by Larry Writer
Reporting on the reception and the commotion outside the Squire Inn, Norm Tasker circulated among the demonstrators in Newland Street and struck up a conversation with a young woman holding a placard. ‘I asked why she was demonstrating and she told me, and what she said was completely heartfelt and made sense. She was truly dedicated to ending apartheid. I was not in favour of the demonstrations at that time. I thought it was just rebellious behaviour from rent-a-crowders who liked to make a ruckus and hadn’t given too much thought to what they were protesting against, but this woman was genuine. Back in 1971, I was one of those who had no time for apartheid — especially after I’d seen it in action in 1969 — but still backed the Springbok tour. Because I wrote about the rugby and steered clear of reporting on the rights and wrongs of apartheid, I was singled out by the Sydney University student newspaper Honi Soit, which reckoned that I was more right wing than Attila the Hun and had a black servant to shine my shoes. Neither was true! I bumped into the young demonstrator again at the airport a few weeks later when the Springboks were leaving for home, and I asked her what she thought she had achieved, and she burst into tears. She hated apartheid and wanted it to end.’
At 2.00 a.m., Denis Freney and a mate named Mark launched a symbolic guerrilla attack on the Squire Inn. Wrote Freney in A Map of Days, ‘I had brought a parachute flare with me and after studying the instructions on it, to make sure we did not blow ourselves up, I pointed it towards the motel … Nothing prepared us for the noise and velocity with which it leapt into the sky after I pulled the firing pin. I was also surprised by its kick-back. As the flare shot towards the motel to drop like a falling star from its parachute, Mark sped off, driving along roads he did not know. “Jesus, Jesus … ” was all he could say, while I provided poor navigation. After several minutes we calmed down enough to laugh at our own alarm. Finally we had to consult street signs and a Gregory’s directory. We had reached Maroubra, well to the south and in the opposite direction to what he had intended. Our “guerrilla attack” was ignored in the media and friends who were on the vigil outside the motel at the time did not even notice our rocket assault. I felt a little disappointed. It was typical of the adventurous and often unsuccessful actions I and many others were to undertake during the weeks that followed.’
One of the arguments continually put to anti-apartheid campaigners, not just by Indigenous activists but by proponents of the rugby tour, was, ‘Why don’t you campaign for the rights of Indigenous people living in your own backyard?’ Some had indeed widened their attention to Indigenous causes, but a ferocious speech by Aboriginal activist Paul Coe at an anti–Vietnam War rally in June galvanised the AAM. Coe attacked white Australian anti-apartheid demonstrators for neglecting Aboriginals’ rights: ‘You raped our women, you stole our land, you massacred our ancestors, you destroyed our culture, and now — when we refused to die out as you expected — you want to kill us with your hypocrisy.’
‘That was a mighty speech and Paul definitely had a point,’ says Meredith Burgmann today. ‘I call it the “motherfuckers” speech. After that, we were as one.’ She would travel to Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory with author Frank Hardy to spend time with the Gurindji people, and Denis Freney wrote scathing articles on the plight of Aboriginals in Tribune.
Serendipitously, the Squire Inn was just around the corner from a communal Redfern Black Power group house that black activists had established in Ebley Street to deflect police attention from their headquarters in Redfern. Throughout the Squire Inn rallies, the Ebley Street premises became a base for the anti-apartheid demonstrators, somewhere to dream up new plans of attack and enjoy a warm beverage on a freezing night.
Gary Foley and Billy Craigie wore the Springbok jerseys given to them by Jim Boyce to the demonstration outside the Springboks’ motel. They were immediately arrested by New South Wales Special Branch officers, who accused them of stealing the jumpers from the players’ rooms. They were paraded before a group of Springboks, who pointed out that the jerseys were circa 1963. Nevertheless, Foley and Craigie were ordered to take the jumpers off or be charged under the Summary Offences Act.
