00:00:00
Speaker 1: Did. I'm welcome once again to conversations. My guest today is Michael Neil. Now, Michael just stood down as the chair of the Baya Birdwood Rally, that iconic South Australian event, and I obviously I want to talk about that. But Michael's had an amazing career in marketing. He's been sitting on the Essay History Trust for a few years and now we'll move on as chairman of the Essa History Trust. Got a great background in South Australia and certainly in the automobile industry. Pr and he joins us. Now, Michael Neil, how are you.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: I'm really well and thank you so much for having me.
00:00:37
Speaker 1: Did I cover you? Did I do you justice? There? I felt a bit so I didn't flesh it out enough.
00:00:43
Speaker 2: Well, well, I think maybe we can do that in the interview a little bit, because I think, yes, sometimes your history colors your future. It really influences what you do and how you look at things, and that was certainly the case in my life.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: You've just stood down as the chair of the Birdwood Rally. Did you do that with some sadness or some regret?
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Look, I think I've been chair for nine years and in any good governance, you know, they say three terms of three years is enough for anybody, and I think that's really accurate. And I think after three terms nine years, you need to be able to stand back and let somebody else come in with fresh ideas, with a different perspective, and otherwise it becomes too much about you and not about the event. And for something as important as the Beya Birdwood, a real icon of South Australia, something that's an event that's owned by the people of South Australia and held in trust for them by the History Trust of South Australia, I think it's just too important and so no, I'm really happy to relinquish with that role and hand it on to the next person.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: What is it about the Beta Birdwood Rally? I mean it's it's just captivating sometimes just to walk around at the start. It's captivating to and watch as they drive past. It's even more impressive when you get up to Birdwood at the end and you can sort of wander around at your leisure. But what is it about old cars?
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a very very firstly, very astute observation in that there are lots of ways to participate in the Beta bird Look. Last year we had one hundred and five thousand people lining the route. According to police estimates we would have had over five thousand people at the start and something like ten thousand people at the finish festival up at the National Mode Museum in Birdwood. So if you think about them and one thousand, five hundred vehicles with one two three four people in them, there's a lot of the city of Adelaide is involved one way or the other with the Bey to Birdwood every time it's run. Nowhere in the world is an event so integral to the life of the city than the Bait to Birdwood here in Adelaide.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk about the cars. I want to talk about the people who are them and drive them. But we might come back to that. So you're in your professional life, you really in pr marketing? Am I? Did I read that?
00:03:15
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:03:16
Speaker 1: That does that do you justice?
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Probably more marketing strategy. So you know, I went to University tod a business degree major in marketing and that was the kickoff to a career in marketing that has served me very well here in Australia and for six years in the United Kingdom. I've had all sorts of different roles in different industries, but always client side, always strategic, and that has afforded me the opportunity now to work with some amazing companies as a consultant in my own strategic consulting firm. And you know, that's that's been a it's been a really informative aspect of my life, but it's also really enjoyable as well.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: We'll come back to that were revisited, but I'm always intrigued in the early days and your dad own Paradise Motors which is now Mas franchise, but it wasn't it, So tell us about your early days, tell us about your time growing up and the family involvement in the motor trade.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, my father was an incredibly was an amazing human being actually, and he never really considered himself as being in the motor trade. He didn't didn't see himself as a as a car dealer or a person who was focused on cars. He was really he saw himself as being in the people business and using cars to help them make their life better.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Because it was a stigma surrounding the car trade for many many years he was he trying to insulate himself from that.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: I don't think my father was ever really concerned about his own personal image. I think he just was a jet He was genuinely interested in being a contributor to society and that was in his business life. He was involved with rotary, he was involved with the local church. So he was a very community focused person and it just happened that he did that while he was running a car dealership.
00:05:19
Speaker 1: It's very much Eastern Suburbs. Was he in Ido or did he have a country background?
00:05:25
Speaker 2: Look, I think he probably appeared as though he had a very respectable Eastern Suburbs upbringing. But he was born in a family that lived in Appleston, which was right on the edge of the city. It was pretty much country. He met my mum at the Cuddly Creek Dancers, right, So, you know, I think we are talking about what year, oh like they were what would it be, probably nineteen fifty, in the nineteen fifties, actually in the mid nineteen fifties, and you know, they know, they were very much a partners in life, in everything that they did, and you know, and I think you know, Dad started off as a you know from pretty humble backgrounds was a motor mechanic. The place that he's he started his apprenticeship closed down. He transferred to another garage in the Market Garden area of Adelaide, and I think he eventually bought that business borrowing money from his father and selling every possession that he had when it was pretty much a tin shed on the side of the road. But fortunately for him it was just up the road from the Paradise tram terminus, so the end of the of the Adelaide trams, and I think with it was one of those things if you go there now, it's still a sort of a circular road that sort of comes off to the site. You have a look at it on the map near the Paradise Hotel. But the cars used to like bits of iron and shoehorn's, horseshoe nails and things used to end up on the road and they used to puncture the tires of the cars driving out towards Alvelston, and you know, they would pull up with flat tires almost exactly opposite my father's garage at the time. And I think the very start of his business success was, you know, all the tires he had to fix.
00:07:36
Speaker 1: Was he a trained motor mechanic.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he did his apprenticeship and I think ran a very good little garage. But then one day I think took stuff out of his office and shoved a Volkswagen in his front office and actually became a Volkswagen dealer And that was the start of his journey into being a a car dealer.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: So was he a trader? Did he have a trader's instinct? Do you think?
00:08:06
Speaker 2: I think he developed very good business acumen. And you know, I think that was a combination of just being fairly smart, being a bit street smart, but also learning from all of his mistakes along the way. And that's also a great lesson in life.
00:08:21
Speaker 1: What about your mom? Did she was she from Cuddley Creek?
00:08:25
Speaker 2: Do you know they Mum's family started off in Semaphore And no, they ran They ran a very very good her father ran a very good butcher shop in Semaphore, sold out and moved up to Cuttley Creek and they bought the Cutty Creek kiosk. And you know, we've got we've got family records where visitors books have been signed by Tom Playford, bringing up international guests and all sorts of things. So they were people who did okay down here in Adelaide and moved up as a sort of a lifestyle I guess, you know, in the nineteen fifties, a lifestyle choice to take over the Cuddly Creek tea rooms, and I think that's where Mum and Dad met.
00:09:14
Speaker 1: So he becomes almost by Osmosis who a car dealer selling volkswagens. How quickly did it grow?
