This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme.
My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP).
JF: So the news cameraman just following on Holt disappearing?
MP: I was just waiting for the Chichester lone rower to come across. He was in the middle of Port Phillip Bay and all those helicopters going all over the bloody place. You wouldn’t know because there’s no communication in the middle of the bay, you can’t hear a radio or anything.
So when we got back to St Kilda, channel 9 wasn’t in the boat because they were waiting at Williamstown to film him arriving and do an interview and do a big crossover and what have you.
I ring the office up from St Kilda, and I said…. What was the name of the journalist? I’ll remember in a minute, he was a bright little spark. He said ‘Morrie, quick! Get to the quarantine station up there. I think Holt’s missing.’
I said ‘Yes, okay, fine.’ So I give the film – what I filmed from Chichester – organize a taxi to take film up to the studio, and off I go up to the Mornington Peninsula.
So I arrive there…
JF: What time of the day?
MP: This is late in the afternoon. There’s still helicopters flying around and things going left right and the middle, and besides me there’s a couple of radio journalists and a couple of journalists waiting outside there at the gate. And they won’t let us in. And up comes a Commonwealth car, and the guy gives a salute – a chauffer driven car and drives past us.
In the back seat somebody leans forward and goes like this….. It’s the ABC police roundsman! (Laughter) sitting in there laughing his bloody head off. Harry the Horse! Driving past us! Oh, we screaming then! Finally we got in.
JF: So he’s conned his way in?
MP: NO! Commonwealth car they don’t stop him! Big bloody car with red plates, chauffer – who’s going to stop him? (Laughter). So, Harry the Horse. That was a good one, that.
Anyway, we got in eventually and that’s where I got the stuff from the beach. And they were still looking for him and I got some beach stuff. It was pretty rough I tell you, it was bloody rough out there. That stuff piled up in great big heaps.
JF: So the Prime Minister’s missing. Are Eagleton and those guys trying to control what you guys shoot…?
MP: No, hang on. They didn’t arrive until next day really. At this stage we’re only controlled by the people that are in charge of that particular area. So – what’s his name? – smart little bastard, he was really good… he sent an OB van straight away from the studio.
By the time I arrived the OB van’s already there to set up on top of the bloody hill. The OB van was there all night, transmitting pictures. There wasn’t anybody reporting from it, but there were just pictures. He sent some journalists later, but I don’t know what happened. Because I went back with the film.
Our vision would go on air, and all of a sudden channel 9 would have the same vision. So we looked at it and said wait a minute, so we made a logo and put it in one corner. As soon as we put it in the right corner, that corner was blacked out and channel 9 still had the vision! So we put the logo in the other corner. We played funny buggers with it, from one corner to another corner!
JF: So channel 9 are knocking off your vision?
MP: Channel 9 was knocking it off as it was coming off the OB van. So finally they rang up and asked whether they could take a picture. So he asked, rang the general manager, who said ‘Oh yeah, it’s a big story, let them have it.’ (laughter)
But they were blatantly stealing it, because all their equipment was at Williamstown while they were working on the lone rower.
JF: Was yours the only OB van?
MP: Only OB van there all night. Channel 0. Plus film that I sent back. Geoff Bell turned up and he shot seven? I think he shot for seven.
JF: So you’ve gone back with your film at the end of day one, and you go back the next day.
MP: First thing in the morning, go back.
JF: What’s the atmosphere like?
MP: Oh, at that time Tony Eagleton’s arrived and the PR’s arrived and what have you. They’re having press conferences and the journalists are asking ‘Oh, is that the shoe that he was wearing?’ and just trying to scrape up a bit of a story.
I got bits and pieces of information, not of great bloody exclusivity, but which I was able to pass to my guys, whoever was doing the cross over…
JF: But these days if the Prime Minister went missing, the whole thing would be really locked down water tight, with information that’s going out.
MP: Oh, I suppose so.
JF: But in those days…
MP: Oh, come on. In those days it didn’t matter. You walked up to the Prime Minister. No problem, you know.
JF: But what I’m thinking is, there was no control of the media down there that day?
MP: Not at that point. They were just walking up and down, filming whatever they wanted, photographing whatever they wanted, pestering Tony Eagleton for information, you know. And he’d just come up in an hour or so and catch up with something else, you know.
JF: Dame Zara show up?
MP: I didn’t see her. I don’t think she did. Because you see that was a delicate situation. Harold was having a bit of nookie with somebody else there for the weekend. I think Zara turned up later, much later. But that was a romantic weekend basically.
Pause in recording…
JF: Just carrying on to move us off Holt, how long did the OB van stay there?