The Springboks’ arrival in Sydney saw an upsurge of activity at Meredith Burgmann’s house in Darghan Street as the campaigners fine-tuned their schemes to disrupt the South Africans’ matches in Sydney against Sydney, New South Wales, and Australia, and also their games in Orange against New South Wales Country, and against an ACT side in Canberra. ‘When I think of those times in that house, I think of great enthusiasm, passion, and Denis Freney’s bad curries,’ says Burgmann. ‘Actually, they weren’t too bad, in fact they were delicious, we simply ate too many of them because they were quick and easy and we were too busy and poor to send out for takeaway. We weren’t drinking and partying, we were seriously organising, but enjoying it as we went along. Some of those people remain my close friends.’
There was camaraderie in the house. ‘A whole generation had been energised and activised by Vietnam,’ says Burgmann. ‘They were used to going out on the streets, they were used to direct action, they were used to having a say. They were engaged in personal liberation, women’s lib, gay lib, race liberation. They’d been effective. It’s always been assumed that the Australian New Left was the same as the American New Left, but it wasn’t. We were much more serious, more political, much less hippy. People always say, “You guys must have had a wonderful time smoking dope,” but we were down on dope because we thought it made for bad activists. We were very focused on being a political movement, we were going to make changes. Sure, some of us would go to Nimbin and stay there, but only a small percentage. We despised the American “peace, man” stuff. We were much more hard-headed and politically motivated. We supported the serious US protesters such as Bobby Seale and empathised with the Yippies because making fun of the opposition is persuasive. Political activity shouldn’t be so serious that people are turned off. Some of our signs were clever and funny, and we knew the media would love our greased pig.’
She and her colleagues bought Snowball the Pig at Flemington Markets. Their plan was to grease it, dress it as a baby, and smuggle it into the Sydney Cricket Ground in a pram, then turn it loose on the field during the Springboks–Sydney match and watch the police make idiots of themselves trying to catch it. Snowball, who was named after George Orwell’s dictator pig in Animal Farm, moved in to Darghan Street. One problem was that the pig smelled like … well, a pig. So Fran Letters dumped him in the bath and washed him with soap and bath salts. The campaigners organised a veterinary student to sedate Snowball before the match so he wouldn’t be too stressed when he got loose and the police gave chase. When Denis Freney arrived and saw the pig, he quipped, ‘Planning a barbecue?’
‘One Saturday morning,’ says Burgmann, ‘we got a call from Phil the Anarchist that the police were on their way to raid us at Darghan Street. We figured Snowball might be a little incriminating. A pig is kind of hard to explain. We chased him around the backyard for 20 minutes before we caught him and hid him away. His squeals brought half the street to find out who was being murdered in our yard.’
One morning, shortly before his day of reckoning, Snowball, once more displaying all the elusive qualities his minders hoped he’d display at the match, escaped his minders and scarpered down Darghan Street. He was never seen by the activists again. Some hoped he’d met a ‘nice lady pig’ on his flight to freedom, although Peter McGregor was pessimistic. ‘More likely he’s pork chops on someone’s dinner table,’ he glumly offered. Meredith Burgmann suspects McGregor was on the money. ‘I had a lot of Italian neighbours! Ah-ha, they may have thought … prosciutto!’
AAM leaders posted letters to the editors of Sydney’s newspapers. Because the group was well known by now, the editors, wary of their pages being used as a propaganda forum, began binning letters signed ‘Meredith Burgmann’ or ‘Peter McGregor’. To get around that, anti-apartheid letters were signed by such as ‘Meredith R
anderson’, an amalgam of Meredith Burgmann and Helen Randerson. These were published.
Members of the Sydney team to play the Springboks received anonymous phone calls warning that they would be kidnapped if they played. The calls were traced to the University of New South Wales near where the team was billeted at Kensington. A number of UNSW students were in the AAM.
