# Helen Garner's Fascination with Crime

An episode of [Australian True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1217681421), 29 Sep 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/064e983e-6b66-4ac8-b9b4-b486017ce919/a2cf1c91-6da0-4852-bbc3-b4cd00cb72a3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=201b0a18-0efe-46d6-956e-b3b6018a52e0

Recently, our friends at Law The Podcast recorded an episode with Helen Garner, and we thought it was too good not to share with our Australian True Crime audience. Enjoy! Show notes: Acclaimed Australian writer Helen Garner discusses her fascination with crime and how encounters with real-life cases have influenced her writing. You can watch our episodes on Youtube here. Hosts: Lex Lasry AM and Greg Barns SC Guest: Helen Garner Editor: Michael Tankard Produced by: Bravecasting Media Original music by Justin Humphries - Phoenix Sound Studios Email the show at lawthepodcast@gmail.com

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Welcome to Law of the Podcast. I'm Lex Lasry. I'm
[0:05] Speaker 1: Greg Barnes.
[0:05] Speaker 2: And Greg, we've had some terrific guests on this podcast.
[0:08] Speaker 1: Great start. Great start.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Over the short history, but today we've got something special
[0:12] Speaker 2: because we've got Helen Garner as our guest. So Helen,
[0:15] Speaker 2: welcome to Law of the Podcast.
[0:16] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[0:17] Speaker 1: For those who are under 30, Helen is an esteemed Australian. Indeed.
[0:23] Speaker 2: Novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, journalist. We'll go back a
[0:27] Speaker 2: little way, back to the start. It began in 1977
[0:30] Speaker 2: for you with Monkey Grip. That was the first thing
[0:32] Speaker 2: that First notable thing you did, I think.
[0:34] Speaker 4: Well, it was the first thing I did. I mean,
[0:35] Speaker 4: it was the first book I published, yeah.
[0:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, and as a result of keeping a diary, I
[0:39] Speaker 1: think that was our release date. Who published it, Helen?
[0:42] Speaker 4: Well, it was a publisher called McPhee Gribble.
[0:45] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[0:46] Speaker 4: The two run by two women.
[0:48] Speaker 1: Hilary McPhee, wasn't it?
[0:49] Speaker 4: Hilary McPhee and Diana Gribble.
[0:50] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[0:51] Speaker 2: Yeah. What we're keen to talk about, among other things,
[0:55] Speaker 2: today is your interest in the criminal law and where
[0:58] Speaker 2: that started and really why it happened. And I noticed
[1:01] Speaker 2: looking back over what you've done One of the things
[1:03] Speaker 2: you did was win a Walkley Award in 1993 for
[1:06] Speaker 2: a report you wrote in Time magazine. And it was
[1:10] Speaker 2: a report about the killing of Daniel Valerio by that
[1:14] Speaker 2: child's mother's boyfriend.
[1:16] Speaker 1: That's right.
[1:17] Speaker 2: Paul Douglas Aton. And obviously you developed an interest in
[1:21] Speaker 2: that case. Was that the first criminal type case that
[1:24] Speaker 2: you'd written about or taken an interest in?
[1:26] Speaker 3: I did have a friend whose stepdaughter had been murdered
[1:31] Speaker 3: and I was went to that trial with him of
[1:36] Speaker 3: the two people who were accused of murdering her and
[1:38] Speaker 3: her boyfriend. At the time, I thought he probably would
[1:41] Speaker 3: like to have some company sitting through that. But I
[1:44] Speaker 3: think that the subjects for me really was terrific curiosity.
[1:48] Speaker 3: And like a lot of people, I didn't know that
[1:50] Speaker 3: courts were open.
[1:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:52] Speaker 4: Most people don't know that.
[1:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't know that. It's incredible the number of
[1:55] Speaker 1: people say, can I come along?
[1:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, or they say to me, how did you get
[1:59] Speaker 3: permission to go to that trial? I'm going, hello, this
[2:02] Speaker 3: is a democracy.
[2:03] Speaker 4: Our courts are open.
[2:04] Speaker 1: We have open courts.
[2:05] Speaker 3: And the courts are sort of, they're acting in our
[2:08] Speaker 3: name as citizens. I was thunderstruck when I discovered that.
[2:11] Speaker 3: You know, I thought you had to like get a
[2:13] Speaker 3: stamped piece of paper from a judge or something.
[2:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you said in the past that when
[2:18] Speaker 2: you discovered the courts, it felt like you'd died and
[2:20] Speaker 2: gone to heaven because there was so much to write
[2:23] Speaker 2: about and so much to observe. Is that how you
[2:25] Speaker 2: still feel about it?
