Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Welcome once again to conversations. We missed Steve Wisad.
Speaker 1: We miss those Australian television programs, you know, Fast Forward
Speaker 1: Tonight Live with Steve Wisad. It was a great time
Speaker 1: in Australian entertainment. We're missing that. And Steve Wisada is
Speaker 1: a man of significant intellect, humor, social consciousness, and he's
Speaker 1: an author. He has a new book out called Nation, Memory, Myth,
Speaker 1: Gallipoli and the Australian Imaginary. Steve Wisad, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: How are you good? Intro corns. I very much like
Speaker 2: that as pretty much as I braided, Very very generous
Speaker 2: and great to talk to your mate.
Speaker 1: Well, we do miss those days. I mean, television is
Speaker 1: not the same, is it.
Speaker 2: There was something about live TV. And look, we still
Speaker 2: do have live TV, but there was something about live
Speaker 2: TV when there was no internet, there was no streaming,
Speaker 2: so the only thing you had in your house, the
Speaker 2: only thing we all had was kind of four or
Speaker 2: five TV stations, and every one, because they were forced
Speaker 2: to it, there was nothing else, watched the same four
Speaker 2: or five shows. And so the power of kind of
Speaker 2: the nation all being bound together watching those shows and
Speaker 2: then talking about the same things the next day. It
Speaker 2: was kind of a unifying thing. And I'd grown up
Speaker 2: watching that. I'd grown up in Melbourne watching Graham Kennedy
Speaker 2: and then the Don Lane Show, and I remembered watching
Speaker 2: those as a kid live TV, seeing Bert Newton and
Speaker 2: don you know Burt dressed up as Demis Rusos and
Speaker 2: the real Demis Rusos came out. And then one time
Speaker 2: when Sammy Davis Junior was in Australia and he had
Speaker 2: a police escort live on TV from his show which
Speaker 2: he was doing into the Channel nine studios and then
Speaker 2: he sang for another hour with Don Lane with the
Speaker 2: studio band, tap dancing and stuff, and they extended the
Speaker 2: show and I thought to myself, I love live TV,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's the same as sport, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of the same as news. They've got something in
Speaker 2: common and that is you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: It could go anywhere, and to me, that's what I
Speaker 2: loved about live TV.
Speaker 1: You went into production after your stint on TV could
Speaker 1: still be done. Is there room in the market for
Speaker 1: shows like that these days?
Speaker 2: Well, Sam Payne's got to show at the moment that
Speaker 2: they're trying on Channel ten. I mean, you know, and
Speaker 2: I think I'm a huge Sam paying fan and I
Speaker 2: love Sam, so I'm all for anyone trying it. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's funny you should say that, Corsey, because uniquely in Australia,
Speaker 2: if you look at America, they've got tonight shows galore.
Speaker 2: If you look at the UK, they've got, you know,
Speaker 2: the Graham Norton Show, a whole lot of live shows
Speaker 2: pretty much. Most other places in the world have a
Speaker 2: lot of live tonight shows and the other thing that
Speaker 2: they've still got going in those places. If you look
Speaker 2: at America, they've got Saturday Night Live, which is a
Speaker 2: sketch comedy show basically takes the piece out of what's
Speaker 2: happening that week. And I think we don't have any
Speaker 2: big sketch comedy shows. And I think you know what
Speaker 2: we did on you know, on fast forward and in
Speaker 2: full frontal or beat with stupendous casts. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was great fun and it's great to have a laugh,
Speaker 2: but it sort of served a purpose and that is it.
Speaker 2: Sort of it sort of popped the kind of hubris
Speaker 2: and the sort of you know, the pomposity of people
Speaker 2: in power. There's nothing better to level things than people
Speaker 2: having a laugh at them, and I think they kind
Speaker 2: of serve a purpose as well, is making people laugh.
Speaker 2: So I really miss those shows, and yeah, they could
Speaker 2: be done. They're being done in America at the moment.
Speaker 1: Look, there's so much to talk about. Obviously, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about your book. I've never had a book with so
Speaker 1: many footnotes in it? Did you read all of those
Speaker 1: books and papers that?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't read any of them. Courts yet them
Speaker 2: in the back to make it look like I was smart.
Speaker 2: I sadly I did read them all, and I only
Speaker 2: I didn't set out to write this book. So the
Speaker 2: book's about, you know, about how national myths work. In Australia.
Speaker 2: Our national myth is is Gallipoli. So I just wanted
Speaker 2: to understand what is it? What is it about this
Speaker 2: story Gallipoli that is about a failed military campaign on
Speaker 2: a peninsula on the other side of the world, where
Speaker 2: nothing happened that changed the outcome of that war, where
Speaker 2: it was a failure in every sense, and it was
Speaker 2: done at the behest of the British Empires. It wasn't
Speaker 2: even an Australian sort of scheme. Total failure in a
Speaker 2: military sense. So what is it about this failed military
Speaker 2: campaign that makes it stick in the Australian psyche Of
Speaker 2: all the things you know, of all the history in
Speaker 2: this country, why that thing? And I was fascinated by
Speaker 2: the whole that a national myth has over a nation,
Speaker 2: that makes you know, one hundred thousand people at the
Speaker 2: MCG on Anzac Day who are there ready to go,
Speaker 2: and they've got cans of beer in their hand, and
Speaker 2: you've got pies and pasties and hot dogs in the
Speaker 2: other hand, and they're there with their mates and in
Speaker 2: a minute's time you won't shut them up. But for
Speaker 2: that purpose, thinking about Anzac and the Anzac spirit in Gallipoli,
Speaker 2: they all stand in reverend silence like it's in a
Speaker 2: church and you can hear a pin drop. And that
Speaker 2: happens around the country at tiny little places. People get
Speaker 2: up at the cracker door and at four am and
Speaker 2: they front up to a memorial in Port Douglas, or
Speaker 2: a statue in Carnarvon, or the big ones in Adelaide
Speaker 2: and Melbourne and Sydney where they get forty fifty thousand
Speaker 2: people turning up. What is the power of that particular
Speaker 2: myth and the hold over a nation that causes us
Speaker 2: to do that, and the books about explaining incredible power
Speaker 2: of national myths over a nation and Anzac and the
Speaker 2: Anzac spirit in Australia is ours and why it's got
Speaker 2: such a force over the Australian nation.
