Speaker 1: Once you get into it. By the time the Second
Speaker 1: World War breaks out in Europe, the security services are
Speaker 1: very alarmed about anybody with Japanese connections. And I even
Speaker 1: found when I went to the National Archives that there
Speaker 1: are little records of Monty, so they were keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on the classes that she was taking. The things
Speaker 1: that aroused fear and alarm at that time were quite remarkable.
Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is
Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's
Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Today's story is about a woman who came
Speaker 2: to national prominence when she was dubbed the world's oldest
Speaker 2: lesbian after coming out at the age of one hundred
Speaker 2: and three. Her name was Monty Punchin, and her perfect
Speaker 2: diction and manners disguised her wild past as a bad
Speaker 2: girl who once hung out at edgy Melbourne bars and
Speaker 2: secret drag parties, and was monitored in the lead up
Speaker 2: to World War II by security services who suspected her
Speaker 2: Japanese teacher was a spy. The story is told in
Speaker 2: a new book called A Secretive Century Monty Punchin's Australia.
Speaker 2: The author, Tessa Morris, Suzuki is Professor Emerita of History
Speaker 2: at the Australian National University, and she joins us now,
Speaker 2: welcome to the podcast, Tessa, thank you now. Monty Punchin
Speaker 2: had such a long and remarkable life, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: that people who met her in her later life and
Speaker 2: saw this dear old lady with her perfect nineteenth century
Speaker 2: diction would never have imagined that she was once this
Speaker 2: bad girl who frequented edgy bars and was involved in
Speaker 2: secret drag parties of nineteen thirty's Queer Melbourne.
Speaker 1: So she was quite a remarkable woman in her hundreds,
Speaker 1: because she lived to one hundred and six. She certainly
Speaker 1: presented as a very correct speaking, very elderly lady, but
Speaker 1: one with an extremely sharp memory. But she had had
Speaker 1: a remarkable life, and really the remarkable life was still continuing,
Speaker 1: because beneath the very correct surface, the bad girl was
Speaker 1: still definitely there.
Speaker 2: One of the themes that you explore in your book
Speaker 2: is that when you live such a long life as
Speaker 2: Monty did, you live through so much history, and in
Speaker 2: Monte's case, that extends right back to the eighteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. Can you tell us about some
Speaker 2: of the many events that Monty lived through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for me, one of the fascinating things about
Speaker 1: her life is that it was so long and she
Speaker 1: lived through so many crucial events in Australia's modern history. So, yes,
Speaker 1: she was present at the eighteen eighty eight Melbourne Centennial Exhibition.
Speaker 1: She actually exhibited some handy work there. She lived through
Speaker 1: the Great Depression of the eighteen nineties, but also the
Speaker 1: Great Depression of the nineteen thirties, through the Boar War,
Speaker 1: the First and the Second World War, the dismissal of
Speaker 1: GoF Whitlam, And she was there and quite actively involved
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighty eight Bisentenary Exhibition in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to hear more about that later on
Speaker 2: because there's a huge controversy surrounding her involvement in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight expo in Brisbane. So we'll hear about
Speaker 2: that more later in the episode. And just going back
Speaker 2: to the eighteen eighty eight Melbourne Centennial Exhibition when she
Speaker 2: exhibited she was only six years old when she exhibited
Speaker 2: her handiwork. It's hard to believe, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's remarkable. So there was a competition that she
Speaker 1: went in for as a small child, and she produced
Speaker 1: this very fine piece of embroidery which you can still see.
Speaker 1: It's in a museum today and because of that exhibited
Speaker 1: now tell.
Speaker 2: Us more about her early life. Whereabouts did she grow up.
Speaker 1: She grew up mostly in Ballarat. She came from a
Speaker 1: fairly middle class, respectable family in Ballarat. She did also
Speaker 1: spend part of her childhood in Saint Kilda, and her
Speaker 1: grandparents had migrated from Britain during the Gold Rush, so
Speaker 1: it was very much that kind of classical nineteenth century
Speaker 1: white Australian history that she was born into.
