Speaker 1: Did I everyone, welcome to conversations. Today's guest has an
Speaker 1: amazing story. It's been an amazing journey, really born into
Speaker 1: a life of crime. I can't describe it in any
Speaker 1: other way. Born into a life of crime. His dad
Speaker 1: was a hardened professional criminal and was in and out
Speaker 1: of jail, and Peter Norris, who's my guest, was dragged
Speaker 1: around the country to various locations with his mum and
Speaker 1: dad first and his dad then into institutions and then
Speaker 1: into a foster home. But he emerged from that, and
Speaker 1: we'll cover that story as we go. He's recounted the
Speaker 1: journey in a book called The Bank Robber's Boy. Peter Norris,
Speaker 1: good morning, how are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning, Cornsey, I'm great, thank you, and yeah,
Speaker 2: really appreciate your having them on your show.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing story. I mean, it's what intrigues me
Speaker 1: out the book. When you get to the epilogue, you're
Speaker 1: only twelve. That life you fit into those years zero
Speaker 1: to twelve, so jam pa, and then you cover the
Speaker 1: rest of your life where you've emerged from such a
Speaker 1: difficult upbringing to being successful as you are now. But
Speaker 1: we'll come to that. You rely on your brother, your
Speaker 1: brother Day's early memories for the first couple of chapters
Speaker 1: to tell us about your dad. So, yeah, tell us
Speaker 1: your early memory.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, as you just alluded to Cornsey, that
Speaker 2: first sort of twelve years of life. Even looking back now,
Speaker 2: I go, it feels like another lifetime because there was
Speaker 2: so much packed into that. Yeah, and a lot of it,
Speaker 2: you know, not necessarily positive experiences, some traumatic. But my
Speaker 2: first memory as a child, as a four year old,
Speaker 2: and I was living with people who I thought were
Speaker 2: my biological family, and we were the Robinson's, and I
Speaker 2: had a mom and a dad, and I had two siblings,
Speaker 2: two brothers. And it's a really surreal memory that one
Speaker 2: night I had a blood nose. I used to get
Speaker 2: these blood noses as a kid all the time, which
Speaker 2: is not uncommon. And I bled all over my sheets
Speaker 2: and my pillowcase, and the person I thought was my
Speaker 2: father gave me this strapping across the back of the legs,
Speaker 2: which was a massive overreaction to an accident. And I
Speaker 2: laid there that night and the next morning and I
Speaker 2: had this powerful sense of I don't belong here. And
Speaker 2: that's probably the best way I can explain it. Is
Speaker 2: that I looked at my surroundings. I looked at Mum
Speaker 2: and Dad and my siblings, and I went, why am
Speaker 2: I tall and thin with dark curly hair. Why are
Speaker 2: they short and round with red hair? So I had
Speaker 2: this revelation of sorts that this is not where I'm
Speaker 2: meant to be, and it was really strange. That was
Speaker 2: my earliest memory.
Speaker 1: It's you're only four then, I mean that InTru you've got.
Speaker 1: You've got good memories of early good memories. You've got
Speaker 1: clear memories of those early years. So so we'll come
Speaker 1: to the we'll come to the Robinson's in due course.
Speaker 1: We'll tell us about your dad. I mean those those
Speaker 1: early years where your brother Dave recounts things that were
Speaker 1: happening around the household and the different names that you
Speaker 1: had to be known as. So you tell us about
Speaker 1: your dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, dad, Dad had a similarly traumatic childhood, you know,
Speaker 2: growing up in Grafton Jail and Tamworth Boys Home. And
Speaker 2: it was in one of these places that he met
Speaker 2: some fairly well known criminals like George Freeman. And as
Speaker 2: you know, as my brother Dave tells it, George was
Speaker 2: a young eighteen year old when he first went into jail,
Speaker 2: and Dad was a bit more of a season criminal
Speaker 2: at that stage, so they took young George under their
Speaker 2: wing and got him a coveted job in the in
Speaker 2: the bakehouse, so he wasn't cleaning toilets and scrubbing showers
Speaker 2: and those sorts of things. So George kind of joined
Speaker 2: that gang. But of course, you know, George went on
Speaker 2: to become a lot, a lot sort of more famous
Speaker 2: as a criminal, I suppose, and my dad who preferred
Speaker 2: to stay in the background, but yeah, Dad and his crew,
Speaker 2: and you know, they were bank robbers.
Speaker 1: And did he ever did he talk about did you
Speaker 1: have a chance to talk about his upbringing? You mentioned
Speaker 1: a tough upbringing? Yeah, did you meet his Did you
Speaker 1: meet your grandparents on your dad's side, for instance.
Speaker 2: I met my grandmother on dad's side, and there wasn't
Speaker 2: a lot of talk about family history those things. So
Speaker 2: it was really only probably when I was in that
Speaker 2: age of eleven to twelve where I started to really
Speaker 2: dive into some of that family history. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: will get to some of those stories. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: suppose the way that that early part of life and
Speaker 2: I came into the care of the family, like the
Speaker 2: Robinson's dad was a hardened criminal, and my mum lived
Speaker 2: with us up until the age of eighteen. And again,
Speaker 2: you know, my brother recalls these memories really vividly that
Speaker 2: mum actually had enough and went off and found another boyfriend, Tim,
Speaker 2: who was a command an ex commando in the British Army,
Speaker 2: and he'd moved to Australia and Mum and him met
Speaker 2: and anyway, Dad sort of took a disliking to a
Speaker 2: couple of things that happened over there and went around
Speaker 2: with the tomahawk and smashed the door down and caved
Speaker 2: a bit of him his head in with the tomahawk,
Speaker 2: and and yeah, next thing the family were back together.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it certainly wasn't a happy environment for mum, who, yeah,
Speaker 2: from that point formed a drug habit, and yeah, it
Speaker 2: was obviously planning her escape as well.
