Dear Prime Minister
eBook - ePub

Dear Prime Minister

Letters to Robert Menzies, 1949–1966

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Dear Prime Minister

Letters to Robert Menzies, 1949–1966

About this book

'I am sir [sure] you will act as human bean,' wrote one distressed pensioner to Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1953, pleading for assistance. Robert Menzies received 22,000 letters during his record-breaking 1949-1966 second term as Australian Prime Minister. From war veterans, widows, and political leaders to school students and homespun philosophers. Ordinary citizens sent their congratulations and grievances and commented on speeches they had heard on radio. They lectured him, quoted Shakespeare and the Bible at him, and sent advice on how to eliminate the rabbit problem. In Dear Prime Minister, Menzies' fabled 'Forgotten People' write back. Revealed here for the first time, the letters respond to the royal visit of 1954, Communism, Australia's British connection, and the dire poverty of aged pensioners. For many writers, these were not post-war boom years, but a time of anxiety and conflict, punctuated by fears of war, another Great Depression, or a nuclear Armageddon. Dear Prime Minister is a fascinating insight into the concerns, assumptions, and political beliefs of 1950s and 1960s Australians.

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Yes, you can access Dear Prime Minister by Martyn Lyons in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Australian & Oceanian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Halftitle Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. 1 ‘I want so much to let you know how we ordinary folk feel’: Menzies’ Forgotten People
  8. 2 ‘Dear Mr Ming’: The profile of the ordinary writer
  9. 3 ‘You are the only saviour of the country’: Fan mail and congratulations
  10. 4 ‘If you want anything done, go to the top’: The personal hotline
  11. 5 ‘Please don’t think I’m a crackpot’: The rhetoric of apology
  12. 6 ‘I am sir [sure] you will act as human bean’: The cry of the distressed pensioner
  13. 7 ‘Much as I love our little Queen, I think she needs a spanking’: Britain and the Empire
  14. 8 ‘A Commonwealth Citizen in every woodpile’: Immigration and the White Australia Policy
  15. 9 ‘Mr Khrushchev is planning something big’: The changing face of anti-communism
  16. 10 ‘People will weep tears of blood’: Angry letters and political protest
  17. 11 ‘The Kingdom of God is nigh’: Paranoid letters
  18. 12 Structures of belief
  19. Notes
  20. Bibliography
  21. Index