Speaker 2: And how old was she when it became obvious that
Speaker 2: she was a bit of a rebel.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess pretty early on. She has a story
Speaker 1: that she tells about when she was a child, she
Speaker 1: liked to dress up in her uncle's clothes or her
Speaker 1: grandfather's clothes, and she was once caught in her grandfather's
Speaker 1: clothes doing carpentry outside the house and her grandmother said,
Speaker 1: you know, no good will come up this child.
Speaker 2: And she got involved with children's theater groups when she
Speaker 2: was reasonably young, didn't she yes.
Speaker 1: So when she was an adult she started performing on
Speaker 1: the stage you know, at school she loved performing. She
Speaker 1: would have loved to have been an actor, but for
Speaker 1: her quite religious, middle class family that was out of
Speaker 1: the question. Becoming a professional actor was out of the question.
Speaker 1: So when she was in her twenties going into her thirties,
Speaker 1: she became a teacher with children's theater and traveled around
Speaker 1: Australia with remarkable children's theater groups.
Speaker 2: Tell us about what she got up to during the
Speaker 2: First World War.
Speaker 1: So during the First World War she was very active
Speaker 1: in the theater. Things kind of changed during the First
Speaker 1: World War. There was a great boom in theatrical activity.
Speaker 1: Rather it might seem rather strange, but you know, at
Speaker 1: that time people in Australia really needed a distraction from
Speaker 1: all the terrible things that were happening around the world.
Speaker 1: So amateur or semi amateur theater flourished in Melbourne in
Speaker 1: other parts of Australia during the First World War and
Speaker 1: Monty was really active in this. And up until then
Speaker 1: her parents had absolutely disapproved of her being on the
Speaker 1: stage in any sort of professional capacity. But during the
Speaker 1: First World War, in a way, the dividing line between
Speaker 1: amateur and professional broke down and there were all these
Speaker 1: groups staging plays to raise money for the Red Cross
Speaker 1: or other war related causes, and suddenly her father was
Speaker 1: very happy for Monty to be on the stage because
Speaker 1: it was all part of the national war effort. So
Speaker 1: she got involved in some extremely interesting theatrical performances during
Speaker 1: those years.
Speaker 2: And she was involved in the pioneering days of radio
Speaker 2: as well, wasn't he.
Speaker 1: That's right? Yes, So very early on she got a
Speaker 1: little slot on radio where she was allowed to really
Speaker 1: choose the content of her short talks, and very interestingly,
Speaker 1: I think she chose to tell a version of Aboriginal
Speaker 1: dream time stories. Now this was a version that had
Speaker 1: been written by a friend of hers in Melbourne. They
Speaker 1: were probably not very close to the original dream Time stories,
Speaker 1: but the fact that she wanted to tell these on
Speaker 1: radio when there was so little content related to Aboriginal
Speaker 1: people seems to be quite pioneering and remarkable for that age.
Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, it would be such an incredibly normal
Speaker 2: thing to do today, wouldn't it, but ninety years ago
Speaker 2: would be unheard of.
Speaker 1: Yes, Now, thank.
Speaker 2: You very much for telling us about her professional background.
Speaker 2: What was going on in her personal life.
Speaker 1: So she met a young man shortly before the Boer
Speaker 1: War who had wanted her to marry him. She had
Speaker 1: then gone after the Boer War and actually settled in
Speaker 1: South Africa, and at one point he returned and asked
Speaker 1: her to come to South Africa with him, but she
Speaker 1: had decided by then that really relationships with men were
Speaker 1: not for her. So by the time of the First
Speaker 1: World War she was starting to become engaged in a
Speaker 1: relationship which really became the love of her life with
Speaker 1: a Melbourne woman called Debbie Sutton, and this relationship lasted
Speaker 1: into the second half of the nineteen twenties. They lived
Speaker 1: together for a while, but ultimately it broke up and
Speaker 1: it really broke Ponty Punchon's heart.
Speaker 2: Just to put this in context at the time, was
Speaker 2: this something that the two women would have been able
Speaker 2: to tell their friends and family.
