Once a fellow met a fellow....

Once a fellow met a fellow…

Many years ago when we were young, 1969, Monique and I moved with six month old Luke to a shop and dwelling in Punt Rd., South Yarra. It was an incredibly important move for us as it brought us into contact with many new people, including Paul Cox who had his photographic studio in the shop and dwelling next door to ours.

Those days were halcyon days!

1 : calm, peaceful. 2 : happy, blissful, golden. 3 : prosperous, affluent, wealthy.

     Of or relating to the halcyon or kingfisher.

You can delete “affluent” and “wealthy” which do not describe our situation from all those options. We certainly felt peaceful, carefree, happy. And they were “golden” days, so there you go!

We met many new people in those days.  Paul’s place and our place were like railway stations, many came and many stopped off for a while before departing. There was a great deal of exchange between Monique and I and our friends, and Paul and his very many friends.

I’m not going to make a list so you can be grateful for that. Today I’m writing mainly about one person I met in that period and whom I met only once or twice between 1975 and 2022.  By sheer coincidence or fate, or whatever you might like to call it, he came back into my life in the past few weeks, 12 January 2022.

His name is Hugh McSpedden and he is a lovely fellow. He is gentle, kind, and full of fun. He loves playing with words and making a pun…

Dear Peter,

                  

I MUST be getting old!   I’ve intended contacting you for SO long but cud not remember where you were and certainly had no idea your address was hiding in my email dept!  I knew it wasn’t on my phone!  I've been living in Warrandyte for 45 years and moved house recently. I’d meditated on the idea for many years. I moved 10ks "Over The Hill."

I was chatting to Michael Lee who mentioned visiting you at Kyneton and even gave me your address. But tell me your number Peter coz Michael said 03 5422 3332 and that number doesn’t work. I’ll come visit sometime if ur OK with it. See if the lil house I nearly bought for 3G in ’72 is still at Malmsbury.                                                                                                          

Regards Hugh McS

Well, you can see from this email that much time had passed and Hugh mentioned Michael Lee,another fine fellow from that time: a filmmaker, a lovely chap with a most infectious smile. Michael visited me here in Kyneton about 12 years ago! I have seen him only once since then when Bill Mousoulis organised an event to celebrate 80th birthdays for Nigel Buesst and Ivan Gaal in a pub in Fitzroy.

“Once a fellow met a fellow 

In a field of beans.

Said a fellow to a fellow,

If a fellow asks a fellow, 

Can a fellow tell a fellow 

What a fellow means?”

I met a lot of fine fellows in that field of beans called independent and experimental filmmaking in the 1960s and after that, right through until this time of my life which Hugh describes brilliantly:

                            “I MUST be getting old!”

Yes Hugh, we are now elderly chaps and suffer many indignities from ageing which no one else will want to know about, so chin up and get on with it.

In the course of quite a few emails between us since mid-January, Hugh has mentioned a lot of people in his life including his brother Bani whom I saw from a distance in those days but never got to know. I did see Bani playing wonderful piano improvisations at the Aquarius Arts Festival in Canberra but I don’t think we ever made contact.

Those were days when Monique and I went to a number of pop festivals, Ourimbah, January 1970, Wallacia, January 1971 and the Aquarius Arts Festival in May1971. These images of Monique, Luke and me (shot by my friend Fred Harden) as far as I know are from the Wallacia Festival, 1971:

Hugh was also at most of these festivals and many more of them which I missed, conspicuous with his Edison Light Company van with its perspex dome set in the roof. I don’t know if he made the dome to enable him to stand up in the van or just to let the light in and out. Probably the latter, as he was presenting light shows even in those early days.

  

Another thing which I should mention is that Hugh was making films with Standard 8. He showed me some of his very early films when we met which intrigued me because he was quite adventurous in his use of “in-camera superimposition” and also his use of “prisms” which he placed in front of the camera lens.

This image of Hugh holding something, maybe a prism, in front of his lens was also supplied by Fred Harden.

These approaches which Hugh introduced me to resulted in further experimentation on my part a few years later which came to fruition in the three films of my “Triptych”.

Now to other elements of the conversation I’ve had with Hugh since January 12. I’ll include snippets of Hugh’s emails to make this as accurate as I can, but also to reduce it to essentials. I sent this to Hugh:

“Fred Harden sends you his cheers too.”

Fred Harden was another fellow we met in those days. The images above were all shot by Fred who came into our lives via my exceptional friend Jim Wilson who passed away in 1992. Jim and Fred were connected with the people who ran “Pinacotheca” Gallery where a number of our early films were screened before the first Co-op was set up in Spring Street Melbourne, opposite Parliament House. 

