I was hired in late '71 (I think!) as a Script Assistant by Fred Gray, because that's what I'd been doing at the ABC's Education Department and he'd only just decided that's what Continuity should henceforth be known as. When I turned up on “Homicide”, shooting out in Warrandyte, I had no idea what was going on: ABC Script Assistants worked in studio with a Producer, and the “Homicide” shoot was like being in another country.
In the next couple of years I worked also on Division 4 and on Matlock Police (I'm taken aback to see that there doesn't seem to be a section here about Matlock - why is this?). I remember Minnell, Igs, Eggers; I remember Pino, Paul, Gary: I remember Andrew Swanson, Pulbrook, Dazzling**: I remember working in the studios of 7, 9 and 10 with a variety of Producers including Ian Crawford - my hero, with whom I had what was at that time a newsworthy row and fatal employer-employee bust-up that broke my heart. Most of all, I remember Jo Weeks, the best continuity girl Crawfords ever produced - and still the best in the country.
It seems the thing about Crawfords was - and obviously still is, as I look at all those familiar faces at an assortments of reunions - that the Crawford family managed to create a family atmosphere, god knows how: as though once you'd been a staff member there, you were going to always be (and want to be) part of the company.
I would be grateful to find out why we have lost both Sproing* and Dazzling**: they were far too young to be listed amongst those no longer with us...
I met my husband on a feature shoot in Perth in '74 (he was stillsman Chic Stringer): we decided to get married when we were in Melbourne working on “Mad Max”, and then returned to live in Sydney: I had the most wonderful, extraordinary, indescribably happy 31 years in his company. Some who remember me may wonder why I was so lucky: I can tell you now that the price I must now pay is more than I would ever have wanted to or believed that I could...
*Chris Goldsmith
**Darryl Sheen
9th July 2007