Pearls from the past

Selling PEZ from the Hornsby bargain shop and those marble machines (based on poker machines but with less favourable odds?)

The caning insurance scheme? How could such a student body not have prospered?

And those fitness runs before each P.E. lesson (and sock colour check).

Malcolm Barr 

Colin, my hazy recollection of the thin tie syndrome is that the beautiful people wore their ties reversed, i.e. tail to the front, to achieve as thin a tie as possible - something to do with rocker Col Joye and pulling chicks.

Bill Davis

Gary, if you remember, you lusted after Greg's sister Lynne while she was going out with me!! 

After first listing him as deceased, later being informed by him, via the schoolfriends site that he was not, in fact dead, I have finally located him, alive and very busy (too busy to reply!)  Good to have found another of the clan. Cheers and welcome Ken Moth.

Stig Falster

PS, I thought I was the only one in love with Jacki Weaver (she lived around the corner) - don't tell me she was unfaithful to me!

Bruce Morgans

Greg, also found your phone no. in one of my diaries. JU1614.  Don’t know if I kept it to communicate with you, or I was on the growing list of young boys with lust in my eyes for your sister.

We played a version of 'Gloria' which lasted 25 minutes. It's a wonder John Laws didn't use our recording for all his weeee  breaks!

Ken Booth can sing soprano,when we tighten his jocks, and Gareth Cole can play something solar (or celestial).

Jerry, I may have to bring a piano, as my organ is too large.

Rob Symmington

Mine is a mouth organ, performs best when sucked and blown, and very small, and I'm not taking this bad joke any further because I may get into trouble.

I was the master of the drop towel and whip on undies with quick casual twist to the wall manoeuvre.

Hi Roger,  WHO was it that pushed you over onto me thus breaking my arm (again)in the disorganised line /rabble heading from the science room down to Mrs Ever's music room?

Jeremy Cahill 

Were thin ties the regulation then or was that one of my quiet little protests about something?  

I can whistle and hum......Do I get a part???.

There are a lot of quality people in this photo,  Michael Ramsden (the pecker flasher) is prominent,

Colin Henson

I'd have to adjust my G string before attempting to play the school song on the fiddle.

The "black socks" check before sport was another vivid memory, but I can't think who it was who one day wore luminous pink socks in protest.

and I thought Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oy Oy Oy was bad!!!

Alan Whitehouse 

It's not common knowledge that Jeremy was the inventor of the; reverse, eyes-wide-shut, bum first, flying head tackle in under 18's soccer. (I've never seen it attempted since those heady days back at Gordon oval...and I don't think I really want to!)

Darryll Fallon was (I think) the first boy to be expelled from ASBH…. building a nice little pyramid with the tables and chairs…. Next minute he's set fire   to the lot

Is my memory playing tricks on me, but did Mr. Holme have the oval and surrounding grass verges watered by the sprinklers on the afternoon of our first school dance? 

Ted Otton

Do you remember Mrs Timmins the maths teacher (tall, red hair nice legs)? She was one hard arse that lady. Myself and some other scoundrel let mice go one day in the old class rooms at Hornsby and all she did was kill them!

I dropped a super ball (remember the ball that would bounce back 1.25 times higher than you dropped it?). … off the 25th floor of the AMP …and was last seen heading towards Taronga Park Zoo at about Mach 1.  

I think there were 4 POB and all perished. the cameraman kept filming as they speared in, as a good cameraman should.

Gary McKay 

Hi Randall, I ran into Tim Herbert when walking down Sheridan Street, Cairns one day.  He was looking a little furtive, and didn't say much.  That was back in the 80's. 

I didn't realise that Lynne created so much chaos outside the family  -  she certainly did inside the family, as my father would attest to.  If nothing else, she was a bit of a rebel.

 Does anyone remember who uttered the immortal words "I think most of you fellows are flogging a dead horse!" and the circumstances surrounding the remark?

Greg Baxter

Hi Randall, I was laying low until you called me a "Dirt Farmer"

Ian Nicol 

& yes I always fancied myself as Buddy Holly!!

I remember well the first school dance in 1962 all highly controlled ( or so they thought - that was the nite of my first heavy duty grope - & I still have the scars to prove it!!)

he would let go with a mighty groan - got her every time. Poor bastard probably died from RSI.

making us grow our toe nails & showing us Russian style how to drown those Homebush smart-arses at Ashfield pool!!

Clutch starting Les Drake's old Morris 10 down the Jersey Street hill after school..... all trying to hold the "suicide "doors on Mike Bell's old Austin 

Greg Neilson

I felt very proud to be the first person to wear the Asquith emblem! (Well, everybody is entitled to their minute of fame!!).

Peter Ryall 

To all participants in World Championship Wrestling,  Did these spectacular events really take place in the long grass between the basketball courts and the Admin block or is it just a recurring nightmare of mine?

Warwick Werner

Also he (Goldie) was a great one for acronyms (or similar)  eg ABHSNPA which was the Asquith Boys High School Nose Pickers Association

Casper Ozinga

Jackie Weaver sitting on the floor in the back of the bus with then boyfriend Michael Shelley

Gareth Cole collecting eyelashes to make a soft pillow - did you ever finish  that?  

Being behind the scenes of Cinderella doing the sound while Greg Baxter did the lighting and about the same time the Fuller twins came back from the US with a wild single called "Surfer Bird" by the Trashmen.  

Stopping off for PEZ at Malmacs in Hornsby after school - the original $2 shop. 

End of school pranks: stuffing rags in the school sirens, Epsom salts in the staffroom water, etc. Martin Sotter and co. staging an abduction in the Waitara(?) shopping centre involving an Austin A40.   Weren't we over the top in those days?!!!  Yeah, right!  …

Adriaan Loosjes

Did I really wear a school hat!????

Alex Wardrop

Comprehending engineer? Isn't that an oxymoron?

Right hand turns were around a yellow "silent cop" (like a mini roundabout) which wrecked wheel alignments if you inadvertently ran over them

David Wilson

if you're going to discipline them, hit them above the hairline, the bruises don't show.

Pat Dear (quoting Arthur Ferguson)

Yesterday having lunch at the Lord Nelson pub with a few Vet mates…. who should sit down beside us... Jackie W and her current Husband….. recollections of Jackie’s school days at West Gordon… I think her South African Husband was a little put out with these apparent strangers

Randall Jones

But has Brian still got his E Type, Rob? After I got over my Jackie lust ... OK, after it had subsided to manageable levels ... I developed an even more expensive lust, having been taken for a ride, by Brian Davies, in THAT E Type. If the time ever comes when I end up with more money than sense (and while the money isn't increasing, the sense is rapidly diminishing) I WANT AN E TYPE! 

Andy Royal

One day he dropped me off to ABHS in a Studebaker Golden Hawk (supercharged). It took about 10 minutes from Berowra to ABHS on the old Pacific Hwy.

Howard Cairns

That dreadful Austin 8 "Wasp" was worth every penny of the 2/6d (yes it was pre-decimal) I paid for it. The driver’’s door frequently fell open when you turned left. The guy who bought it from me made the mistake of taking down the top on a hot day - it never went up  again.