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I interviewed my Grandparents, Mary and Russell Dunstan via phone call as they live in NSW. Both
are Catholic and were sent to Catholic boarding schools for their education which has resulted in their
values and attitudes today.
Russell Dunstan
Born 1933 my grandpa lived through the Great Depression and WW2, in which his father fought. He
worked and managed farms from his 20’s to 70’s until retiring and moving to Ulladulla on the coast of
NSW where he has spent 20 years volunteering at the local Vinnies.
Mary Dunstan
Born in 1936 my nanny was just a little girl throughout the WW2. She became a nurse once out of high
school until she had babies and became a house wife, though once all her kids where finally in boarding
school she went back to nursing at the local hospital.
Interview Summary
This interview really surprised me as most of my assumptions on the answers they were going to give
turned out wrong, I thought that there very religious upbringing and life would take charge but their
answers were mostly unclouded and what I thought, quite progressive for their age(90 and 87).
How have norms and values changed since they were my age?
I wasn’t really expecting how my Pa responded, bringing up relationships, saying that they have
changed “very much really as we two had a lot more of a strict moral attitude to life” and brought up
that as a result of this loosening of morals, relationships these days doesn’t have any commitment and
people wouldn’t get together until they were married and “had made a real commitment to each other”
as opposed to what he has found from his work at Vinnie’s that “young ones will get together, then
break up, and quite often the poor girl’s left with a child or couple of children”. He says that because
of that there is quite a high number of single mothers left in society today compared to when him and
my grandmother were married and it’s a major thing causing a lot of poverty now.
Has society changed for the better or worse?
They both agreed society has changed for the better which surprised me as from my point of view I
would say its gone backwards but they argued that education was a lot better as many kids would
leave school after grade six because they had to work and support their family during the war and this
made a big impact on their lives as it stopped them from getting on in life if they didn’t get a proper
education. My pa actually shared that he “remembers going to school friends houses and they had dirt
floors, there was a lot more poverty in those days”. They both agree society is much more affluent
today leading to all kinds of benefits.

Do you think technology has changed what people value and how they value things?
My previous thought was that all old people thought technology is damaging and ruining the world but my
grandparents said that it has had an incredible effect but there are extremes of good and bad.

Because I was curious I also asked about their stance on LGBTQ+ as I know that in the past they haven’t
been as forward thinking about this particular topic and while my pa “thinks that there are certain values
you have to maintain, and that its going backward” my grandma says that she “goes with the flow” and
“morally it doesn’t fit in with our code, but we don’t think their bad cause they kick with the other foot”
and I am quite impressed with her answer because while still wrong, for them and her it would be
completely different from what she would of said ten, even five years ago.