STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 657/1

Full transcript of an interview with

PAUL QUIGLEY

on 26 November 2002

By Karen George

Recording available on CD

Access for research: Unrestricted

Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study

Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library

2

OH 657/1 PAUL QUIGLEY

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

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3

J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE

LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 657/1

Interview with Paul Quigley recorded by Karen George at Marleston, South

Australia, on 26th

November 2002 for the Adelaide City Council Balfour’s Oral

History Project.

TAPE 1 SIDE A

This is an interview with Paul Quigley being recorded by Karen George for the

Adelaide City Council’s Balfour’s Oral History Project. The interview is taking

place on 26th

November 2002 at Ascot Park in South Australia.

No, no – Marleston.

Marleston, sorry. I did an interview yesterday at Ascot Park, that’s a mistake –

sorry, Marleston.

(laughs) Yes.

Thank you very much. So can we start, perhaps, just, Paul, by telling me your full

name and your date of birth.

Paul Patrick Quigley, 5th of the fourth, ’46.

Whereabouts were you born, Paul?

South Australia, Adelaide, yes.

What’s the background – can you tell me perhaps a little bit about the

background of your parents? I understand your dad was in the baking trade

himself.

That’s right. He worked for Proudman’s down at Boundary Road down at Glenelg.

My parents got married in the late thirties of their lifetime, and my mother wasn’t

supposed to conceive children but she had six of us. So basically I’m living – I’ve

got a twin brother and we were the youngest siblings who are living, basically. And

my father was a baker, as we said before, for many years, then he went into the

building trade.

Where did you grow up? What’s the area of Adelaide that you most recall?

Right, first until about, I think, ’53, we lived in Harris Street down at Glenelg South,

then Dad built his own home at Gilbert Street at Somerton Park. So that was only

about two streets over, actually.

And where did you go to school?

4

First went to school down at St Teresa’s down at Brighton, a convent school, and I

went to Sacred Heart College for the last couple of years.

Did you have any idea what you wanted to do when you grew up, when you left

school?

Well, basically going back when I first started in the trade in 1960, no. The

emphasis wasn’t back on – then wasn’t on the – was on education, not to the degree

today is, and basically you virtually – you’d go to the newspaper and there were so

many jobs offering you had a pick. Actually, my twin brother and I, we went to

Himmiran[?] Brothers, who was a furniture place at Torrensville. I didn’t like it one

bit.

Why?

I don’t know – just didn’t like it. There was no point, just did not like it. So Peter

seemed to adapt to it because he did his trade there as a carpenter. Myself, I was

there for a few weeks. They stuck me on the road lifting and doing deliveries. Well,

it wasn’t my thing as well. Then they put me on – it was like a door press. You put

a plywood then you put the frame and you put – so I thought I’d be funny and stuck

them all together. They weren’t very impressed with that! (laughs) And riding our

bikes home I said to Peter, I said, ‘One of us has to leave and it has to be me.’ So

basically I said, ‘I’m not going back.’ In the paper next day there was an

apprenticeship offering at Tommy Tucker’s, and they were down at Delaine Avenue,

Edwardstown.

And they were a bakery.

A bakery, that’s correct. So I went along there with my parents and applied and got

the job.

Had you had an interest in baking, being that your father was a baker?

No. No. I’m very good at my job, but I do no baking home. So no.

Did you ever visit your dad where he was working? Did you see things – – –?

No, because the time Peter and I came along he was in the building trade, so that

period of time had moved on.

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So can you tell me a little bit about, I guess, the apprenticeship in those days as a

baker at Tommy Tucker’s?

(coughs) Well, it was interesting because basically back in those days there was no

schooling. They introduced it, I think it was the second or third year of my

apprenticeship they introduced that, actually, and that was down at – the first one

was actually at the hostel, Glenelg Hostel Camp, and they had different people from

different bakeries as lecturers. So basically that was the only part I touched on. You

did your four years and it was on-the-job training. Tommy Tucker’s was – actually,

for that era, it had a good name. They had two bakeries, a smallgoods – cake and

basically the smallgoods on Delaine Avenue, and on South Road there was pies and

pasties. So virtually the old bakers taught the apprentices.

What made a good name for bakers in those days, do you think?

Product. Definitely product. Balfour’s name was second to none in Adelaide.

Small bakeries were trying to, I think, achieve to that degree as well.

What did you know about Balfour’s when you were working at Tommy Tucker’s?

What was the attitude, I guess, towards Balfour’s then?

I think the attitude was it was a big bakery and their stuff was excellent. As I said,

we tried to achieve what they had.

So what did you learn in the process of the apprenticeship?

Well, basically, everything you try to instill on the apprentices today. You started

off for first year washing things, and that’s all you did. Basically you never

answered back; you were there, more or less, to assist and to learn your skills. I

think it gave you a better grounding in doing things because you know exactly what

was started off, and then as you progressed through the years you got onto different

things in there.

Were there particular areas that you found most of interest when you were

learning?

I seemed to adapt well to all of them. I’m not saying – it’s not a – it’s just, I

suppose, it was just my ability to do so. I would say of my ability is more in the

practical than the written word, yes. So therefore that’s where I excelled. See, this

is where I still have a problem with today: admittedly, you have to go through Year

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Twelve to get an apprenticeship, but if you haven’t got the practical side or got the

interest in it I don’t understand. Because basically what they learn at trade school is

not applied to what we do today unless you start your own business, admittedly, yes.

(break in recording) Okay. We just tried to deal with the ’fridge noise but we

can’t so that’s fine. (interviewee laughs) We hope it’s not coming through too

strongly. So you worked at Tommy Tucker’s for how long?

Basically, I think Tommy Tucker’s, actually, I would have been for eight years, and

they amalgamated. Actually, they built a new factory what combined the both lots

together, the pastries as well as the cake, and that was just off Daws Road at

Edwardstown as well. Then – I think it would be eight years I was into it – they

amalgamated with Badenoch Sunshine and became Associated Baking Company

down at Trimmer Parade Seaton, and I was there I suppose with that company for

sixteen years.

So what would be the date range of that, when you started and when you finished?

Well, I started in 1960 and so that would be ’78. Well, actually, that should coincide

with this, when I started here. ’75, so it must have been – it would have been fifteen

years in here.

What’s that you’ve got there?

That’s the date I started at Balfour’s, actually.

Okay, right.

Yes, ’75, the 24th of the eleventh ’75.

Okay. So what made you change and end up at Balfour’s? What happened?

(coughs) One of the owners, he and I had a disagreement and he said, ‘If you don’t

like it, leave,’ so I did. (laughs)

Can you say what the disagreement was about? Was it over baking, or – – –?

Pio Morelli is an Italian, very highly strung, confrontationist. I’m a confrontationist,

and something – I don’t know. All I know he said, ‘Paul can have his job back,’ but

on the way home I went to Balfour’s and got a job, it was as simple as that, and

that’s back in ’75.

So what happened that day? You just walked in to – – –?

7

He said, ‘If you’re not happy leave’, so I left.

No, I mean at Balfour’s. What happened to get the job?

I went in to Personnel. At the time there was a John Corbett – I think he was

Canadian – excellent chap. And sat and had an interview with him and filled out an

application and he said, ‘Start Monday.’ I think that would have been a Wednesday

or something like that, because the previous boss at Associated said, ‘Paul can come

in Monday,’ and they said, ‘He’s got a job, he doesn’t want to come back.’ (laughs)

So what – had you been into the Balfour’s factory before?

No. It was totally daunting.

Why?

Totally daunting. Well, to confront new people is something that is very – – –.

(laughs) And the size of Balfour’s, it would have overwhelmed you as well. Which

way’s out, where do you go, who’s who, what what? And everybody seems to stare

at you. Questions – we still do it today – ‘Why did you leave the other job?’

Fortunately enough, I knew a couple of chaps who previously worked with

Associated and the supervisor and foreman asked them what sort of person I was –

that’s why I got the job straight away.

Who were they, the people that you knew that had moved?

There’s two guys – one guy on the oven, Robert someone, I can’t – and then there

was another chap there.

Are they still there, or – – –?

No, they’re well gone, well gone.

So do you remember that first day you worked, you came to work, or that first

week, just your first …..?

Oh yes, I’ll never forget it long as I live.

Okay, tell me your first impressions.

Right. The other guy was Gordon Fry who at the time was a foreman at Balfour’s.

He left Balfour’s for a very brief time, because he was there for many years, and

worked at Tommy Tucker’s for a very brief time. And I was an apprentice under

8

Gordon Fry. And the first week I was there he told an apprentice to do something

and the apprentice said no, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God,’ and I thought, ‘I’ve never

heard this in my – – –.’ Coming from the other environment I thought, ‘I’ve never

heard this before,’ I thought, ‘What’s happening?’ And he said to him, ‘Do it.’ He

said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I’m asking you to do it again.’ He said, ‘I’ll go and see David

Wauchope, he said we don’t have to do it.’ And I looked – actually, I went back to

Associated and said, ‘You would not believe (laughs) what I witnessed that day!’ To

compare the two factories it was unbelievable. It’s got worse. Lack of supervision,

lack of respect, and it really – until they work, anybody who’s done their

apprenticeship and time at Balfour’s, until they go into another place they get a

shock of their life. Really it’s unbelievable. Ironically enough – going back a good

few years now – Associated closed its doors, and that was Big Ben pies and pasties,

the whole lot, and they had quite a share of the market as well. They would have

been Balfour’s next competition. So it was interesting.

So that first day, where were you placed in the factory?

In the cake section, and I worked with a gentleman – he worked there as a foreman –

Sam Galea, for forty-odd years.

What was he like as a foreman?

Excellent, excellent.

In what way?

He – now, what was he? Maltese. And ironically enough, isn’t it funny how

Adelaide’s so small and that? I have got a sister called Kay and things started to

click and I realised that she used to go out with his son many years ago. So I went to

him and I said, ‘Do you know a Kay Quigley?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Before you

say anything negative, I’m her brother!’ (laughs) No, Sam was excellent chap.

In what ways was he a good foreman?

Sam would listen to you, he would show you and guide you. Also I worked with an

excellent baker who left the trade in the younger years, and he would have been –

gee, only in his twenties – Mark Sando. He was brilliant. There’s certain people

I’ve come – in my life, they’ve got the teaching ability for you to learn. Not what

9

they want to force on you, for you to pick up what they’ve shown you, and there’s

actually two guys at Balfour’s I have worked with who’s had that ability.