Speaker 1: There's a moment in the book, sad moment in the
Speaker 1: book where your grandfather sets you down and says we
Speaker 1: won't be seeing your mother again. And it leaves me
Speaker 1: hanging right until the end, because I wondered what happened?
Speaker 1: Did she die? Did she commit suicide? Did you a
Speaker 1: young man and being told that you won't see your
Speaker 1: mother again. How do you deal with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she told her kids, all of us, so there's
Speaker 2: four of us that she was going shopping for the day,
Speaker 2: and yeah, grabbed her bag as she normally would, and
Speaker 2: hopped on a bus and that was it. Cornsey, we
Speaker 2: haven't seen or heard from her since. There hasn't been
Speaker 2: a single She would only be in her seventies now,
Speaker 2: so you know, likely alive, hopefully still alive, and yeah,
Speaker 2: but just just disappeared off the face of the earth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to this very day.
Speaker 1: Well, I kept waiting for her to reappear in the book,
Speaker 1: to be quite honest, I kept waiting for you to
Speaker 1: track it down and real did you try to do that?
Speaker 2: Tried to do that early in life. There was a
Speaker 2: few programs through the Salvation Army where you were able
Speaker 2: to locate missing family members, and we tried everything we
Speaker 2: could to find her. And look, I don't begrudge her
Speaker 2: for making that decision. It would have been a pretty
Speaker 2: tough environment for her. The only question that I would
Speaker 2: have for her is, even at this stage, is how
Speaker 2: you walk away from four children? You know, you've got kids,
Speaker 2: I've got kids. We know how tough that would be
Speaker 2: to leave them and never communicate with them again for
Speaker 2: the rest of your life. So that would be a
Speaker 2: tough one, I imagine, And I'm sure you know she
Speaker 2: went through some hell with that decision herself.
Speaker 1: So the Robinson's is not a pleasant experience for you,
Speaker 1: strapped for having a blood nose and bleeding all over
Speaker 1: your sheet. So what happens then? I mean of it,
Speaker 1: it's a journey from one place to the next. As
Speaker 1: you're reading through this book, it's hard to settle because
Speaker 1: you don't settle and your dad's there and then he's gone,
Speaker 1: and then he reappears magically. So what happened after Robinson's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after the blood nos incident, there was a little
Speaker 2: bit of time, a couple of weeks where you know,
Speaker 2: I even went to school. I was going to kindergarten.
Speaker 2: I went to my kindergarten teacher and my mood was
Speaker 2: a bit down. And she said to me one day,
Speaker 2: she said, oh, what's wrong, Peter. You're normally this happy
Speaker 2: child who's running around the playground. And I said to her,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm looking for my real family. I wanted
Speaker 2: to get me And again it sounds really strange that
Speaker 2: a four year old was so certain that he didn't
Speaker 2: belong where he was. And I recall that day because
Speaker 2: she was really kind and she said to me something
Speaker 2: along the lines of, you know, if you're patient, the
Speaker 2: things you wish for will come. And I looked turned
Speaker 2: around and I was, you know, fifty meters away from
Speaker 2: that conversation when I walked away, and she was still
Speaker 2: just watching me, and I'm sure she was thinking, what
Speaker 2: the hell is going on with that kid? And anyway,
Speaker 2: it was the weekend after that conversation, and I was
Speaker 2: running circles around the front yard. Was a very active child,
Speaker 2: and the person I thought my mother was cutting roses
Speaker 2: off the rosebush. And the front gate squeaked open, and
Speaker 2: I turned around and there was this man with sort
Speaker 2: of thick muscular arms and he was making a vline
Speaker 2: straight to me, and he had this smile on his
Speaker 2: face that I'll never forget. And not a word needed
Speaker 2: to be exchanged. I knew, I just knew that that
Speaker 2: was where I belonged, and he put his arms out,
Speaker 2: I jumped into them. And that was Dad who spent
Speaker 2: which I found out later spent eighteen months in the
Speaker 2: New South Wales court system legally getting his kids back together.
Speaker 2: So that was a really special moment.
Speaker 1: He knew him straight away.
Speaker 2: Obviously I didn't know the face. I hadn't didn't remember
Speaker 2: the face, but you know, there's just something in my
Speaker 2: gut that that's where I belong. I hopped, There was
Speaker 2: no hesitation. I hopped into his arms. He was crying.
Speaker 2: I was crying, and yeah, there was an exchange of
Speaker 2: conversation between him and the Robinsons and maybe a social worker,
Speaker 2: there was somebody else there, and I didn't hear any
Speaker 2: of that. I was just caught him, you know, just
Speaker 2: staring at this man and just this feeling of content
Speaker 2: and happiness, and.
Speaker 1: Just did he take your way straight away? He did?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he walked me out. There was a car waiting
Speaker 2: out the front, and you know that that moment got
Speaker 2: even more special when we got to the car and
Speaker 2: there was two little girl's faces pressed up against the
Speaker 2: window and they were giggling and clapping and cheering, and
Speaker 2: as I would learn in the the sort of half
Speaker 2: an hour after that, they were my sisters who had
Speaker 2: already been collected and knew that they were getting their
Speaker 2: brother back.
