STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 691/7

Full transcript of an interview with

HEATHER GREEN AND JAN DENISON

on 22 April 2003

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

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OH 691/7 HEATHER GREEN AND JAN DENISON

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

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TAPE 1 SIDE A

This is an interview with Heather Green and Jan Denison being recorded by

Karen George for the Diabetes SA 50th

Anniversary Project. The interview is

taking place at Grange on the 22nd

April 2003.

First of all I’d like to thank the two of you for coming together, because I know

you’ve come a bit of distance, Jan, to come here, so as to get you together for this

interview. What I’d like to do is start by each of you giving me a little bit of

background about yourselves, so perhaps we could start with you, Heather. Just

give me your name, your full name and your maiden name, and where you were

born.

HG My name is Heather Green, Heather June Green. I was born at Quorn in the

north of South Australia. Do I have to say how many years ago?

It’s up to you.

HG In 1926.

What’s your date of birth?

HG On the 17th June, 1926.

Can you tell me just a little bit of background about yourself and your family?

HG Yes. Well, my people were on the land at Quorn. We lived in Richmans

Valley, which is four miles south of the township of Quorn in the Flinders

Ranges, a delightful spot. And my family have been there for three

generations. They are no longer there, unfortunately. Had a very happy

childhood; my father was a First World War returned soldier, and he and his

brother acquired the land when they came back from the First World War and

ran it as a partnership. We attended the Quorn Primary School and went by

various means of transport. To start with we went by sulky, then we rode

bikes, my brother and I, and then horseback. My years at high school: I went

to the Leaving standard at the Quorn High School and rode a horse in the last

few years. I only had the one brother, Gordon, who was three years older than

me, and he attended school at Quorn. Upon leaving school he was drafted into

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the Army, and from the Army joined the Air Force, where he became a pilot

and served overseas for some years during the War.

I understand as a child you weren’t suffering from diabetes.

HG No.

Can you tell me a little bit about – – –?

HG No. After I was married and only had the one child – a daughter, Elizabeth,

who will be fifty this year – and it was after she was born that diabetes

showed. Apparently during the pregnancy I showed signs of diabetes, then it

was not diagnosed till she was two years old.

How did you become aware of it?

HG Well, I lost a lot of weight, I was always thirsty, all the symptoms that tell you

that you probably have diabetes. And went to the local doctor, who sent me –

in those days you used to have to go to a specialist. I came down to Adelaide –

I was living in Peterborough at the time – came down to Adelaide and went to

a specialist, and was put into Calvary Hospital where I was stabilised on

insulin, and have been on insulin ever since.

What did you know about diabetes in those days?

HG Not a great deal. I had an uncle who was a diabetic, and I always used to hear

people saying, ‘Poor old Uncle,’ you know, ‘he’s got sugar.’ That used to be

the great term in those days, ‘He’s got sugar.’ And I also had a cousin who

was Type 1 diabetic, and we had a lot to do with that cousin. So I did know a

little bit about it. But, of course, diabetes is a most complex illness, really, and

it’s not until you have it yourself you have any idea, really, what it’s all about.

Now, I think you said when we first met that it was 1955 that you were diagnosed,

weren’t you, with diabetes?

HG Yes.

My maths is not very good – forty nine?

5

HG (makes calculation, laughter) Yes, twenty-nine, is it?

I think so.

Yes, it was just before I was thirty, I know that.

So the Diabetes Association was in existence – did you know anything about that?

HG No. And at that stage I was living in the country and really didn’t know

anything about it. It wasn’t until we moved to the city, in 19 – oh, I’m terrible

with dates – a few years after that, that I became aware of the Diabetic

Association, and with the intention of always, ‘Well, I must get involved

there,’ and I didn’t get involved until the 1970s.

Can you tell me a little bit about the management of your diabetes and the

equipment you were using?

HG Yes. Well, of course the syringes were glass syringes and they had to be

sterilised, you had to sterilise them. And the testing was so different in those

days. We had little tablets we used to drop in the urine and they’d fizz up, and

if they were one colour you were all right, if they were the other colour you

were showing sugar. So it was a bit of a hit and miss then, in those days. And

you were only on one injection a day, if I remember correctly, to start with,

whereas now I’m on four injections a day. The management is quite different.

Also the diet is quite different: in those days you were allowed to have very

low carbohydrate, but plenty of butter and cream and all of those things – the

fat content was never sort of – you were allowed to have that, protein and fat.

But of course now it’s more higher carbohydrate and lower fat. So the whole

treatment of diabetes has changed in the time that I’ve been a diabetic.

Perhaps we’ll bring Jan in here so she can talk a little bit about her experience. I

understand that it was your husband that was diagnosed. So perhaps we can talk

a little bit about you. Can you give me your full name and when you were born?

Jan Denison, 13th January 1943.

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Where were you born?

North Adelaide.

What was your maiden name?

Thain.

Tell me a little bit about your background.

Bit boring, I suppose – (laughs) wasn’t like Heather’s, out in the country. Went to

Black Forest School and I used to walk to school, I suppose it was about a

mile. And we lived at Glandore, and we lived there all our life, then I went to

Unley Tech School and rode a pushbike up to Unley every day.

Did you have an ambition for what you wanted to do when you grew up?

Oh, I always wanted to be a nurse, but my father wasn’t so keen on that, so that sort

of got scrubbed and I ended up in an office at Berger Paints.

How did you meet your husband?

He was a blind date. (laughs)

Was he suffering from diabetes when you met him?

No, no, he didn’t get it until he was thirty.

Do you recollect how that came to be?

Well, he was drinking lots of water and eating a lot, and his mother thought that I

wasn’t feeding him enough because he was losing weight, and I kept saying

there was something wrong with him. And eventually – like all men, they put

it off – eventually went to the doctor’s and had the glucose tolerance test, but

he had to go away working in the country. And of course when the results

came the doctor came down to me to get him back from the country quickly.

But I can remember him coming out from work holding his trousers up

because he’d lost that much weight that, you know, his trousers were falling

off of him.

