Some chronology for John Joseph Ray

1967


A most scenic drive near where I grew up -- the road from Cairns to Port Douglas



The 1967 Federal Election

In the 1967 Federal election campaign (mainly fought on the issue of Australia's involvement in Vietnam) I, as a member of the Young Liberals, was invited to be in the audience for the launch of the Liberal campaign in Queensland. This was a speech by Harold Holt.

The Leftists forged passes and infiltrated it, however. They made such a din that poor old Harold was just about inaudible. They virtually broke up the meeting. No respect for freedom of speech there!

Lance Winter and I saw this and organized with a few others (including Chris McSweeney from the D.L.P. youth group) to give the Left a bit of their own back.

About a week later the A.L.P. had its Queensland launch in the old Roma St Trades Hall. We attended. As soon as Arthur Calwell had been introduced and got up to speak there was rapturous applause. Arthur let the applause die down and opened his mouth to speak.

At that point I stood up and in my best soapbox voice shouted out: "All at sea with the A.L.P.!" (A slogan invented by my fellow-demonstrator Lance Winter to complement "All the way with L.B.J.". (Lyndon Baines Johnson was President of The United States at the time.)

I also held up a poster to similar effect.

You should have seen the response at this "disrespect". Half the people in the hall got up to look at who the scoundrel was.

Our posters were ripped from us but the Police Special Branch had been warned and formed a protective circle around us.

One of the police (Bob Walker) said to the Leftists, quite rightly, "You did the same to Harold Holt last week".

Anyway we kept up sporadic shouts. When we did, members of the audience would stand up, shake fists at us and return the abuse with a vengeance. Out of their anger and hostility they broke up their own meeting much more effectively than we could ever have done alone.

The headline in ”The Courier Mail" next day was "Calwell has noisy meeting".

Brisbane was the only capital city where he got that reception.

We were menaced by elements of the crowd as we were leaving the Trades Hall after the meeting and the Special Branch escorted us over the road to the old Roma St Police station.

A crowd waited outside for us to come out again so they could get us. Real thugs!

Anyway there was a little-known back entrance to the cop-shop through which we escaped in due course.

Those were certainly interesting times for me. I felt that what I was doing was making a difference.

Anyway, Harold Holt had a landslide win in that election. I think the Australian people did not much like what they saw of Leftist mobs either.



In the Army

1967 was also my third year at university and another thing I did in that year was to join the Army Reserves (the C.M.F.).

I joined the Psychology Corps. Since the head of the Psychology Dept. (Prof. McElwain) was a Colonel in it, this was probably the one good political move I ever made.

I actually did it for the experience, however. I was above conscription age so also had no need to do it to get out of conscription.

In my honours year every male student but one was in the Psychology Corps. The exception was a Methodist minister (Henry Law) who obviously had other duties on Sunday.

I greatly enjoyed my time in 21 Psychology Unit -- particularly the one camp I went to (at Tin Can Bay). It was like being paid to go on a camping holiday.

Conscription was in force at that time so there was a big need for psychologists to assess the recruits for suitability. So our CMF units were put on regular army duties at the time of the intakes. I was sent to Singleton. So I carried out ARA duties as well as CMF ones

I learnt a fair few things in the Army too.

I reached the rank of Sergeant but I am sure Rod Hardaker (my former Sergeant Major) will tell you that I must have been just about the most inefficient Sergeant in the Australian Army at that time. That clumsiness again.

Rod is the only ex-Army mate I have kept in touch with to some degree. Though that was partly accidental.



The theology

In response to Christ's commands in Matthew chapter 5, I was a pacifist throughout my teens. So how do I square that with my joining the army? The simple answer is that I had become an atheist by the time I joined so no longer felt bound by anything Biblical, but there is a theologically more sophisticated explanation of Matthews 5 here:

https://ntwords.blogspot.com/2019/04/#7696628836008284711

And I did after all join a non-combatant corps: 21 Psych. in fact

And I still think war is a giant folly



Politics and the srmy

I have long argued that the difference between Left and Right can only be understood psychologically rather than ideologically. Leftists run on pure emotion. Conservatives have emotions too but they are governed by reason as well.

And one of the things that Leftist emotions will never engage with is the army. Leftists just can't understand why anybody would LIKE being in the army and Leftist governments will always cut back military funding if they can plausibly do so. Australia's Leftist government did so in 2010, even though there are frequent calls on the Australian army for overseas deployments to various theatres of conflict, Iraq and Afghanistan included.

Yet lots of people DO like being in the army, including women. In my military days the corps with the longest waiting list was the WRAACS (Women's Royal Australian Army Corps). Each corps has a certain "establishment" -- meaning that the corps can only enlist as many people as they are allocated by the defence bureaucrats. So a popular corps will often have a waiting list of people waiting for a vacancy in the establishment. And LOTS of women wanted to get into the WRAACS.

And that has continued. Even exceptionally attractive women often love the army. G.I. Jill won a beauty contest as Miss Utah but still was keen to get back to military duties. And Miss England (aka "Combat Barbie") was keen to get back into army uniform after a modelling stint. And my most recent bride spent 9 years in the army and you can see what she looks like here (scroll down).

And who could be more privileged than a member of the British Royal family? But it IS a military family and Prince Harry in particular was well known for his devotion to the army and his keenness for active service. He even once said of his very attractive girlfriend at the time, Chelsy, that he loves Chelsy but the army comes first! I doubt that any Leftist mind could comprehend that! I can, though.


Left to right above: Prince Charles, Chelsy Davy, Prince Harry. Photo from 2010

And in the most minor of ways, my own totally undistinguished military career shows a little of that spirit too. In the Vietnam era I was at a university in Brisbane where there were vast anti-Vietnam rallies. So I joined a local army reserve unit. While most of my fellow students were marching around with placards, I was trying my best to acquire some military skills. And I enjoyed it immensely.

After completing my first degree, however, I moved down to Sydney and naturally assumed that I would join the Sydney reserve unit of my corps. But they were "up to establishment"! They had no vacancy for me. So did I just say "too bad!". No way! I went on full-time duties with the regular army instead! The regular unit of my corps had vacancies even if the reserve unit did not!

I can't imagine that any Leftist would understand that. Personally, I think they are inadequate people who are simply too cowardly for the army. They will of course think that I am simply stupid but as I have a Ph.D. and 200+ academic publications that explanation would be as silly as their "poverty" explanation.



Joyce Hooper

Shortly after I arrived in Sydney I ran into Joyce Hooper -- while walking down George St -- whom I had briefly taken out in Brisbane (I met her at the Folk Centre). She became the first woman I lived with. She is now deceased.


We lived together in a flat at Rozelle for a while.

As Joyce looked great and shared my musical interests, I was pretty pleased with her. Even when I last saw her in the late '80s she was still a good-looking woman.

It was she who many years later introduced me to Jenny. She in turn married a long-time friend of mine (Alex Barnes) whom I introduced her to! Anyway Joyce is an enormously critical woman, both of herself and everyone else so we ended up arguing enough to split up. Joyce and I stayed friends, however, in my usual way.



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E.&O.E.

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