AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Domenic Catanzariti

TAPE NO. 3387/3 – DOMENIC CATANZARITI
INTERVIEWED BY MATHEW HIGGINS
5 OCTOBER 1995 - 2 TAPES

 

HIGGINS: This is Tape 1 of an interview with Domenic Catanzariti for the Friends of the National Gardens Oral History Project and the interview is being conducted by Mathew Higgins on 5 October 1995 in Domenic’s home at Bruce in Canberra.

Domenic let me say at the beginning thank you very much for participating in this oral history project. I know the Friends appreciate the time that you’re putting aside this morning to make this tape and I’m looking forward to hearing some of your memories and adventures with the Botanic Gardens over thirty years or so.

If we can start off, I’d like to ask you about when you first started in Parks & Gardens back in 1953 before you actually went to the Botanic Gardens. How did you get the job at Parks & Gardens.

CATANZARITI: When well I came to Canberra there weren’t any jobs and I was four months without a job. A friend helped me with food and accommodation. Then I got the job in Parks & Gardens through David Shoobridge. I worked there for seven years and after I got married I moved to the Botanic Gardens.

HIGGINS: You moved to the Gardens in, was it 1960 or 1961?

CATANZARITI: Around 1960, between 60 and 61.

HIGGINS: Why did you move to the Botanic Gardens?

CATANZARITI: Well because I got married and I asked for a transfer. I didn’t have a car; I wanted to work closer to home and the only place they had was at the Botanic Gardens.

HIGGINS: So where were you living at that time? O’Connor?

CATANZARITI: In Dickson. The Gardens were the closest to Dickson. I used to work in Narrabundah but that was a bit too far for me to catch a bus every morning. They told me to go to the Botanic Gardens. I went there one morning and couldn’t find anything. It was foggy and very cold. I came back to Acton and saw the boss and I asked him where the Botanic Gardens are. He explained to me and I went back and I found this Green Hut and I walked in and saw very old machines but nobody there. I thought, ‘what’s this’. I sat there and the three men came in for morning tea. Their names were Stan Creeby, Stan Caulfield and Frank McCausland. They asked who I was and I said I have been sent here. When I saw that old machine, I was used to working with new machinery, they looked after me.

HIGGINS: When you say a machine you mean a front-end loader?

CATANZARITI: No just a truck and trailer. When I saw that machine the next day I said to my boss I’m not very happy in the Botanic Gardens. He asked why and I told him that I have to work with a very old machine that is started with a crank handle and they have nothing - no toilets, no tools, nothing. They just have a toilet outside. I told him that this wasn’t for me.

HIGGINS: When you say you came back to your boss, who was that?

CATANZARITI: My boss was Stan Yandle.

HIGGINS: Stan Yandle?

CATANZARITI: Yes. He said OK come and see us tomorrow and we’ll give you some new machinery. When I came back the next day I got a new tractor, I got everything new. It took them a couple of days to move all the stuff to the Botanic Gardens. One day I asked the boss if he could give me the Kombi van to go into town. He gave me the van and I went to the store in Acton. The Storeman was Bill Moreton and I told him we have no tools at the Botanic Gardens and asked for his help. I told him we needed some shovels, picks, toilet paper, paper hand towels, hoses, wheelbarrow etc and I got everything and it was approved by the Supervisor, Jacky Moore. You know the supervisor has to sign for this sort of thing.

I filled up the Kombi and drove back to the Botanic Gardens. Mr Kripps said, ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘Look what I got from the Department.’ He said, ‘Did you rob the bank?’ He was Welsh. I said I didn’t rob the bank, I got it from the Department. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a lot of influence. Every time we need something you’d better go Dom.’ That’s what happened for a long, long time.

HIGGINS: How come Stan Kirby had never got these tools and things?

CATANZARITI: I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t ask or he didn’t know the people. I knew everyone very well. So that’s what happened.

HIGGINS: Can I ask you about that Green Hut because that building has gone now and I never saw it. Was it just a mess hut that people sat in?

CATANZARITI: It was a Green Hut that belonged to the tree surgeon.

HIGGINS: The tree surgeon. Was that Jack Irwin?

CATANZARITI: Jack Newlands but he moved away, I don’t know where, and the hut was given to the Botanic Gardens. There were a few rooms – one for the Botanist Dr Phillips, the garage for the truck that’s where we had our meals, and another room for books.

HIGGINS: So the garage where the truck was, that’s where you had your meals?

CATANZARITI: Well most of the time. After that they made a little room for us to have our meals. Every time we had to go to the Gardens we had to walk from there up to the Gardens but the Gardens weren’t much at that point. They had only two taps. We started to clean up everything and from the rockery at the bottom there were only three trees, nothing else. I got the big machine …

HIGGINS: The tractor?

CATANZARITI: The tractor with the bit chisel plough. It took me three weeks to rip off the lot and burn it in the winter time.

HIGGINS: When was that? Was that early in the sixties?

CATANZARITI: It was about 1962 I think. We did a few other things like some footpaths.

HIGGINS: Who was telling you what to do? Was it Stan Kirby or would it be David Shoobridge?

CATANZARITI: No Shoobridge was the Director. He would only be there sometimes. Stan Kirby was the boss. Most of the time he left everything to me. He said, ‘You know what to do Dom’. Between me and Wallace Schofield we worked together.

HIGGINS: Wallace?

CATANZARITI: Wallace Schofield. I would say, ‘What are we going to do today Wally?’ ‘Oh that tree has fallen over we’ll clean that up.’ We had no chainsaw, just a hand saw.

HIGGINS: A cross cut saw?

CATANZARITI: No we didn’t have a cross cut saw either but I had one at home and I said I would lend it to Stan. He thought that was a good idea and I brought the cross cut to the Gardens and we used that. We built a few footpaths and moved a few rocks. Every time we were planting we put a few rocks around and also put up chicken wire as there were a lot of rabbits and hares. I used to have a typewriter and I would put it on the tractor and every time we planted anything I had to write the label and put it on the plant with a nylon peg.

HIGGINS: So that was an old typewriter that you put the aluminium plate on ….

CATANZARITI: Yes with a handle like a typing machine and I used to put the numbers on.

HIGGINS: So that was the herbarium label number?

CATANZARITI: Yes.

HIGGINS: Can I just focus on a couple of things. Now you talked about the water supply being very very poor, just the two taps.

CATANZARITI: Just the two taps. One was up at the acacia section and one is where the education building is now.

HIGGINS: The Crosbie Morrison building?

CATANZARITI: Yes. We had to water by hand. We had a hundred litres tank on the trailer and we would fill it up and go around the Gardens watering by hose or watering can.

HIGGINS: In the summer how much of your time was taken up with watering?

CATANZARITI: Well it took some time but we didn’t have many plants because we planted only a few plants a year and not many survived. I reckon about 300 a year at the most.

HIGGINS: When did the water situation start to change? When did you get more pipes in there?

CATANZARITI: When there were more plantings. I’ve forgotten now. It could be 1965 or 66. We put a few taps in here and there. We got a plumber named Romero from the Yarralumla Nursery.

HIGGINS: Romero. Was he Italian too?

CATANZARITI: Yes. He came from the Yarralumla Nursery when we needed him. After that we started to clean up the rainforest, the gully.

HIGGINS: I’ll get on to that in a moment. I think you mentioned the other day Domenic that during one drought after the lake had filled you went down and had to fill the trailer from the lake?

CATANZARITI: Yes we put a pump in the lake and we had to take the trailer and some trucks too to carry water from the lake to water the Gardens because something had happened to the water supply. I don’t know what. I think that was in 1966.

HIGGINS: The late sixties, a bad drought in the sixties.

CATANZARITI: Yes 1966 I think.

HIGGINS: And where did you put the pump in the lake? Down in Sullivans Creek?

CATANZARITI: Near the university yes. Not only us. A lot of City Parks gardeners as well. Everyone filled up there.

HIGGINS: Now before the lake had been filled I understand some of the soil from the lake bed, those old alluvial flats, some of that was brought up to the Gardens. Can you tell me about that?

CATANZARITI: Yes we got about fifty thousand metres of soil from the lake and it was tipped next to the Green Hut and we carried it up to the Gardens and we put it where we needed it.

HIGGINS: On Saturdays?

CATANZARITI: Mostly Saturdays because on Saturday I could get some help from the Parks & Gardens people. We got a front-end loader to load up.

HIGGINS: So was that overtime for you?

CATANZARITI: Yes it was overtime. There were two, three or four trailers and the front-end loader to load them. During the week when we didn’t have much to do we moved the soil and we loaded the trailers using shovels. That was Wallace Schofield and me.

HIGGINS: What into the trailer?

CATANZARITI: Yes. Load it up, tip it out and spread it by hand. We worked very hard.

HIGGINS: Just the two of you?

CATANZARITI: And Frank Makousa, a Yugoslav.

HIGGINS: Makousa?

