ANGFA Life Member
Ken Smales
Ken Smales was one of ANGFA's three founding production stalwarts, alongside Ron Bowman and Neil Armstrong, and by his own trade the one who actually built each issue of Fishes of Sahul, page by page. A trained hand-and-machine compositor on a newspaper Linotype, Ken typeset the journal across two stints — from Volume 1 through to Volume 14, and again from Volume 26 through to Volume 29, according to Peter Unmack's recollection of the production history — work that fellow founder Neil Armstrong called being "the most unacclaimed stalwart on the whole committee".
Beyond typesetting, Ken served as ANGFA National Chairman for about 10 years, Chairman of ANGFA Victoria for many years, editor of both the ANGFA Bulletin and its successor ANGFA News, and long-time production editor of ANGFA Vic News. He was also, with Andy Wattam and Alex and June Caughey, one of the organisers of ANGFA's first two national conventions in Sydney, and went on to chair four more.
This page draws together his contributions found so far across Fishes of Sahul and ANGFA Vic News — two publications digitised to date — plus his committee record in the ANGFA Bulletin and ANGFA News.
Personal background
In "Meet the ANGFA People … Ken Smales", Neil Armstrong's 2000 profile of his old friend, Neil recalled meeting Ken through a shared interest in aquatic plants in the early 1970s — and, in a small irony neither seems to have missed, that he himself had also served an apprenticeship in the same newspaper trade as Ken, as a linotype mechanic. Neil described the sheer scale of Ken's typesetting work: a single article, "Fingerprinting Fishes" by Paul Yakovlevich in Vol. 13(2), reportedly took about 80 hours to typeset, proofread and proofread again "until there was not a single error to be found" — all of it done, like the rest of ANGFA's committee work, on top of a full-time job, raising a family and running his own fish room. Neil credited Ken's wife Pam as a constant, supportive presence behind the scenes throughout.
Ken himself later wrote ANGFA Victoria's own founding history for VicNews's 101st issue in 2013, tracing the association's roots to the mid-1970s Native Fish Study Group and the 1982 Melbourne meeting that led to ANGFA's formation the following year — a meeting at which, as he modestly records in the third person, "Ken Smales (a typesetter) offered his services as a typesetter for the new publication" alongside Ron Bowman as editor/designer and Neil Armstrong as official photographer.
Found by searching the full text of every digitised ANGFA publication for mentions of Ken, not just his own bylines — there may well be more still to find as later issues are fully indexed.
Contributions found so far
- 1 authored article found in Fishes of Sahul (1986) — but this understates his role enormously: as ANGFA's typesetter, Ken produced the physical pages of the journal across two separate stints, Volumes 1–14 and again Volumes 26–29
- The History of ANGFA Victoria, his own account of the association's founding, published in ANGFA Vic News 101 (2013) and drawn on throughout this page and Neil Armstrong's
- Editor of the ANGFA Bulletin and ANGFA News across multiple years, and long-time production editor of ANGFA Vic News, per the committee listings in both publications
- National Chairman for around 10 years and Chairman of ANGFA Victoria for many years, per Neil Armstrong's 2000 profile of him
Counts are drawn from an author/photo-credit search across every ANGFA publication processed so far and will grow as more issues are indexed — treat them as a running minimum, not a final tally. Ken's real contribution was as a producer and office-bearer rather than an author, so a bibliography search understates his impact more than for most life members.
Featured contributions
The Desert Goby Under Threat
Fishes of Sahul, Vol. 3(3), 1986
"Along the Oodnadatta track in Central South Australia lies unique Lake Eyre…" Ken's one confirmed byline is a conservation piece on the Mound Springs and the threat uranium mining at Roxby Downs posed to the Desert Goby's Great Artesian Basin habitat — an early and clear-eyed piece of environmental advocacy in the journal's pages.
The History of ANGFA Victoria
ANGFA Vic News 101, April 2013
Ken's own account of ANGFA's founding — from the 1970s Native Fish Study Group through the test-the-waters meeting at Ron and Elaine Turner's home in November 1982 to the committee that designed and typeset the first issue of Fishes of Sahul.
Complete list of contributions found so far
This list will be extended as more publications are indexed.
Fishes of Sahul (1)
- The desert goby under threatVol. 3(3) — Smales, K.
ANGFA Vic News (1)
- The History of ANGFA VictoriaIssue 101, April 2013 — Ken Smales