[2:26] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I do love it. If I walk into
[2:29] Speaker 3: a court, I'd get this terrific shot of adrenaline and happiness,
[2:33] Speaker 3: I think. I mean, even if I know that I'm
[2:35] Speaker 3: going to be sitting through something gruelling and a lot
[2:39] Speaker 3: of suffering, I love the idea of the law, that
[2:42] Speaker 3: it's this huge thing that we've invented to try to
[2:49] Speaker 3: handle what's really dark and bad in people. And that's
[2:53] Speaker 3: what it sitting through a trial is to me is
[2:56] Speaker 3: watching that effort. And I find it terribly thrilling and moving.
[3:01] Speaker 2: And you like the formality of it too, don't you?
[3:03] Speaker 4: Yes, I do.
[3:04] Speaker 3: I think they should wear wigs.
[3:06] Speaker 4: Oh, Helen.
[3:08] Speaker 2: Helen.
[3:10] Speaker 3: Wigs and brogues.
[3:11] Speaker 1: Helen, we were getting on so well.
[3:13] Speaker 3: Well, you can take your wig off after you come in.
[3:16] Speaker 1: Okay.
[3:17] Speaker 3: No, I do think it's quite important for lawyers to
[3:20] Speaker 3: differentiate themselves from some person who's just walking down the street.
[3:24] Speaker 4: I mean, because you're carrying, you're.
[3:26] Speaker 3: Trained to carry an enormous amount of our projections. There's
[3:31] Speaker 3: a word called nuffy that people apply to me when
[3:34] Speaker 3: I write about football, and that is, I'm not exactly
[3:38] Speaker 3: sure what it means. I think it means a kind
[3:40] Speaker 3: of passionate but ignorant.
[3:42] Speaker 1: Ignorant, yes, certainly means ignorant.
[3:44] Speaker 3: Attachment to some big thing. And, well, I'm sort of, enoughy.
[3:49] Speaker 3: I still remember moments when I've been in court, when
[3:54] Speaker 3: I've been thunderstruck by something that happened. The two people
[3:58] Speaker 3: who were accused of murdering my friend's stepdaughter and her boyfriend,
[4:06] Speaker 3: they were a couple of junkies. They were soldiers, actually,
[4:09] Speaker 3: both of them. And they were roaming around the bush
[4:11] Speaker 3: and they came across these two kids quietly asleep in
[4:14] Speaker 3: the back of their ute. And so they murdered the
[4:17] Speaker 3: kids and stole the ute and drove to Sydney and
[4:19] Speaker 3: parked it up on the cross while they went out
[4:21] Speaker 3: to score. Wow. And so there was a man and
[4:24] Speaker 3: a woman. They were a couple. So we sat through
[4:27] Speaker 3: this trial and everybody in the court was feeling filled
[4:32] Speaker 3: with loathing for these two creatures who killed these young,
[4:36] Speaker 3: lovely kids. And at the end, I think the judge,
[4:40] Speaker 3: I think it was Phil Cummins, actually, Justice.
[4:42] Speaker 4: Cummins, and But he, at the end, he said what.
[4:46] Speaker 3: I now realise is his charge. I was just sitting
[4:49] Speaker 3: there completely ignorant of what was going on. But he
[4:52] Speaker 3: said to the jury, you may not find the woman
[4:57] Speaker 3: guilty on this charge. The evidence against her is not
[5:00] Speaker 3: sufficient to support a guilty verdict. And everyone in the
[5:05] Speaker 3: place was thinking, That bitch, she should die. We should
[5:09] Speaker 3: kill her.
[5:09] Speaker 4: You know, I mean, with the loathing that people felt.
[5:12] Speaker 3: But at that moment when he said that, I sort
[5:16] Speaker 3: of almost keeled over with wonder and awe and I
[5:21] Speaker 3: thought they really do have to prove it.
[5:23] Speaker 1: Yes.
[5:24] Speaker 3: I felt at that moment that I've talked about this
[5:27] Speaker 3: before and I hope it doesn't sound sentimental, but at
[5:31] Speaker 3: that moment I felt in the room there was some
[5:33] Speaker 3: enormous presence of And I think that it was the
[5:37] Speaker 3: spirit of the law.
[5:38] Speaker 1: There is a temptation in all of us to want
[5:42] Speaker 1: to see a person suffer if they've been charged with something.
[5:46] Speaker 1: And I think it's even more evident now in the
[5:48] Speaker 1: media coverage, which is always less than circumspect in the
[5:54] Speaker 1: lead up to trials. But, you know, one of the
[5:57] Speaker 1: issues for jurors is they're lay people for all walks
[6:03] Speaker 1: of life. How do you put out of your mind,
[6:06] Speaker 1: you know, someone who you've been watching for six weeks
[6:10] Speaker 1: and hearing about the terrible things they've done. It's an
[6:14] Speaker 1: extraordinary ask. It is.