Fred sent me this clip which shows Hugh and Bani of “The Leaping McSpeddens” in action at the Sunbury pop festival which took place in January 1972.

Leaping McSpeddens Sunbury72 from Fred Harden on Vimeo.

 

At that time Fred was very important in my life not only for our interest in experimental and independent filmmaking, not only for the screenings we organised which led to the founding of the Melbourne Filmmakers’ Co-op, but also because he brought me freelance editing work from Clemenger’s Advertising Agency. In those days my income largely came from freelance editing or from producing low-budget TV commercials.

I asked Hugh about the origins of his brother Bani’s name. Then Hugh sent me an astonishing email which delved into the history of his family:

“Indeed Peter, my Bro’s name Bani was derived from Uncle Albani pron Al-bani (not Albany) while my sister’s name Yesha was derived from our Grandmother Ayesha’s name.

 

Albani and Ayesha had 17 siblings and all had unique names beginning with “A”. 

 

One, Arris, had the largest private collection of Rolls Royces in the world in a Museum at Batemans Bay, while another, Achalen Woolliscroft Palfreyman, was the Jam King, Managing Director of AJC, Australasian Jam Company, and richest man in Oz when he died in 1962!

 

While I liked my name I was slightly jealous of my siblings’ unique names until I eventually realised that I am not only a Human, and a Hugh-man, but a Hue-man in that I work with Hues!  Sadly I never saw the Rollses but neither did Bani who is obsessed with cars!  In an 18 year stretch, Jam King Achalen bought a new Buick every year!”

How could I let this opportunity go? I was amazed to think of how many threads came from this single email response. One of which was that I had always thought of Hugh coming from a strictly Anglo family line, but now it seemed from those names he listed his mysterious family line might include either Middle Eastern or Middle European ancestry. Coming from Lebanese and Anglo streams from more than 100 years ago my family history is quite mixed up, so I told him the naming was quite weird and suggested there may be a middle east connection to his family’s names. 

“Yes it is a bit innit?  I’ve thought the same re Middle-Easternicity but I wooden know.” 

Hugh suggested I call Bani and in the course of our first conversation Bani confirmed to me that Ach’s father, Rev. Isaac Hardcastle Palfreyman, derived the names of his 17 children from the Bible and that all their names began with “A” so “Bani” had to be spelled “Albani” although it was always spoken as “Bani”  (pron. “Baini”).  Hugh continued:

“When Achelen (known to the family as Ack) died in 1962 I was working as a driver for Prahran Metho Mission and being a bit of a scavenger, I went to Ack’s deserted mansion in Lansell Rd Toorak, and scavenged.  Didn’t get much really but I did get a lifetime supply of ‘Valet’ razor blades which he used once then put in a box! (Don’t know how I knew that!)  But I still have them! Achalen Woolliscroft Palfreyman was the Jam King, Managing Director of AJC, Australasian Jam Company, and richest man in Oz when he died in 1962!

It was difficult for me to associate Hugh with a person who had purchased 18 brand new Buicks over a period of 18 years, let alone another who had the largest private collection of Rolls Royces in the world in a museum at Batemans Bay. Hugh did not appear to come from a wealthy background so I was most surprised by these revelations of the immense wealth in the family. There was no display of wealth coming from Hugh. 

Well as you can see this novel is becoming richer and deeper by the minnit, innit!

I think Hue wood have gotten on quite well with Lewis Carroll if they had been contemporaneous. But I wooden know.

Let’s get back to ACHELEN, abbreviated to “ACK”:

“Achalen Woolliscroft Palfreyman, was the Jam King, Managing Director of AJC, Australasian Jam Company, and richest man in Oz when he died in 1962!

 

Enclosed pics of Ach’s mansion “Clovelly” taken a long time ago.”

I was puzzled about the derivation of “Palfreyman”. The name “Palfreyman” had pulled me up and filled my mind with images of “palfreys” and fine ladies on white horses, possibly palfreys, riding to places like Banbury Cross:

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,

To see a fine lady upon a white horse;

Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

And she shall have music wherever she goes

Then I learned that palfreymen looked after palfreys which were not necessarily white… they were just horses which were preferred for their “ambling gait” which made them desirable for riding over long distances.

Palfreyman, English: occupational name for a man responsible for the maintenance and provision of saddle-horses (see Palfrey).

In an earlier email HUMANIA mentioned “Clovelly” as the home of Achelen “The Jam King” and he included some photos hed had found on the net. 

Wow!  Here we go!