Speaker 1: And you never knew you had had a sister let
Speaker 1: alone too.
Speaker 2: Never knew I had a sister let alone too. So
Speaker 2: it was again a strange experience for that journey in
Speaker 2: that car back to the house that Dad had set
Speaker 2: up for us to hear about what my family had
Speaker 2: been doing. And you know, one of my sisters was
Speaker 2: quite vocal, so she was telling me everybody's story, and
Speaker 2: you know, I got a half an hour wrap up
Speaker 2: of you know, how it came that I was back
Speaker 2: in this car with my real family. So it was, yeah,
Speaker 2: just a and still you know, one of the most
Speaker 2: beautiful memories.
Speaker 1: I have, your older brother, Dave. He seemed to he
Speaker 1: seemed to be distant from the family from time to time.
Speaker 1: It was there a reason for that, Yeah.
Speaker 2: He had he had a really strong relationship with my
Speaker 2: with my grandfather, which is my mother's father. So and
Speaker 2: if we take a step back, you know, when mum
Speaker 2: caught that bus, my grandfather took us to you know,
Speaker 2: as we said, took us to a church and handed
Speaker 2: us out to different families. That I went to the
Speaker 2: Robinsons and my sisters went elsewhere, which even in itself,
Speaker 2: was a strange thing to happen. And yeah, so Dave
Speaker 2: remained with grandfather and did so for y you know,
Speaker 2: a fair chunk of his childhood. He felt safe and
Speaker 2: secure in that environment, so he stayed there.
Speaker 1: Peter Norris is my guest. His book is called The
Speaker 1: Bank Robber's Boy. It's a what's the story of a
Speaker 1: young fellow who's affected by the the criminal aspect of
Speaker 1: his father. He delves into little bit of crime himself
Speaker 1: a bit later into the book, but has emerged successfully,
Speaker 1: tremendously successfully. Back after the break. If you just tuned
Speaker 1: into conversations, we're speaking with Peter Norris. Now, Peter is
Speaker 1: the son of a man who was once shown on
Speaker 1: that television show Australias Most Wanted. We'll talk about that
Speaker 1: because that comes as a bit of a surprise to
Speaker 1: a young fellow watching TV and his father's face pops up.
Speaker 1: But if you just tuned in, Peter's four years of age.
Speaker 1: His mum and dad have split up. He's been fostered out,
Speaker 1: but his dad goes through the court system and finds
Speaker 1: him and reunites the family, or two of the sisters
Speaker 1: and Peter. But it doesn't seem to get any easier. Peter,
Speaker 1: you're four years old, you with your sister and your dad.
Speaker 1: He set up a house, but you go from place
Speaker 1: to place, I mean tell us about the insecurity of
Speaker 1: all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was a challenging times as a four
Speaker 2: year old child at this stage. You know, I had
Speaker 2: no idea that our family was any different than any other.
Speaker 2: I didn't I certainly didn't know that dad was a criminal.
Speaker 2: So when we were told in the middle of the
Speaker 2: night regularly, you've got ten minutes, grab one bag. You've
Speaker 2: got a backpack, whatever you can fit in. That is
Speaker 2: all you get to take, you know. So I'd grab
Speaker 2: Tom the Turtle, my teddy bear, and a few you know,
Speaker 2: a few bits of clothing and we'd be out the door,
Speaker 2: and you know, no chance to say goodbye to any
Speaker 2: friends that you'd made at school. Yeah, we're just just out.
Speaker 2: And it was yeah, and all I've our belongings left
Speaker 2: in the place and this this you know from there,
Speaker 2: It's just a process that was repeated over and over,
Speaker 2: which was really unsettling and took a little bit, certainly
Speaker 2: a long while to get used to it.
Speaker 1: If you ever do not for the fact you had
Speaker 1: to change your your name regularly, how did you handle that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd have this briefing from you know, from Dad
Speaker 2: if we started a new school all that. Okay, you know,
Speaker 2: don't forget that today your surname is Reynolds or you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, A funny part of the story
Speaker 2: is is that Norris is actually not my surname. It's
Speaker 2: not my birth name. My birth name is Pugh p
Speaker 2: u g h. And but my birth Gibbie says Norris
Speaker 2: because that's just the way Dad set it up at
Speaker 2: the time. So I'm still running under a fake name
Speaker 2: necessarily as as my children, but we've never never changed
Speaker 2: it back.
Speaker 1: If your birth certificate has got Norris on it, how
Speaker 1: did that happen? Was it was he operating with a
Speaker 1: fake name because you sign that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, operating under a fake name. It was obviously
Speaker 2: regularly wanted by the by the police for various things.
Speaker 2: So it looks like just at the time, yeah, that
Speaker 2: was the name that we were using, and it's it's
Speaker 2: on my birth certificate, so it stays.
Speaker 1: How did you find out your own name?
Speaker 2: Well, I was for all well, when I had a
Speaker 2: connection to some of Dad's family. Yeah, after we kind
Speaker 2: of went our separate ways, and they were all pews.
Speaker 2: And then I've had to look up dad's records. There's
Speaker 2: an article actually in the Sydney Morning Harold where Dad
Speaker 2: escapes from Long Bay jail. This is before my birth.
Speaker 2: He knocked out one of the guards and put the
Speaker 2: prison uniform on and just strolled out the front gate.
Speaker 2: But as the article goes, it's, you know, Clarence Donald
Speaker 2: Pugh escaped and he's and police are searching bush bush
Speaker 2: around the abound the prison to see if they can
Speaker 2: locate this escape prison. So yeah, there's all these things
Speaker 2: that go, yeah, that that's you know. My surname is
Speaker 2: not meant to be Norris, so it's.
