BOOK REVIEW
BILL MCCARTHY I was quite conflicted reading this biography. Unlike Anne Richards, when I was eighteen I didn’t know the difference between a Trotskyist and a Troglodyte. I have to admire her commitment as a radical socialist, to just causes such as the Vietnam conscription, apartheid and welfare of local indigenous children. She was willing to be evicted by her father from home because of her beliefs. Her story makes hard reading at times; the death of her boyfriend, existing in dreadful squats and scavenging for food. On the other hand, the constant drug taking, endless late nights, drunken discussions protesting about anything, and everything seemed to me to be wasted space and effort. As was the soul searching about whether to complete her exams as a protest against authority. As an aside, I was not aware of the shocking violence inflicted by Bjelke Peterson’s police force on protesters.
SUZI HIRST Hmm, A Book of Doors did I enjoy it or not? I was really looking forward to reading this book when it arrived as I know very little about the history of the student activism in Australia during the late 60’s and 70’s. The book is a very easy read and follows the author from the last day of school, defying her father and being thrown out the house. Then bed hoping her way through university, falling in love, joining student activists, anti-Vietnam rallies, and protests about the Springbok tour, Aboriginal rights. What the book did do for me was made me read up on the history of these events to educate myself and gain a deeper understanding. 8/10
BOOK review This is a memoir about radical student and cultural movements at the University of Queensland and inner-city Brisbane in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a young woman, the author faces personal consequences after her involvement in the Vietnam Moratorium protest. From the violence of the Springbok tours, the growing Black Rights movement and the 1973 Nimbin Aquarius Festival, Anne Richards weaves her personal story of family breakdown, coming of age and a tragic love story with the radical political and youth movements of the time.
A BOOK OF DOORS Anne Richards
JOHN KLEINSCHMIDT This memoir is set mostly in the time I completed a trade apprenticeship and was conscripted into the Army for National Service. With a country upbringing in a family with a strong education and work ethic very little thought was given to the activities of the ‘radicals’ at Queensland University who seemingly spent their time protesting about Vietnam, Indigenous Land Rights and Apartheid. Anne Richards was one of these activists and recounts her experience in detail, including family breakdown, confrontations with the Police, smoking dope and other illicit pursuits. A good reflection of the times but I read nothing new and little of interest.
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TONY HARRINGTON This well written memoir about Anne’s life, a time of political and social change at the University of Queensland UQ in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was a trip down memory for me. I began study at UQ the same year as the author and while I wasn’t a radical activist I was a strong supporter of the anti Vietnam war, aboriginal rights and anti Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s conservative government. The Janis Joplnesque picture on the front cover sets the time and tone for what follows. Eviction by her father from her family, the radical speeches and great bands preforming inside and outside the UQ refectory, drug experimentation, international revolutionary music and ideas, the protest marches and living rough with Uni mates are well narrated and something I have lived. I think the doors in the title refer to the doors of choice, doors to change and the doors of perception. Well done Anne! 9/10
JO BOURKE Anne Richard’s book reads like a novel with family defiance, communal living and personal loss, but the sobering truth is that the accurate facts speak volumes. It is almost impossible for a young person reading this book to realise there was no social media, no mobile phones at that time. That protests occurred at all was a miracle and a testament to the trailblazers of the period like Anne and her fellow students During the period described I, like many, was a young married mother with a large family. Our lives were sheltered, many of us had not yet bought a television, our news came via the radio and newspaper. We were told only the information those in authority wanted us to know and that news was boosted by the power of the Church which brainwashed us non-stop via weekly Mass! Anne’s banishment from her family by the authoritative father is utterly believable and so sad for her to have endured. Thank goodness the majority of us have since thrown off those shackles! This is a book for young and old readers. Definitely worth reading.
Look king g forr a grreatt rela axin ng da ay trrip?
44 YOUR TIME MAGAZINE / March 2022
MARY BARBER I enjoyed this trip through Brisbane’s student politics of the late 1960s and 1970s. Anne Richards had strong convictions and stood by them at great personal cost. Her first protest actions were about the conscription of young Australian men into the Vietnam War. The book has many examples of the unfettered police violence. Peaceful protests to express an opinion contrary to the government’s opinion, were dealt with harshly. It was Joh’s time. It was an awakening too. When these students and others protested against the Springbok tour, Aboriginal people rightly said, “Hey, you are standing up about Apartheid policies in South Africa, what about us?” And so new allegiances were formed between black and white Australians.
68*
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