So what was the first job you were doing?

On the cake. Basically, back in those days, we didn’t have a Fedko[?] machine what

actually deposited, we had to weigh it. So I used to go – I was put on the machines

to mix it – it was called a ‘Z-arm’ machine – and then – – –.

Can you describe it, how it operated, I guess, or what it looked like?

Right. It was a large machine, I suppose it would have been about a foot across and

it might have been a foot deep, and you put the – and it had two – it’s hard to

describe – two blades, I suppose, what rotated. Basically, that’s what it was. And it

had a handle where it could wind down and the cake used to go in a tub as it come

across, and it had a round bottom as well, sort of – yes, round bottom in it.

So what were you doing? Putting ingredients into that?

Put ingredients into that and the mixing, they showed me how to do the mixing.

So how were the ingredients organised or measured or whatever? How – – –?

Back in those days? Right. We would have weighed up – back in – it’s different

from today. Basically they’ve only got two or three mixings and it goes through.

Back in those days each mixing was different.

You mean for each kind of cake or bun?

That’s correct. Yes. Today it’s a different story entirely.

Well, tell me about what it was like because that’s what’s the most interesting.

Well, give you an example, we’ll take three: we’ll take a chocolate highlight, fruit

cake and what would the other one be? Then you had a cinnamon cake, sort of

thing. With a fruit cake you basically we used to cream our margarine and sugar, the

temperature of the egg used to be, I think, seventy-five, add that slowly to give it a

bit of aeration and a bit of lightness to it, add our flour and that and just virtually –

that was over a period of – I used to trickle the egg in for ten or twenty minutes, add

a bit of flour then trickled another bit in, then used to mix it for another few minutes.

Then you used to virtually put your fruit and that in as well.

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What sort of quantities were you – how many eggs? I mean, what sort of quantity

were you making up in a batch like that?

Well, I would say, actually, what I can remember was about thirty-two – oh, I’d have

to go back in pounds, or would they be kilos? No, sixty-six ….. ….. ….., so they

would have had to be pounds, and there would be a good twenty or thirty pound of

egg would go in to, I suppose, it would have to be in a ratio of about – gee, thirty or

forty flour and that.

So what would happen – you’d mix it and then – – –?

We used to tip it out into tubs that used to go over to a table, and the older time

people there used to weigh it out. Scales on top of the table and they used to get

their hands and put it into the scales, weigh it and then put it in the boxes.

So the tub, would that be manually handled from one area to another – – –?

It had wheels on and you just wheeled it across, yes.

And then you’d take the mix out into – – –?

No, you used to scoop it out with your hands and put it onto the scales.

Oh, okay.

So therefore you’re filling up their tubs all the time. I think we had six of them.

How many people were working in that area to – – –?

In the cake section alone, three mixing, three weighing off, virtually, so that gives

you six. Yes, basically, just doing the cake.

Now, you say they were different mixings, so that was your example for your fruit

cake.

Highlight cake was a different method. Now, I have to – – –.

What’s a highlight cake – does that exist now?

Highlight cake is sort of a – what would they call it? The madeira today, virtually,

right? It was a – actually, it’s a different – I can’t remember now actually what the

method was, but it was slightly different to – and ironically enough we had all that

written down until a few years ago and discarded it, thought we’d never ever use this

again! (laughs)

11

Oh, terrible.

Yes, actually it was interesting. I thought, ‘No.’

So were the – had you written that down yourself for your own record, or was it –

That’s correct –

– okay.

– yes, yes.

So you would have been told what to do and you made notes, sort of thing, or

how – – –?

That’s right, yes, yes.

So would you be working at that all day every day, whenever you were working?

Exactly right, exactly right.

Tell me what that was like.

Well, it was interesting. We had oldtimers with us. Then we had a character, old

Horrie Tilbrook – he’s deceased now, I believe. Now, Horrie had a nickname for

everybody in the factory who walked in the door, and so you got it if you liked it or

not. (laughs)

What was yours?

Porky. You’d try not to answer to it. I’ll tell you a funny story about that, because I

had to go to hospital, actually – and that’s many years ago – and the sister came in.

She said, ‘Excuse me, Mr Quigley,’ she said, ‘there’s a guy on the ’phone looking

for Porky.’ I said, ‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘it’s from Balfour’s.’ She said, ‘Yes.’

(laughter)

So what was his job?

I think Horrie ran the place. (laughter) I’m quite convinced of it! He used to tell

everybody what to do. He used to weigh off – he wasn’t a baker by trade – I think

he organised the bosses and everyone. We had a supervisor called Arthur Jacobs:

because he had red hair he was Big Red. It really – all that’s gone. I’ll give you for

example, those times we must have finished about four in the morning, so we had to

start at eight at night. And Horrie used to ring up the Cumberland Arms Hotel to

12

open up so we’d all go there. And back in those days people actually were falling

out the window, it was that full.

You mean after work?

After work. Oh yes, we’d go there for breakfast. He used to ring up and say to the

publican, ‘Get up.’ We used to truck all around there and it was chock-a-block full.

So what were the hours you worked then?

Since I’ve been at Balfour’s I’ve worked all different hours. Now it’s from five a.m.

to one p.m. Going back last year it used to be – gee, I think we started at three thirty

and finished at eleven thirty. Then we’ve started at eight o’clock at night and

finished at four in the morning. So it’s all been the whole realm of different hours.

So when you first started out you would have been starting at eight o’clock.

No, because I went to the section – I’m not sure what time actually – I think I would

have been on early shift there.

Which would be?

The time we were starting at would have to be – I think it might have been five or

four in the morning, actually – it could have been three.

Had you been used to that with your previous – – –?

Yes. I’m an early morning person, I’m afraid, it’s simple. Even home on the

weekends I’m up at five.

So can you describe, I guess, a day for me, what you’d do?

Well, you come into work, basically, and you go down and clock on to your section.

Where do you clock on in those days – I guess that’s altered.

Same as where it is today, actually, it’s just a different – you just have to pull a

handle to clock the thing on. And you go up and they give you your recipes or

virtually what is production, what they require for the day. I think basically we used

to make all our mixings.

How would that be given to you? On sheets of paper or in a book or what?

13

That’s correct, yes. The foreman used to come across and say, ‘Well, this is so many

mixings of this, this and this,’ and basically yes.

Did that change every day or was it fairly – – –?

It all depends if you had promotions on, it all depends what they were doing for that

day. Some days were heavy on some cakes, some days we laid on the other cake.

And then you virtually – well, as I said, virtually you were on the cake all day.

Did you have a uniform or anything that you had to wear, or dress regulations?

I don’t think Balfour’s ever supplied a uniform, but whites, you must wear whites.

And did you have the kind of protective gear in those days when you first started,

or what – – –?

No. No, no, no, you just had your white pants and white shirt. And I can’t

remember – I know associated before the hats come we didn’t wear hats when I first

started work. So I don’t know when actually that period of time come in at all.

So can you sort of describe what the atmosphere of the workplace was like then?

It’s like any place. Once you got accepted it was excellent, but the first week was –

the first day – – –. And of course you walked out the wrong end of the factory and

you didn’t know the hell where you were. (laughs) You had north south and south

north. It was the most confusing place.

Can you describe – are you able to describe it back then? Do you remember

where the front door was and how you got in there and –

No.

– no. (laughs)

I’ve got no idea. You came from Franklin Street and you come to a small – and you

walked in, you’d think where the hell do you go then. Then someone told you, you

know, the cake section was to your right and the pastry is the other way, the whole

lot. But once you got into that group of workplace, that is virtually you just followed

with them.

So in those days the cake section would have been different to where it is now, or

is it the same?

14

No, the cake section is – to a degree is on the other side where they’re working now,

so virtually it’s on the north wall, along there it was.

So what was in there, what sort of equipment and – – –?

When you first walked in there was benches, then you walked across to the wall and

they had the three Z-arm machines. Then you had your weighing up, like the scales

to weigh up all your sugar, your flour, your eggs, the whole lot.

What kind of scales were they then?

They would have been the old clock scales, actually, yes. Yes, because I don’t think

we had the ones you put the weights on, no, I think it was the old clock scales.

What else was in there?

Also in the same area was the sponge area, so you worked around there as well. It’s

really hard to describe, you know, some years has gone now. But the numbers of

people that worked there was triple. It was incredible.

So the sponge people were separate from the cake people, then?

That’s correct, yes.

Why was that?

Because that’s all they did. See, Balfour’s was second to none around sponges in

Australia. Time has changed drastically [compared] to that now, unfortunately,

where it wouldn’t be small delis would be the main ones that were out to get

Balfour’s because they were so good. Now we have to do it to price, to sell to the

supermarkets. They dictate. The quality is second to none. See the volumes of stuff

we used to put out, and they say we put out stuff now. No way. What brings home

to me was Easter, we used to do Easter nests, the round sponges and they had

coconut with some meringued eggs on it and a chicken. They were lined up in the

corridors you could not believe. Christmas – Easter logs. They had chocolate over

them with a couple of little chooks stuck on them. Mother’s Day sponges, you could

not believe how many used to go out that week. And what do we make now?

Sponges? None. (laughs) It really is unbelievable.

What was it like during those – I suppose they would be peak periods, were they,

when you had specific –

15

Right.

– celebration?

They’re totally different from today and what it was going back in those days.

Everybody helped one another because the rule was at Balfour’s at that time nobody

goes home – if you start the same time you all finish the time. And the time you did

not mind – you had pride in your work. And I’m not saying there wasn’t bitchiness

but not to the degree today, with people haven’t got the time – today they seem to

dictate more, you know, ‘Why is that one doing this one?’ That didn’t exist. The

foreman said, ‘Well, do as you’re told,’ and that’s it.

Can you give me an example, say, of how it would work out that you’d help each

other?

Well, if your area, say, had a light day and someone had a busy day, the foreman

said, ‘Well, you go over and give them a hand.’ Now they’d stand and argue with

the person and say, ‘Why should I give them a hand? They didn’t give me a hand.’

It is totally different.

So would that be within – you say within the cake section or – – –?