Speaker 1: Called the Bank Robbers. Boy. You don't talk much about
Speaker 1: the banks that he robbed in the book. Yeah what did?
Speaker 1: What did? What do you know about those crimes?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think the earliest memory I have of Dad
Speaker 2: actually being a criminal was one evening one afternoon. Actually
Speaker 2: Dad was having a little snooze on the couch. So
Speaker 2: my sisters and I went looking for Christmas presents. It
Speaker 2: was nearly Christmas time, and so as you do as
Speaker 2: a kid, we're searching through the d and we thought
Speaker 2: our dad's wardrobe is probably the spot where we'll find them.
Speaker 2: So we pulled a chair out and climbed up on
Speaker 2: top and had a look, and there was some blankets
Speaker 2: and things that look like they're hiding something, so we
Speaker 2: pulled them out and anyway, we found three brown bags
Speaker 2: and they're all filled with cash, bundles of cash, and
Speaker 2: we've wrapped up with elastic bands. I don't know how much,
Speaker 2: but you know, there was bundles and bundles and bundles
Speaker 2: of cash and two handguns in one of the one
Speaker 2: of the bags. So we quickly put them back and
Speaker 2: we made this little pack between the three of us
Speaker 2: that we wouldn't mention it again, and we certainly wouldn't
Speaker 2: be telling Dad that we knew about it. But it
Speaker 2: was about that time that we realized that life probably
Speaker 2: for us was not normal, and our family was a
Speaker 2: little bit different than anybody else. And then from that
Speaker 2: there was a few other moments. So Dad would always
Speaker 2: so I was really, really really close to Dad. I'd sleep,
Speaker 2: you know, in his bed every single night, cuddled up.
Speaker 2: But almost every night, without fail, he'd think I was
Speaker 2: asleep and he'd slip out and he'd be gone for
Speaker 2: hours in the middle of the night and come back
Speaker 2: in the early hours of the morning, and there'd be
Speaker 2: new things in the house. There'd be new TVs, bikes
Speaker 2: for us, There'd be all these this new stuff, and
Speaker 2: then a week later it'd be gone again.
Speaker 1: But as you're describing it, it seems more like a
Speaker 1: petty criminal and than a bank robber. Did you read
Speaker 1: did you research any of the bank jobs that he did?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a few, and there's a few that I recall.
Speaker 2: And one there's a Petersham This a hospital, not a bank,
Speaker 2: but this is one big one, an armed robbery where
Speaker 2: and I remember going there with Dad and he was
Speaker 2: he got a job as a cleaner, and it was
Speaker 2: only for about two weeks, and I wondered why, But
Speaker 2: what he was doing was watching the watching the staff,
Speaker 2: and obviously the payroll system in that day was all
Speaker 2: done in cash. And then two weeks later he didn't
Speaker 2: work there anymore. And then on the news I saw
Speaker 2: that two armed men had taken the ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: payroll by a shotgun. And then we were off again moving. So,
Speaker 2: even at that age, and I think I would have
Speaker 2: been about six at that point, I started to put
Speaker 2: two and two together. Probably my main in terms of banks.
Speaker 2: It was probably really talking to Dad. He was he
Speaker 2: actually didn't get caught, and he got caught for one,
Speaker 2: but a lot of the bank the bank were robbery
Speaker 2: crimes he didn't get caught for. But you know, there
Speaker 2: was one later on in life, when we were traveling
Speaker 2: across the wa which will get to that. He told
Speaker 2: me about that, just a bank in Sydney where Dad's
Speaker 2: job was to subdue this one guard who was meant
Speaker 2: to be pretty tough and was going to be the
Speaker 2: main problem. And as Dad tells me, he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I went in and I put a shotgun in his
Speaker 2: face and told him to get down or I was
Speaker 2: going to blow his head off. And he didn't move.
Speaker 2: He just stood there looking at me. And then Dad said, okay, well,
Speaker 2: the intel's right. He is going to be a problem.
Speaker 2: So I said it again. Get on your bloody knees,
Speaker 2: are I'm going to blow your head off? And again
Speaker 2: he didn't move, And then Dad said, and then I
Speaker 2: noticed something. His eyes just glazed over and he started
Speaker 2: to piss himself. And I realized then that he'd gone
Speaker 2: into this catatonic state of shock, and he wasn't, in
Speaker 2: fact all that tough. He was scared, just like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Can you excuse that behavior though, where you're relating it
Speaker 1: so matter of factly.
Speaker 2: No, I can't. It looks I'm relating it as he
Speaker 2: told me. But what I will say is on hearing
Speaker 2: that that there was that moment and there was a
Speaker 2: few others where that was really an indication to me
Speaker 2: that I didn't want to be my father. I was
Speaker 2: certainly not proud. And he had a little chuckle as
Speaker 2: he told me that, thinking, you know, he wasn't so
Speaker 2: tough after all, Pete, and on a little little hit
Speaker 2: on the shoulder like he was proud of it. And
Speaker 2: I actually felt shame and certainly some dread and sorrow
Speaker 2: for the poor man who had to experience that.
Speaker 1: You're just one of those that are a romantic air
Speaker 1: about the you know, the criminal bank robbin, like the
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy Sundown's kid. Yeah, is there something remotely romantic
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: Look? I don't find anything too romantic about the crimes
Speaker 2: because I've seen on too many Asians the impact it
Speaker 2: has on the victims, you know, And I think another
Speaker 2: one that sticks in my mind was you know we
Speaker 2: were and it's not a you know, there's no weapons involved.