The AAM activists also had time to compose a songbook, which was roneo’d and handed out to members. ‘Prick Go the Boks’ was sung to the tune of ‘Click Go the Shears’, ‘O Come All Ye Racists’ to the tune of the Christmas carol with a similar title, and ‘The Battle Hymn of Hannes Marais’ to the melody of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ — or perhaps the better-known-in-inner-Sydney rugby league anthem ‘Glory, Glory to South Sydney’. The new words went:
Oh, my name is Hannes Marais, I’m a Springbok of this land
I’ve tried to do my duty and gain the upper hand
But they’ve made me out a racist, they’ve stamped me with a brand
And the Boks go marching on.
While we were flying into Mascot, they were marching in the street
While we were staying out at Bondi, Afrikaners faced defeat
While we were playing racist rugby there were smoke bombs at our feet
As the Boks go marching on.
With our sweat we faced the bastards, with our blood we played right on
With our tears we faced the hecklers and the flares kept coming on
Still all of us are Springboks, both on and off the john
As the Boks go marching on.
So let’s show the bloody Springboks we don’t want them on our grass
And let’s show them our abhorrence and make their game a farce
Let’s take their racist football and stick it up their … guernseys
As the Boks go rolling home
GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH!
Apart from The Australian and The Age, which opposed the tour, the Australian media, emboldened by opinion polls that were still indicating the public was interested in football, not politics, continued to support the tour while regretting the violence. Tabloids depicted anti-apartheid campaigners as misguided communist dupes and unwashed rebels without a cause who demonstrated against the establishment whatever the issue, be it South Africa, Vietnam, Aboriginal rights, women’s lib, the musical Hair … Sydney’s Daily Telegraph ran a front-page article skewering Bishop Edward Crowther as a hypocrite for dining at exclusive Pruniers restaurant in the eastern suburbs. Beneath a photo of Crowther, which had been sneakily snapped from bushes outside the restaurant window, the newspaper huffed that while the bishop ate delectable food and wallowed in the warm luxury of Pruniers — the temperature a cosy 22 degrees — his disciples shivered in 11-degree cold outside the Squire Inn.
After the South Africans rose from their beds following another sleepless night and breakfasted, they lazed in the winter sun that Monday 5 July at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, with its sweeping views of the sparkling Harbour and the construction site from which in just two years would spring the Sydney Opera House.
After that, it was back to the grind with a reception in their honour at Sydney Town Hall. Knowing what was in store, enthusiasm among the footballers for this outing was decidedly low. As they disembarked their bus, glancing warily about at the protesters, and climbed, as if mounting gallows, the George Street steps of the grand and ornate old building, they were abused by demonstrators, one of whom — none other than Denis Freney — hurled a smoke flare at them. ‘I crouched down, hoping the cops would not see me,’ recalled Freney, ‘and took a smoke flare out of my bag. I pulled the ring and lobbed it over the heads of the crowd. Chaos broke out and [Tribune photographer] Noel Hazard took a wonderful photo of the Springboks walking gingerly up the steps in a cloud of bright orange smoke.’ Police arrested Freney and took him to a van parked under the Town Hall steps. Freney had hoped he could throw the flare and escape, ‘but Askin’s political police had been keeping a close eye on me’. Police stifled the fizzing flare, while the footballers filed inside.
The guests that day at Sydney Town Hall largely comprised rugby union officials and players from Sydney clubs, all decked out in blazer and tie. Entering the building, they scowled at the Sieg-Heiling demonstrators. One observed loudly that he wasn’t expecting trouble at tomorrow’s match against Sydney, because he understood that Tuesday was the students’ bath day.
