1801, enjoying only four years of complete autonomy after the Russian Revolution in 1917, before it was occupied in 1921 and absorbed into the Soviet Union. Tony’s parents struggled to extract a living from the small parcel of land they farmed and escaped in the early 1920s, migrating to Australia, hoping to rise above the dull, excruciating battle that had been their existence in the past, but leaving the remainder of their family behind.
In Australia they had two children – a daughter, and after a five year interval, Tony. He was essentially an only child as his sister died from congenital heart problems before he was born. His parents adapted their name to their new home, hoping in time to merge with the local community and altered their name from Dumbadze to Duncan. Tony was eternally grateful for this adjustment as he imagined what the other schoolkids would have done with the original name – starting with labelling him “Dumbo” and who knew what else. His parents told him that in Georgia he would have been Tamar Dumbadze, but they realised that Tony Duncan was a more sensible title for this new environment.
Andrew learnt how Tony’s parents encouraged him to study, wanting him to enter the professions and enjoy a life different to their own life, which although financially more rewarding than their farming in Georgia, demanded they perform long hours of factory work. They were proud that he won a place at university where he studied towards a law degree. In the days before Commonwealth Scholarships, almost all students had to pay full fees for tuition; Tony knew that his parents could not afford to pay for his education and throughout the four years of his course he worked as a part-time labourer for builders and brickies.
After graduating, he gained professional experience in a number of city and suburban legal practices before purchasing a rundown practice in Broadmeadows, an area on the verge of rapid growth that he hoped would generate a steady flow of conveyance work, to underpin his earnings. The firm carried the solidly Anglo-Celtic name of O’Hearn, Billings & Ramsay, and although none of the original partners was still associated with the office, Tony had kept the name because he felt it had a solid British sound to it, which bestowed an element of prestige on the firm.
Tony had acquired the practice for a token sum of money, purchasing what was euphemistically referred to as “goodwill”. The modest practice kept Tony and his family in a comfortable, middleclass lifestyle in Camberwell, where the children attended nearby public primary and high schools.
By the time Karen had completed her six years in public primary school, Tony had identified her as his hope for the future and enrolled her in the highly thought of Methodist Ladies College in Hawthorn, for her secondary school years. That decision generated long-lasting tensions in the family, as none of Karen’s three older siblings had been offered such an opportunity; thereafter they resented Karen for having opportunities denied to them, and felt some bitterness toward their father.
Karen described to Andrew in more recent times that she had remained fond of her father and responded positively to his belief in her. She performed well academically without achieving great heights and subsequently went to Melbourne University where she studied for a law degree. Again, she performed above the average but not at the top of her class, so leading law firms did not seek her out or try to entice her for her year of Articles.
Tony had been keen for her to join him in his practice, but she decided wisely that she should go to another office for at least one year and it surprised Tony that she was prepared to act against his wishes, but he suppressed his irritation, knowing there was little he could do to persuade her.
Karen did not have unrealistic expectations of her year of Articles but nevertheless found that she hated the work she was called on to do, as it was mainly hackwork of filing and communicating messages, with minimal tuition offered to her. Initially, she found herself working 65 to 70 hours a week with little prospect of promotion in the foreseeable future, and resented making what she saw as indecent amounts of money for the senior partners of the city law firm employing her.
After three years of experience, Karen felt ready to join her father in his law practice in Broadmeadows, where he was a sole practitioner employing two part-time secretaries and one paralegal. Karen described how she commenced work in her father's law firm in early 1970.
On her second day, having been given her own key, she arrived early before the others and examined the office closely without her father present. The practice was housed on the first floor, with three rooms above a busy coffee shop in the main shopping strip. The second floor, above the Law office, housed many tenants over the years, but for the past twelve months had been occupied by an import–export business, though no one seemed to know just what they were importing or exporting. As she mounted the stairs, Karen gazed sadly at the mild decay and disorganisation of the space that represented her father’s Law offices. A musty smell pervaded the stairway and wafted through the nearby rooms, where the windows were stained with bird droppings. The windowsills were caked with dust and rain spots, initially drawing attention away from the flaking paintwork on the ceilings and walls. With some mounting concern, she wondered if her father was gradually decaying like the building around him. She decided to arrange for the windows to be cleaned as soon as possible, and started preparing a mental checklist of things to be done. To this list she added magazines for the waiting room, as none of the tattered magazines there was less than two years old.
She wondered how her father could generate enthusiasm for his work in these surroundings and then asked herself why her father had tolerated these surroundings for so long. She chose not to ask him the very same question, knowing the pain it was likely to cause him.
When Tony commenced practice in Broadmeadows he needed only three rooms – an office for himself, a small conference room and a waiting area for his clients. Later, a space for the secretary had been partitioned off from his room and Karen’s new office was carved from the waiting area. Apart from her father and herself, the practice had two part time secretaries and a paralegal, the latter doing a lot of her work from home. If the paralegal came in to work in the office, she was placed in the conference room. The contrast staggered Karen, as she felt Tony was always neat and tidy at home and meticulous about his appearance and surroundings.
Karen had arrived at 8.30 a.m., expecting to be joined by her father and then his secretary close to 9.30 a.m. when the office opened for business.
Before her father arrived, Karen had looked around his office. It was a small room which looked out onto a dingy alleyway. There was little furniture, not that there would have been room for more. He had a small, insignificant desk with two paper filing trays on it. There were no decorations or flowers and she noted the absence of family photographs of his wife and children. His degrees hung on the wall behind his chair and were mounted behind glass which appeared dirty and discoloured, and the printed paper of the degree certificates was markedly yellow. She supposed it was due to ageing, but could not recall ever seeing other people’s degrees turning yellow like this as her own degree was now hanging on the wall also, its freshness in stark contrast to that of her father’s. The only other item in the room was a small wall clock, which was surprisingly functional in spite of the glass covering it being cracked. It was strategically placed so her father could see it from where he sat, as the fee structure was time based.
She wondered how people in Broadmeadows could afford legal fees, but decided it depended on how desperate they felt. A lot of her father's legal work involved conveyance, wills and minor criminal charges heard in the local magistrate's court. Her father had done well in his legal studies, but this had not translated into the markedly successful career that he always felt he deserved.
In recent times his income had been eroded as cheaper methods of conveyance became available to clients. Karen felt that respect for lawyers was diminishing, which probably troubled her father, and she believed that the media was a significant contributor to this state of affairs.
Karen confided to Andrew how she wondered whether she really knew her father, as this decay
