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I was chained, manacled and dragged screaming from the shores of Blighty at the tender age of three to follow the tracks of one of my predecessors who received free passage and accommodation in the penal settlement at Port Arthur.
We were ten quid refugees. Our transport was a rusting hulk, The Moreton Bay, apparently on its last trip (and legs) before being scrapped and turned into jam tins. The irony is that I lived adjacent to Moreton Bay in Queensland for many years.
After we stepped ashore in Tasmania, I suppose you could say we became peasant farmers as my father worked on farms growing apple trees.
We got wiped out in the 1967 bushfires and moved to Northern Tasmania, where I promptly went blind for six months due to a corneal ulcer. I never officially left school, I just never went back and I don’t think Devonport High School was too devastated at my departure. The parting shot from my English teacher (a dreary and mumbling individual ) was with the comforting advice to give up the idea of writing because I’d never be any good at it. Thou shall not write in the first person and certainly not use so much vernacular. So, carefully ignoring his sagacious advice, I became a journalist instead.
My first introduction to photojournalism was unwitting. I badgered my impecunious mother into funding a school trip to Victoria, I think, when I was around 11. I went armed with an Instamatic 100 and a couple of cartridges of film.
I dutifully sat up the front of the bus with the headmaster whilst my peers sat down at the back, fondling each other or divvying up stolen loot from the last stopover. They didn’t have sex education then, so everyone was self-taught, and the art was enthusiastically practised in muffled silence in the back seats.
Back at Woodbridge Area School, I diligently set about producing a project with my own pictures of oranges growing on trees, Adelaide’s wide streets, and romantic photos of paddlewheelers on the Murray River. The other kids took pictures of each other groping ‘up the back of the bus.’ With hindsight, I’m certain they had more fun than I did.
On one auspicious day, the headmaster, brandishing my project, hauled me out of the serried ranks of 350 school kids. He berated the other kids for not producing anything tangible from the trip, apart from a couple of criminal records and a possible pregnancy.
I was later conducted to the rear of the shelter shed by my peers and bashed up. My first practical experience of the dreaded TPS (Tall Poppy Syndrome).
Undeterred, I was hooked from that day on and badgered my mother for better photographic equipment.
Happily, I got my sight back and confronted the local newspaper, The Examiner, with a collection of snaps depicting my dog, my mother and a couple of others I produced in our bath. I suspect that the stains in the porcelain still exist.
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| First months of cadetship Launceston Examiner- 1969. |
I worked for three years at The Examiner before hearing of a job opening at The Age, a prestigious broadsheet published in Melbourne. Here, I learnt my craft and the serious art of larrikinism.
I was both dazed and amazed to be given the job. I was eventually dubbed The Angle Man or, in times of stress, “you long great streak of duck shit”.
After an amazing three years on the “Rage”, my ego and I decided Fleet Street just couldn’t wait for me to offer my services. It’s just a shame that Fleet Street didn’t share my enthusiasm.
I spent some six years doing everything but media. I was sometimes whorehouse painter, a market trader selling dodgy audio tapes and shonky "best sellers" (an insurance job lot), et al. I think I've I’ve counted up 14 jobs, from cleaning gutters to setting up a fashion business in a Jacobean manor with my girlfriend of the time. We had 100 women clacking away with two wooden needles producing handmade knitwear for the rich and famous in New York. She eventually ran off with our suave and bottle-bronzed agent, leaving me on the bones of my bum. With the benefit of hindsight and upon mature reflection, she made a wise choice, I think. I’m allergic to bottle tans.
I met my now-wife Lou (Little Chuck), and the rest is history. We married in England because my in-laws decided that after a couple of family deaths, a party was needed to boost morale. We then left on our honeymoon through Europe. There was nothing unusual in that, you say, except we went in company with my mother and father-in-law. My in-laws gave us the trip with one proviso: that they come too. We had a ball.
We returned to Oz in ’83 with my professional ego somewhat in tatters but were welcomed back to the collective bosom of the newspaper business. I worked for The Australian for a while, and then Rupert Murdoch said (not to me personally, you understand) to “go north, young man’.
To the strains of “you buggers must be mad” and “you’ll never make a go of it”, we succeeded, and during that period, we lost count of the number of magazines and corporates we worked for.
Pete and I decided to go our separate ways after a few years, so we shook hands and split the cash.
I wanted to write more because I guess I had a deep-down desire to show that old fossilised English master that I could do joined-up writing and that people would actually be willing to pay for it.
The job is actually so much fun (if you can ignore death, war and human tragedy encountered here and there) that I often think I should pay others to let me do it.
- Mike Larder 2024
Going through my own photo library of 40 years, I am pleased to have been present at some minor moments in history. However, my colleague and former press photographer, Mike Larder was a witness to many more key moments in Australian history while on assignment for his newspapers.
After marvelling at his many archival snapshots, I have convinced Mike to share a selection of his most memorable photos and he has generously agreed. Mike continues.
“I have a long and convoluted history. My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic. I saved up my cherry picking money for it. I should never have been journo/snapper at all. I went almost totally blind for some months when I was around 15 but eventually got my sight back.”
So how did you get started in press photography and journalism?
“I went down to a local'phone box that still worked and talked my way into a cadetship. Did my first travel feature yarn when I was ten ( about a school trip) and got beaten up for it by my mates but it won me a Secret Seven book.”
When was your ‘big break’?
“My first ever full front page on my first time out was of the late Queen Elizabeth chatting to a family of Vietnamese boat people. Ever so nice of ‘Her Maj’ to hold still for a second. Really pissed off the chief photographer of the Examiner! Then, I nearly drowned Boy George during a wild storm on Moreton Bay once.”
What sort of photography were you doing mainly?
“I used to shoot a lot of fashion plus a couple of genocides. Somalia was one mongrel of a place. I was a whorehouse painter for a while (in England) I have lost a lot of pics over the years as well as a lot of "ze leetel brain zells." My neck got busted some years ago and haven't shot a yarn since.”
Do you remember the stories behind the images?
“On many occasions the story behind the pic is often more interesting than the pic itself. I don't specialise in celebrity. Just another job really although I cherish memories of a press conference with Lauren Bacall where we had a spat. She bought me a drink later as a kind of kiss and make up.”
SNAPSHOTS OF HISTORY
Some of Mike's memorable moments
All images (c) Mike Larder
All images (c) Mike Larder
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| While we are ( or some of us) absorbed by the Boxing Day Test, this snap of the devastatingly quick West Indian fast bowler, Michael Holding, aka "The Whispering Death", as described by umpires that could not hear him arriving at the crease. I shot this at a Brisbane council welcome bash when 'The Windies' hit town. Their son couldn't be bothered by all the adulation. |
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| Ian 'Heals' Healy. Circa 1990. Shot for Inside Sport. One of the nicest sporting champs I have met. |
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| Australian champion pugilist Jeff Harding, who was big on the 'hit' parade back in the eighties. |
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| Mystery Star. This pic emerged from 'The Vault' the other day. Shot in the mid eighties-ish at a photo-call in Brisbane. Might have been the old Theatre Royal before it was demolished in 1987 to make way for the Myer complex. I would like to ID her. Anyone got any clues? |
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| Master illusionist Phil Cass. I shot this way back in the mid eighties for a Daily Sun Bingo promotion. He baffled me within the first thirty seconds of meeting him. |
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| Queensland NRL hero, Wally Lewis, in full flight. |
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| Who remembers? Aquatic Aliens. Swim champs Glen Houseman, Kieran Perkins and Daniel Kowalski. Early '90s. I think I got the idea from David Bowies movie 'The Man Who Fell to Earth.' Shot for Inside Sport and got a beautiful double-page run. Shot in five minutes. Getting them to oil up was the hardest part of the job. Shot on Velvia with my clunky RB 67. So sharp that you could cut your finger on the image. |
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| Umpteen-time surf champion Nat Young shot some twenty five years back for The Good Weekend I think. |
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| The outrageous comedian Rodney Rude and his alter ego. Almost forty years ago. As usual he was in trouble with the Queensland 'fun' police. Shot for the SMH |
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| 'The Coach.' The late Col Thompson. Brisbane Radio personality, footy commentator and all round nice bloke from the 80ties/ 90ties. Shot at the Mater children's hospital on a cheer up visit. |
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| I shot this pic of the one time dictator of Queensland, Sir Johannas (Joh) Bjelke-Petersen at Bethany, I think in 2005. Shortly before he died. Senator Flo made some pumpkin scones for tea. Inevitably. They were nice too. Some of my venerable mates will remember the old scoundrel. "And don't YOU worry about that". |
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| I shot this for the Australian way back in the mid-80s. Can't remember why. The lady on the left is Sophie Lee with the late Megan Williams. |
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| Gayle and Gillian Blakeney. Mid eighties. Which one is Gillian and which one is Gayle? Shot for a whimsical Sunday/ Daily Sun (can't remember which) back to school page three. The background is mine created with a dollar can of black spray paint. Pre Banksy. |
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| Tennis champ and two time Australian Open champion Hana Mandlikova being wetly and reluctantly welcomed to Queensland's Milton tennis complex by a local furry fan. Actually it was a ramshackle fire trap of a place. Luckily she was wearing a waterproof jacket. Hana eventually became an Australian and came with a pronounceable European name. Mid eighties. |
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| Hana in action |
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| American actor Michael Ansara. Who is he famous for portraying (back in our TV kid world). He's in my personal Hall of Fame for nice people. Shot in his hotel room in Brisbane back in the '80s. Cochise. Might give you a clue. |
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| 'Alias Smith and Jones.' Shot on a stinking hot Brisbane day-mid eighties I think. They were jetlagged and hot and quite possibly a tad hungover after a day in the air. "Just how fookin far are we away from Britain then?" quipped Smith. I took them out to the Sheratons pool and got a waiter to tip a couple of jugs of iced water over them. That woke 'em up. |
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| A penny for your thoughts. Warwick Capper 1985 |
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| It's not the best footy pic you've ever seen but I think it might have some historical value. Collingwood plays the then Brisbane Bears at Carrara. Gold Coast. 1988. An old gram pic. |
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| The late Kerry Packer playing horse hockey. He took a swipe at me with his weapon once. A bit mean as I was working for one of his ACP magazines at the time. Happily he missed but his horse had the last laugh. It farted in my face as it passed on the way out onto the paddock. At least I assumed that it was the horse. |
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| David Gower OBE. One time England captain and one of the finest and most elegant batsmen I've ever seen. He captained England to an Ashes victory in the mid-eighties. Snapped at The Gabba nets. What a farce this Ashes series has become. My paternal great-grandfather played for Kent. He could have played for England. But two world wars got in the way. I suspect he would have been disgusted. |
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| Romanian Ilie Năstase. World no 1 in the early eighties. Milton courts. Brisbane. |
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