March 26, 2025 • 69 mins
On a Friday afternoon in 1972, in the small town of Faraday, Victoria, 10-year-old Robyn Howarth was playing musical chairs with her classmates when something unexpected caught her eye. She turned to the classroom door and saw two men standing there—one wearing a black mask, the other with dark sunglasses and a hat.
The taller man raised an enormous gun, aiming it at Robyn, her five classmates, and their 20-year-old teacher, Mary Gibbs. As Mary desperately pleaded with them, the men ordered everyone to "get in the van... now."
More than 50 years later, Robyn has written a book, Faraday: A Community Rediscovered, where she recounts, in vivid detail, the traumatic events that unfolded that day. For decades, she has kept her story to herself—until now.
You can buy Robyn's book here.
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CREDITS
Guest: Robyn Howarth
Host: Gemma Bath
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to Amma Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the
traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was recorded
on It's a Friday Afternoon in the small Victorian town
of Faraday in October nineteen seventy two, and the how
withth sisters are excited for the weekend. There's only six
(00:33):
students at school today. The other four that make up
the cohort at Faraday Primary are off with bad colds.
It's chilly and wet outside, so their teacher, Miss Gibbs,
has agreed to let them play musical chairs inside. They're
having the best time, squealing, laughing, sliding on the floorboards,
when suddenly the room goes still. As ten year old
(00:57):
Robin turns to the classroom door, she sees two men
standing there. One of them's wearing a black covering on
his face, the other has dark sunglasses and a hat.
The taller man raises an enormous gun, aiming it directly
at them. Please not us, Please not us, their teacher says, shaking.
(01:20):
She looks terrified. Thanks, Robin, what's going on. School's over
for the day. One of the men replies, get in
the van now, I'm Jemma Vass and This is True
Crime Conversations Amom of Me, a podcast exploring the world's
(01:43):
most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know
the most about them. Victorian plasterers and fathers themselves, Edwin
John Eastwood twenty one and Robert Clyde Boland, who was
in his mid thirties, planned the kidnapping for months. Their
crime was described at the time as the gravest situation
(02:04):
of its kind in the history of the Victorian police
force and Australia's crime of the century. The men had
dug a trench in remote bushland where they intended to
bury their victims after putting plaster over their mouths and
chains around their bodies. The whole was to be covered
by galvanized iron and dirt. Thankfully they didn't get that far,
(02:27):
but that doesn't mean that what twenty year old primary
school teacher Mary Gibbs unto six students endured wasn't terrifying.
In her care were Christine Ellery ten, sisters Lindaconn nine
and Helen con six, and sisters Denise Haworth five, Gillian
Howorth eight and Robin Haworth ten. While the event gained
(02:51):
significant media attention at the time, The survivors have largely
refrained from telling their stories publicly until now, more than
five decades on, Robin has released a book titled Faraday,
A Community Rediscovered, in which she details what happened to
her and her classmates. She hasn't felt comfortable sharing her
(03:11):
story until now. Robin, you published your book on your
account of the Faraday kidnapping last year, more than fifty
years after it happened. Why now, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I didn't realize myself until I started writing. But
I carried a grief and a loss all my adult
life about Faraday, And as an adult, I was always
very reluctant to ever tell anyone where I came from,
because whenever anyone mentioned Faraday, it was always in the
(03:50):
context of, oh, I remember that, I remember that story.
That's a place where those kids were taken. What awful
history that place has. You know, every time we drive
past the school, which is still standing but it is
a home now, I just shudder. And I remember thinking,
(04:12):
as I aged, and I hope get more reflective and
maybe older and wiser, I always felt really sad about that,
because we were so much more than a kidnapping. We
were a lovely little community and we loved our school.
So I guess probably about fifteen years ago I had
returned back to the area, like I had left that
(04:34):
area as an eighteen year old, because I went nursing
and I left the area I married. I'd changed my name,
and I remember thinking when I was living in the
Golden Valley area, beautiful part of the world in Victoria,
that it would never ever have to tell anyone who
I was and where I was from, because all through
my adolescence, and I guess late childhood, we were always
(04:58):
referred to us. You're one of those girls, aren't you.
You're one of those girls, And I realized I was
really tired of hearing that. We never ever viewed ourselves
as victims. Never the press at the time certainly sensationalize
the story, and we're not particularly kind or respectful.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And that's a memory of a child when I look back.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
The school closed after the kidnapping, But when I was
writing the book and reflecting, I thought, oh, gosh, mum,
you know three young mums with top two with toddlers
turning up on that Friday afternoon to collect their children.
School's empty they wait, and then they go into the
(05:42):
school and then they search the school grounds nothing, eerie silence.
They cross over to a pine plantation opposite, they search there, nothing,
and then they go in and eventually find a ransom
note threatening the annihilation of every hostage if a ransom
(06:04):
of a million dollars wasn't paid. And myself into little
sisters were part of that actual crime. So mum had
three daughters, So for Mum, the trauma was really really deep.
She kept every scrap book, every press article for years,
(06:27):
and the police crime photos, and she had given it
to me, and I realized I had a treasure trove
of information. So I decided, well, I was going to
try and put something together. And then as I sort
of started writing it, Jamal, I thought, oh, I think
it's actually a little bit bigger than just our family.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
All the quick Google tells me that the population of
Faraday in twenty sixteen was one hundred and fifty eight people.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Oh wow, was that many?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I was going to ask, is that a lot? What
was it when you lived there?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, I think that is is a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I look, I would be guessing that I would think
in nine seventy two we'd be lucky to have fifty
to eighty. In nineteen seventy two, we had ten students
at Faraday.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
That was huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Normally we only had you know, seven, and there was
I think five families and we had two, you know,
families that had moved in who weren't the traditional farming
families that have been there for generations. So we were
so excited.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Ten students ten How does that work?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
How does ten students in one school with one teacher work?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
In reflection, I think it must have been very difficult,
but it did. You know, you had the older students
at the back that the younger students at the front
or being given you know.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
The appropriate work for the year level.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But certainly joining a netball team or something was a
bit tricky, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Really?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Jimmy writing this book which has been just amazing, amazing,
and the response has just been so overwhelming and humbling
that so many people who come to the author talks
or want to share their experience of the one teacher
school and apparently I capture that era.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Very very well. So having said that was a.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Very safe, secure space. But I guess not a lot
of outside influence either, because.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Take me back to your life in the seventies. You
said you were a farming family. You're also quite isolated.
You didn't really leave the farm. You talk a lot
about really wanting to go on holiday to the beach,
but you couldn't because your dad couldn't leave the cows.
A picture of what it was like growing up in
Faraday in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
We were quite poor.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Like I said, there wasn't a lot of a lot
of money, but it was you know, I reflect back,
it was a time of great ritual and routine, and
so like every Thursday, you know, so the furthest we
ever went is we went into Castlemaine and we would
take Grandma Howard, who lived in the farmhouse next to us,
shopping every Thursday.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And our grandma didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Drive, of course, so she would always come over the
paddock in that dusty track, dressed in a hat and
gloves and shoes and stockings and matching handbag and beads,
even in forty degree heat, to walk up and down
the main street of Mouston Street, nodding and smiling to
all the other ladies had come in off their farms.
(09:42):
But you know, we kind of knew everyone and were
probably related or connected to many. Someday was very much
you know, that traditional roast lamb and steamed ginger pudding,
and we would go and visit our grandparents in Bendigo, and.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
That's probably as far as.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
We went, you know. We would spend time with our cousins.
But our school was really important to us because that
was essentially the harbor of the community because we didn't
have a hall, so gatherings and not that they were
huge on my dad, but any gatherings were held at
the school, so it was a really important place for
(10:24):
us to be.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So in nineteen seventy two, the teacher was Mary Gibbs.
She was only twenty years old. What was her story?
Why was she coming to Faraday?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I would imagine back then they had to apply for
several schools. Look, I don't know, and obviously Faraday was
allocated to her. But I do chuckle to myself now
because I have very vivid memories because miss Mary Gibbs
was very.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Stylish, very stylish with.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Lovely outfits, you know, and it was that erea of
the seventies, the boots, the short skirts, and I always
remember the mums, you know, gathering at the school gates
or after, you know, I wonder what she's going to
be wearing today, and the father's we're just horrified because
this young woman would be driving backwards and forwards from
(11:17):
Bendigo to Faraday, which is probably about thirty minutes, maybe
back then was forty five minutes because the roads are pretty.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Awful and the car's not as good.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
But they were really worried that she would have to
have a chaperone I'm back with her, because it would
just be too much.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Gosh.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, at least they were concerned for her welfare.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And they were trying to think about, you know, local
accommodation for her, just you know, to help her, you know.
So I thought, oh, what a different what a different world.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So in the September of nineteen seventy two, your sister
started noticing a couple of men kind of watching the school.
Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, look, and I suppose it's the sister guilt I
sort of carried too, because she did. She was noticing,
you know, and she mentioned it to me a couple
of times. Did you see those men today in the creek?
And being the big sister, I kind of dismissed it
(12:21):
because my head was full of you know, we had
to practice for the school sports that was coming up,
and the Customane show was happening, so there was a
lot of things on. But she did keep mentioning, did
you see those men today? And I didn't, but it
was only you know, of course, after the crime was committed,
(12:43):
that they had actually staked out the school and were
well aware that there was a young female teacher and
how many students there were, and you sort of look back,
and that does give you the shivers to think that
they would do that, or that they did that.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
What do you remember of the morning of Friday, October
seventh in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Look, I remember that well because it was a really
cold morning, which was unseasonable. Mama's passed away now, but
she was a very good mum. So she's trying to,
you know, drag us all out of bed because it's
freezing cold, and you know, we're having our corn plates
and our toast, and we used to often cook the
toast on the open fire. And I remember having a big,
(13:35):
well not a big argument, but you know, Muma said no, no,
you're going to need long pants and jumpers today, so
that little sisters all went and obediently put on what
she'd put on, but I of course didn't and went
to the wardrobe and got the most inappropriate summer dress
I could find a car, and I really later that
(13:57):
day I remember thinking, oh, wish I had listened to
Mum and it was many. It was just really a
very typical morning. There was nothing different except probably I
had driven Mum demented with my dress choice.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So around the time that this all happened, you were
saying it was a bit of a cold day, it
was starting to rain, and instead of pee out in
the yard like you normally would, you were inside and
your teacher was playing musical chairs with you.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, well we had gone.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, it was I think we were meant to have
pe outside, but it was miserable and October, which is
a bit unusual in Tourient October. But yes we were
which was really probably one of our favorite, most favorite
things we liked to do.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
We were really having fun.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
When did it change?
Speaker 3 (14:49):
What?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
How did you notice the men and what did they
do When they first came into the room, They.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Were just really still for start, you know, they were
very still, and I guess, you know, in the nightmares
later on, like they were like mom's giants looming, But
I guess still, and we were really taken aback because
remembering a little small girl school, we didn't really have
(15:16):
visitors to the school, and you know, they looked a
little ten year old girl probably couldn't process it properly,
but you would have to say sinister.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Well, at least one of them had kind of a
balaclava on.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
The balaclava and the other was in some sort of
wig and hat pulled down and sunglasses, and the little
girl does remember thinking, why would you wear sunglasses inside?
That's an odd thing to do, And she remembers very
(15:53):
clearly thinking because it was because it was Edward Johnny's
was in the balaclava, and it was Robert Clyde Boland
with a bag and in the wig and sunglasses and hat.
But Edward Johnny's but had a twenty two gage draftle
that he was waving around and aiming, aiming at children.
(16:17):
And the little girl remembers thinking, wait till I get
home and tell dad he is going to be so wild.
Because of course a farming family, we had guns, but
we were never to touch the gun. It was always
unloaded in a porch with the bullets well away from it,
and the little one remembers thinking that man's dad must
(16:41):
have never told him how to manage a gun.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Because someone could get shocked with what he's doing. You know.