Speaker 1: Well, the interesting thing is that at that time Monty
Speaker 1: Punchen and I think, you know, almost everybody of her
Speaker 1: generation they'd never heard the word lesbian. She herself, I guess,
Speaker 1: only starting to work out her own sexuality. But in
Speaker 1: a way, because of that, for two women, you know,
Speaker 1: to live together was not really regarded as at all
Speaker 1: strange or a subject of gossip. It was just assumed
Speaker 1: there were, you know, two maiden ladies sharing a house.
Speaker 1: It didn't seem to have alarmed or concerned her family
Speaker 1: at all, but they didn't really understand the depth of
Speaker 1: the relationship that was developing.
Speaker 2: Now. Monty always had a passion for travel, and she
Speaker 2: always had an interest in learning about people from all
Speaker 2: over the world tell us about her overseas travels.
Speaker 1: So she embarked on a journey to East Asia entirely
Speaker 1: by accident. Really, what had happened was that a friend
Speaker 1: of hers called Marjorie Rieford, had been given a pair
Speaker 1: of tickets for a free trip to Japan, which another
Speaker 1: friend had wanted a ruffle and wasn't able to use. Now,
Speaker 1: a trip to Japan in those days was a really
Speaker 1: big deal. It was a lot sea journey and Marjorie
Speaker 1: needed a companion, so she invited Monty Punchen to come
Speaker 1: with her, and offe went, and it was an eye
Speaker 1: opener for Monty. In the end, she didn't just go
Speaker 1: to Japan. She went on briefly to China, to Korea
Speaker 1: and also to Hong Kong, and it really changed her life.
Speaker 2: One of the other interesting things about Monty is that
Speaker 2: she was one of the first Australians to study Japanese,
Speaker 2: wasn't she.
Speaker 1: Yes, she was a pioneer in that respect as well.
Speaker 1: She didn't actually, you know, formally study at university, but
Speaker 1: she was one of the first people to take classes
Speaker 1: initially offered on the radio in the nineteen thirties, and
Speaker 1: then she signed up for an evening class at Melbourne University.
Speaker 1: And she was passionate about studying Japanese, even though obviously
Speaker 1: it was very difficult for somebody at that time. You know,
Speaker 1: she'd only had a very brief stay in Japan, and
Speaker 1: she did have much opportunity to talk to people other
Speaker 1: than her teacher, who was Japanese himself.
Speaker 2: But this was the nineteen thirties, so it was in
Speaker 2: some ways a dangerous time to be studying Japanese, and
Speaker 2: it brought her to the attention of security services. Can
Speaker 2: you tell us more about that.
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, So in the early nineteen thirties, the
Speaker 1: relationship with Japan was not so bad and trade was
Speaker 1: booming between Australia and Japan. But by the time you
Speaker 1: get into the late nineteen thirties, of course, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of alarm in Australia about Japan's growing militarism, particularly
Speaker 1: after it had taken over Manchuria, and then there was
Speaker 1: the invasion of China in nineteen thirty seven. So once
Speaker 1: you get into about thirty nine, by the time the
Speaker 1: Second World War breaks out in Europe, the security services
Speaker 1: are very alarmed about anybody with Japanese connections. And I
Speaker 1: even found when I went to the National Archives that
Speaker 1: there are little records of so they were keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on the classes that she was taking and on
Speaker 1: her and rather bravely, I thought. At that point it
Speaker 1: became difficult for the Japanese language group to meet, and
Speaker 1: she actually opened her flat to her apartment and said,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to come and meet in
Speaker 1: my apartment and talk Japanese here, you're welcome to do that.
Speaker 2: So who was their teacher they would have had a
Speaker 2: Japanese teacher? Was that the person that our security services
Speaker 2: were concerned about? Do you think is that the reason
Speaker 2: that they had come to the attention of security services.
Speaker 1: Well, I think anybody who had any sort of Japanese
Speaker 1: connection was being watched pretty closely. But yeah, her teacher
Speaker 1: was a man known as Moshi in Agaki. It was
Speaker 1: a sort of anglicizedation of his name. He had attracted
Speaker 1: a lot of attention from the security services. There are
Speaker 1: great fat files on him in the archives. There's really
Speaker 1: no evidence that he was doing anything sinister, but he
Speaker 1: did have some connections to cultural agencies and so on
Speaker 1: in Japan, and so the Australian authorities first of all,
Speaker 1: they thought he was a spy, and then they started
Speaker 1: to think that he was deliberately being sent to teach
Speaker 1: Japanese badly, so that Australians wouldn't learn proper Japanese and
Speaker 1: this would weaken their position in their dealings with Japan,
Speaker 1: which I think is a fairly remarkable assumption for them
Speaker 1: to have made.
