Experiences of the first moratorium
Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo
Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo was born in 1943, and had been involved in peace activities since she was a very small child, thanks to her father Sam Goldbloom, a key figure in the peace movement in Melbourne after World War 2. She was deeply opposed to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War from the beginning.
Transcript:
Alex
So what was the first moratorium itself like? 100,000 people in one place?
Sandra
Totally exhilarating. Unbelievable, really quite extraordinary. Dad had been saying to colleagues and comrades, we will have 40,000 people at this. "Oh Sam, for goodness sake, don't you know, don't be silly. That's, you know, so optimistic." "You'll see" - "no you'll see." I bumped into him - he was sort of racing up to Treasury Gardens. When I was - you know, people were still sort of moving down Bourke Street. "Dad, Dad!" - Turns around, comes over and he puts his arm around my shoulder. "Look at this," he says, "they said - I told them" ... and what did he say, I'm just trying to remember how it went... oh he said, that's right, he said "20,000 my arse. Look at this," he said - and he's such - "gotta go and he went off up Bourke Street to the Treasury Gardens. It was the most amazing thing. I came - where was I living, I must have been living in... 1970... Oh, I was still in Kew. I'm not sure how come I ended up on St Kilda Road, but you just - I might have stayed over somewhere. Anyway. You just - it was like 10 o'clock in the morning and it was like rush hour. But there's thousands of people on foot and on bicycles and the trams were backed up already down St Kilda Road. And in this story I've written about it I say you know "There was movement at the station." It was... people wearing buttons, holding flags, and the vibe in the air was just electric. It was just fantastic. People couldn't believe it.
Alex
What was it like to be a marshal? What sorts of things did you end up having to do on the day?
Sandra
Not much. "Move forward, move forward!" Because people kept coming - we ended up almost to Elizabeth Street. And over to Flinders Street, and almost to Lonsdale Street, and all the way up to the Treasury Gardens. It was phenomenal.
Alex
So you didn't experience any - like there were no problems? I know beforehand there were lots of discussions about there was going to be violence and so on. Was it Snedden...?
Sandra
Oh Snedden. And who was it, Bolte I think was the premier then? Yeah, moron.
Alex
No problems that you saw?
Sandra
How could you make problems with 100,000 people? You'd have a riot, you couldn't possibly... at two different points that I passed there were: "Jesus will save you" says a woman holding up a Bible. And another woman with a Bible had had some similar message, you know, "God will forgive you your sins,"... people just moved, there was nothing much for a marshal to do. All you could do was keep people moving down. So this was after the speeches. I can't remember the sequence actually. Maybe it was before the speeches, there were just so many people, you had to move them; they couldn't fit in the Garden. So all you could do is just keep people moving. And the street was just - the complete width of the street. I mean, there were just people hanging out of windows, office and shop windows, there were people on the street, some people joined in and lots of people applauding.
Alex
And the crowd was really varied, I understand? Like from the photos, it looks like there is a really big cross section of population - in terms of types of people.
Sandra
Well, you know, the ladies in the Kew branch of the Victorian Moratorium Committee, very well groomed, well heeled, expensive haircuts, and you go somewhere else and they, you know, just working class stiffs and long haired uni students. Yeah, that was the thing about it. That it was... people were mightily pissed off. They wanted the kids to come home - well, the whole lot to come home. It went across the board.
Notes:
Billy Snedden, the Federal Minister for Labour and National Service from 1969-71, was noted for having claimed in a speech to Parliament that protesters were “political bikies pack-raping democracy”.
Henry Bolte was the Premier of Victoria from 1955 until 1972.
Alva Geikie
Alva was born in 1936. Her father described himself as a socialist, and she describes her mother as “left of the Labor Party” and involved in the Aboriginal Advancement League. She says her objection to the Vietnam War developed over time, especially as information came out about the war.
Transcript:
Alexandra Pierce
What do you remember from that day?