Speaker 1: See in that discussion there and reading the book, to me,
Speaker 1: the word myth had to be redefined. So to me,
Speaker 1: a myth was a fable, something that was imagined, something
Speaker 1: that wasn't wasn't true, Like you know, we've had myths
Speaker 1: like Romulus and Remus and Icarus flying close to the Sunday.
Speaker 1: That was a myth to me. But there's elements of elements,
Speaker 1: there's truth in your myth, your definition of myth? Can
Speaker 1: you define that for us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So myth in ancient times an explanation of something.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, it was like originally before people
Speaker 2: knew anything about science, it was an explanation of how
Speaker 2: things worked. And then when science, you know, came to
Speaker 2: be more powerful, myth kind of got a pejority of sense.
Speaker 2: Oh it's something that's untrue. But you know, the main
Speaker 2: meaning of myth is a story that has almost got
Speaker 2: a sacred explanatory power. That is the traditional meaning of
Speaker 2: a myth. And for a nation, I found myth is
Speaker 2: the myth, the story, kind of the sacred story that
Speaker 2: explains the nation. And that's kind of in every nation's
Speaker 2: got at Korancia when you think about it. You know,
Speaker 2: the Americans have got sort of their Civil War and
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln and all that sort of stuff, and the
Speaker 2: Brits have got Camelot and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But for Australia, Gallipoli and the Anzac spirit is the
Speaker 2: sacred story. It doesn't even need to be true, although
Speaker 2: it's based on a true event. That's kind of a
Speaker 2: kind of a sacred story, like a religious story that
Speaker 2: explains who we are, what makes us tick. And if
Speaker 2: you want to know anything in a kind of compressed
Speaker 2: way about the Australian people, just look at our founding
Speaker 2: myth Anzac and it's all in there. It's an explanation
Speaker 2: of our values kind of you know that we'll have
Speaker 2: a go that we kind of got that ability to
Speaker 2: laugh even in the face of hardship, madship, that's all
Speaker 2: in there. All the values that we say are a
Speaker 2: Australian are compressed into our national myth, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of what it's there for, to tell us who we are.
Speaker 1: Can I quote you? The function of the foundation myth
Speaker 1: of nation is not to convey factual truths, rational explanation,
Speaker 1: or an accurate historical chronological record of the antecedents of nation.
Speaker 1: Rather than national foundation myth acts as a compelling, sacred,
Speaker 1: and emotional touchstone of beginning, continuity, and belonging to inspire
Speaker 1: and bind the community. Is it true or not? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to debate.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing. When we talk about an event,
Speaker 2: we can talk about it in several ways. We can
Speaker 2: talk about Delipli's history and historians go historians who look
Speaker 2: at just clinically as an event that happened in the past,
Speaker 2: talk about it. Oh, you know, it's factually you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't land at the wrong beach, we weren't better fighters, this,
Speaker 2: that and the other. So therefore, historically, factually, why do
Speaker 2: we celebrate it? A myth talks about the same thing,
Speaker 2: but talks about it in a different way. It takes
Speaker 2: that event, that actual event, and then changes it. It
Speaker 2: sort of embellishes it, like you know, it fictionalizes the
Speaker 2: story the truth is important, but not as important as
Speaker 2: the purpose that the story is about to serve, and
Speaker 2: that is to bind to people together. It's to hold
Speaker 2: people together because one of the things about a nation,
Speaker 2: it's not just a rational machine. It's not a you know,
Speaker 2: when we think of Australian nation, what holds us together
Speaker 2: isn't legislation. I mean, you know, there's been some political
Speaker 2: debates on God Almighty. We're not held together by the
Speaker 2: political debates. You know, we're not held together by regulations
Speaker 2: and stuff. A nation, like a footy club or like
Speaker 2: a family, isn't held together by all our rational thoughts.
Speaker 2: It's held together by feelings. It's held together and the
Speaker 2: way we marshal feelings is through ritual and through myths
Speaker 2: and through stories. You think about families, you know, all
Speaker 2: the family stories that relate to your family that no
Speaker 2: one else knows, and the celebrations and birthdays and anniversaries
Speaker 2: and christenings and whatever, they're unique to your family. That's
Speaker 2: what actually holds your family together. And so it is
Speaker 2: with a footy club. You know, you don't read the
Speaker 2: constitution of the footy club to understand the footy club.
Speaker 2: You hear their song, you look at their colors, you
Speaker 2: think about the memories of the great players, the time
Speaker 2: you were at the game and you saw this happen,
Speaker 2: or if you're on the field, the time that that happened,
Speaker 2: that premiership cup that was raised. That's what makes a
Speaker 2: footy club and a nation is exactly the same. And
Speaker 2: so our national myth, amongst all of the other rituals
Speaker 2: that we have that hold a nation together, our national
Speaker 2: myth of Gallipoli is at the pinnacle of that. Anzac
Speaker 2: is the peak emotional story that holds the nation together.
Speaker 2: And people say, oh, don't we dispense with these sort
Speaker 2: of things. You know what, if you say that, you
Speaker 2: might as well dispense with a footy club song with
Speaker 2: their footy club jumpers, with people turning up to the
Speaker 2: game and just say well, let's just play a game
Speaker 2: of footy, they'd be missing the point entirely.
Speaker 1: Steve wisad as my guest. Folks will take a break
Speaker 1: and we'll delve a bit further into this new book
Speaker 1: of his nation memory myth back shortly, Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 1: Steve Wizard is my guest. We're doing this by a zoo.
