Caroline Hogg was involved in Labor politics from the late 1960s, and opposed the Vietnam War and conscription from very early on. Here she discusses a ‘fill in a falsie’ party, and being at the 1970 moratorium.

Transcript:

Caroline: And I remember going to a party at Jean McLean’s place where we all had to fill in a falsie: we had to sort of fill in a registration slip with false names, addresses, details, to just make things as difficult as possible for the authorities.

Alex: What sorts of people were at the fill in a falsie occasion? 

Caroline: Yeah, my age or older. I mean, I was one of the really young ones at that stage, I would have just been in my 20s. Jean would have been seven or eight years older. But – Labor people… because the McLeans moved in an arts circle, there were quite a lot of well known and creative people there; there were a lot of people there. It wasn’t the only fill in a falsie party that she had, I’m sure, but it was the only one I went to. And it was great fun. We drank and we – we let our imaginations run riot. …

Alex: Since you obviously knew Jean, did you get involved in Save Our Sons? Or were you involved in other sorts of things rather than joining that organization?

Caroline: I was involved in other sorts of things. I certainly gave them, gave them support of course, but as I said to you, I was in the Collingwood – I got into local government by accident, so we don’t need to go into that, in 1969. And I spent the whole of the 70s as a Collingwood councillor. And most of the people on that council by the way were very anti – it was all-Labor council in those days. So people were anti conscription and anti the Vietnam War. You weren’t in the Labor Party as a supporter of the war, generally speaking.

Alex: Did you get a chance to march in any of the moratoriums for instance? 

Caroline: All of them, all of them.

Alex: Right. What was that like? 

Caroline: Oh, well, it was terrific. The first one particularly: it was a very heady experience because the shock jocks of the day had led everybody to expect violence and armed strife and it was the most peaceful and beautiful experience. It really was and it was a lovely day, and you saw all your friends and there was great music playing somewhere. It was, it was terrific. And the other ones that followed and the other protest marches that weren’t necessarily called moratoriums, they were all well organised and terrific. And I would want to call out Sam Goldbloom as being one of the organizers of the moratorium movement. He was fabulous. He was also very tall, so we could see him and hear him when he boomed out at us. His daughter’s still alive. His three daughters.

Alex: is that Sandra Zurbo?

Caroline: yep …  She roped me in as a draft counselor. It involved young men if they were faced with filling in their form, or if they’d been – if they’d been called up, just coming for general advice. I think only two or three people ever came. But there was a notice up in your area with your telephone number that people could pop in. And a couple did. 

If you know of a Melbourne woman involved in protesting against the Vietnam War, please leave a comment!