Alva Geikie
I just remember attempting to count them. Because I knew the papers always underestimated things. And it was either - it might have been afterwards, when it had come out in the paper that so many people were involved. And I thought that doesn't sound right to me. And so I sort of counted, however many I thought would go. Like it was Spring Street down to Myers. That's how it was. It was just incredible. 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people. Yeah, and I reckoned there'd been about 100,000 people there and I think there probably were but I don't think the paper said that - have you looked in the papers of the time?
Alexandra Pierce
It depends on who you talk to and who you read, anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 are the estimates.
Alva Geikie
Exactly, yeah, I think - I think the papers well underestimated and of course they underestimate anything that's a complaint. They underestimated the Women's Liberation Movement demos as well, it suits them to underestimate things like that.
Alexandra Pierce
From that day with so many people around, did you feel intimidated? Or was it more exciting?
Alva Geikie
It was wonderful - it was absolutely fantastic. You know, to think that so many people sort of agreed with what you were thinking and had thought for a long, long time, and were prepared to come out, because a lot of people might think it but they don't come out necessarily, but I think - see, the picture started coming of all those children being bombed and running away from the war. And as I said, there was so much publicity, so many photos came out, and people were just getting horrified. And and so to go on those marches, it was, it was a wonderful thing. And of course, about that time - now when was the Springbok thing too?
Alexandra Pierce
Yeah, it's about that same time.
Alva Geikie
Exactly. So, you know, that was on as well. And so it was, as I said, it was a time of protest. And it well, it took quite a few years for for that march to happen - that big march to happen in '70. Because, as you know, it'd been going on for several years when people had started protesting. And, you know, it was exhilarating to be there; didn't feel a bit frightened at all. Everybody was smiling and happy. And - they weren't happy about the war, but they were happy about the protest. And ASIO was there, of course, taking all the pictures.
Alexandra Pierce
Alva, if you're working and studying at this time, what made you want to turn up on this particular day and be part of it?
Alva Geikie
I don't know, there must have been a lot of publicity beforehand. And, you know, Jim Cairns was in all that. And he was, you know, he was very thoughtful in what he was saying. And he was sort of prepared to be out front on it all, you know, it was a big deal. It must have been - must have been - well, people were giving out leaflets too for weeks ahead. And I probably got one of those as well, you know, hundreds of people giving out leaflets about about the war, and they probably gave a big one about the Vietnam War demo in 1970. You know, it was a build up I guess, to there.
Alexandra Pierce
And it just seemed like you needed to physically be present on the day to make yourself heard?
Alva Geikie
Oh, I mean, yes, exactly. If you don't, who knows? If you don't like some sort of protest, either writing letters, writing leaflets, ringing up MPs, annoying MPs, you know, demonstrating in the street, who knows, it's just all quiet. And a lot of people are like that in society, they, they've got opinions, and they might begin something, but they're not prepared to - I don't know why, but they're just not prepared to do it. And I mean, those people who went to jail, they were fantastic, you know, to go to jail. And of course, if you're working and you're - and I was not married, so, you know, wasn't any money in our family. If I didn't go to work, then I didn't eat and I didn't have a - I didn't have any money to pay the rent. So I wouldn't have gone to jail unless I absolutely had to. Maybe if I'd been arrested, I would've. But there wasn't a lot of arresting going on in those demos either. That I remember.
Note:
“The Springbok thing” was a protest against an Australian tour by the South African rugby team, during the Apartheid era.
Deborah Towns
Deborah was born in 1949. Her mother was involved with Save Our Sons as well as the Women’s Electoral Lobby. Deborah attended La Trobe University, and remembers going along to meetings about the Vietnam War and conscription on campus, and with people from her residential college.
Transcript:
Alexandra Pierce
I'm always fascinated by stories about the moratorium in May of 1970. You said you went - did you go with other students from La Trobe? Like, was that how you organised it?