CATANZARITI: Yes. After that we had a small shed up in the Gardens. Just like a little room. We used to use it for our meals but we worked from the Green Hut to get the tools but we mostly had our meals there.

HIGGINS: Where was this little shed?

CATANZARITI: Near the public toilets behind the research house. You know where the public toilets are, just there.

HIGGINS: As far as the Green Hut itself goes, where was that located?

CATANZARITI: Near the road at the bottom near the entrance.

HIGGINS: Near the entrance, the present entrance?

CATANZARITI: Yes but on the right hand side.

HIGGINS: So towards the CSIRO?

CATANZARITI: Yes just across from the Banksia Centre.

HIGGINS: Now the soil from the lake, where was that mainly placed? Did you put it everywhere?

CATANZARITI: Yes we put it mostly everywhere where we had to make a bed. If we had to make a bed at that time we put in the soil from the lake. Black Mountain soil is red stuff with a lot of clay. Most of it went into the Eucalypt Lawn.

HIGGINS: I believe that some soil was brought from the Yarralumla Nursery for planting?

CATANZARITI: That was when we were potting some plants. We didn’t have a sterilising machine so we got soil from the Yarralumla Nursery to keep us going.

HIGGINS: So they would sterilise it at Yarralumla?

CATANZARITI: Yes and then they would give it to us. We were under City Parks at that time and we used to pot only a few things a year because we didn’t have a nursery or a potting shed, we had nothing.

HIGGINS: So where did you do the potting?

CATANZARITI: Well we had a big tree near to the research building, a stringy bark, and we had a little bench under it and that’s what we used.

HIGGINS: Out in the open air?

CATANZARITI: In the open air and when it was winter in the night we used to cover up the things and that’s how we did it. We had nothing, no building.

HIGGINS: So this time that we’re talking about, the early sixties, how many people were working there as gardeners like yourself? You were a plant operator?

CATANZARITI: Yes I was a plant operator. Well there were two gardeners, Wallace Schofield and Frank Makous. After that we got a Swedish fellow. His name was Fok Limburg. He was a very fine fellow. He really was. He would come in the morning in the winter, he would be wearing ten different layers of clothing. He wore a singlet, shirt, jumper, coat, overcoat. He would keep working and as the day warmed up he would take them off one by one and he would hang them on the tree. Every day at three thirty he would knock off and collect all his clothes.

HIGGINS: You would think coming from the northern hemisphere he would be used to the cold weather.

CATANZARITI: That’s what he used to do. He used to live in a hostel too and that was before the lake and he would ride a push bike across the university and almost every morning he would be late for work.

HIGGINS: He would be late?

CATANZARITI: Yes and the boss would ask him, ‘What’s happened this morning,’ and one morning he said, ‘You know what I got bogged with the push bike’. ‘You got bogged? I’ve never heard of a push bike getting bogged.’ ‘I did,’ he said. ‘Where were you bogged?’ ‘Sullivans Creek.’ And we just laughed at him.

HIGGINS: How well did you all get on in that early period? Did you all work together pretty well?

CATANZARITI: Yes we all worked together. I had a car and I used to drop some people home Wallace Schofield and Hansel and I used to drop Frank in Civic and pick him up in the morning because I came from Dickson. I did that for a long time.

HIGGINS: And Wallace Schofield judging from his name I would say he was Australian born.

CATANZARITI: Yes.

HIGGINS: What sort of fellow was Wallace?

CATANZARITI: Very good because he used to work on bridges he told me but because he lost his eyesight bit by bit they put him off the road and into the Botanic Gardens. He came to the Botanic Gardens just before me, just a few months before me. I used to look after him. On a sunny day he could see but on a cloudy day he couldn’t see anything. I had to look after him. That’s why I wanted to him to work with me every day.

HIGGINS: So you took him under your wing?

CATANZARITI: Yes. I took him under my wing.

HIGGINS: How long was he at the Gardens for?

CATANZARITI: A long time.

HIGGINS: Up to the 1980s for example?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes.

HIGGINS: Would he have been there twenty years?

CATANZARITI: Yes I think so, close enough. It was a long time. We went to Jervis Bay once. One day Stan Curtis said to me, ‘Domenic if ever you feel like going to Jervis Bay for a week …,’ he used to call it Java Bay. I said, ‘All right.’ He said, ‘There are nice pubs on the way?’ I said all right Stan.

Anyway he came and picked me up in Dickson in the Kombi Van and Wal was with him. We sang and joked. When we got to Jervis Bay we had a very old hut with no windows, nothing. That made me very scared. They told me a lot of things. They reckoned the aborigines would come in the night with their axes and they would pinch everything and they would kill us. Anyway I didn’t fall asleep that night. I heard a possum come in and pinch our food. Wal said, ‘It must have been one of the aborigines Dom.’

One night we said we would go out for dinner. We went to Huskisson, it was raining, we were in the Kombi Van and we got stuck. We were wearing good clothes. Stan was driving and he said to me, ‘You push.’ I said, ‘Hey we can’t push, we’d better walk.’ It wasn’t very far and we could pick it up in the morning. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you push.’ I was a bit cunning and I went and pushed it from the side but Wally pushed from the back and he got all dirty. After I said to Stan, ‘I’ll drive Stan and you come and push.’ ‘All right,’ he said. I said, ‘You’re strong.’ And he did the same thing. I just laughed.

HIGGINS: Did you go down to Jervis Bay very often?

CATANZARITI: No. I went once for the first time in 1961 I think it was and I got the tractor and the grader blade from the Army people there, they lent it to us and I had to do a little bit of the road. I spent a week there.

HIGGINS: So that was your major involvement?

CATANZARITI: Yes. I made a road so the Kombi could go in.

HIGGINS: So that was early in the sixties?

CATANZARITI: Sixty-one, sixty-two.

HIGGINS: Did you go down there much after that.

CATANZARITI: No. I went once more because we had a bobcat. We bought another one, we had two bobcats. Somebody smashed the old tractor at the Gardens. We had no tractor for a month. Because I knew they had a few trucks at Jervis Bay I asked the supervisor from there if he would swap with me. I would give him one of the bobcats and he would give me a tractor.

HIGGINS: Frank at Jervis Bay?

CATANZARITI: Yes. He said, ‘OK Domenic, which bobcat will you give me. The new one?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘the old one but it’s good.’ One day I went out to get the bobcat and the backhoe with the truck to give to them and we got the tractor. I showed them how to work it, I started everything and after I switched it off I gave them the key and I said, ‘That’s it.’ And I got a new tractor from them and that bobcat never started again. They couldn’t start it.

Fred the supervisor came to see me, he wanted his tractor back. I said he couldn’t have it. He said it wasn’t any good any more. I said it was nothing to do with me. He said I tricked him and he went to see Mark Richardson and he went to see the Director. The Director said that was up to me nothing to do with them. He came back to see me and said, ‘What if I buy you another tractor, a new Fiat, and you give me the David Brown? That’s a better tractor.’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘Why don’t you buy a new Fiat for yourself?’ He said, ‘Because it’s too big for over there.’ I said, ‘It’s too big for me too.’ Anyway after a couple of months he didn’t come back. He wasn’t very happy with me after that. In the end they had to sell the bobcat.

HIGGINS: So it never worked again?

CATANZARITI: It never worked again.

HIGGINS: It must have needed your magic touch. Now you were going to mention before about clearing logs in the rainforest.

CATANZARITI Yes when we had to clear the logs.

HIGGINS: When would this have been?

CATANZARITI: It all happened in 1962, 1963. It was in the early days we did those jobs. We had a couple more men then so we put one or two men in the gully and they took a grubber with them and picked up all the stuff, the logs and cleaned up and they moved and somebody else came along and pulled all the stuff out bit by bit. We had to work really hard.

HIGGINS: How long did it take?

CATANZARITI: Oh it took a long time. We did it when we had time. We did it bit by bit. There was a lot of stuff.

HIGGINS: Would the work have been spread over say six months, would it have taken that long?

CATANZARITI: Oh it could. It could be more because we didn’t do it every day. We had other things to do and we shifted around where we were needed. There were a lot of rocks.

HIGGINS: Just with the rainforest gully when you were doing that work had anything been planted in the gully at that stage?

CATANZARITI: I think there were a couple of Acacias. Not much. Just a few Acacias not much at all.

HIGGINS: To the casual observer it wouldn’t have looked like a …

CATANZARITI: No nothing. It just looked like bush. We were frightened there are a lot of brown snakes around there. Before we went in we would throw a few rocks in. There were a lot of mosquitoes too. It took a long time to clean up the gully. We had no machinery just the old tractor. Before we got the new one.

HIGGINS: With the snakes, it seems that you saw quite a few snakes quite often.

CATANZARITI: We used to kill them until they told us we couldn’t kill any more.

HIGGINS: I think you were telling me …..

CATANZARITI: One day I was slashing right to the bone near the Banksia Centre and of course there’s a lot of grass there and I kept slashing and on the slash we could see some blood and we counted seven heads.

HIGGINS: So it was seven snakes.