00:09:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it grew fairly quickly, because you know, I think when he started he was on the very very fringe of Adelaide. But over the nineteen seventies those market gardens were becoming housing blocks and young families were moving in and that created an opportunity.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: Michael Neil is my guest, Folks, just relin twisted his role as chairman of the Beta Birdwood Rally. He's been on the Essay History Trust and now moves into the role as chairman of that organization. Lots to talk about. Backshortly, Welcome back to conversations, everybody. If you just tuned in. I'm speaking to Michael Neil, who's the chair of the Essay History Trust, and I've just been admonished during the break because I was saying chairman. But we've got to be gender neutral, apparently, Michaels it's a bit complicated for us dinosaurs.
00:10:17
Speaker 2: Look, I'm really comfortable being called chair you know, it's not a it's not a problem for me. I'm really happy and I take after I come into the role of chair of the History Trust of South Australia directly following the magnificent work of Elizabeth Hoe. So you know, I think it's really important for us to fair enough.
00:10:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand apologize. So your dad starts Paradise Motors just by wheeling a Volkswagen into the garage and sells it. How quickly did that grow? And what's your what's your.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: Involvement, what's your You know very little really, you know. The truth is he became a Volkswagen dealer, and then I think he had Laland for a while as well as Volkswagen, and then I think he had Audi was part of the the Volkswagen group at that time. And then I think he got rid of Leyland to take on Subaru when Subaru was being distributed by Volkswagen. And then I think he relinquished Subaru, and I think Volkswagen still selling Volkswagen Commercial originally to take on Masda and I've probably got that right. My brother can ring in and tell me what we've got wrong. But ultimately ultimately became a very focused Mazda dealer in a very successful one and.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: The dealership operates as a Matha dealership at the moment.
00:11:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so my brother runs that business now, so you know, and Dad passed away a few years ago.
00:11:56
Speaker 1: Did he have a chance to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labor?
00:12:00
Speaker 2: You know, my dad would have never retired. And even when he was so, my mum had some illness, and even when Dad was looking after mum, he would call my brother or call somebody up and say, now, how is sales today? He was very interested in the in the business and what was going on, pretty much to the day he died.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: It's such a different business now, not my Davy's. And the technology of cars. I don't know how the dealer's keep keep track of it, keep on top of it. So what so you you obviously moved. You didn't have an ambition to be in the motor trade, what so? What was what was your ambition? No?
00:12:35
Speaker 2: So I went off, and you know, I went to university and I had a career in corporate marketing. I was I fell in love with strategy actually at university in my in my undergraduate degree, and I really wanted to take on roles that were strategic focus. I didn't want to end up in an advertising agency or in the media or in PR. I really wanted to focus on staying client side and staying in strategy. And I worked in a number of different industries here in Australia and in the UK, and ultimately, I think that gave me the opportunity to, you know, when Dad needed some help, I came in and I helped sort out some things for him, you know, working with with my with him and my brother. But that was only a very very very brief little interlude or two and I think but the majority of my time I spent working for other organizations and that led him to a very successful consultancy career and again very much focused on marketing strategy. So but it has also afforded me the opportunity to pursue some other things. I've maintained a little bit of an academic profile, but I've also been able to do things like work as a trustee of the History Trust and also take on the chair of the Beta Birdwood.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: Know it's not pr it's not advertising, the touch of marketing. How does that look? If you give me an example of a you're coming into a they've come into a company, and I don't know what sort of confidentiality you have to disclose, but give us an example of how because it sounds a bit that's the word.
00:14:14
Speaker 2: So let me explain if I may. Look, I have clients who who come to me and, like I guess, probably my two sweet spots are small businesses that are becoming big businesses. And a small business really understanding the customer and what the customer really really values. Like the founder of that business knows it in their in their heart, knows it in their stomach, right they know it. And if they're a small business, the people around them they also know by almost by osmosis, by being in the in the close presence of the founder. But when that that organization grows, and it might you know, one of my clients now has offices in three continents, so you know, and you know they've moved on, they've become a bigger organization, and you know, my time with them has finished because you know, I've made a contribution to where they were going. But you know, getting them from being a small business to being a big business, really helping them to understand what was their essence was a key part of that and how to communicate that externally and internally. You know, I had another business here in South Australia that is still in that process of growing very very quickly from a small business now into a significant business in the food industry, and I think they'd reached a point where they couldn't grow beyond a certain plateau, and it really took them time to think about exactly what their customer offering was so that they could focus on what delivered value rather than all of the other stuff that doesn't deliver value to their customers and really position themselves. And since we've done that, they've been growing really, really, really strongly.
00:16:17
Speaker 1: I think most people start a small business because you know, they have a passion for it perhaps or they're good at the good at they have a certain skill. But others just do it to make money. Yeah, how do you do you have trouble separating that the need to make a profit and to be successful and rich to the passion that you might have passions good, but if it doesn't pay the bills, how do you separate that?
00:16:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Well combine it.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: It's a really interest question, and it's combined, not separate. But I think one of the things I do a little bit of public speaking, and one of the things we talk about I talk about is customer first focus, right, And that doesn't mean you focus on the customer at the exclusion of profitability, because a lot of really really good companies go break not looking at cash flow, not making enough money to stay viable. You can't help your clients if you're out of business, right, So that's still important. But if you look at it at the end of the day, and there's been a little bit of academic research about this in Scandinavia, if you focus on delivering real value to your clients, you will make money, right. Okay, So if you focus on a short term profitability, you might end up depleting or diminishing the equity in your brand. But if you focus on delivering value to your customers and really focus on that, then your ability to deliver profitability increases significantly.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: So your head off overseas. Tell us about that process, the decision to do that, and where do you go and how do you how do you settle into a place like London or wherever you land.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: Well, my wife was doing medical research in Oxford, and so she got this fantastic opportunity to go to Oxford. We both had good careers here, so we sort of just introduced.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: You just introduced your wife. Yes, so we have to how did you meet her? What did she.
00:18:22
Speaker 2: It's sort of like sort of like my father. My wife is my life partner in all things and has been my closest and dearest friend. And you know, she is very, very bright, has you know, worked in medical research. You know, I met her playing basketball one day, believe it or not.
00:18:48
Speaker 1: And where did you meet someone playing you playing against her or that she was watching?
00:18:53
Speaker 2: No, she was playing this in the same club. And I was in a sort of a social mixed basketball team and we needed some female players, and I sort of asked her to come in and fill in for us, and and you know, one thing led to another, and I thought she's really nice.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: You know, did you start with the ulterior motive?
00:19:20
Speaker 2: No? No, actually no, actually I didn't. But you know, I think just sometimes when you when you spend some time with somebody, you just realize how wonderful they are, you know.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: Anyway, so you end up in London. She's doing research.
00:19:34
Speaker 2: Yes, so we were living in Oxford and I didn't have a job, so I sent her. And this is back in the days when you didn't send emails, you send faxes. And so I sent all these faxes to these people in England and one guy said, oh, you know when you're in when you're in the UK, come and see me and I'll give you a job. And no, he said he'd give me an interview. And I went and saw him, and to his word, he gave me an interview, and I got a job. What was a job I was turning? I was helping. I was first a consultant to this organization, but I ended up being their director of marketing and I helped turn around about a five hundred person technology consulting organization called the Electrical Research Association or RA Technology, And that was a really informative period in my life.