Speaker 2: Oh how fascinating. So when Monteo opened up her flat,
Speaker 2: did the teacher come to her flat to teach the classes?
Speaker 1: I guess. So it's difficult to tell exactly who came,
Speaker 1: but it's likely that he came. He'd become a good
Speaker 1: friend of hers, and also he was married to an
Speaker 1: Australian and she was a good friend of his wife
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: And was there any suggestion that the security services were
Speaker 2: following any of the students in the class.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think there were certainly following some of them.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, in a slightly nineteen thirty sexist way,
Speaker 1: they were much more worried by the men than they
Speaker 1: were by the women. So there were a couple of
Speaker 1: other women teachers who were also taking the classes, and
Speaker 1: although they appear in the security records, they don't seem
Speaker 1: to have roused the same level of alarm as the
Speaker 1: men who were studying did.
Speaker 2: Was Monty ever followed herself.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see any records that she'd been followed.
Speaker 2: How fascinating. That must have been so much fun to
Speaker 2: look for all those details in the records.
Speaker 1: It was. It is extraordinary, you know. The things that
Speaker 1: aroused fear and alarm at that time were quite remarkable.
Speaker 1: Often very small and innocent things caused great alarm to
Speaker 1: the security services.
Speaker 2: We'll be back soon. Do you hear what happened to
Speaker 2: Monty next? So stay with us. Apart from studying Japanese,
Speaker 2: she was also active in the secret gay party scene
Speaker 2: in Melbourne, and they're involved in drag parties as well.
Speaker 2: I'd love you to tell us everything you know about that.
Speaker 1: Yes, so it is a fascinating part of Melbourne. History
Speaker 1: and of Australian history more generally. Monte's story was she
Speaker 1: had quite a few gay friends in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties. Of course they wouldn't have used the word
Speaker 1: gay then, but that's the word we'd use now. And
Speaker 1: I think she found particularly that when her relationship with
Speaker 1: Debbie Sutton, the woman she had absolutely loved, broke up,
Speaker 1: she was really devastated and she couldn't talk about it
Speaker 1: to her family or to most of her friends because
Speaker 1: they didn't understand. But her male gay friends did understand.
Speaker 1: In one of her interviews, she said they really saved
Speaker 1: her life because she could talk to them about the
Speaker 1: relationship and they knew where she was coming from. So
Speaker 1: at that point she became much more engaged in this
Speaker 1: sort of secret gay world in Melbourne, and she started
Speaker 1: attending house parties which were held just sort of out
Speaker 1: in the suburbs of Melbourne in big houses with gardens,
Speaker 1: usually at the weekend, and people could dress up. There
Speaker 1: was even a wedding between two of her male friends,
Speaker 1: and Monty was the best man, dressed up in her
Speaker 1: smart sort of tuxedo and boat high at this wedding.
Speaker 1: So it is quite a fascinating bit of history.
Speaker 2: And so tell us more about So they were drag parties,
Speaker 2: so the women were dressed as men, the men were
Speaker 2: dressed as women.
Speaker 1: Yes, so they often involved dressing up. You know. It
Speaker 1: was just a free space where people could express their
Speaker 1: identity in the way that they wanted. It was of
Speaker 1: course very much hidden away because of course homosexuality was
Speaker 1: a crime at the time, so for the men it
Speaker 1: was very important to keep their sexual identity away from
Speaker 1: the prying eyes of media or you know, the police.
Speaker 2: And Tessa, was there a particular part of Melbourne that
Speaker 2: was a hub for these queer parties.
Speaker 1: The main parties that Monte seems to have gone to
Speaker 1: were at a private house called Lavender Lodge, which was
Speaker 1: Inferntry Gully, so out of the city center. Quite a
Speaker 1: big house apparently where they had these weekend house parties.