Speaker 1: Where are we speaking to you from Steve.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting. I'm sitting in my front in my front
Speaker 2: lund room, surrounded by books as similar to the books
Speaker 2: you've got. I see you've got books on military things
Speaker 2: and footy, and I've got the same collection behind me
Speaker 2: Melbourne in my sitting room. I'm in town because I've
Speaker 2: got to do a few things today. Normally, Quorncy'd be
Speaker 2: speaking to me from my farm which is up on
Speaker 2: the morning to Peninsula. Beautiful up there, it's got beautiful
Speaker 2: vineyards and just stunning that area of Australia, most there
Speaker 2: is of Australia. I love it well.
Speaker 1: Like your book is called nation Memory a myth. Can
Speaker 1: you remember when Anzac first touched you? I mean, did
Speaker 1: your father serve? For instance? Incidentally, your father's name.
Speaker 2: My dad's name is Free Lancelot Pitt viisad That was
Speaker 2: my dad's name. Isn't it a great name?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: Fund that you should say that Godfrey and Lancelot were
Speaker 2: both of his uncles who both served in the Great War,
Speaker 2: since you asked, and that branch of the family, the
Speaker 2: Vaizards Irish, so they all came out. There was there
Speaker 2: was eleven brothers and sisters. They all came out from
Speaker 2: ross Common in the middle of Ireland and they arrived
Speaker 2: in Australia at the end of the you know, the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. So they said the biggest Irish accents. They
Speaker 2: talked like that. I mean, I remember it was still
Speaker 2: they are talked like that, and then you know they were.
Speaker 2: They were greatest bullshit artists you ever met in your life.
Speaker 2: But they were hard working people. So when the First
Speaker 2: World War came, some of them are quite old, and
Speaker 2: the youngest was only seventeen or eighteen. Well, four or
Speaker 2: five of them volunteered immediately, and so my uncle Terry,
Speaker 2: who was who just turned eighteen, Great uncle Terry, he volunteered,
Speaker 2: went straight to the front, was served there for four
Speaker 2: or five months, got shot. He got shot in the buttocks.
Speaker 2: Actually not funny really, but it is funny. You're going
Speaker 2: a good shot anywhere, but you get a good shot
Speaker 2: the buttocks isn't a bad place. He then got treated
Speaker 2: and he was supposed to be repatriated to Australia, but
Speaker 2: he revolunteered as an ambulance stretcher and he served the
Speaker 2: rest of the war carrying the wounded from the front line.
Speaker 2: And people think, oh, you're an ambulance stretcher carrier. That's safe.
Speaker 2: They don't stop shooting and they don't stop firing the
Speaker 2: cannons just because you're an ambult stretcher carrier. So he
Speaker 2: got through the rest of the war and he came
Speaker 2: back to Australia having seen virtually the full war and
Speaker 2: became an Anglican minister because he was so affected by
Speaker 2: what he saw and spent the rest of his life
Speaker 2: as an Anglican minister. And another brother, another relative who volunteered,
Speaker 2: was a widower. He went over there, got wounded too,
Speaker 2: went to England to recover, and the nurse who was
Speaker 2: treating him kind of they had a bit of a
Speaker 2: bond and he ended up marrying her and staying over there.
Speaker 2: So you know, they've all got stories. But the thing
Speaker 2: that you can't we know it, but every family, a
Speaker 2: lot of families would have this is that these are
Speaker 2: just people. They're people like you or me, or our kids,
Speaker 2: or our brothers and sisters kids did just young men
Speaker 2: who were going over there, each with their own story
Speaker 2: that you know, they're not great warriors, they don't even
Speaker 2: know where they're going, and suddenly they land in this war.
Speaker 2: Zone out of nothing, and you know, there they find themselves.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the answer is, yeah, I did have I
Speaker 2: did have relatives, but that's not you know, that was
Speaker 2: sort of hovering around the back of our family gor
Speaker 2: And see what actually got me interested was and it
Speaker 2: wasn't sort of like a click on point. It was
Speaker 2: just in the back of my head. I went to
Speaker 2: an old boys' school and when I was thirteen, we
Speaker 2: had a this is how old I am. We had
Speaker 2: a mass teacher called Frank Potts and he was this
Speaker 2: really old Wisden mass teacher. But when he came in
Speaker 2: he was a filling teacher by then.
Speaker 1: Now no interrupt. He was South Australian, wasn't he?
Speaker 2: It was South Australian. Mister Potts was South Australian. He'd
Speaker 2: gone to had grown up at Adelaide, gone to Adelaide
Speaker 2: Uni and then and then what had happened was when
Speaker 2: he was just eighteen, the First World War had erupted
Speaker 2: and he'd gone over there and it served in the
Speaker 2: First World War and he'd seen action, he'd seen the trenches,
Speaker 2: he had lost may you surf the full duration? It
Speaker 2: was a sapper actually, So they were the young you know,
Speaker 2: they were the blokes who went in right into the
Speaker 2: front line, built the trenches, built the tunnels, built the bridges.
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of I reckon the worst of
Speaker 2: all possible jobs, because not only you were on the
Speaker 2: front line, you're underground tunneling and doing that stuff. I
Speaker 2: could not think of a worse job. Frank Potts, this
Speaker 2: bloody mass teacher we had, would stand in front of us,
Speaker 2: literally two meters away and would tell us kids, twelve
Speaker 2: year olds, were our jaws open about going on the
Speaker 2: troop ship over there and that was an adventure for him,
Speaker 2: and then going to England and they trained on the
Speaker 2: Salisbury planes, and he remembered the time that the King
Speaker 2: came and then he would tell us about that, and
Speaker 2: then he tell us about the front line, and he
Speaker 2: tell us about you know, the bloody rats, and he
Speaker 2: tell us there wasn't a tree in sight and the
Speaker 2: non stop booming of the cannons and losing his mates
Speaker 2: and stuff. And he gave us this, and he gave
Speaker 2: us this piece of advice. He said, boys, he said,
Speaker 2: if you're ever confronted by mustard gas, and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was the nineteen sixties in Melbourne, he said, But
Speaker 2: if you're ever confronted by mustard gas, boys, he said,
Speaker 2: urin eate in your hanky and put the hanky over
Speaker 2: your mouth, and he said, that will put it'll neutralize
Speaker 2: the mustard gas. And I literally for year's corns, you
Speaker 2: wandered around with a hanky in my pocket and a
Speaker 2: half full bladder, just on the off chance.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. Look, it's really not funny, because.