CATANZARITI: Seven snakes. It’s a big area there. It’s called the Bog Garden now. It was a big area and I had to cut the lot and the grass was that high. About a couple of feet high. I slashed and slashed and at the last cut they all must have missed the vibration.

HIGGINS: They all moved into the centre.

CATANZARITI: Mr Schofield and I got a couple of sticks and had a look around and counted seven heads. Seven brown. We also killed foxes and rabbits. Anything we saw we hit.

HIGGINS: Did you have rifles?

CATANZARITI: No we had nothing.

HIGGINS: Were there many rabbits on the site and were they a threat to the plants?

CATANZARITI: Yes, a lot of hares too, big hares.

HIGGINS: So you had to put chicken wire around?

CATANZARITI: Chicken wire around until the plants grew big and we took it off when they grew up.

HIGGINS: How was that chicken wire anchored to the ground? Did you peg it or did you have some sort of …..

CATANZARITI: No we just dug around a bit and put the soil around the wire and that was enough.

HIGGINS: What about kangaroos?

CATANZARITI: I never had any trouble with kangaroos never saw many.

HIGGINS: So there were fewer there than there are today?

CATANZARITI: Yes

HIGGINS: What about in later years because you were there for thirty-five years? Did you see an increase in kangaroos?

CATANZARITI: Yes the kangaroos increased not long ago. In the last five or six years I think.

HIGGINS: Yes there’s a sign on the gates up near the trades depot saying because of kangaroos.

CATANZARITI: Yes the kangaroos came in there and we had to close it. That was another headache for the people who go in and out, in and out. They had to close the gate, open the gate.

HIGGINS: That gate leads through to that old dump area doesn’t it.

CATANZARITI: It leads to that old dump. That’s where I used to tip the rubbish before.

HIGGINS: So logs that you had pulled out or …

CATANZARITI: Everything. What we could we burnt. If not we tipped it there.

HIGGINS: Of course that had been a dump site for cars.

CATANZARITI: Yes that was where they put old Canberra cars. About 500 I reckon.

HIGGINS: I understand you made good use of the cars.

CATANZARITI: We used to go and have a look. What they used to do when they dumped the cars was they used to smash everything with a big hammer. They used to smash the lot before they left.

HIGGINS: Didn’t you get the odd spare part?

CATANZARITI: Sometimes if we needed something we’d say, ‘That’s not bad.’ We just used to get it. Find a few spiders in the cars too.

HIGGINS: A few what?

CATANZARITI: A few spiders with hairs and things. It was always there for good things. Things like that you know everything you got tipped stuff. I picked up a few rocks for the Gardens.

HIGGINS: Talking about the rocks then, so rocks had been dumped there as well?

CATANZARITI: Yes when they built the TV tower.

HIGGINS: The Black Mountain Tower?

CATANZARITI: The Black Mountain Tower. They put a lot of rocks there. I don’t know how many but there was a lot. All the cars have been covered in dirt and things. They’re all covered now.

HIGGINS: So you made use of those rocks?

CATANZARITI: Yes, we used them a lot.

HIGGINS: What sort of things did you use them for?

CATANZARITI: The big ones we used for the rockery gardens. The small ones we could always use. We used to build small walls around the place before the bricklayer came in. Just by hand you know.

HIGGINS: So these were loose stone walls, dry stone walls? So you were making those?

CATANZARITI: Yes we made those.

HIGGINS: And Wal Schofield?

CATANZARITI: And Wal.

HIGGINS: Who else on the staff was making those sort of things?

CATANZARITI: We had Peter Zander and Johnny Clark. Johnny Clark was the young apprentice and after he worked in the Gardens as a GO1.

HIGGINS: So they were on that sort of work as well. Now the rock walls that you see so many of today where the rocks are cemented together, that was done by this bricklayer chap?

CATANZARITI: Yes, done by the bricklayer chap.

HIGGINS: What was his name?

CATANZARITI: The first fellow was Carl, I’ve forgotten his second name. The next fellow was Helmut Roegger.

HIGGINS: So he was another one.

CATANZARITI: Yes. He had been a worker there for a long time too and now he’s in hospital.

HIGGINS: So he did a lot of the stone walls.

CATANZARITI: Oh he did a lot, a lot. He was good. He did most of the stone walls.

HIGGINS: And when was that being done? Was that in the sixties too?

CATANZARITI: Oh no, no. I think it’s the late seventies, something like that.

HIGGINS: So before him there would have been that Carl fellow?

CATANZARITI: Yes Carl came in the late seventies too. Before that there was no money for bricklaying, we had to do it ourselves.

HIGGINS: So at the time of the opening, say in 1970, most of the stone walling was just loose stones?

CATANZARITI: Oh they had a few but the real bricklaying didn’t start much before 1970.

HIGGINS: Who was making the decisions Domenic about where walls would be built and where paths would go and that sort of thing?

CATANZARITI: Yes there was an engineer from Parks & Gardens named Keith Axelby.

HIGGINS: Keith Axelby yes, so he was an engineer?

CATANZARITI: Well he was an engineer for development. He came and said where we had to do things.

HIGGINS: So you were taking directions from him?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes.

HIGGINS: You said there that some of the rock from the rockery came from the pile from Black Mountain Tower.

CATANZARITI: It must have come from Black Mountain Tower I think.

HIGGINS: Did some of it come from cuttings made for the Tuggeranong Parkway?

CATANZARITI: I don’t know.

HIGGINS: You just got it from that dump area?

CATANZARITI: We got some from the dump area.

HIGGINS: It just came in on a truck?

CATANZARITI: Yes.

HIGGINS: You said that when the potting shed at the nursery was being built and I think that was around about 1967 that was levelled by hand.

CATANZARITI: Yes me and Wal Schofield. We just did all of it by hand.

HIGGINS: What sort of tools did you have?

CATANZARITI: Pick and shovel and a tractor and trailer. Load them up and take them to the dump. At that time we were promised another six men and a couple more trucks to give us a hand. It was Saturday morning and no one came. The following morning the carpenters were coming to box in the area for the concrete. Wal and I said we had better really work hard. On the following Monday morning when Stan Kapper came he said, ‘Everything’s ready, oh that’s good. How many men?’ We said, ‘Only two.’ ‘What do you mean only two?’ ‘Only me and Wal.’ ‘You couldn’t have done that. Where’s all the men?’ ‘Nobody came.’ ‘You tell me you did all that you two.’ ‘Yes we did.’

HIGGINS: So that was levelling and you also put the formwork in?

CATANZARITI: No the carpenter came on the following Monday to put in the formwork for the concrete. We just levelled it up for them.

HIGGINS: Were there any other big specific labouring jobs like that that you had to do by hand?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, lots.

HIGGINS: Can you tell me about some of them?

CATANZARITI: A lot of jobs like the footpaths, like the road we have now. One machine would just come, I don’t where from, and do it roughly and afterwards we had to fix it by hand. Widen it, another three feet. We had to work with a pick and shovel and take the soil away with a wheelbarrow to widen the road because it was too narrow. That sort of thing. Some dead trees we had to cut down.

HIGGINS: When you were felling trees how was that done? Just with an axe?

CATANZARITI: Just with an axe. We’d drop the tree and afterwards use the crosscut.

HIGGINS: When did chainsaws come into use in the Gardens.

CATANZARITI: I don’t remember but very late. Not long ago, not really. I can’t remember but we used to work with no chainsaw and no front-end loader, all by hand. Hand and hand and we didn’t have gloves like now. They give gloves, they give everything today. They gave us nothing.

HIGGINS: No gloves.

CATANZARITI: No gloves. They gave us nothing.

HIGGINS: So lots of callouses.

CATANZARITI: We had to buy everything ourselves. Now they’ve got everything.

HIGGINS: With the individual workers who were working as gardeners some of the more scientific, or if you like white collar staff, like Murray Fagg and Ian Telford, they started off as gardeners.

CATANZARITI: They all started as gardeners and I showed them what to do. I remember I used to give them a plastic bucket and a little hand shovel and I’d take them somewhere and I’d say, ‘Clean up this today’. It was mostly couch and then they did this and this and that’s how they started.

HIGGINS: Did the individual gardeners have areas of their own to work on?

CATANZARITI: Yes not at that time, not in the old days. We all worked together. In later times they all had their own section. After it opened because we had a lot of men then and they started to build the depots, and the nursery so the bosses gave the men their own section to look after.

HIGGINS: So was that done so that the individual workers would identify with their own section and look after it.

CATANZARITI: Yes the bosses showed them their own sections and they had to look after them - spraying, weeding, watering that was up to them. They had to clean up the footpaths every Friday morning before ten.

HIGGINS: Before the public came?

CATANZARITI: I used to go every Friday with a tractor and clean up the prunings. They used to put the prunings on the edge of the road and I used to go every Friday and clean up the rubbish. I had to look after all of the Gardens. I was the only plant operator and I had to do the lot for them. If they wanted soil, rocks, material for the footpaths, the rubbish cleaned up I had to do it. There was a lot to do. In the end I said they should put them on the board because I didn't know which job to do first. Everyone wanted their work done first. They put them on the board and I would read it so that I knew what to do the next day.