So what year would that have been?

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Be about 1973.

Well, that’s about a fifteen year difference from when Heather was diagnosed.

Can you tell me a little bit about what you were doing for management?

Well, virtually the same – boiling up the glass syringes and testing the same and that,

and the food was more or less the same. Breakfast they had to have bacon and

eggs and a glass of orange juice, and cheese, a whole lot of cheese, for

morning and afternoon tea.

Had you yourself heard about the Diabetic Association then or did you know

about its existence?

I knew there was an office in town, but that was about all. I heard about it, I think,

about the office on the wireless. They must have had a talk at one time. But I

didn’t know anything about diabetes. But everyone told me that, if you ate

what you were supposed to and had your needle, everything would be all right.

But it doesn’t always work out like that, you don’t always get perfect results.

Perhaps each of you could tell me how you became involved with the Diabetic

Association. Not sure who was first!

HG I think Jan was.

I was, yes. What did we – it was about fifteen years ago, did we say?

VS: Oh, I think it was more than that.

’78.

I had you down as –

Can’t remember now.

– as Vice-President in –

HG She’s only been Vice-President in the last year, 2003.

– 1981. And you were on the tea roster, whatever that is, in September 1979 – – –.

Oh yes, I forgot about that. Yes, I was Vice-President in Rhonda Harding’s –

8

VS: Oh, right.

– day, when we were up at the Adelaide Hospital.

VS: Right, yes.

Can you remember, perhaps, the first meeting that you went to – what brought

you to think about going – – –?

Well, the girls went to Sunday School and there was a lass there, Marilyn Bolton, her

son was diabetic, and she heard about my husband being diabetic so she

invited me to come along to the meetings with her. So that’s how I started.

Can you remember your first meeting?

Yes.

What was your impression?

Well, I couldn’t get over how everyone more or less put up their hands when they

wanted anything to be organised. It was very well co-ordinated meetings, not

like the Mothers’ Club meetings at the school.

In what way was it different?

Oh, well, I mean everyone’s sort of –

VS: Pulled together.

– pulled together, everyone listened to what the President was saying, but at the

Mothers’ Club meeting there were all these little groups that, you know, they

were having their own little meetings and that. And in the end I gave the

Mothers’ Club up and continued with the Diabetic meetings. Plus I got a lot of

help from the ladies.

What kind of things did they help you with?

Well, I found out they got hypos the same as my husband, and we used to discuss

different things – recipes and food and that.

What about you Heather – how did you hear about the Association and become

involved in the meetings?

9

HG I don’t remember how I heard about it, but the first meeting that I ever went to

was at the Memorial Hospital, when the Association met there. And then,

from there, we went to the Adelaide Hospital. And I wasn’t the President at

that stage, but I was nominated to represent the Auxiliary on the Board of

Management. So I was on the Board of Management for twelve months or so

before I became the President. And we had our meetings at the Adelaide

Hospital in the nurses’ quarters, that’s where our office was, in a lovely big

room that had been their dining room, apparently, with a big table. And, as Jan

said, it was a very friendly group of women – I think because they each had a

common interest. There were mothers of diabetics, there were wives of

diabetics and there were diabetic people themselves. They were all vitally

interested in diabetes, so that possibly was – and there was always somebody

that had a similar problem to what you had. I remember one particular woman

coming, and she was in the depths of despair because she couldn’t get her

diabetes stabilised. And, you know, her readings were high and she thought

she was the only person that ever had problems like this. And when she came

along we used to say, ‘Yes, but we all do that,’ you know, ‘we all go up and

down.’ And she became a different person within a few months, knowing that

she wasn’t an oddity at all. She was doing just almost the same – there are

very few diabetics who keep stable. They are the exception rather than the

rule. It’s all very well to say, ‘Yes, I’m stable and I never go over what I

should,’ but that person is an exception. And I suppose it’s dealing with the

hormones in the body – it’s the whole set-up of your metabolism as to the

readings that you get when you’re testing.

So yes, that’s how I became involved, and of course once I became involved

I’m that sort of a person – once I become involved I do become involved, you

know. I’m not half-hearted about it. So we’ve had many years of very happy

times.

So who was the President when you joined Jan? You mentioned Rhonda

Harding?

Yes, but she was later. I can’t remember who the President was. I thought it was

Haidee [Andrewartha].

10

HG Was it Rhonda Harding?

No, she was later.

VS: Yes.

It could have been Mrs Andrewartha

Yes. Yes, Haidee. Yes.

What was she like, can you remember?

Oh, she was lovely, wasn’t she?

VS: Lovely, yes.

Yes, Heidi.

VS: A true lady.

Yes. Real lady.

VS: Yes.

Was she diabetic herself, or – – –?

HG Yes, she was.

Yes.

VS: Yes, she was.

Lovely face, lovely rosy cheeks.

VS: And her husband helped out in the office. He had retired from his job

and they were looking for a part-time person – I don’t know whether he was an

accountant, but he was that type of person, and he came in and worked part-

time in the office, the original office, at the Adelaide Hospital.

And the next one was Rhonda Harding, what was she like as a President?

Good.

VS: She was a younger woman, and a worker, wasn’t she?

Yes, she was.

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VS: She was a very nice person, Rhonda.

Is there anyone else who stands out – perhaps some older members who had

already been in the Association for a long time when you joined?

HG Well, I think Peg Gilchrist probably stands out. Peg Gilchrist was the

Treasurer for many, many years, and she was just a little dot of a thing, but she

was – it’s hard to describe Peg. She was a feisty little person, you know, if you

stood on Peg’s toes you heard about it, but she just loved the Association and,

really, she and her husband, their whole life, really, revolved round –

Revolved around it.

VS: – the Association. But she was a great worker and a wonderful person.

It was just so sad that she developed cancer and died about eighteen months

ago, having given many, many years of great work to the Association and the

Auxiliary. Her husband was the diabetic, and that’s how she became involved.

What do you think brought women to become involved with the Auxiliary – – –?

