LUMEN Summer 2019 - Flipbook - Page 31
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AND BOTTOM LEFT
Imogen Hindson
LEFT
Nonee Walsh
BELOW
On Dit cover, vol 47, no 21
So along with the campus women’s group and
volunteers, we did a spoof of The Women’s Weekly,
as it was then, with both funny and serious
articles about women’s issues and perspectives,
complete with a back cover of collected graffiti
from the University of Adelaide’s women’s toilets.
I was so pleased to see men reading it in the UniBar
and to have the argument with one medical
student who came into the office at the bottom end
of The Cloisters to tell me it was irresponsible
to put women off using IUDs by humorously
overstating the dangers. (I note that some of those
contraceptive devices were withdrawn years later
because of their side-effects.)
On Dit was hard work, including late nights writing
at home and on weekends (checked on by the
kind University security guards) as I was a sole
editor. I mostly worked 9-5, constrained by the
hours for my daughter at the new University
childcare centre.
I had a great team of friends in the Students'
Association and other volunteers who laid out the
editions by cutting and pasting – with real paper
and scissors. Then they created bromides in the
darkroom near the Students' Association office, at
the opposite end of The Cloisters, ready to
send to the Murray Bridge printer.
Life revolved around The Cloisters, the Union
Building and the Barr-Smith Lawns. It was
a heady year of discussions and writing on
contraception and abortion, human rights across
the world, and of course education policy. Twice
we were in Melbourne for the AUS National
Council to stave off moves, led by then-students
Tony Abbott and Peter Costello, to close down
the union.
The late 70s and early 80s were a time of reform.
Protests a decade before led to new laws, and
student politicians argued about legislation
and implementation. It was a time when a few
media outlets were just starting to report issues
which had long been the province of student
newspapers. That alternative role is one that a
student newspaper should continue to fill.
I guess I always wanted to be in journalism,
and the University of Adelaide got me there,
perhaps inadvertently. I left well prepared to
work in media with a BA in anthropology and
an incomplete honours thesis which became a
series on student radio. The rest is history.
ALUMNI MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2019
29
