Rolling Through Time WA Reflections 2021 project

BEGINNING OF INTERVIEW  

Christine: So you and I have spoken a lot about Fremantle as a place but have you ever seen it from the perspective of a skateboarder? Sir William Frederick Freddy Samson was a business man and a long term Mayor of Fremantle, Samson House at the corner of Ellen and Ord Street is where he used to live with his wife Daphne. But why are we talking about him today? Well, he played a major role in a film called ‘Rolling with the Times’, which features as part of the State Library of WA and Screenwest’s WA Reflections initiative. I have Doctor Kate Gregory, Battye Historian in the studios.  

How are you going Kate? 

KG: Hi Christine, very well thank you. 

Christine: And I have Producer of the film, Marlanie Haerewa in the studios too. Hey Marlanie. 

MH: Hello Christine, how are you? 

Christine: Very well. Thank you for coming in. Let’s talk about Freddy as a person first. I was very surprised to read that he was a skateboarder. 

KG: No! He wasn’t a skateboarder.  

Christine: A skateboarder?  

KG: No, no no! Not Freddy. He was the Mayor of Fremantle for several decades; he was elected Mayor in I think it was 1951 and he finished up as Mayor in 1972. I can tell you why you’re confused. 

Christine: [Laughs] Tell me! Tell me! 

KG: [Laughs] Ok, so this wonderful new film that’s just been produced which is called ‘Rolling Through Time’ uses the film footage that was filmed by Fred Samson while he was living in Fremantle and Mayor of Fremantle. 

Christine: Ahh, I thought he was on a skateboard! Oh, I’m so upset! Look, I will admit by Friday... 

KG: [Laughs] That is such a great entry... 

Christine: [Laughs] Alright everyone, I completely own that. That was me. I thought...you know what? It’s...Freo has always progressive...this guy was just ahead of it hey. 

KG: He totally was though; he really would have loved this film. 

[Laughs] Let’s get this straight. So this is the film shows... 

Christine: Lets. Good idea. 

KG: ...as skateboarder moving through the streets of Fremantle and it’s got this kind of contemporary footage of Fremantle as it is today and it’s spliced with this incredible historic footage which are Fred Samson’s films of Fremantle.  

Christine: While he was using his feet on the pavement. Good one! [laughs] 

KG: [Laughs] They’re terrific films though and these films are held by the State Library. We’ve got about 30 films by Fred Samson and the vast majority of them are digitised and they show a whole range of civic life in Fremantle and visiting dignitaries and the like and official events, lots of parades and celebrations, the Queen’s visit, all of this kind of official stuff. And as well as a lot of documentation of the progress of Fremantle like the building of new roads and the development of various town infrastructure projects. He loved...I think he loved machines of progress and he would film that stuff and he also filmed...spent a lot of time filming his domestic kind of garden: his environment, garden family...friends and family and garden; they were...both he and his wife Daphne were avid gardeners and they had prize winning roses and just...it was a really incredible garden. 

Christine: So, ok. He...alright...he’s always going to be a skateboarder in my mind but who was Freddy Samson? [laughs] Take us back. He was born in 1892... 

KG: That’s right. So Fred Samson, born 1892 and of course descended from Lionel and Fanny Samson who arrived in Fremantle in 1829 on the Calista. They were very early immigrants to Fremantle and established a wine and merchant business; very quickly became very successful. The Samson company is still a family run business today. It’s still incredibly successful and in freight and logistics and all sorts of areas now but many people might be familiar with where they are based on Cliff Street in Fremantle and so the family business continues and in fact the family has a really significant archive of material relating to the history of the family which is still owned by the family and also at the State Library we have a wonderful archive relating to Lionel Samson’s business. So Lionel had, and Fanny, had a number of children. One of them was Michael who was Fred’s father and Michael built Samson House and it was designed by Joseph Talbot Hobbs and then he was actually Mayor of Fremantle for a short time as well so Fred was born into this kind of Fremantle dynasty type family who had a really strong and important impact on the whole landscape of Fremantle and in fact more broadly Western Australia and Marlanie and I were chatting earlier about for instance Point Samson up near Cossack. 

Christine: Oh yes. 

KG: Named after Michael Samson in fact. He was like a...they’re kind of one of these families who have links throughout the state and...really important role but Fred himself, he was interested in engineering, studied engineering but he didn’t end up continuing that because he wanted to enlist in World War 1, but he was knocked back. He was declared medically unfit so he went on to work as a surveyor for the Metropolitan Sewerage Water Supply Scheme so he was a surveyor and for a number of years and he got into real estate as well and auctioneering and entered council in about 1936... 

Christine: He did a bit of everything. 

KG: He was really...yes, that’s right and just a real...he was known as Mr Fremantle. People loved him. 

Christine: [Laughs] Mr Fremantle! 

KG: He loved Fremantle. He...there were all of these anecdotal stories. He was just a very affable, friendly, really cared about the people of Fremantle and in particular he really cared about the history and the heritage...the built heritage of Fremantle so he was really active for instance in ensuring that the Fremantle old asylum, now the Fremantle Arts Centre...that building was saved in the fifties when it was threatened with demolition. 

Christine: [Surprised] Really!? 

KG: Yes. So he was really important in terms of remembering his role within the heritage movement more broadly. 

Christine: Twenty minutes past two. 

If you are listening, we are talking about Sir William Frederick Samson who was a long-term Mayor of Fremantle. Now he was knighted in 1962 and was appointed the first honorary Freeman of Fremantle in 1969. So I got all the other details right. It was just the skateboarding thing that I just totally messed up.... 