It was that very innocent view of life.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, were you scared when you saw them at first?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I think we were, yes, But it was possibly it
was a little bit as if time had stood still
and it was bewilderment.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
I think.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You're listening to true crime conversations with me, Jemma Bath.
I'm speaking with Robin Howorth about the day she was
kidnapped from the Faraday State School in nineteen seventy two.
Up next, Robin describes how she felt being driven in
the van by the men who would kidnapped her, not
knowing where they were being taken. What did the next
(17:35):
ten to fifteen minutes look like, because it really only
took that amount of time to kind of get you
guys from a classroom into a van and on the road.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, I think it took you fifteen minutes or something
to kidnap the whole school. And also remembering we were
good little country kids, so you know, probably quite bewildered.
It would have been so much worse for Mary Gibbs
because she would have had a lot more awareness of
what was happening. But you know, they've actually charged in
(18:06):
and you know, gun waving and sit on the seat
and you're quite puzzled. And then we were virtually marched
out and loaded into the van with Eastwood, and I
remember thinking, well.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I don't want to go with him, but what was
the option?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And the teacher had remained very calm, which was amazing,
but you know, so no, you know, we need to
go out, but she remained back. She didn't come into
the van till later. So we were there just with
Edward John Eastwood, who we thought was quite nutty.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Really well, you actually spoke to him, didn't you. As
he was kind of loading you into the van. You
asked him a question.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Because I had, and my school friends will tell me
they did this too, so it makes me feel a
lot better. I'd often snake out at night and watched
Homicide and D twenty five, so I thought I was
a bit of an expert on crime shows. I remember
saying to him, You're not going to murderous, are you?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
You know? Robbing us would be okay, but not murder.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And then you know, he looked at me, so I
was a little insect on the floor. But then I
remember thinking they wouldn't rob us because we've got nothing
that they could take.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
What did the back of the van look like?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
It was just it was virtually empty. I think there
was yeah, yellow petrol tin up the front. It smelt
of petrol smelt, you know. It was just very basic
and we sat on the wheel, sort of lining seats
each side.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Very basic, empty.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And did they say anything else before they drove off?
They threw your teacher in with you and basically just
hit the road.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I think Robert Kyle Bollen said something like, you need
to be really careful. Eastwood must have got out some stage.
You need to be really careful of him. They all,
we're trying to play the good cop, bad cop sort
of routine.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So one of them drove the van and then the
other was in the back with you. Yes, correct, And
that was Eastwood, the one that you thought was a
bit crazy who was kind of in the back with you.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, he was only twenty one at the time.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
What was the trip like? Was he talking to you
or was he talking to Mary what was happening in
the back.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
He talked all the time, Really, he talked all the time,
and in the end we were trying not to make
any eye and I think I wrote him the book
that or Miss Gibbs got the Short Store, because she
was sitting quite close to him, and it was almost
like he was trying to impress her, that he talked
and talked and talked, and I remember in the end
we all just kind of, oh, well, this is my
(20:59):
I remember, no eye contact, and just trying to peer
out of the little holes in the van to see
where we were actually going. More so so we could
avoid talking to him, because you certainly got the sense
he wasn't really interested in talking to children. It was
more he was trying to impress probably a very attractive
(21:19):
twenty year old young lady.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
He was talking to you about the fact that you
were going to be in the newspaper.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, that we were going to be famous, and they
put us on the map. And then I think he
had said to Miss Gibbs Mary at some stage that
he'd send us some money in the mail. All this grandiose,
you know, and of course our world was so small,
so we were thinking, well, maybe we'll get a paragraph
(21:45):
in the Castlemaine Mail, like that's our local local newspaper,
you know, and you know, thinking well, why would we.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Be in the paper? You know?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And I remember, you know, the little girl, remember thinking
he is seriously crazy, this man.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Why would he think we would be in the paper?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, you said he had a gun? Did he have
any other weapons? Could you see anything else that looked
a bit sinister?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It was like, you know, just a carry on bag,
very nondescript, but it was full of chains and I
believe a knife because and this is really horrific, that
they had dug a trench out at Landsfield and they
had planned they had planned to put us in their
(22:35):
chained up with plaster tapes or something over a mouse.
Now I don't know this, I can't know this, but
I kind of always lied to have thought that they
couldn't go through with it, because I think if they
did that, there's no way we would have survived it.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Do you remember how you felt on that trip, because
it was a couple of hours, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah? Well it felt it actually was uncomfortable, saw bottoms
bumping up and down. Scared, but also remembering too general
was almost incomprehensible really to make sense of something that
you really couldn't make sense of.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well you were only ten and you were the oldest.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah. Yeah, So it's six.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Really small girls from an isolated community experiencing something that
is just, you know, very confusing, very strange. I can
imagine that getting the concept.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I think too though, because and I get this view
has really crystallized sense i' written the book because.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
We were from a rural community.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
We had been dearly loved, dearly looked after all our childhood.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
So we were also good little.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Country kids and we did you know, none of us
had had a complete melt and that's an all kudos
to Mary Gibbs. None of us had a complete meltdown
because she didn't. But I guess we were used to,
you know, this is what we're doing that you know,
there was none of us would have been about the
(24:20):
little girls that would be arguing or.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You know, we just we did what we needed to
do to survive it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I think there was one moment where Mary kind of
faltered a bit and she did start crying. Do you
remember that because Eastwood whispered to her and in hindsight,
you now know that he was telling her about the trench.
But in that moment she kind of that stoic, strong
(24:48):
facade that she was putting on kind of crumbled, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But then I remember too, you know, he sort of
reached over in too. No, no, no, no, you've got
to think of them.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Oh, but it's your plan. So he was telling her
to be strong even though he was threatening her.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yes, that probably goes to his mindset too, really all
over all over the shop.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Really, tell me about the money he stole from Mary
and how shocked you were by that?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yes, yes, and we was, you know, it was so
offended and upset for her.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
He wanted to see her license because.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
We didn't know that at the time, but he had
a plan of how he was going to collect the
ransom off the state government, so he wanted her license
to prove that he had. So she gave it to us,
and then he said, what have you got any cash?
And she said, well, nine dollars and gave him and
you know he's holding her his hand apt for the money,
(25:52):
and we're looking at each other in horror, going, he's
just stolen nine dollars from that teacher, he's a thief
and she but she had another you know, twenty six
dollars hidden somewhere else that she didn't give him an
oh after, you know, we learned that not at the time,
and I always remember my dad saying, oh.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Good on her, good on her.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So they drove you to kind of a remote area
near Lancefield. What was it like there? Like when he
stopped the van and they opened the back doors and
let you out to you know, have a wee. He'd
been traveling for a few hours. What did you see?
What was it like?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
It was?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
You know, it was very remembering it and I in
my mind I've probably recreated it more than what it was.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
But it was miserable, very overcast. It was really thick.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Bushland. It was an area of course we didn't know,
We didn't know where we were. The thought of escaping
didn't even I think it was certainly it didn't occur
to me because where we have gone it was a
frightening place actually, And Lancefield is a beautiful part in
rural Victoria.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
But I do write in my book as a maternal
and child health news I have done some work down
there and it's a beautiful community, it's a beautiful area.
But I remembered, you know, with maternal and child health,
people always do a home visit after a family has
a little baby, And if I ever had a visit
booked at Lansfield, my heart would just think going back
(27:34):
to Lancefield. And I realized why that was, because my
memory of it was it was a frightening a frightening place.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Really, Well, what did that afternoon look like for you
and the other kids, because it was, you know, three
point thirty four o'clock you arrived. What did you do?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well, you know, first of all, we know scamped around
and had a way, and then I think we sort
of stood around, and then you know, we had this
treasure hunt that we thought was hideous because that stage
Eastwood had left to organize the rants and so we
were only being guarded by Boland. So I guess too,
(28:14):
you were sort of thinking, oh, that's good, one's gone.
I've only got one here. And he didn't talk as much,
so that was a good thing. But it was miserable, really,
it was just miserable. And then he locked us back
in the van, which I guess was a relief really.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
When did your families realize you were missing?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Probably about you know, three point thirty four when they
went to collect you know, when the mums went to
collect us and they found the ransom note.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So it was on that Friday.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And what did the ransom notes say? Not everything, but
there was particular phrases in there that really kind of
affected your mum and the other mums.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Oh, yes, it was virtually you know, that we had
been kidnapped and they were demanding a million dollars from
the state government and if their demands weren't met, it
would result in the annihilation of all the hostages.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Annihilation. Yeah, how did your mum feel reading that?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Apparently they had decided to loosely base the crime on
the Clint Eastwood movie Dirty Harry was some of their
motivation or how they planned it out. So I've never
watched that movie and I don't plan to.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I know you said your mum was a really stoic woman,
but did she tell you about how she felt that afternoon?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh? It it had affected mum greatly, but she didn't
really ever talk about it a great deal ever, And
she found the press interest very stressful.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So it's the seventies there's no mobiles. These three moms
arrive at the school to pick up their kids, they're
not there. They have this ransom note. What did they do?
How did they kind of raise the alarm?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
One of them ran over to a neighbor to get
a call to the Customer Police was probably actually around
the same time Eastwood had called. Wayne Grant reported with
the Heraldton and he was very lovely. He was very
very kind to us, and he thought for a start
(30:23):
it was a crank call. But then he looked at
where Faraday was and I need to sort of pull
this in, and he you know, I think he called
D twenty four, and I think the custom and police
had just got the call, and all of a sudden
there was a realization that something really very bad had
(30:45):
gone down. And then the mums all drove back to
their respective farms to scramble around to try and find
their husbands. We're all farming and the men are all
out working wherever. Again, no mobile phones are ready to
sort of raise the alarm.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
So the police they mobilized pretty quickly, two hundred police,
two hundred volunteer years and all the local huge tell
me about the search.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
The search was was huge, you know when I reflect back,
So Casselaane virtually went into an emergency lockdown because there
were police, you know, flooded in everywhere. All your all
your service clubs were the the CFA, I think Saint John's.
And as the story broke, like as it was being broadcast.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Over the radios, people are.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Leaving for weekends or going away, stopped the direction they
were going and headed to the school and joined the search.
So it was a massive search underway.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
And then of course all the farmers and that's.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
What people talk of today, how they all you know
in that area were huge, just searched and walked their
properties everywhere.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
They just searched and searched and searched. But it was hoped.
It was hopeless, Like it really was hopeless.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Was delivering the ransom ever going to be an issue?
Because you know, all the big wigs got called in
very quickly. We've got the heads of the police, we've
got the premiere. Was getting that money together going to
be hard or was that just you know, yes, we're
doing it.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
My understanding, and look, I can't say this for certain,
but my understanding was that the government were going to
find the money and I think they borrowed it from
a company. And there's a very iconic photo of Lindsey Thompson,
who was a Deputy Premier and Education Minister at the
time because they wanted him to be the one to
(32:49):
deliver the money, and standing at wood End, which is
a little town outside of Melbourne. In early hours of
the morning, there was a call came through for the
ransom to be delivered. Now whether it's two thoughts, one
was that was a hoax, one that was actually was
the kidnappers anyway, the police surrounded would end they had
(33:13):
their Deputy Premier standing in the main street with a
satchel where they had had the I don't know, and
the police commissioner he wasn't the police commissioner at the time.