Deborah Towns
Yeah, we would have gone in a bus, in the bus. I'm pretty sure buses were organised, probably by the student unions and so on. And no, we went in a great big group. And look, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I can remember standing on a seat I think, there was a seat up near, outside Parliament House on the other side of the road. So I would have been the corner of Bourke Street and Spring Street. Because I'm - when I'm passionate about something I really go. And I don't know if it was true, but the story was, the government or the police were deliberately redirecting trucks or trying to get trucks to turn left from Spring Street down Bourke Street to stop us from sitting down and marching because there was - many thousands there, I understand 100,000 sat down eventually, and the trucks being directed to go down and, you know, to, to not mow us down, but obviously to threaten us and everything. And I remember standing up there on the seat with somebody else and saying - pointing at them, and "go away" and you know, "don't do this" and "think of" you know, whatever and I just remember standing up there and doing that - I didn't have a loud hailer. But none of the trucks drove down. They didn't, they kept on going. But I understood there was a whole lot of trucks there. And we were told it - "oh look they're deliberately sending the trucks down to mow us down" and everything. But having seen what happened in Waterdale Road where the police did hit the students over the head and everything and there was - they were covered in blood and so on, I mean, you believed anything. I mean, you believed everything you were being told, and the terrible stories that were coming from Vietnam, and you know, it was just terrible. So I believed it; I believed it. And we - others of us did believe that the tracks were being directed toward us and so on. So, you know, but it was just - you just wanted to do something about it. You were just so horrified.
Note:
The Waterdale Road marches involved students from La Trobe University protesting against the Vietnam War. There were many allegations of police violence: see, for example, https://c21stleft.com/2020/09/12/resisting-state-violence-and-asserting-the-right-to-protest-the-waterdale-road-marches-melbourne-1970/
Faye Findlay
Faye was born in 1950. She was brought up as a Christian, and described herself as a pacifist. The 1970 moratorium was the only public demonstration that she was involved in, against the Vietnam War.
Transcript:
Alexandra Pierce
Did you go to the first moratorium march in 1970?
Faye Findlay
Yes, I did.
Alexandra Pierce
What made you decide to go to that?
Faye Findlay
I suppose some of it would be Jim Cairns. Even though my family, you know, didn't talk politics, my father was a laborer. And so therefore, I knew that they voted Labor. And I suppose that also falls in line with the community aspects of the church. So I was, I was Labor, you know, left leaning. Jim Cairns and the emphasis on peace, spoke to me. And by then, I was, I had just started working, having finished school with a little bit of trauma - I had to repeat leaving; I'm not an academic, and I repeated leaving and during that leaving University High kind of changed in that the deference to authority, kind of like slipped, and they didn't want to be tested. So things like underground newspapers, and you didn't have hats and gloves. And, you know, staff parading at Wilson Hall at the beginning of the year, and speech night at the end of year - that all, you know, crumbled in those two years. So I mean, I know it's no, these are kind of micro things that are happening, but they do seep through, you know, and influence you on a macro level. So that even though I was a timid little person, you know, and a loner, I went to the march because I thought that was the right thing to do. And I do have the recollections of looking across the street to the wall-to-wall people, and thinking this is significant. I mean, I've been to many marches since then. But that's, that's been the biggest one, and perhaps the most impactful.
Alexandra Pierce
So it wasn't a scary experience to be there with so many people?
Faye Findlay
I was always on the gutter edge, you know, I'm never literally in the centre of things, you know, I always want to know that I could slip into a store or - but though on that particular day, you kind of couldn't move except with the flow of people.
Alexandra Pierce
And did you get a chance to hear Jim Cairns or were there too many people in the way?
Faye Findlay
I don't recall; I only recall impressions, looking over the crowds that - how immense it was, but I am - or, no, I am - but even then, I was a pretty earnest type person. So I'm pretty sure I would have seen it from Treasury Gardens, you know.
Jan Muller
Jan was born in 1949, and was a student at La Trobe University. She was a teacher in 1970 but was still involved in La Trobe student protests, including the Waterdale Rd incident. She was arrested during that incident; this is what she says did not stop her from protesting.
Transcript:
So it didn't stop me from demonstrating. Because I also – and this is something else, you know, we didn't – we were all very secretive. There was another woman that worked in the school. It was a three-teacher school, mind you, there were only three of us. …
Anyway, come the moratorium day, the other teacher, the other woman teacher in the school said, "Oh, do you know what time we're finishing up for the holidays?" And I said, "I don't know, but I hope it's early." And she said, "Yes, so do I." And it – so it turned out that we were both wanting to go into the city to the moratorium.