  

 

 

 

 

Wouldn’t that be a great place to live in down by the Yarra!

 

I sent these photos to my friend Fred Harden who also knew Hugh from those old days. He responded that he knew this building, he actually filmed it while he was a photography student at RMIT in 1966, way before I met either him or Hugh. How’s that for coincidence?

“I know that building, filmed it 50 years ago.”

Fred

Toorak Fog - 'Clovelly' from Fred Harden on Vimeo.

Then I started wondering about this man “ACK”. I did some googling and came up with this photograph:

I soon found out more information about his astonishing “Rags to Riches”  life.

From: Australian Dictionary of Biography:

Businessman, was born on 21 July 1875 at Wynyard, Tasmania, son of Rev. Isaac Hardcastle Palfreyman and his wife Martha Lucy, née Albury. One of a family of seventeen he was educated at his father's Hobart private school. At 14 he began work as a newspaper cadet but soon became office-boy at George Peacock's jam factory. The main reason for this success was his ability to play the organ for factory morning prayers: later he was also a strong baritone.

I really don’t think it’s appropriate to create a ridiculously brief summary of this extraordinary man’s life so here’s a link which will show you how truly amazing he was:

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/palfreyman-achalen-woolliscroft-7945

How can any person negotiate all the moves through complex social strata to achieve what this man achieved in his lifetime?

An AFR Classic from 1967: 

Death of a great business conservative

Achalen Woolliscroft Palfreyman, director of the Henry Jones-IXL-AJC canning group for 74 years, has died at the age of 92, leaving an office boy-to-chairman legend unequalled in Australian business, 14 acres in Toorak, and an immense personal investment portfolio.

https://www.afr.com/wealth/people/money-for-jam-john-elliott-s-first-big-move-into-wealth-20210927-p58v7y

Achalen Woolliscroft Palfreyman, director of the Henry Jones-IXL-AJC canning group for 74 years, has died at the age of 92, leaving an office boy-to-chairman legend unequalled in Australian business, 14 acres in Toorak, and an immense personal investment portfolio.

Mr. Palfreyman was one of the last surviving links between Australian business of the 1960s and its foundations in the last century. He was also an investor in the classic conservative mould. With the help of his friend and confidant, Mr Staniforth Ricketson, senior partner in the firm of J. B. Were and Son, he built up one of the most impressive leaders’ portfolios held by any Australian.

In addition to his holding in Henry Jones, he acquired large shareholdings in BHP, CSR, the National Bank, Mount Morgan, Consolidated Tin and other companies.

His holding in Consolidated Tin, which was taken over by Ready Mixed Concrete, was the source of considerable confusion to the companies concerned and to his advisers.

For although it was his habit to acquire shareholdings, it seems to have been an equally strong trait, particularly in his later years, to neglect them once acquired.

Dividend cheques are said to have been filed sometimes underneath his desk blotter, and issues, calls and entitlements were overlooked.

Such disinterest in things material was always exhibited towards another — and in some ways the greatest — of his investments, his home in the prime Melbourne suburb of Toorak.

Placed on 14 acres of prime grazing land, in the heart of Toorak, the property sank into a state of gentle decay over the years, presenting an odd picture to anyone wishing to visit the man said to be Australia’s wealthiest individual. At one time he kept a cow on the property for milk, and always there were a few horses grazing near the surrounding mansions.

Palfreyman’s love of horses, indulged freely as a younger man, led him to a vigorous interest in race tracks at one stage, although this was curtailed when a favourite mare was hurt in a Caulfield steeple chase.

But despite these eccentricities, Achalen Palfreyman was almost an archetype of the Victorian businessman: driving, independent, frugal, conservative, modest and totally dedicated to the entrepreneurial ethic.

He was perhaps a little less puritanical than was common in his era, although he came from an almost classic Victorian background. His father was a schoolteacher and a lay preacher in a Hobart non-denominational chapel.

It was his father’s firm training in the chapel music that was largely responsible for the 14-year-old Achalen gaining a job with the Peacock family jam factory in Hobart.

A story verified by the Palfreyman family has it that Mr George Peacock asked the youngster if he could play the organ, because someone was needed to provide accompaniment for vocal offerings at the firm’s regular prayer meeting.

Palfreyman proved that he could, and he was taken on at 10/6d per week.

This was nearly four times what he had received as a reporter on the Launceston Examiner, where he had worked for a few weeks before applying for the jam job.

Within two years of joining the Peacock business, he and two other employees, including Mr Henry Jones, bought control from Peacock.