HIGGINS: So where was that board? Is this the new building that replaced ….

CATANZARITI: Oh just in one …. No that was after the Green Hut when we had all the depots. We didn't have that many people when we used the Green Hut.

HIGGINS: So that was replaced by the new depot buildings in the late sixties?

CATANZARITI: Yes

HIGGINS: When you look at the sides of Black Mountain and then you look at the Gardens it seems to me that there must have been a lot of work done to dig out all the grass that would normally invade the planting areas because when you look at the planting areas the plots within the gardens, it's all mulched and there's no grass coming up. So was there a lot of effort put in with a mattock to get it all out?

CATANZARITI: Yes they did all that by hand. They dug up all the grass and then we used to put it in a heap and we made our own compost. That's what we did with that old grass. Everything we collected like leaves we used in our own compost.

HIGGINS: So it was all put to use.

CATANZARITI: Yes we dug up a lot of grass. Everytime we had to clear an area because it was to be planted we dug up the grass and then we put in a few plants. We had to clean, clean, clean all by hand.

HIGGINS: Can you describe work on some of the specific areas like the construction of the rockery. Now we talked about that a little bit. Some of the rock was brought in from the dump and other was just dumped out of big trucks, who was in charge of designing where they went? Was John Wrigley saying where things would go?

CATANZARITI: No. No we had an engineer from Czechoslovakia I think he was. He was from the NCDC.

HIGGINS: So they were playing a role.

CATANZARITI: They decided what to do. Not much of it was anything to do with us. We just worked. They had a big crane and one of their people told us what to do. They moved the big rocks in with a bobcat and then we moved in extra rocks if we needed them.

HIGGINS: The water features like the various ponds down below the kiosk today, they were put in in the sixties, who was doing that sort of work?

CATANZARITI: I did the lot all by hand.

HIGGINS: Digging the excavations?

CATANZARITI: Digging the excavations and with a small grader blade behind the machine and bit by bit using a pick and shovel. I had to leave the machine there at the end of the day because I couldn't put it away every night. When we were finished I used a tractor to pull it out. That's what I used to do, bit by bit. Dig with the grader blade and by hand. That's how we did the ponds.

HIGGINS: Who actually did the stone work and the concrete for the ponds?

CATANZARITI: Well we did and the supervisor from the NCDC was Tony Vandenbrock, a Dutch fellow.

HIGGINS: Tony Vandenbrock and he was from the NCDC?

CATANZARITI: No he was our supervisor but he was for development and looked after things.

HIGGINS: He was on the Gardens staff?

CATANZARITI: Yes. He was there for a few years too.

HIGGINS: Now the Eucalypt Lawn, we mentioned the soil going in their earlier. When did the lawn actually go in because that wasn't there until I guess you had enough water to water it with?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. The lawn … I can't remember …

HIGGINS: Would it have been after the official opening in 1970?

CATANZARITI: No, no. I can't remember. We used to water the lawn by hose. We had extra taps and we used to pull the hose and the sprinkler and we used to water in the dark by hand.

HIGGINS: Hose and sprinkler?

CATANZARITI: We used to carry it on a truck and trailer or on our shoulders moving it from one to the other.

HIGGINS: There's still some of that used there I think.

CATANZARITI: Yes we still use some. There are still dry spots. After the irrigation system was put in it was all automatic.

HIGGINS: That's one change that has occurred in the phsyical work over time, the watering system becoming automatic. What sort of other changes occurred during your thirty-five years there that affected the way the work was done in maintaining the Gardens? Were there many other technological changes which affected the way you worked? Did equipment change much over time? You said that chain saws came in?

CATANZARITI: Yes the chain saw. Spraying things. We used to use the knapsack on our shoulders but now they've got a machine. A lot of improvements.

HIGGINS: Did you do spraying work yourself?

SIDE B BEGINS

CATANZARITI: Yes we used to spray with the knapsack and now they've got this … before every time we planted we had to write a label and after we had to put in the paper by hand, ten planted there, ten planted there and give it to the boss. We used to keep a record but now they've got everything easy. Now it's fully computerised and it's very quick.

HIGGINS: Looking at the industrial side of work for example the pay, what was the pay like when you started?

CATANZARITI: Very poor.

HIGGINS: Do you remember how much you earned?

CATANZARITI: Yes. When I started it was eighteen pounds.

HIGGINS: Eighteen pounds per …?

CATANZARITI: Per fortnight but in those days I remember we used to go to the pub to have a beer and it cost two cents for a middy, two pennies.

HIGGINS: Two pennies for a beer?

CATANZARITI: Yes for seven ounces. Two shillings maybe. It was hard anyway.

HIGGINS: I think it would have been more than two pennies. That would be … two shillings.

CATANZARITI: No not two shillings. We used to go to use the telephone and that cost two pennies too. I've got my first tax thing, the first one. I earnt four hundred and sixty for the year.

HIGGINS: Four hundred and sixty pounds?

CATANZARITI: Pounds, that's for the year and we had to pay the hostel. It was hard.

HIGGINS: When did your pay start to improve? Did it improve much over time? Did you feel that you were being better paid in later years?

CATANZARITI: I don't know. I can't say because the way things went we never got much even when the pay improved. For the industrial staff it never improved much. It was always the same.

HIGGINS: Just looking at the hours and conditions, were they long hours? You were putting in overtime?

CATANZARITI: You mean when we worked six days.

HIGGINS: Your normal working week was an eight hour day?

CATANZARITI: Eight hours a day for five days. If we worked more we got overtime.

HIGGINS: Was overtime pretty common? Were you working most weekends?

CATANZARITI: We worked a lot of weekends in the old days.

HIGGINS: There was so much to do?

CATANZARITI: Yes.

HIGGINS: As far as conditions go the Green Hut sounds a bit Spartan, pretty basic? It was just a hut?

CATANZARITI: Yes it was just a hut. For us it was the head office.

HIGGINS: Obviously things changed in that regard. Things improved?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes for sure. They've got everything. They got facilities, everything they want now. They've got a fridge, a microwave, water. Some of them have got a dryer too. They've got showers, toilets.

HIGGINS: With showers for example, when did they come in for the workers?

CATANZARITI: When they started building the depots.

HIGGINS: So in the 1970s, late sixties?

CATANZARITI: When they started to build I don't remember. We couldn't have a shower there, nothing.

HIGGINS: Yes, you could be pretty dirty and sweaty at the end of the day?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, we had to go home and have a shower especially when we spread the blood and bone. It was very bad.

HIGGINS: It was very dry and dusty I suppose?

CATANZARITI: I remember once we worked one Saturday and we got some help too from outside. We had to spread the blood and bone once a year. Afterwards we were tired and sweaty and we said we should go to the pub and have a beer. I'll never forget that. We went inside the pub, it was a Saturday and the pub was full. As soon as we walked in everybody moved away. The smell - everybody moved away. I've never forgotten that. We used to work real hard.

HIGGINS: Well that's one way to clear the bar and get some space.

CATANZARITI: People who see the Botanic Gardens today, if they saw it in the old days they would see a lot of difference, a lot. There was no road. Everywhere we went with the machine we got bogged. Everywhere we went, we got stuck.

HIGGINS: So heavy rain, although it was good for the plants, it could be a bit of a curse for you people trying to get the equipment ….

CATANZARITI: Every heavy rain we had a lot of things washing away. If we had made footpaths, we had to do them again because everything washed away. We had a quarry behind the Botanic Gardens top site and we used to with picks and dig rocks and rocks and rocks at least fifty or a hundred trailers, me and this Mr Schofield. Load them up and put them around the trees to protect the gardens. I showed them the other day, they wanted to know where the quarry was a long time ago. Some people came and I showed them where it was.

HIGGINS: So was that outside the Gardens area, up above the fence?

CATANZARITI: Yes. Up above the fence and we had to reverse because we couldn't drive in. We had to reverse, reverse the whole way.

HIGGINS: So a lot of the rock used in the Gardens came from up there?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, a lot of mossy rock.

HIGGINS: How old were you when you started with the Gardens?

CATANZARITI: In the Botanic Gardens, Parks & Gardens?

HIGGINS: At the Botanic Gardens, say 1960?

CATANZARITI: Well I was, well I'm sixty-three and a half now and I was there for forty-two years …

HIGGINS: So you were about thirty, approaching thirty?

CATANZARITI: No twenty.

HIGGINS: So you were born about 1930?

CATANZARITI: 1932. Oh you mean the Botanic Gardens, I was 32.

HIGGINS: Wal Schofield, now was he the same age as you?

CATANZARITI: No he retired about ten years ago. He's about ten years older. He was older than me.

HIGGINS: Just talking about some of the people that you worked with, you have talked about Wal Schofield quite a bit, now David Shoobridge you said you didn't see him in the Gardens a lot?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, he came a lot but he stayed in the town mostly.