[6:16] Speaker 2: And that relates to another thing that I know you've
[6:19] Speaker 2: said in the past, Helen, which is that one of
[6:21] Speaker 2: your curiosities, and I think particularly this might have applied
[6:25] Speaker 2: in the Farquharson trial, one of your curiosities is to
[6:28] Speaker 2: actually have a look at what the accused person looks
[6:31] Speaker 2: like because you hear about what they've done, you're expecting
[6:34] Speaker 2: this sort of monster reaction chained to the seat in
[6:36] Speaker 2: the courtroom.
[6:37] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[6:38] Speaker 2: And I think what you've said you found was that
[6:40] Speaker 2: you got in and had a look and what you
[6:42] Speaker 2: see is a person who has been involved in a
[6:44] Speaker 2: tragedy and who's totally broken by it.
[6:46] Speaker 3: A broken person. That's the word that comes to my mind.
[6:49] Speaker 3: I mean, I have seen some really nasty looking people
[6:53] Speaker 3: in the dock who didn't look broken and who bloody
[6:56] Speaker 3: well ought to have been.
[6:57] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[6:57] Speaker 3: But, yes, I have noticed that, that there's something kind
[7:01] Speaker 3: of pitiful about them. Their foot has gone through the floor.
[7:05] Speaker 3: And they've gone to where most of us don't go
[7:10] Speaker 3: and don't have to go.
[7:12] Speaker 1: Can I take you back to Joe Chinquay's consolation and declarations?
[7:16] Speaker 1: I was in the case.
[7:17] Speaker 2: The case involved two people who were charged with the
[7:20] Speaker 2: murder of the boyfriend of a lady called Anu Singh.
[7:24] Speaker 2: And my client was Madhavi Rao. And at the time
[7:28] Speaker 2: that you came into that case, my client was having
[7:30] Speaker 2: a separate trial before a judge alone, I think.
[7:33] Speaker 1: Yes.
[7:34] Speaker 2: And- I would have thought my client, Mardavi, was in
[7:36] Speaker 2: that same category, a sort of she was a diminutive,
[7:40] Speaker 2: very reserved, shy young woman who was accused of assisting
[7:44] Speaker 2: Anu Singh in the killing of Jai Chinquay.
[7:47] Speaker 1: Was that the impression you had of her?
[7:49] Speaker 3: I got a blankness of her. I couldn't read her.
[7:51] Speaker 1: Blankness, yeah.
[7:52] Speaker 3: And partly because having seen Anu Singh, who was the
[7:57] Speaker 3: person who actually put the needle in his arm.
[7:59] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[8:00] Speaker 3: Who was a very flamboyant person, you know, a sort
[8:03] Speaker 3: of sex bomb with.
[8:05] Speaker 1: Lots of … Yes, she was. Yeah. That's right.
[8:07] Speaker 3: That's just what she was. So Mardavi Rao was her
[8:11] Speaker 3: so-called best friend.
[8:12] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[8:13] Speaker 3: But it interested me to think about that because, you know,
[8:16] Speaker 3: all through my life I've noticed this. You'll see a
[8:18] Speaker 3: pair of girls, they're, you know, supposedly best friends, and
[8:21] Speaker 3: one of them will be a seething sex bomb, and
[8:24] Speaker 3: I'm talking like 14, 15-year-olds, and the other one is …
[8:29] Speaker 3: modest and shy and she's still got one foot in
[8:33] Speaker 3: childhood and the other one's out there ready to go.
[8:37] Speaker 3: And I thought that these two were another example.
[8:39] Speaker 4: Of that pairing.
[8:40] Speaker 1: Were they convicted?
[8:42] Speaker 2: Well, it's a complicated story, but no, my client wasn't convicted.
[8:47] Speaker 2: Anu Singh ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter, I think, and
[8:51] Speaker 2: served a quite modest sentence for that.
[8:54] Speaker 3: A lot of which she spent at... the uni finishing
[8:59] Speaker 3: her criminology degree.
[9:01] Speaker 1: Wow, that's right.
[9:02] Speaker 2: The only way Anu Singh could have been convicted is
[9:04] Speaker 2: if my client had given evidence against her, which was
[9:07] Speaker 2: offered and not accepted.
[9:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[9:10] Speaker 2: You said in one interview that you're never surprised when
[9:12] Speaker 2: you hear about a woman murdering someone. It doesn't surprise you.
[9:16] Speaker 2: A lot of people are shocked at the idea that
[9:18] Speaker 2: a woman would kill someone deliberately, but you're not.
[9:20] Speaker 1: Are you?
[9:22] Speaker 2: No.
[9:22] Speaker 3: There's an enormous amount of repressed rage in women.
[9:26] Speaker 1: Yeah. And.