No, no, no, in the cake section alone. They seem to have little separate units now,

where if you get told to do someone else’s work now they complain like hell.

Why do you think that’s changed?

Now, all the years even before I even worked for Balfour’s, Balfour’s had a bad

name basically because of the – what’s the word I’m looking for? Their apprentices

didn’t have – oh, the means to say virtually you’re – I’m getting old – I suppose they

never had the discipline to start off with, so therefore without discipline you don’t

have that sort of pride in your work or something. I think if you’re working under a

tough boss, if he’s just you come out a better person. But you walk in and

someone’s slack, well, why should you care? They don’t care. And I think this is

virtually totally – and that’s always, even before I started at Balfour’s, even at the

traders when I’m doing the apprenticeship, virtually Balfour’s apprentice – I think

the attitude was we wouldn’t hire a Balfour’s apprentice because the slackness, how

they were.

16

That’s interesting. What were we talking about when we got onto that? Yes, in

general just the camaraderie – what, you reckon it was time to get accepted.

What did you have to do to become accepted, I guess – how long did it take?

I would say it would take a few weeks because they had to get to know you, and

basically the same applies today. They want to find out all about you, and once they

find out about you they move onto someone else.

So what sort of – was there a lot of movement in the staff there, or would you have

been working with the same group of people?

No, no. Virtually the same group of people.

Who was there in the beginning, then?

Well, when I first started there I said Gordon Fry – he was foreman. Arthur Jacobs

was foreman. I think Harry Gurr, he was an old gentleman, he was sort of in charge,

so he would have been the supervisor. Then you had Sam Galey was my foreman.

So virtually you had more old people who’d – this is the difference between today

and yesterday – the people they had in charge of making products were bakers

themselves that knew the products. Today that doesn’t exist. You’ve got any Joe

Blow from anywhere to come in to do the job.

What difference has that made, do you think?

Well, when they tried – after being in the trade, what’s it now, forty-two years and

they try to tell you you’re doing something which you know is right (laughs) it

makes a big difference. You say, ‘Well, stuff it.’ So I said, ‘No, I don’t care.’

That’s a terrible way to be, when someone’s telling you what you know differently,

you think, ‘Well, what’s the use?’

How was it in the old days?

Well, that’s what you respect, a tradesman. Well, the other day it’s interesting, they

had a few people there, and Peter Fife was telling something about some product and

I looked up, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ Now, those people didn’t know – and I

thought – – –. See, I always firmly believe if you tell a lie, if you sound sincere and

logical it works out! (laughs) And it’s true. So those people thought, ‘He sounds

like he knows what he’s doing,’ so that was right, and I thought, you know, it was a

lot of crap. The total thing was a lot of bullshit, to be quite honest with you. It

17

sounded good but it wasn’t true, and that’s the difference. Now, if you’ve got a

baker – you could never fool your foreman before or your supervisor or your

manager, virtually, because they worked in the trade. These days you can come up

with a story and as long as you look him straight in the eye and convince him it’s

fine.

So you had those foremen. How many people working on that level?

Three foremen/supervisors, a few, because we had down the cellar at the time I think

it was twenty-seven people working down there alone, so you would have had eight

up with us and you’ve got another, say, eight, so that would be twenty-seven – I

suppose you’d be in charge of about a good eighty people. You’d be surprised in the

cake bakery when you look at it – it could be a bit more with the decorating, yes.

So you were on the mixing area.

That’s right, that’s on ground floor.

How long were you working in that particular area?

Oh, for quite a while, (laughs) quite a while.

How long’s that.

Oh, God! It would have been a good ten, twelve years, yes. Then I moved out to

doughnuts and I had an altercation with the (laughs) supervisor out there and I came

back.

What was that about?

What it was about – Joe Vitarelli, paranoid. When I was there for a few years I was

shop steward and I gave it up because I found people come to me and as soon as I

went to management they’d say, ‘I never went to Paul.’ So I thought, ‘Fine.’ Then I

went out to doughnuts and one guy, they wanted me to be leading hand out there and

I didn’t want it. And one guy went up to the supervisor and said, virtually, ‘Why

Paul doesn’t want it is he’s going to be shop steward and do you’, because he wanted

the job, you see. Well, he – I’ll never forget, it was the funniest thing on God’s earth

– because I’m a confrontationist, unfortunately – he was starting to niggle me. So I

said to him, ‘Joe, have you got a minute, please? I’d like to – – –.’ ‘No, no, no, no.’

And I said, ‘Joe, I think we should have this out,’ and of course he sideswiped,

18

pushed me, but he didn’t sideswipe too well. I turned around and said, ‘You were

the same in the war, weren’t you, you Italians – you changed flags when you was

winning.’ Well, that did not go down well. (laughs) Then I went up to work with

that Bob Jarrad for the night – he said, ‘You’d better come up here.’ So I went back

to the cake bakery then. Oh, God.

So in those years in the cake bakery, were you only mixing, is that right, or were

you moving around?

No, no, I went down – we used to do currant cup cakes, we still do, and that was a

machine. And I thought – – –.

Can you describe that?

That was on a monodepositer what dispensed of the mixings into equal amounts to

be baked off.

What’s a monodepositer?

A monodepositer is where you put the mixing inside the – it’s not a cylinder, say

hopper, and that does the correct weights into each patty pan what you wanted. Then

they thought I was talking to myself. (laughs) I used to talk to myself and they think

I’ve got – because I used to fly off at them very quickly, and they thought I needed

to work with some people. (laughs)

So that was a single job, was it?

You worked on your own and they thought, ‘Well, no, he’s gone around the bend.’

So I got stuck in the cellar then.

Was there that aspect to it, was there a monotony to some of the jobs?

No. Well, it could have been, actually. But I always believe you stick up and fight

for what you believe in. If you don’t – at the end of the day you’ve only got

yourself, so if you don’t stand up for what you believe in – and most of the time I’m

right, actually, that was the funniest part about it. (laughs)

Do you have an example from those early days?

I don’t know. It’s just over things where you think you are hard done by so

you – – –. (tape ends)

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE A: TAPE 1 SIDE B

19

[So in those years in the cake bakery, were you only mixing, is that right, or were

you moving around?

No, no, I went down – we used to do currant cup cakes, we still do, and that was a

machine. And I thought – – –.

Can you describe that?

That was on a monodepositer what dispensed of the mixings into equal amounts to

be baked off.

What’s a monodepositer?

A monodepositer is where you put the mixing inside the – it’s not a cylinder, say

hopper, and that does the correct weights into each patty pan what you wanted. Then

they thought I was talking to myself. (laughs) I used to talk to myself and they think

I’ve got – because I used to fly off at them very quickly, and they thought I needed

to work with some people. (laughs)

So that was a single job, was it?

You worked on your own and they thought, ‘Well, no, he’s gone around the bend.’

So I got stuck in the cellar then.

Was there that aspect to it, was there a monotony to some of the jobs?

No. Well, it could have been, actually. But I always believe you stick up and fight

for what you believe in. If you don’t – at the end of the day you’ve only got

yourself, so if you don’t stand up for what you believe in – and most of the time I’m

right, actually, that was the funniest part about it. (laughs)

Do you have an example from those early days?

I don’t know. It’s just over things where you think you are hard done by so you]

confronted them, but unfortunately nobody likes to be confronted. (laughter) That’s

why ‘Paul, he’s gone off his head again, we’d better put him back to work with

people!’

So where were you moved to then?

Into the cellar, where I am now.

What’s the cellar.

20

The cellar is the basement of Balfour’s and down there at the time we were doing

sheets, we were doing London buns – oh, a range of goods what we don’t do now.

Can you talk about, perhaps, some of them, the things that you were doing then

that don’t exist now?

Branburys we used to make.

What are Branburys?

Branburys is a sort of puff pastry and you used to get all the old cake and mix it

together and that was the centre part. I think it’s an old English thing, actually, a

Branbury. Three-corner tarts was another one. Lattice we used to do, apricot lattice.

(pause)

It’s just the dog, that’s okay.

(quietly) Oh, I was just wondering what – he’s never made that noise before.

(normal volume) Apricot lattice. And then we had – we used to do two lots of

lattice. Don’t think it was apple. I know it was apricot. Maybe it was apple.

Lattice. Then we used to – at Christmas time we used to do down the cellar as well

is the shortbread. Gee, there was a lot of things what they’ve deleted, many things

down there which I can’t, you know, come to hand at the moment.

Can you describe some of those processes, perhaps, maybe the lattice or some

things, because I’m interested in things that you were doing then that you don’t

do now, and the processes by which you made them.

Lattice virtually was a shortbread, or I suppose that we’d call it a shortbread, and it

used to be rolled out, then we used –

By hand?

– with the dough break. Then it used to be put onto the machine.

Can you describe what a dough break does?

A dough break rolls out your dough or paste to the thickness you require and length,

virtually, by turning the handle or it’s automatically it’ll drop down, and you put it –

if you’re doing puff pastry you do one or two folds, a single fold or a double fold,

the whole lot. Basically. So you roll it onto a pin and then you used to put it onto

the makeup table. We called it the makeup table, but it’s a belt. Motorised, and

21

what goes over that belt for the lattice is also a hopper what dispenses the apricot.

Can’t think of it, I don’t think it was apple, but it was definitely, say, apricot. I know

what it was; it was pineapple. Apricot and pineapple. Well, it dispenses that in rows

of six. Then you had a machine – I can’t think what was it? I think it was called a

Rion, rings a bell – and actually you put the same roll of paste on top of there and

that used to divide it like lattice and it used to stretch it once it’s cut and it gave a

lattice over the top. Then it went through a process of wheels what made the –

sealed the side, the top and the bottom, and the centre in, then it went through the

cutters, basically.

So that would all be happening on a belt.

That would be going straight down on the line, yes.

Did it then go to the ovens by itself or would it then be manually – – –?

No, you had three or four people picking up and putting them on trays what went

into racks.

Were the ovens different to how they are now, then?

We had more of them, actually. Virtually they’ve got the same ovens there except

they’ve got a few more revents now. The tunnel oven they don’t use a great deal –

that was a new invention when I got there, actually.

Tell me about that. What was there – that had already arrived, had it, when

you – – –?