HIGGINS: Did you have much to do with him personally when he came over?

CATANZARITI: Yes but I had a lot to do with him before I came to the Botanic Gardens when I worked in the town because he was the Director and I had a lot to do with him in the town. He became a very good friend of mine because I worked for him in his house in Red Hill to make a bit extra money.

HIGGINS: In his garden?

CATANZARITI: In his garden I worked for a long time and he became a very good friend of mine. Sometimes if I had a friend who wanted a job they would say, 'Oh Domenic we know if you want you can talk to Mr Shoobridge'. So when I saw Mr Shoobridge I would say I had another friend. He'd say, 'Oh not another one Dom'.

HIGGINS: So these would be friends who would get a job?

CATANZARITI: Yes, anyway he put a lot of my friends on, a lot. When he retired it was in the Manuka Hall for speeches and a barbecue and the first thing he said, 'Where's Domenic?' I said, 'I'm here', he said, 'What will you do now Mr Shoobridge is gone. He brought about 120 people to the Gardens for jobs. This is my friend, this is my cousin, this is my uncle'. I said, 'Oh I'll find another way'.

HIGGINS: Were many of those, relative or friends or whoever, who you got jobs for, were they employed at the Botanic Gardens?

CATANZARITI: No. Well a couple, but most were employed with Parks & Gardens like my uncle, my father and a lot of friends. Peter Zander is at the Botanic Gardens but …

HIGGINS: So he's related to you?

CATANZARITI: No, he's German but I liked him. I saw him working at the Prime Minister's lodge and he was a real good worker and we needed some good workers at the Botanic Gardens and I said to Shoobridge he would be just the fellow. 'Oh yes,' he said, 'but …'. I said, 'What about asking him to come to the Botanic Gardens'. He said, 'Well you ask him if he wants to come'. And I asked him and I brought him there.

HIGGINS: I think you said the other day that you actually house sat David Shoobridge's house once. Did you look after his house at Red Hill once when he was overseas?

CATANZARITI: Yes, he asked me if I wanted to look after his house. That was when I just got married and we couldn't get a house and he said to me, 'Well if you can't get a house, I have to go away, would you like to stay six months in my house. It will cost you nothing, you just look after the garden.'

Afterwards I went to see him again and he helped me to get a Government house. He rang one of his friends, I can't remember his name, and told him that I was his best friend and that I was a good worker and I needed a house. The rule was that you couldn't have a house if you weren't married. You had to take your marriage certificate to the department and you could get a house. I had to see the department and then I got a house.

HIGGINS: So David, your boss, helped you to get a house?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, very much.

HIGGINS: Now Stan Kirby, you said he was Welsh and I guess it would have been hard to understand him?

CATANZARITI: Very hard.

HIGGINS: Maybe he found you a little bit hard?

CATANZARITI: I think so too. But I found it very hard because he would call something a different name. We would call it sandy, he would call it soong, we would say bank, he would say boonk. We would say bucket and he would say boocket, pup would be poop. It was hard enough to understand English the Australian way let alone Welsh too.

HIGGINS: What sort of a man was Stan to work for? Was he a fair boss did you think?

CATANZARITI: No he was hard, very, very, very hard. He sneaked behind to trees to see if we were working hard. Always hard.

HIGGINS: He would do that? He would be watching from behind the trees?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. We had a bit of a fight before and he dobbed me in. I went and dobbed him in and we became very good friends after that but all the department was on my side. If the others sat down for a smoke for a couple of minutes then I would sit down too because we have to work together. He was always watching from behind the trees. I told him that's not working. I said that we work very hard and to look at what we had done. He said, 'Oh you young lads should do more, you should be in the war like me'. 'It's nothing to do with the war, I said, 'that's the job here.'

HIGGINS: So he had been in the Second World War had he?

CATANZARITI: Yes that's why he got so upset. He reckoned it had been very hard. Anyway when he left the Botanic Gardens and went to work around the lake he wanted to take me with him. He said to Shoobridge, 'I want to take Dom with me he's a nice lad. I like him like my son'. Shoobridge told me, he said, 'Do you want to go?' I said, 'No'. 'Why?' he said. 'Because the Botanic Gardens is good. I get free wood here.' Every night I took a bit of wood home because there was a lot of dead wood and trees and I didn't have to pay for my wood because we had a Rayburn. What do you call it?

HIGGINS: A wood heater.

CATANZARITI: I said no I was all right. Then later on when I needed money to buy my furniture I said no.

HIGGINS: So Stan wanted you to go with him away from the Gardens?

CATANZARITI: Yes, to go with him around the lake because he was in charge around the lake. He wanted me to work with him.

HIGGINS: So he was moved from the Gardens to look after the lake.

CATANZARITI: How old was Stan? Was he much older than you?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes.

HIGGINS: So if you were approaching thirty at the time you started at the Botanic Gardens, he might have been what in his fifties?

CATANZARITI: In his fifties, yes.

HIGGINS: Now you talked about Wal Schofield, there are a couple of other apprentices who started out, John Clark …

CATANZARITI: Keith Earnshaw.

HIGGINS: … and Peter Zander. Now there's a funny story about John Clark and a rotary how. Could you tell me about that?

CATANZARITI: Yes. Johnny Clark. One morning this young fellow came and said he was an apprentice. We used to have all apprentices for a month each and they used to go around to the Yarralumla Nursery, Botanic Gardens etc.

One morning an apprentice came, he said my name is Johnny Clark I am to work here for one month. I told Stan Kemp the young apprentice had arrived. Stan asked him his name and he replied Johnny Clark. Stan asked him if he was a first year apprentice and Johnny said he was. I asked Stan what we would do with him because he used get the apprentices to do painting jobs and things like that. Stan said to put Johnny on the rotary hoe in the Acacias. The Acacias were on rock but we prepared to cut the Acacias back. I thought it was a bit too rough there for the rotary hoe and it was a very hot day. Stan felt he had to learn. He had to learn the hard way if he wanted to become a good working man.

We started the rotary hoe and showed Johnny that there were a lot of rocks and the hoe kept jumping up and down. He was a young fellow, he wasn't even tall enough to lift the rotary hoe. Anyway we left him there. We came back to check and we found him sitting on a rock crying with the rotary hoe upside down. He said there was a big rock in the way and was upset that the boss would see him. I told him not to worry about the boss. We helped him to put the rotary into position again and I went to get some more oil for him. I told him that he had done a very good job. At four o'clock he was really tired and Stan said, 'Oh he's a good lad'. Next morning he came back and Stan said he was to use the rotary hoe again. I said no but Stan said he had to learn. Johnny Clark said, 'Bloody thing'. I told him to take it easy and not to worry. He was a very, very good lad, a very good worker.

After that we had to employ someone permanently and the boss, Mr Wrigley, asked me and I said, 'Well Johnny Clark is a good fellow', and Mr Wrigley said, 'Yes I've got him on the top of my list', and he got the job. He worked there because he had finished his apprenticeship and became a GSO1.

HIGGINS: You were made a leading hand I think, weren't you.

CATANZARITI: Oh yes I was a leading hand. John Wrigley made me a leading hand. When we had the bobcat and somebody had to be responsible for the two machines. If you don't get paid for that responsibility you don't care if it breaks down, it's up to the bosses to fix it up. After they gave me the promotion I took on a lot of responsibility to order stuff. I looked after the machinery and the bobcat and we put another fellow on because I couldn't do it all. Mr Wrigley decided to employ somebody else. He asked me if I wanted another bobcat or a truck and trailer. I told him I would be happy with a truck and trailer. We got a silly fellow with the bobcat. Johnny Tall, he didn't last long. He went into the army. We got rid of him. He smashed everything. I told the boss we should get rid of him.

HIGGINS: When you say 'the boss' who do you mean?

CATANZARITI: John Wrigley the supervisor there. John Wrigley was the curator.

HIGGINS: So you were all under him.

CATANZARITI: Yes. We had a supervisor and an overseer and a leading hand. We put another fellow on, Greg Small and he worked for about twelve years on the bobcat and he was really good. He still works there but not with machinery. He is a gardener.

HIGGINS: And Peter Ollerenshaw?

CATANZARITI: He was apprenticed there too. We got him a job in the Gardens. Every year we had to put on a couple of new men. I told John Wrigley that Peter Zander is a nice chap. He was lonely in Canberra. I don't know where he came from. Then we got him a job and he became an overseer. After that he became a supervisor. He went into the army for national service and then he came back again and he became a supervisor. He was very good. He was the best supervisor I ever had because he never, never told me what to do. He said, 'Dom, you know, you teach me. You know what to do. I'll keep out. What you need to do is done'. He left everything to me, every single thing.

HIGGINS: Now Betty Phillips, did you have much to do with Betty?

CATANZARITI: Not really sometimes in the Green Hut. Just to say hello.

HIGGINS: Would you she tell you where to plant things?

CATANZARITI: Not really. They we decided where we had to plant.