[9:28] Speaker 3: It's because we get a bump steer in a lot
[9:32] Speaker 3: of ways and we're obliged to control ourselves, to control
[9:38] Speaker 3: our rage. We're not supposed to, you know, men aren't
[9:41] Speaker 3: supposed to express their softer feelings that make them look
[9:45] Speaker 3: womanly and women aren't supposed to be angry.
[9:49] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[9:50] Speaker 4: Although we've got plenty to be angry about.
[9:52] Speaker 3: I think the sort of suppression of rage that there
[9:56] Speaker 3: is in women's lives is often underestimated.
[10:00] Speaker 2: It sort of takes us to the Erin Patterson case
[10:02] Speaker 2: because you sat and observed that. You and two colleagues
[10:05] Speaker 2: or two friends, I think, also writers, wrote about it
[10:09] Speaker 2: after the case was over. And there was an example
[10:12] Speaker 2: of a woman killing members of her family. I wonder
[10:16] Speaker 2: if you were perplexed in that watching that trial about
[10:20] Speaker 2: what her motivation was for doing what she did.
[10:23] Speaker 3: Yes, and I was very relieved when the judge kept
[10:25] Speaker 3: saying to the jury, you don't have to prove a motive.
[10:28] Speaker 3: The prosecution doesn't have to come up with a motive
[10:31] Speaker 3: or prove it. And I thought, oh, thank God, because I,
[10:34] Speaker 3: like a lot of people, I just could not figure
[10:37] Speaker 3: out why she did what she was found to have done.
[10:41] Speaker 3: I still don't get it. And the judge said to
[10:45] Speaker 3: the jury... Motive is this mysterious thing. I think that
[10:49] Speaker 3: it's almost irrelevant because, as he said, we don't know
[10:53] Speaker 3: why other people do things, and often the person who
[10:56] Speaker 3: does them doesn't know either. It's not like you think,
[11:00] Speaker 3: I am really mad with them, therefore I'm going to
[11:03] Speaker 3: kill them. You're just thinking you're so seething with, once again,
[11:07] Speaker 3: repressed rage, and it's painful. You notice that sometimes after
[11:12] Speaker 3: someone's killed someone, they don't seem to have a plan.
[11:16] Speaker 1: To what to do next. Yeah, that's right.
[11:17] Speaker 3: They don't, they just like go home or just sit
[11:21] Speaker 3: out the front. I always think that maybe, you know,
[11:24] Speaker 3: they're in such pain and madness inside themselves that they
[11:28] Speaker 3: can't imagine any further than the death stroke.
[11:32] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:32] Speaker 3: I'm going to kill that person. I'm going to kill them.
[11:34] Speaker 3: I'm going to kill them. And that's the end of
[11:36] Speaker 3: where their imagination goes. And they're not thinking, and after
[11:39] Speaker 3: I've killed them, then I'll hop in my car and
[11:41] Speaker 3: I'll speed off and hide in the bush.
[11:43] Speaker 1: Well, you.
[11:44] Speaker 2: You spend some time contemplating what Robert Farquharson did in
[11:49] Speaker 2: the trial that he was charged with the murder of
[11:52] Speaker 2: his three children. And people will probably no doubt remember,
[11:55] Speaker 2: he was alleged to have driven the car into a
[11:58] Speaker 2: dam near Winchell Sea, got himself out, but the three
[12:00] Speaker 2: kids in the back drowned. And he got out of
[12:03] Speaker 2: the car, went to the bank, the edge of the dam,
[12:06] Speaker 2: hailed down a passerby, and he had a particular request,
[12:08] Speaker 2: which was, take me into Winchell Sea so I can
[12:11] Speaker 2: tell my wife the children are dead.
[12:12] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it was bizarre, that case. It was.
[12:16] Speaker 1: I think Peter Morrissey, who acted in it, was convinced
[12:20] Speaker 1: of the innocence. Utterly convinced. Of Farquharson. Utterly convinced, yeah.
[12:23] Speaker 3: But can I just say that when they applied to,
[12:26] Speaker 3: he was trying to get a hearing in High Court,
[12:28] Speaker 3: before the High Court, and three judges came down, and
[12:32] Speaker 3: on that day, Peter Morrissey who had 20 minutes to
[12:35] Speaker 3: come up with something, he said, words to this effect,
[12:39] Speaker 3: these are not my instructions, if you're honest, but I
[12:42] Speaker 3: think that it was a suicidal driving into the dam.
[12:47] Speaker 3: And I remember when that was raised during the actual trials,
[12:53] Speaker 3: I noticed that the look of rage that crossed Farquharson's
[12:57] Speaker 3: face And the idea, and he looked at his sisters.
[13:01] Speaker 3: He had two very loving and faithful sisters, decent women.
[13:05] Speaker 3: And he looked at them and he was scowling and
[13:08] Speaker 3: shaking his head furiously just to say, of course I
[13:12] Speaker 3: wouldn't kill myself.