00:20:28
Speaker 1: Michael Neil is my guest Folks Chair of the Essa History Trust, recently retired or stepped down a chair of the Beta Birdwood Rally. We'll talk about all that sort of stuff when we get back, because most of us love old cars, don't. We actually welcome back to conversations everybody. If you just tuned in. Michael Neil is my guest, folks. He's just stood down as chair of the Beta Birdwood Rally, will be chair of the Essay History Trust. Runs his own consultancy company and has had great six yes of that both overseas and here you're standing down. You've just you stood down after the recent Better Birdwood Rally. So give us your memories of you know, your time in that tenure.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: So I was actually appointed chair of the Beater Birdwood in two thousand and sixteen, and I've on a number of occasions said, you know, when that happened, I sort of felt like I'd died and gone to heaven because this is an event that I can remember. And I think I was meant to be at church that day, but somebody snuck me out and said let's go and stand on the side and watch this this thing that's happening in nineteen eighty as a schoolboy, and I was standing on the side of the road for the first beater Birdwood and I think at that time, you know, if you'd told me that I was going to be a chair, I wouldn't have believed. But probably that moment was when I thought, gee, I really want to participate in that one day. And I've sort of been a follower of the event.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: How did you get involved?
00:22:15
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that was a series of fortuitous cups of coffees with people to talk about some aspects of the National Motor Museum. And before they before I knew it, I had a phone call from one of the one of the guys that I was speaking with, and he said, look, we'd really like you. Our chair has had to go to Melbourne for family reasons and we need a new chair and we'd really like you to take the job on. And you know, it was completely out of the blue and say no. I think when when when somebody offers you an opportunity to like that, you don't ask too many questions. You just do the due diligence that you need to do and then you say yes, what.
00:23:02
Speaker 1: Was your main priority when you stepped into that role?
00:23:06
Speaker 2: Look, I think for me, I think the Beta Bird would When it started off, everyone thought it was an amazing event and everyone was behind it, and I think in the period, I think it sort of lost a little bit of luster through the years, not as a result of anybody making a mistake or doing the wrong thing. It was just the circumstances needed sort of a renewal, I think. And at the end of the day, it was and still is one of the world's great historic motoring events, and it's a treasure for us, the people of South Australia, and I think people had just forgotten that, and so what I really wanted to do is to just remind them about how special it is and then make sure that, you know, bringing a little bit of my strategy background, making sure if we make that promise, we can deliver on it. Making sure that when people have an experience of the Beta Birder, they have a great experience. So that's what we're really trying to strive to do.
00:24:14
Speaker 1: What's the main priority the experience of the entrance or the experience of the people who go to watch and perhaps join the party afterwards.
00:24:23
Speaker 2: You know, I think the people who stand on the side of the road and watch are really important for the people who are the entrants and the entrance are really important for the people who stand on the side of the road. No cars, no spectators, right, no spectators, no through Like when you get into a vehicle and you're walking, you're driving down the road and you're looking at some of the hotspots where the crowd is ten people deep. Coalta park, a shopping center, you know, the Gully Hotel, you know, gum a Racker, Gumaracker is a pack out right there, great crowds. And as you drive at Pacific Park in t Tree Gully when you go past those places and people are ten deep and they're waving and cheering. Gee, if you're a if you're an entrant, you're driving that car, you think that's pretty special.
00:25:16
Speaker 1: What cars are the most part one of the most popular cars. What are the cars that people are most interested in? Oh?
00:25:23
Speaker 2: Do you know, that's a really interesting question because I think it's multi layered. If like, I think it's really important that we have the really old cars and we let them go first. So on Sunday, on the Sunday of the Babe Birdwood, they usually leave like before everybody else.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: So what are we talking the oldest car? What's the oldest car? Oh?
00:25:50
Speaker 2: We we have a car from. We would generally have a car from every decade of the twentieth century, which means an nineteen oh something vehicle is usually entered. So we have nineteen o's, we have nineteen tens, we have nineteen twenties, thirties, forties, fifty sixties, right up to the nineteen nineties.
00:26:10
Speaker 1: Now, what's a ninety oh like a like a I suppose to steam.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Yet that we have had a steam car in But De Dion Bouton is a car that's regularly entered and I think that's nineteen oh four.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: You're kidding me.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no, this is And.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: Does it ever break down?
00:26:30
Speaker 2: I'm sure, I'm sure it does. But you know, particularly the veteran owners, they are very very very very good, and you know, they know how to manage their vehicles. And you know, we have a number of cars that are one hundred years. I have a guy around the corner from me. He will have a like a little French Amal car looks like a little silver racing car with a little boat tail that that car comes from nineteen twenty five. So he will be delighted this year because he will be driving one hundred year old car in the Beta Birdward and that's something I've done. I drove a Willy's Overland nineteen twenty three, Willies Overland in twenty twenty three, and it's something special to be driving in the Beta Birdward in a vehicle that's one hundred years old. And I think those early veterans, the ones from the O's and anything before the First World War, they come with sort of wooden coach work and they have brass land and fittings and things like that. Of course, when the First World War started, all of the brass got diverted to be used for shellcasings and so sort of the era of brass disappeared from our cars. But when you see them on the road today, like they are really really special. The other cars and vehicles that are important, I think are the one that have a connection to somebody's personal story. So you know, one year I was asked by the National Motor Museum to drive their little Ford Anglia, and I remember having my window down and people standing on the side of the road as I pulled up at the traffic lights, and I could hear them saying things like Arnie Mavis had one just like that, And I think that is exactly what makes this so special. It's not just about the the the glamorous car, and there's plenty of glamorous vehicles in this, but it's also about the ones that connect to people's stories because the vehicles are really special because of the connection to those stories.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: Do they have to drive them home?
00:28:52
Speaker 2: They have to get them there. Yeah, So you don't officially qualify as being in the Beta Birder unless you go from you know, do you do the whole distance? If you're in the concor you can't win unless you get there. But i'd sell you what if you're driving a you know, De Dion from nineteen oh four or you know that era, I completely understand if you put it in a box and take it, take it on a trailer back home.
00:29:18
Speaker 1: I understand that. Do you have a favorite?
00:29:21
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I had three cars entered in this year's event, and the delight for me was that my MGB, my nineteen seventy MGB, was being driven by my daughter, you know, and this is the first year that she has had the opportunity to drive one of my cars. But my three cars entered were my nineteen forty nine Bentley Mark six and my MGB and also nineteen seventy four Moke and I think Mini mo Yeah, yeah, yeah, although this one's not so many because this is a contemporary stretched Moke and so it's quite a unique car. So yeah, I think great, great fun vehicles and quite diverse.