McK miller and mister Crawling who ended up being the
assistant Commissioner were in unmarked car, fully armed, but they
were really concerned because they thought there was a good
(33:33):
chance that the Deputy Premier would be shot. Because they
just thought whoever was doing this was absolute mad.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So they think that that might have been hoax call.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, they do, well it was they did. No one
turned up.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
No one turned up to collect and I think there's
an interview with the Eastood where he he he became
aware of that and sort of made some comment, Oh,
some other bastard was trying to get in on the caper,
you know, and the police actually said, well you should
know you made the call and it was it wasn't me,
so no, whether who knows.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Really, let's good to Lancefield and this kind of rural
bush area that you were all standing in, because the
part that gets to me is thinking of it's starting
to get dark and all these little girls that he
used to being tucked into bed ah absolutely having their
bas having their dinner. What did bedtime or nighttime look
(34:35):
like in Lancefield that night.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Well, it really wasn't a bedtime or a nighttime. And
you know, again this is bizarre sort of stuff because
it was freezing in the back of the van and
Robert clip bowl and then we all moved into the
front cabin and huddled together for warmth. But I remember
it's all sort of getting in there and you know,
(34:58):
leaning as far away as we could because no one
wanted to sit near him for warmth. And Denise Smile,
the little one like she was only five and a
tiny little girl had to sit on his knee, and
she said her memories.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Are just a scratchy jumper, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
And him continually, you know that the story had broken,
and him continually fiddling with the radio and turning it
from channel to channel because the press kept telling the
story of that tragic story of Graham Thorne, the little
boy that had been kidnapped and murdered.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
So they were telling Graham's story as a comparison to
you guys.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Virtually, Yes, there's been a kidnapping the last know, and
kidnapping was in Sydney, of he.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Was murdered, and you're hearing that on the radio, you know, his.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Gray fears for the you know.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And he kept turning it from channel to channel to it,
you know, and sort of almost fumbling, I guess, and
then turned it off, I think. And then he turned
to us and said, I really love kids. And even
as a little tenure girl, you know, mentally, I remember thinking, no, you.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Don't, or wasn't he a father himself?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Who was and I think to similar age children, did
they give you anything to eat?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
When Aswood returned, we got cold chips?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I think it was, but I don't I can't remember
us drinking much or yeah, you know that memory is
a bit bluwry. No, not not really.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And at some point during the evening they both left,
didn't they together?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yes? They left, Yes, they left?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
And what did you do? Did you get any sleep?
Were you still in the back of the van or
in the cab?
Speaker 2 (36:51):
We must have got a little bit. But also to
remembering we were good little country kids. We did what were told,
and they very said, now you stay here, will be
back in the morning.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Don't move.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I'm in awe of the bravery of mery gives, because
you know, they had clearly said they were coming back.
We had no reason to doubt that that wouldn't have.
Luckily we didn't listen to them.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Tell me about what Mary did? How did she get
you out?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I think we must have had some sleep, and you know,
it's daybreak or it's daylight, and she probably became aware
too that we couldn't just stay in here forever we
hadn't had anything to drink. It needed to go to
the toilet, and you know, she started just sort of
tapping around to see and then she eyed off this
panel at the back.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
And remembering it.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Was that era of those beautiful boots and the minisca
and started kicking and kicking and kicking and kicking. And
one of the girls, Christine, was a really good you know,
she could hold the chain well, she could land on
her I didn't think I was that helpful. I tried
to hold it at times, we took turns or tried
(37:58):
to kick.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
It was really in those.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Boots that so she literally kicked a panel out of
the van yep at the back man. Yes, this twenty
year old woman with these big, sturdy boots.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
And remembering we had been to you do not move,
we are coming back, do not move.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
So she got you out. You all kind of stumble
out of the van. What did you do? Were you terrified?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
And actually I think that was probably the most frightening
parts of it, because it was very much, oh, they
come back, They're going to be so wild because we
haven't we haven't done what they said. We had to
stay still. But again, you know, she just we started
walking out, and you know, she had said we needed
(38:46):
to be very quiet and just follow her and if
we heard anything we had to run.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
And hide, you know, which we did.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
And it was only when we started hearing gunshots that,
oh no, and we all really hid, and so did
Mary Gibbs. But then she must have she heard something
that we didn't, and she stood up and beckoned for
us to stay where we were and went towards the
(39:17):
sand because she had heard women's.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Voices and they it wasn't the kidnappers.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And there were a party of four, two men and
two women. I think they were having a weekend away
rabbit shooting.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
So it wasn't the kidnappers. It was this kind of
group of friends.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Friends, yeah, that had you know, obviously knew this area
and had come out early, or maybe that stayed. I
don't know, but they were rabbit shooting, and that she
heard the gunshots, but once she heard women's voice, she
realized it wasn't the kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I can only imagine from their point of view, watching
these six dirty, bedraggled children and a teacher kind of
stumbling out of the bush, that must have been very strange.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
They were.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Very shocked and very taken aback, But I remember, though
very kind. I suppose they were quite fearful for their
safety too. So we all piled into their car and
ended up at the Lansville play Station.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Tell me about the miscommunication that happened once you arrived there,
because to paint the picture once again, it's a country town.
So there is a police station, but it's manned by
one two police officers, and there's a house.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
The policeman wasn't there, he was out, possibly on patrol.
So it was Missus Anderson, this tiny, tiny lady, and
you know, they pulled up and one of them must
have borne in and said something innocently like I've got
the teacher and the children in the car, and with
(40:59):
Missus Anderson stormed at and was just furious and started
yelling at the rescuers, virtually saying to them, how could you,
how could you do this? And I remember that one
of the gentlemen saying, well, we actually thought were being helpful.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
And Missus Anderson was the police officer's wife, wife, and.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
She I remember her yelling at them saying helpful. You
call this helpful?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And Mary was able to explain and I know these
aren't the perpetrators, this is the rescuers. And then Missus
Anderson calmed down and then called out to a son, Oh,
you can stop, you can put the gun down. Her
son and I don't know how old her son was,
but whether it's a young adult or late adolescent, had
(41:45):
a gun trained on the car. He was going to
shoot the tires out if they tried to hit from
a bedroom window or something like that.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
And then she was very I remember, she was very kind,
was very.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Clapped over us and white oat faces and gave us
some hot mile.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So pretty quickly the police and the media were surrounding
that house and that police station. What was that like?
That would have been your first kind of instance seeing
a media kind of horde.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
It was.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
It was surreal and it wasn't particularly comfortable, you know,
my memory, you know, because the whole the police had
had arrived, I think mister Thompson had arrived like it was.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
It was a really big deal.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
And then the press had all set up and I
remember one of them same rule, it's best if you
go out, you know, they want photos, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
But I don't think anything.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Could really prepare well, it couldn't prepare us for that
because we had no experience of a press throng or
yelling it out and the other thing. Jemmy, you know,
I didn't resonate to write the book. It was all men,
the journalists it's all men. Back in that era, it's
all men.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
And they were kind of yelling questions at you, weren't they.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, it was quite sort of RECEI at the time,
That's what it felt like anyway, you know it was.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Do you remember being reunited with your parents. How long
after the rescue was that It's been a.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Few hours, because it would have you know, there was
there was a lot going on at Lancefield, maybe late morning,
maybe lunchtime.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I remember being really excited being driven back to Casmane
and Plexica and they brought us an ice cream and
I remember thinking, oh, we never have ice cream in
the morning. But then again when we got back to Castlemaine,
just an enormous crowd outside the Castlemaine police station and
(43:51):
so they virtually had to usher us through the people
the crowd to get in the building to reunite with
our parents.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
And how did they react? Do you remember their reactions?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Our mum was incredibly distressed, incredibly distressed. And Dad, poor
our dad. You know, that was the era to never
show any emotion. And I remember seeing him marching up
and down as if he was a soldier, and at
the back of the room and I remember thinking to myself,
you weren't in the army, why are you marching? And
(44:26):
then he walked up to us to shake our hands,
and then he boost into ts and hugged U sworm
a flesh.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
He shook your hands. Yeah, what was the rest of
that weekend? Like for you?
Speaker 3 (44:43):
It was surreal.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
It was a severe week and the press were every
Because we lived on the Colder Highway, I think it
was probably had easier access to us, maybe than the
other families. I'm not really sure about that. And remembering
rural people, you know, if someone comes to visit, to
invite them in, you give them a cup of tea.
You you might have afternoon tea for them. So that
(45:06):
the press were the press kind of were just there
in every room. They seemed to just be there really
and family, lots of family, lots of visitors, which was
really unusual. And I always I tell you, I tell
you that you probably won't think it's very funny, Jimmy,
but I thought when I thought back, I thought it
was funny because I'm at Richmond Tragic with the AFL
(45:31):
and I got back in a Saturday afternoon the VFL
Grand Finals on and my hairs matted, and my fingernails
are filthy, and I'd scun my knee and I was
really grotty and dirty. Instead of having a bath, I
stood there being annoyed with all these journalists wandering around
because I wanted to listen to the Football Grand Final
(45:53):
and it was Richmond and Carlton and Carlton one, and
I remember thinking, how can the weekend get any more worse?
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Really, at that point, you know it had just happened.
Do you think you were feeling traumatized when you look
back or were you kind of just it was all
just shocking.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
I think it was just an avalanche of experiences that
we could never have anticipated ever. Ever, so at that
stage it was like sort of like you're in the
middle of its army.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Really, we now know a lot more about the men
at the time obviously you didn't you attend, but you
have done your research as an adult. Can you tell
me about them? What? What do we know about them?
How did they meet? How did they come up with
this plan?
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, look and more and more people, there's all the talks,
come and tell me lots of little gems about the perpetrate.
My understanding is that he was a twenty one year
old from Melbourne. He had already started embarking on a
life of chrome. Robert Claude Bowmen was from a very
well respected established family in Bendigo and never really got
(47:09):
ay v.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Of why.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Well he wanted money, but they met at a plastering
course and decided they both wanted an easier life and
this would be a good way to net a million dollars.
Now my understanding is Robert Clokbollen was mastermind and Edward
Johnnyswood was very eager pupil.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
That's my understanding.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
After the break, Robin shares a chilling moment when the
identities of the kidnappers were revealed and surprisingly her mother
recognized one of them that night when they both left
the van. Was that actually them abandoning the plan altogether in.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Jema That's an interesting question. And one thing Iswood did
say when he had been arrested and had been in interviewed,
and he did say something like, oh, there must have
been a lot of people praying for those little kids
that night, because everything just went wrong for us.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
But I'm glad they weren't hurt.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
So maybe they chickened out.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Jim look I don't know everything.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Had they had had their plan loosely based on the
Dirty Harry movie, so East would had driven to Melbourne
and he'd already been around where he'd put melways in
phone boxes. So they had decided to make contact with
the priest at the tally ho Boys Home in Melbourne,
(48:50):
and he was going to be the you know, go
to person who was going to go to phone box
to phone books, follow the clues and the government and
I think mister Thompson were to deliver the ransom to
this priest because they thought a priest would be very reliable.
And when he phoned the tally Hope Boys Home to
speak to the father, he was on annual leave and
(49:15):
so then he I guess he probably did panic and
then he phoned D twenty four to talk to mister Thompson,
and I think panicked and hung up, and so I
think they went back to regroup and leave us there.
Now I really don't know what would have happened if
we hadn't escaped, whether they would have come back, because
(49:38):
it was very isolated where we were, and really, when
you think about it, a very wicked thing to do.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Oh, it's terrific well, by the Sunday the police had
offered a fifty k reward for answers. They were obviously
tracking these two men and they did get a bit
of a lead. Someone kind of gave them the names
and both of them were arrested at their respective homes,
so Melbourne and Bendigo at about four thirty am on Monday. Correct,
(50:09):
and East would actually kind confessed straight away, didn't he?
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Correct? Yes? Correct?
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Reggi Baker was the lead detective. He went on to
be the assistant Commissioner of Pleas. He was just the
most wonderful man. And reg was very kind and shared
his memoirs with me. And he had written his memoirs
on stories that on cases he'd worked on that had
really affected him, and the Faraday kidnapping was one. And
(50:38):
I didn't know this, but he told me that his
interview with Edward John Eyswood was used as a teaching
tool for many years to come with police on how
to interview and how to get as much information.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
As you can. Wow.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
And when their identities were revealed, your mum recognized one of.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Them, Yes she did. That was Robert Clerk Bland.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
And she was related, Yes she was.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
And that has caused my family.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Such distress over many years.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
It was quite a distant connection though, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Yes and no.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
So it turned out that my grandfather and Robert Clive
Bolan's grandmother were brother and sister. My grandfather was, you know,
back then, one of those big families. We didn't know
or have any relationship with the Bolan family apart from
knew who they were.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
But it.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Wasn't nice. It wasn't nice, and.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
It was particularly distressing from my maternal grandparents living in Bendigo.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
And look, I must say, I do need to make.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
This comment and I've only sort of realized myself as
an adult that and I do want to acknowledge is
that the Bolan family were very well respected family in Bendigo.