[13:13] Speaker 4: And I was thinking.
[13:16] Speaker 3: Does he think that suicide is worse than murder?
[13:18] Speaker 1: Well, he'd stuck to the.
[13:20] Speaker 2: I mean, his defence in that case was that he
[13:22] Speaker 2: suffered a coughing fit.
[13:23] Speaker 1: That's right. And lost consciousness.
[13:25] Speaker 3: That's right.
[13:25] Speaker 1: Which led him to turn.
[13:26] Speaker 2: Because he had to turn right across an oncoming lane
[13:29] Speaker 2: into the dam. And he said that happened because he
[13:32] Speaker 2: had this condition called cough syncope, which caused him to
[13:35] Speaker 2: black out.
[13:35] Speaker 1: So that was always his position. And there was some
[13:36] Speaker 1: medical evidence. There was a lot of medical evidence. Yeah.
[13:40] Speaker 4: But there are people who.
[13:43] Speaker 3: who are very keen to get him another trial.
[13:45] Speaker 4: And every now and then I hear from them.
[13:47] Speaker 2: Yes.
[13:48] Speaker 3: And like every couple of years I get a letter
[13:50] Speaker 3: from somebody saying, oh, Helen, I am so-and-so, I am
[13:55] Speaker 3: an astrophysicist who has gone through all the major collision
[14:00] Speaker 3: evidence and I think that it's wrong and I think
[14:04] Speaker 3: he's been wrongly convicted. But the trouble is they say
[14:06] Speaker 3: when we try to get people's attention for this, they say, oh,
[14:09] Speaker 3: but I've read Helen Garner's book about this. about this
[14:12] Speaker 3: case and really there's nothing more to.
[14:15] Speaker 4: Be said about it as far as.
[14:16] Speaker 3: And so they present this to me in a very
[14:19] Speaker 3: challenging tone. It's like they're saying your book is an
[14:22] Speaker 3: obstacle to the truth. And they ask and sometimes demand
[14:26] Speaker 3: that I should renege on my book and come out
[14:29] Speaker 3: and read their examination of the evidence. and come out
[14:32] Speaker 3: and make a public statement to the effect that I was.
[14:34] Speaker 4: Wrong in my book.
[14:35] Speaker 3: And I say, but my book is full of doubt.
[14:38] Speaker 3: There's doubt on every page.
[14:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. But your book was about the case. Yes.
[14:42] Speaker 1: I mean, you weren't writing the book barracking for a
[14:45] Speaker 1: conviction or an acquittal.
[14:46] Speaker 3: No, exactly.
[14:46] Speaker 1: You were simply recording what happened in court. Yeah. The
[14:49] Speaker 1: other thing is that, you know, having had people come
[14:51] Speaker 1: to me about wrongful convictions, and one case in Tasmania
[14:54] Speaker 1: I'm thinking of, people are passionate about it. I mean,
[14:58] Speaker 1: it becomes, for some people, a life project.
[15:01] Speaker 3: Yes.
[15:02] Speaker 4: I think that's what's happening here.
[15:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, that a person's been wrongly convicted and the sense
[15:07] Speaker 1: of rage and injustice that people feel. It's not an
[15:12] Speaker 1: academic exercise.
[15:13] Speaker 4: No, it's a possession. It's quite powerful and obsessive.
[15:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[15:19] Speaker 3: Well, I've managed each time I just write back and
[15:22] Speaker 3: I say, look, I spent seven years on this and
[15:25] Speaker 3: it's enough. It was terribly distressing. If the law could
[15:28] Speaker 3: find that he was innocent, I wouldn't.
[15:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[15:31] Speaker 3: That's not what, you know.
[15:32] Speaker 1: You'd be happy with the result.
[15:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say, well, you've let the law do its job.
[15:36] Speaker 2: And indeed, at the start, I mean, this journey, this
[15:39] Speaker 2: Farquharson journey for you started when you saw it on
[15:41] Speaker 2: the news.
[15:42] Speaker 1: Yeah. On television. Yes, it did.
[15:43] Speaker 2: And do you recall later saying to yourself when you
[15:46] Speaker 2: saw it, please let this be an accident?
[15:48] Speaker 1: Yeah. Because anything else is too horrible to contemplate.
[15:51] Speaker 4: It's horrible to contemplate.
[15:52] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask you about another topic, which is, again,
[16:05] Speaker 1: relating to the law? Your wonderful book, which I remember
[16:10] Speaker 1: reading at the time when it came out, The First Stone,
[16:13] Speaker 1: which for those who don't know, the book is essentially
[16:17] Speaker 1: about a case at a university college in Melbourne where
[16:20] Speaker 1: the allegation was that the master of the college had
[16:22] Speaker 1: touched one or two women inappropriately and there was a
[16:28] Speaker 1: hearing where he was found guilty. Then I think there
[16:31] Speaker 1: was a county court appeal where that conviction was set aside.