00:30:08
Speaker 1: Bentley and the MGBY both highly desirable, but yeah, I can imagine why you'd love them. Michael Neil is my guest, folks, chair of the Essay History Trust. Back shortly, Michael Neil is my guest on conversations. Michaels just stood down as the chair of the Beta Birdwood Rally. He moves into the position of chair of the SSA History Trust. He's been on that trust for a few years now. But you're telling me something really interesting in the break, Michael, about Bentley. We imagine Bentley is to be a kin to a Rolls Royce, don't we. So this is how the straining connection to them.
00:30:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a really big South Australian connection actually, and often I say probably in terms of international car marks, no other mark owes its existence to Adelaide more than Bentley. How so, so wo Bentley the founder, his mother was actually born in Adelaide and she was the daughter of TG. Waterhouse, who made a lot of money at the Borough copper mines and was a great benefactor of Prince Alfred College and Perry Street Methodist Church and actually a very big contributor to the early settlement era. And I think TG's daughter married his business partner's son, who just happened to be a Bentley, and they went back to England and they had a few children. Wo Bentley was one of those children. And I think WA made some money inventing an alloy that they used in the Sopworth Camel, an aeroplane engine, but started racing cars, cars that he was a French car that he was modifying and old paraphrase, you know. I think he sort of said to one of his brothers, who was an accountant, you know, I reckon, I could win races if I could build my own car, and his brother's every age. We don't have enough money to start our own car company. And around about that time his mother died and left the all of the kids a big chunk of money from the TEG. Waterhouse fortune, and that was actually the money, as I understand it, that started the Bentley Car Company.
00:32:28
Speaker 1: I've worked out the association between Bentley and Rolls Royce.
00:32:32
Speaker 2: What is that?
00:32:33
Speaker 1: Can you explain it?
00:32:34
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, I think during the era when Bentley was w a Bentley was spending so much of his time trying to win races and was very very successful in Lemon In the very early years, I think they sort of ran out of money and Rolls Royce was doing very well. Rolls Royce bought Bentley and I think that that happened and they stay connected right up until, you know, a few years ago. It's probably a decade now when Rolls Royce and Bentley we was separated out and one went to Volkswagen and the other one went to is now owned by BMW.
00:33:16
Speaker 1: I thought the waterhouses were bookmakers, Yeah, different waterhouses. Obviously, we've got to talk about the essay History Trust. I'm start an organization I was really familiar with till I started to have on your role in and there's several different components of it. Can you give us an overview?
00:33:36
Speaker 2: Well, I think again, the History Trust is I think a very important institution, particularly in the current environment that we find ourselves in. One of the main things that it does is it helps to provide resources for history education. You know, I think if we really want to understand what it means to be in a progressive democracy, I think we have to look back and see some of the stuff that we did really really well, some of the important founding principles of our state, which.
00:34:13
Speaker 1: Are what I mean, Obviously there's the suffrage movement when we're you know, granting of the right to vote to women. But there must be others.
00:34:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, if you think the the founding of South Australia was really done with we're not we're not convicts, no, no, no, but but but I think it was done through a company and the and the and the and the and the The people who were selected were usually highly collaborative people who were seeking religious freedom, okay, and that that created a level of tolerance amongst those early settler settlers and and a level of necessary collaboration, and that sort of gave a a great civic sense of of tolerance and acceptance, you know. And I think you know, we were the we're the first we had the first mosque here in in in the inner city in Australia, and that was you know, before the turn of the century. And you know, I think that that's a great indicator of the religious freedom that was at the heart of South Australia and the collaborative and and that civic that commitment to civic inclusion that was at the heart of South Australia. And yes, I think we certainly got some things wrong as well, and you know, we need to learn from from the stuff that we got wrong and the stuff that we got right and that and history is a really important part of that.
00:35:55
Speaker 1: We're looking at the History Trust website. There's there's different components of it. Can you give us an overview of those components.
00:36:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, apart from our education programs we do we have like three and a half four key museums. We have the National Motor Museum, We have the South Australian Maritime Museum, We have the South Australian Migration Museum, and interestingly that is a really important museum because it was the first migration museum anywhere in the world and right here in South Australia. And we also have the Center of Democracy and that's something we do in collaboration with the State Library. We also have a couple of major events each year that we curate and run and one of those is the South Australian History Festival and the other is of course the BESA Birdwood.
00:36:55
Speaker 1: What happens with the History Festival.
00:36:58
Speaker 2: So the History Festivals a lightly curated public festival, so people can actually a bit like the Fringe or Sala, they can they can nominate their events to be part of the History Festival. So it's it runs in May and it's it is an absolutely fantastic event growing each year. It's a really major thing.
00:37:24
Speaker 1: Now we have to give an example of that what what what would I enter if I wanted to put a.
00:37:30
Speaker 2: So for the past few years we've had one of the pubs do the history of brewing. We've had the Down in the Down in the Southern Vales a black Powder Club doing you know what what would have what would it have been like to be a rifle volunteer in the you know in the eighteen hundreds, we've had people talking about you know, food through you know the ages, and and writers doing doing their book launchers. So all of these sort of events and of course some very important orations during that era. During that period, I think there are just a multitude of events that people decide. We want to get people in see what we do. This is a great opportunity to elevate that.
00:38:23
Speaker 1: So how important is history? How important is to are we living in the past if we continually refer to it?
00:38:31
Speaker 2: I think we need to continually look back to get a perspective of how we look forward.
00:38:39
Speaker 1: And how is your day to day business impacted by these roles that you're playing, not playing out of fulfilling?
00:38:47
Speaker 2: Well?
00:38:47
Speaker 1: To be how's business?
00:38:49
Speaker 2: Well? To be honest, you know, I've reached that stage in life where I want to work on the projects I want to work on, and if that just happens to be being chair of the History Trust, then that's fine. If it means I want to do some stuff with the Beta Birder, that's fine. You know there's an academia overseas that on a particular topic next year, I might just go off and do that too. So you know, I'm richly blessed with a fair bit of flexibility and freedom.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: What is your role in education? Your university role? Edician?
00:39:27
Speaker 2: Oh? Share, well to be I have been a visiting fellow of the Adelaide Business School, and I've done a little bit of independent research and publishing. But you know, I'm actually probably looking at this academia next year will actually be a history based one, because that's a sort of an area I need to brush up on.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: Michael, thanks so much for coming in. Well done with the Beta Birdwood. You leave it in very good hands and were looking forward out of what sort of exciting project you can come up with the Essay History Trust. Thank you so much for your time.