Speaker 2: Honey, but you know, it sticks and made What was
Speaker 2: important to me is a twelve or thirteen year old boy.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're at high school, the big boys
Speaker 2: are in year twelve and they were seventeen or eighteen already.
Speaker 2: That's the boys, the big guys on the oval, with
Speaker 2: the same age as mister Potts had been when he
Speaker 2: had gone off to fight that war. And that kind
Speaker 2: of that resonated with me. How could it be?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Why would they have gone? Where did they go? What
Speaker 2: made them tick? And so this book I've written about,
Speaker 2: you know, Anzac and Myth and Memory is kind of
Speaker 2: about the stories that we tell that would bind people
Speaker 2: to want to do those sort of things, the sacred
Speaker 2: stories that would compel people to join together to do
Speaker 2: these sort of things.
Speaker 1: Look, I don't want to give too much away, because
Speaker 1: you do want people to buy the book, don't you.
Speaker 1: But I'm intrigued how you describe the Unknown Soldier. You
Speaker 1: finished the book with the description of the term of
Speaker 1: the unknown Soldier in Canberra in War Memorial, And I
Speaker 1: don't know whether you admire this guy or whether you
Speaker 1: are critical of him. Can I just read it where
Speaker 1: the Unknown Soldier had been elevated as a transcendent mythic warrior,
Speaker 1: as the new Man, as an immortal embodiment of purity
Speaker 1: and chastity, Now he might be revivified as a mere survivor.
Speaker 1: You are you're dissing this guy.
Speaker 2: I'm just what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I think you are.
Speaker 2: You need to buy the book to sort this out.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is this when those blokes died. I mean,
Speaker 2: in a way, the First World War was two things colliding.
Speaker 2: It was man's humans man's bride, and man's technological ability
Speaker 2: at the time exceeded his ability to control it. And
Speaker 2: all these new devices like long range artillery for the
Speaker 2: first time, mechanical warfare for the first time, replacing horses.
Speaker 2: So man's technical ability had overcome his pride and his ability,
Speaker 2: and they collided and the world was devastated. But one
Speaker 2: thing that had happened was all those people who had
Speaker 2: died would never know. And so that's they were unknown soldiers.
Speaker 2: My point is that today that unknown soldier, through the
Speaker 2: very same technology that kind of gave rise to the
Speaker 2: First World War, that technology through DNA, could now name him.
Speaker 2: So I asked a question. I don't actually pose an answer.
Speaker 2: I asked us to choose, and I ask it for
Speaker 2: a reason. But that technology could now reveal who he is.
Speaker 2: It could reveal him, since he was unknown, as either
Speaker 2: a great hero or as a coward. It could reveal
Speaker 2: him as.
Speaker 1: A Why would you introduce that concept that he might
Speaker 1: have I mean, he.
Speaker 2: May have been, because they're men. They're just men. And
Speaker 2: so I ask a question, what would you do? Do
Speaker 2: you think we should name these people now that we
Speaker 2: can It's a question. I don't have an answer. I'm
Speaker 2: asking the reader to consider this. Now that we can
Speaker 2: name these unknown men, should they be named or not?
Speaker 2: You leave him silent?
Speaker 1: No, absolutely name because whether they were heroic or whether
Speaker 1: they you know, they coward in the face of the
Speaker 1: oncoming enemy. I don't think there's any shame that. I mean,
Speaker 1: people would say they would be shamed, but unless you've
Speaker 1: been confronted with that. But the fact that they are there,
Speaker 1: they're serving, I mean that there's an element of heroism
Speaker 1: about that anyway.
Speaker 2: Turning up all that, I don't seek to answer it.
Speaker 2: I pose the question, and you've thought about it. It's
Speaker 2: made you think about what you do. Other people would say,
Speaker 2: leave them, leave it, leave that story alone, don't name them.
Speaker 2: But the reason I asked that question is because for
Speaker 2: the very reason that I wrote the book is even
Speaker 2: naming them and even saying they were just ordinary guys,
Speaker 2: isn't the story. That doesn't tell a story. It doesn't
Speaker 2: tell the story of why they went, what they saw,
Speaker 2: how they were bound together, what they thought they were
Speaker 2: doing for their nation, and the very fact that they
Speaker 2: died for their nation. I asked that question so people
Speaker 2: will reflect on their life and that body is more
Speaker 2: than just an individual. It's the story of a nation.
Speaker 2: So I asked that. I asked that question for a
Speaker 2: reason to get the people to reflect on you know,
Speaker 2: that person is more than just a piece of DNA.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a mythic story about our Nation.
Speaker 1: Steve Wisa is my guest. The book is called Nation Memory, Myth,
Speaker 1: Gallipoli and Australia and Imaginary. It's going to make you
Speaker 1: think there's no doubt about that. We'll take a break,
Speaker 1: we'll come back. We'll talk a bit more about that
Speaker 1: glorious career you had, Steve, whether it be law, entertainment,
Speaker 1: production and serving on the Special Events committee in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Who's stole our Grand Prix? I my add soak shortly.
Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody. If you just tuned in, we're chatting
Speaker 1: with Steve. We're arguing with Steve zad actually.
Speaker 2: But you're going to talk about the Grand Grand Prix
Speaker 2: then will be arguing, well.