Speaker 2: Ah okay, And for those not from Melbourne, that's the
Speaker 2: base of the Dandenong Rangers. Very interesting. Now take us
Speaker 2: forward to World War Two because Monte's knowledge of Japanese
Speaker 2: became quite useful during the war, didn't it.
Speaker 1: Yes, So during the war she was recruited to be
Speaker 1: a warden at the intern camp that was set up
Speaker 1: in Tatura in rural Victoria to house Japanese civilians enemy
Speaker 1: aliens as they were called then. It was a huge camp.
Speaker 1: It also had sections which held other enemy aliens, Italians
Speaker 1: and Germans and so on, but Monty was in the
Speaker 1: Japanese section. She seems to have been had mainly to
Speaker 1: teach the children of Japanese internees. But in fact, the
Speaker 1: slight difficulty was that I think the authorities probably overestimated
Speaker 1: how much Japanese she knew, so she'd studied very hard,
Speaker 1: but her Japanese was not really good enough to teach
Speaker 1: classes to native Japanese speakers, so she ended up more,
Speaker 1: you know, taking the children on outings and generally kind
Speaker 1: of looking after the welfare of the Japanese civilians who
Speaker 1: were interned in these camps. And I think one of
Speaker 1: the important things to remember is that when you talk
Speaker 1: about Japanese being in turn during the war, many of
Speaker 1: them were not Japanese as we would understand it today,
Speaker 1: because Taiwanese and Koreans were treated as Japanese because they
Speaker 1: were part of the Japanese Empire. And then there were
Speaker 1: also quite a number of Australian and other women married
Speaker 1: to Japanese men, including some Aboriginal Australian women, and they
Speaker 1: and their children were also all in turn during the war.
Speaker 2: And Monte continued teaching after the war, didn't she.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So after the war she moved on to something
Speaker 1: that was perhaps not entirely different, but in a very
Speaker 1: different setting. She went to work in Bonnagilla, which was
Speaker 1: the reception center set up for new migrants who came
Speaker 1: immediately after the war. Many of these were refugees, displaced
Speaker 1: people from Central Europe, and she really enjoyed working there.
Speaker 1: She found the atmosphere completely different, of course, from the
Speaker 1: rather repressive atmosphere of working in an internment camp. Although
Speaker 1: conditions in Bonagilla and also Summer's Camp, which was another
Speaker 1: reception center that she worked in, the conditions there were
Speaker 1: not great. It was fairly tough for most of the migrants.
Speaker 1: It was just such a relief, you know, to have
Speaker 1: got out of the dangerous situation that they'd been in Europe.
Speaker 1: And Monty made very good friends with a number of
Speaker 1: the people that she taught in these reception centers and
Speaker 1: went on being friends with them for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life.
Speaker 2: She must have absolutely loved being a teacher, because she
Speaker 2: continued teaching for decades more, didn't she.
Speaker 1: Well, the interesting thing is that she was ambivalent about teaching.
Speaker 1: She really didn't like conventional school teaching. In fact, sometimes
Speaker 1: you know in her interviews she would say she hated it.
Speaker 1: She didn't like having to discipline people, and I don't
Speaker 1: think she liked being disciplined herself. But she enjoyed teaching adults,
Speaker 1: and she enjoyed teaching in more relaxed settings. So she
Speaker 1: had loved teaching the theater children before the First World War,
Speaker 1: and later on in her life she went on to
Speaker 1: teach in an English school in the New Hebrides Vanuatu
Speaker 1: as we would say today, And again that was a
Speaker 1: very small school. She ran the entire school and she
Speaker 1: could make her own kind of happy teaching atmosphere, and
Speaker 1: she loved teaching there as well. She was already in
Speaker 1: her seventies by that time, so that was quite remarkable
Speaker 1: in itself.
Speaker 2: And then she continued into her eighties.
Speaker 1: Yes, so she went back to Japan in her eighties
Speaker 1: and taught English in Japan for several months.
Speaker 2: And then beyond there. What did she do after that?
Speaker 1: Beyond that, she was still teaching, you know, private classes.
