You can read my speech from Mannwest’s 130th Anniversary celebration below.
“Taking over from David Reed’s comments….
Thanks David, I actually have a three-hour speech prepared to cover the intricacies of the whole 130 years but you have set the tone as the Kalgoorlie theme so I will stick with that and just cover what I was about to say with a few dot points.
David reminded me that it was quite a unique experience growing up on the Goldfields and it reminded me of something my sister, Frances, reminded me of recently.
The event, mentioned by Frances, seemed so normal way back then for a couple of young 15-year-old kids, after school, to be riding illegal motor bikes. There was me and mate, Jack Murray. We were out in the bush one afternoon and we felt a loud thud through the ground and saw some rising dust in the distance. We headed over that way only to find that an MMA (predecessor to Ansett) De Havilland Dove had crashed just as it was coming down to land in Kalgoorlie.
One wing had broken off the Dove and the plane dropped vertically. An incredible scene of devastation and scattered body parts. Jack and I felt it was important that we souvenir a few body parts just to prove to the kids at school, the next day, that we were really on the scene.
Our actions led to a few complications but the one aspect that Frances reminded me of was, that a couple of days later, (Frances would have been about twelve), I approached her with a tobacco tin and lifted the lid. Nestled on a piece of cotton wool was a human finger! Frances screamed and ran off. I pursued her and lifted the lid again! This time….. the finger moved. At that point Frances fainted.
It was a couple of days later before I showed her the tin again and the hole in the bottom of the tin and explained that it was my finger that she had seen!
It was about a year before she spoke to me again.
Anyway, it was all in a day’s work back then, and I am sure today we would have received endless trauma counselling.
Breaking up the 130 years of Mannwest’s existence, (which makes it one of the longest serving continually operation family companies in the West), it is easy to say:-
- My grandfather, W.G. Manners, ran the company for 30 years, until his death from cancer at age 59.
- Then dad, Charlie, ran the company for 30 years, until his heart attack.
- Then I ran the company for 70 years.
Sounds fairly boring having the same job for 70 years but somehow I have never thought of it as being boring.
It has had a few ‘patchy periods’, when we have had to change direction, due to the volatility of the various commodities.
We have ‘had a go’ at many things, some quite varied, such as running a Drive-In Movie Theatre and there is some ‘evidence’ in your commemorative pack (all stacked on the sideboard for you to take as you leave), where there is a gold-edged free pass to the Twin City Drive-In Theatre. A remarkable commemorative item which I am sure one day you will be able to exchange for cricket cards or Batman cards, or whatever. A real collector’s item.
We have dabbled in all manner of things, even a 30-year experience with philanthropy.
Our philanthropic process may have been problematic, but the end product has been excellent, and you will have an opportunity to meet some of our young people here tonight.
That brings us right up to the present time when we find the company is in better shape than it has ever been. That could be due to an excellent Board, including David Stevens, Mac Nichols, Neil Fearis, Lyndon Rowe, Jenny Manners, Ian Manners and, last but not least, Bill Stacey in Hong Kong.
Their steadying hand has moderated my impetuous desire to do crazy things.
I’m very appreciative of their involvement.
Every week I remind myself how fortunate we are, with our current team of Stuart Banks, Jeanie Moullin, John Ogilvie, Ian Manners, Matthew Lock and, in particular, Judy Carroll.
Looking back over the company’s history it becomes obvious that a major contributor to the firm’s survival has been the influence of some significant ladies.
Just a brief mention of Val Moyle who effectively ran the company for some years while I was exiled from the country during a tax dispute.
Vivienne Overton. When I ‘job interviewed’ her she explained that she had come from Canberra, where she was Malcolm Fraser’s Secretary (she was transferred to Kalgoorlie as her husband took on a senior geological position there). Subsequently, it was quite interesting when I was sending some unsolicited policy advice to our Prime Minister, we used to insert on the bottom ‘regards from Viv’ and in his responses he would return the ‘regards to Viv’.
It was quite an experience for Viv to transfer from a Canberra position to a Kalgoorlie position. I think, on her first day, I asked her to take a bunch of agreements down to the Mines Department and use a special technique, which we had developed to get them all stamped, without paying stamp duty, but still rendering them legally enforceable.
She was quite upset about this stamp duty avoidance technique, but I explained that we did not have enough money to pay both the stamp duty and her salary.
Another remarkable young lady whose initials were M.B. It was only after she left, and we received strange telephone calls at night, seeking her whereabouts, that we realized she had a night job as well. Only in Kalgoorlie!
In particular, I would like to make special mention of Alannah Gent, who was my secretary through much of the Croesus Mining era. Although Alannah’s activities were probably 80% Croesus and 20% Mannwest, I made sure that Mannwest paid 100% of her salary and all I can say is we were probably more conscious, back in the eighties, of ‘conflicts of interest’, than some of the corporate titans of today.
However, tonight, I would just like to concentrate on five remarkable ladies (with floral presentations).
- My mother, Nancy. The first female to study geology at The Kalgoorlie School of Mines (1924), as she told me, just so she could talk with ease to our clients.
- A very impressive and very professional young secretary to my father, Edith Stevens (my mother’s young sister) later to be Edith Keogh – (Hilda to represent Edith).
- Another impressive secretary to my father – my sister Frances.
- And, yet another impressive Secretary (now titled Executive Assistant), Judy Carroll who has worked with me for the past 23 years of turbulence.
- And the indispensable and able Jenny, who has provided me with the life sustaining drumbeat to guide me.
And, for the future?
All I can say is that we are well prepared, with our skilful team, to view the future with great optimism.
Thank you for being with us tonight.”
03/12/24
Regards,
Ron Manners AO