Speaker 1: I'm out of a depth. Actually, I've got no chance
Speaker 1: of countering you in a battle of words. We've spoken
Speaker 1: about Steve's book, Nation Memory Myth about Gallipoli and Australian imaginery,
Speaker 1: and you should buy it. It's a scholarly work. I
Speaker 1: think there's no doubt about that. I did reach for
Speaker 1: the dictionary a few times. I was intrigued. We talked
Speaker 1: about your dad, Godfrey Lancelot visor was he in between wars?
Speaker 1: Did he not serve?
Speaker 2: He was just short of enlistment age for the Second
Speaker 2: World War, and so he was in the Air Cadets
Speaker 2: and he'd started training to fly and the war ended,
Speaker 2: and so he learned to fly, but he never served
Speaker 2: because the war ended. But he went to UNI. But
Speaker 2: he was kind of a person who was driven to
Speaker 2: do unusual things. So after the Second World War, Australia
Speaker 2: took control of New Guinea and it suddenly had to
Speaker 2: find out how you administered this new territory. So they
Speaker 2: set a school up called the School of Pacific Eiled Administration,
Speaker 2: and they got all these young men, some of whom
Speaker 2: had just served and some of whom, like my dad,
Speaker 2: were just about to serve, and they trained them up
Speaker 2: for a year to be what was called patrol officers.
Speaker 2: And they were partly sort of they had the power
Speaker 2: of a magistrate, a judge. They were kind of anthropologists.
Speaker 2: And what they would do, they'd whacked these three or
Speaker 2: four blokes in a territory the size of Tasmania or
Speaker 2: jungle or unexplored. Dad was based at Kerama in the
Speaker 2: Gulf Region. He was twenty four and he had the
Speaker 2: power of a policeman. He had one hundred native police
Speaker 2: force under him and they would administer justice in this
Speaker 2: territory and they would go on these expeditions. Dad went
Speaker 2: on expeditions up the Fly River and all these rivers
Speaker 2: that ran into Kerama through jungles that had never been explored.
Speaker 2: And the expeditions went for two hundred days, two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty days. They're well documented. Every day they'd hacked
Speaker 2: through the bush, they'd set up a camp. Then the
Speaker 2: next day they do the same and they're mapping and charting.
Speaker 2: They're meeting natives or you know, indigenous people who've never
Speaker 2: seen why people before. There's the pygmies up there called
Speaker 2: the cooker cookers who were greatly fitted, who are cannibals.
Speaker 2: My dad was the only bloke I've ever met who
Speaker 2: had arrow wounds in his chest and his legs. I
Speaker 2: mean he was, but Dad, It's not like something out
Speaker 2: of the fifteen hundreds. He was my dad, and he
Speaker 2: had arrow wounds in him from being fired on by
Speaker 2: these bloody pigmies for the cooker cookers. So his life
Speaker 2: was absolutely an extraordinary life. So he was up in
Speaker 2: New Guinea as a patrol officer for a decade, and
Speaker 2: then he came back on leave and met my mum
Speaker 2: and you know, one thing happened and here I am.
Speaker 1: But how did he settle down after that? What did
Speaker 1: he do when he came back he.
Speaker 2: Went into Well, it's funny you should say that, because
Speaker 2: I don't think he ever did settle down. He was
Speaker 2: a smart guy. Ran a big clothing company in Flinders
Speaker 2: Lane in Melbourne called Hooper and Harrison that was an
Speaker 2: national clothing manufacturer, and then he had stores and he
Speaker 2: had stuff. Quit very early and we bought a property
Speaker 2: in the bush and that's what he wanted to do.
Speaker 2: And we were raised sort of on a farm, not
Speaker 2: far out of Melbourne. But he was probably a farmer
Speaker 2: at heart, and he was an explorer at heart. So
Speaker 2: you know, he raised us kids and he was a
Speaker 2: great dad and very focused on us, and a great
Speaker 2: husband too. But it's funny you should say that, because
Speaker 2: in my heart of hearts, I don't think he ever
Speaker 2: really did settle back down. You're that sort of person
Speaker 2: and you've led that sort of life. That's what you
Speaker 2: cut out to do.
Speaker 1: How many kids in the family.
Speaker 2: So I got a brother, I did law. I got
Speaker 2: a younger brother, Andy, who's a vet. He was a
Speaker 2: professor of Vetory Science at Melbourne UNI. But he's got
Speaker 2: very big hands, and he learned out very early on
Speaker 2: in his veterory career that he was shitouse with poodles
Speaker 2: and did a little right to work at a suburban
Speaker 2: practice and literally, you know, the owners would have let
Speaker 2: him near. His fingers are too big to be inserting
Speaker 2: things whatever you have to do. So he became a
Speaker 2: big animal vet and so he served on the board
Speaker 2: of the zoo for example here in Melbourne, is one
Speaker 2: of the directors, and you know, he's uniquely operated on
Speaker 2: elephants and giraffes and tigers and things like that, which
Speaker 2: is a kind of a rare thing. And then I've
Speaker 2: got a sister, Jenny, who's a librarian, and other sister
Speaker 2: who's been in nursing a whole life sheet tea teaches
Speaker 2: people how to be nurses, a very admirable career. But
Speaker 2: my brother's got five kids too, and I've got five kids.
Speaker 2: So between the two of us, we've got ten kids
Speaker 2: who all line up. They're best friends. They all line up.
Speaker 2: If you put him in a line corns my kids
Speaker 2: and my brother's kids, you literally wouldn't know who's who's
Speaker 2: They all look identical, so we have good Christmases.
Speaker 1: Earlier about your significant intellect? Was it obvious as a kid?
Speaker 1: Was it obviously at school?
Speaker 2: I was lazy as a kid because I wasn't interested
Speaker 2: in stuff. So I sort of, you know, did or
Speaker 2: I did it well at school, but I was lazy.
Speaker 2: And then I got into law and arts at Melbourne Uni,
Speaker 2: and again was lazy because I just found it a
Speaker 2: bit boring. So you know, I turned up to the
Speaker 2: exams and got through, but I wouldn't say it was
Speaker 2: a keen study. I put it that way.
Speaker 1: Did you not win the scholarship though to go to university?