HIGGINS: When you say 'we' you mean you yourself?

CATANZARITI: Me and John Wrigley mostly. We put them on the trailer and every time I wanted a nice plant I would say, 'Mr Wrigley that's nice.' 'Yes beautiful.' I would ask, 'How big does it grow?' 'Oh not very big, nice plant. You want one Dom?' I would always say yes.

HIGGINS: So that would go onto Dickson, would it?

CATANZARITI: Not really I would buy one afterwards from the nursery. Mostly John and I worked very well together. We put plants where we thought they were needed.

HIGGINS: There were a couple of other women in that early period, Miss Beaton and Mrs Macrae? What were they doing?

CATANZARITI: Miss Beaton and Mrs Macrae. They worked with Dr Phillips keeping records. In positions like Assistant Botanist and things like that.

HIGGINS: Did you have much to do with them?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes just talking to them in the green hut. We used to talk or have a meal together, sit outside in the sun, just things like that. They were very good friends.

HIGGINS: Before John Wrigley started as Curator there was a man Ross Robbins for about five or seven months?

CATANZARITI: Yes Ross Robbins.

HIGGINS: What can you tell me about Ross?

CATANZARITI: Well he was very good too. He was really good. He would come out sometimes and tell us what he wanted done but he mostly stayed inside. He was very friendly with the workers.

HIGGINS: He was the first curator there. He was the first person to do that job.

CATANZARITI: Yes, he was really good. If he wanted something done he didn't go by the rules. He should have told the supervisor and the supervisor would tell the workers. He would call me in and ask me to do something tomorrow or go to Yarralumla, things like that. But he disappeared very quickly.

HIGGINS: He went off to New Guinea.

CATANZARITI: Yes I know. John Wrigley came to the Gardens and Ross Robbins introduced me to him. John Wrigley said, 'I know Domenic already because the other day he kicked me out of the Gardens'. One morning I started early in the morning, quarter to seven or seven o'clock and I saw this NSW number plate Holden station wagon come in with a young fellow and the driver in it. They went straight to the house and I went over to them and said, 'Good morning, good morning, can you read the sign? We're not open to the public?' 'Oh I'm sorry he said, I'm …..' I said, 'You had better leave'. He told Dr Robbins. He said, 'I know him, he kicked me out'. I said, 'I was doing my job'. 'That's good, that's good that's what we want. Rules are rules. I don't care who it is', he said. He told everyone he introduced to me, 'You'd better watch Dom, he'll kick you out'.

HIGGINS: A good watch dog. What about Arthur Court? Did you have very much to do with Arthur who replaced Betty Phillips?

CATANZARITI: Not me but my wife worked with Arthur. She reckoned he was a very very good man. I used to see Arthur around, he was good, very good. He looked after us.

HIGGINS: Now your wife, Maria, she was working in the Herbarium and how long was she with the Gardens?

CATANZARITI: Twelve years.

HIGGINS: She was there twelve years, and two of your sons worked for the Gardens as well.

CATANZARITI: Yes, one still works there. One quit because he wanted to work for himself.

HIGGINS: And what's his name?

CATANZARITI: Nimmo.

HIGGINS: And the one who's still there?

CATANZARITI: Mario.

HIGGINS: So it was a real sort of family affair?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, they used to call it the 'Catanzariti Family Garden'. At one stage I wanted to leave and I applied for a job as a bus driver and I got it straight away. There were 400 applications and when I took mine to the department they said, 'Dom you'll come first'. I said, 'But you've got 400 applications', and they said, 'Oh we know you'. They called me a week later for an interview and I was successful. When I handed in my resignation the supervisor from Gardens head office said, 'No we're not letting you go'. I asked why and he said, 'Because we want you in the Gardens. The Gardens are part of you now. You started this place, you've got all your family there now. If you go your wife might find it a bit hard.' I said, 'Oh well in that case I'll stay'.

HIGGINS: So when was this you were thinking of going?

CATANZARITI: When my wife was there, around 1974 or 75.

HIGGINS: And that was to go to bus driving?

CATANZARITI: But the department said no, if you want to go go but we'd rather you don't. I agreed to stay.

HIGGINS: The opening ceremony in 1970, the official opening, do you remember that day?

CATANZARITI: Yes it was by Mr Gorton, Prime Minister Gorton. My wife and I were there.

HIGGINS: And was that a very big event for you? Was it a special day for this official opening?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. We went to the opening in the morning and afterwards we went home and changed our clothes and came back to work.

HIGGINS: So you had to come back to work did you?

CATANZARITI: Oh I don't think so.

HIGGINS: Oh so you were working in the morning and then changed to come to the ceremony?

CATANZARITI: Yes we had a quick shower and changed for the ceremony.

HIGGINS: Now the place had opened to the public three years earlier in 1967. Did that bring about much of a change for your work to have members of the public walking around all the time?

CATANZARITI: Yes. We had trouble too because the public obey signs such as 'No Dogs', or 'Keep to the Footpath'. I used to do a lot of ranger work too.

HIGGINS: Ranger?

CATANZARITI: One day I saw this couple with a dog and I went over to them and said, 'Excuse me there is a sign, 'No Dogs Allowed''. And she said, 'Oh my dog cannot read English'. I said, 'But you can', and I was real nice. I said, 'Sorry. You'd better take the dog out because I will get into trouble with my boss'. She said, 'Oh we don't call him a dog. We call him a little cat.' 'Well,' I said, 'There are two minutes left to remove your cat'. I got a little bit upset.

Another time a couple asked if they could go inside the Herbarium to have a look around. I told them they couldn't look inside, they could look at the building. They said, 'Oh but we want to look at what's inside'. I said, 'I'm sorry', and she started to get cranky.

Another couple asked me how they could go up to the chimney. I said, 'Excuse me'. 'You heard me. How can we go up to the chimney.' 'Which chimney?' I asked. 'That long thing there.' They meant the Black Mountain Tower. They called it a chimney. He was a farmer. These are the sort of things that people keep asking. Lots and lots of questions.

HIGGINS: So was there a lot of interest from the public in the place once it was open?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. Lots of people came in, looked around, asked a lot of questions. 'How long have you worked there? If you like the job? You are very lucky working in this place.' All those sorts of things.

HIGGINS: Now you were saying that you were working as a ranger at weekends.

CATANZARITI: Oh yes I worked as a ranger whenever I could.

HIGGINS: Now what was the ranger's job?

CATANZARITI: Just to watch the people. Like now. Watch the people to make sure there's no damage. Close the gates, open the gates, check all the doors.

HIGGINS: So it was a security job?

CATANZARITI: Yes security like they've got today. My son did it for a long time too, Mario. I used to do the ranger's job on Black Mountain as well. I used to go there on weekends to check.

HIGGINS: You had a special uniform too?

CATANZARITI: No. Just a normal uniform. Now they've got special uniforms. Not in the old days.

HIGGINS: Now there were other opening ceremonies as well. The Nature Trail in 1976.

CATANZARITI: Yes it was opened by Mr Staley. Tony Staley. We had a barbecue up the top behind the nursery.

HIGGINS: So there was a barbecue there?

CATANZARITI: Well the minister came you see.

HIGGINS: Well that's a nice sort of informal ceremony for an opening.

CATANZARITI: Yes just for an opening. Just a few people there you know.

HIGGINS: That's not open to the public now, that nature trail?

CATANZARITI: No that closed. I don't know why. They closed it down.

HIGGINS: Now that bark hut?

CATANZARITI: That bark hut was built by us, by this bricklayer Helmut and I took all the rock there up the hill, a trailer full of rocks. It was very steep. I had to go right around outside the dump.

HIGGINS: It's still standing.

CATANZARITI: Yes I know.

HIGGINS: Another opening was the Visitor Information Centre in 1985. Now I believe you have some memories of Prince Charles and Lady Diana?

CATANZARITI: Yes. Well I got an invitation from the minister, Mr Scholes because I had a long service with the Gardens. The invitation was to meet them and I met them. The people who were there were the Director, Dr Boden and his wife, Murray Fagg, not many people, maybe nine or ten just to meet them. There were about 300 people in the audience. There were a lot of policemen. Someone must have told them something about me.

At that time I had the Canberran of the Year medal. I didn't want to put it on but Jim Armstrong, the Botanist, said I should put it on. I didn't want to but he insisted. I put it on. Prince Charles asked me if I came from Malta and I told him I come from Italy. He said he liked Italy, he thought it was a nice country. He asked me about the medal. I told him about the fire at the Botanic Gardens. He asked, 'What did you during the fire?' I said, 'What do you think? I put it out'. 'Oh they told me you have been working very hard.' I said I always did my best. He said he thought the Gardens looked very nice and that he was glad to meet me. Princess Diana came along and she was very nice and said she was glad to meet me. She said, 'I hear you have been working really hard to make the Gardens look beautiful. I believe you have a nice garden at home?' I said, 'Yes I do'. They said, 'The Botanic Gardens are so beautiful, when do you have time to do your own?' I said, 'After work and sometimes on weekends when I don't work here'. She said, 'Well nice to meet you', and that was it.

