Better be merry with the fruitful Grape Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, stanza 39 From the days of the International Workers of the World onwards, Communists in Australia were relatively well organised, trade union based, most of them, and thus, well, yes, a clique. They were also very careful. When I was working on the Waterside Workers Federation archives in Canberra, I had to crack two substitution codes to read some of the documents – mostly lists of names and contributors to strike funds. The codes weren’t difficult. I suspect they were just meant to discourage the idle passer by, although I wouldn’t have had the nerve to read those documents over Big Jim Healey’s shoulder. When I was interviewing the old wharfies for my legal history thesis on the 1928 waterfront strike – the research that gave me Phryne Fisher – they used to call me comrade. I was honoured. It was the first non-gender specific title I had ever had, apart from ‘mate’, and only my father called me ‘mate’.
