NEW LABOUR PREMIER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1941, Page 6

NEW LABOUR PREMIER

NEW SOUTH WALES. LEADER. QUIET, HOME-LOVING MAN. Success of his party at the polls to a degree that has made New South Wales political history, has not disturbed the calm and poise of the Premier-Elect, Mr W. McKell, says the ’'Sydney Sun." He awoke the day after the election to face an avalanche of congratulatory telegrams from Labour supporters from all parts of New South Wales and from other States. Photographers were lying in wait outside his homo in Wowling Street, Redfern, as he set cut with, his wife to catch a tram into town. Mrs McKell, who, like her husband, hates all “swank" and publicity, is determined not to steal any of his glory. She deftly side-stepped the photographers and kept out of the pic : ture. Mr McKell is still and always will be "Billy” to everyone in Redfern. And everyone there knows him. Mr McKell to some extent is a shy man. He never seeks the limelight. He is perfectly at home with friends of long standing who had boxed and played football and cricket with him in his youth. With his wife, his mother, who is 81. his two daughters and a son. Mr McKell has lived in the same house in Redfern since his youth. He is a home-loving man, who likes to sit in his slippers and read a volume of political reminiscence or a work on economics.

Prestige attaching to the Premiership will not prompt him to move from his old Redfern home. Nor would his wife agree to any change in their modest way of life.