Speaker 2: But we were driving to the races one day in
Speaker 2: a taxi and Dad was a bit of a punter.
Speaker 2: When he'd stolen enough money that he could punt. We'd
Speaker 2: be off to the races every weekend. And he had
Speaker 2: this hot tip and he paid the taxi driver ten
Speaker 2: bucks to get there as fast as he could, and
Speaker 2: one of my sisters she vomited all over the back seat.
Speaker 2: We just put up at the races and it was
Speaker 2: only a couple of minutes to Dad's hot tip was
Speaker 2: about to jump, so he had to get the bed on,
Speaker 2: and the taxi drivers ranging and raving and wouldn't let
Speaker 2: us go. So Dad asked us kids get out of
Speaker 2: the back seat, walked around to the taxi driver's side,
Speaker 2: knocked him out with one punch, and this poor man's
Speaker 2: head was sitting on the horn as you'd seen a movie.
Speaker 2: There's just that head on the steering wheel. And Dad
Speaker 2: grabbed our hands and all right, off we go, you know,
Speaker 2: just just nonchalant, no impact on him. And I looked
Speaker 2: back at that incident and again that was one of
Speaker 2: those moments where I just felt complete sorrow, and I
Speaker 2: didn't stop thinking about that for days. The poor man
Speaker 2: with his head on the steering wheel. So there were
Speaker 2: these incidents that were lining up that were really for me.
Speaker 2: They were just kept telling me that I wanted to
Speaker 2: be something other than what my father was.
Speaker 1: Peter Norris is my guest. Book is called The bank
Speaker 1: Robber's Boy. It's really interesting reading, to be quite honest.
Speaker 1: A bit more about that when we get back back shortly.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to conversations now if you've just tuned in,
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating discussion with a gentleman called Peter Norris. Now,
Speaker 1: Peter's done really well in life. He manages a big
Speaker 1: facility of a corower, but his early days were beset
Speaker 1: by his association with his dad and love of his dad,
Speaker 1: who was a hardened criminal in and out of his life,
Speaker 1: in and out of jail. You're talking about the dad
Speaker 1: racing to the to the race course to get a
Speaker 1: bet on. You seem to spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: as kids at race courses. Was he was he a
Speaker 1: professional gambler or was he? Was he a good punter
Speaker 1: or not?
Speaker 2: I think he considered himself a good punter, but I
Speaker 2: can tell you now that there are more times at
Speaker 2: the at the end of the races that he was
Speaker 2: in a bad mood than in a good mood. And
Speaker 2: we knew, we knew if he had a bad night,
Speaker 2: it was yeah, there weren't many words spoken. But on
Speaker 2: the other side, if he had a good night, we
Speaker 2: were off and we were getting ice cream, and life
Speaker 2: was pretty good for everybody. So yeah, I would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: not a particularly good punter, despite him being there every
Speaker 2: single weekend, almost you.
Speaker 1: Showed some entrepreneurial and now said, those races, as you
Speaker 1: account in the book, being able to you know, guy's
Speaker 1: beer and sell it on for whatever, twenty cents a glass,
Speaker 1: and pinching buckets of ice cream to sell them. Surely
Speaker 1: you got it. Surely you got caught doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look I did. And I think I suppose this
Speaker 2: goes to the fact that you do become a bit
Speaker 2: of a productive environment. You know. So at that age,
Speaker 2: I was still only about eight, between eight and nine,
Speaker 2: and you know, all I'd seen was Dad steal and
Speaker 2: scheme and find ways to make money. And when when
Speaker 2: we go to the races, it would be, you know,
Speaker 2: race just before race one, and Dad would always say
Speaker 2: see you later. We'll meet back here after the last race.
Speaker 2: So we had hours and hours and hours to myself
Speaker 2: to entertain myself. And yeah, so I come up with
Speaker 2: some schemes to make some money myself, just you know,
Speaker 2: I thought that would make Dad pretty proud. So one
Speaker 2: particular one was as the most of the men would
Speaker 2: would race to the track, race to the track to
Speaker 2: watch the race, I'd have that sort of five minute
Speaker 2: jingle that would let you know that the race was coming,
Speaker 2: and they'd all race off and they'd leave their beers
Speaker 2: at the bar back in those days, so I would
Speaker 2: at that point go and collect all the half beers,
Speaker 2: all the dregs, and put them all into one plastic
Speaker 2: cup so and then resell them. As the guys come up,
Speaker 2: I'd find a different space and sell them for twenty
Speaker 2: cents each. And quite often the men obviously knew what
Speaker 2: was going on, but they'd have a chuckle and throw
Speaker 2: me fifty cents or a dollar note and say adio,
Speaker 2: goot on your kid, and yeah, and I would get caught,
Speaker 2: and you know, someone, some official from the track would
Speaker 2: come along and boot me along. But being a kid,
Speaker 2: it was never in any real trouble, So I'd just
Speaker 2: set the same thing up somewhere else and that process
Speaker 2: just repeated. So but I'd give Dad that money at
Speaker 2: the end of the night, and you know, in the
Speaker 2: hope that that would help us as a family when
Speaker 2: things weren't good. We were we were going to Smith's
Speaker 2: family in Salvation Army for clothes and food and things.
Speaker 2: So I suppose I felt like I was I was
Speaker 2: helping us out.