No, because they had two or three – what were they called? – rotisserie ovens, shall

we say. The tunnel oven, the sponge used to go in one end and come out the other

end, baked. And yeast used to go through there, a number of products went through

there.

Is that still there?

It’s still there, but they don’t operate it a great deal now. It was supposed to be

moving out somewhere in the last six months but it’s still there.

So would that be most of the products would be baked in that way when you

started?

22

Except cake because of the length of time it takes to bake cake. All your yeast, your

sheets of sponge used to bake in there, your hot cross buns get baked in there – all

basically ones that, say, only had to be cooked for about twenty or thirty minutes.

So were the baking times longer for cakes in those days than – – –?

They still are but virtually today – because our fruit cake used to take two and a

quarter hours. I think our highlights were one and three quarters to two hours, if I

remember correctly. So that’s why, yes.

Were there other products that you remember that you could tell me about?

Oh, we had a number of products, it just escapes me at the moment.

Did new things get introduced at different times?

Oh yes, we’ve gone through the phase of ‘saving the company’.

Tell me about that.

Oh, God. They had a summer line – what were they? – puff pastry, and they had

different things. I think they had a filling of – (to dog) ay! Excuse me.

That’s all right.

(to dog) You stay here. They have a filling – what were they? I think it was a

cream cheese with asparagus or something, something stupid like that. Oh, they had

a big promotion at Festival Theatre and they didn’t last no more than six months. I

think the last one, one of the biggest promotions we did have – we had stop work

meetings and had discussions on it – was the bakehouse line pies and muffins.

Personally, that never worked either. (laughs) Over different times there – I was

there when the Wauchopes were there who owned the company, and to my

understanding I think Mrs Wauchope was some relation to Mr Balfour – some

relation, anyway. Or David Wauchope might have been related to Mrs Balfour,

something like that. Then they brought in a Chief Executive Officer, Chris Howes.

Well, we had these meetings and they went on for hours. And it’s hard to describe –

it was a bit stupid, actually, when you think of it. We had discussions and you had

‘Sip and sap’ and how you see things and you glowed or something. It was sort of

like New Age stuff, it was something that to me – it wasted time, it wasted

manpower and it was completely a total lot of crap.

23

This was to get you involved with the new products, was it?

No, it was to motivate you. (laughs) And zip then – it’s like going back to

kindergarten. It was a sort of a stupid – like we were morons. I think I’ve

mentioned in an interview, too – I shall never forget it till the day I die – the

Wauchopes were mad, to be quite bluntly. They joined the Pentecostal Movement

and Jesus Christ was head of the company. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a

Christian, I believe in Christ very strongly, but I think Christ has given us the ability

to look after the things he’s given us, to look after them correctly. And then they got

a loan from the State Bank – this is what their downfall – and I’ll never forget the

first two years we got bonuses. So they got groups of twenty people and virtually

she was standing there holding these envelopes with money with your name on it

asking you, ‘Do you like prezzies?’ Of course, you’re not going to say no. And I

was standing at the back and I said, ‘We look like bloody chooks with our head

nodding up and down.’

So what was the bonus for?

It was a Christmas bonus. And basically, as Christ has given himself it’s better to

give than to receive, and we thought, ‘We want to receive, don’t worry about

giving!’ (laughs) Actually, it was so condescending. Of course, it was like you’re

doing now: nodding. It really was. The money was dangling in front of you like cat

in front of the donkey. And I think, ‘Well, who’s going to knock back a hundred and

ninety dollars?’ It really came down to that. And I think the year before they used

to give us Christmas parcels, and the year before he went on for a quarter of an hour

about this great thing we’re going to get extra in the Christmas parcel, and you’ll

never guess what it was.

What?

Well, at the time they owned this sort of confectionary place. It was a bit of nougat

and unfortunately when you stood it up it bent anyway and I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’

What was in the Christmas parcel?

The Christmas parcel back in those days, I think it was a pudding, mince pies,

Christmas shortbread and there was something else. Actually, it wasn’t bad, this

little parcel. And they gave you this story about Christ and the whole lot, sort of

24

thing. I can remember once when they had – there was a boat place across the road

from the Cumberland Arms in Waymouth Street caught on fire. The adjoining wall

is our car park where they kept the trucks – of course that never burnt because Jesus

was saving it, wasn’t he? It really made you wonder where these people were at. (to

dog) Bowie!

So how did that influence the company, that sort of religious phase? How did it

affect it on a daily basis, I guess? Did it?

I think people believed that something’s not right here, something’s not right at all.

They didn’t impose their beliefs onto you but you were aware of what their beliefs

were, and I think from that point on it just went downhill, that’s why we went into

receivership.

So when you started had –

They were normal.

– Mr Balfour died already, had he?

Yes, he had, actually, yes. Yes, yes.

Okay. So it was the Wauchopes that were in charge?

That’s correct, David Wauchope, yes.

What was he like as a manager?

Oh, David was a very strict – he walked through the factory, everything was right.

He did a, I think, a course in – as I said, this is different to today, to the owners – he

actually did a course in baking to understand exactly what it’s all about. You

couldn’t fool David Wauchope, you respected him. He had his funny ways,

admittedly, but yes.

Would he regularly walk through the factory floor?

Oh yes, he knew everybody’s name, oh yes, definitely. And so did the directors. So

did the directors.

Who were the directors that you recall then?

25

The two I can remember was Ted Rix and also an old chap with a walking cane –

what was his name now? Oh, can’t think of his name. But they used to walk

through regularly.

What sort of reaction would there be from staff when – – –?

Ralph Potter, I think his name was.

Okay. What sort of reaction would there be from staff when directors and

managers came down?

Well, if you were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing you soon stopped

it when you’d hear David Wauchope’s in the factory. Yes. As a total respect, total

respect.

So you mentioned doing things you shouldn’t be doing – were there rules and

regulations in those days that perhaps don’t exist now?

I think basically it is a totally different environment. I suppose what I’m saying in

that degree, if you were working and you were pretty busy and you didn’t have time

to clean up, if you knew David was coming through you stopped what you were

doing (laughs) and cleaned it up, yes. Yes.

What about the standard of cleanliness and hygiene and that in those days – is

it – – –?

Well, I firmly believe they were far better in those days than they are today with all

these different solutions and all the different cleaners we’ve got today. It was much

cleaner. And everybody bucked in to clean up. Then you had certain people came

in after you and did the heavier jobs, yes.

Were there specific rules about hygiene in those days?

Yes, there was, actually, yes. Because if I can remember before Tommy Tucker

joined Associated Baking Company there was a big article in the paper where

someone got fined without a fly screen across one of the windows. It was

Badenoch’s that we joined up with. So yes, and they got fined very heavily.

Do you remember some of the things that – at Balfour’s?

26

I know we had steam presses back in those days to wash things down in. But it just

was everybody worked cleaner, for some reason. The people did not mind cleaning

up after them. Now they just go out and leave you with it.

Just in terms of the working environment, thinking about your first impressions –

the smells and the atmosphere and the noise and that – can you give me an idea of

what it was like?

You could smell Balfour’s coming down the street. And several times I called in to

do a bit of business on the way home and someone said, ‘You work in a bakery, I

can smell you.’ (laughs) We laugh about it but it’s true, but it doesn’t exist today.

Easter time you could smell the spices down the street. (speaks quietly to dog)

He’s okay.

(to dog) You’re going to knock that over, I’m going to clout you – get here, you.

You were saying at Easter time you could smell the – – –.

You could smell the bun spicing all down the street, the whole lot, and today you

can’t even smell it.

Why is that, do you think?

I think cost comes into it, basically. Also the quality is not there and I don’t think

the whole thing is geared to quality. It’s to a price. They virtually – they want top

dollar for what they sell but I’m afraid they’re not giving top dollar with ingredients.

Supermarkets want the least price they can get so we go down to a price there, but

the company has to make a profit as well.

Can you tell me a bit about, I guess, the ingredients in the past and how – to show

me what you mean by quality in terms of the ingredients that you used?

Well, I can always remember, actually – I don’t drink; this is a funny thing – the first

year there doing Christmas puddings. Two examples with Christmas puddings: in

the last few years we don’t put brown sugar in Christmas puddings, we don’t put

suet in the Christmas puddings. We used to put suet and brown sugar. Now they put

castor sugar and some cheap margarine. One of the things I don’t see much of – I

don’t know what sort of – because glass is not allowed in the factory – we used to

have Bundaberg rum we used to put in the puddings.

Sorry, what did you – – –?

27

Bundaberg rum we used to put in the puddings.

Oh, yes.

Now, I used to take little capfuls (laughs) – Old Sam sent me home one day because

he said I’m getting drunk! Everybody hears about that! So it’s just, you know,

that’s one example on one product. Fruit is cut down to a minimum, most are. It’s

my livelihood, but I used to be proud to say I worked at Balfour’s and the stuff we

made. Now, no. It’s outsourced, it’s frozen, it’s brought back and then used. The

puddings to me I wouldn’t touch. The Christmases are very suss to me as well. Our

wedding cakes were second to none in Australia, it was magnificent – now, no.

They’re actually outsourced, made and outsourced decorated. So therefore they have

a true tradesman and we have some brilliant decorators, the older guys and that –

don’t exist now.

Tell me a little bit about that decorating department. Were you ever in there

yourself?

No, because once you sort of got into an area in Balfour’s you stayed. For some

reason that’s it. You got – if there was a job available where you went for that day,

that’s where you stayed. So it could be in pie and pasty, it could be in decorating, it

could be in cake.

Why was that? Was that a policy that they didn’t move people or was it just from

– how did that occur?

I think because you were doing – I think they believed if you were doing a good job

where you’re at, why move you onto somewhere where you’re not going to be happy

and you’re not going to do the best job. That’s basically what it comes down to.

But you were close enough to the decorating to see it occurring, or were you – – –?

Upstairs, yes. There was a floor difference. Oh, but their stuff was brilliant,

absolutely superb.

Give me some examples, tell me a little bit about it.

Oh, we had an old chap, actually – I think the booze got poor Donny Lawrence – he

was a brilliant decorator. The quality of it, the skill. Compare today.

What kinds of things.

28

I suppose it’s his feathering around the cakes, the way he done his royal icing, the

way he done a lot of things. He was a true tradesman.

And that doesn’t exist any more, that kind of decorating?