They were business people, but Clyde Bolan's actions really damaged
their reputation. And you know, I know some of the
(52:17):
Boland actually relatives, you know, nearly lost their businesses because
there was such ill feeling towards a Bowlin name.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
And I think that's unfair.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
You had to go to a police lineup to identify
then what was that like?
Speaker 3 (52:35):
That was really horrific?
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yea, that was really I think that was wrong that
we had to do it like that, you know, walking
into a room with all these men lined up against
the wall and back then they looked like double giants.
Of course they weren't. But again and the police bringing
you in all men, so you're one little girl surrounded
by men.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
So you weren't in between like in the movies you're
behind glass.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
No, no, you were in the room with them.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Oh that's scary, and you know.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Lined up at the back and then at the side
and then just one over at the other side.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
You had to give evidence in court. Initially, despite the confession,
they both kind of pled not guilty, which meant two
trials or a trial for both men, and you had
to give evidence. Firstly, how much of a big deal
was it for your family to make that trick to Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Oh, Jemma, that was a night mean, so Dad would prepare.
So we actually had to testify four times because there
was the hearing, and then they ended up being three
Supreme Court cases. Initially they did both pled not guilty,
but then Edward John Aswood did plead guilty, so then
(53:55):
it was only the Robert Clode Bowland one just to
drive and people in Melbourne. May not realize that, but
people in the bush driving to Melbourne was just horrific.
And so Dad would look at the melways for three
days his stress. He'd been muttering to himself. And we
always did the same thing every time we drove down.
(54:16):
We parked at the Royal Children's Hospital and we called
a tram in, but we would stand at the tram
stop with Dad muttering and swearing because ofcause you never
asked anyone which tram to catch.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
We I think I think it's an Australian man.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
We never asked directions when we're going somewhere, So that
for us was.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
A big thing, very big thing.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
And what was it like standing up in court because
by this point you would have been what eleven this
was nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, probably eleven year No and again, and I do
talk about it in my book that I did develop
like a post traumatic stress disorder, and I think the
appearance at court was probably the huge figures for that.
Because you're a young girl, You're in a totally foreign environment.
(55:13):
Your dad has already lost his mind trying to drive
to Melbourne, so it's already stress levels a little bit high.
You're in a packed court gallery because it was still
there was huge interest in this case. Packed gallery, press everywhere,
the judiciary everywhere, and you know, they just all look
so learned and superior, I guess, and they were all men.
(55:38):
And then you've got a perpetrator. At the start it
was two but then just been one. But they're sort
of standing directly opposite you, up on a bit of
a stand, looking down at you. So it was exceptionally
intimidating space.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
To be in.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
So Eastwood was pretty quickly given fifteen years with a
non parole period of ten years. As you've said, Boland
pledged not guilty and ended up having three trials, and
you think that there might have been a bit of
funny business going on there.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
He had an excellent defense. He had an excellent defense.
It was two hung juries. I think one of the
hung juries was like at that stage had the record
for the longest deliberation.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
In nineteen hours.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
Yeah. The third trial however, though, and you know I
do write about this in the book, because the police
were getting exceptionally disheartened because they felt they had a
very strong case, which they did. They had eye witnesses,
they had fingerprints, They really did.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
But didn't they think that there was jury tampering.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
We never knew that. It was always rumored.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
It was just speculation, speculation.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I suppose, because it just didn't make any sense that
there was no clear conviction. But in a third trial
gem there was a huge change to the Crimes Act,
where up and until that time a crime against kidnapping,
(57:17):
a wife did not was not compelled to give evidence
against her husband and disclosed marital conversations. Now, my husband
David was a police prosecutor for many years, and he
was telling me that the Faraday kidnapping case with the
trail of Robert Clodebolin was famous for police prosecutors because
(57:40):
at that time the Crimes Act was changed and crimes
such as kidnapping and incest were changed so that then
a wife, it was normally a wife could then be
put on the stand and cross examined regarding marital conversations.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Up until that time, David had said to me it
was really.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Difficult getting convictions when children were being involved.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
So that the Crimes Act.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Was changed and Robert Clyde Bollin's wife Lois was compelled
to take the stand in the third trial and disclosed
marital conversations, and the jury in that case took thirty
minutes to reach, so it was a real game change.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
What did she say?
Speaker 3 (58:32):
It was virtually.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Repeating that he had admitted that he had done it,
that he had done it, he knew now where he'd
gone wrong, he'd done it, and also he'd given an
alibi that he had been in Melbourne that day, and
she virtually dismantled his alibi.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
She also alleged other violence, other crimes.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
Well, it took towards herself. When I read the appeal document,
I was really shocked. I was really shocked by this
that the defense just crucified her on the stand and
she collapsed. It was clear when I was reading the
information that she was terrified of him.
Speaker 3 (59:17):
It appeared to me anyway that she was a victim
of family violence.
Speaker 1 (59:25):
So that third trial, he was found guilty, sentenced to
sixteen years with a minimum of twelve. Yes, but as
you said that that's three trials that you, as a
young girl, as an eleven year old, had to deal
with in one year.
Speaker 2 (59:38):
Yes. Yeah, and my family always very upset about that,
you know, they just if he had just pleaded guilty,
we could have moved on a lot quicker.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
A few months after the kidnapping, you actually went back
to Lancefield and saw the trench that we've been talking.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
About, Probably not one of my fathers.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Why, in a parenting moment, yeah, why why did he
take you there?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I think at the time had developed quite a nice
friendship with the Constable Anderson that was there, so comfortable
Anderson must have invited him to go back, and because
we never went anywhere, we said, oh, Dad, can we
come to and we often puffed, oh, well, yes, you
can come to so and so we went there, and
(01:00:30):
then you know, I think comestormle Anderson must.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Have said that, well do you want to see where
they were?
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Hell?
Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Oh yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
So then we went out there and then I think
they did say, you know, just wait here, and he
took Dad off to see the trench. But of course
I don't think I listened and I followed, and I
wish I never had, really.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Because that memory was etched really there.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Do you think that that visit in particular caused a
lot of trauma for you?
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Yeah, I think it's sort of probably compounded the night
the nightmares a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yes, Can you tell me about the mental impact as
a child that this had on you. Looking back at
the time, you know, in the seventies it wasn't really
spoken about, was it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
I suppose it's only as an adult you sort of
look back and I guess reflect. I remember thinking as
a children that the press interest was so great, and
that went on for years, so it really dogged us
for a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
And I remember thinking, I guess.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
That survivor jammer a little bit, thinking oh, why have
I survived but other children haven't, not particularly gifted or brilliant.
I don't believe the press were always making us out
to be victims. We didn't see ourselves as victims, probably
embarrassed by the press interest. And I think we all
(01:02:05):
look back. Adolescence is an awful time at the best
of times, but sort of trying to navigate your way
through that. And I know for me, when I reached
eighteen and moved away from the Cassmane area, it was
actually a big relief to be out of that area
and not maybe associated with Faraday.
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
The decision was also made pretty quickly after the kidnapping
to close your school. What impact did that have?
Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Probably didn't realize it at the time, but as school closed.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
And then we moved went to Hardcourt, which was a
little bit bigger, and it don't realize it at the time,
but we did. We lost our hub, we lost our
place to meet, our place to be, and Jemma, we
lost our stories because after nine Aeen seventy two, the
only story told was that of the Faraday kidnapping. So
(01:02:58):
in many ways, we lost who we were before that.
We lost our stories. And our stories aren't particularly newsworthy
or fascinating, but they were our stories. They were real,
and they were who we were. And I guess writing
this book virtually and I know everyone is fascinated by
the Faraday kidnapping, but what has bought me great joys.
(01:03:19):
It's taken me back to our life before that and
who we were then and wanting to actually reclaim those
memories and be proud.
Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Obviously, the kidnappers went to jail for a long time,
but kind of helped you move on hearing that both
of them, at different times, actually escaped prison.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
How bizarre was that, Like these weren't minor offenders, these
were serious offenders. They both escaped from different prisons, and
Edward John Eastwood went on to kidnap another school at
Woureen And I've just actually finished in all the talk
down in the gibbs Land area and it was a
wonderful experience, but the distress still there in some of
(01:04:03):
those communities of that event is still helpful.
Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
You went on to become a nurse, maternal health nurse.
You're a mum of three. Yes, you moved away from Faraday.
How did the kidnapping follow you into adulthood even though
you'd moved away.
Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
It's probably always been with me, and I guess, you know,
for many, many years I ran away from my past.
And you know, when I was married to my first husband,
I had a different name, a different area I lived in, and.
Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
I remember thinking, I never ever ever have to.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Say where who I am and where I come from
unless I choose to. And then, you know, when that
marriage ended, reverted back to my main name. And I
think even then I was starting to reclaim who I was.
As a maternal and child health nurs It's been an
absolute privilege working with families and particularly mums, and I
(01:05:04):
guess because of my experience, I became very unwell after
I had my third baby in my thirties, with postnatal depression,
maternal exhaustion, and a post traumatic stress disorder. So I'd
been having a horrific nightmare since I was probably fourteen,
and always the same, you know, nightmares a knife coming
(01:05:27):
towards mirror, gun or a man in a ballet lava.
So I was finally forced to seek counseling and assistance, remembering,
you know, I was brought up in that era where
you just get on. You don't talk about it, you
just deal with what life throws at you and you
move on. And maybe not a bad way, but maybe
(01:05:49):
not the best way. So with my clinical practice, I
think over the years, every now and then I would
see it was usually a mum that for whatever reason,
would be really struggling with their motherhood journey. They would
love their babies dearly, but you could see there was
something really not right, and I would often hope that
(01:06:10):
I had the empathy to say to them, look, I
can see you're really troubled about something. Is there something
maybe that happened in your childhood that's really impacting on
how you want a mother? And often, you know, I
just feel so grateful when people felt that they could
share their stories with me, that you know, something would
(01:06:31):
come out like I was a victim of crime, or
I have experienced family violence or child abuse as a
young child, and it's really impacting on me now, and
it often does after you have a little baby. So
you know, I've often been able to say, well, I
was able to say, please find your voice, don't stop
(01:06:56):
talking and get some good skilled counseling, because if you don't,
it will keep wearing its head and really impacting on
your life. Because I know that's what happened to me,
and I don't share my stories, of course.
Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
And when people actually keep talking to me.
Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
And go off and get counseling, that always has given
me a great deal of satisfaction to think that maybe
I paid a little, little small part in someone's journey
to healing.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
No, that's really nice, really beautiful. I understand that, and
I can so imagine why this would have been hard,
That sending your eldest child to primary school was a
really kind of troubling moment for you.
Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yes, it really triggered me, you know, like I had
a new baby and I sent my oldest little girl
at five to primary school and it yeah, yeah, it
was not a good time for me.
Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
It really did trigger. It sent me back into a
very dark, dark place. It did.
Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
How has writing your story after all these years helped you.
Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
It's taken me on a journey and it's actually led
me home to Faraday, which is I almost felt like
I've come full circle. It's been wonderful to meet up
with so many people from my past. You know, people
have worked with family members, you know, the daughter all
(01:08:32):
over Victoria who have all come to author talks and
and we share our stories now about you know, the
farm and grandma and.
Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
My sisters, and we're talking about our school days and
we've never done that. We've never done that.
Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
So it's been an amazing journey and unexpected that there
has been so much interest really in the book.
Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
It sounds like it's allowed you to kind of reclaim Faraday.
Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
And I must say, you know, you know, you know,
I said, oh, I'm really nervous about doing this podcast
because I don't particularly enjoy talking about the kidnapping. I'll
be really honest, I don't enjoy talking about it. But
what I do enjoy talking about is I enjoy talking
about Faraday. I enjoy talking about our school, I enjoy
(01:09:24):
talking about our life and so I feel like, yes,
I've reclaimed it and I've reframed the narrative anyway for me.
Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Anyway, Thanks to Robin for telling us her story. True
Crime Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced
by me Jemma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design
by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
back next week with another True Crime Conversation
You're listening to Amma Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the
traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was recorded
on It's a Friday Afternoon in the small Victorian town
of Faraday in October nineteen seventy two, and the how
withth sisters are excited for the weekend. There's only six
(00:33):
students at school today. The other four that make up
the cohort at Faraday Primary are off with bad colds.
It's chilly and wet outside, so their teacher, Miss Gibbs,
has agreed to let them play musical chairs inside. They're
having the best time, squealing, laughing, sliding on the floorboards,
when suddenly the room goes still. As ten year old
(00:57):
Robin turns to the classroom door, she sees two men
standing there. One of them's wearing a black covering on
his face, the other has dark sunglasses and a hat.
The taller man raises an enormous gun, aiming it directly
at them. Please not us, Please not us, their teacher says, shaking.
(01:20):
She looks terrified. Thanks, Robin, what's going on. School's over
for the day. One of the men replies, get in
the van now, I'm Jemma Vass and This is True
Crime Conversations Amom of Me, a podcast exploring the world's
(01:43):
most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know
the most about them. Victorian plasterers and fathers themselves, Edwin
John Eastwood twenty one and Robert Clyde Boland, who was
in his mid thirties, planned the kidnapping for months. Their
crime was described at the time as the gravest situation
(02:04):
of its kind in the history of the Victorian police
force and Australia's crime of the century. The men had
dug a trench in remote bushland where they intended to
bury their victims after putting plaster over their mouths and
chains around their bodies. The whole was to be covered
by galvanized iron and dirt. Thankfully they didn't get that far,
(02:27):
but that doesn't mean that what twenty year old primary
school teacher Mary Gibbs unto six students endured wasn't terrifying.
In her care were Christine Ellery ten, sisters Lindaconn nine
and Helen con six, and sisters Denise Haworth five, Gillian
Howorth eight and Robin Haworth ten. While the event gained
(02:51):
significant media attention at the time, The survivors have largely
refrained from telling their stories publicly until now, more than
five decades on, Robin has released a book titled Faraday,
A Community Rediscovered, in which she details what happened to
her and her classmates. She hasn't felt comfortable sharing her
(03:11):
story until now. Robin, you published your book on your
account of the Faraday kidnapping last year, more than fifty
years after it happened. Why now, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I didn't realize myself until I started writing. But
I carried a grief and a loss all my adult
life about Faraday, And as an adult, I was always
very reluctant to ever tell anyone where I came from,
because whenever anyone mentioned Faraday, it was always in the
(03:50):
context of, oh, I remember that, I remember that story.
That's a place where those kids were taken. What awful
history that place has. You know, every time we drive
past the school, which is still standing but it is
a home now, I just shudder. And I remember thinking,
(04:12):
as I aged, and I hope get more reflective and
maybe older and wiser, I always felt really sad about that,
because we were so much more than a kidnapping. We
were a lovely little community and we loved our school.
So I guess probably about fifteen years ago I had
returned back to the area, like I had left that
(04:34):
area as an eighteen year old, because I went nursing
and I left the area I married. I'd changed my name,
and I remember thinking when I was living in the
Golden Valley area, beautiful part of the world in Victoria,
that it would never ever have to tell anyone who
I was and where I was from, because all through
my adolescence, and I guess late childhood, we were always
(04:58):
referred to us. You're one of those girls, aren't you.
You're one of those girls, And I realized I was
really tired of hearing that. We never ever viewed ourselves
as victims. Never the press at the time certainly sensationalize
the story, and we're not particularly kind or respectful.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And that's a memory of a child when I look back.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
The school closed after the kidnapping, But when I was
writing the book and reflecting, I thought, oh, gosh, mum,
you know three young mums with top two with toddlers
turning up on that Friday afternoon to collect their children.
School's empty they wait, and then they go into the
(05:42):
school and then they search the school grounds nothing, eerie silence.
They cross over to a pine plantation opposite, they search there, nothing,
and then they go in and eventually find a ransom
note threatening the annihilation of every hostage if a ransom
(06:04):
of a million dollars wasn't paid. And myself into little
sisters were part of that actual crime. So mum had
three daughters, So for Mum, the trauma was really really deep.
She kept every scrap book, every press article for years,
(06:27):
and the police crime photos, and she had given it
to me, and I realized I had a treasure trove
of information. So I decided, well, I was going to
try and put something together. And then as I sort
of started writing it, Jamal, I thought, oh, I think
it's actually a little bit bigger than just our family.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
All the quick Google tells me that the population of
Faraday in twenty sixteen was one hundred and fifty eight people.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Oh wow, was that many?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I was going to ask, is that a lot? What
was it when you lived there?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, I think that is is a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I look, I would be guessing that I would think
in nine seventy two we'd be lucky to have fifty
to eighty. In nineteen seventy two, we had ten students
at Faraday.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
That was huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Normally we only had you know, seven, and there was
I think five families and we had two, you know,
families that had moved in who weren't the traditional farming
families that have been there for generations. So we were
so excited.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Ten students ten How does that work?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
How does ten students in one school with one teacher work?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
In reflection, I think it must have been very difficult,
but it did. You know, you had the older students
at the back that the younger students at the front
or being given you know.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
The appropriate work for the year level.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But certainly joining a netball team or something was a
bit tricky, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Really?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Jimmy writing this book which has been just amazing, amazing,
and the response has just been so overwhelming and humbling
that so many people who come to the author talks
or want to share their experience of the one teacher
school and apparently I capture that era.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Very very well. So having said that was a.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Very safe, secure space. But I guess not a lot
of outside influence either, because.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Take me back to your life in the seventies. You
said you were a farming family. You're also quite isolated.
You didn't really leave the farm. You talk a lot
about really wanting to go on holiday to the beach,
but you couldn't because your dad couldn't leave the cows.
A picture of what it was like growing up in
Faraday in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
We were quite poor.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Like I said, there wasn't a lot of a lot
of money, but it was you know, I reflect back,
it was a time of great ritual and routine, and
so like every Thursday, you know, so the furthest we
ever went is we went into Castlemaine and we would
take Grandma Howard, who lived in the farmhouse next to us,
shopping every Thursday.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And our grandma didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Drive, of course, so she would always come over the
paddock in that dusty track, dressed in a hat and
gloves and shoes and stockings and matching handbag and beads,
even in forty degree heat, to walk up and down
the main street of Mouston Street, nodding and smiling to
all the other ladies had come in off their farms.
(09:42):
But you know, we kind of knew everyone and were
probably related or connected to many. Someday was very much
you know, that traditional roast lamb and steamed ginger pudding,
and we would go and visit our grandparents in Bendigo, and.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
That's probably as far as.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
We went, you know. We would spend time with our cousins.
But our school was really important to us because that
was essentially the harbor of the community because we didn't
have a hall, so gatherings and not that they were
huge on my dad, but any gatherings were held at
the school, so it was a really important place for
(10:24):
us to be.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So in nineteen seventy two, the teacher was Mary Gibbs.
She was only twenty years old. What was her story?
Why was she coming to Faraday?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I would imagine back then they had to apply for
several schools. Look, I don't know, and obviously Faraday was
allocated to her. But I do chuckle to myself now
because I have very vivid memories because miss Mary Gibbs
was very.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Stylish, very stylish with.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Lovely outfits, you know, and it was that erea of
the seventies, the boots, the short skirts, and I always
remember the mums, you know, gathering at the school gates
or after, you know, I wonder what she's going to
be wearing today, and the father's we're just horrified because
this young woman would be driving backwards and forwards from
(11:17):
Bendigo to Faraday, which is probably about thirty minutes, maybe
back then was forty five minutes because the roads are pretty.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Awful and the car's not as good.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
But they were really worried that she would have to
have a chaperone I'm back with her, because it would
just be too much.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Gosh.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, at least they were concerned for her welfare.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And they were trying to think about, you know, local
accommodation for her, just you know, to help her, you know.
So I thought, oh, what a different what a different world.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So in the September of nineteen seventy two, your sister
started noticing a couple of men kind of watching the school.
Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, look, and I suppose it's the sister guilt I
sort of carried too, because she did. She was noticing,
you know, and she mentioned it to me a couple
of times. Did you see those men today in the creek?
And being the big sister, I kind of dismissed it
(12:21):
because my head was full of you know, we had
to practice for the school sports that was coming up,
and the Customane show was happening, so there was a
lot of things on. But she did keep mentioning, did
you see those men today? And I didn't, but it
was only you know, of course, after the crime was committed,
(12:43):
that they had actually staked out the school and were
well aware that there was a young female teacher and
how many students there were, and you sort of look back,
and that does give you the shivers to think that
they would do that, or that they did that.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
What do you remember of the morning of Friday, October
seventh in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Look, I remember that well because it was a really
cold morning, which was unseasonable. Mama's passed away now, but
she was a very good mum. So she's trying to,
you know, drag us all out of bed because it's
freezing cold, and you know, we're having our corn plates
and our toast, and we used to often cook the
toast on the open fire. And I remember having a big,
(13:35):
well not a big argument, but you know, Muma said no, no,
you're going to need long pants and jumpers today, so
that little sisters all went and obediently put on what
she'd put on, but I of course didn't and went
to the wardrobe and got the most inappropriate summer dress
I could find a car, and I really later that
(13:57):
day I remember thinking, oh, wish I had listened to
Mum and it was many. It was just really a
very typical morning. There was nothing different except probably I
had driven Mum demented with my dress choice.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So around the time that this all happened, you were
saying it was a bit of a cold day, it
was starting to rain, and instead of pee out in
the yard like you normally would, you were inside and
your teacher was playing musical chairs with you.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, well we had gone.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, it was I think we were meant to have
pe outside, but it was miserable and October, which is
a bit unusual in Tourient October. But yes we were
which was really probably one of our favorite, most favorite
things we liked to do.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
We were really having fun.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
When did it change?
Speaker 3 (14:49):
What?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
How did you notice the men and what did they
do When they first came into the room, They.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Were just really still for start, you know, they were
very still, and I guess, you know, in the nightmares
later on, like they were like mom's giants looming, But
I guess still, and we were really taken aback because
remembering a little small girl school, we didn't really have
(15:16):
visitors to the school, and you know, they looked a
little ten year old girl probably couldn't process it properly,
but you would have to say sinister.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Well, at least one of them had kind of a
balaclava on.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
The balaclava and the other was in some sort of
wig and hat pulled down and sunglasses, and the little
girl does remember thinking, why would you wear sunglasses inside?
That's an odd thing to do, And she remembers very
(15:53):
clearly thinking because it was because it was Edward Johnny's
was in the balaclava, and it was Robert Clyde Boland
with a bag and in the wig and sunglasses and hat.
But Edward Johnny's but had a twenty two gage draftle
that he was waving around and aiming, aiming at children.
(16:17):
And the little girl remembers thinking, wait till I get
home and tell dad he is going to be so wild.
Because of course a farming family, we had guns, but
we were never to touch the gun. It was always
unloaded in a porch with the bullets well away from it,
and the little one remembers thinking that man's dad must
(16:41):
have never told him how to manage a gun.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Because someone could get shocked with what he's doing. You know.
It was that very innocent view of life.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, were you scared when you saw them at first?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I think we were, yes, But it was possibly it
was a little bit as if time had stood still
and it was bewilderment.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
I think.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You're listening to true crime conversations with me, Jemma Bath.
I'm speaking with Robin Howorth about the day she was
kidnapped from the Faraday State School in nineteen seventy two.
