Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

Chapter Four 1981-1993 By the early 1980s Charlesworth had reached a stage where he didn’t want to continue in general practice: ‘The alternatives were further specialisation in medicine or a change of direction.’ It was then that ‘the political option became more interesting to me and a “live” possibility.’ A number of factors had been pushing him towards seeking pre-selection as a Labor candidate: his early contacts with Bob McMullan at the West Perth cricket club; hostility to the VietnamWar; fury at the sacking of Gough Whitlam; and anger and frustration at missing the Moscow Olympics because of Malcolm Fraser’s pro-United States policies. But although he was turning his back on medicine, his experiences as a locum in general practice had also been an important influence. For some three years he broadened his life experience, far beyond the boundaries of cricket and hockey, or of Perth’s comfortable western suburbs where his sporting career had flourished. Working nights, I would visit a dozen different houses every shift. In a unique way I saw how people lived and shared their anxiety about sick or injured loved ones. Often after the consultation I would sit in the kitchen or living room to discuss treatment, medications and maybe have a cup of tea. Entering ‘thousands of homes in suburbs all over Perth’, he became aware of ‘very stark’ contrasts between rich and poor, ‘far more so than the impressions I gained when door-knocking as a candidate or politician.’ Especially revealing of society’s inequalities was the contrast between two teenagers studying for university entrance: one on the kitchen table of a small Housing Commission flat in the eastern suburb of Lockridge, surrounded by family members eating, drinking and watching television; the other in a ‘sizeable bedroom with a desk and bookcases full of books’ in Cottesloe, the western beachside suburb close to his own home. Aware of his privileged education at the private Christ Church Grammar School, he lamented the way state schools in some areas were under-resourced and short of experienced 52