Speaker 1: But you ended up in Red Cross homes and yeah,
Speaker 1: other facilities like you're talking about. You don't go into
Speaker 1: much detail about your time at Baltara, and you've settled
Speaker 1: a case against the Yeah, I'm going to using the
Speaker 1: word atrocity, settle a case against the way you were
Speaker 1: treated against that institution because of the way you were
Speaker 1: treated there. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did. We as a family, we made our
Speaker 2: way to Shepherd and actually Dad was on the run again,
Speaker 2: and at this stage I was I was eleven years
Speaker 2: old and we were staying in a Salvation Army restpirit
Speaker 2: center and Dad got himself into a into a fistfight actually,
Speaker 2: and with this really large man and I just remember him.
Speaker 2: He's been this really large overweight man with tattoos all
Speaker 2: over his body and his face in his neck, and
Speaker 2: Dad wasn't doing particularly well in this fight, and this
Speaker 2: large man had him in a had his hands around
Speaker 2: Dad's throat and sort of looked across at us and said,
Speaker 2: do you want your father to die today? It was
Speaker 2: a pretty horrible experience as a kid. You know, we
Speaker 2: clearly someone tells you that, you think that's what's what's
Speaker 2: going to happen. Anyway, there was an old an old
Speaker 2: man who never spoke to anybody. He was in his
Speaker 2: seventies and sat on this little stool and chained smoked
Speaker 2: mental cigarettes and and from nowhere he picked up this
Speaker 2: stool that he sat on and he smashed it across
Speaker 2: the back of this this big this big man's head. Anyway,
Speaker 2: as he recovered from being unconscious, this man got up
Speaker 2: and he looked across all of us and he said,
Speaker 2: I'm coming to get all of you tonight, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to murder the whole family. And so yeah, and
Speaker 2: strange that have circumstances. That night, we're all kind of
Speaker 2: huddled up in one room and Dad told us everything
Speaker 2: was going to be okay. And eventually drifted off to sleep,
Speaker 2: and two we heard sort of a lard bang down
Speaker 2: stare and their front door was being kicked in, And
Speaker 2: of course, as a child, I thought this man was
Speaker 2: coming to deliver his promise, but as it turned out,
Speaker 2: it was a crew of detectives who, yeah, pretty much
Speaker 2: by the time I realized what was happening, Dad was
Speaker 2: pinned on the ground and as he promised through all
Speaker 2: of his all of our time together, he was you know,
Speaker 2: just looked at me and said, I love you, Pete,
Speaker 2: and I'll be back to get you as soon as
Speaker 2: I can. And from that point, you know, Dad was
Speaker 2: sent to jail, and yeah, my sister Kelly and I
Speaker 2: were both made wards of the state for those that, yeah,
Speaker 2: that don't know, So the Victorian government became our legal guardian.
Speaker 2: And I know a lot of people wins about government
Speaker 2: decisions these days, but I can tell you that they
Speaker 2: don't do a good job being your parent either. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't a great experience. The first decision they made
Speaker 2: on my behalf and my sister Kelly's behalf was as
Speaker 2: an abandoned child, they couldn't find anywhere anywhere for us
Speaker 2: to live, so they made the decision for me to
Speaker 2: go to Baltara, which is a youth detention center with
Speaker 2: children up to the age of sixteen who had committed
Speaker 2: most of who had committed criminal acts. So you know,
Speaker 2: a kids jail, which is I'm told I was told
Speaker 2: last year at my hearing that that's just the way
Speaker 2: things were done. I suppose My response to that is,
Speaker 2: when was it ever okay to put an abandoned child
Speaker 2: into a prison?
Speaker 1: What happened there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it was a horrible four months, Graham, And
Speaker 2: I suppose it's come out recently that you know, some
Speaker 2: of the crimes in there of a violence and of
Speaker 2: a sexual nature, well, all things that happened one particular night.
Speaker 2: And as people, as kids do and as adults do,
Speaker 2: I suppose, when they spend time in those institutions, you
Speaker 2: become really angry. And I had no communication from anybody.
Speaker 2: I wasn't told where Dad was, I wasn't told where
Speaker 2: my sisters were. I wasn't told how long I'd be
Speaker 2: in there for, so as far as I was concerned,
Speaker 2: that could have been forever. So I laid in bed
Speaker 2: one night in a room of three small beds with
Speaker 2: two other occupants, and I started crying. I was an
Speaker 2: eleven year old who had just had enough, and one
Speaker 2: of the guards who I was aware of, sort of
Speaker 2: walked in. He had this big sort of red handlebar
Speaker 2: mustache and this big belly that hung over his pants,
Speaker 2: and I knew, is he come in the room? I
Speaker 2: stopped crying and I just went, God, I hope he's
Speaker 2: not here for me. Unfortunately he was. He skull dragged
Speaker 2: me out of that room, down the hallway and took
Speaker 2: me into the showers, and yeah, and to be honest,
Speaker 2: just beat the shit out of me until I pissed
Speaker 2: myself as an eleven year old, and and drabbed me
Speaker 2: back to the bed, really just for the for the
Speaker 2: crime of crying and annoying him that night. Look, and
Speaker 2: that's probably not the worst that happened in there, but
Speaker 2: that's one story that they had to face at a hearing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four, so only last year.
Speaker 1: So you were successful in suing the government, I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how traumatic was that to go through it again?