Until 1926, Mr Palfreyman’s history in the business seems to be largely overshadowed by the role played by Henry Jones, who was subsequently knighted.

Under Jones’ leadership, the company merged with competitors, expanded to South Africa and the US and built up the beginnings of its massive export trade in canned foods.

Achalen Palfreyman, a rich man who showed a remarkable indifference to wealth.  

Soon after Jones’ death and Palfreyman’s accession, the company entered the depression and some of its leanest years. The experience of these times is often cited as one of the cornerstones of Mr Palfreyman’s conservatism.

Certainly, when things stabilised again, Mr Palfreyman adopted the conservative dividend policy which was to mark his period in control of the company. In the 30 years from 1935 to 1965, the company paid 29 10 per cent dividends, risking an 11.25 per cent distribution only after a bumper season and result in 1939.

But if this period was marked by conservatism at home, it was not in activities abroad.

Mr Palfreyman found time, capital and daring to back the formation of the Malayan tin industry (thus the holding in Consolidated Tin), playing a vital role in the establishment of the Tongkah Harbour companies, and he sponsored a clutch of unusual construction companies, including one to build a railway line between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs.

These diverse interests, the Toorak land, the enigma of a man who would distribute a few shillings to any down-and-out who claimed to have come from Tasmania, all contributed to the legend that Mr Palfreyman was Australia’s wealthiest individual.

Whether he was, in fact, the wealthiest man will not be known until his will is filed for probate. 

John Gilmour, from the Australian Financial Review of October 26, 1967.

 

Can you believe this:

At 14 he began work as a newspaper cadet but soon became office-boy

at George Peacock's jam factory. The main reason for this success

was his ability to play the organ for factory morning prayers: later

he was also a strong baritone.

 

So these are the attributes you need to become a great tycoon! He built a beautiful building in Toorak which was knocked down some years after he died to become the home of more recent tycoons, one of whom was Mr Brian Loton  (BHP)

https://www.urban.com.au/expert-insights/buying/37873-mining-giant-brian-loton-sells-longtime-toorak-home

The demolished home had 15 iron verandah columns apparently sent to Kirribilli House, Sydney for restoration of the verandah.

Its stained glass panels - said by Whelan the Wrecker to be the best he had seen in a Melbourne house - were inserted by the Langslow family into 79 St Vincent Place, Albert Park.

Well, I’m sure my friend Hugh would be very glad to know that at least some elements of Clovelly have been saved as features for other old homes. But now it is pretty much nothing but a few photographic memories, and memories of people such as Hugh, Bani and Fred.

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

I do have a slight regret here…

Hugh and Fred and I all started off as filmmakers between 1962 - 66 and Fred actually filmed a few shots in the mist near Clovelly in 1966. At that time we had not even met! I wonder if Hugh, Fred and I had known each other in those days, would we have made an effort to create a fine little film about Colvelly before the house was destroyed? 

I like to imagine that we would have done so. “Iron Lace”, one of the first pieces of 16 mm film I shot became a short “filler” for the ABC. It was a collage of cast iron decorations like the ones you see in the pictures from Clovelly which are found on Victorian buildings around Melbourne. So it is indeed possible that if we had met earlier, we might have prompted each other to do something on Clovelly.

Dear Hugh, Humania, Hue, Huish, thank you for contacting me from the edge of the abyss, your blast from the past… or as you put it yourself… 

“a voice from the void!”

And thanks for sharing with me all those threads relating to the amazing life of Achelen Wooliscroft Palfreyman and his beautiful Clovelly.

So exactly what is the answer to that little doggerel quoted at the head of this piece:

“Once a fellow met a fellow in a field of beans.”

What does it mean to be a fellow?

I’m sure that in the boardrooms of The Australasian Jam Company and BHP they have an understanding of so-and-so being a good fellow. A fine chap! That would be applied only to persons in their field of beans.

In our field of beans we also had good fellows and fine chaps. Our field of beans was not set among the highflyers of National Wealth, there were no Captains of Industry, nor did we add a great deal to the GDP. Just a bunch of creative individuals drawn together by the love of films and music, also the joy of sharing with each other, generally for no financial gain at all. None of us were flush with money. We were very lucky that some of our friends brought us work which kept us in the game as Philip Adams, Barry Scott (R. Barrington Scott), John B. Murray and Fred Harden kept me afloat between 1969 - 1972.

This piece would not have been possible without a number of excellent contributions from Fred Harden. 

pt Feb. 2022

Footnotes:

Fred Harden's film Wallacia Odyssey Festival 1971 (Super 8)

 

Fred Harden's film of the Sunbury Festival 1972