HG To get help, I think.

Help, yes. And you all had that common interest.

VS: Yes.

And there was always someone worse off than yourself, too.

VS: And the whole idea that everyone helps everybody, and if somebody

had a problem we’d talk about it and – even though, perhaps, it wasn’t medical

– we’re not able to give medical advice, because we’re not doctors, but

sometimes just talking it over is probably more helpful than anything, to know

that you’ve got other people in a similar situation.

Can you tell me a little bit about the format of meetings – I mean, looking at the

minutes it looks like it was a fairly formal format, but I also get the feeling from

you that there was a fairly informal aspect to it as well. Can you tell me how the

meetings took place when you first started?

12

HG Well, it always stuck to a bit of a formality. I mean, we had the welcome and

then we had the minutes of the last meeting and the Treasurer’s report and

matters arising from the minutes and general business, but then it often lapses

into a general conversation – although it never gets out of hand, does it?

No, no.

VS: Never gets out of hand.

Now we have our lunch together, too, so we talk then –

VS: Yes.

– doing our talking while we’re having our lunch.

VS: That’s right.

Yes. Because at one time the meetings used to be in the afternoon –

VS: Yes.

– didn’t they, at the –

VS: See, I don’t remember that, no.

– Memorial – you don’t?

VS: No.

No, they were for a while, when we were at Memorial Hospital, they were in the

afternoon.

VS: Yes, I think perhaps it was, the first time I went.

Yes. But that was awkward for ones that wanted to get home for children.

It seems that you often have speakers as well.

HG We do. We’ve had some great speakers, haven’t we? We often used to have

speakers with regard to health, and then people said, ‘Oh, look, you know,

we’ve had enough of that. Let’s have – – –.’ So now we have general

speakers and get some very interesting speakers. Do you want to know some

of them?

Oh just some examples I guess and perhaps how they’ve changed.

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HG I’ll just get my book – they’re all itemised.

Heather’s just come back with a list of speakers.

HG Some of the speakers we had for 2002, the Smith Family; another gentleman

spoke about wills; Anne Roland from Milk Division demonstrated all the

different types of milk; then Ros Bond was a chaplain at Yatala – she was

absolutely wonderful, yes. Another lady spoke about tracing missing persons

with refugee work. Then we had an outing to Charlesworth Nuts; we have one

outing each year.

I was going to ask you about that, because that seems to have been something that

was going on for a long time, the outings.

HG Yes. And this year we’ve had somebody from the Continental Biscuit, and our

next speaker at this meeting will be somebody from Camp Quality to come and

speak about the work that they do there. But over the years we’ve had (sound

of turning pages) great speakers, and we have – now, here we are: the Flag

lady, Post-Polio Syndrome, Fire Brigade, and then we visited the Festival

Theatre to Morning Melodies once – it just coincided with our [meeting date].

Dwarfism, the woman speaking about dwarfism.

So who’d responsible for organising the speakers – – –?

HG I mostly organise the speakers. Some of the girls give me [names of speakers].

Another one we had was funerals, Greg O’Neil Funeral, he came and told us

all about funerals. And those sort of things are very informative to people,

because a lot of people never –

You learn a lot.

VS: – never sort of get to – they’re too frightened, sort of, ask questions

about things like that.

So do you think over the years it’s developed from just being about people with

diabetes to something sort of more than that? What do you think is the main

focus – has that changed over the years, to you?

I don’t think so, do you?

14

VS: Well, I think our priority is always diabetes.

Diabetes, yes.

VS: But, you know, you have to introduce other things, otherwise it becomes

boring. As I say, we have the one outing each year, we have the one film

morning a year, and that’s money-raising, and we used to have a stall at the

Mitcham fête, but we don’t have that now.

What I’d like to do is talk about each of these things that the Auxiliary sort of gets

itself involved with. Can you remember some of the first activities that you

became involved in, Jan?

HG Well, you’d remember the flower shows, wouldn’t you?

The flower shows, that’s right.

Tell me about those.

Well, we had these flower shows that we supplied the afternoon tea, and they were

held on the Saturdays and Sundays, and we were all sort of rostered, but we all

had to make either cakes or scones or biscuits.

Would they be diabetic foods or just – – –?

No, because –

VS: General public.

– general public. And I forget how much we charged for them. You weren’t there.

VS: No, I can’t. I only went to about one or two of those.

Well, they got a cup of tea and then they got a plate with a scone and a biscuit and a

cake and –

VS: Sandwich. Was it? No.

– don’t think so.

So they’d be different flower societies?

Yes, there was the Fuchsia, I don’t know whether the Begonia, then there was the

Fern Society – did we do it – – –? I can’t remember.

15

That would be in the minutes. I’m just interested in what you did – how many

ladies would be involved in the cooking of the cakes and biscuits?

Well, I suppose there would have been about six of us on the afternoon teas, and we

each had so many cakes to bring and biscuits, or whatever. And then there

would be a lot that would more or less be serving the afternoon tea, then

there’d be a lot washing the dishes and that. But we were always busy.

So I mentioned that I noticed you were on the tea roster – what did that mean?

Oh, that was when we were having our cups of tea at our meetings. They thought it

would be a good idea if we had a tea roster to wipe up the dishes. But I

organised it, but not everyone was there, and then people had to leave early

and it just didn’t work out. So I think nowadays we just ask ‘Who’s going to

do the dishes afterwards?’ and to tidy up.

One of the things that was done early on, and I don’t know whether that

continued a long time, is you visited people who were newly-diagnosed in hospital.

Is that something that either of you did?

I didn’t do that.

VS: Yes. I remember when I first joined that was happening, and I’d be very

happy for that to happen again. I think that’s terribly important. But, you see,

the trouble is there would be so many people newly-diagnosed – see, our

membership’s twenty thousand or something now – that it’s very difficult to

police anything like that, and visiting sick people, we used to do a lot more of

that going back years ago than we do now. I mean, if anybody’s really sick

now we do.

Would that be members of the Association we’re talking about?