Speaker 2: I did, but I mean, but it wasn't through. It
Speaker 2: wasn't through overworking. I was lucky.
Speaker 1: So when you're lucky, to explain that, what do you
Speaker 1: mean lucky?
Speaker 2: Look? I could read the books at the last minute,
Speaker 2: and I could remember things, you know, I've just got
Speaker 2: a good memory, and I could understand things. But what
Speaker 2: I was more interested in, I was more interested because
Speaker 2: I bet an old boys school the minute I hit
Speaker 2: UNI and found girls. And also living at home, I've
Speaker 2: been living in the country and sort of going to
Speaker 2: a school miles away. So when I got to UNI.
Speaker 2: I lived in it a college, and it was like
Speaker 2: the world had opened up. I didn't have to catch
Speaker 2: a tram or a bus to get anywhere. I was there,
Speaker 2: I could sleep in, I met the other sticks. I
Speaker 2: could not believe that life was like this, and so
Speaker 2: I never turned up to any studies. But what I
Speaker 2: did do was I found things I was interested in.
Speaker 2: So I played a lot of sport. I liked basketball
Speaker 2: and things like that. And I went in it for
Speaker 2: the first time ever when they had these things called
Speaker 2: an Archy Review and a law review that was you know,
Speaker 2: it's like comedy shows things, and generally they were the
Speaker 2: people who went in them were people who were went
Speaker 2: in that faculty. They put a sort of an ad
Speaker 2: in Farrago, which was the university magazine, saying we've got
Speaker 2: this review cup. So I wrote some sketches, went along
Speaker 2: and read them out, and the bloke in charge said,
Speaker 2: that's good. Now you can You'll be in the review.
Speaker 2: And I just thought, I'll write some sketches. So the
Speaker 2: first time I went on stage was in this review
Speaker 2: with a made of mine, Roger Wallace, who was a
Speaker 2: mathematician guy, and we loved it. You know, people were
Speaker 2: laughing and clapping. And then what happened was there was
Speaker 2: a bloke in the audience who had theater restaurants. And
Speaker 2: at that time, in the seventies, that was the big thing.
Speaker 2: There were all these little theater restaurants of where people
Speaker 2: would put on shows, you know, for money, and people
Speaker 2: would come in and get a meal and watch a show.
Speaker 2: And he said, I've got a theater restaurant. Do you
Speaker 2: want to come in and do a show at Christmas?
Speaker 2: For like, I think it was like six weeks, and
Speaker 2: he was going to pay me and it was of money.
Speaker 2: It was so pathetic but it but for me it
Speaker 2: wasn't It was money. So I couldn't believe that we
Speaker 2: go down there do a show. It had only taken hour.
Speaker 2: They give us a free feet and they'd pay us
Speaker 2: some cash at the end of it. We thought we
Speaker 2: were on cloud nine. Was this was? This was amazing.
Speaker 1: We were a show off as a kid, Were you ANX?
Speaker 1: We were an extrovert?
Speaker 2: I don't think I was. I think I was. Actually
Speaker 2: I had a sense of humor and I make people laugh.
Speaker 2: But you know, I was a really late developer like
Speaker 2: I was as a kid, a really late developer, so
Speaker 2: all the other kids, I was so late developer. It's
Speaker 2: actually embarrassing. I hadn't probably chosen not to remember this,
Speaker 2: but I remember in year eleven, so it's one year
Speaker 2: off finishing school, we did a production of it was
Speaker 2: Richard the third of Shakespearean play, and in it is
Speaker 2: a character called Lady Anne, who's like, you know, the
Speaker 2: love interest. Remember this now it's coming back to me.
Speaker 2: I'm actually having arama remembering that I had to dress
Speaker 2: up as the love interest, like I'm about to go
Speaker 2: in the final year, and my voice hadn't broken. I
Speaker 2: was still like, I think I look quite attractive, to
Speaker 2: be honest, and one of the teachers thought so anyway,
Speaker 2: and I remember, yeah, dressing up Lady Anne and doing
Speaker 2: the whole play. And I look back at it now,
Speaker 2: I think I really was a late developer. So you
Speaker 2: asked me, was I an extra? But I don't think so,
Speaker 2: because but I think I worked out that I could
Speaker 2: be funny and that helped me.
Speaker 1: Steve Weisard is my guess. There's still so much to come.
Speaker 1: We'll try and race through the remaining fifty years of
Speaker 1: his life. Back shortly. Steve Wisada is my guest on Conversations.
Speaker 1: It's a great chatties in Melbourne. We're here in Adelaida
Speaker 1: as we're recording this. It's the weekend of gather around.
Speaker 1: Do you have a footy team?
Speaker 2: I'm a big Hawthorn supporter. When my dad trained for
Speaker 2: Hawthorne in the for the you know, the under nineteenes.
Speaker 2: He was a good footballer. So from the very early
Speaker 2: age and my grandpa we talked about my family. We
Speaker 2: lived in a he'd done quite well as his irishman.
Speaker 2: My grandpa and he bought this bluestone mansion called the
Speaker 2: Hawthorns and it was right on the river overlooking the
Speaker 2: city and it was the original homestead after which the
Speaker 2: suburb of Hawthorne was named. So my dad had grown
Speaker 2: up going to Melbourne High School from Hawthorne and it
Speaker 2: had it was a beautiful old It was built in
Speaker 2: the eighteen forties, so it was an early place and
Speaker 2: so it was right in the middle of Hawthorne. So
Speaker 2: Hawthorne is always going to be our team. So I
Speaker 2: was lucky enough to see the first premiership in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, the second premiership, and in fact every premiership
Speaker 2: has happened during my lifetime and I've seen everyone, so
Speaker 2: you know, I've lucked in and I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to go to a drought period now you know,
Speaker 2: after Clark has left and Sam Mitchell's taken over. Well,
Speaker 2: boy was I wrong. We we're back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're really an exciting team at the moment. But
Speaker 1: you worked in commercial law. It seemed to me had
Speaker 1: a really high power job because you worked overseas, you
Speaker 1: were based overseas.