No. No. No, unfortunately no. As I said, it’s outsourced, made and outsourced then

decorated. So no.

Were you involved in the making of the wedding cakes and the birthday cakes and

that kind of thing?

Actually, in that era it was the Christmas cake, the birthday cakes and wedding cakes

was the same mixture. The fruit was beautiful – – –.

Tell me a little bit about that process, I guess, what you were doing.

That was basically the batter mixing, the cream up the sugar and margarine, add your

eggs, then your flour, then you mix for five minutes and then you add – you must

have added a bit of milk and something else – you put your flavourings and that,

then you basically add your fruit. And it was beautiful cake, absolutely beautiful

cake. (quietly, whilst attending to dog) Just keep asking questions.

I’ll just stop for a moment. (break in recording)

Just to give you a quick example how things have changed drastically, if I was there

for twenty years or even less than that and you left, David Wauchope and all the

management would come down and wish you well, the whole lot. We had a guy

who’s been at Balfour’s and Gibb’s – who actually we owned at the time, we were

one – twenty-eight years and not one of the managers came down to say goodbye.

So that’s what I’m saying, the difference.

I noted looking – I mentioned how I’d had some staff newsletters from one of the

people that had kept all of them –

Yes.

– and I noticed there was a presentation when people had reached twenty-five

years.

That’s correct, yes. Yes, that still exists. Yes, yes.

Did you receive that?

29

They asked me what I wanted and I said virtually, ‘I will pay for it,’ and the eight

people I worked with, we went up for lunch in the board room. I said, ‘I don’t want

the whole presentation or the whole factory, but basically these are the people I work

with and these are the people I relate to.’ So that’s – and I think at the time they

gave me five hundred dollars so you could buy what you want to buy.

So there was a sort of recognition of long service.

Oh, definitely, yes, they still do that, yes. Yes.

What about in terms of – you know, when you started out, do you remember what

you were earning?

No, I couldn’t, actually. I was trying to think of that today. I’ve got no idea of that

at all. No, no. Can’t think at all.

Was it a decent sort of wage for what you were doing?

In comparison to that for that year, yes, yes, very much so, yes.

Has that remained so over the years?

No. In the last two or three years I think I would have dropped a hundred and fifty,

two hundred dollars a week. We used to work Sunday to Thursday so we got double

time on Sunday, then we used to start at, say, three-thirty in the afternoon, we used

to get fifteen per cent loading – that’s all stopped. So you cut out a full wage and a

half a day, so we’re on less wages now than, I would say, back ten, twelve years ago.

You mentioned that people would stay back to – you know, when there was a

volume of work, a lot of work – would you get overtime paid in those days?

Oh, yes. Back in those days we didn’t mind working thirteen or fourteen hours. It

just – it was just part of the – as you said, seasonal. If Mother’s Day was coming up

we were busy, Father’s Day, especially Easter back in those days – actually, I think

it was only the last decade – hot cross buns were only made the Sunday before

Easter, virtually, and all of a sudden that all changed and they started doing them all

the time, see? So things have changed. We do them two or three months before

Easter now. One time it was only Easter Week, so that’s how much things

drastically change.

Why do you think that’s altered?

30

I think it’s another thing of the supermarkets, because they wanted them there, think

‘They were a good seller so we might as well flog ’em.’ Society’s changed

drastically.

In what way, do you think?

Well, you have to be that secure – if ever I had a fire here, time I find the keys to get

out I think I’d be burnt to death. Down home I don’t think we even had a lock on the

back door. When we sold the house we had to go and hunt up the keys somewhere.

And that’s a different society. It seems to be everybody for themselves. Loyalty

doesn’t exist, from the company or from the workers. So you think, ‘Well’ – as I

gave you an example when the person left, for one of the managers or owners to

come down to wish him well – no. And that was a comment made by a lot of

people.

Balfour’s sort of has this reputation of being a ‘family company’. I mean, I know

it was run by a family, but as a ‘family’ in terms of the workplace. Was it like

that when you started?

Yes. It was, virtually, yes. Yes.

In what ways would you say it was like that?

Well, everybody knew one another and everybody – we all mixed. Today it’s

different identities so you don’t really have much to do with this one or that one as

well, no. It’s entirely different. As I said, the hotel scene itself, everybody used to

go round there and half fall out – it was actually packed. Now they only get two or

three. We don’t seem to have the time today. Those days we had the time.

Was there much of a social life outside of Balfour’s with people from Balfour’s?

Would they be your friends in general?

No. I found that with Associated. When I left Associated, when I’d spent fifteen

years I worked with them, I used to go around and see them but it wasn’t

forthcoming, and after a while I’d think, ‘Well, it’s one way.’ So I think once – the

only common interest is where you are, and once that’s broken, well, the cycle

moves on elsewhere. But everybody seemed to have that more family attitude with

Balfour’s. See, Associated didn’t go to a hotel, we didn’t have a regular hotel. It

was a different lifestyle entirely.

31

What was the hotel again? You said there was a regular hotel.

It was the Cumberland Arms in Waymouth Street, yes.

And would you go every – how often would you go there?

Well, basically Thursday and Fridays you couldn’t get near the place! I said old

Horrie used to ring up the publican, ‘Open up, we’re going around there.’ (laughs)

That was exactly right. You had your drunks – you had to laugh, the ones who hit

the booze. You had all those people.

There was a social club, I understand, at one stage. Were you involved with the

social club at all?

There was the original one before I started then I started another one, and every time

I made a function – it could be six months before – they used to put a function on the

same night. (laughs) And I said, ‘I’m getting sick of this ….. ….. ….. nothing.’

What Balfour’s did do for a good few years, actually, we used to have a Christmas

‘do’ at the Dom Polski, but you couldn’t invite your partner, spouse or anybody else.

And you’d find out who was on with who back in those days with a few drinks, and

you’d think, ‘God, I’d never drink this while I was there.’ (laughs) But they were

good.

They were at what?

That was the Dom Polski, yes. We had the sort of Christmas story, but you got – we

used to call Jan and Dave ‘Mum and Dad’, so we used to have to put up with that.

So it would be a thing where management and staff would get together.

Oh yes, yes. Oh yes, yes, yes, it was quite good, actually. But that soon faded out as

well. (pause) I think because we trusted them, I think that’s why we supported it.

This day and age you think they’ve got an ulterior motive if they’re starting

something. They’re trying to start something up now. They did try to start out a

new social club, but that didn’t take off at all.

I think you mentioned to me when we first met that the little group that you work

with are still a team, as such.

Down the makeup used to be called, many years ago – they had twenty-seven people

working down there – it was the ‘pensioners’, because when you got old you got put

32

down there. But over the period of time they retired and died, I suppose, and

virtually at the moment there’s only about five or six of us there now.

Have you been together for a long time?

I’d say I’ve been working down there for ten years, basically, yes. I think Janet and

Gail I found out have been there – Janet’s been there twenty years, Gail’s been there

fifteen there. Tony must be fifteen years. Dennis has been longer than I have but he

was on the ovens and he’s been down there for the last eight years. So virtually, yes.

What sort of relationship would you say you have with those long-term people?

It’s a relationship now when they say something you know what they actually mean.

I can’t say on tape a few things they could say! (laughs) You should be very

offended. But now you think, ‘That’s that person.’ I think you weigh up and say,

‘Well – – –.’ Well, I – I suppose I’m not going to be judgmental, but I feel like you

say, ‘Well, for a person to be so spiteful there’s something wrong at home.’ And

that’s how I look at it now. ‘It’s not because they’re spiteful at me, I’m just the

process they’re using in order to get it out their system.’ And I do the same thing, so

I think yes. I think we know ourselves very well down there. To work with other

people – people seeing through the whole Balfour’s thing, ‘Oh, but makeup table are

a terrible lot of people,’ and I suppose if you come down there – I was only saying to

Gail the other day – if you came down and worked with us, to listen to how we speak

you’d be shocked, and I mean you would be shocked! (laughter) You get a few new

ones that would fit in quite well. I can’t say what was said today with Barbara, but it

was a bit – poor Gail spilt her coffee over everybody because she was so shocked.

Well, I suppose I can, actually, because it’s not – – –. We were talking about

different things and that, and how did it come up? Oh, that’s right. Barbara was

saying she’s kept her children’s first teeth, every one of them, and I said, ‘Well, you

know,’ and Tony said, ‘Have you got a son?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Did you

keep the foreskin?’ And Barbara turned around and said for a joke, ‘Oh, yes, I use it

for rubber bands in my hair.’ Well, Gail just (laughs) – Gail’s a bit prim and proper.

She said, ‘You know, that really shocked me, Paul.’

So will that team be continuing when you move from Adelaide?

33

No, they’ve been trying to actually split us up for many years and they’ve outsourced

a lot of our stuff, so virtually no; we’ve been told we’ll be put into other areas.

How do you feel about the idea of moving from Adelaide?

Oh, I would wish – actually, I’ve tried to speak to Dennis to speak to you because

he’s been there longer than I have. He said to me, ‘I’ll be devastated when we move,

Paul.’ And I said, ‘I won’t. I went to Tommy Tucker’s, they went to a new factory,

they amalgamated with another company and we all became one company.’ I said,

‘I’ve gone through that process.’ I said, ‘I owe Balfour’s nothing because I’ve done,

I believe, a fair day’s work for my pay I’m getting, and Balfour’s don’t owe me

nothing.’ And I said, ‘That’s the difference, you know.’ But he said he had worked

there, gee, thirty-two, might be thirty-five years, and that’s his first job. And I said,

‘You know when you leave, not saying we all going to keep in touch with one

another – that doesn’t exist. You have to face we’re going to drift on.’ And he said,

‘Oh, really?’ It’s funny how people view things.

Would you say in general how do people feel – like him or like yourself? What’s

the general idea?

I work with lovely people – Janet, Gail, Tony’s a part of us now but he hasn’t been

there – like, he’s been in the company fifteen years, he hasn’t been in our area for

that long. There is a friendship, there is an underlying friendship there, more so than

other sections. As the rest of the company, I suppose in other areas they think we’re

terrible, but when you, as I said before, realise what they say and what they – – –.

(tape ends).