HG No, that would be members of Auxiliary, really, because we’d have to have a –

it would have to be organised by the Association for Auxiliary to be able to do

that, and just not quite sure how we could get around that, or whether we’ve

got enough Auxiliary people who are fit and able to do it. You see, that’s our

biggest problem now, Karen, is that everybody’s getting older and we’re not

16

getting many new ones. See, Jan would be one of our youngest people. And a

lot of us are well over seventy.

Why do you think that is, that the membership has been like that, I guess with

people from the past, but not getting new members?

HG Oh, so many women are working.

Working.

VS: They’re just not – we’ve had a few young ones come, haven’t we, and

then they get jobs.

Yes.

VS: We’ve had some lovely young ones come and we think, ‘Oh, isn’t this

wonderful.’ But they – as soon as they get a job, well – and you can

understand it. So it’s like all organizations, they’re going to die out – like Red

Cross, CWA1, they’re not getting any young ones. And, you know, it’s just the

oldies that are keeping them going. But you can’t expect women like that to

do as many things as we used to do when we were younger.

How does that make you feel, having been part of a long-term organization, to feel

that it might – the Ladies’ Auxiliary side of things – might just peter out?

HG Oh, it’d be very sad.

Yes.

VS: Because, you know, I’ve loved working with the Association, and being

on the Board as well you become very involved. And people think you’re a bit

silly, you know, they – ‘Oh, she’s always down there.’ But you don’t do it

unless you enjoy it, that’s what I always feel. If you do it and grizzle about it,

well, give it away. There’s no point –

You do it because you want to.

VS: – you do it because you want it and enjoy it.

1 Country Women’s Association.

17

I’ll just turn the tape over before we run out of tape.

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE A: TAPE 1 SIDE B

Okay, we were just discussing while the tape was off that you’d worked out you

were twenty-five years on the Auxiliary and that you’ve been President for

twenty.

And she’s been a very good President, too.

In what way – without embarrassing Heather! (laughter)

Oh, well, Heather’s got the knack of always saying the right things, and organising

the speakers and running the meetings properly and that, and I’ve enjoyed the

meetings Heather’s organised.

Perhaps we could talk a little bit about about some of the other things – the

trading tables have been a common part of the Auxiliary work. Can you tell me

about the trading tables, what you do, how you get them organised and what

kinds of things you sell?

HG Well, the biggest trading table we used to have was the trading table at the

Mitcham Fair. And we’d raise something like two thousand on that. And we

sold everything – everything that was donated. A lot of the women did a lot of

cooking. We’ve got some very good cooks amongst [us], but of course that’s a

dying breed, too. So we’d get there at seven o’clock in the morning and work

through to about three, when we’d pack up and go home. Peter Stretton was

always a big help there, he’d always come and help us, and in the days of the

Andrewarthas, Haidee and her husband, and a few of the Board members – the

odd Board member would come along, not too many. But we had a roster for

the girls to come and there’d be two girls coming every hour, so that nobody

was there non-stop. So that was the Mitcham Fair. And then, of course, we

have a trading table at our film morning, and that has always been a good

trading table. We sell cakes and pickles and jams, and we’ve got several

members who make toys, and some of our Auxiliary ladies make toys.

18

I’ve read something in the minute books about getting reject materials and

buttons and things like that, was that in order to make things for the tables, to

sell?

HG Yes. Yes, it was, yes. Anybody who has material, you know, like fur and that

type of thing – one of our ladies makes rabbits by the hundreds, doesn’t she?

Yes. (laughs) They seem to multiply.

VS: Yes.

We used to get Actil parcels –

VS: Yes.

– do you remember that?

VS: Yes.

What were they?

That was – well, it was a whole lot of leftovers from Actil sheeting, and we used to

make different things out of it.

What sorts of things would people make?

Aprons.

VS: Yes, and pillowcases –

Pillowcases, yes.

VS: – and that sort of thing.

I know one time I had a whole lot of black material, and I think we just made it up as

a sheet, and it went! (laughs)

VS: Yes.

Yes, someone liked the black sheet.

I noted – I’m not sure whether this is in your period – that you also had a trading

table at the general meetings of the Association? Was that something that was pre

your time?

19

HG No, I don’t remember trading tables – yes, I think that –

No, I don’t remember that.

VS: – would have been in the very early days. Where else have we had

trading tables? That’s about the two major ones.

Not unless the trading tables were at the other meetings, you know, like the general

meetings, the Board one?

VS: Yes, I don’t remember a trading table at that.

You mentioned, I think, when we were chatting the other day, about Christmas

functions that you held, that you’ve had for many years. Was that just for the

Ladies’ Auxiliary, or is that an Association function?

HG Well, the Ladies’ Auxiliary, we have our own Christmas luncheon.

Our own, yes.

VS: But the Association does have a Christmas party as well. But our

Christmas luncheons, they’ve been great. We’ve had those as long as I can

remember. We go out to a restaurant, and we’ve been to various places,

haven’t we? Then at one stage we had one in a hall, didn’t we, over at – we

catered for it ourselves.

It was like in a church hall. Yes.

VS: We catered for it ourselves.

We used to have them at Rhonda Harding’s place –

VS: Did you?

– and Roma Laught?

VS: Roma Laught, yes, that’s right.

Laught, yes. In the early part we used to cater for it ourselves –

VS: Yes.

– but later on we decided to go out to the hotels, which is far better, I think, save

doing it ourselves.

20

VS: That’s right, yes. I remember going to one at Roma Laught – that would

be going back twenty-odd years ago. And perhaps preceding that they always

had them at somebody’s home.

Home, yes. We used to each bring a salad – supposed to have been a diabetic salad

– and then I think they had the chicken catered for.

I think you mentioned earlier, when you were talking about the foods, I think you

said that one of the things you’d do was share recipes and things. Was that part of

what the Auxiliary did, I suppose, more in the early days?

In the early days I was given a few recipes for rock cakes or muffins and that.

VS: Well, that was when we decided that everybody’d bring their recipes,

and that’s when we first decided to have a recipe book.