Speaker 2: It was? Yeah, it was a deeply traumatic experience. But
Speaker 2: I think the probably the most traumatic part about that process, Cornsey,
Speaker 2: was I was offered the opportunity to read an opening
Speaker 2: statement at that hearing, and there was the state representatives there,
Speaker 2: their legal team, and their insurers present, and I tabled
Speaker 2: my opening statement, which I had spent weeks putting together,
Speaker 2: put my heart and soul into, because there were a
Speaker 2: few things that I needed to say, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: blaming anyone present, but my statement was asking them to
Speaker 2: evolve beyond their predecessors and do the right thing, certainly
Speaker 2: by myself and others like me. They came back into
Speaker 2: the room where I was waiting and handed me back
Speaker 2: my statement and advised me that they wouldn't permit me
Speaker 2: to read that it was too hard for them to
Speaker 2: hear and cited a workhoalth safety reason for their staff.
Speaker 2: We're needing protect our team, so we're not going to
Speaker 2: allow you to read that statement. And it was right
Speaker 2: at that time that I knew that they're not here
Speaker 2: to resolve that they don't care if you can't hear
Speaker 2: that statement. You're really not here, yeah, to help you,
Speaker 2: just trying to make this a financial decision and hope
Speaker 2: that I go away.
Speaker 1: Peter Norris is my guest in and out of institutions,
Speaker 1: in and out of relationship with his dad. Does find
Speaker 1: a loving foster family, and I was able to make
Speaker 1: a success of his life after that. Back shortly, my
Speaker 1: guest on conversations is Peter Norris. Peter's written a book
Speaker 1: called The bank Robber's Boy, son of a bank robber,
Speaker 1: like a hardened criminal in his three siblings, moved from
Speaker 1: institution to institution. Has a happy ending because Peter does
Speaker 1: make a success of his life. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: we're going to have enough time to get through that completely.
Speaker 1: You do find a loving foster family in the Dull Arts.
Speaker 1: So can you give us a brief overview of your
Speaker 1: time there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can, Cornsey, Yeah, what had happened. Dad
Speaker 2: had been apprehended again. He'd sort of gone to jail
Speaker 2: and he was extra I did to w way to
Speaker 2: face some charges back there, and I was given a
Speaker 2: few weeks to live with my sister actually, and in
Speaker 2: that time I started my own crime spree, breaking into
Speaker 2: houses and faced court and was told by a judge
Speaker 2: at that time that I was possibly not possibly, I
Speaker 2: was at the worst thirteen year old criminal that he'd seen,
Speaker 2: and I had some choices on my own to make
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. And it was really
Speaker 2: a department or social justice decision that I was sent
Speaker 2: there to a family which are the Dullards, and it
Speaker 2: was meant to be for three weeks, and they said,
Speaker 2: you're out of control. Go and have three weeks with
Speaker 2: a foster family and see if you can pull yourself
Speaker 2: together in that three weeks. I stole their car, I
Speaker 2: did all sorts of things to test them out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the beautiful family they are. At the end of
Speaker 2: that three weeks, Yeah, they sat me down and said, Peter,
Speaker 2: would you like to stay? We can see, we can
Speaker 2: see there's a good person in there somewhere, and we'd
Speaker 2: love you to go to school and start playing sport
Speaker 2: and yeah, just starting to become a normal child with
Speaker 2: a routine. And yeah, I took them up on that offer.
Speaker 2: And yeah, because my life certainly wouldn't be the same
Speaker 2: without them.
Speaker 1: Just quickly, your dad does come back into your life briefly,
Speaker 1: but only briefly. Tell us what happened to him in
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had access over to my sister's house every
Speaker 2: second weekend, and Dad as he done, you know, throughout
Speaker 2: every year prior to that, whenever he was incarcerated he
Speaker 2: escaped and come back to find me and kept his promise.
Speaker 2: And on one of those visits, he was hiding out
Speaker 2: and i'd been to see him, and he sat me down,
Speaker 2: and as we've done every other time, he said, radio, Pete,
Speaker 2: grab your stuff, we're off again. I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to get out of Shepherd. And it's a bit hot
Speaker 2: here for me with family around. And he sat there
Speaker 2: and looked at me, and I didn't answer him, and
Speaker 2: I think he knew straight away. And I was crying,
Speaker 2: and again he was crying, so not unlike when I
Speaker 2: was four years old, but this one was very different.
Speaker 2: I looked at him and I said, Dad, I can't.
Speaker 2: I want a better life for myself. And I think
Speaker 2: the important thing here for people listening is as much
Speaker 2: as I wanted to I loved Dad more than anything,
Speaker 2: there was something in life that I wanted more, and
Speaker 2: that was to not become him. And I had to
Speaker 2: make that decision at that time, otherwise inevitably I would
Speaker 2: have just become my father.
Speaker 1: He died so young. How are you told? And how
Speaker 1: did you know? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Look, after that decision where I told Dad I wasn't
Speaker 2: going with him again, he picked his stuff up, really
Speaker 2: didn't say another word, walked back out the door. That
Speaker 2: was a last time that I saw him. He was
Speaker 2: captured again. He was great at escaping, but he wasn't
Speaker 2: great at staying staying free. He was always recaptured, returned
Speaker 2: to Freeman or prison. And yeah, unbeknownst to me even
Speaker 2: that that last visit I had, he was Yeah, he
Speaker 2: had had early onset Alzheimer's and was quite sick. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so he died in prison as in his fifties, fifty six,
Speaker 2: which was terribly sad. At the time, I'd received a
Speaker 2: phone call from Community Services, I was still a state
Speaker 2: board and was advised that that Dad had passed away. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: pretty tough time as a as a teenager. After everything
Speaker 2: we've been through.
Speaker 1: You have reunited with you with your siblings, haven't you,
Speaker 1: even though you've gone separate way?
