Salmon, Lorraine (1910 - 1970)

Lorraine Salmon was a successful businesswoman who worked in public relations and advertising after establishing a career as a script writer for the Australian Broadcasting Commission during the second world war. A longtime member of the Communist Party of Australia, she held the position of secretary of Actors' Equity for some years. She travelled to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) with her husband, journalist Malcolm Salmon, in the late 1950s. She freelanced and assisted local media outlets to establish a presence, working, for instance, with her husband for the English-language service of Radio Hanoi. On her return from North Vietnam she resumed a business career but continued to pursue her literary interests, regularly reviewing new theatre productions.

• Barnett, Lorraine (previous name)
• Bremner, Lorraine (previous name)
• Carter, Marjorie (pseudonym)

Lorraine Salmon learnt how to write during World War 2 when she took up script writing with ABC Radio and the Victorian Commercial radio station 3UZ. On the strength of this work, she was offered a position in the Rationing Commission in the Publicity Unit. She worked there unil the commission closed in 1947. She says that in her first year with the commission, she produced 'almost a million words' communicating with the Australian public about issues relating to rationing.

When the Commission was closed down she began working for ICI Australia and New Zealand conducting radio sessions. ICI had just developed the raising agent 'Aerophos' and Salmon, or Marjorie Carter, as she was known to her audience, a mythical home economist, used these sessions to explain, amongst other topics, the various ways that Aerophos could be used in cooking. These sessions were broadcast to a wide and diverse audience and Marjorie Carter became a household name. She worked for ICI for six years, before taking on the position of secretary at Actors Equity.

Lorraine married her second husband, Malcom Salmon, in 1957 and travelled with him to North Vietnam. Pig Follows Dog is her account of her time there. Her aim was to portray the people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as something other than 'communist hoards'.

Events

c. 1940 - c. 1965

Career in journalism active

Australian Women Exhibitions

• The Women's Pages: Australian Women and Journalism since 1850, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2008, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/cal-home.html. [ Details... ]

Books

• Salmon, Lorraine, Pig Follows Dog: Two Years in Vietnam., Foreign Language Publishing House, Hanoi, 1960. [ Details... ]