Perhaps we could talk about that, since it’s come up. I think that was somewhere

in [checking notes] 1987.

Was it as far back as that? ’87?

That was the first time it popped up in the minutes, that someone had suggested it/

Right, yes.

Do you know who was responsible for thinking ‘Well, let’s put this into a book.’?

HG Well, as far as I can remember, it was Helen Donovan and myself who

instigated that. And then everybody sort of helped, everybody helped. But

that was where the original suggestions came from. I guess that would be in

the minutes.

It said that Helen Donovan was to be the co-ordinator, but it didn’t actually say

who had the idea in the first place.

HG Well, I don’t remember who came up with the actual idea, but Helen was – and

we used to meet in a – that was while we were at the Adelaide Hospital, and

we used to meet in there, and we had all these recipes, you know, everybody,

every meeting they’d bring recipes. And then it was a matter of going through

and picking out which ones we thought would be suitable.

21

How did you make that decision, what went in and what didn’t?

HG Oh, well, it was just hit and miss a bit. And then we had a dietician, part-time

dietician, and she went through all the recipes that we’d chosen and did the

calorific and the portion part of it all for us. And then it was her – I think it

was her boyfriend, if I can remember correctly – who did these little – soup,

you see – – –.

We’re looking at a book at the moment, the original book.

HG Yes, this was the original book. Each course he did – and that was entrées –

and salads. And he did all those for us. (sound of turning pages) And then, if

I can remember correctly, one of the girls in the office typed up the – and then

we had this printing machine. And I –

You talked about the printing process too.

HG – and I meant to ring Helen just to confirm whether that printing press was

outside. Everybody looked at me when I said it was – – –.

Tell me about it, because we haven’t talked about it on tape. So how did you go

about getting this thing printed?

HG Well, Vicki Crawford was a member of – I think she was a member of

Auxiliary, but she was also on the Board of Management. And her husband

was not working because he had a back problem. And we decided that – well,

she said he was prepared to do the printing. So we had to order all the paper

and everything, and then we printed pages and pages and pages – you can

imagine – for about a thousand books. And then we’d collate it all at whosever

home. Now, Helen had a big dining room table – she lived at Largs Bay – and

we did quite a bit of it there, you know, about ten of us.

You had a funny story, Jan, I think, about the collating?

Yes, I got the pages mixed up. (laughter)

VS: Whose place was that?

That was at Vicki Crawford’s place.

22

VS: Oh, down at her place.

Yes. I discovered a couple of hours into it that I had them all wrong, so I had to

confess to Heather (laughter) and we had to start again. Never forgot that.

This printing press, you mentioned it was outside.

VS: Yes. It was a second-hand one that he’d picked up somewhere. The

Crawfords were a bit like that, you know, they had bits and pieces everywhere.

But they were very good-hearted people, you know, and they really were

instrumental in us being able to produce that first book.

Who was responsible in the end for deciding how it was set out and the sort of

design of the book?

HG I can’t remember all that. I suppose we did it ourselves.

Can’t remember.

VS: You know, when you go back you forget. I can remember so vividly

this jolly printing press and the collating and all that, but Helen would

probably – I could probably find out a bit more.

That’s fine.

HG You know, she lives down at Hindmarsh Island now. She comes up every year

for our Christmas party. She’s a great mate of mine, Helen, and we often

laugh about some of the things we did. We’d all be in a car, you know, two

cars, five in each car, and down we’d go to someone’s place with all this –

we’d have the boot all stacked up with stuff and – – –. You know, what we

did, when I think back, it was incredible. But that’s going back – when did

you say?

1987.

HG ’87. Well, you see, that’s sixteen years ago. We were a lot younger, lot

younger in those days.

Did you test the recipes at all, did people try them out?

23

HG Oh, I think we did. Oh, but I think they were all recipes that people had used

themselves. Oh, yes. But mind you, if a home economist or something might

have got on to them we might have been in a bit of trouble, you know. It

wasn’t a professional job, it was amateur work.

What made you decide that doing a recipe book would be something valuable?

HG I think it was always hunting for recipes.

Something different.

(together) Yes.

And I think a lot of them wanted the sweet, the cakes, and you couldn’t get them

anywhere. Roger was never a sweet person; he’d prefer soup or vegetables

and meat. He’s changed a bit over the years.

Become a sweet tooth?

Yes, yes, should I have said that. So I didn’t try out that many of the cakes, but the

other, like the chicken recipes and that, I did do.

It seems that it was very successful. I’ve been reading that you had to keep

reprinting that first edition.

HG Oh, yes, we sold an awful lot of books. Now, we did quite well out of those

books. We didn’t make a lot of money, because we were only making a dollar

on every book, I think. But I mean it was money coming in, until they got – as

the Association grew, well, then the professionalism grew, you know. We

were starting to become a big deal. And Trevor Goldsmith was Jenny’s [Jenny

Barber] assistant, number two, and he decided that he thought we could update

the book. Golly, we spent hours on that, too. You know, he wanted it all very

much – and Kay Slater, who was the Educator at the time, so quite a lot of

work went into the second one, but most of that was done – he was the

instigator of that.

So that’s the second one that you’ve got here.

HG That’s this one.

24

That’s the Food celebration cookbook.

HG Yes.

And then that’s once again been updated to the one available today.

HG And that’s been updated to this one, which is Food celebration. And this is, it

really is a lovely book.

Have many of the original recipes – I haven’t had a chance to look – made their

way through the three?

HG I had a quick look the other day. Not a lot. The dietician – well, I suppose she

improved on them, she thought she’d improved on them. She dissected a lot of

our recipes, and she did spend a lot of time working it all out.

Did that reflect, I guess, the changes in food over the years ?

HG Yes. You see, the portions – it was all a portion diet when – – –.

Tell me about the portion diet.

HG You would have started with a portion diet –

Yes.

VS: – for Roger.

Roger.

VS: How many grams were in a portion?

Ten, wasn’t it, in those days?