Speaker 2: I did. I became a lawyer and a partner in
Speaker 2: a law firm quite young. I was sort of twenty
Speaker 2: five or twenty six, and I got a job working overseas.
Speaker 2: I was working on these big deals in Germany and Switzerland,
Speaker 2: and one or two big deals particularly it was to
Speaker 2: do with the development I mean, boy you but it
Speaker 2: was to do with the development it's new technology by
Speaker 2: cr the big mining companies. It was then to turn
Speaker 2: iron ore straight into steel. Normally it goes through a
Speaker 2: couple of processes, yeah, pig iron and then you take
Speaker 2: out more of the oxygen and finding it up a steel.
Speaker 2: But they were working on this really complex, you know
Speaker 2: smelting process that adjust all the gases in the furnace
Speaker 2: so that you can come out with basically usable sort
Speaker 2: of steel in one process, and it would therefore say
Speaker 2: billions and billions treations of around the world. So that's
Speaker 2: what we're working on, the technology and transfers, doing deals
Speaker 2: with the big German manufacturers and the Swiss manufacturers and
Speaker 2: the Japanese manufacturers and all of that. And anyhow, I
Speaker 2: was in Germany at the time, of Switzerland at the time,
Speaker 2: and I got a call. I'd written a few sketches
Speaker 2: and stuff while I was being on a plane. I'd
Speaker 2: always write sketches because I was I loved and sell them,
Speaker 2: you know. It's a sort of a separate business while
Speaker 2: I was flying around the world and just to keep
Speaker 2: my brain interested. And so I was in Zurich with
Speaker 2: the guy I was working with, a blow called John
Speaker 2: Carwell on these deals, and I got a call from
Speaker 2: a bloke who was a programmer at Channel seven in Melbourne,
Speaker 2: Gary Fenton. And it was the time when the Comedy
Speaker 2: Company had just taken off on Channel ten and they
Speaker 2: were all my mates who were doing that show and
Speaker 2: it became a huge hid success. And Gary Fenton, who
Speaker 2: ran Channel seven, ranged me all the way. He tracked
Speaker 2: me down in Zurich and said, listen, would you be
Speaker 2: interested in you I write and stuff? Would you be
Speaker 2: interested in doing a sketch comedy? I owned Channel seven
Speaker 2: to match the comedy company, and I thought, oh god,
Speaker 2: that sounds interesting. And I went down to dinner at
Speaker 2: the most expensive hotel we were staying. That's called the
Speaker 2: Barrow Luck Lake on the Zurich cost a fortune, but
Speaker 2: it was courtesy of cra or someone so I had
Speaker 2: was having dinner with John called him a working partner,
Speaker 2: and I felt like I owed him this huge obligation
Speaker 2: because of all the work we're doing. I said, mate,
Speaker 2: I've been offered this job to do a TV comedy show,
Speaker 2: but it's only eight weeks work and I don't want
Speaker 2: to let you down, but I'm kind of interested. And
Speaker 2: he did this thing and I'll never forget it. There
Speaker 2: was a glass of water on the table opposite it
Speaker 2: was a beautiful restaurant, you know, the choker block, and
Speaker 2: he did this thing. He put his he put his
Speaker 2: finger into the glass of water and took it out,
Speaker 2: and he said, see the hole that that left in
Speaker 2: the glass of water. He said, that is the hole
Speaker 2: that you will leave in the organization if you leave,
Speaker 2: and I thought, geez, that's a bit that's a bit rough.
Speaker 2: And then I worked out what he was saying is
Speaker 2: in the most generous way.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He said, organizations go on, they'll keep going, and they're
Speaker 2: kind of thankless places. And he said, don't worry about
Speaker 2: that sort of mechanical stuff. He said, there's always away
Speaker 2: with these businesses that keep going. Go and follow your heart.
Speaker 2: And then he was very generous. He said, and if
Speaker 2: it doesn't turn out after six months or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: come back and you can have your old job back.
Speaker 2: But I'll never forgetting putting his finger in the glass
Speaker 2: of water and saying see the hole at that left thought,
Speaker 2: oh jeez, that's a bit rich.
Speaker 1: So within ten years you're very us staged. You're the
Speaker 1: most popular man on Australian television, you win logo awards,
Speaker 1: you've nominated for logos, you're compulsory watching. We don't have
Speaker 1: time to cover all of that, but I but I
Speaker 1: want your memor you know, your favorite memories of those times.
Speaker 1: And I mean, were you were aware that you made
Speaker 1: people laugh? You were you were aware of your popularity
Speaker 1: in those days? Well?
Speaker 2: I was aware that you know when I went on air.
Speaker 2: First we did Fast Forward and literally we got contracted
Speaker 2: to do eight shows. And what I worked out was,
Speaker 2: I mean, the idea of fast Forward was really simple.
Speaker 2: It was a week in the life of TV. It
Speaker 2: was kind of going through everything that people had seen
Speaker 2: in a funny sort of way. So it was hinch,
Speaker 2: it was yan event, It was the movies that were on,
Speaker 2: it was the TV series that were on, and we
Speaker 2: parodied all of those shows. And I came up with
Speaker 2: one device. It was the only decent thought I had,
Speaker 2: which was for all the crappy bits, were just will
Speaker 2: either change channels or we'll fast forward, and that way
Speaker 2: you only have to watch the funny bits or the
Speaker 2: good bits, and that way it's got a pace to it.
Speaker 2: So that was the idea of the show. It was
Speaker 2: called fast Forward, so, you know, and working with those
Speaker 2: people you think about it. Jane Turner, Geena Riley, Magnizabanski,
Speaker 2: Peter Moon, you know, then later on Eric Banner, Sean mccarliff,
Speaker 2: they were all in those shows. So they're funny people.
