How important is the personality of the secretaries?
I think it’s very important because they brought their own methods of dealing with things. There is an evolution in the book so you see, from the early leaders of Kenny and Marsh and Ducker who were blue collar workers. Kenny was in the glassworkers, Marsh was a boilermaker and Ducker was an ironworker. This was the way that working class people went into politics, through the trade union movement. They weren’t politicians to begin with but they all became politicians. After Ducker when you had the two electricians Barry Unsworth and John MacBean. And then you from that to complete a quantum leap to Michael Easson who was – as I call him – an honours graduate. He had been in the workforce but he was certainly not on the shop floor as a tradesman. From Michael Easson you go to Peter Sams who was an industrial advocate and from Peter Sams you go to Michael Costa who had been in the workforce. He in fact had been in the workforce for the ironworkers at Garden Island and he later trained a