It hadn't come out before then! Neither of us knew the other's politics.
And of course, the principal, the headmaster, he was called, he was a conservative old bugger, and so we weren't gonna let on to him. But we hadn't let on to each other, either. We'd had lunch together every day in the lunchroom. And we had never – we didn't have an inkling that either of us were supporting the moratorium.
Very secretive.
Janet McCalman
Janet was born in 1948. She came from a “very political family… very left wing”. She attended MLC (Methodist Ladies College), whose principal at the time was a Christian Socialist and an outspoken advocate of peace; the Methodist Church was also vocally against the Vietnam War.
Transcript:
Janet McCalman
It's difficult to convey to people now how oppressive Australia was: oppressive in terms that a lot of books were banned. If you expressed left wing views, you lost your job; I grew up with being told never to talk politics on the phone, never to disclose that my parents had radical views. My father had lost his job in the early 50s. So you know - and they weren't deeply involved in, you know, they were sort of on the fringes, but that still hurt them. So the left lived a fairly secretive life. And so to reach the point by 1970, where so many people turned out to march in the Vietnam moratorium was miraculous. It was an extraordinary feeling for the left of liberation. And they weren't alone any longer. That the things that they were talking about people were beginning to take seriously.
…
Alexandra Pierce
For you leading into the moratorium in 1970, you know, what sort of expectations did you have for that for that moratorium? Did you have any sense from the people you'd been speaking to that it would actually get so enormous?
Janet McCalman
No, no, I mean, it was an incredible surprise, and delightful surprise that - and the moment that we know the university people had come down from the top of Bourke Street by Parliament House, and the unions come up from West Melbourne, and suddenly, when we all saw each end of Bourke Street packed, I mean, ever since I've used that as my measure of how many people were in a demo, but it was extraordinary feeling of, of, of solidarity and of not being alone. And that the rest of the community, a lot of part of the community was feeling the same. I mean, in anticipation of it, there was a very big fear that there was going to be major violence. And my mother used to work in a laundrette in Prahran, East Prahran. And the owner of the laundrette's son was in the army. And while she was working, the day before, he'd come in and talked about how they were preparing to attack if they got the chance, or need - were needed, and how the strategy was that they were to fill up all the lanes along Bourke Street, which is why, one of the reasons why the Melbourne grid's designed that way, as a way you control restive natives that you can have possies of police and troops down side streets. They went prepared and they were expecting to be able to attack the demonstrators. And the police probably the same, I'm not sure but - and so, you know, she was very nervous. But she went on her own from home, my father went from work and I went from the university. But nothing happened because the numbers were far too big. No one expected it to be so big. And there hadn't been a demonstration of that size before, I think, ever in Melbourne, a political one. I mean, there'd been riots, there'd been bread riots, there'd been big riots over - in the 1920s. But nothing like this. So, you know, it's just too many people. And it was peaceful, and it just overwhelmed. So I think it was a very emotional day. And people felt suddenly that they could declare themselves; my parents' neighbour, he came home from work early, he saw my mum, and they said, did you go on a walk today? I went on a walk - you know. And so there's the sense that people had been hiding their views. Because you'd always had to hide your left wing views, you couldn't be open about it. And that might sit - be a bit odd to people today. But you really had to be extremely careful. These were big, dark family secrets.
Kaye Lovett
Kaye was born in 1947. She attended Monash University, where she started by being a member of the DLP (Democratic Labour Party, a conservative and anti-communist party) but soon changed allegiance to the Monash Labor Club, through which she was involved in many actions, including fundraising to send nonspecific aid to the NLF (National Liberation Front). Kaye describes herself as a pacifist at the time.
Note:
The Courier is the local Ballarat newspaper.