Speaker 2: So like, it was really hard work. We were making
Speaker 2: an hour of comedy every week and we basically did
Speaker 2: it through Fast Forward and forefront of for ten years.
Speaker 2: But I've got to say for all of the work,
Speaker 2: it was really fun. Like we turn up. I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember the time. It's totally politically incorrect now, but
Speaker 2: I remember the time. Because I'd flown so much on planes.
Speaker 2: We were short, we were short of sketches. For that week.
Speaker 2: We couldn't think of anything. I was sitting getting made
Speaker 2: up with Michael Veach to go and shoot something, and
Speaker 2: we started talking about flight attendants.
Speaker 1: Oh, we ended up.
Speaker 2: He started he'd flown a lot, I'd flowed a lot,
Speaker 2: and we started being flight attendants. And we thought, Christ,
Speaker 2: we're short of material, let's just go do some flight attendants.
Speaker 2: So they found some costumes and wax up and put
Speaker 2: little badges on them, and we've got this tiny little
Speaker 2: seat and we just shot us literally improvising being flight attendants. Well,
Speaker 2: the audience kind of related to it, and everyone related,
Speaker 2: and so we ended up doing that for about four years.
Speaker 2: Those flight attendant sketches, they're totally like we would probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't do those today. But funnily enough, someone said to
Speaker 2: me he couldn't get away with that now because they
Speaker 2: were basically gay flight minutes. Funnily enough. All of the
Speaker 2: flight attendants whenever we blew used to love us. We
Speaker 2: can get photos with people, we get taken. We were
Speaker 2: on the front of the Quatis magazine, the House Quants magazine.
Speaker 2: People were taking offense on behalf of them. But you know,
Speaker 2: the quotas people loved it. But someone asked us, oh,
Speaker 2: you couldn't do that today, and I said, well, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to do that today because it's not a thing.
Speaker 2: But if we were going to do that today, those
Speaker 2: two flight attendants, if you would do it again, one
Speaker 2: of them would now be in charge of the chairman's
Speaker 2: loud and the other would be running Quadas itself, and
Speaker 2: you'd still you'd still have them. They just would have
Speaker 2: They just would have got new jobs. That's all.
Speaker 1: Out of time, the television career. But then you do
Speaker 1: all this stuff. You know, we're talking about your social conscience.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were on so many boards or so
Speaker 1: many different organizations after that. I mean you started running
Speaker 1: your own production company. But what do you think that
Speaker 1: was the most satisfying of those roles that you played
Speaker 1: after after television?
Speaker 2: One of the things I really meant two things, could
Speaker 2: I say two things? Scorn one of them was we
Speaker 2: had a thing in Victoria call Victoria and major events.
Speaker 1: We know that, we know that they took the Adelaide.
Speaker 2: From pre That's one way of looking at it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've got to gather around so it's all equal out.
Speaker 2: But one thing I will say is one of the
Speaker 2: challenges they had is we had to get major events
Speaker 2: to Victoria. And the reason is you want to bring
Speaker 2: income into the states that we all do. So all
Speaker 2: of the whole tells were quite in winter. So the
Speaker 2: idea was a really simple one. What could we do
Speaker 2: to get people to come to Victoria in winter? So
Speaker 2: I had an idea and I called it Melbourne Winter Masterpieces.
Speaker 2: And it was literally to bring to go and get
Speaker 2: because we've got galleries here. So I went and did.
Speaker 2: We went and did deals with all of the great
Speaker 2: museums and galleries around the world to bring all of
Speaker 2: their masterpieces one each year to Melbourne and put them
Speaker 2: on so you could get the best, you know, you
Speaker 2: could get the best from the museums in London and
Speaker 2: the best from whatever. Won after treasures of this and
Speaker 2: whatever and that packed out and it's still going in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: Win to masterpieces. So I was very proud of that.
Speaker 2: And when people come in and see their masterpieces, then
Speaker 2: they look at all of the domestic stuff too, and
Speaker 2: the permanent displays, and suddenly they were just died in
Speaker 2: art or whatever. So that was one thing. And the
Speaker 2: other great thing that's been satisfying. We set up a
Speaker 2: foundation when you know, in nineteen eighty nine called the
Speaker 2: Vice Foundation, and we set up a house called Viizart
Speaker 2: House and it's for people who are coming to Melbourne
Speaker 2: some you know, it could be at some with an
Speaker 2: operation or whatever, and they can stay there for free.
Speaker 2: And we've now put up nearly a million people over
Speaker 2: the years there and it's really good. There's a full
Speaker 2: time manager's there and people can just come and stay
Speaker 2: there for free. It's right in the heart of town
Speaker 2: and it's close to all the hospitals and some of
Speaker 2: the stories you hear, you know, it's often a breadwinner
Speaker 2: who's just suddenly had a heart attack and they can't
Speaker 2: afford to stay anywhere, and they've come from al Jura
Speaker 2: or from you know, up in the River area or somewhere.
Speaker 2: They don't know Melbourne at all, but they've got to come.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of the community there that supports them.
Speaker 2: So I'm very really proud of the work. We've done
Speaker 2: a lot of other stuff, but that's I'm really proud
Speaker 2: of that particularly.
Speaker 1: So much left unsaid, Steve. It's been great chatting. Obviously
Speaker 1: there was more, maybe there will be at some stage.
Speaker 1: People need to buy your book Nation Memory myth Gallipoli
Speaker 1: in the Australian Imaginary by Steve Wizard make you think,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. It will make you reach
Speaker 1: for the dictionary a few times.
Speaker 2: Also made me reach. I've done a lot of interviews
Speaker 2: over the years and this has been one of the
Speaker 2: most pleasurable and most informed interviews I've ever done. So
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 1: March cut it out.
Speaker 2: That's what you told me to say.
Speaker 1: So thanks so good luck And I'm not sure we
Speaker 1: wish Hawthorn all that much like because they don't need it,
Speaker 1: but the crows certainly do well.
Speaker 2: I wish you luck.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Steve, I I guess thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us.