00:40:01
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
00:40:02
Speaker 1: Michael Neil, Chair of the Essay History Trust, was my guest. Folks, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Did. I'm welcome once again to conversations. My guest today is Michael Neil. Now, Michael just stood down as the chair of the Baya Birdwood Rally, that iconic South Australian event, and I obviously I want to talk about that. But Michael's had an amazing career in marketing. He's been sitting on the Essay History Trust for a few years and now we'll move on as chairman of the Essa History Trust. Got a great background in South Australia and certainly in the automobile industry. Pr and he joins us. Now, Michael Neil, how are you.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: I'm really well and thank you so much for having me.
00:00:37
Speaker 1: Did I cover you? Did I do you justice? There? I felt a bit so I didn't flesh it out enough.
00:00:43
Speaker 2: Well, well, I think maybe we can do that in the interview a little bit, because I think, yes, sometimes your history colors your future. It really influences what you do and how you look at things, and that was certainly the case in my life.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: You've just stood down as the chair of the Birdwood Rally. Did you do that with some sadness or some regret?
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Look, I think I've been chair for nine years and in any good governance, you know, they say three terms of three years is enough for anybody, and I think that's really accurate. And I think after three terms nine years, you need to be able to stand back and let somebody else come in with fresh ideas, with a different perspective, and otherwise it becomes too much about you and not about the event. And for something as important as the Beya Birdwood, a real icon of South Australia, something that's an event that's owned by the people of South Australia and held in trust for them by the History Trust of South Australia, I think it's just too important and so no, I'm really happy to relinquish with that role and hand it on to the next person.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: What is it about the Beta Birdwood Rally? I mean it's it's just captivating sometimes just to walk around at the start. It's captivating to and watch as they drive past. It's even more impressive when you get up to Birdwood at the end and you can sort of wander around at your leisure. But what is it about old cars?
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a very very firstly, very astute observation in that there are lots of ways to participate in the Beta bird Look. Last year we had one hundred and five thousand people lining the route. According to police estimates we would have had over five thousand people at the start and something like ten thousand people at the finish festival up at the National Mode Museum in Birdwood. So if you think about them and one thousand, five hundred vehicles with one two three four people in them, there's a lot of the city of Adelaide is involved one way or the other with the Bey to Birdwood every time it's run. Nowhere in the world is an event so integral to the life of the city than the Bait to Birdwood here in Adelaide.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk about the cars. I want to talk about the people who are them and drive them. But we might come back to that. So you're in your professional life, you really in pr marketing? Am I? Did I read that?
00:03:15
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:03:16
Speaker 1: That does that do you justice?
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Probably more marketing strategy. So you know, I went to University tod a business degree major in marketing and that was the kickoff to a career in marketing that has served me very well here in Australia and for six years in the United Kingdom. I've had all sorts of different roles in different industries, but always client side, always strategic, and that has afforded me the opportunity now to work with some amazing companies as a consultant in my own strategic consulting firm. And you know, that's that's been a it's been a really informative aspect of my life, but it's also really enjoyable as well.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: We'll come back to that were revisited, but I'm always intrigued in the early days and your dad own Paradise Motors which is now Mas franchise, but it wasn't it, So tell us about your early days, tell us about your time growing up and the family involvement in the motor trade.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, my father was an incredibly was an amazing human being actually, and he never really considered himself as being in the motor trade. He didn't didn't see himself as a as a car dealer or a person who was focused on cars. He was really he saw himself as being in the people business and using cars to help them make their life better.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Because it was a stigma surrounding the car trade for many many years he was he trying to insulate himself from that.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: I don't think my father was ever really concerned about his own personal image. I think he just was a jet He was genuinely interested in being a contributor to society and that was in his business life. He was involved with rotary, he was involved with the local church. So he was a very community focused person and it just happened that he did that while he was running a car dealership.
00:05:19
Speaker 1: It's very much Eastern Suburbs. Was he in Ido or did he have a country background?
00:05:25
Speaker 2: Look, I think he probably appeared as though he had a very respectable Eastern Suburbs upbringing. But he was born in a family that lived in Appleston, which was right on the edge of the city. It was pretty much country. He met my mum at the Cuddly Creek Dancers, right, So, you know, I think we are talking about what year, oh like they were what would it be, probably nineteen fifty, in the nineteen fifties, actually in the mid nineteen fifties, and you know, they know, they were very much a partners in life, in everything that they did, and you know, and I think you know, Dad started off as a you know from pretty humble backgrounds was a motor mechanic. The place that he's he started his apprenticeship closed down. He transferred to another garage in the Market Garden area of Adelaide, and I think he eventually bought that business borrowing money from his father and selling every possession that he had when it was pretty much a tin shed on the side of the road. But fortunately for him it was just up the road from the Paradise tram terminus, so the end of the of the Adelaide trams, and I think with it was one of those things if you go there now, it's still a sort of a circular road that sort of comes off to the site. You have a look at it on the map near the Paradise Hotel. But the cars used to like bits of iron and shoehorn's, horseshoe nails and things used to end up on the road and they used to puncture the tires of the cars driving out towards Alvelston, and you know, they would pull up with flat tires almost exactly opposite my father's garage at the time. And I think the very start of his business success was, you know, all the tires he had to fix.
00:07:36
Speaker 1: Was he a trained motor mechanic.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he did his apprenticeship and I think ran a very good little garage. But then one day I think took stuff out of his office and shoved a Volkswagen in his front office and actually became a Volkswagen dealer And that was the start of his journey into being a a car dealer.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: So was he a trader? Did he have a trader's instinct? Do you think?
00:08:06
Speaker 2: I think he developed very good business acumen. And you know, I think that was a combination of just being fairly smart, being a bit street smart, but also learning from all of his mistakes along the way. And that's also a great lesson in life.
00:08:21
Speaker 1: What about your mom? Did she was she from Cuddley Creek?
00:08:25
Speaker 2: Do you know they Mum's family started off in Semaphore And no, they ran They ran a very very good her father ran a very good butcher shop in Semaphore, sold out and moved up to Cuttley Creek and they bought the Cutty Creek kiosk. And you know, we've got we've got family records where visitors books have been signed by Tom Playford, bringing up international guests and all sorts of things. So they were people who did okay down here in Adelaide and moved up as a sort of a lifestyle I guess, you know, in the nineteen fifties, a lifestyle choice to take over the Cuddly Creek tea rooms, and I think that's where Mum and Dad met.
00:09:14
Speaker 1: So he becomes almost by Osmosis who a car dealer selling volkswagens. How quickly did it grow?
00:09:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it grew fairly quickly, because you know, I think when he started he was on the very very fringe of Adelaide. But over the nineteen seventies those market gardens were becoming housing blocks and young families were moving in and that created an opportunity.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: Michael Neil is my guest, Folks, just relin twisted his role as chairman of the Beta Birdwood Rally. He's been on the Essay History Trust and now moves into the role as chairman of that organization. Lots to talk about. Backshortly, Welcome back to conversations, everybody. If you just tuned in. I'm speaking to Michael Neil, who's the chair of the Essay History Trust, and I've just been admonished during the break because I was saying chairman. But we've got to be gender neutral, apparently, Michaels it's a bit complicated for us dinosaurs.