HIGGINS: Yes I believe Ros Kelly saw you as a bit of a favourite too?

CATANZARITI: Yes. Ros Kelly asked me if I had washed my hands. I said, 'No, why'. She said, 'Because you touched Princess Diana's hand'. I said, 'All right squeeze my hand'. She was our minister when they opened the building in Belconnen.

HIGGINS: The Australian National Parks & Wildlife Centre.

CATANZARITI: I just went there. There were a couple of hundred people and I felt shy. They were all wearing suits and ties. I tried to go in the back and she must have seen me and she came over and grabbed my hand. She wanted me to help her to open it and I never looked anybody in the face. I just put my hand out and I said, 'I shouldn't be doing this'. And she said, 'Why not. You work very hard'. She introduced me, she said, 'This is Domenic. He has been a good friend. He has worked in the Gardens for a long, long time and the Gardens look nice and he is very nice'. After I went upstairs and had a few drinks and we had that day off.

Another time she invited us for dinner. We went to the Peking Restaurant in Phillip and there were about 400 people there. Paul Keating was there and he was talking. She said, 'I know you don't have enough time to see everyone because there are a lot of people here Paul, but I want you to meet Domenic. He is my good friend. He works in the Gardens and he's on the table here with twenty-four people. He said he was glad to meet me. He said he was sorry he couldn't meet everyone.

HIGGINS: Ok just a few more questions. Now you also have been involved at the Gardens with first aid. You had a responsibility there?

CATANZARITI: Yes for a lot. Maybe the last seven years I looked after the first aid. I had to buy all the stuff from St. Johns. Afterwards I had to pay. I had to book everyone in to do the course, twenty people or more. I was involved with looking after fourteen or fifteen first aid boxes in the Gardens. I had to check them once a week to see what was needed. I would go out and buy new material and replace stock in the boxes.

I was involved with people getting their C class licences. They always had a licence to drive a car but they had to have a truck licence so that they could drive the truck to the dump etc. I booked for them to get their licences. I had to teach them how to drive a truck.

HIGGINS: With the first aid, have there ever been any serious accidents in the Gardens?

CATANZARITI: No really. People just have fallen or been bitten by little things like bees and things.

HIGGINS: Did anyone ever get bitten by any of those brown snakes?

CATANZARITI: No never. Only bees and bullants and things. A few times I had to go and put on a bit of cream and rub it in.

HIGGINS: No has ever been injured by trees falling?

CATANZARITI: No. We only once had sun stroke. I was having my lunch and I saw this man who was looking for help. He said they had come from the university for lunch and this young lady she just collapsed and she was on the road. I asked what was wrong with her and he said he thought it was sun stroke. I went to her with the fire unit and asked her what was wrong. She thought it was sun stroke so I took her to the first aid room and I cooled her down. After a while she was feeling better but I advised her not to go back to work. I asked her where she lived and where her car was. I told her friend she would not drive. I took them to the university so that her friend could drive her home and I picked him up and took him back to work. They were very appreciative but I felt it was just part of my job. She thanked me a lot.

HIGGINS: We're just about at the end of this first tape so I'll just stop that one and I'll go onto another one.

BEGINNING OF TAPE 2

HIGGINS: Domenic just continuing, of course you have played quite a role at the Gardens in terms of bushfire protection with special reference to the bad bushfire in 1984.

CATANZARITI: Yes we had a fire in 1984. I was in Curtin seeing a friend of mine. I got a call there from Mr Court saying there was a fire in the Botanic Gardens and I took my wife home quickly and I came back to the Gardens. I saw all this fire mostly around the Herbarium. I needed someone with me to give me a hand and I saw a young policeman there so I asked him to help me. We started the pump and he started to cry. I asked him why he was crying. He said, 'Oh this is such a nice place. Just got married and I come here almost every day to have lunch with my wife and now look'. I told him not to worry that in a few minutes everything would be all over and in few minutes it was all over because we flooded the place. There were fire brigade tankers everywhere. Afterwards we had to stand by all night, just the Botanic Garden people and keep a check. Jim Armstrong the Botanist went to get some food for us. He got a box of beer for us and everything. Early in the morning we went home, one by one, to have a shower and come back.

HIGGINS: How many of you from the Gardens were involved in fighting the fire?

CATANZARITI: Six.

HIGGINS: Who were the other six? There was yourself …

CATANZARITI: Oh there was myself, my son Nimmo, Tony Barber, Suzie Walton, Gary Richards and Tim Axel. In the morning we had something to eat around one o'clock in the morning and Suzie Walton had fallen asleep behind the ute. I told her to get up and have something to eat and she wouldn't wake up. About five o'clock she woke up and said she was hungry but there was no food left. She wanted to go home to get something to eat and have a shower. I told her she had half an hour because we had a job to do. She went and she came back after two hours. We stayed there all night and the next day.

HIGGINS: Was there any further risk from the fire?

CATANZARITI: No not at all because we had put it out but we still had to check because a lot of stumps were burning. We had to check around the fence.

HIGGINS: So it got pretty close to the Herbarium building?

CATANZARITI: It was close to the Herbarium. There were a lot of tea trees around there and lots of bushes before the Mallee Section was set up.

HIGGINS: So the Mallee Section, section 211, that hadn't been planted at that time?

CATANZARITI: No, not at all. We were worried because of all the specimens and my wife was worried too because of the cupboard of book specimens. She said she had fixed it up only the other day and it was a couple of hundred years old. We were all worried but nothing happened.

HIGGINS: It must have been a very tense time for everyone at the Gardens. I presume all the other staff were evacuated from the site.

CATANZARITI: Oh yes we had to evacuate all the people and everyone at the Gardens had to stay back in case we needed their help. Somebody would have to move all the cars to the other side of the road.

HIGGINS: Where did the fire start? Somewhere up on Black Mountain?

CATANZARITI: I really don't know.

HIGGINS: But it came into the Gardens from outside?

CATANZARITI: It came into the Gardens I think from the other side of the TV tower.

HIGGINS: From the western side of Black Mountain?

CATANZARITI: Could be, I really don't know. I have the story somewhere. It was the first fire in the Botanic Gardens. We had another one not in the Botanic Gardens but about three or four years ago on Black Mountain. We were told to stay in the Gardens not to go out at all, look for spot fires. I was there with two men all night in the Gardens and around nine o'clock a policeman came and said he was looking for Domenic Catanzariti. I asked him what he wanted. He said the CSIRO people had some experimental material behind the dump and the fellow there is alone and has run out of petrol and he wants some petrol. I took some petrol over to him in the dark. He said he was all right and I went back to the Gardens. Then another policeman came looking for me. He said there were a couple of girls who had been chipping a fire break and they had no water, they've got nothing.

HIGGINS: So they were chipping a fire break?

CATANZARITI: Yes a fire break on Black Mountain. I asked the policeman where they were. He said they had only had a phone call. I found the girls in the dark and they were very thirsty. I told them to keep the water container. All those sorts of things you know. I've been involved in many fires. Up at Bulls Head.

HIGGINS: Oh yes in the Brindabellas?

CATANZARITI: Oh that was bad. It was one Friday night and I had taken a couple of weeks recreation leave to go to Batemans Bay with my wife and my kids. I had filled up the car and everything was ready to go in the morning. At midnight I got a telephone call to say there was a fire up at Bulls Head. It was around the Christmas period. I grabbed a couple of men and went there. It was really bad because the trucks couldn't get in. We had to go in with knapsacks and overalls. It was very steep.

HIGGINS: It was a steep range?

CATANZARITI: Yes when we came up we had to come up like monkeys. There were police, there were people from the Red Cross, there were a lot of people. We took our overalls off. You could wring them out with sweat it was so hot. Half a bucket of sweat came out. They washed our faces with methylated spirits and cotton wool and they gave us drinks. When I came back home, I'll never forget, there was a bit of a party at the Botanic Gardens for Christmas and I went to wash my hands. John Wrigley came in and he said, 'Don't open your mouth'. I asked him why and he came with a big glass of beer and just put it in my mouth. 'You need this mate,' he said.

HIGGINS: When was the fire over at Bulls Head?

CATANZARITI: I don't remember.

HIGGINS: Would it be ten years ago? Something like that? Was it after the fire in the Gardens for example?

CATANZARITI: No I don't know. I don't remember but John Wrigley was there. John Wrigley left a long time ago.

HIGGINS: Yes he left in 1981 I think.

CATANZARITI: It was before that.

HIGGINS: So well before the 1984 fire at the Botanic Gardens you did have a bushfire system set up.

CATANZARITI: In the Botanic Gardens?

HIGGINS: Yes.

CATANZARITI: No not at that time but after the fire we have a good bushfire setup now. Just press a button. I had to do it for the first time. The Director wanted me to press it for the trial because I was the Fire Chief. It was very hard to learn the things. I had to read and read and I had to take all the fire team once a week to put them on and check if everything was working well. We had to go around and check all the sprinklers. Sometimes the sprinklers were blocked. We had to replace them.