Speaker 1: She taught Japanese private classes, certainly into her nineties, possibly
Speaker 1: into her hundreds, I'm not quite sure about that. And
Speaker 1: she also taught some English language classes for foreigners living
Speaker 1: in Melbourne, including some Japanese people. And in addition to that,
Speaker 1: she became quite an active host for foreign students coming
Speaker 1: to Australia. And as Australia gradually started to open up
Speaker 1: more to Asia, we had the Colombo Scheme and students
Speaker 1: from Japan, Indonesia and other parts of Asia started coming
Speaker 1: to Australia. Monty was very active in hosting and helping them.
Speaker 2: And she actually received an award from the Japanese government
Speaker 2: for all the work that she'd done over the years,
Speaker 2: didn't she Yes.
Speaker 1: She received an award that she was extremely proud of
Speaker 1: for her role as a sort of informal ambassador in
Speaker 1: a way between Australia and Japan.
Speaker 2: Now take us forward to the take us to the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties and the controversy that we mentioned at the
Speaker 2: beginning when she was when she was appointed as a
Speaker 2: roving ambassador for Brisbane Expo eighty eight. It's also bizarre
Speaker 2: it's actually a little bit hard to believe. But could
Speaker 2: you take us through the events of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: Yes, So there she was. She was one hundred and three,
Speaker 1: and she was this marvelous old lady who had a
Speaker 1: great memory, was a great speaker. She had been involved
Speaker 1: in the Expo one hundred years earlier, and she had
Speaker 1: this great connection to Japan. And this was the time
Speaker 1: when Queensland was busy developing ties economic ties with Japan,
Speaker 1: encouraging Japanese investment in tourism and real estate and so on.
Speaker 1: So she looked like the perfect person to a roving
Speaker 1: ambassador for Brisbane's Expo eighty eight. And she was invited
Speaker 1: to do that, and she was delighted and very happy
Speaker 1: to accept. But then there was a little controversy because
Speaker 1: shortly before she'd been issued this invitation, she'd already given
Speaker 1: an interview to a gay magazine where she talked about
Speaker 1: her relationships with women, and particularly the fact that she'd
Speaker 1: had this great love affair with Debbie in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: Sorry, just to clarify, was this the first time that
Speaker 2: she had ever come out as a lesbian.
Speaker 1: Yes, so that in the first article, which appeared just
Speaker 1: before she was appointed. She did come out, but they
Speaker 1: didn't identify her by name. There was a photograph of
Speaker 1: her with the article, so I guess her friends knew
Speaker 1: who it was, but she wasn't identified by name. But then,
Speaker 1: just after she was appointed as the roving as, she
Speaker 1: came out with another interview where she was named and
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, the Joe Biagi Petersen government was appalled.
Speaker 1: Joe was not known for his friendliness to gay people.
Speaker 1: In fact, he was quite rapidly homophobic, and so there
Speaker 1: was quite a kerfuffle. In the end, they decided not
Speaker 1: to cancel her appointment because that would probably have looked
Speaker 1: even worse, but it certainly caused a good deal of
Speaker 1: controversy and was the subject of some newspaper articles and
Speaker 1: so on at the time.
Speaker 2: Tell us more about the controversy. She became known as
Speaker 2: the world's oldest lesbian. That was the first thing that happened,
Speaker 2: and she has been known that way ever since. Really
Speaker 2: that sort of a monika. That's stark, hasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, and it's a name that she was
Speaker 1: a bit ambivalent about. So she chose to come out.
Speaker 1: By this time, she had a lot of younger gay
Speaker 1: friends were very much active, you know, in the gay
Speaker 1: rights movement of the nineteen seventies and eighties, and this
Speaker 1: had been an eye opener for her. She loved their
Speaker 1: company and she wanted to talk about her own experiences,
Speaker 1: but she also didn't like being labeled. On a number
Speaker 1: of occasions, she said she didn't really like being labeled
Speaker 1: lesbian because she just didn't like labels in general. And
Speaker 1: she didn't want to talk too much to the media
Speaker 1: about her private life because she'd grown up in an
Speaker 1: age when that was really regarded as not being the
Speaker 1: proper thing to do. You know, you could talk to
Speaker 1: your friends about it, but you didn't want to go
Speaker 1: into the details of your private sexual life with the
Speaker 1: media and in public.