Transcript:
Kaye Lovett
But in 1970, I was sent to Ballarat, Ballarat Tech, and it was right next to the School of Mines. Anyway, I was very good friends with Michael Hyde. You know, there was all this thing going on in Melbourne about the moratorium and great meetings where people went and spoke and all this sort of stuff - huge meetings they were. Anyway, Michael said to me, You should start a moratorium in Ballarat. I said, Really? Anyway, Jeff, who was my English coordinator - he was a lovely man - I spoke to him and I found out he was a minister in the church in Ballarat. And when the Vietnam War started, he spoke out against it. It was so much criticism of him he was forced out of the church. And then there was a man called Austin McCallum who worked at the library. And he lost his job too, because he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Some very brave people, very brave people, much braver than young students who really didn't have that much to lose. Oh well, we did have things to lose that we didn't realise what we had to lose, I think, you know. Anyway, he said, Oh, well, he'd get in contact with people that he knew. And there was I know a teacher at Ballarat Grammar, I think. We had a meeting to start up a moratorium committee in Ballarat, and it was decided that what would happen would be that there would be a statement put in The Courier, a fairly lengthy paid statement against the war, quite long and analytical, but the thing was to get people's signatures. So we used to, you know, stand on the corner, outside the post office on Saturday mornings and gather signatures and things like that. And when - when it was eventually published in the Courier, well you can imagine - a small town - well, Ballarat was small, small town mentality; it caused incredible - I mean, people went through it to find who they knew had signed it, didn't they. And also, there was going to be a line of conscience in the main street on the day of the moratorium - people standing there with placards. Now, you have to realise that I was up there with two of my friends and their little child; we were very Melbourne oriented, didn't like being in the country. So we went to Melbourne for the moratorium. We didn't know what was going to happen because people like bloody Snedden talked about people pack-raping democracy. And you know, we thought we could get bashed by the police or anything, you know. But we went. And it was, of course, it was just amazing. It was probably one of the best experiences of my whole life. There was 100,000 people in the street. So that was amazing. I wasn't in the least bit intimidating, because the sheer weight of numbers - we were just so thrilled, and the range of people: all classes and you know, all that sort of thing. It was fantastic. It was the biggest demonstration of democracy in action I've ever seen. It was wonderful. Unfortunately, the powers that be have learned to ignore people's voice.
Kerry Dwyer
Kerry was born in 1943. She was involved in protesting against President Johnson when he came to Melbourne in 1966, and then was involved with a street theatre group in the 1970 moratorium.
Note:
La Mama is a theatre in Carlton, Melbourne.
Transcript:
Kerry Dwyer
So, but people that I knew did have - you know, my brother in law, his number came up, well, maybe he even volunteered, I don't know. But there were people who, whose number came up and they didn't want to go and they, you know, like conscientious objectors were - like John Zarb, for example, who was a student, he was, he was in prison. So when we did our street theatre for the big moratorium march in 1970 we had a whole set - we had a scene, a little scene, that - scenario that we would do this kind of weaving in amongst the crowd in our costumes that - and then stop and then do a, a Free Zarb image with him imprisoned, you know, back - front and behind with people making a cage you know, so things like that. So he became quite a figure for us, you know, because he would oppose conscription - he opposed war, basically.
Alexandra Pierce
Was the 1970 moratorium kind of one of your really big moments of street theatre? Had you been doing stuff before that as well?
Kerry Dwyer
We had but not to the same extent; that was the big one because we, the La Mama group, which was - which became this I don't know which was first, I think we already were the Australian Performing Group. We joined up with Tribe, which was a more, more - even more alternative group. And we did, we trained in the park opposite where we lived in Carlton Street, in acrobatics - we were very fit, you know, we'd trained up for it. And we created these images. And we, as a group, you know, there was quite a big group of us, and we created a whole stack of images. And yeah, I don't know, what else - how to describe it. It was - that was the biggest one. Yeah.
Alexandra Pierce
And had you been invited to do that? Or did you hear about the moratorium and say, we need to perform?
Kerry Dwyer
Oh we must have heard about it. We had connections, we had connections to people in that - on the left, and we must have heard about it. In fact, we would have heard about it. Yeah. And we decided to do it. It was our initiative, we weren't asked to do it. We decided we would do it. Yeah.
