us have an open face. Yeah. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: don't look as if you're going to walk up knife somebody. No. No.
Speaker 1: So I received a good behavior bond for that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and some money that I sort of had to pay
Speaker 1: back restitution for the broken windows and things of it
Speaker 1: that I had just stole along along the way, which
Speaker 1: was about fifteen sixteen hundred dollars at the time. When
Speaker 1: I had a job cleaning up a butcher shop on
Speaker 1: a Friday night. That gave me ten bucks a week,
Speaker 1: so I was meant to put half of that away
Speaker 1: and gradually pay that.
Speaker 2: You've always been a worker, So the total some lesson
Speaker 2: is that over the journey you've had some very bad
Speaker 2: treatment and awful things happened to you, but you've also
Speaker 2: had these moments where people have been very good and
Speaker 2: very kind, the waitress with the muffin. You've had a
Speaker 2: few lucky breaks as well as unlucky breaks.
Speaker 1: I've had plenty of lucky breaks. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just that ability to see the light in the darkness. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: even when I was sitting in Baltara, you know, and
Speaker 1: on the receiving end of some pretty horrific abuse, I
Speaker 1: still manage to know that there were better days ahead.
Speaker 1: Is just just in my psyche. Whether they can't really
Speaker 1: explain that, but kept constantly finding the positives in any situation.
Speaker 1: I still do.
Speaker 2: Now you're to be sort of bruttal about it or
Speaker 2: practical about it. Your father's troubles to some extent would
Speaker 2: probably go back to you'd say, gamling, gamling addiction. A
Speaker 2: lot of people have different addictions. That was his. It
Speaker 2: wasn't a heavy drinker, no, definitely not. You haven't been
Speaker 2: saddled with an addiction, yep, I.
Speaker 1: Reckon I have you have? Yeah? Well, and I think
Speaker 1: mine is. It's mine's a different addiction. Mine is trying
Speaker 1: the best way to put to say this, My addiction
Speaker 1: is if I'm going to do something, it has to
Speaker 1: be done to the absolute top, maybe not even my
Speaker 1: ability at the time. A good example is I was
Speaker 1: doing some running on a running track and I run past.
Speaker 1: There's an athletics coach there and I'm watching him teach
Speaker 1: people how to do pole volt and he says, do
Speaker 1: you want it? Do you want to try this? And
Speaker 1: now I'm in my forties at the time, do you
Speaker 1: want to crack? And I went, oh, yeah, I'll try.
Speaker 1: And as terrible as you would be, Popot's not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to learn, you know. So I spent the
Speaker 1: next year just turning up and pop voting and pole
Speaker 1: woding and pole voting until I went to New Zealand
Speaker 1: and competed in a pole voting competition and won a
Speaker 1: gold medal.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, I decided, after COVID i was
Speaker 1: a runner, that I'll try bodybuilding. Yeah, and I so
Speaker 1: turn up at a bodybuilding comp in Melbourne actually and
Speaker 1: you know, won some silver medals, and I'm not done.
Speaker 2: Oh I need to wring gold.
Speaker 1: I need to engulf. So went back here, went back
Speaker 1: last year and won six gold medals and bodybuilding and
Speaker 1: I said, now I'm.
Speaker 2: Done now I'm done. Now I can write books.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing that I have realized is for
Speaker 1: me years to identify the thing we're not just for me,
Speaker 1: for lots of people, to identify the thing that you
Speaker 1: want to achieve the most. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: people have these, you know, multiple things floating in their
Speaker 1: life that I like to do, and I think I'll
Speaker 1: pick one off and do it. Good good advice is
Speaker 1: to pick one often do it.
Speaker 2: Is that right? That's that's what we've got everything out
Speaker 2: of this interview. You know how to be a crook,
Speaker 2: can not to be a crook? You haven't forgot the lot?
Speaker 1: Well, someone said to me the other day, it's just again,
Speaker 1: not just a lof story. He said, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about buying a muscle card. Peete, He goes, but I
Speaker 1: just I've been thinking about it for bloody years. Why
Speaker 1: haven't I done it? And I said, well, is that
Speaker 1: the thing you want to buy? Is that the thing
Speaker 1: you want to do the most? Or is there other things?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, now it's probably not at the top.