VS: I think it was. And that was you were either on a two-portion diet or

three-portion diet. A lot of men were on a five-portion diet. And that was

made up of carbohydrate, ten grams of carbohydrate. And so the doctor would

work out how many portions you were on for the amount of insulin that you

were having, and all the recipes were done in portions.

It’s gone up to fifteen now, hasn’t it?

25

VS: I’m not sure. I’m so used to what I’ve done for all my – you just do it

automatically, don’t you?

Yes.

VS: You do, you know – with potato you know how much potato to serve,

and how much fruit to serve, and what you can have.

Another major thing that it seemed that you were involved with that’s become

bigger is the Library, starting up the library in the office there. Tell me a little bit

about that. I think I noted that that was in the eighties as well, 1984.

HG Yes, well, we decided that that was something we could spend our money on,

because in those days we were making a bit of money, you see, with the fête

and the film morning, and our money was building up. And we didn’t want to

have a lot of money, so we decided to initially start up the library. I’m not sure

how much money we spent now, but quite a few thousand on books for the

library. We got advice from Dr Pat Philips.

Who was he?

HG Dr Pat Philips is the endocrinologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and he

was at one stage a member of our Board of Management. And he’s also –

there are two magazines put out. We put out an Alert, locally, and the national

body put out the Conquest, and Pat is the editor of that. But we don’t have as

much to do with Pat now as we used to. When he was on committee we had

quite a lot to do with him.

What kinds of books did you think were what the members would like to consult,

that you wanted to have in the Library?

HG Well, I can’t really remember now.

I can’t.

VS: I don’t know that I’ve ever read any of them.

I don’t think I ever looked at them.

26

VS: No. But they’ve enlarged on it a lot. You see, as the Association has

become more financial – see, when I first became involved with the Diabetic

Association, they were really struggling.

Tell me a little bit about that.

HG Well, we had one-and-a-bit room at the Adelaide Hospital. I suppose they paid

a nominal rent there, I’m not sure. There was one girl and this Andrewartha,

who was part-time. And as a Board of Management, we met every month, and

quite often, you see, there wasn’t enough money, hardly, to pay wages. And

then we had a President by the name of John Colussi, who worked in the

government, and he had a lot of contacts in the government. And he was

responsible, more or less, for things starting to get going. But (laughs) John

had an unfortunate – oh, I won’t go into any of those details – and he was

asked to leave as the President. But I always feel that John Colussi was the

beginning of diabetes going up.

Then we moved down to Hilton, and then the national body, the government

allocated – the NDSS scheme came in, the National Diabetic Supply Scheme,

and we service that and we are paid to do it. Well – you can imagine – that

made all the difference. We then had, other than our members – that was

possibly our only income – but other than that we had this money coming in

regularly. And that’s how we’ve gone ahead. Solely because – and of course

our membership has built from about fifteen hundred to twenty thousand.

Jenny’s done a wonderful job, Jenny’s been a wonderful person. And so now

we’re sitting in a fairly – I mean, it’s still a battle, it’s always a battle. The

bigger you get, sometimes, the more staff and the more wages, it doesn’t get

any easier, but it started from nothing. Peter [Stretton] and I often joke about

that, because we were both there when things were so bad. It really was. Peter

went through some pretty bad times.

Tell me a little bit about Peter as President.

HG He was a very good President, Peter. He had a daughter who was a diabetic,

and he – – –. I knew John Colussi, and then Peter took over then. And he

always presented himself well, Peter. You know, you’ve only got to look at

27

Peter – he looks a nice type of a man, and he presented himself to the public –

I always felt at a general meeting, Peter always stood tall and looked good, and

people would say, ‘Oh, he’s a nice bloke, I reckon this is a good sort of an

organization.’

Yes.

VS: And I think the organization owes a lot to Peter. I think towards the end

things weren’t quite as good, but I mean that’s none of my business, and it was

unfortunate that he left – not under a cloud, not under a cloud, that’s not the

right word at all – but he didn’t go out as happy as I thought he should have.

When you look back to those times of struggle, what do you think helped the

Association to sort of continue?

HG I think the government coming in is what – whether the Association could

have staggered on forever just as it was, I doubt it. But with the government

coming in – and of course we are dependant on that. I mean, if you had a

change of government and they said, ‘We’re not going to help the Diabetic

Association any more,’ I mean they’re not giving us money, if you can

understand. We’re working for the money that we’re getting, but it’s what

keeps the whole nation – it’s not only South Australia; we’re only one state

body. But the national body want their chop, too. We pay big money to them

every year to belong to the national body.

But we’ve had very good people, and getting Jenny when we did, just at the

time when things were starting to turn – I might be biased, but I’ve got an

awful lot of admiration for Jenny, and I worked fairly closely with her when I

was on the Board. She’s a fairly definite sort of a girl, she can be pretty

dogmatic, too, but you need to be in those situations.

So having been a member of the Auxiliary and a member of the Board, can you

compare the meetings – how are they different?

HG Oh, well, the Board of Management are business meetings, whereas our

Auxiliary’s more of a get-together of the ladies in our little bit of money-

raising. We’re just under the umbrella of the Board, really. But the Board

28

were always pretty fair to – I think they appreciated us, I’m sure they did.

Because we bought a lot of things for that Association.

Tell me about some of the things that you recollect that you bought.

HG Well, the compactus, to start with. We bought two sets of compactus, and

they’re worth quite a lot. We bought some –

Tables and chairs.

VS: – yes, tables and chairs, ’fridges, the little stove in the kitchen, the big

deep-freeze out in the shop.

Cups and saucers.

VS: Yes, crockery.

Crockery.

VS: Yes.

So you really equipped the whole premises in a way.

HG I think you’d be surprised how much we have spent. This woman that I told

you [about], Peg Gilchrist – she was the Treasurer – she had listed everything

that we paid out, and Peter’s got all of that, and it’s quite a lot of money.

One of the other things you got involved in, of course, was Badge Days. Can you

tell me a little bit about your experiences of badge days? Is that something you got

involved in?