Up next, Robin describes how she felt being driven in
the van by the men who would kidnapped her, not
knowing where they were being taken. What did the next
(17:35):
ten to fifteen minutes look like, because it really only
took that amount of time to kind of get you
guys from a classroom into a van and on the road.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, I think it took you fifteen minutes or something
to kidnap the whole school. And also remembering we were
good little country kids, so you know, probably quite bewildered.
It would have been so much worse for Mary Gibbs
because she would have had a lot more awareness of
what was happening. But you know, they've actually charged in
(18:06):
and you know, gun waving and sit on the seat
and you're quite puzzled. And then we were virtually marched
out and loaded into the van with Eastwood, and I
remember thinking, well.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I don't want to go with him, but what was
the option?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And the teacher had remained very calm, which was amazing,
but you know, so no, you know, we need to
go out, but she remained back. She didn't come into
the van till later. So we were there just with
Edward John Eastwood, who we thought was quite nutty.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Really well, you actually spoke to him, didn't you. As
he was kind of loading you into the van. You
asked him a question.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Because I had, and my school friends will tell me
they did this too, so it makes me feel a
lot better. I'd often snake out at night and watched
Homicide and D twenty five, so I thought I was
a bit of an expert on crime shows. I remember
saying to him, You're not going to murderous, are you?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
You know? Robbing us would be okay, but not murder.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And then you know, he looked at me, so I
was a little insect on the floor. But then I
remember thinking they wouldn't rob us because we've got nothing
that they could take.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
What did the back of the van look like?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
It was just it was virtually empty. I think there
was yeah, yellow petrol tin up the front. It smelt
of petrol smelt, you know. It was just very basic
and we sat on the wheel, sort of lining seats
each side.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Very basic, empty.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And did they say anything else before they drove off?
They threw your teacher in with you and basically just
hit the road.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I think Robert Kyle Bollen said something like, you need
to be really careful. Eastwood must have got out some stage.
You need to be really careful of him. They all,
we're trying to play the good cop, bad cop sort
of routine.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So one of them drove the van and then the
other was in the back with you. Yes, correct, And
that was Eastwood, the one that you thought was a
bit crazy who was kind of in the back with you.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, he was only twenty one at the time.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
What was the trip like? Was he talking to you
or was he talking to Mary what was happening in
the back.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
He talked all the time, Really, he talked all the time,
and in the end we were trying not to make
any eye and I think I wrote him the book
that or Miss Gibbs got the Short Store, because she
was sitting quite close to him, and it was almost
like he was trying to impress her, that he talked
and talked and talked, and I remember in the end
we all just kind of, oh, well, this is my
(20:59):
I remember, no eye contact, and just trying to peer
out of the little holes in the van to see
where we were actually going. More so so we could
avoid talking to him, because you certainly got the sense
he wasn't really interested in talking to children. It was
more he was trying to impress probably a very attractive
(21:19):
twenty year old young lady.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
He was talking to you about the fact that you
were going to be in the newspaper.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, that we were going to be famous, and they
put us on the map. And then I think he
had said to Miss Gibbs Mary at some stage that
he'd send us some money in the mail. All this grandiose,
you know, and of course our world was so small,
so we were thinking, well, maybe we'll get a paragraph
(21:45):
in the Castlemaine Mail, like that's our local local newspaper,
you know, and you know, thinking well, why would we.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Be in the paper? You know?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And I remember, you know, the little girl, remember thinking
he is seriously crazy, this man.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Why would he think we would be in the paper?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, you said he had a gun? Did he have
any other weapons? Could you see anything else that looked
a bit sinister?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It was like, you know, just a carry on bag,
very nondescript, but it was full of chains and I
believe a knife because and this is really horrific, that
they had dug a trench out at Landsfield and they
had planned they had planned to put us in their
(22:35):
chained up with plaster tapes or something over a mouse.
Now I don't know this, I can't know this, but
I kind of always lied to have thought that they
couldn't go through with it, because I think if they
did that, there's no way we would have survived it.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Do you remember how you felt on that trip, because
it was a couple of hours, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah? Well it felt it actually was uncomfortable, saw bottoms
bumping up and down. Scared, but also remembering too general
was almost incomprehensible really to make sense of something that
you really couldn't make sense of.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well you were only ten and you were the oldest.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah. Yeah, So it's six.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Really small girls from an isolated community experiencing something that
is just, you know, very confusing, very strange. I can
imagine that getting the concept.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I think too though, because and I get this view
has really crystallized sense i' written the book because.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
We were from a rural community.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
We had been dearly loved, dearly looked after all our childhood.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
So we were also good little.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Country kids and we did you know, none of us
had had a complete melt and that's an all kudos
to Mary Gibbs. None of us had a complete meltdown
because she didn't. But I guess we were used to,
you know, this is what we're doing that you know,
there was none of us would have been about the
(24:20):
little girls that would be arguing or.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You know, we just we did what we needed to
do to survive it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I think there was one moment where Mary kind of
faltered a bit and she did start crying. Do you
remember that because Eastwood whispered to her and in hindsight,
you now know that he was telling her about the trench.
But in that moment she kind of that stoic, strong
(24:48):
facade that she was putting on kind of crumbled, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But then I remember too, you know, he sort of
reached over in too. No, no, no, no, you've got
to think of them.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Oh, but it's your plan. So he was telling her
to be strong even though he was threatening her.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yes, that probably goes to his mindset too, really all
over all over the shop.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Really, tell me about the money he stole from Mary
and how shocked you were by that?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yes, yes, and we was, you know, it was so
offended and upset for her.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
He wanted to see her license because.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
We didn't know that at the time, but he had
a plan of how he was going to collect the
ransom off the state government, so he wanted her license
to prove that he had. So she gave it to us,
and then he said, what have you got any cash?
And she said, well, nine dollars and gave him and
you know he's holding her his hand apt for the money,
(25:52):
and we're looking at each other in horror, going, he's
just stolen nine dollars from that teacher, he's a thief
and she but she had another you know, twenty six
dollars hidden somewhere else that she didn't give him an
oh after, you know, we learned that not at the time,
and I always remember my dad saying, oh.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Good on her, good on her.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So they drove you to kind of a remote area
near Lancefield. What was it like there? Like when he
stopped the van and they opened the back doors and
let you out to you know, have a wee. He'd
been traveling for a few hours. What did you see?
What was it like?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
It was?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
You know, it was very remembering it and I in
my mind I've probably recreated it more than what it was.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
But it was miserable, very overcast. It was really thick.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Bushland. It was an area of course we didn't know,
We didn't know where we were. The thought of escaping
didn't even I think it was certainly it didn't occur
to me because where we have gone it was a
frightening place actually, And Lancefield is a beautiful part in
rural Victoria.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
But I do write in my book as a maternal
and child health news I have done some work down
there and it's a beautiful community, it's a beautiful area.
But I remembered, you know, with maternal and child health,
people always do a home visit after a family has
a little baby, And if I ever had a visit
booked at Lansfield, my heart would just think going back
(27:34):
to Lancefield. And I realized why that was, because my
memory of it was it was a frightening a frightening place.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Really, Well, what did that afternoon look like for you
and the other kids, because it was, you know, three
point thirty four o'clock you arrived. What did you do?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well, you know, first of all, we know scamped around
and had a way, and then I think we sort
of stood around, and then you know, we had this
treasure hunt that we thought was hideous because that stage
Eastwood had left to organize the rants and so we
were only being guarded by Boland. So I guess too,
(28:14):
you were sort of thinking, oh, that's good, one's gone.
I've only got one here. And he didn't talk as much,
so that was a good thing. But it was miserable, really,
it was just miserable. And then he locked us back
in the van, which I guess was a relief really.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
When did your families realize you were missing?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Probably about you know, three point thirty four when they
went to collect you know, when the mums went to
collect us and they found the ransom note.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So it was on that Friday.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And what did the ransom notes say? Not everything, but
there was particular phrases in there that really kind of
affected your mum and the other mums.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Oh, yes, it was virtually you know, that we had
been kidnapped and they were demanding a million dollars from
the state government and if their demands weren't met, it
would result in the annihilation of all the hostages.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Annihilation. Yeah, how did your mum feel reading that?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Apparently they had decided to loosely base the crime on
the Clint Eastwood movie Dirty Harry was some of their
motivation or how they planned it out. So I've never
watched that movie and I don't plan to.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I know you said your mum was a really stoic woman,
but did she tell you about how she felt that afternoon?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh? It it had affected mum greatly, but she didn't
really ever talk about it a great deal ever, And
she found the press interest very stressful.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So it's the seventies there's no mobiles. These three moms
arrive at the school to pick up their kids, they're
not there. They have this ransom note. What did they do?
How did they kind of raise the alarm?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
One of them ran over to a neighbor to get
a call to the Customer Police was probably actually around
the same time Eastwood had called. Wayne Grant reported with
the Heraldton and he was very lovely. He was very
very kind to us, and he thought for a start
(30:23):
it was a crank call. But then he looked at
where Faraday was and I need to sort of pull
this in, and he you know, I think he called
D twenty four, and I think the custom and police
had just got the call, and all of a sudden
there was a realization that something really very bad had
(30:45):
gone down. And then the mums all drove back to
their respective farms to scramble around to try and find
their husbands. We're all farming and the men are all
out working wherever. Again, no mobile phones are ready to
sort of raise the alarm.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
So the police they mobilized pretty quickly, two hundred police,
two hundred volunteer years and all the local huge tell
me about the search.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
The search was was huge, you know when I reflect back,
So Casselaane virtually went into an emergency lockdown because there
were police, you know, flooded in everywhere. All your all
your service clubs were the the CFA, I think Saint John's.
And as the story broke, like as it was being broadcast.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Over the radios, people are.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Leaving for weekends or going away, stopped the direction they
were going and headed to the school and joined the search.
So it was a massive search underway.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
And then of course all the farmers and that's.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
What people talk of today, how they all you know
in that area were huge, just searched and walked their
properties everywhere.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
They just searched and searched and searched. But it was hoped.
It was hopeless, Like it really was hopeless.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Was delivering the ransom ever going to be an issue?
Because you know, all the big wigs got called in
very quickly. We've got the heads of the police, we've
got the premiere. Was getting that money together going to
be hard or was that just you know, yes, we're
doing it.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
My understanding, and look, I can't say this for certain,
but my understanding was that the government were going to
find the money and I think they borrowed it from
a company. And there's a very iconic photo of Lindsey Thompson,
who was a Deputy Premier and Education Minister at the
time because they wanted him to be the one to
(32:49):
deliver the money, and standing at wood End, which is
a little town outside of Melbourne. In early hours of
the morning, there was a call came through for the
ransom to be delivered. Now whether it's two thoughts, one
was that was a hoax, one that was actually was
the kidnappers anyway, the police surrounded would end they had
(33:13):
their Deputy Premier standing in the main street with a
satchel where they had had the I don't know, and
the police commissioner he wasn't the police commissioner at the time.
