JF: Morrie, thankyou very much for coming back. We’ve certainly taken a long journey with you.
MP: (Laughs) … a long life!
JF: Well that’s true, and an eventful one too. I wanted to go back. A couple of weeks ago we were talking about the Ronald Ryan hanging. Can you paint a picture for me as to what the atmosphere was like on that day?
MP: Well at the hanging itself there were some people outside protesting. Having covered many protest demonstrations in Melbourne, I recognised quite a few of the rent a crowd there! Lefties that used to go around shouting ‘we want it now’ and jumping up and down. Generally it was a small minority that you wouldn’t bother worrying about. There wouldn’t have been more than a hundred people outside Pentridge. A fraction of what was supposed to be there.
JF: How was the media side of it handled?
MP: There were selected people allowed inside to witness the actual hanging. Barry McQueen from channel 10 – I can’t remember who else was let inside. They sat in while he was actually hung, then they came out and retold the story in front of the camera with Pentridge in the background for news coverage.
JF: I’ve see Barry McQueen’s footage of that – was that a very spontaneous thing, was it the kind of thing you could do more than once?
MP: Yeaaah, you could do more than once but it’s… I suppose… I don’t think there was more than one take…
JF: It seemed pretty sincere.
MP: Yeah, I think he just came out and he was a bit upset, yeah, of course. Because he hasn’t seen dead bodies and so you’re upset. And of course you introduce a little bit of drama into your presentation whether you want it or not. I can’t really comment about it. I thought it was just another news job.
JF: A milestone really in Victorian history. And yet for you it’s another day at the office.
MP: It is another day at the office. It’s just another news job, that’s all.
JF: Were you there when Ryan was arrested?
MP: No, but I was chasing him all over the place. He escaped! I worked for ATN7 Sydney. They equipped me with a Pro 600 which is a huge bloody camera, plus a silent camera, and I was doing their reporting for Melbourne which was out of Melbourne’s bureau. But at the same time at that stage, channel ATN7 Sydney was trying to soften up ATN7 Melbourne. And my job was to be nice to them. Do whatever I can to facilitate that they unite as a network. So whatever I shot I gave some to channel 7.
When the escape was on and when the shooting took place, I was up at Pentridge (afterwards) and I set up a Pro600, and of course for Sydney I needed a voice report. So I grabbed one of the Age police *reporters, Jack Barnaby(?) and gave him five quid to do a stand up for me. Told him what to say and he did that. Then I shot some extra stuff which I provided for channel 7 Melbourne and that was my job. To soften them up.
JF: That equipment that you mentioned, you’d actually put something together hadn’t you, to record sound and film?
MP: No no no, that’s Pro 600. That’s just straight sound and film. What you’re talking about is that I bought a little Phillips cassette tape recorder that just came on the market. And we were covering the arrival of Red Adair in Sale. And I shot that with a Bell and Howell which is a silent camera, and a tape recorder.
JF: Oh right, we discussed this – with the door.
MP: Yeah, with the two doors going in sync. But THAT was Pro 600 – an obsolete old bloody camera – copy of the big Mitchell film studio cameras. And you needed more than one man to operate because of the optical amplifier. I was doing it by myself anyway.