Sydney’s deputy lord mayor, Alderman Nick Shehadie, who had captained the Wallabies against the 1954 Springboks, welcomed the visitors, and courted a controversy in South Africa when he said it saddened him to see the indignities heaped on the players by ‘a very small, exhibitionist minority’ because of the policies of the South African government. Flappie Lochner, responding, quickly changed the subject. ‘We are not scared of the demonstrations and, indeed, are growing used to them. Football is all we’re here for and we know 99.9 per cent of the people of Australia are with us.’ Yes, at the beginning of the tour the demonstrations did affect them, it took time to get used to them, and there were some places where the players got little sleep, ‘but it has become better and better as the tour has progressed’. This may have been news to his men, who were being kept awake nightly at the Squire Inn. The cricket tour? Said Lochner, ‘I’m not prepared to comment on whether it will go ahead. I hope it does. Australia and South Africa must keep on competing against each other in all kinds of sports. This is the 50th year that South Africa and Australia have competed and I hope we do so for another 50 years. I wouldn’t imagine mixed tours [will ever take place] because of our Government’s policy and I’m not going to say anything about that. People in this country should understand the circumstances in my country before they comment. Go there and see for themselves.’ In the entire tour, this was the longest speech that Lochner made.
Tom Bedford remains frustrated that tour management, whether because they’d been instructed or by inclination, did not engage the Australian media in reasoned debate, acknowledging the strengths, as well as the weaknesses, of the South African system, instead sticking fast to the pre-approved responses they’d been told by their masters back home to spout in interviews or when making speeches.
It was a South African Rugby Board edict that Lochner and Hannes Marais were the only ones in the tour party permitted to respond to questions about apartheid. Young journalist Lenore Nicklin, however, managed to elicit an unguarded response from 26-year-old fullback Ian McCallum, a medical student with degrees in arts and science, who was clearly exasperated. The protesters, McCallum blurted, were demonstrating for demonstrating’s sake; they ‘all look the same, all smell the same. Most of them are not married, don’t earn any money, and have nothing better to do. They have just taken over from the ducktails and the hippies.’ McCallum’s words found their way into the South African newspapers, presumably angering Danie Craven and the rugby board. In addition, Tom Bedford was reported as saying that he wished the protesters would come up with some slogans other than ‘Sieg Heil’ and ‘Paint ’em Black and Send ’em Back’; and Piet Greyling opined that he and his teammates felt like animals in a zoo.
While the Springboks did their best to hold their tongues and avoid controversy, they were only human. At a team barbecue, one exasperated player was overheard to say, ‘This is not a rugby tour, this is hell. Nobody should be asked to go through this. I tell you, man, it can’t go on. It’s a farce. I am supposed to say to you that we are here to play rugby and that everyone has been magnificent. But you can’t ignore what has been happening. I’ve been sickened by some of the things I’ve seen so far. Surely, if this keeps up, they can’t let the tour go on.’ Another player expressed a desire to walk among the demonstrators in his Springbok blazer. ‘Hell, man, we are bloody proud to represent our country. You don’t know what it feels like to carry on like this.’ How difficult it must have been for players such as Hannes Ma
rais and Frik du Preez, legends in their homeland, to slink in and out back doors and be vilified whenever they appeared in public.
Nor was the vilification confined to the players. Occasionally, South African journalists covering the tour for their newspapers back home were abused when their accent was overheard by anti-apartheid people. At one point of the tour, sportswriter Brian Mossop gave a group of disgruntled South African media men a lift in his car when they needed to go into the city from Bondi Junction. ‘I put three in the back of my car and one alongside me in the passenger seat,’ recalls Mossop. ‘Their English was perfectly fine, but they spoke to each other in Afrikaans. They had no way of knowing that I was born in South Africa and lived there until I was 19 and I could understand every word they said … and what they were saying about Australians and Australia was bloody rude. They griped about how the demonstrations and the animosity were wearing them down and they couldn’t wait for the tour to end so they could get out of the bloody place. They felt on safe ground saying all this, as surely their driver didn’t speak their language. I was a bit angry about what they were saying then, but am less so now because those blokes were hardly made welcome here, and as a sports-lover I believe no visiting sportsmen should ever cop what the South Africans did. For those journos in my car, it must have been a dreadful assignment. We arrived in the city, and I said in English, “OK, gents, this is where you get out.” They thanked me in English and I said in perfect Afrikaans, “Jy is welkom” — “You’re welcome.” They did a double take. They couldn’t believe I had comprehended every insult.’