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE B: TAPE 2 SIDE A

[there is an underlying friendship there, more so than other sections. As the rest of

the company, I suppose in other areas they think we’re terrible, but when you, as I

said before, realise what they say and what they] mean is entirely different, and

when you know – you know, when you step the line.

Is it something to do with the way that you’re working that brings you together

closer, or can you describe how you do a day’s work now? Are you around the

same table, or what sort of situation – – –?

No, we do it on, as I mentioned about the makeup table itself, it’s the conveyor belt

with different parts of the machine what fits over it, but we virtually just click into

34

what we do. Each person, virtually, if they’re – I firmly believe if a person’s good at

what he’s doing let him keep doing that. Don’t change him to another area and say

to multiskill where a person’s not happy and not feeling confident to do the job

correctly, so therefore you’re not getting the best product, but that might be an old-

fashioned belief to what they believe today, I think. (break in recording)

So we were just talking a little bit about the way the process works today, how

each of you have your own job. What is it that you work on – – –?

Well, if I go in I set up the machinery. Secondly, I will fill up the hopper through

the wedges – that’s the hopper to dispense the fruit mixing itself, and then I watch

that to make sure it’s going through the machine rightly. Then we go onto the

second phase, we’ll do our home site Cornish pasties – I usually do it by hand and

put out the veg on that, you see. It goes through cutters what rolls out, say, the

circles, goes through a spray to dampen it slightly, I put it on there and the others

crimp it, seal the pasty and crimp them.

So it’s still done by hand.

Hand, those things are, yes. Then, later on, the others straight through the machinery

as described as the lattice work, but we do several things that pump through – the

midget pasties is one example, and you’ve got three or four people at the end picking

up, yes.

So what products are you making these days?

Well, as I said, there’s wedges, caramel – Danish caramel – then we go onto the –

there’s varied veg pasties, they’re done by hand, the Cornish pasties done by hand,

we do apple and apricot sheets, they’re all done by hand. Then we go onto the

midget pasties, we do cheese and bacon and they’re sort of like a sausage roll thing,

cheese and spinach, ‘gibbies’1 – they’re called school snacks but they’re just

vegetarian little pasty things as well. Then we do the ‘naps’2 – see, they have

deleted a lot of stuff we used to do down there. We used to do – – –.

Like what? What have you got rid of?

1 Now called ‘junior snacks’ – PQ.

2 Short for Napoleon cake – PQ.

35

They’re outsourced – we used to London buns, we used to nut buns, we used to do a

variety of other – a lot of yeasts that they don’t make at all now.

What kinds of things?

Oh, gee, a number of buns we used to do, actually. Apple and cinnamon buns, we

used to do jam buns and different things – yes, quite a few different things they’ve

outsourced – not outsourced, they’ve cut out completely because of the cost factor.

Tell me a bit about the yeast cookery – I guess that’s a bit different to the other

things you were doing.

Yeast is done upstairs in the dough room on the ground floor, and we’ve got a chute

that comes down into our area into a square box, sort of thing, and we cut it out from

there. It goes through the same process with the rollers, with the dough break,

without folding, and it just goes – and we just wind it down to the thickness we want

– goes onto the belt.

And then you would do your filling and all that sort of thing?

Filling the whole lot and go through that way, yes.

So most of those things you say don’t exist any more?

Have been deleted.

What is it like when a – I mean, you would have got used to doing certain things

for many years, I suspect.

Well, I suppose this comes back to the previous question, why we’ve got such a

strong comradeship, because we have been deleted, deleted, deleted. We’ve got

smaller and smaller, now the people in the cellar now, we always have been very

militant. (laughs) They’ve tried to split us up many times. But we will all go out on

an issue – there’s no argument, the whole lot – and very few sections in Balfour’s are

like that. We’ll stand up for what we think is right.

Can you give me an example of what – – –?

No, actually, I can’t at the moment. No, we will put down tools and say, ‘Right, we

want this – let’s confront the whole lot.’ Other sections, ‘Ooh, better not in case it

upsets somebody else and we won’t know that’s why –’ basically, yes.

36

So you’re talking about the different sections. Do sections tend to stick to their

own little groups or do they – in the past, I guess, as well – did they associate with

each other?

Yes, actually, it’s more prevalent when you go to the lunch room. You can see the

pastry section sitting at those few tables, you can see the cake section, the decorators

sitting at those few tables, the young apprentices – because they do their three

months or four months in each section, they integrate much easier – but you can

virtually see the packing girls will come and sit in their area. It is very prevalent.

Did that happen in the past as well? Is that something that’s been continual?

Basically, yes, because there was a different time of the shift everybody started.

Now we seem to start on the same sort of shift time – the majority of us, shall we

say? But in the past – but everybody knew one another. It was a different

atmosphere entirely.

Tell me a little bit about those – were tea breaks a regular thing in the lunch room

and that kind of thing? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

We have our ten minute coffee break in the lunch room in the first five hours, then

we have a half hour break after, so we’ve got our lunch break as well.

Is that different to the past, or how would it work when you first started?

Well, I think the major difference they cut out smoking. We didn’t realise we had a

silver roof, we thought it was a browny colour! (laughs)

So smoking – – –.

Oh, see, I’m a non-smoker and I always believed there shouldn’t be smoking there.

Because that was another thing, I used to – was my hobby horse. ‘Right, people

would go out there all the time smoking, but I go missing you have a go at me.’ It’s

only the people that work you’re having a go at, the people that don’t work – it’s still

my argument today.

So smoking was allowed –

Oh, yes.

– in the olden days. Whereabouts would you be allowed to smoke then?

37

Well, I think they smoked in the toilets behind the silos. (laughs) The number of

places they used to find people! See, that was another example of, as I was saying,

when David Wauchope [came] through – oh, hell, I’d better get rid of it. You used

to have the different little personalities that used to do that. Getting back to Horrie

Tilbrook when I was talking to you before, he had nicknames for everybody, and I

think this is – the previous company I worked for we never had that. We had an old

guy, actually – I worked with – Sid worked with me at Tommy Tucker’s many years

ago so it would be in the ’60s too – he was working there, he was a Pom, and he was

a very dark-coloured Pom, but old Horrie used to sing out, (shouting) ‘Where’s old

Sad-eyes, where’s that Sad-eye Sid?’ So that was one example. We had two Joes, a

Polish Joe and Italian Joe. One was ‘Hollywood Po sitting on the po’ – I’ve got no

idea where that came from – and the other one was ‘the O before the E’. (laughs)

That’s all gone. What else did he – – –? Then we had one of the director’s brothers

worked there, came from Rix’s Cakes, Jack Rix, he used to swear so he was ‘Sailor’.

There’s another guy worked there, he was a younger foreman, Tom Golding. Well, I

thought his name was Tom Piper until Jack Rix went overseas and sent Tom a card

to ‘Tom Piper’ and he said, ‘My name’s not Piper, it’s Golding. Horrie called me

“Tom Tom the Piper’s Son”.’ You never knew anyone’s name at all, because

virtually you just took for granted – as I said, everybody who walked through the

door had a nickname. And he did, he actually sort of manipulated people. And no,

this is a difference now. I think the people in this day and age have got the ability to

move on, they do statistics with houses, they say – I was listening to the radio the

other day – a long term in a home is five years, and I thought, ‘You’re joking. A

long term in a home is a life to me, or thirty years.’ But they’re talking about five

years. Lots of people talking about investment, is it long term or short term. He

said, ‘Long term, five years.’ I thought, you know, it really makes you wonder.

So do you think that’s changed in terms of Balfour’s, the people that are long-

term employees?

Long-term employees now don’t believe that they value us at all. We believe they

want us out, the simple fact is that.

Why do you feel that?

38

We basically feel that when what had happened in the last four or five years very

prevalently – their attitude, ‘Anybody off the street can do your job.’ And they do

get anybody off the street. I feel sorry for some of these people they get in from the

agency. Now, don’t get me wrong, but I wondered how they survive in life. And the

stressfulness of every second day or every third day you get somebody new you have

to retrain who hasn’t got the ability to work in that area, and you think they should

be at Minda Home or – – –. I’m not saying – I feel sorry for them, I thought, ‘How

do they exist? How do they honestly exist? It’s sad.’

So when you first started there was none of that kind of agency worker came in at

all?

No. I can remember when I first started, it was a few years after we got a truck

driver in, and Sam Galea went on about it for months. ‘They think they can get us a

truck driver to do our job.’ Now he’d turn over in his grave. He’d walk back – you

know, they don’t listen to the people with expertise, they honestly don’t.

Taking you back, you were talking about smoking. It made me think about

discipline. Was it you that talked about a mistake with baking powder, or am I

thinking of someone else – – –?

No, that was my – three months I was working there and I was on the mixings, and I

think it was chocolate highlight, and of course it didn’t come out, didn’t rise. And

Mark Sands said to me, he said, ‘Poor thing, is it that bad?’ And I said, ‘Well, look

at it.’ So Mark and I discussed it and we knew what went wrong. Then Sam came

up and said, ‘Paul?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know – I’m sure I put it in, yes, yes.’ So

then what they called the supervisor came up and said, ‘Paul, look at that.’ Then the

manager came up, then the production manager came up. By the end of the day I

had everybody up including David Wauchope, then I went home devastated. In one

day – now if we don’t do three or four stuff-ups in a day it’s a joke. That was one

stuff-up in three months, and virtually they told me ‘If it happens again,’ you know,

‘you have to watch out.’ Mark said, (laughs) ‘Never own up to it,’ he said, ‘it’s the

worst thing you could do.’ But they all knew, as I said, because they knew, so you

just played dumb – ‘Yes, I put it in there, I’m sure I did.’

Did you make any other mistakes in those early days that you remember – – –?

39

No. Basically old Sam used to say, ‘Only a good baker make a mistake then he can

learn from it.’ ‘Haste makes waste’ – that was another old saying of Sam. ‘Take

your time and do it properly.’ Now, ‘Well, hurry up and get it out the way.’

Regardless of what it looks like. See, that’s the difference between us.

You mentioned something, I think, when we first met about the mixing time and

how that had changed in regards – – –.

With a high speed Tweedie it’s a minute and a half. With the other mixings it used

to be twenty minutes to half hour.

How has that changed the process, I guess?

To put it politely, it’s bloody shit! (laughs) To put it plainly. No.

You mean it affects the quality?

Ah, totally.