Speaker 1: And I said, well that's why you haven't done it.
Speaker 1: Identify the thing you want the most and do it.
Speaker 2: Do that you're a life coach. You could something you're
Speaker 2: good for your life coach. Now, we just we mentioned
Speaker 2: the book here and there, but how did this one
Speaker 2: come about? When did you start writing it? How did
Speaker 2: you start writing it? Is it two o'clock in the
Speaker 2: morning with a laptop or a notebook on top of
Speaker 2: the grandstand or what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the idea of it came up a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was. It was generally just just the
Speaker 1: thought of I could probably write a book about all
Speaker 1: this and in the hope of telling my story and
Speaker 1: helping some people around the power of choice and decision
Speaker 1: making because ultimately, you know, I make a huge choice
Speaker 1: in that in my story, in my life that changes
Speaker 1: the directory of my life. And no doubt without that choice,
Speaker 1: you know, my feeling is I either would have been
Speaker 1: in jail or dad, I.
Speaker 2: Think, absolutely, no doubt.
Speaker 1: So, so the power of choice and the reasoning behind
Speaker 1: that is, you know, without thinking about it, we all face,
Speaker 1: you know, these multiple choices every day that changed the
Speaker 1: chrectory of our day, of our life, of our journeys.
Speaker 1: Just so powerful of something that we don't always think about,
Speaker 1: you know, we just do. So that was the reason,
Speaker 1: the how is a little bit different because it wasn't
Speaker 1: no writer. I wasn't an author, clearly. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: reached out to I've got a mentor, Mark Dobbs and
Speaker 1: who has helped me along a little bit, just business
Speaker 1: stuff and a really good bloke and he seems to
Speaker 1: know everybody. So I reached out to him and said
Speaker 1: I want to write a book, and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't help you, but I know someone who can.
Speaker 1: So there's an author, filmmaker, doctor Luke Jackson, who linked
Speaker 1: me with who helped me plan I think if it
Speaker 1: was just me, I would have just wrote chapter one
Speaker 1: type chapter one and then just started writing. And he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we need to plan it out, which was the best
Speaker 1: advice I've ever given. So anyone who hasn't written a
Speaker 1: book and wants to you.
Speaker 2: Sat down with him and said, chatted about it, and then.
Speaker 1: Probably for two months on a few hours, await it,
Speaker 1: white ported it. And by the time we'd finished that,
Speaker 1: I had this complete plan that whenever you know, so
Speaker 1: chapter one, I knew exactly what stories I was going
Speaker 1: to put in chapter one, chapter two, and so on,
Speaker 1: and every now and again writing and I've writing chapter one,
Speaker 1: I would just be sort of morphing into chapter two.
Speaker 1: So then i'd go back to the plank. Go okay,
Speaker 1: I was actually meant to finish back there. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I could see it taking shape. Yeah, So without that plan,
Speaker 1: I think I might have got there. But you know,
Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't have been as clean and flowing as
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: As it is, so that that helped was It's deceptively
Speaker 2: simple looking, which is what the best writing is. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's clear, but it pulls the reader through it because
Speaker 2: it has the appearance of being that natural story, natural,
Speaker 2: which of course the art of it is to disguise
Speaker 2: all the joints, all the invisible mendings invisible and the other.
Speaker 1: Things that I said to him, I said, I want
Speaker 1: to keep it authentic. I don't want the facts to
Speaker 1: change because as I remember them. Yes, so I don't
Speaker 1: want any kind of creative liberty from your side as
Speaker 1: an editor. I just want, you know how, I want
Speaker 1: some help maybe helping it fly or pulling it together,
Speaker 1: but don't change the story.
Speaker 2: And that's to Luke Jackson is in Aubrey or no, No,
Speaker 2: he's Melbourne based. Melbourne based. Okay, that's interesting. So he's
Speaker 2: been a bit of a mentor to you.