Alexandra Pierce
And I guess the question then is why - rather than just turning up and walking with everyone, why add the theatre element?
Kerry Dwyer
Why not? Because it created an image - because, you know, it creates something that will live in people's minds, it's an - it's an image, that's much, that's more potent, because it's more focused and more concentrated, and the message is very clear. And it's not just, you know, "Freedom, duh duh duh", and not just "Peace, freedom," all that sort of stuff. It's really, it's - it sort of draws the crowd in. So we, we would snake through the crowd, and then we would stop and create a space. So the people around us could stop on the march and watch this scenario, like the Free Zarb one, for example. And then - another one was the flying wedge, which was about, you know, the way that the police would attack us. So we'd have this triangular shape, and we sort of moved through the crowd toward - you know. I think those images are really - have a very powerful effect on people who watch them.
Alexandra Pierce
And at the time, did you get a good response, or - ?
Kerry Dwyer
Yeah. Oh, well, there were some people just walking on but we did basically get a good result. We also had a guy, a big tall guy who had a big bass drum and he was sort of "Boom!", you know? So we had a thing, but we - we did, we spread out through the long, through the length of the march. So we didn't, we didn't always hear that, that beat. But that was sort of - that galvanised us at the top, we were up at the top of Spring Street. We were all there gathering in the, in the park.
Alexandra Pierce
That's fantastic. In general, what was your experience of that moratorium like? How did it feel?
Kerry Dwyer
Oh, it was very - I felt very emotional, I felt very sort of uplifted. And to see Jim Cairns and Sam Goldberg, I think his name was - - heading the march - Goldbloom? Goldbloom. They were these tall, strong, confident men, anti war, you know, nothing namby pamby about them, they were strong men. And so I - it felt very, I felt very sort of consoled that there was strong men involved in this anti war demonstration, you know, and they were, they were really leaders. They were, they were behaving like the way I thought exemplary leaders should, should behave, you know. So that, that felt really good. And the fact that there were so many, I mean, we thought - I think The Age reported something like 70,000. But we, we thought there were way over 100,000. You know, really, it seemed - it was huge. The whole of Bourke Street, as far as you can see, was just all these people all united in this, you know, against the war, so that - if those sorts of, if that could actually have an effect in politics, that would be wonderful. I don't know how much effect it did actually have, but it certainly made us feel - made us feel stronger. It made us feel listened to, it made us feel that somehow or other history was on our side for a while, for a while, you know? Yeah, I mean, it was Holt, who really was the one who was so enthusiastic about the war, and then he got drowned, or we don't know what happened to him actually but he disappeared.
Mairi Neil
Mairi was born in 1953. She grew up in a family that was anti the Vietnam War, and was involved in Young Labor as a student.
Note:
Albert Langer was a student at Monash University, active in the Monash Labor Club and self-described as a “Maoist”.
Transcript:
Alexandra Pierce
Year 12, 1970. The moratorium. Do you remember how you heard about the moratorium coming up?
Mairi Neil
I think it was everywhere - it was on - it was always - it was discussed on the news. But I think we probably would have got a you know, information in through - because my brother or my brother who was at RMIT at the time, he would have brought information in. But I think it was everywhere.
…
Alexandra Pierce
To go back to kind of when your public demonstrations started then, how did you make the decision that you should ditch school and go to the moratorium? How do you come to that choice?
Mairi Neil
I just, I just felt I had to do that - that we had to show as much – it’d come, it’d come at a time, listening to Jim Cairns, he made a lot of sense - and after, I guess, I saw - as I told I used to - I kept a scrapbook about what was happening in America, the civil rights movement. And I thought, yeah, there's power in numbers. And what will it take? What will it take people to actually stop and [unclear] what they're doing, and listen. And it made sense, stop work to stop the war. And as I said to my dad, look dad - you know, my father was on strike once in the UK for about six weeks. And we actually - the only reason we, we were able - my mother said, the only reason she'd be able to feed us was my papa lived with us and his pension bought the food. So I said to dad, you know, you've withdrawn your labour, you know that's the only way - and he always used to say to us, that is the only weapon that workers have is their labour. So to me, it made perfect sense that if everybody said no, we're not doing it - you don't do it - people have to listen. And and I've never ever bought, like the idea - that my - I mean, I know a lot of the argument about well you're inconveniencing or you know, everybody for your political opinion. But as I said in my little article I wrote, well, nobody said that when Moomba blocked all the streets, nobody says that when the army marches through…
Alexandra Pierce
Had you found the moratorium intimidating because of the number of people who were there?