In what way does it?

To me – of course, they’ve changed the recipe to cheapen it that much as well, so

between changing the recipe and the high speed mixing too, it’s – you know, no.

So over the years how do those changes – how have they come through? Is it

because the machinery is different or do the recipes get changed, or how are these

changes gradually – – –?

Basically the high speed mixings are to save time and cost through labour, then they

cut down the recipes to get the cheapest thing at the highest prices, and unfortunately

as I gave the example with the puddings, it’s absolutely disgusting.

So over the years what kinds of new equipment have you had to adapt to? Has

there been great changes?

Not a great deal. High speed Tweedie. I suppose the makeup table, because we used

to do everything on the table before and that was the conveyor belt with the different

machines that come across. Oh, that’s right – we used to do sheet sponges. Well,

then they got this machine – what’s that called? Uromat? – and that was developed,

I think, in Germany for making rubber. So (laughs) it always makes me wonder. To

me it wasn’t to compare what we used to do.

What did you used to do, and then what do you do now?

40

We used to do it on the Hobart – that’s a machine with a whisk on – then you used to

weigh it out by hand and split it by hand. The stuff was far superior. I think one – I

suppose that had to be ten, might be fifteen years old now – is the Coney that does

the yeast. One time all the yeast was cut out and done by hand. That goes through a

machine that weighs each bun, it rolls out the finger buns and drops onto a tray, but

someone has to straighten up then the tray to make sure it’s right.

So can you remember, perhaps, some of the hands-on jobs that you did in the past

that have gradually disappeared that – – –?

Well, weighing all the cake, that’s one of them. As I said, the yeast – we used to roll

out the finger buns by hand. We used to mould the bread – we used to do a little bit

of bread, very small bit.

Tell me about that.

Used to be a granary loaf and granary rolls. Oh, they were bloody beautiful. I think

we ate more than we bloody well made. (laughter) That’s another thing, the Italian

woman used to cut up and put it – it was a beautiful margarine, it was called

Sovereign by Edible Oils Industry, it was just like butter. Oh, it was bloody

beautiful. And of course David Wauchope would come on and you had to go and

hide the whole thing, didn’t you? So that was another example of things you

shouldn’t be doing.

Tell me about that, because I mean I guess that would be a temptation at times.

Well, back when I first started it was interesting. Downstairs basically in one part of

it you had quite a few Italian ladies. See, that’s all changed now – we’ve only got

one Greek lady, Helen. And they used to have – what did they call the machines? I

can’t think of the name – they had a depositor and they used to put a shell on the

bottom, and it used to have three circles that used to rotate and the die used to come

down and cut out the dough into them and that, and the hopper at the top used to

drop the jam and the whole lot, and you had three or four of them going all day.

What were they making?

They used to be jam tarts, shells for different things and they’d put a bit of dough in,

that used to stand them out. Sometimes they left their finger in there and sometimes

41

they stuck their finger in the top and it got chopped off as well. Actually you had

(laughs) many times like that!

Well, tell me a bit about accidents. Was the old machinery more prone to that,

or – – –?

No, the new machinery is, because virtually we had a full maintenance crew back in

those days, then they brought guards in where you couldn’t put your hand beyond a

certain point. But there was a different atmosphere entirely.

In what way do you mean?

Well, we had down in the cellar virtually all the Italian women so there was a group

of Italian women, they all stuck together. Then you had – and they used to do the

roll and that used to be put on sort of a bag and they used to roll the bag up and roll

along, and that was all done by hand. I think we outsourced all that rolling out that

we used to do, things like that, it’s incredible.

What roll was that, like a –

Sponge roll.

– oh, okay, with cream or something inside it.

Cream and jam roll.

So that was, you’re saying, in like a – – –?

It was like a – not a hessian bag, I suppose it’s like a pillow slip, so it would be a

cotton sort of – and they used to roll it up in that so it wouldn’t break, and used to

put it onto boards and that. The roll was put into the trays, spread, cooked, then it

was tipped onto these bags. They used to put the jam or the cream on there, then roll

it up together and leave it rolled for a while so it wouldn’t crack, actually, the sponge

itself. So that’s all gone.

Are there things that you miss, I guess, from those hands-on things? Would you

say there was more skill involved in what you were doing back then?

You lose your skill, unfortunately, yes.

What sort of skills do you feel you’ve lost over the years?

Well, your moulding skills would be one of them for all the yeast we used to do.

And it was – though the volume was there, but you could actually apply if you cut it

42

down and make it in your own kitchen. Today that doesn’t exist at all, doesn’t exist

at all.

So what’s the moulding skill in moulding something into the shape of it – can you

just describe that?

Well, I suppose if you’re doing a couple of doughs for making bread you roll them

together in your hands and they rolled against one another and make them smooth

and round, I suppose that’s the only way I can describe it, yes. Finger buns you used

to roll them out with your five fingers, stretch, and they used to go to the stretch of

your fingers and you’d know that was the right size.

So it really was a finger bun!

Yes, I suppose, yes, when you look at it that way, yes.

Are there other things that have disappeared?

I think there’s many things we used to do that we don’t do now at all. I can’t

think – – –.

Do any of the major promotional things – you were talking about the things that

failed, like I think those asparagus cheese thingies.

The summer lines, that they were called, the whole four of them.

Were there other promotions that you recollect that – – –?

Oh, they used to come and go, and we used to have the ‘saviour of the company’.

(laughs) The beginning and end all. I’m afraid it was not the beginning and end all,

it was the end of it, all right.

Were there any that were successful that you recall?

They still do Bakehouse pies. Then they start cutting costs in the ingredients. It’s

not the same that they were doing two or three years ago at all. So therefore it’s

interesting, yes. They have a good product: ‘Oh, we can cheapen it’, and that’s

exactly what they do do. And you know, ironically enough – and this is what always

amazes me – going back when I first started there I think we had one test baker,

maybe two. Now we’ve got two or three test bakers. Then we’ve got – what is it

called? – oh, food technologists. We’ve got three or four people in the lab, we’ve

got eight people, and when something goes wrong they go and get somebody who’s

43

never actually worked in the trade to find out. They go and ask – example, what was

it the other week? Something went off, and they called four people into the office to

find out and not one of them was a qualified baker.

So in the past what did a test baker do?

Virtually what he said – he tested. There’s something wrong, he should come in and

tell you exactly what it was. Example with yeast, and this was through Edible Oil

Industry because they were supplying the margarine and stuff we used, they virtually

used to have two test bakers come out. If you had a problem with a product, could

be the flour, they could come in and say, ‘Right, it’s the flour, it’s the yeast’ or what

the ingredient is that’s not working correctly to give the correct balance. This day

and age it’s a total joke. All they do is pass the buck. That’s hideous! Oh, the major

thing I think that’s happened in the last four or five years, the paperwork we have to

fill out.

Tell me a little bit about that.

Oh! It’s unbelievable! If you start from a product from the beginning, you go to

your recipe, then you had to go counter-recipe so you can tick off what you do and

put in exactly volumes that you do, the whole lot. Then you, say if you’re making –

say you’re just making the paste for the apple and apricot, so when we make it and

put the fruit in we have to fill in another sheet of paper to say time it was made, the

volume, the whole lot. Then they have to go and put another piece of paper in that

goes into the computer exactly how much we did. Then it goes to the oven, then

another person has to write another bit of paper what time it went into the oven.

Then it goes to the freezer and another person has to write – – –. (laughs) It’s

unbelievable.

Did that not exist in the early days?

No, it did not exist at all. We had our recipe and we worked by the recipe. They

were saying because of hazard we have to do all this. It’s a total – to me it’s a sinful

waste of paper and trees, the whole lot, as far as I’m concerned.

I guess over the time that you have been working there computerisation and

automation has been something that’s gradually developed.

44

It has crept in, more so in the pastry side of it than our side. They’ve got several new

machines out there – the laminator that does the block process for pastry, the new pie

machines, the whole lot out there, the new sweet pie machine – yes, more so than the

cake bakery.

So has it affected the cake bakery at all? Has computerisation come in?

Not a great deal, only the Coney for the yeast, which is the only thing I can think of

that has actually – yes.

Do you think that that will – – –?

The high speed Tweedie is another one that’s done it for cake. Yes, that’s about the

only two.

Will that alter when the move takes place?

Yes.

Are some of these machines going to be left behind?

Well, we keep asking them for the last year what’s going and what it’s going to be.

They will not show anyone the plans, and you hear so many different stories about

outsourcing stuff. As I said, they’ve outsourced what we used to do is the London

buns and also the nut buns – Cowley’s or Price’s make them for Balfour’s now.

So you don’t know – do you know what your future is when the move occurs?

Do you know what I firmly believe? In all honesty I believe that the new place at

Dudley Park’s just going to be a distribution place. They don’t want anyone – I

firmly believe, time we go there, if they make anything it will be from machine from

go to whoa, goes in one end comes out the other, and that’s all it will be. All this

hands-on work will disappear, I’m quite convinced on that.

How do you feel about that?

Well, I’m fifty-seven. (pause) I’ll be sad and sorry. But the way they’ve treated the

staff in the last four years, there’s not that future there. I believe don’t put your

hopes on something because it will be pulled down. Be prepared for it. Someone

said, I said, ‘Of course you’ll be sad, but,’ I said, ‘it’s going to happen.’ And if they

believe – last year they put on one apprentice. It goes to show; they used to put on

45

twelve. So it goes to show where it’s leading, isn’t it? Simple fact. It’s a thing of

the past. So many things – John Martin’s a thing of the past. So when you look at

these companies that were, doesn’t exist. I think I was fortunate and blessed to be

brought up in the era I was brought up in, but virtually came into employment, I

suppose you would have called it ‘full employment’, had a choice of jobs, the simple

fact that’s where it came from. When it was full employment I think the bosses

respected you more because they think they might lose you. These days they’ve got

so many people to go in to do your job, I think they abuse the system, unfortunately.

I was looking at those staff newsletters and often there seem to be giant cakes

being made for various openings of this Westfield Shoppingtown and the Grand

Prix and all sorts of things – were you ever involved in those sort of promotional

things?

We would have made the cake itself, but it would have been the decorators,

they - - -. Give an example of one went out today, actually, I think it was for the

jubilee, Prince Philip’s, that foundation he started up – his son’s out here now for it –

Duke of Edinburgh Awards, right?

