The Australian Women's Register

The third of six children to the Revered George Holland and his wife Ann, Hazel de Berg was raised in Deniliquin and trained as a radiographer. In 1957, author Frank Clune asked her to record a book for a blind friend. She completed a recording of Old Day, Old Ways by Dame Mary Gilmour. To provide some background biographical information, Hazel de Berg asked Dame Mary Gilmour if she would agree to a recorded interview. The information provided produced some previously unrecorded detail.

This recording became the first of the de Berg oral history collection, held at the National Library in Canberra and comprising approximately 1300 hour-long taped interviews. Originally the project was self-funded but in 1960, Sir Harold White, the Federal Parliamentary Librarian and National Librarian, offered her a Commonwealth Grant.

For more than 25 years Hazel de Berg documented Australia’s social history by recording poets, novelists, historians, painters, musicians and scientists, – people who were contributing to the ongoing intellectual life of Australia. Predeceased by her husband William, Hazel de Berg died on 3 February 1984 from a heart attack. She was survived by her twin daughters Diana and Deborah, and son Michael.