Mairi Neil
Oh, it was wonderful. That - no, it was wonderful - like I mean, the atmosphere was just amazing. I mean, I'm, I was very honest in that piece that I wrote, like stepping off the train like, wow. But there was - there was a group of you know, and they were - had been drinking or whatever outside Young and Jackson's - and they was like skinheads or whatever. And I mean, they were looking - and we were called all sorts of names. But you know, you just - yeah. And I wasn't actually someone that - because we lived at Croydon, I mean, going into the city was a real big Oh, you know, put on your best clothes. And if - it was a special outing. I would say that probably my mum had to give me the train fare. I didn't have any money of my own. So I had to work my way up to RMIT. And of course, the students there, they were in the - all the different clubs were going to be marching as their own thing. But I was to meet my brother. And of course, he was nowhere in sight. So that's why I ended up - I joined another group of students that turned out it was Monash - it was Albert Langer. And if there was going to be any trouble that day, it was - and they did; when we got to, when we got past the stock exchange, they had flour bombs all ready. And they did, they threw flour bombs, but the police ignored them. And everybody else said, No, don't stop, don't stop, keep going. So I think it was, there was only about two, you know, flour bombs. And I think they were even - you know, everybody could - was gobsmacked about how many. I mean, that was - there was 100,000 people. Like when you look at the city of - I think Jim Cairns - I think everybody was overwhelmed. And when we got down to sit in Bourke Street, like I worked my way up, because I was on my own then. So I just, oh, this is good. Elbowed my way, didn't had, didn't know - you know, I didn't have to be with anybody, didn't have to hold any banners, didn't have to do anything. So I managed to get right up sitting as close as possible to when - right in the centre of Bourke Street. And it was, it was just amazing. And then, you know, I think because there was so many people that turned out, that was a turning point. That people who were against the war, I think, felt a lot more courageous. To speak out too - like that, that, like, we're not alone. And, and some of the people that were dithering probably thought, wow, there's something to this, you know, maybe we should consider…
Sue Garner
Sue was born in 1952. She described herself as having grown up in a very conservative family, and as a Christian.
Note:
“EU” was the Evangelical Union (now known as the Christian Union), a student Christian group who meet on university campuses.
Transcript:
Alexandra Pierce
So in terms of the moratorium itself, did you like meet at university and go in together?
Sue Garner
We met at the EU, so the EU room was on the third floor of the Union Building, and we had our own room, which we - which all our social time was spent, we met there. And the leader of it was, of our little group was Ross Langmead, who has since passed away, and he led us with a guitar. So he was very much into protest songs, Peter, Paul and Mary, into that sort of stuff. And so we marched behind the - Christians for peace involved lots of different Christian groups. So church groups, lots of different Christian groups, but we had our own Melbourne Uni EU group. For - I can't actually remember how many people, I would say 20, but I really can't remember. But we were behind him playing his guitar walking down. So we met at the EU building, and we had banners. I was too scared to carry a banner. Because I felt like I was doing the wrong thing. Like I felt really naughty.
Alexandra Pierce
Why did you do it then?
Sue Garner
Because I respected the people that I'd met at EU. So this is May 1970, I'd only been there since February, but I respected their opinions enormously. But my sister who's more conservative than I am, even though they were originally her friends, she didn't march; she said "Sue, it's not the right thing to do because it's against the law". Whereas I decided to because I thought it was important, but I think looking back I really had no idea of the complexity of the issues. So we met on the third floor, we walked down through the Union - people watched us, whatever. And then of course, we then just walked down Swanston Street, which is where everyone walked. I was thinking last night whether it was Elizabeth Street, but I think it's Swanston Street -
Alexandra Pierce
I think it was Swanston and then the big sitting down was mostly in Bourke Street I understand.