Oh, okay, yes.

Well, we went and saw it because it was decorated up, and I could not believe it

looked like it came out of someone’s kitchen – I’m not putting it down, don’t get me

wrong – to what we used to do.

Can you remember one that stands out?

One that does stand out and that’s a wedding cake. It was a five-tier, and it was a

swan cake. It was magnificent. I suppose, gee, there would have been eight inches –

might have been even ten inches in diameter – rounds, three on the bottom, then

there was two, and then they had swan pillars to hold it up. And then they had a

swan pillar to hold the top one and all it had was a spray of flower on top. The

feathering and basically the whole lot was absolutely magnificent. A friend got

married so she got – and it was breathtaking. The cakes were second to none,

actually. You should ask Balfour’s because they should have some of the old – I

suppose their catalogues of the cakes –

I’ve seen some of the photographs, yes.

– and look at these swan cakes. They were absolutely brilliant.

46

Who would put it together, construct it?

I suppose the caterer would who used to – at the reception would have. God knows

what the price would be now – I think it was five hundred dollars going back twenty

years ago, so God knows what it would be.

So would you – I mean, if you were involved in making one of those cakes, you’d

make the base of the cake –

That’s correct.

– would you watch the process of it –

I used to see always – I used to come down and start on that.

– and see how it ended up?

Oh, of course, and you – as I said, they were true tradesmen because I suppose the

skill they had, too.

So is that, the decorating department, has that basically changed?

Oh, totally. Totally. Machinery, very few decorating, I would say, what we call

decorating.

What sorts of things would they be decorating these days?

Well, basically they’re just a – well, what do they do up there? Machinery does the

icings for different things, the whole lot there, so it’s entirely different. The hands-

on work virtually has gone out of it.

So if you reflect back over your – how many years is it now, twenty, thirty – no,

when did you start? ’75.

’75.

Twenty-seven or so years, isn’t it?

Twenty-seven years.

What are the greatest changes you think you’ve witnessed?

I think owners’ attitude to the workers. Shop floor papers, that’s another one. And

attitude of the staff as well. The apprentices come in now, they might go to trade

school for the first year or something and they come and tell you what to do.

(laughs) I’ve been there, been down that road.

47

What about in terms of the processes in machinery? Is it unrecognisable from

what it was before, or would you say that – you know, you walk in there today,

does it look different?

Pastry section would be unrecognisable. Ours to a degree. As I say, the Coney,

that’s the yeast machine, the high speed mixers for the Tweedie and the makeup

table, I suppose, yes. We’ve still got a couple of old machines there still.

So have you got any other stories you’d like to tell, or anything that stands out,

incidents or – – –?

Not that I could think of, actually, no. I think I was very fortunate to come into

Balfour’s at that time, to be honest with you. I learnt a lot. Unfortunately they’re

not to my skills of today, so it’s – – –.

What do you feel you learnt or gained from those early years?

Coming from a factory – every factory has got its own way of doing things, and

that’s what you learnt, you know. Admittedly, you virtually can take a tradesman

from one place to another, but here must learn their way of doing things.

Can you give an example, I suppose?

As I said, I was fortunate with Sam Galea worked in the trade for forty-odd years.

As I said at the beginning, too, to work with people who actually can show you, but

they’ve got the gift of showing you so you can understand it. And there’s only –

actually, surprisingly enough, there were two young people that had that ability, and

when they left there was no great heart. I even said even to Jenny Lee when Patrick

Tilley left, I said, ‘Patrick was different.’ (laughs) Strange, he was so different. But

I said, ‘I’ve never worked with such a highly-qualified tradesman what could show

you not the way he does it, the way he knows you can do it, for the best ability to do

it.’ So that was basically, you know – – –. And they were true perfectionists.

In terms of the products, are there any favourites that you think they should have

kept, that have disappeared over the years?

Lifestyles change. Our round sponges were second to none. Our Easter products we

don’t make no more. The old favourite puddings we used to make were brilliant.

But yes, all – I would say going back even twenty years ago, what we were making

there were favourites.

48

Are there things you think will be phased out as you move?

Yes, definitely. I would say hands-on work should go. Basically, this day and age –

and it’s not only applicable to Balfour’s – is the dollar at the end of the day. They’re

out to make it, you know – and I think, unfortunately – I’m not putting the onus onto

them because they weren’t brought up into it or did that skills to it – it’s a job. You

know, we’re there to make money and it could be anything.

Okay. Unless you’ve got anything more to add –

No, that’s about it.

– I’ve covered the areas, and I’d like to thank you very much for – and I hope that

you have some future, (laughs) I guess, for your – – –.

No. See, I suppose I’m fortunate because I see – God’s good to me. If I’ve got the

ability to move on – that can go on tape. Years ago, actually, it was interesting. I

was working at Balfour’s, it was basically when we were doing the night shift, I used

to go cleaning houses, and that only started because a friend Jo couldn’t do it for one

day and she said, ‘Paul, would you like to fill in for me?’ And you’d be surprised –

God, it would kill me now – but I used to clean, it didn’t worry me.

That was one thing we didn’t actually discuss. Most of your time has been very

early morning or night shift, I guess. What’s that kind – how has your life

adapted around that kind of work?

Well, I think one of the things that is as prevalent today, you haven’t got so many

friends because basically once you turn down a barbecue or any party because you

had to work they don’t ask you again. And I said to them, ‘Right, now if I ask you

to come to my place at three o’clock in the morning to go to a party, you know you

wouldn’t come.’ I said, ‘That’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.’ But they

can’t see it.

Because your life’s turned backwards.

Totally around. And I think that’s why we had such a comradeship at Balfour’s, and

it still exists today. I think I was born an early person – – –. (tape ends)

END OF TAPE 2 SIDE A: TAPE 2 SIDE B

[In terms of the products, are there any favourites that you think they should have

kept, that have disappeared over the years?

49

Lifestyles change. Our round sponges were second to none. Our Easter products we

don’t make no more. The old favourite puddings we used to make were brilliant.

But yes, all – I would say going back even twenty years ago, what we were making

there were favourites.

Are there things you think will be phased out as you move?

Yes, definitely. I would say hands-on work should go. Basically, this day and age –

and it’s not only applicable to Balfour’s – is the dollar at the end of the day. They’re

out to make it, you know – and I think, unfortunately – I’m not putting the onus onto

them because they weren’t brought up into it or did that skills to it – it’s a job. You

know, we’re there to make money and it could be anything.

Okay. Unless you’ve got anything more to add –

No, that’s about it.

– I’ve covered the areas, and I’d like to thank you very much for – and I hope that

you have some future, (laughs) I guess, for your – – –.

No. See, I suppose I’m fortunate because I see – God’s good to me. If I’ve got the

ability to move on – that can go on tape. Years ago, actually, it was interesting. I

was working at Balfour’s, it was basically when we were doing the night shift, I used

to go cleaning houses, and that only started because a friend Jo couldn’t do it for one

day and she said, ‘Paul, would you like to fill in for me?’ And you’d be surprised –

God, it would kill me now – but I used to clean, it didn’t worry me.

That was one thing we didn’t actually discuss. Most of your time has been very

early morning or night shift, I guess. What’s that kind – how has your life

adapted around that kind of work?

Well, I think one of the things that is as prevalent today, you haven’t got so many

friends because basically once you turn down a barbecue or any party because you

had to work they don’t ask you again. And I said to them, ‘Right, now if I ask you

to come to my place at three o’clock in the morning to go to a party, you know you

wouldn’t come.’ I said, ‘That’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.’ But they

can’t see it.

Because your life’s turned backwards.

50

Totally around. And I think that’s why we had such a comradeship at Balfour’s, and

it still exists today. I think I was born an early person] – even on holidays I’m up at

four or five o’clock in the morning. I love that time of the day. So virtually I think

because of my – maybe that’s why I was so good at baking because that’s the time I

used to – you know. Also when we worked at nights, say finished at eleven at night,

you had a good sleep, you could do things in the day. Now there doesn’t seem – you

come home and there’s not enough hours in the day.

What are your hours again now?

Five to one. By the time I come home, take the dog for a walk, get a bit of tea for

myself, it’s time to have a shower and go to bed.

So you would have preferred the old times.

Yes, exactly. Yes, I loved it. I prefer to start at eight o’clock at night and finish at

four in the morning, come home, have your four hours’ sleep, then I used to go out

for the day, spend it with the dog or do something in the garden, then I always had

two or three hours before I went into work and that was fine.

What sort of atmosphere was there working at night in the city like that?

As I said, because the hotel used to open it was a great atmosphere, and I think that’s

why we all come together again, because all our other friends were working opposite

times and that’s why.

Was there something about working in the city? Has there been something about

working in the city?

I used to work down at Trimmer Parade, Seaton. We used to have the old car park

until they sold that and that was in Elizabeth Street the other side. Then they’ve got

an agreement with Truscott, Pitt Street there, and I was walking down Pitt Street,

coming from Pitt Street in the morning – I usually get there about just after four and

walk down and have a coffee before I start work – and I’m in Franklin Street and I

thought, ‘If anybody attacked me and if I screamed there’s nobody around.’

Actually, it really put fear – and they all think I’m strange because I take him for a

walk when I get up at three o’clock in the morning. They said, ‘Do you feel safe?’ I

said, ‘I feel more safe walking if I scream and scream out “Fire!” someone’s going

to come to my rescue. I scream out there there’s no-one around there.’ And several

51

times you get the derelicts that sleep in Truscott’s by there, and it is spooky. When

you start thinking of it it does give you the shivers a bit.

Is that now – was it –

That’s now.

– like that in the past, or – – –?

No, that’s now, more so now, because of what you hear what goes on in the city.

When you worked those early hours in the past was that something – – –?

No problems at all, no problems at all.

So in that respect you feel the city has changed.

Because everybody parked out in Franklin Street or you got a car park in the shed, so

you’re virtually straight out there to your car. Or you go round to the hotel. It used

to get open at eight or nine o’clock! So yes, there was a difference.

Okay. Well, I’d like to thank you very much for contributing to this project, and

wish you well for your future, whatever it may be.

Well, thank you very much, it’s been interesting. Yes, but it’s great.

Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW.