(Source:ABC) This photograph was donated to AIATSIS
by Michelle Flynn, Alf Stafford's granddaughter
Introduction
Alf was born in 1906 in Binnaway, north of Dubbo, and
arrived in Canberra as a pioneer in 1928.
He loved billiards and in the 1930s opened a billiards hall in Kingston
[ACT].
Mr Stafford served under Joseph Lyons, Sir Earle Page, Arthur Fadden, John
Curtin, Francis Forde, Joseph Chifley, twice under Sir Robert Menzies,
Harold Holt, John McEwen, John Gorton and Gough Whitlam.
(Source:ABC)
Born one of 12 children to
Aboriginal parents in Binnaway in 1906, Stafford was discharged from the
army on medical grounds in 1929 (incidentally, three of his brothers served
as light horsemen in – and returned from – the first world war at a time
when Indigenous Australians were not permitted to join up; another served in
the second world war).(Source: The Guardian)
In 1930, a 24-year-old ex-soldier and talented
cricketer, Alfred (Alf) George Stafford, arrived [in
Canberra]. A Gamilaroi and Darug man, born one of 12 children in
Binnaway, New South Wales, he came to visit a friend briefly after being
discharged from the Australian Army. He stayed forever after finding a job
and subsequently opening a billiard parlour in Kingston, where he hosted the
later world billiards champion, Horace Lindrum.(Source:
Meanjin)
(Source:
Meanjin) This photograph was donated to AIATSIS by
Michelle Flynn, Alf Stafford's granddaughter
Experience & Opportunity
In 1937 he joined the Commonwealth Transport Department as one of its
earliest ‘transport officers’—early bureaucratese for public service
drivers. Over 35 years until his retirement in 1972, Stafford drove
countless politicians, among them opposition leaders and 11 prime ministers,
including Joe Lyons, Earle Page, Arthur Fadden, John Curtin, Frank Forde,
Billy Hughes, Arthur Calwell, Ben Chifley, Robert Menzies (during two stints
as PM), Harold Holt, John McEwen, John Gorton, Billy McMahon and Gough
Whitlam. (Source:
Meanjin)
As a driver, and later as cabinet officer,
Stafford was the ultimate government insider. He was discreet, however, and
spoke nothing publicly of his work until his retirement. Even then he waited
until his later years to do so. (Source: The Guardian)
During Menzies’ 16-year postwar tenure Stafford, the
former first-grade cricketer or St George and the Australian Capital
Territory, served as adviser for the selection of the Prime Minister’s XI,
beginning with the match against the West Indies in 1951. It was a duty for
which Stafford, a left-handed batsman and leg-break bowler, was eminently
qualified; in the 1920s he opened the batting for St George’s first XI. At
number three was Donald Bradman with whom, it seems, Stafford had a
relationship that is perhaps best described as ambivalent.
The Menzies–Stafford relationship extended well beyond cricket, however. The
two were lifelong friends and confidants. When Stafford’s first wife Edith
became ill with cancer in the early 1950s, Menzies—perhaps at the insistence
of his wife, Dame Pattie, determined that driving the PM was keeping ‘Alf’
away from his increasingly onerous family responsibilities. So Menzies
insisted that a job be fashioned for Stafford as a ‘Cabinet officer’. This
was effectively a position as a personal assistant to the prime minister, a
messenger for ministers stuck in meetings and their butler, who’d make the
tea and pour the drinks when Cabinet rose.(Source:
Meanjin)
“Menzies really was one of the greatest gentlemen I’ve ever met. And also
Chifley was a grand man. And Curtin. They were outstanding prime ministers,”
he [Alf] said.
He became Menzies’ permanent driver during his second stint as
Prime Minister in 1949.
(Source: The Guardian)
All the while, after the death of Edith in 1954, Stafford and his two
youngest children, David and Diana, periodically lived in the Lodge. They
did so at the insistence of the Menzies, so that Alf, with the help of one
of the housekeepers, could better support his children as a sole parent. For
the Menzies, who travelled on official business often, there was the added
advantage that the Staffords could serve as caretakers at the Lodge while
they were away. In 1956 Alf Stafford married another of the Menzies’
housekeepers, Heather Nesbitt. The Menzies threw a wedding reception for the
couple at the Lodge. (Source:
Meanjin)
Did You Know?
Alf Stafford had first hand experience of the Cowra Breakout
In an interview he [Alf] recounted driving the then-Labor
federal information minister, Arthur Calwell, through central west
New South Wales on a freezing night in August 1944 when, unknown to
either 1,100 Japanese prisoners of war had escaped from a prison in
nearby Cowra. Four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese died in the
breakout.
“We were pulled up by a military convoy ... they asked us if we saw
any Japs on the road and we said, ‘no’ and of course we didn’t know
what was going on. Just after that there was six little Japs walked
down the road just behind us. I dare say if they’d wanted the car
they could’ve knocked us off pretty easily,” he said.
“Arthur Calwell then got out of the car – it was the middle of June
... freezing ... and he went up on the hill and it was just like a
miniature war really, there was machine guns going and searchlights
all around.
“By accident we were there in the middle of it. I must say that
Calwell did a mighty job. He got on the phone and got through to the
papers in Sydney and asked them not to print anything on the show
because we had prisoners of war in Japan.” (Source: The Guardian)
(Source: ANZAC Day
Commemoration Committee)
Later Life
Alf Stafford retired shortly after the election of the
Whitlam government in 1972, the same year he was awarded an Order of the
British Empire.(Source:
Meanjin)
When he retired after working
briefly for Whitlam in 1972, the Labor Prime Minister gave Stafford as a
farewell gift the black Homburg hat that had belonged to Australia’s eighth
Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce. Stafford later donated the hat to a
charity auction. (Source: The Guardian)
[Alf was] well known in Canberra for
captaining the ACT representative cricket side (he faced the first ball ever
bowled at the PM’s XI match venue, Manuka Oval, in 1930) and [he was] a
foundation member of the Canberra Racing Club (the Alf Stafford Guineas is
raced in his name).
Alf Stafford died, aged 90, in 1996.
YouTube: AIATSIS COLLECTION TELLS
OF SIR ROBERT MENZIES’ FRIENDSHIP WITH DRIVER ALF STAFFORD