Speaker 1: He was mentor for me.
Speaker 2: So along the way you've struck some very good people. Yes,
Speaker 2: if we leave the bad people out, I guess n
Speaker 2: Pop Bobby each way maybe, but yeah, they were there,
Speaker 2: they were there.
Speaker 1: They had no hard feelings for them, Heather.
Speaker 2: They gave you the book in que and all the
Speaker 2: way through the footh headline manager to Warren yep. And
Speaker 2: then and then of course the family.
Speaker 1: Family and the Dullard family. You know, the greatest impact
Speaker 1: of any one on my life.
Speaker 2: At a time when you could have got totally off
Speaker 2: the rails.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, and you know and quite openly without their
Speaker 1: evolving in my life. Yeah, it would have been very different.
Speaker 1: And just that, you know, that just that hand of
Speaker 1: kindness to say stay, we've got you're part of our family.
Speaker 1: And and to never feel like I wasn't part of
Speaker 1: the family. If they bought clothes for their kids, then
Speaker 1: I got closed as well. If they got an ice cream,
Speaker 1: I got nice just simple things. But just to felt like,
Speaker 1: just to feel like you belonged practical Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, has that's given you a sort of a
Speaker 2: belief system seeing that their example.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Christian, but it certainly give me a
Speaker 1: belief system in kindness, in treating as you treated, and
Speaker 1: just not missing the yet to small opportunities of kindness
Speaker 1: that you know, you may not realize the impact that
Speaker 1: they have on someone's life, as small as they might be.
Speaker 1: And that is you know, sometimes it might be for
Speaker 1: me sitting down with a homeless person who everybody walks past,
Speaker 1: and I've done that a number of times, and you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, one of those conversations was a a
Speaker 1: homeless man who used to be a lawyer who decided
Speaker 1: one night to drink drive and wiped out a family
Speaker 1: and that was his punishment to himself, was that he
Speaker 1: didn't deserve a bed, didn't deserve to be warm. So
Speaker 1: we were sitting on the pavement punishing himself for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Where was that was in Melbourne? Yeah,
Speaker 1: just on Colin Street. So there's moments of kindness and
Speaker 1: for me just to sit and have a conversation and
Speaker 1: you know, who knows what the impact that had for him.
Speaker 1: But that's just one moment. But but yeah, but in
Speaker 1: terms of the book, it was three or four hundred words.
Speaker 2: A night, three or four hundred words a night. That's
Speaker 2: not a bad telling if the words are okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. Well, I found after that that the
Speaker 1: quality would drop off for me. You know, other people
Speaker 1: I've spoken to other authors who seemed to be able
Speaker 1: to punch out thousands, but for me.
Speaker 2: They don't punch out thousands of very good works of quality. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course the other part of this was that
Speaker 1: me finishing a chapter and you know some of the
Speaker 1: obviously some of the stories in there are quite difficult
Speaker 1: to I would just flick them to Luke Jackson to edit,
Speaker 1: and then he would send me a message bloody hell,
Speaker 1: Pete like this is heavy, and I'm now thinking about
Speaker 1: the impact of my kids. And I'm like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: because I would just write it and then just go
Speaker 1: that's not my problem anymore, that's yours, send it off
Speaker 1: for editing. And he would sit there and not sleep
Speaker 1: for the night. So but yeah, you know, without his help, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly when I got.
Speaker 2: There, Peter. The one thing we haven't approached, and listeners
Speaker 2: will be wondering this. We know that your mother disappeared,
Speaker 2: either ran away or whatever, but what happened to your father?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so as I was living with the Dullards, you know,
Speaker 1: and going to school and playing footy and you know,
Speaker 1: and starting to live a normal life, Dad featured on
Speaker 1: you know, a TV show called Australia's Most Wanted. For
Speaker 1: those that remember that Dad was the main, yeah, the
Speaker 1: main criminal featured to see was first up on that
Speaker 1: TV show, sitting in the land room with the Dullard
Speaker 1: family and up pop Dad's face, which was for me
Speaker 1: obviously a shock to see Dad on TV. But instantly
Speaker 1: I knew that he was no longer in jail. I
Speaker 1: hadn't known that he'd escaped. I hadn't been told that.