McK miller and mister Crawling who ended up being the
assistant Commissioner were in unmarked car, fully armed, but they
were really concerned because they thought there was a good
(33:33):
chance that the Deputy Premier would be shot. Because they
just thought whoever was doing this was absolute mad.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So they think that that might have been hoax call.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, they do, well it was they did. No one
turned up.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
No one turned up to collect and I think there's
an interview with the Eastood where he he he became
aware of that and sort of made some comment, Oh,
some other bastard was trying to get in on the caper,
you know, and the police actually said, well you should
know you made the call and it was it wasn't me,
so no, whether who knows.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Really, let's good to Lancefield and this kind of rural
bush area that you were all standing in, because the
part that gets to me is thinking of it's starting
to get dark and all these little girls that he
used to being tucked into bed ah absolutely having their
bas having their dinner. What did bedtime or nighttime look
(34:35):
like in Lancefield that night.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Well, it really wasn't a bedtime or a nighttime. And
you know, again this is bizarre sort of stuff because
it was freezing in the back of the van and
Robert clip bowl and then we all moved into the
front cabin and huddled together for warmth. But I remember
it's all sort of getting in there and you know,
(34:58):
leaning as far away as we could because no one
wanted to sit near him for warmth. And Denise Smile,
the little one like she was only five and a
tiny little girl had to sit on his knee, and
she said her memories.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Are just a scratchy jumper, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
And him continually, you know that the story had broken,
and him continually fiddling with the radio and turning it
from channel to channel because the press kept telling the
story of that tragic story of Graham Thorne, the little
boy that had been kidnapped and murdered.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
So they were telling Graham's story as a comparison to
you guys.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Virtually, Yes, there's been a kidnapping the last know, and
kidnapping was in Sydney, of he.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Was murdered, and you're hearing that on the radio, you know, his.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Gray fears for the you know.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And he kept turning it from channel to channel to it,
you know, and sort of almost fumbling, I guess, and
then turned it off, I think. And then he turned
to us and said, I really love kids. And even
as a little tenure girl, you know, mentally, I remember thinking, no, you.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Don't, or wasn't he a father himself?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Who was and I think to similar age children, did
they give you anything to eat?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
When Aswood returned, we got cold chips?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I think it was, but I don't I can't remember
us drinking much or yeah, you know that memory is
a bit bluwry. No, not not really.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And at some point during the evening they both left,
didn't they together?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yes? They left, Yes, they left?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
And what did you do? Did you get any sleep?
Were you still in the back of the van or
in the cab?
Speaker 2 (36:51):
We must have got a little bit. But also to
remembering we were good little country kids. We did what were told,
and they very said, now you stay here, will be
back in the morning.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Don't move.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I'm in awe of the bravery of mery gives, because
you know, they had clearly said they were coming back.
We had no reason to doubt that that wouldn't have.
Luckily we didn't listen to them.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Tell me about what Mary did? How did she get
you out?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I think we must have had some sleep, and you know,
it's daybreak or it's daylight, and she probably became aware
too that we couldn't just stay in here forever we
hadn't had anything to drink. It needed to go to
the toilet, and you know, she started just sort of
tapping around to see and then she eyed off this
panel at the back.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
And remembering it.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Was that era of those beautiful boots and the minisca
and started kicking and kicking and kicking and kicking. And
one of the girls, Christine, was a really good you know,
she could hold the chain well, she could land on
her I didn't think I was that helpful. I tried
to hold it at times, we took turns or tried
(37:58):
to kick.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
It was really in those.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Boots that so she literally kicked a panel out of
the van yep at the back man. Yes, this twenty
year old woman with these big, sturdy boots.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
And remembering we had been to you do not move,
we are coming back, do not move.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
So she got you out. You all kind of stumble
out of the van. What did you do? Were you terrified?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
And actually I think that was probably the most frightening
parts of it, because it was very much, oh, they
come back, They're going to be so wild because we
haven't we haven't done what they said. We had to
stay still. But again, you know, she just we started
walking out, and you know, she had said we needed
(38:46):
to be very quiet and just follow her and if
we heard anything we had to run.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
And hide, you know, which we did.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
And it was only when we started hearing gunshots that,
oh no, and we all really hid, and so did
Mary Gibbs. But then she must have she heard something
that we didn't, and she stood up and beckoned for
us to stay where we were and went towards the
(39:17):
sand because she had heard women's.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Voices and they it wasn't the kidnappers.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And there were a party of four, two men and
two women. I think they were having a weekend away
rabbit shooting.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
So it wasn't the kidnappers. It was this kind of
group of friends.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Friends, yeah, that had you know, obviously knew this area
and had come out early, or maybe that stayed. I
don't know, but they were rabbit shooting, and that she
heard the gunshots, but once she heard women's voice, she
realized it wasn't the kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I can only imagine from their point of view, watching
these six dirty, bedraggled children and a teacher kind of
stumbling out of the bush, that must have been very strange.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
They were.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Very shocked and very taken aback, But I remember, though
very kind. I suppose they were quite fearful for their
safety too. So we all piled into their car and
ended up at the Lansville play Station.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Tell me about the miscommunication that happened once you arrived there,
because to paint the picture once again, it's a country town.
So there is a police station, but it's manned by
one two police officers, and there's a house.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
The policeman wasn't there, he was out, possibly on patrol.
So it was Missus Anderson, this tiny, tiny lady, and
you know, they pulled up and one of them must
have borne in and said something innocently like I've got
the teacher and the children in the car, and with
(40:59):
Missus Anderson stormed at and was just furious and started
yelling at the rescuers, virtually saying to them, how could you,
how could you do this? And I remember that one
of the gentlemen saying, well, we actually thought were being helpful.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
And Missus Anderson was the police officer's wife, wife, and.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
She I remember her yelling at them saying helpful. You
call this helpful?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And Mary was able to explain and I know these
aren't the perpetrators, this is the rescuers. And then Missus
Anderson calmed down and then called out to a son, Oh,
you can stop, you can put the gun down. Her
son and I don't know how old her son was,
but whether it's a young adult or late adolescent, had
(41:45):
a gun trained on the car. He was going to
shoot the tires out if they tried to hit from
a bedroom window or something like that.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
And then she was very I remember, she was very kind,
was very.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Clapped over us and white oat faces and gave us
some hot mile.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So pretty quickly the police and the media were surrounding
that house and that police station. What was that like?
That would have been your first kind of instance seeing
a media kind of horde.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
It was.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
It was surreal and it wasn't particularly comfortable, you know,
my memory, you know, because the whole the police had
had arrived, I think mister Thompson had arrived like it was.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
It was a really big deal.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
And then the press had all set up and I
remember one of them same rule, it's best if you
go out, you know, they want photos, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
But I don't think anything.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Could really prepare well, it couldn't prepare us for that
because we had no experience of a press throng or
yelling it out and the other thing. Jemmy, you know,
I didn't resonate to write the book. It was all men,
the journalists it's all men. Back in that era, it's
all men.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
And they were kind of yelling questions at you, weren't they.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, it was quite sort of RECEI at the time,
That's what it felt like anyway, you know it was.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Do you remember being reunited with your parents. How long
after the rescue was that It's been a.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Few hours, because it would have you know, there was
there was a lot going on at Lancefield, maybe late morning,
maybe lunchtime.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I remember being really excited being driven back to Casmane
and Plexica and they brought us an ice cream and
I remember thinking, oh, we never have ice cream in
the morning. But then again when we got back to Castlemaine,
just an enormous crowd outside the Castlemaine police station and
(43:51):
so they virtually had to usher us through the people
the crowd to get in the building to reunite with
our parents.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
And how did they react? Do you remember their reactions?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Our mum was incredibly distressed, incredibly distressed. And Dad, poor
our dad. You know, that was the era to never
show any emotion. And I remember seeing him marching up
and down as if he was a soldier, and at
the back of the room and I remember thinking to myself,
you weren't in the army, why are you marching? And
(44:26):
then he walked up to us to shake our hands,
and then he boost into ts and hugged U sworm
a flesh.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
He shook your hands. Yeah, what was the rest of
that weekend? Like for you?
Speaker 3 (44:43):
It was surreal.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
It was a severe week and the press were every
Because we lived on the Colder Highway, I think it
was probably had easier access to us, maybe than the
other families. I'm not really sure about that. And remembering
rural people, you know, if someone comes to visit, to
invite them in, you give them a cup of tea.
You you might have afternoon tea for them. So that
(45:06):
the press were the press kind of were just there
in every room. They seemed to just be there really
and family, lots of family, lots of visitors, which was
really unusual. And I always I tell you, I tell
you that you probably won't think it's very funny, Jimmy,
but I thought when I thought back, I thought it
was funny because I'm at Richmond Tragic with the AFL
(45:31):
and I got back in a Saturday afternoon the VFL
Grand Finals on and my hairs matted, and my fingernails
are filthy, and I'd scun my knee and I was
really grotty and dirty. Instead of having a bath, I
stood there being annoyed with all these journalists wandering around
because I wanted to listen to the Football Grand Final
(45:53):
and it was Richmond and Carlton and Carlton one, and
I remember thinking, how can the weekend get any more worse?
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Really, at that point, you know it had just happened.
Do you think you were feeling traumatized when you look
back or were you kind of just it was all
just shocking.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
I think it was just an avalanche of experiences that
we could never have anticipated ever. Ever, so at that
stage it was like sort of like you're in the
middle of its army.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Really, we now know a lot more about the men
at the time obviously you didn't you attend, but you
have done your research as an adult. Can you tell
me about them? What? What do we know about them?
How did they meet? How did they come up with
this plan?
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, look and more and more people, there's all the talks,
come and tell me lots of little gems about the perpetrate.
My understanding is that he was a twenty one year
old from Melbourne. He had already started embarking on a
life of chrome. Robert Claude Bowmen was from a very
well respected established family in Bendigo and never really got
(47:09):
ay v.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Of why.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Well he wanted money, but they met at a plastering
course and decided they both wanted an easier life and
this would be a good way to net a million dollars.
Now my understanding is Robert Clokbollen was mastermind and Edward
Johnnyswood was very eager pupil.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
That's my understanding.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
After the break, Robin shares a chilling moment when the
identities of the kidnappers were revealed and surprisingly her mother
recognized one of them that night when they both left
the van. Was that actually them abandoning the plan altogether in.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Jema That's an interesting question. And one thing Iswood did
say when he had been arrested and had been in interviewed,
and he did say something like, oh, there must have
been a lot of people praying for those little kids
that night, because everything just went wrong for us.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
But I'm glad they weren't hurt.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
So maybe they chickened out.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Jim look I don't know everything.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Had they had had their plan loosely based on the
Dirty Harry movie, so East would had driven to Melbourne
and he'd already been around where he'd put melways in
phone boxes. So they had decided to make contact with
the priest at the tally ho Boys Home in Melbourne,
(48:50):
and he was going to be the you know, go
to person who was going to go to phone box
to phone books, follow the clues and the government and
I think mister Thompson were to deliver the ransom to
this priest because they thought a priest would be very reliable.
And when he phoned the tally Hope Boys Home to
speak to the father, he was on annual leave and
(49:15):
so then he I guess he probably did panic and
then he phoned D twenty four to talk to mister Thompson,
and I think panicked and hung up, and so I
think they went back to regroup and leave us there.
Now I really don't know what would have happened if
we hadn't escaped, whether they would have come back, because
(49:38):
it was very isolated where we were, and really, when
you think about it, a very wicked thing to do.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Oh, it's terrific well, by the Sunday the police had
offered a fifty k reward for answers. They were obviously
tracking these two men and they did get a bit
of a lead. Someone kind of gave them the names
and both of them were arrested at their respective homes,
so Melbourne and Bendigo at about four thirty am on Monday. Correct,
(50:09):
and East would actually kind confessed straight away, didn't he?
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Correct? Yes? Correct?
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Reggi Baker was the lead detective. He went on to
be the assistant Commissioner of Pleas. He was just the
most wonderful man. And reg was very kind and shared
his memoirs with me. And he had written his memoirs
on stories that on cases he'd worked on that had
really affected him, and the Faraday kidnapping was one. And
(50:38):
I didn't know this, but he told me that his
interview with Edward John Eyswood was used as a teaching
tool for many years to come with police on how
to interview and how to get as much information.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
As you can. Wow.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
And when their identities were revealed, your mum recognized one of.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Them, Yes she did. That was Robert Clerk Bland.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
And she was related, Yes she was.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
And that has caused my family.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Such distress over many years.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
It was quite a distant connection though, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Yes and no.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
So it turned out that my grandfather and Robert Clive
Bolan's grandmother were brother and sister. My grandfather was, you know,
back then, one of those big families. We didn't know
or have any relationship with the Bolan family apart from
knew who they were.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
But it.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Wasn't nice. It wasn't nice, and.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
It was particularly distressing from my maternal grandparents living in Bendigo.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
And look, I must say, I do need to make.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
This comment and I've only sort of realized myself as
an adult that and I do want to acknowledge is
that the Bolan family were very well respected family in Bendigo.