MP: It stayed for good part of a week. Quite a long time. By that time everybody else was up there, 7,9,2. Of course we had a lot of overseas people coming in with full cameras – couldn’t understand that you let a Prime Minister go for a swim by himself.
(In accent) ‘Where are their bodyguards?’
‘No, we’ve never heard of bloody body guards, you know!’
So it was quite a story, because there’s not many places in the world where a high ranking ruler can do what he wants, when he wants, without somebody controlling him, you know. It was good publicity for Australia!
Well, of course the next thing was for his funeral. Half the world arrived then and what have you. We had a few demonstrations against the Yanks, lefties took their opportunity to really stir up some shit!
And I filmed Johnson (Lyndon Johnson) arriving. I photographed him arriving, I was within three feet of him and having to apologise – ‘I’m sorry Mr President, I can’t go any further, I’m right against the wall.’ And he turned round and said ‘Oh, it’s alright mate!’
So next day he was visiting the governor, and they dropped him off there and filmed, and I thought well, I’ve got nothing to do for a couple of hours, I’ll go and film him.
And as I came down the road from Government House I could see across the road to the tram stop there, and there’s a bloke with a gun. So I wind up my camera and run like buggery, put a 50mil lens on it, drop my money and count to 10 seconds. Wind it up, run like buggery a bit closer, sling it to wide angle lens and I’m just filming him being grabbed by two policemen. I can see him and see the gun, when a car screeches to a stop in front of me and two cops jump out and grab me.
They trying to get the camera out of my hands, and I’m just doubling up over the camera. ‘You’re not going to touch this buddy!’ And I’m just hanging onto the camera and they physically carrying me to the back seat of the car. They’re still trying to get the camera from me which I won’t let them. In the meantime the other guy’s been cleared off, everything’s been cleared up, so they kicked me out and said ‘Oh, go.’
I’m fuming! I’m spitting mad. Because that was bloody good footage I missed. I don’t know how much I *got. So I got into the car and got onto the news room and Frank Collier? and Mr Helicopter on the desk, and I said ‘Frank, I think I got about 20 or 30 feet of film with a gun across the road from where Johnson’s gone, and he’s been dragged into the police car and so was I.’
‘Get here, get the film back here!’ he says.
I say ‘Oh yeah, I’ll send it back by bloody taxi.’ I’ll stick around.
I’m fuming at this time. I’m shitty. Bugger that. So I sent the film off, went back up to the um…
JF: So the cops took your film originally?
MP: No no no, I’m hanging onto my bloody Bell. But as they were coming to me, I slung the lens to 10mil and as the camera’s going I was filming this guy coming at me. I had a beautiful picture coming at the camera. Of course all that goes on air. Frank flogged the film all over the place. Oh crumbs, Yanks loved it, you know.
Anyway, I go back to the Government House and corner the Police Commissioner – he was old ah, whats his name… hair growing out of his nose… ah. Can’t think of his name. Anyway, I said ‘What the bloody hell?’ Because we could walk into his office, Russell St headquarters, any time we wanted, you know.
And he said ‘It’s alright Morrie, I’ll look into it.’
Anyway, I ring up the office and they said ‘We’ve taken the guy to the station and talked to him, and all he wanted to do was take his gun to the repair shop because he’s going hunting on the weekend. So if you’d like to come and film him being at the repair shop…’ Killing my bloody story! (laughter). Anyway, we had that as well, so….
JF: There were some violent demos against Johnson .
MP: Oh yes,
JF: Did you film that stuff?
MP: Yes.
JF: What was that like?
MP: Well, you know. They’re commies. They’re professionals. Because of Vietnam. Every time there was something, even if it was only Remembrance Day in America, they’d use it as demonstration. And I would be filming in front of Chevron Hotel where used to be American embassy. I used to be in front of Government house when visitors were there. And the famous one was the paint throwing when he was *visiting Dame someone or other, which he knew while he was a Lieutenant in the Navy and they had been entertained here.
JF: This is LBJ?
MP: Yes. And that was a big demo. They chucked some paint at the bodyguards, one of them was *Rufus Youngone! A name like that just about caused a riot!
JF: But security for LBJ here – there wasn’t much to hold the cameramen back?
MP: No, no. They weren’t holding anybody back. They were only holding the pinkies back. But if you had a camera you could do anything you want.
JF: These days for a visit like that you need accreditation, all of that, checks. In those days?
MP: Nah. Didn’t need anything. Didn’t even ask for a press pass. Mind you, the police knew every one of us anyway, because there weren’t so many of us as far as the press was concerned. They knew every photographer, every cinecameraman. Later on when there was millions of them – little kids running round – that was the end of it. But from the beginning they knew the guys.7