Transcript

He'd have big meetings with the coal miners who were all wanting to go on strike and there'd be a meeting between the coal miners and the coal mine owners, and with Mr Curtin sitting at the chair trying to negotiate peace between them and I'm very busy trying to take it all down, it was no easy job. These days they send Hansard in to do these things, but in those days ... That conference went on for three days. I was a very tired girl at the end of that. But they're the sort of things that we had to do.

He would have meetings with all sorts of other people, and he had one conference and I can't quite remember who it was with, but it was just when he was bringing the boys back from the Middle East and I remember him telling these gentlemen, 'I will not sleep a wink until they hit Australian shores.' And that's how he was: he took things very much to heart.

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