[16:35] Speaker 1: He'd made a statement at a very early time about
[16:39] Speaker 1: the dynamics, power dynamics, but also the nuance in that
[16:44] Speaker 1: issue around women, power, violence. The Me Too movement came afterwards,
[16:51] Speaker 1: but you really were a almost the first word on
[16:54] Speaker 1: this issue, Helen, in my view. Where do you think
[16:56] Speaker 1: that debate's gone over the past 30 years?
[16:59] Speaker 3: Well, it's gone way past where I dared to go.
[17:03] Speaker 4: I mean, I'd be strung up if I published that
[17:05] Speaker 4: book now.
[17:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, that it would be seen
[17:08] Speaker 1: as being highly regressive. Yeah.
[17:11] Speaker 3: I mean, I've been a feminist for a generation, and
[17:14] Speaker 3: that's in a way what struck me, why the case
[17:18] Speaker 3: caught my attention, because I thought, is this what feminism is?
[17:22] Speaker 3: You know, this slightly drunk guy gets carried away, puts
[17:26] Speaker 3: his hand on someone's breast, and now he's up on
[17:30] Speaker 3: an assault charge. And I thought about all the women
[17:33] Speaker 3: I know. We all talked about it, the women of
[17:35] Speaker 3: my generation. We thought, why don't they? We just couldn't
[17:38] Speaker 3: believe it. It seemed so disproportionate to us. But after
[17:43] Speaker 3: the book came out, my God, did I cop shit.
[17:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember. Yeah. I remember. I remember.
[17:49] Speaker 3: You should see some of.
[17:49] Speaker 4: The letters that I got.
[17:50] Speaker 3: They're all in the National Library in case anyone's interested.
[17:54] Speaker 1: I'm sure people are.
[17:56] Speaker 3: No, they're not allowed to read them unless I let them.
[17:58] Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
[17:59] Speaker 3: But be that as it may, I was kind of
[18:02] Speaker 3: shocked by the insanity of the rage, like what you
[18:07] Speaker 3: were talking about before, these insulting letters that I got
[18:10] Speaker 3: from people. And a lot of them were young women
[18:13] Speaker 3: who had just come out of cultural studies or whatever
[18:15] Speaker 3: it was at uni and they were They were full
[18:18] Speaker 3: of jargon, but they would write and say, I refuse
[18:22] Speaker 3: to buy your book. I don't want you to get
[18:24] Speaker 3: any of my money, but I know everything that it says.
[18:27] Speaker 3: I know what it says. I haven't read it, but
[18:29] Speaker 3: I know what it says, and I'm absolutely against it,
[18:32] Speaker 3: and I think you're outrageous and should be burned at
[18:34] Speaker 3: the stake.
[18:35] Speaker 4: So it was quite shocking.
[18:36] Speaker 1: That would have been one of the– I mean, that's
[18:38] Speaker 1: common now, these personal attacks on people for having what
[18:42] Speaker 1: are regarded as a contrarian view– But that was the
[18:46] Speaker 1: early days of that style of vigilantism.
[18:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, of course, it was all in letters.
[18:52] Speaker 1: Yeah. Now you'd be inundated with emails. Emails. Or social
[18:56] Speaker 1: media posts. And social media. Yeah.
[18:58] Speaker 3: But, you know, what I was going to say was
[19:00] Speaker 3: as the years have passed, I get letters occasionally from
[19:03] Speaker 3: women and they say, look, I'm writing to apologise to you.
[19:07] Speaker 3: For the awful bitchy letter I wrote you back in
[19:09] Speaker 3: 98 or whatever year it was, I got out into
[19:11] Speaker 3: the world and I saw that things were not as
[19:14] Speaker 3: black and white as I'd thought they were when I
[19:17] Speaker 3: was at uni. And I think that's really big of
[19:20] Speaker 3: them to write and not just to apologise but to
[19:23] Speaker 3: say things weren't the way I narrowly saw. And that's
[19:28] Speaker 3: a great relief to me to think that people have
[19:30] Speaker 3: got the grace to do that.
[19:31] Speaker 1: Do you still get, though, I mean, given where that
[19:34] Speaker 1: debate's gone– and the shift in that debate in the
[19:37] Speaker 1: last 30 years, do you still get people who write
[19:40] Speaker 1: to you saying, you know, how wrong you were and
[19:45] Speaker 1: what's happened since?
[19:46] Speaker 3: I think it's gone into the past now, Has it?
[19:48] Speaker 3: But I did notice that recently I published a book
[19:50] Speaker 3: about my grandson's under-16 AFL footage.