KG: [Laughs] 

Christine: ...but he died a few years later...he died in 1974. What were his later years like Kate? 

KG: Yes, look I think...I know that he...so his wife Daphne had died somewhat prematurely in the early fifties and it was quite unusual because his sister Rita had been...was a widower and lived in Melbourne and he was just embarking on his...this is kind of not directly related to your question but a background...Rita basically became the Mayoress and came to live in her childhood family home so the brother and sister, Fred and Rita, and Rita was still living in the house up until when she died in the early eighties but I think Fred at the time, the sort of 1970’s ...as I said very active in lobbying for heritage to be preserved. He was instrumental in sort of establishing suburbs like O’Connor as well and there was sort of suburban growth around Fremantle that he’d been very actively involved in but I think also he had a vision that Samson House (his childhood home, built by his father Michael) would be preserved as an historic house museum. So he actually did bequeath the museum to the West Australian Museum. 

Christine: Yes 

KG:...and its contents as well and the agreement was that Rita his sister would be able to live out her remaining years and she did so she lived in the house and then the Museum took over management of Samson House as it’s now known and then now subsequently in more recent years, the National Trust of Western Australia manages Samson House and that is open for public tours and people are able to visit it and kind of get a taste of who Fred Samson was. 

Christine: Yes, wow, it’s great isn’t it? We are so lucky we can still do that because it’s not always possible. So, ‘Rolling with the Times’ is the name of the film. Marlanie, I want to know what was the footage like? Tell me, as a producer how happy were you to stumble upon this? 

MH: Totally. So Jake and I actually saw that Screenwest was doing some funding in collaboration with the State Library and one of the awesome projects was going through the archives of Sir Frederick Samson back in the 1960s as Kate described and it was awesome definitely jumping on as a producer. 

Christine: What did you find? So what did the footage show? 

MH: There was so much. There was...he got some footage of the Queen...at Fremantle Port...what else...as you said Kate, there was a lot of just road works and a lot of infrastructure of Fremantle and it was really hard because when we were going through all the archives we went to go and check it out and see this location, this location and just how it’s all changed. There is still some really significant art sites that are still there which is really lovely but sadly there were some heritage sites that were knocked down and now it’s been replaced by another building, but the roads are still there and it was really cool. It was like going back into time. 

Christine: So you compared the streetscape. So you had what he filmed? And then you got a skateboarder to go out there and film as well and you put it side by side. 

MH: Yes, yes. So when Jake saw this opportunity... 

Christine: This is the director? 

MH: He is the cinematographer and director, yes. 

Christine: Yes, yes. 

MH: So Jake saw the opportunity and thought what is something creative and he is a lover of documentary but we kind of thought well we want the viewer to...something cool...that they’re not going to go ‘ah yeah ok, that’s nice’ but really get into it and we thought of a skateboarder. And he went why don’t we have a skateboarder rolling within the archive footage and into where that location is today so and that’s where the title ‘Rolling Through Time’ comes from. 

Christine: Aha...look at that. Who is the skateboarder? 

MH: His name is Jack and it was a lot of skateboarding events we went to, to go and scout out talent and a lot of friends that we had to past like, “who do think?” and they said, “this one, this one” and then it just came up to Jack and Jack was great at what he does. 

Christine: He should go to the next Olympics. 

MH: Please, yes Jack. 

Christine: Skateboarding in the next Olympics, anyway [laughs] 

Well, how can people see this film? 

KG: That’s right. So the film is available to view. It’s a five minute film. Is that the length of it? A bit longer... 

MH: Five to eight minutes. 

KG: Ahh ok a little bit longer. So the film is available to view on the State Library website, so people can actually go to the website. I think everyone can just search Google for the State Library of Western Australia and find it that way. And in fact, next Thursday the 14th of October... 

Christine: Ahhh there’s a panel. 

KG: Yes! Yes. 

Christine: So tell us about this. 

KG: We’ve got a tremendous opportunity for anyone who is based in Perth and would like to come along. Please we encourage you to come and share this great, exciting event. We’re going to be screening the film in the State Library Theatre and then having a panel discussion afterwards and hopefully Jake will be there as well, the filmmaker, the cinematographer and Mike Lefroy who many people might be familiar with... 

Christine: Yes 

KG: ...historian and Fremantle buff and all-round tremendous communicator about Fremantle history and also the sound producer will be there as well, Ned Beckley. And one of the striking things for me about this film is actually the sound because of course Fred’s films were silent. 

Christine: Aahhh 

KG: They’re silent films and so...no sound, you know [disappointment]. 

And so you know here we’ve got a really strong driving sound which is kind of the sound of the wheels of the skateboard hitting the ground and rolling through Fremantle with this fantastic pace of music and everything it just really just kind of pushes it along and brings another dimension to it.  

So look, next Thursday night, it’s at 6.00 pm at the State Library in the city in Perth on Francis Street in the Cultural Centre and it would just be delightful to be able to screen it on the big screen. People can look at it through the State Library website though. Of course this is a wonderful partnership that the State Library had with Screenwest and really that was all around. It’s called ‘WA Reflections – Our History Rediscovered’ and that was all around, just working with filmmakers to make our collections I guess more visible and more accessible. So we’re just trying to bring it out in a new way and this is a great opportunity. 

Christine: It’s been great to have you both in the studio. Dr Kate Gregory, thank you for your time. 

KG: Thank you so much. 

Christine: And Producer Marlanie Haerewa thank you so much for coming in. 

MH: Thank you. 

Christine: ‘Rolling With the Times’ is what it’s called. It’s all about Frederick Samson’s beautiful 16mm footage of locations through Fremantle. What an important person he was. 

END OF INTERVIEW