Speaker 2: Now, there's a great quote from the I mean, there
Speaker 2: were obviously lots of newspaper reports about this whole controversy,
Speaker 2: but there's a particularly good quote from a Sydney Morning
Speaker 2: Herald story about it. Can you tell us about that one?
Speaker 1: So there was a headline in one of the articles
Speaker 1: which said something along the lines of Sir Joe wishes
Speaker 1: his roving ambassador could be a little less gay. So
Speaker 1: clearly you know, people were quite amused by this whole event,
Speaker 1: and you know, I felt as I was reading it,
Speaker 1: reading about it, that I would have loved to have
Speaker 1: seen Sir Joe's face when he heard the news.
Speaker 2: Now, now Monty did go on to attend the eighty
Speaker 2: eight Expert, didn't she?
Speaker 1: Yes, she did. By that time. Of course she was
Speaker 1: really very old and she had had a few health issues,
Speaker 1: although her health had been pretty remarkable, but she attended.
Speaker 1: She had a very good woman friend whom she was
Speaker 1: living with at the time, Margaret Taylor, who went along
Speaker 1: with her and helped her. She went to the expo twice,
Speaker 1: and she also made a final trip to Japan, you know,
Speaker 1: in very old age, again accompanied by Margaret, where she
Speaker 1: talked about she had just published her memoirs and she
Speaker 1: talked about her memoirs to Japanese audiences.
Speaker 2: Was that after Expoadia because she was one of one
Speaker 2: hundred and five years old at the time of Expo
Speaker 2: eighty eight, So did she go to Japan after that?
Speaker 1: So it was around the same time, Yes, when she
Speaker 1: was one hundred and five.
Speaker 2: Obviously she held Japan very dear to her heart.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, she loved Japan and one of the really
Speaker 1: important things was that she had reconnected with some of
Speaker 1: the people who had been interned in Tatua Camp during
Speaker 1: the war, and for them, I think it was very
Speaker 1: important to reconnect with her. It was sort of an
Speaker 1: act of reconciliation in a way between Australia and Japan
Speaker 1: at a time when you know, Australia's connections with Asia
Speaker 1: and particularly with Japan were starting to flourish.
Speaker 2: Amazing And how would you like Monty to be remembered, Oh.
Speaker 1: I think she should be remembered as a remarkable woman.
Speaker 1: Not always a conventionally good woman. She could be quite
Speaker 1: naughty at times. She told her story in her own
Speaker 1: inimitable way, and sometimes it wasn't exactly the way that
Speaker 1: it's recorded in the official records. But she was such
Speaker 1: a character. She was so open to new ideas and
Speaker 1: new influences, and that was the thing that she really stressed,
Speaker 1: particularly in her old age, how important it is not
Speaker 1: to be afraid of people who are different or of
Speaker 1: the outside world, but to engage and listen to others.
Speaker 1: And that was what she did right the way through
Speaker 1: her life, and I think that's what made her life
Speaker 1: such a rich life and such an interesting one to
Speaker 1: follow for a historian.
Speaker 2: And your book is now Tessa a Secretive Century Monty
Speaker 2: Punchen's Australia, Congratulations and things. Thanks for sharing the story
Speaker 2: with us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. This has been In Black and White,
Speaker 2: a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters, written and
Speaker 2: hosted by me Jen Kelly, edited by Harry Hughes and
Speaker 2: produced by John Tyburton. You can find all the stories
Speaker 2: and photos associated with our episodes at haroldsun dot com
Speaker 2: dot au slash ibaw. If you've enjoyed this podcast, we'd
Speaker 2: love you to leave a five star rating on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Even better, leave a review. It's one simple way you
Speaker 2: can help us get the word out to more listeners.
Speaker 2: Any comments or questions please email me at In Black
Speaker 2: and White at Heroldsun dot com dot au. Any clarifications
Speaker 2: or updates will appear in the show notes for each episode,
Speaker 2: and to get notified when each new episode comes out,
Speaker 2: make sure you subscribe to the podcast Fade