HIGGINS: So they had to be checked weekly did you say?

CATANZARITI: Well the boss wanted me to go around once a month to check if the sprinklers were working. We had two buttons. One at the pump and one at the Herbarium. You could switch it on from the pump or the Herbarium.

HIGGINS: All of that was put in after the 1984 fires? As a result?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes not very long ago. They've got the electric one plus they've got the diesel motor. It's a big one. If something happens to the electricity this motor will cut in after forty-five seconds and it makes a big noise, it's a big one. This then pumps enough water for everyone. I don't know how much it cost. It came from Italy but it is a very big diesel motor.

HIGGINS: From Italy.

CATANZARITI: Yes.

HIGGINS: Before the fire occurred in 1984, what sort of bushfire setup was there at the Gardens?

CATANZARITI: Nothing, we just had the fire unit.

HIGGINS: Just a tanker?

CATANZARITI: Just a tanker with a fire unit. We would ring the fire brigade at O'Connor and in ten minutes people came from everywhere.

HIGGINS: So it must have shaken the place up a bit the 1984 fire.

CATANZARITI: Oh yes it was a bad one but we flooded the place. I don't know how many fire trucks we had, maybe ten. Water was running everywhere.

HIGGINS: So the Herbarium didn't get burnt but it was at risk from flood.

CATANZARITI: After that they put a fire system in the Herbarium. They've got sprinklers all around the walls. It's possible to flood the Herbarium, the roof everything.

HIGGINS: I understand early in 1985 also as a result of that fire there was a controlled burn done up in the nature trail area and the nature trail has been closed since that time?

CATANZARITI: Yes.

HIGGINS: Were you involved in doing that controlled burn?

CATANZARITI: Yes we were, the Fire Council was but they told us what they wanted.

HIGGINS: Have there been any other burning off programs?

CATANZARITI: Not much. There was one last week on Black Mountain. When I left I had to recommend somebody to the Fire Council who could take over my job and I recommended two people, Robin Hinchcliffe I said should be the Fire Chief and Joe McAuliffe.

HIGGINS: Joe McAuliffe.

CATANZARITI: I never had an assistant and I worked so hard. The other day they said the Fire Council rang up because of a fire on Black Mountain. They asked for Robin Hinchliffe but he wasn't in that day so they asked to be put on to Joe McAuliffe. They said he was very helpful. I recommended them and they did the sort of job that I liked. Those people can be trusted.

HIGGINS: As a result of that fire in 1984 and your role in it you were awarded …?

CATANZARITI: Well we were told we would be given a medal, Canberran of the Year for fire fighting. I don't know if it was for the Botanic Gardens but I got it for fire fighting.

HIGGINS: You must have been very pleased to be awarded that?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes and in 1990 I think it was, or 1991, I don't remember. It was when Terry Connolly was the minister. I got a letter from him that said I was invited to receive a medal. I could bring what people I wanted because we had a party after that. I went to the Albert Hall with my wife and he gave me that medal. I was very happy with that. After I got another letter from Gary Humphries to receive another medal. I went to see Kate Carnell and she said she had been hearing about what I had done and what a good job I did. She said she was very pleased to meet me. I have been very pleased. The Fire Council told me that if I want a job anytime I can call them. If I want a couple of days a week I'm welcome back.

HIGGINS: That's very nice to know.

CATANZARITI: I've still got all my fire fighting equipment with me. I keep it in my car in case something happens.

HIGGINS: From your porch you could certainly have a good fire with the fire tower right here.

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. After a few years we got the good equipment and there's a lot of help we could get.

HIGGINS: So the communications system has improved.

CATANZARITI: Oh a lot. You just pick up the phone and you're call is through in two seconds.

HIGGINS: So if another fire threatens the Gardens today they would be much better prepared than they were before?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. One time I had just came back from buying something at Fyshwick, it was about nine o'clock and I went to the office and the only door open was the Director's. He said to come back but I could hear the radio, 'Domenic, Domenic come in please'. They told me there was a fire on Black Mountain and could I have a look at it just behind on the way to the Scrivener Dam. I went into the carpark and got my son Mario. We always kept overalls in the truck. We went there and there were electrical posts coming down. There were a couple of police there and they wanted me to go in. I went in and put the fire out. We stayed there for about three quarters of an hour to make sure of everything. We called back and everything was done. You have to write a report about these sorts of things.

HIGGINS: Well finally, the last question I have for you is I'm interested in how you feel about the Gardens personally. Do you have a favourite part of the Botanic Gardens? Is there a part there that you particularly like to go to?

CATANZARITI: You mean in my part?

HIGGINS: Well within the Botanic Gardens when you go back there is there a special part of that place for you?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes, I'm still not clear what you mean.

HIGGINS: Well around the Botanic Gardens is there a particular part that appeals to you more than other parts?

CATANZARITI: All the Botanic Gardens because I've been involved with every single part of it. I had to look out for the lot. Like the pond which we had to work hard to do. Like the rainforest where we had to work very hard to clear it. Like the nursery where we had to dig. Most of the points.

HIGGINS: The points where you did the hardest work. And how do you feel when you go back today and it has changed so much since you started there in the sixties?

CATANZARITI: Well I like to look around and I feel very happy when I see the things growing like that. I feel very good. I still go there and have a look around, once a fortnight, once a month, once a week always go there.

HIGGINS: So you still feel very close to the Botanic Gardens?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes.

MRS CATANZARITI: Sometimes when things go wrong he comes home upset. I tell him it's not his property but he says it still feels like it is his. He won't give up the job.

CATANZARITI: I don't want to see things go wrong. I don't want to give up the job.

MRS CATANZARITI: I tell him he can't go there all time, you need a rest.

CATANZARITI: I've still got a lot of friends. They still invite me for barbecues and things.

HIGGINS: And do you go?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. For the happy hour, go there and have dinner with them, things like that.

HIGGINS: All right well that's the end of the questions that I had in mind to ask you Domenic, is there anything else that you would like to say?

CATANZARITI: Oh I don't know.

MRS CATANZARITI: Well when you work so long you remember good things about things but forget the bad things.

CATANZARITI: You can't be loved by everyone. There's always somebody, jealousy or something. I had a good time and I have good friends everywhere especially the apprentices. They were really young and maybe I have forgotten their faces but they haven't forgotten me. I went to Batemans Bay once, we were in the pub and someone said, 'Dom'. 'I know you,' I said. 'Of course you know me,' he said. I didn't remember his name because they grow up and their faces change. I went to Moruya Council and somebody said, 'Dom you remember me thirty years ago'. I said 'I don't remember you'. Everywhere I go I always have someone come up to me. Like Rodney Thorn …

HIGGINS: Oh Rodney's Nursery.

CATANZARITI: Yes in Pialligo. Every time we go there he serves us.

HIGGINS: Oh Rodney himself?

CATANZARITI: Oh he was an apprentice there too. They all were there and they all remember Domenic looked after me. When you have young people you have to encourage them, not just be cranky with them. I never forgot one fellow one time. He said he had to take tomorrow off and I asked him why. He needed to go the bank and I queried the need to take the whole day off to go to the bank. I told him to bring his things with him tomorrow and I would drop him off at the bank. It wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. I told him we needed him tomorrow. He was very grateful.

Sometimes young people want to go home if they have a headache. I would tell them to sit there and we'd give them a cup of tea. They liked that and they didn't lose half a day. All that sort of thing. That's why they don't forget. The fellow who owns the big nursery at Bungendore he works and doesn't go anywhere but when I invited him to my party he said he would leave anything to go to my party and he did. He talked to Director and told him I had to go to Dom's party he was the one who looked after us.

HIGGINS: He's running a nursery at Bungendore now?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes he sends plants to America and everywhere. He asked me if I wanted to join him. Everywhere I go I see friends.

HIGGINS: You've made lots of friends as a result of your work.

CATANZARITI: Not only in Canberra. When I started there were I think 18,000 people in Canberra and we knew most of them. In those days there weren't many cars just horse and cart. That's what we had in Parks & Gardens two horses and carts.

HIGGINS: So there were still horses being used in Parks & Gardens?

CATANZARITI: Oh yes. One was on the other side. There was Frank O'Brien from the Causeway and the other one was with Sid Malone, that was this side in Acton. Frank O'Brien I never forgot him he always had a little dog with him. We would say if you want to take some rubbish away, take that dog. I was the younger one, I was the baby. They used to call me the Sparrow.

HIGGINS: Were there ever horses used on the Botanic Gardens site?

CATANZARITI: No. We had trucks. When I started at Parks & Gardens we only had five all together. One pulled the trailer, one the rotary hoe. We had to use a crank handle to start them.

HIGGINS: All right well I think that probably leads us to the end of the interview. I would like to thank you again for your time. It has been fascinating hearing your memories and getting to know you.

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