Speaker 2: Is it? Ye?
Speaker 1: Just briefly us that before we rush through your closet
Speaker 1: school experiences.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have. Yeah, Look, we're not a particularly close family, Cornsey.
Speaker 2: I think all of those life experience we all went
Speaker 2: our separate ways. My brother David has followed Dad's footsteps.
Speaker 2: He's spent a lot of time in jail and robbing
Speaker 2: armor guard vans and doing all sorts of things. My
Speaker 2: sister Kelly, who was also incarcerated in a girl So
Speaker 2: she's facing her hearing this year actually, and I will
Speaker 2: be by her side. Some of the horrific things that
Speaker 2: happened to me and nothing compared to what happened to her,
Speaker 2: the poor thing. So she's really just a gypsy floating
Speaker 2: around wa.
Speaker 1: So when you say hearing, she's suing the state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and she just hasn't recovered like I have.
Speaker 2: The poor things. So yeah, she's two years older than
Speaker 2: me and she's just hasn't settled in life at all.
Speaker 2: And yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and your other sister who was seriously injured
Speaker 1: in a motorcycle accident when she was young, how did
Speaker 1: life turn out for her?
Speaker 2: Look? She Yeah, she married a really good man and
Speaker 2: her life as has been really settled. And yeah, she's
Speaker 2: quite quite successful in her own right, just with her
Speaker 2: and her children. So yep, she's living in Queensland. But
Speaker 2: they're also very supportive of the book and the story
Speaker 2: is you.
Speaker 1: Know, Okay, did they have to read it first?
Speaker 2: No, I've got them to give to read parts of
Speaker 2: it and give me their parts of the story just
Speaker 2: to make sure I had all the all the facts right.
Speaker 2: But they've read it now and they're you know, they're
Speaker 2: really proud of the story.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so tell me how after. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: it's dull. The influence of the Dullah the Foster family
Speaker 1: completely your education. You went on to tertiary education. You're
Speaker 1: well qualified. Not only that you you do bodybuilding, you
Speaker 1: do weightlifting, and give us a brief overview of that.
Speaker 1: How and why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I the experiences I had with
Speaker 2: dad up until the age of thirteen, Krnsey taught me
Speaker 2: two things. One was I didn't want to be him,
Speaker 2: as I said, and I couldn't have any stronger feeling
Speaker 2: than that at that age, which is quite remarkable given
Speaker 2: how much I loved and respected and admired him. I
Speaker 2: didn't admire what he did, but he was a great dad.
Speaker 2: He was protective and loving. But I just knew that
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be him. So that was motivation
Speaker 2: in certainly, you know, to move in the other direction.
Speaker 2: But the other thing he taught me was that if
Speaker 2: you're going to do something, don't do it half asked.
Speaker 2: You just put everything into it, and there's sort of
Speaker 2: people I think they use the words hyper focused or
Speaker 2: whatever it is these days, and people look at me
Speaker 2: and they just say, you know, I said I'm going
Speaker 2: to I'm just going to go and do some bodybuilding,
Speaker 2: and you know I did it. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: Eagan placed second in a few categories. And oh, that's great,
Speaker 2: you know, well done. I went. Well, it's not great
Speaker 2: because I have to go back again now. So I
Speaker 2: was there again in May twenty four and won six
Speaker 2: gold medals. I've just got that drive just to want
Speaker 2: to be really good at whatever I put my mind to.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, and that's that's certainly some of
Speaker 2: the dull Ard influence on me as well, just teaching
Speaker 2: me to be a better person and to and to
Speaker 2: giving life everything you've got, despite you know that that
Speaker 2: some of those childhood experience is a good show. I
Speaker 2: don't believe there is any excuse not to be a
Speaker 2: good person.
Speaker 1: And your professional qualifications tell us about those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I qualified from university just with a
Speaker 2: Tourism and hospitality degree. And there I've like I like
Speaker 2: I suppose I've done all through life, is I've just
Speaker 2: put everything into every job that I've had, I've put
Speaker 2: my head down and I've been a good person and
Speaker 2: a good leader. And yeah, so now I'm CEO of
Speaker 2: a multiman dollar hospitality organization with one hundred staff, and
Speaker 2: I'm a foster care and myself and look after little
Speaker 2: children on weekends when I can, and probably not unlike myself.
Speaker 2: I find a bedtime story and a cuddle and a
Speaker 2: safe roof over their head, you know, is often all
Speaker 2: they need. And a wife and kids, yeah, separated, But
Speaker 2: I've got two girls thirteen and nineteen, and I'm a
Speaker 2: football coach, so Ozzie RULs football coach from my under
Speaker 2: fourteen girls team with you might know Cornsy is it's challenging.
Speaker 2: I can't talk to girls as like you would with
Speaker 2: the under fourteen year old boys, so I have to
Speaker 2: be a little bit calmer and speak to them a
Speaker 2: little bit differently. But I'd love that role too.
Speaker 1: It's a great story, Peter, congratulations to the way you've
Speaker 1: emerged from it. I mean, it's such a difficult childhood.
Speaker 1: It's a real credit to yourself that you've been able
Speaker 1: to get to where you are at the current time.
Speaker 1: So a great yarn. As I said, you're only twelve
Speaker 1: when I got to the epilogue, so there's probably another
Speaker 1: book in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: There's definitely some more stories in there.
Speaker 1: All the best, mate, Thanks you, Thank you.
Speaker 2: So much for your time, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: The book is called The Bank Robber's Boy Peter Norris.
Speaker 1: It's the Big Sky publication. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: time