00:10:17
Speaker 2: Look, I'm really comfortable being called chair you know, it's not a it's not a problem for me. I'm really happy and I take after I come into the role of chair of the History Trust of South Australia directly following the magnificent work of Elizabeth Hoe. So you know, I think it's really important for us to fair enough.
00:10:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand apologize. So your dad starts Paradise Motors just by wheeling a Volkswagen into the garage and sells it. How quickly did that grow? And what's your what's your.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: Involvement, what's your You know very little really, you know. The truth is he became a Volkswagen dealer, and then I think he had Laland for a while as well as Volkswagen, and then I think he had Audi was part of the the Volkswagen group at that time. And then I think he got rid of Leyland to take on Subaru when Subaru was being distributed by Volkswagen. And then I think he relinquished Subaru, and I think Volkswagen still selling Volkswagen Commercial originally to take on Masda and I've probably got that right. My brother can ring in and tell me what we've got wrong. But ultimately ultimately became a very focused Mazda dealer in a very successful one and.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: The dealership operates as a Matha dealership at the moment.
00:11:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so my brother runs that business now, so you know, and Dad passed away a few years ago.
00:11:56
Speaker 1: Did he have a chance to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labor?
00:12:00
Speaker 2: You know, my dad would have never retired. And even when he was so, my mum had some illness, and even when Dad was looking after mum, he would call my brother or call somebody up and say, now, how is sales today? He was very interested in the in the business and what was going on, pretty much to the day he died.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: It's such a different business now, not my Davy's. And the technology of cars. I don't know how the dealer's keep keep track of it, keep on top of it. So what so you you obviously moved. You didn't have an ambition to be in the motor trade, what so? What was what was your ambition? No?
00:12:35
Speaker 2: So I went off, and you know, I went to university and I had a career in corporate marketing. I was I fell in love with strategy actually at university in my in my undergraduate degree, and I really wanted to take on roles that were strategic focus. I didn't want to end up in an advertising agency or in the media or in PR. I really wanted to focus on staying client side and staying in strategy. And I worked in a number of different industries here in Australia and in the UK, and ultimately, I think that gave me the opportunity to, you know, when Dad needed some help, I came in and I helped sort out some things for him, you know, working with with my with him and my brother. But that was only a very very very brief little interlude or two and I think but the majority of my time I spent working for other organizations and that led him to a very successful consultancy career and again very much focused on marketing strategy. So but it has also afforded me the opportunity to pursue some other things. I've maintained a little bit of an academic profile, but I've also been able to do things like work as a trustee of the History Trust and also take on the chair of the Beta Birdwood.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: Know it's not pr it's not advertising, the touch of marketing. How does that look? If you give me an example of a you're coming into a they've come into a company, and I don't know what sort of confidentiality you have to disclose, but give us an example of how because it sounds a bit that's the word.
00:14:14
Speaker 2: So let me explain if I may. Look, I have clients who who come to me and, like I guess, probably my two sweet spots are small businesses that are becoming big businesses. And a small business really understanding the customer and what the customer really really values. Like the founder of that business knows it in their in their heart, knows it in their stomach, right they know it. And if they're a small business, the people around them they also know by almost by osmosis, by being in the in the close presence of the founder. But when that that organization grows, and it might you know, one of my clients now has offices in three continents, so you know, and you know they've moved on, they've become a bigger organization, and you know, my time with them has finished because you know, I've made a contribution to where they were going. But you know, getting them from being a small business to being a big business, really helping them to understand what was their essence was a key part of that and how to communicate that externally and internally. You know, I had another business here in South Australia that is still in that process of growing very very quickly from a small business now into a significant business in the food industry, and I think they'd reached a point where they couldn't grow beyond a certain plateau, and it really took them time to think about exactly what their customer offering was so that they could focus on what delivered value rather than all of the other stuff that doesn't deliver value to their customers and really position themselves. And since we've done that, they've been growing really, really, really strongly.
00:16:17
Speaker 1: I think most people start a small business because you know, they have a passion for it perhaps or they're good at the good at they have a certain skill. But others just do it to make money. Yeah, how do you do you have trouble separating that the need to make a profit and to be successful and rich to the passion that you might have passions good, but if it doesn't pay the bills, how do you separate that?
00:16:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Well combine it.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: It's a really interest question, and it's combined, not separate. But I think one of the things I do a little bit of public speaking, and one of the things we talk about I talk about is customer first focus, right, And that doesn't mean you focus on the customer at the exclusion of profitability, because a lot of really really good companies go break not looking at cash flow, not making enough money to stay viable. You can't help your clients if you're out of business, right, So that's still important. But if you look at it at the end of the day, and there's been a little bit of academic research about this in Scandinavia, if you focus on delivering real value to your clients, you will make money, right. Okay, So if you focus on a short term profitability, you might end up depleting or diminishing the equity in your brand. But if you focus on delivering value to your customers and really focus on that, then your ability to deliver profitability increases significantly.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: So your head off overseas. Tell us about that process, the decision to do that, and where do you go and how do you how do you settle into a place like London or wherever you land.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: Well, my wife was doing medical research in Oxford, and so she got this fantastic opportunity to go to Oxford. We both had good careers here, so we sort of just introduced.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: You just introduced your wife. Yes, so we have to how did you meet her? What did she.
00:18:22
Speaker 2: It's sort of like sort of like my father. My wife is my life partner in all things and has been my closest and dearest friend. And you know, she is very, very bright, has you know, worked in medical research. You know, I met her playing basketball one day, believe it or not.
00:18:48
Speaker 1: And where did you meet someone playing you playing against her or that she was watching?
00:18:53
Speaker 2: No, she was playing this in the same club. And I was in a sort of a social mixed basketball team and we needed some female players, and I sort of asked her to come in and fill in for us, and and you know, one thing led to another, and I thought she's really nice.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: You know, did you start with the ulterior motive?
00:19:20
Speaker 2: No? No, actually no, actually I didn't. But you know, I think just sometimes when you when you spend some time with somebody, you just realize how wonderful they are, you know.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: Anyway, so you end up in London. She's doing research.
00:19:34
Speaker 2: Yes, so we were living in Oxford and I didn't have a job, so I sent her. And this is back in the days when you didn't send emails, you send faxes. And so I sent all these faxes to these people in England and one guy said, oh, you know when you're in when you're in the UK, come and see me and I'll give you a job. And no, he said he'd give me an interview. And I went and saw him, and to his word, he gave me an interview, and I got a job. What was a job I was turning? I was helping. I was first a consultant to this organization, but I ended up being their director of marketing and I helped turn around about a five hundred person technology consulting organization called the Electrical Research Association or RA Technology, And that was a really informative period in my life.