[19:52] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
[19:53] Speaker 1: I was going to ask you that. A cracker of
[19:54] Speaker 1: a book. Let's talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about that.
[19:56] Speaker 4: Wait on, wait on.
[19:56] Speaker 3: I just want to tell you.
[19:57] Speaker 1: Keep going now, Helen. We've got to talk some footy
[19:59] Speaker 1: on the show at some stage.
[20:00] Speaker 3: I just want to tell you I got a lot
[20:02] Speaker 3: of favourable feedback from that. But a young woman wrote
[20:06] Speaker 3: to me. And she said she thought it was outrageous
[20:10] Speaker 3: because in it, my grandson, who was the sweetest, loveliest boy,
[20:15] Speaker 3: had said to me in the book, and I'll put
[20:18] Speaker 3: it in the book, I say, what's the matter?
[20:21] Speaker 4: What's the matter?
[20:21] Speaker 3: You seem unhappy today. And he said, girls are the
[20:25] Speaker 3: bane of my existence. And so I thought this was hilarious.
[20:29] Speaker 3: And he meant because he's the girl he wanted to be,
[20:31] Speaker 3: his girlfriend wouldn't make up her mind between him and
[20:34] Speaker 3: some other boy. So this girl said, in that football book,
[20:39] Speaker 3: you actually say, your grandson says, girls were the bane.
[20:42] Speaker 4: Of his existence, as if this was an anti-feminist statement.
[20:46] Speaker 3: I just laughed.
[20:46] Speaker 1: From a 15-year-old kid.
[20:47] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[20:48] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[20:49] Speaker 2: So your book towards the end of your career, not
[20:52] Speaker 2: that your career is over, but it is the most
[20:53] Speaker 2: recent thing you've written, isn't it?
[20:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, except for the Mushroom book.
[20:56] Speaker 1: Apart from the Mushroom book, yeah. Was that a work
[20:58] Speaker 1: of pleasure, just writing about your son's footy?
[21:00] Speaker 3: It was a work of total bliss and joy.
[21:03] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[21:04] Speaker 4: Never been so happy in my life writing.
[21:05] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[21:07] Speaker 2: And does that come in part because of the fun
[21:09] Speaker 2: of underage sort of local football as opposed to the
[21:13] Speaker 2: professionalism of the AFL?
[21:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, that.
[21:15] Speaker 4: Well, our family, our whole family follows the Western Bulldogs and,
[21:18] Speaker 4: you know, that's my interest. But my grandson, he'd been
[21:21] Speaker 4: playing footy since he was, you know, in the under
[21:23] Speaker 4: eights and I couldn't have been more bored and I
[21:27] Speaker 4: used to go out of loyalty.
[21:28] Speaker 3: But then as he got more huge and big, you know,
[21:32] Speaker 3: I suddenly was in the under 16s and I thought,
[21:35] Speaker 3: I haven't got any– I said to him, would it
[21:38] Speaker 3: be all right with you if I started coming to
[21:39] Speaker 3: training to watch?
[21:41] Speaker 4: And he goes, why?
[21:42] Speaker 1: Why would you do that?
[21:44] Speaker 3: I said, I don't know.
[21:45] Speaker 1: I'm bored.
[21:46] Speaker 4: I haven't got anything to write about. It'd be really fun.
[21:48] Speaker 3: He goes, you'll have to ask the coach.
[21:51] Speaker 4: And I go, who's the coach? And he goes, it's Archie.
[21:53] Speaker 3: And because Archie was this boy who lived around the corner.
[21:57] Speaker 3: So I go to Archie and say, so Archie, here's my,
[22:00] Speaker 3: here's permission. And so then I started going. I went
[22:05] Speaker 3: training twice. I used to drive him down to the
[22:09] Speaker 3: ground and then I used to kind of fade out
[22:10] Speaker 3: because nobody wants to turn up at training with their
[22:12] Speaker 3: nana in tow. And just the joy of it, you know,
[22:17] Speaker 3: just watching. And I began to understand more about the game.
[22:21] Speaker 3: I loved watching the drills and how the coach was,
[22:25] Speaker 3: what he was teaching them.
[22:26] Speaker 4: And not one of those boys... ever gave me eye.
[22:30] Speaker 3: Contact or greeted me. I was at all the matches
[22:33] Speaker 3: and I was at the training twice a week and
[22:35] Speaker 3: they would just arrive and I now understand what tunnel
[22:39] Speaker 3: vision is.
[22:40] Speaker 1: Yes. Because these kids.
[22:41] Speaker 3: Would arrive at the park and they'd sort of march
[22:46] Speaker 3: or they'd pedal up on a bike and you'd get
[22:48] Speaker 3: off their bike and they'd just fling it to one
[22:49] Speaker 3: side like that without looking, just throw their bike and
[22:52] Speaker 3: they'd dump their bag and just keep walking. And I
[22:56] Speaker 3: grew up with girls. And girls go, oh, I'll just
[22:58] Speaker 3: put this here and I'll look around. So I noticed
[23:02] Speaker 3: this tunnel vision thing.