Yes, yes, I used to go up to town and stand there and sell badges.

VS: (laughs) It was –

Well, we still do, don’t we?

VS: – we still do. But Badge Day was almost extinct, you know. When I

first took over Badge Day they were raising something like five hundred

dollars, six hundred dollars. And then we gradually built it up to a couple of

thousand, and in the end we got it up to ten. But last year was the last year that

they’re running a Badge Day. They’re going to call it ‘Signature Day’ now,

29

and we’re going to sell badges in Adelaide and all these little bees and pens

and things with bees on them and all this business, that’s all going with it. So

we’re all a bit up in the air about what’s going to happen, aren’t we, Jan?

Yes.

VS: Jan sold for years down at Glenelg.

Yes. And in town, too. Sometimes it used to be – in the later years it was co-

ordinated with Diabetes Week, or round about in July –

VS: Yes, yes.

– but earlier on it was in the middle of summer, wasn’t it?

VS: It used to be in November.

November, yes. It was very hot sometimes.

VS: Yes. But it was a better day than July, wasn’t it? (laughter)

Yes.

VS: You know it’s going to be raining.

But the people that you think haven’t got the money, least people to give you the

money, come up with the money, and the well-to-do people just sort of look at

you and walk past.

VS: Yes, I’ve had a bit of that.

Yes.

And that’s something, I guess, often in an association or in Auxiliarys it’s the same

people that tend to come forward to do all the work. Is that something that’s

happened in the Auxiliary, that there would be the regular hard workers?

Yes, well, I do the Diabetic Badge Days but I don’t do any other Badge Days.

Heather’s done for other groups, haven’t you?

VS: Yes, yes.

And Gladys.

VS: Yes. Yes.

30

Yes.

VS: Some of our girls have been, and Barbara.

Barbara, yes. I haven’t.

I meant in general, not just Badge Days.

HG Oh, that’s the truest words ever spoken. We were only discussing that – Val

Pudney has got an idea, I don’t know whether you heard her, she came up to

me, a new idea amongst your members: you give them all an envelope and

you call it a ‘gift day’ or something. For those that can’t bake or help in any

way, they just give a donation. And Peg Tostevin and I were – and there are a

lot of people that don’t do anything. They come to the meetings but they don’t

do anything, other than come to the meetings, do they? A lot of the women

don’t bake, or make things. And this idea didn’t sound like a bad idea, because

a lot of people would give five dollars, but they wouldn’t bake a cake or bake a

half a dozen cakes, like some of the girls do. So it’s something we’ve got to

discuss. But, as you say, it’s the same ones each year that do the – well, the

majority of the work.

Are there some people you’d like to recognize, I guess. You mentioned Peg

Gilchrist, is there anyone else that stands out as a volunteer, hard-working person

who you’d like to tell me about?

HG Well, Gladys Steicke –

Yes.

VS: – has been a great – she’s a very quiet – you’ll be speaking to Gladys.

Yes.

VS: She’s a quietly-spoken – she won’t take on any positions. We’ve asked

her to take on positions – no, she’s a bit like Jan, she’d rather be doing the

dishes, wouldn’t you?

Yes.

VS: But she’s so reliable. If you ask Gladys to do something you know it

will be done. And the other one who is so reliable is Barbara Daniels.

31

Yes.

VS: She came in a bit later – her husband’s a diabetic. I suppose she’s been

there for about twelve years. But she has now taken over the Treasury on

Peg’s demise, and she’s proving to be a very solid performer, very reliable,

you know. Barbara’s just wonderful, really. If you ask her to do something

she’s on the ’phone, she makes sure that she’s doing the right thing, and it’s

just a pleasure to work with people like that. But Judy Clisby’s a great worker

–

Yes.

VS: – as a Vice-President. I’ve been wanting her to take on the Presidency

for ten years, but she’s got hordes of grandchildren. She said, ‘Oh, while

you’re still standing you can do it.’ (laughs) She’s never got the time to – but

if I’m away or anything she does.

Tell me a little bit about taking on those leadership roles – you, Jan becoming

Vice-President and you, Heather, becoming President. What made you step sort

of further into the hard-working side of Auxiliary?

Well, I’ve only been Vice-President, number two, (laughter) for the last two years!

What made you decide that you wanted to become more involved?

Well, I was asked to. They were looking for someone.

VS: We insisted! We insisted, didn’t we? (laughs)

Yes. I didn’t get a chance to say no. (laughs)

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE B: TAPE 2

This is an interview with Heather Green and Jan Denison being recorded by

Karen George for the Diabetic SA 50th

Anniversary Project. The interview is

being recorded on 22nd

April 2003 at Grange, and this is the second tape of the

interview.

So we were just talking about some of the people that have contributed, and I

think you were talking about – no, we weren’t – we were talking about your Vice-

32

Presidency, that’s what we were talking about. Do you feel you’ve gained

something from becoming more involved?

Oh, I think so.

VS: You’ve become a bit more involved, haven’t you?

Oh yes, talking out a bit more, I suppose.

VS: Yes.

Because usually I’m fairly quiet, I think.

Well, good on you for putting yourself on tape – that was very brave. (laughter)

HG And I think she’s coming out of herself.

What about you Heather made you decide to become President, to take on the

Presidency?

HG Well, Haidee Andrewartha, you know, I became very friendly with – well, she

was just a lovely person – and she used to say to me, ‘Heather,’ she said, ‘I

want you to become President.’ You know how people do that. And I said,

‘Oh, I don’t know, Haidee.’ But my background, my people have always been

– my father was President of the Returned Soldiers, he was Chairman of the

District Council at Quorn, and he’s always been a very active community man.

My mother wasn’t, but Dad was, and I think a little bit of that rubs off. And,

you know, I thought, ‘Well, this is no big deal, really, it’s only a little show

and I’d be able to do that.’ And that’s how I took it on.

Were there particular things you wanted that have been achieved, or have wanted

to achieve, with the Auxiliary?