They were business people, but Clyde Bolan's actions really damaged
their reputation. And you know, I know some of the
(52:17):
Boland actually relatives, you know, nearly lost their businesses because
there was such ill feeling towards a Bowlin name.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
And I think that's unfair.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
You had to go to a police lineup to identify
then what was that like?
Speaker 3 (52:35):
That was really horrific?
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yea, that was really I think that was wrong that
we had to do it like that, you know, walking
into a room with all these men lined up against
the wall and back then they looked like double giants.
Of course they weren't. But again and the police bringing
you in all men, so you're one little girl surrounded
by men.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
So you weren't in between like in the movies you're
behind glass.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
No, no, you were in the room with them.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Oh that's scary, and you know.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Lined up at the back and then at the side
and then just one over at the other side.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
You had to give evidence in court. Initially, despite the confession,
they both kind of pled not guilty, which meant two
trials or a trial for both men, and you had
to give evidence. Firstly, how much of a big deal
was it for your family to make that trick to Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Oh, Jemma, that was a night mean, so Dad would prepare.
So we actually had to testify four times because there
was the hearing, and then they ended up being three
Supreme Court cases. Initially they did both pled not guilty,
but then Edward John Aswood did plead guilty, so then
(53:55):
it was only the Robert Clode Bowland one just to
drive and people in Melbourne. May not realize that, but
people in the bush driving to Melbourne was just horrific.
And so Dad would look at the melways for three
days his stress. He'd been muttering to himself. And we
always did the same thing every time we drove down.
(54:16):
We parked at the Royal Children's Hospital and we called
a tram in, but we would stand at the tram
stop with Dad muttering and swearing because ofcause you never
asked anyone which tram to catch.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
We I think I think it's an Australian man.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
We never asked directions when we're going somewhere, So that
for us was.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
A big thing, very big thing.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
And what was it like standing up in court because
by this point you would have been what eleven this
was nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, probably eleven year No and again, and I do
talk about it in my book that I did develop
like a post traumatic stress disorder, and I think the
appearance at court was probably the huge figures for that.
Because you're a young girl, You're in a totally foreign environment.
(55:13):
Your dad has already lost his mind trying to drive
to Melbourne, so it's already stress levels a little bit high.
You're in a packed court gallery because it was still
there was huge interest in this case. Packed gallery, press everywhere,
the judiciary everywhere, and you know, they just all look
so learned and superior, I guess, and they were all men.
(55:38):
And then you've got a perpetrator. At the start it
was two but then just been one. But they're sort
of standing directly opposite you, up on a bit of
a stand, looking down at you. So it was exceptionally
intimidating space.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
To be in.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
So Eastwood was pretty quickly given fifteen years with a
non parole period of ten years. As you've said, Boland
pledged not guilty and ended up having three trials, and
you think that there might have been a bit of
funny business going on there.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
He had an excellent defense. He had an excellent defense.
It was two hung juries. I think one of the
hung juries was like at that stage had the record
for the longest deliberation.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
In nineteen hours.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
Yeah. The third trial however, though, and you know I
do write about this in the book, because the police
were getting exceptionally disheartened because they felt they had a
very strong case, which they did. They had eye witnesses,
they had fingerprints, They really did.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
But didn't they think that there was jury tampering.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
We never knew that. It was always rumored.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
It was just speculation, speculation.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I suppose, because it just didn't make any sense that
there was no clear conviction. But in a third trial
gem there was a huge change to the Crimes Act,
where up and until that time a crime against kidnapping,
(57:17):
a wife did not was not compelled to give evidence
against her husband and disclosed marital conversations. Now, my husband
David was a police prosecutor for many years, and he
was telling me that the Faraday kidnapping case with the
trail of Robert Clodebolin was famous for police prosecutors because
(57:40):
at that time the Crimes Act was changed and crimes
such as kidnapping and incest were changed so that then
a wife, it was normally a wife could then be
put on the stand and cross examined regarding marital conversations.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Up until that time, David had said to me it
was really.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Difficult getting convictions when children were being involved.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
So that the Crimes Act.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Was changed and Robert Clyde Bollin's wife Lois was compelled
to take the stand in the third trial and disclosed
marital conversations, and the jury in that case took thirty
minutes to reach, so it was a real game change.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
What did she say?
Speaker 3 (58:32):
It was virtually.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Repeating that he had admitted that he had done it,
that he had done it, he knew now where he'd
gone wrong, he'd done it, and also he'd given an
alibi that he had been in Melbourne that day, and
she virtually dismantled his alibi.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
She also alleged other violence, other crimes.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
Well, it took towards herself. When I read the appeal document,
I was really shocked. I was really shocked by this
that the defense just crucified her on the stand and
she collapsed. It was clear when I was reading the
information that she was terrified of him.
Speaker 3 (59:17):
It appeared to me anyway that she was a victim
of family violence.
Speaker 1 (59:25):
So that third trial, he was found guilty, sentenced to
sixteen years with a minimum of twelve. Yes, but as
you said that that's three trials that you, as a
young girl, as an eleven year old, had to deal
with in one year.
Speaker 2 (59:38):
Yes. Yeah, and my family always very upset about that,
you know, they just if he had just pleaded guilty,
we could have moved on a lot quicker.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
A few months after the kidnapping, you actually went back
to Lancefield and saw the trench that we've been talking.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
About, Probably not one of my fathers.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Why, in a parenting moment, yeah, why why did he
take you there?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I think at the time had developed quite a nice
friendship with the Constable Anderson that was there, so comfortable
Anderson must have invited him to go back, and because
we never went anywhere, we said, oh, Dad, can we
come to and we often puffed, oh, well, yes, you
can come to so and so we went there, and
(01:00:30):
then you know, I think comestormle Anderson must.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Have said that, well do you want to see where
they were?
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Hell?
Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Oh yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
So then we went out there and then I think
they did say, you know, just wait here, and he
took Dad off to see the trench. But of course
I don't think I listened and I followed, and I
wish I never had, really.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Because that memory was etched really there.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Do you think that that visit in particular caused a
lot of trauma for you?
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Yeah, I think it's sort of probably compounded the night
the nightmares a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yes, Can you tell me about the mental impact as
a child that this had on you. Looking back at
the time, you know, in the seventies it wasn't really
spoken about, was it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
I suppose it's only as an adult you sort of
look back and I guess reflect. I remember thinking as
a children that the press interest was so great, and
that went on for years, so it really dogged us
for a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
And I remember thinking, I guess.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
That survivor jammer a little bit, thinking oh, why have
I survived but other children haven't, not particularly gifted or brilliant.
I don't believe the press were always making us out
to be victims. We didn't see ourselves as victims, probably
embarrassed by the press interest. And I think we all
(01:02:05):
look back. Adolescence is an awful time at the best
of times, but sort of trying to navigate your way
through that. And I know for me, when I reached
eighteen and moved away from the Cassmane area, it was
actually a big relief to be out of that area
and not maybe associated with Faraday.
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
The decision was also made pretty quickly after the kidnapping
to close your school. What impact did that have?
Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Probably didn't realize it at the time, but as school closed.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
And then we moved went to Hardcourt, which was a
little bit bigger, and it don't realize it at the time,
but we did. We lost our hub, we lost our
place to meet, our place to be, and Jemma, we
lost our stories because after nine Aeen seventy two, the
only story told was that of the Faraday kidnapping. So
(01:02:58):
in many ways, we lost who we were before that.
We lost our stories. And our stories aren't particularly newsworthy
or fascinating, but they were our stories. They were real,
and they were who we were. And I guess writing
this book virtually and I know everyone is fascinated by
the Faraday kidnapping, but what has bought me great joys.
(01:03:19):
It's taken me back to our life before that and
who we were then and wanting to actually reclaim those
memories and be proud.
Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Obviously, the kidnappers went to jail for a long time,
but kind of helped you move on hearing that both
of them, at different times, actually escaped prison.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
How bizarre was that, Like these weren't minor offenders, these
were serious offenders. They both escaped from different prisons, and
Edward John Eastwood went on to kidnap another school at
Woureen And I've just actually finished in all the talk
down in the gibbs Land area and it was a
wonderful experience, but the distress still there in some of
(01:04:03):
those communities of that event is still helpful.
Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
You went on to become a nurse, maternal health nurse.
You're a mum of three. Yes, you moved away from Faraday.
How did the kidnapping follow you into adulthood even though
you'd moved away.
Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
It's probably always been with me, and I guess, you know,
for many, many years I ran away from my past.
And you know, when I was married to my first husband,
I had a different name, a different area I lived in, and.
Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
I remember thinking, I never ever ever have to.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Say where who I am and where I come from
unless I choose to. And then, you know, when that
marriage ended, reverted back to my main name. And I
think even then I was starting to reclaim who I was.
As a maternal and child health nurs It's been an
absolute privilege working with families and particularly mums, and I
(01:05:04):
guess because of my experience, I became very unwell after
I had my third baby in my thirties, with postnatal depression,
maternal exhaustion, and a post traumatic stress disorder. So I'd
been having a horrific nightmare since I was probably fourteen,
and always the same, you know, nightmares a knife coming
(01:05:27):
towards mirror, gun or a man in a ballet lava.
So I was finally forced to seek counseling and assistance, remembering,
you know, I was brought up in that era where
you just get on. You don't talk about it, you
just deal with what life throws at you and you
move on. And maybe not a bad way, but maybe
(01:05:49):
not the best way. So with my clinical practice, I
think over the years, every now and then I would
see it was usually a mum that for whatever reason,
would be really struggling with their motherhood journey. They would
love their babies dearly, but you could see there was
something really not right, and I would often hope that
(01:06:10):
I had the empathy to say to them, look, I
can see you're really troubled about something. Is there something
maybe that happened in your childhood that's really impacting on
how you want a mother? And often, you know, I
just feel so grateful when people felt that they could
share their stories with me, that you know, something would
(01:06:31):
come out like I was a victim of crime, or
I have experienced family violence or child abuse as a
young child, and it's really impacting on me now, and
it often does after you have a little baby. So
you know, I've often been able to say, well, I
was able to say, please find your voice, don't stop
(01:06:56):
talking and get some good skilled counseling, because if you don't,
it will keep wearing its head and really impacting on
your life. Because I know that's what happened to me,
and I don't share my stories, of course.
Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
And when people actually keep talking to me.
Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
And go off and get counseling, that always has given
me a great deal of satisfaction to think that maybe
I paid a little, little small part in someone's journey
to healing.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
No, that's really nice, really beautiful. I understand that, and
I can so imagine why this would have been hard,
That sending your eldest child to primary school was a
really kind of troubling moment for you.
Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yes, it really triggered me, you know, like I had
a new baby and I sent my oldest little girl
at five to primary school and it yeah, yeah, it
was not a good time for me.
Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
It really did trigger. It sent me back into a
very dark, dark place. It did.
Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
How has writing your story after all these years helped you.
Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
It's taken me on a journey and it's actually led
me home to Faraday, which is I almost felt like
I've come full circle. It's been wonderful to meet up
with so many people from my past. You know, people
have worked with family members, you know, the daughter all
(01:08:32):
over Victoria who have all come to author talks and
and we share our stories now about you know, the
farm and grandma and.
Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
My sisters, and we're talking about our school days and
we've never done that. We've never done that.
Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
So it's been an amazing journey and unexpected that there
has been so much interest really in the book.
Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
It sounds like it's allowed you to kind of reclaim Faraday.
Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
And I must say, you know, you know, you know,
I said, oh, I'm really nervous about doing this podcast
because I don't particularly enjoy talking about the kidnapping. I'll
be really honest, I don't enjoy talking about it. But
what I do enjoy talking about is I enjoy talking
about Faraday. I enjoy talking about our school, I enjoy
(01:09:24):
talking about our life and so I feel like, yes,
I've reclaimed it and I've reframed the narrative anyway for me.
Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Anyway, Thanks to Robin for telling us her story. True
Crime Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced
by me Jemma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design
by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
back next week with another True Crime Conversation
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