[23:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[23:04] Speaker 3: And I noticed this is something they have to fight against,
[23:07] Speaker 3: like to teach them to, the coach was always saying,
[23:09] Speaker 3: look wide, look wide.
[23:11] Speaker 4: I could hear him shouting to them.
[23:13] Speaker 2: One of the pleasures of my life is I sit
[23:15] Speaker 2: on the committee of the old Halebury Amateur Football Club.
[23:18] Speaker 1: In the Amateurs. He's a man of the people.
[23:20] Speaker 2: Four years, four years I've been on that committee and
[23:23] Speaker 2: We had a shocking year this year as far as
[23:24] Speaker 2: I've seen.
[23:25] Speaker 1: You're down in B grade next year. We've been relegated.
[23:27] Speaker 2: But our under-19s last weekend won a preliminary final and
[23:31] Speaker 2: will play in the grand final for their group on
[23:33] Speaker 2: Saturday morning at 9.30 at Williamstown.
[23:35] Speaker 1: Williamstown.
[23:36] Speaker 2: And I'll be there to see them. And I absolutely agree.
[23:39] Speaker 2: And I know about the tunnel vision because I'm a
[23:42] Speaker 2: 78-year-old ex-judge and I'm sure most of the players in
[23:45] Speaker 2: our club have no idea what the hell I'm doing here,
[23:47] Speaker 2: particularly when I turn up to training or game day.
[23:50] Speaker 1: Okay.
[23:50] Speaker 2: But every now and again, the coach and maybe the
[23:52] Speaker 2: captain will work out, oh, no, I probably should talk
[23:54] Speaker 2: to him. So they'll come over and say hello. He's
[23:56] Speaker 2: on the committee.
[23:56] Speaker 1: He's on the committee.
[23:57] Speaker 2: I'm the committee man. But you're right about the joy
[23:59] Speaker 2: of it. That's just footy, pure footy for the sake
[24:02] Speaker 2: of it.
[24:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pure.
[24:04] Speaker 3: I thought that guys that I knew who were real
[24:07] Speaker 3: footy buffs would despise me for the book because I
[24:11] Speaker 3: only have a very slight grip of the rules. But
[24:16] Speaker 3: they said, oh, I cried when I read the book.
[24:19] Speaker 4: They cried because.
[24:20] Speaker 3: It was– It reminded them of when they were playing innocently.
[24:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And, you know, I had someone say
[24:26] Speaker 1: to me, you know, now in their 30s, it was
[24:30] Speaker 1: just like his experience suburban footy when he was a kid.
[24:34] Speaker 1: Nothing had changed in the 15 or 16 years since
[24:38] Speaker 1: he'd played. And the friendships. And the friendships. You see
[24:40] Speaker 1: the friendships between the players. Yeah.
[24:42] Speaker 2: Because it's an amateur football club. They don't get paid.
[24:44] Speaker 2: No matter how good they are, they don't get paid.
[24:46] Speaker 2: But the friendships are incredibly powerful.
[24:48] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
[24:49] Speaker 3: That was a wonderful thing.
[24:50] Speaker 1: Helen, we probably have to wrap it up there. We've
[24:52] Speaker 1: just about reached out. We got right off the subject.
[24:54] Speaker 1: We did, but that was good.
[24:54] Speaker 4: See, that wasn't about law.
[24:56] Speaker 1: No, but that seemed, well, it's the law of life.
[24:58] Speaker 1: Football and law.
[24:59] Speaker 3: There's rules.
[24:59] Speaker 1: Very tropical at the moment. Absolutely. Yes, it is.
[25:02] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
[25:02] Speaker 3: Oh, pity we didn't talk about the swans.
[25:03] Speaker 1: No, we did a couple. We did an emergency episode.
[25:06] Speaker 1: We talked about the swans. Yeah. So, Helen, thank you
[25:09] Speaker 1: so much for doing this. That's very kind. Fantastic day.
[25:11] Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
[25:13] Speaker 4: Thank you.
[25:14] Speaker 1: Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Lex. That's it. Thank you. Don't forget
[25:17] Speaker 1: to like and subscribe. Anything else I need to say, producer?
[25:21] Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks.
[25:23] Speaker 3: Okay.
[25:23] Speaker 1: Terrific.
[25:27] Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Bravecasting Media, edited by Michael Tankard,
[25:31] Speaker 2: original music by Justin Humphries from Phoenix Sound Studios. This
[25:35] Speaker 2: podcast is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people
[25:38] Speaker 2: of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their
[25:40] Speaker 2: elders past, present and emerging.
[25:43] Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. See you next week.

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