HG I like as long as everything’s running smoothly, not any back-biting. That’s

something that I cannot, I wouldn’t be interested. If you get little groups all

talking, you know, somebody coming to you, ‘She did so-and-so,’ and we’ve

never had any of that. So that is number one, and I think that’s the only way

you can do any good at all, is if you all work together. And I feel, I feel that

we have. Perhaps, as you get older, you feel that perhaps you can’t do quite as

33

much as you used to do, and I’m just sad that there are no young people

coming on to take over, to become the new President and the new Secretary

and Treasurer.

I think that’s something that you – when we sat together, the four ladies, the other

day, you talked about that kind of atmosphere, that there was none of that kind of

thing. Can you talk a little bit about, I guess, the atmosphere of the Auxiliary

over the years and what you think about that?

Well, I can never remember anyone back-biting at all.

VS: No.

And that is the trouble with clubs, there’s a lot of that, and I just can’t stand that.

And they all come up and ask, ‘How’s your husband going?’, and they’re

genuinely interested – because, I suppose, they’re diabetic themselves.

VS: We don’t live in one another’s pockets –

No.

VS: – we don’t see one another, perhaps, in between times.

But if you wanted help –

VS: You just have to be on the ’phone.

– you’d just have to pick up the ’phone and there’d be someone there that would

always be willing to listen to you if you needed it.

The other thing we talked about, I think you mentioned that the Auxiliary has

always put funds towards, or helped, in terms of the camps, the children’s camps.

In what ways have you been involved with that?

HG Well, as long as I can remember we’ve given money for children’s camps. For

the last I don’t know how many years we’ve given seven hundred dollars a

year, and I think that looks after about five children. That pays for five

children who couldn’t afford to go. And possibly it was always that, but of

course it’s gone up in latter years, the cost of the camp. I can’t just recall what

we gave – it wouldn’t be difficult to find out from our Treasurer. But we have

given money every year, in my term of office, towards children’s camps.

34

Are there other aspects that I haven’t brought up that you’d like to mention as

things the Auxiliary’s been responsible for or involved with in terms of the

development of the Association?

HG Well, we’ve bought a few things for – you know, like cameras and things like

that. We’ve got a book there of photographs that we’ve had taken. We

haven’t taken as many as we should have, you know. You start off with great

ideas, you’re going to take photos at meetings and all this, but you don’t do it.

I don’t think we’ve got any decent people to take photos, to start with – I think

we mess things up a bit. And we’ve had concerts and we’ve got photos of that.

I’ll just pause the tape. (break in recording) We were talking about some of the

other things, you were talking about the camera. The other thing I had here that I

wanted to talk about was the cookery demonstrations that I’ve come across. Were

either of you involved with those?

HG At the Gas Company.

Gas Company, yes. Did we charge for people to come to those?

VS: Yes, I think we did.

Was that a fundraiser?

VS: Think we did. We were there for a good many years, weren’t we?

Yes.

VS: Did they stop, or did we – it was during Diabetes Week, and that was

one of the things that we opened to the public.

So would that be demonstrating diabetic, cooking diabetic foods?

HG Oh yes, yes. Yes, they used to do a three-course meal – or more than that,

really lovely meal. And all suitable for diabetics.

So who would do the cooking? Would it be – – –?

HG It was Karen – what was her name? She was a Karen. She was the head

cooking person at the Gas Company.

35

Person at the Gas Company, yes.

VS: I don’t think they have those people now.

I haven’t heard of any demonstration.

VS: We used to arrange with them beforehand, and they’d work out a menu,

and then – did we charge? Because I remember Peg sitting on the table taking

the money and everybody would get a lucky number.

Yes. And those that got picked out got to take home the food.

VS: That’s right, yes.

Yes. Because I think my –

VS: They were great –

– mother won the raffle once, and took home some food.

VS: – yes. They were great, really. But I think the Gas Company

discontinued those. I think they probably got a bit expensive, or something.

They used to have a big room in Waymouth Street.

Yes, I think I know the building, yes.

HG Yes, and a big room upstairs. It’d hold about a hundred people. Might have

been more than a hundred. We used to get a good crowd in there, didn’t we?

Yes.

VS: Then I think we went somewhere else. Did we go to the Adelaide

Hospital?

Yes, I had one one year.

VS: Yes. But that wasn’t run by – that was the dieticians ran that, I think.

You’ve mentioned some of the places that you’ve had meetings over the years, and

when you started it was the Memorial Hospital. Can you mention some of the

other areas where you – – –?

HG Well, Jan can go back further than me.

36

It was in Leigh Street in the – I think it was the betting, greyhound betting building.

I think it was something to do with that. But there were two rooms there, one

room was more or less a square room, but the other room was a long, skinny

room with a great big long table. And in those days we had our meeting, but

while we had our meeting one particular lady used to give us our cups of

coffee, but she could hardly move behind us.

Was that just for the Auxiliary?

Yes. (coughs)

I’ll get you to look back, both of you, over the years you’ve been involved – the

twenty-five and twenty years you’ve been involved with the Auxiliary. What

memories stand out for you from that time, what do you think will remain with

you?

Different members, friendship –

VS: Friendship.

– different girls that you met and some aren’t here any more, and – yes. Fun times.

Do you think you’ll remain as a member in years to come, beyond the fiftieth

anniversary of the Association?

I think so. (laughs)

VS: Yes, I think most of us will stay on as long as we can. You know, some

of the girls are getting old, and that’s our biggest problem, is those that have

been there a long time, they are now getting to a stage that they – – –. They

still come. Now, Norma Merrill, who is eighty-four or something, she hadn’t

been for the last two meetings, I rang her up the other day, she’s been in

hospital. And things like that. So we can’t expect the same ones to go on

forever. But then there’s a lot about your age [referring to Jan], like Judy and

things like that. It should go on for a good many more years.

Okay. Well, unless there’s something else that you would like to add about the

Auxiliary or the Association, I’d like to thank you very much for being involved in

this interview and contributing to the anniversary. Thank you.

37

HG Thanks, Karen.