00:20:28
Speaker 1: Michael Neil is my guest Folks Chair of the Essa History Trust, recently retired or stepped down a chair of the Beta Birdwood Rally. We'll talk about all that sort of stuff when we get back, because most of us love old cars, don't. We actually welcome back to conversations everybody. If you just tuned in. Michael Neil is my guest, folks. He's just stood down as chair of the Beta Birdwood Rally, will be chair of the Essay History Trust. Runs his own consultancy company and has had great six yes of that both overseas and here you're standing down. You've just you stood down after the recent Better Birdwood Rally. So give us your memories of you know, your time in that tenure.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: So I was actually appointed chair of the Beater Birdwood in two thousand and sixteen, and I've on a number of occasions said, you know, when that happened, I sort of felt like I'd died and gone to heaven because this is an event that I can remember. And I think I was meant to be at church that day, but somebody snuck me out and said let's go and stand on the side and watch this this thing that's happening in nineteen eighty as a schoolboy, and I was standing on the side of the road for the first beater Birdwood and I think at that time, you know, if you'd told me that I was going to be a chair, I wouldn't have believed. But probably that moment was when I thought, gee, I really want to participate in that one day. And I've sort of been a follower of the event.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: How did you get involved?
00:22:15
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that was a series of fortuitous cups of coffees with people to talk about some aspects of the National Motor Museum. And before they before I knew it, I had a phone call from one of the one of the guys that I was speaking with, and he said, look, we'd really like you. Our chair has had to go to Melbourne for family reasons and we need a new chair and we'd really like you to take the job on. And you know, it was completely out of the blue and say no. I think when when when somebody offers you an opportunity to like that, you don't ask too many questions. You just do the due diligence that you need to do and then you say yes, what.
00:23:02
Speaker 1: Was your main priority when you stepped into that role?
00:23:06
Speaker 2: Look, I think for me, I think the Beta Bird would When it started off, everyone thought it was an amazing event and everyone was behind it, and I think in the period, I think it sort of lost a little bit of luster through the years, not as a result of anybody making a mistake or doing the wrong thing. It was just the circumstances needed sort of a renewal, I think. And at the end of the day, it was and still is one of the world's great historic motoring events, and it's a treasure for us, the people of South Australia, and I think people had just forgotten that, and so what I really wanted to do is to just remind them about how special it is and then make sure that, you know, bringing a little bit of my strategy background, making sure if we make that promise, we can deliver on it. Making sure that when people have an experience of the Beta Birder, they have a great experience. So that's what we're really trying to strive to do.
00:24:14
Speaker 1: What's the main priority the experience of the entrance or the experience of the people who go to watch and perhaps join the party afterwards.
00:24:23
Speaker 2: You know, I think the people who stand on the side of the road and watch are really important for the people who are the entrants and the entrance are really important for the people who stand on the side of the road. No cars, no spectators, right, no spectators, no through Like when you get into a vehicle and you're walking, you're driving down the road and you're looking at some of the hotspots where the crowd is ten people deep. Coalta park, a shopping center, you know, the Gully Hotel, you know, gum a Racker, Gumaracker is a pack out right there, great crowds. And as you drive at Pacific Park in t Tree Gully when you go past those places and people are ten deep and they're waving and cheering. Gee, if you're a if you're an entrant, you're driving that car, you think that's pretty special.
00:25:16
Speaker 1: What cars are the most part one of the most popular cars. What are the cars that people are most interested in? Oh?
00:25:23
Speaker 2: Do you know, that's a really interesting question because I think it's multi layered. If like, I think it's really important that we have the really old cars and we let them go first. So on Sunday, on the Sunday of the Babe Birdwood, they usually leave like before everybody else.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: So what are we talking the oldest car? What's the oldest car? Oh?
00:25:50
Speaker 2: We we have a car from. We would generally have a car from every decade of the twentieth century, which means an nineteen oh something vehicle is usually entered. So we have nineteen o's, we have nineteen tens, we have nineteen twenties, thirties, forties, fifty sixties, right up to the nineteen nineties.
00:26:10
Speaker 1: Now, what's a ninety oh like a like a I suppose to steam.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Yet that we have had a steam car in But De Dion Bouton is a car that's regularly entered and I think that's nineteen oh four.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: You're kidding me.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no, this is And.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: Does it ever break down?
00:26:30
Speaker 2: I'm sure, I'm sure it does. But you know, particularly the veteran owners, they are very very very very good, and you know, they know how to manage their vehicles. And you know, we have a number of cars that are one hundred years. I have a guy around the corner from me. He will have a like a little French Amal car looks like a little silver racing car with a little boat tail that that car comes from nineteen twenty five. So he will be delighted this year because he will be driving one hundred year old car in the Beta Birdward and that's something I've done. I drove a Willy's Overland nineteen twenty three, Willies Overland in twenty twenty three, and it's something special to be driving in the Beta Birdward in a vehicle that's one hundred years old. And I think those early veterans, the ones from the O's and anything before the First World War, they come with sort of wooden coach work and they have brass land and fittings and things like that. Of course, when the First World War started, all of the brass got diverted to be used for shellcasings and so sort of the era of brass disappeared from our cars. But when you see them on the road today, like they are really really special. The other cars and vehicles that are important, I think are the one that have a connection to somebody's personal story. So you know, one year I was asked by the National Motor Museum to drive their little Ford Anglia, and I remember having my window down and people standing on the side of the road as I pulled up at the traffic lights, and I could hear them saying things like Arnie Mavis had one just like that, And I think that is exactly what makes this so special. It's not just about the the the glamorous car, and there's plenty of glamorous vehicles in this, but it's also about the ones that connect to people's stories because the vehicles are really special because of the connection to those stories.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: Do they have to drive them home?
00:28:52
Speaker 2: They have to get them there. Yeah, So you don't officially qualify as being in the Beta Birder unless you go from you know, do you do the whole distance? If you're in the concor you can't win unless you get there. But i'd sell you what if you're driving a you know, De Dion from nineteen oh four or you know that era, I completely understand if you put it in a box and take it, take it on a trailer back home.
00:29:18
Speaker 1: I understand that. Do you have a favorite?
00:29:21
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I had three cars entered in this year's event, and the delight for me was that my MGB, my nineteen seventy MGB, was being driven by my daughter, you know, and this is the first year that she has had the opportunity to drive one of my cars. But my three cars entered were my nineteen forty nine Bentley Mark six and my MGB and also nineteen seventy four Moke and I think Mini mo Yeah, yeah, yeah, although this one's not so many because this is a contemporary stretched Moke and so it's quite a unique car. So yeah, I think great, great fun vehicles and quite diverse.