Sue Garner
That's right. Yes, I remember, yes. So the Union was sort of like in the middle of Melbourne Uni, so you've got - we could have gone the Elizabeth Street way or the Swanston, so we walked through into the Swanson Street way and walked down Swanston Street and singing, actually Christian songs, which is a bit random.
Alexandra Pierce
Oh, there's a lot of peace in Christian songs.
Sue Garner
But also, how can you, you know, I could equally pray that Vietnam War was stopped. And someone else could equally pray that Vietnam War was justified. And I didn't understand those complexities when I was so young and terribly sheltered. So for me, it was a very naughty thing to do. And I'm wondering if in an old documentary, I may, in fact, be there somewhere behind that Christians for peace banner. And then the sit down was like, a bit frightening.
Alexandra Pierce
I can - like, because the estimates are, of course, you know, between 60 and 100,000 people: tens of thousands of people in one place -
Sue Garner
I know.
Alexandra Pierce
- sounds quite terrifying, in some ways.
Sue Garner
People with megaphones, and whatever. Yes. And, and I was terrified that I might be arrested.
Alexandra Pierce
Well, that's what - there was a lot of discussion about whether there would be violence, and so on, beforehand.
Sue Garner
Yes. I didn't see any violence. I'm not sure if there was, but I have no memory of violence.
Alexandra Pierce
Did you feel terrified the whole time? Or did it end up feeling okay?
Sue Garner
I felt terrified at the beginning. While we were marching, I found it quite exhilarating. And looking around and looking beyond my small group, our Melbourne Uni group, looking around and seeing other groups. And I was interested to see that there were, as I said, some were church groups, some were political groups. It was probably - probably one of the first things I did that extended, that broadened my mind, beyond my upbringing, because my upbringing was extremely conservative. And we were very protected. I don't know if I can say it, but my mother's main fear was that one of her four daughters might get pregnant. Like that was her focus in life. So that was - that was a sort of upbringing that we had; terribly narrow. But we had the youth group to our house every Sunday night. So it's not like we were closed. So marching in that moratorium, I feel proud that I was actually looking at other people that I would never have come across in my normal world
Andra Jackson
Andra was born in 1948. She was heavily involved in the Monash Labor Club, and the protests that they organised.
Transcript:
Alexandra Pierce
So by 1970, and the first moratorium, you attended that one in May 1970?
Andra Jackson
Yeah, yes. And I went to the meetings, which, if I recall correctly, the - as a delegate for the Labor Club - if I recall correctly, the meetings were in a hotel and - upstairs lounge of a big hotel in the city - and Jim Cairns, the late Jim Cairns, chaired the meeting. And there were groups from a wide range of backgrounds and philosophies that yes - and we within the Labor Club had debates about whether the moratoriums was just, you know, bourgeoise, middle class movement, and should we take part in it, but we did.
Alexandra Pierce
Yeah. So as the delegate to that, was that something that you volunteered for? Did somebody ask you to go along as the delegate? How did that work?
Andra Jackson
It was probably a bit of both. But the idea was that we'd try and influence the movement - the moratorium movement, and pull it a bit more to the left. That was always the strategy when we worked in with other groups that were off-campus, to be an influence within them.
Alexandra Pierce
Do you think you succeeded with the moratorium committees?
Andra Jackson
Well, I think, yeah, I think we were an influence, because we did put - put our views. Yeah, yeah. And we certainly were allowed to - all - we took, you know, Vietcong flags and made our presence felt.
Alexandra Pierce
So what was the moratorium itself like, on the day, for you?
Andra Jackson
Massive - I think we didn't expect the numbers that we did get, and the people, the range of backgrounds that people came from. It was the first time we really had a sense that we had been effective, and that we'd reached out to, you know, a wide range of community members, for example, when my mother marched, she was marching next to someone she hadn't met before, who was a policeman's wife. There were students, you know, young people, old people. It was - it was just overwhelming that so many people over a number of years, had had their opinions changed and had come across to oppose the war.