Speaker 1: And you know, for those that get the chance to
Speaker 1: read my book, The Bankrobbers Boy, you'll see that Dad
Speaker 1: continues to make this promise that if he gets out,
Speaker 1: he's coming back to get me. So I knew that
Speaker 1: would be the case. I would spend every second weekend
Speaker 1: at my sister Tina's house. So one weekend, not long
Speaker 1: after Dad featured on Australias Most Wanted, went to her
Speaker 1: house and she put me in the car and drove
Speaker 1: circles around Shepherd and ensure she wasn't being followed, And yeah,
Speaker 1: took me to this sort of nondescript unit with no
Speaker 1: furniture in it, and we walked inside and Dad walked
Speaker 1: out of a bedroom and you know, we hugged and
Speaker 1: obviously had, you know, just this moment of amazing moment,
Speaker 1: I've been back together again. And that went on for
Speaker 1: a short while and every second weekend, and there was
Speaker 1: one moment when I went there and I'd been asked
Speaker 1: to bring some extra clothes by my sister, and you know,
Speaker 1: Dad sat me down and said, look, it's I can't
Speaker 1: stay here any longer. It's the police are going to
Speaker 1: eventually realize that I'm going to be hanging around where
Speaker 1: my children are. We need to go. And this was
Speaker 1: the pivotal decision in my life. And for Dad it was,
Speaker 1: you know, he'd kept his promise when he'd come back
Speaker 1: to get me, and he just looked me in the eyes,
Speaker 1: and obviously the expectation was that we would just go,
Speaker 1: and I didn't answer him straight away when we continue
Speaker 1: to just stare at each other across sitting on different couches,
Speaker 1: and I eventually just looked him in the eye and said, Dad,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't do that anymore. I can't do
Speaker 1: this anymore, and I wanted better for myself. And look,
Speaker 1: he had tears running down his eyes when he didn't
Speaker 1: say much, and he gave me a quick hug and
Speaker 1: walked out the door. And he was apprehended not long
Speaker 1: after that and returned back to Fremantle jail. It was
Speaker 1: a few months and you started writing letters to me,
Speaker 1: and I noticed in the letters that his handwriting was
Speaker 1: getting a little messy, and his recollection of events was
Speaker 1: getting a little vague. And yeah, so he had early
Speaker 1: on set Alzheimer's. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, was moved to
Speaker 1: a sort of a jail infirmary and yeah, passed away
Speaker 1: there he was. I would have been, that would have
Speaker 1: been in probably eighty no one, I reckon.
Speaker 2: Well, you've written a book, The Bank Robbers boy by you,
Speaker 2: Peter Norris, other people have helped you along the way.
Speaker 2: You've I think they mentioned nearly all of them. It's
Speaker 2: a remarkable thing. And I'm pleased I ran into you
Speaker 2: at that little ride at festival, because had I not
Speaker 2: done that, I may not have got to read it
Speaker 2: or to talk to you. Yeah, so we thank you
Speaker 2: for coming all this way. You've come from Aubridonka via
Speaker 2: Tasmania just to talk to us. Yes, and I know
Speaker 2: that our listeners will be fascinated by your rise and
Speaker 2: rise from a place that could have been very dark, yeah,
Speaker 2: and could have ended very badly, could have been yeah.
Speaker 1: But again, those those small lacs of kindness along the
Speaker 1: way have been yeah, been super important to where I
Speaker 1: am today. So be grateful, fellows.
Speaker 2: Thanks Beta, thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a
Speaker 2: Sunday Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our producer
Speaker 2: is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go
Speaker 2: to harold'sun dot com dot a forward slash andrew rule
Speaker 2: one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts sold
Speaker 2: at news dot com dot au. That is all one
Speaker 2: word news podcasts sold And if you want further information
Speaker 2: about this episode, links are in the description.