00:30:08
Speaker 1: Bentley and the MGBY both highly desirable, but yeah, I can imagine why you'd love them. Michael Neil is my guest, folks, chair of the Essay History Trust. Back shortly, Michael Neil is my guest on conversations. Michaels just stood down as the chair of the Beta Birdwood Rally. He moves into the position of chair of the SSA History Trust. He's been on that trust for a few years now. But you're telling me something really interesting in the break, Michael, about Bentley. We imagine Bentley is to be a kin to a Rolls Royce, don't we. So this is how the straining connection to them.
00:30:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a really big South Australian connection actually, and often I say probably in terms of international car marks, no other mark owes its existence to Adelaide more than Bentley. How so, so wo Bentley the founder, his mother was actually born in Adelaide and she was the daughter of TG. Waterhouse, who made a lot of money at the Borough copper mines and was a great benefactor of Prince Alfred College and Perry Street Methodist Church and actually a very big contributor to the early settlement era. And I think TG's daughter married his business partner's son, who just happened to be a Bentley, and they went back to England and they had a few children. Wo Bentley was one of those children. And I think WA made some money inventing an alloy that they used in the Sopworth Camel, an aeroplane engine, but started racing cars, cars that he was a French car that he was modifying and old paraphrase, you know. I think he sort of said to one of his brothers, who was an accountant, you know, I reckon, I could win races if I could build my own car, and his brother's every age. We don't have enough money to start our own car company. And around about that time his mother died and left the all of the kids a big chunk of money from the TEG. Waterhouse fortune, and that was actually the money, as I understand it, that started the Bentley Car Company.
00:32:28
Speaker 1: I've worked out the association between Bentley and Rolls Royce.
00:32:32
Speaker 2: What is that?
00:32:33
Speaker 1: Can you explain it?
00:32:34
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, I think during the era when Bentley was w a Bentley was spending so much of his time trying to win races and was very very successful in Lemon In the very early years, I think they sort of ran out of money and Rolls Royce was doing very well. Rolls Royce bought Bentley and I think that that happened and they stay connected right up until, you know, a few years ago. It's probably a decade now when Rolls Royce and Bentley we was separated out and one went to Volkswagen and the other one went to is now owned by BMW.
00:33:16
Speaker 1: I thought the waterhouses were bookmakers, Yeah, different waterhouses. Obviously, we've got to talk about the essay History Trust. I'm start an organization I was really familiar with till I started to have on your role in and there's several different components of it. Can you give us an overview?
00:33:36
Speaker 2: Well, I think again, the History Trust is I think a very important institution, particularly in the current environment that we find ourselves in. One of the main things that it does is it helps to provide resources for history education. You know, I think if we really want to understand what it means to be in a progressive democracy, I think we have to look back and see some of the stuff that we did really really well, some of the important founding principles of our state, which.
00:34:13
Speaker 1: Are what I mean, Obviously there's the suffrage movement when we're you know, granting of the right to vote to women. But there must be others.
00:34:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, if you think the the founding of South Australia was really done with we're not we're not convicts, no, no, no, but but but I think it was done through a company and the and the and the and the and the The people who were selected were usually highly collaborative people who were seeking religious freedom, okay, and that that created a level of tolerance amongst those early settler settlers and and a level of necessary collaboration, and that sort of gave a a great civic sense of of tolerance and acceptance, you know. And I think you know, we were the we're the first we had the first mosque here in in in the inner city in Australia, and that was you know, before the turn of the century. And you know, I think that that's a great indicator of the religious freedom that was at the heart of South Australia and the collaborative and and that civic that commitment to civic inclusion that was at the heart of South Australia. And yes, I think we certainly got some things wrong as well, and you know, we need to learn from from the stuff that we got wrong and the stuff that we got right and that and history is a really important part of that.
00:35:55
Speaker 1: We're looking at the History Trust website. There's there's different components of it. Can you give us an overview of those components.
00:36:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, apart from our education programs we do we have like three and a half four key museums. We have the National Motor Museum, We have the South Australian Maritime Museum, We have the South Australian Migration Museum, and interestingly that is a really important museum because it was the first migration museum anywhere in the world and right here in South Australia. And we also have the Center of Democracy and that's something we do in collaboration with the State Library. We also have a couple of major events each year that we curate and run and one of those is the South Australian History Festival and the other is of course the BESA Birdwood.
00:36:55
Speaker 1: What happens with the History Festival.
00:36:58
Speaker 2: So the History Festivals a lightly curated public festival, so people can actually a bit like the Fringe or Sala, they can they can nominate their events to be part of the History Festival. So it's it runs in May and it's it is an absolutely fantastic event growing each year. It's a really major thing.
00:37:24
Speaker 1: Now we have to give an example of that what what what would I enter if I wanted to put a.
00:37:30
Speaker 2: So for the past few years we've had one of the pubs do the history of brewing. We've had the Down in the Down in the Southern Vales a black Powder Club doing you know what what would have what would it have been like to be a rifle volunteer in the you know in the eighteen hundreds, we've had people talking about you know, food through you know the ages, and and writers doing doing their book launchers. So all of these sort of events and of course some very important orations during that era. During that period, I think there are just a multitude of events that people decide. We want to get people in see what we do. This is a great opportunity to elevate that.
00:38:23
Speaker 1: So how important is history? How important is to are we living in the past if we continually refer to it?
00:38:31
Speaker 2: I think we need to continually look back to get a perspective of how we look forward.
00:38:39
Speaker 1: And how is your day to day business impacted by these roles that you're playing, not playing out of fulfilling?
00:38:47
Speaker 2: Well?
00:38:47
Speaker 1: To be how's business?
00:38:49
Speaker 2: Well? To be honest, you know, I've reached that stage in life where I want to work on the projects I want to work on, and if that just happens to be being chair of the History Trust, then that's fine. If it means I want to do some stuff with the Beta Birder, that's fine. You know there's an academia overseas that on a particular topic next year, I might just go off and do that too. So you know, I'm richly blessed with a fair bit of flexibility and freedom.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: What is your role in education? Your university role? Edician?
00:39:27
Speaker 2: Oh? Share, well to be I have been a visiting fellow of the Adelaide Business School, and I've done a little bit of independent research and publishing. But you know, I'm actually probably looking at this academia next year will actually be a history based one, because that's a sort of an area I need to brush up on.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: Michael, thanks so much for coming in. Well done with the Beta Birdwood. You leave it in very good hands and were looking forward out of what sort of exciting project you can come up with the Essay History Trust. Thank you so much for your time.
00:40:01
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
00:40:02
Speaker 1: Michael Neil, Chair of the Essay History Trust, was my guest. Folks, thank you for joining us.
