Andrew Craig

From the past:

“I walked one of Europe’s classic walking routes, the GR10, dipping my feet in the Atlantic and via the Pyrenees dipped them again in the Mediterranean six weeks and 860 km later.”

2004

I was born in Melbourne and my parents moved to Sydney when I was one.

My father was an accountant (later company secretary) for McPhersons Limited, the machine tool and hardware suppliers, no longer in existence. My mother was the traditional “home duties” type as tended to be the norm then. Both are alive and well. James Warner and Alan Roberts may remember them.

We moved into a small house in Bareena Ave, Wahroonga, which was my home for my entire childhood life in Sydney.

I started school at Wahroonga Preparatory School in Coonanbarra Road and then (for geographic reasons) kindergarten at Waitara Public School. I believe that both Greg Baxter and Robert Symington joined at the same time.

As was the experience for many of us, I had a fabulous early childhood, roaming free with my mates in and around Wahroonga, Waitara and Turramurra including the wild and endless bush of Kuringai Chase. My eighth birthday brought a bicycle and the means to do this and more. Some of you may remember my very early and good mates Jeff and Ian McDougall who lived around the corner. They introduced me to Ray Smith (he lived roughly over the back fence) who was the Scout Master at 1st Turramurra Scouts in Warragal Rd. Alan Whitehouse will remember these people.

Thus began a long and fulfilling time as a cub, scout, senior scout and rover. For me, Scouts was a highly formative experience and I have strong memories of meetings, camps, rag drives and whistle chases all over what seemed an endlessly peaceful, safe and secure suburban existence. I’m sure that John Adderley, and several others will have great memories of those times.

Geography was again the main determining factor behind my appearance on day one at the burnt out Hornsby Tech and the slightly strange birth of Asquith Boys at the start of the school year in 1960. There were aspects of school life I enjoyed at Asquith, especially the friendships. I have strong memories of Alan Roberts, James Warner, John Adderley and Lyndon Taylor and I remember nearly everyone on our mailing list well.

Academically, ABHS was not a great experience for me in the comparatively short time I was there. In hindsight, I don’t think I liked the teachers nor the teaching methods much. I seemed to do a fair amount of rooting around and avoided homework big-time. I had a great respect for Mr Goldstein, who for all his eccentricities, was a passionate teacher of languages. I remember most of the teachers well but seem to have very few positive memories of them. Along with many of us, I copped a fair share of the cuts from both Holmsey and Goldie. I suspect that this was partly down to my age and stage of life.

Photography was one of several hobbies and I still have photos of the later stages of the new school under construction. I will try to get some scanned and up on John’s web site, just for fun. Some of you may have seen my classroom shots from May 1961 at the last gig. I will try to bring them again and it also may be possible to scan them for the web site.

I had two sisters, the elder attending Artarmon Opportunity School and Hornsby Girls High and was very close to James Warner’s sister, Penny. They are still in touch with one another. My younger sister also went to Artarmon.

My time at ABHS was cut short in May 1961 when my parents moved back to Melbourne for my father to take up a new post at head office. This was a watershed in my life as it created an opportunity for me to get back on track academically and experience a new life and a new bunch of people in Melbourne.

Post ABHS:

I enrolled at Greythorn High, a coeducational government school in Melbourne’s North Balwyn. The school has since been demolished and the land is now occupied by a flock of McMansions. It was nevertheless a generally positive experience and my academic performance lifted dramatically. The reasons for this are probably complex but I suspect that the two biggest were the different teaching methods and a much more community-oriented, caring atmosphere in the school. Like all teenagers, I still had my crises and anxieties. Scouts continued to be a very big part of my life in this era and predictably, girls became a big deal too.

After a second shot at the final year of high school and a Commonwealth Scholarship (which I had to get if I wanted to go to Uni) I started a full time Bachelor of Building Degree at Melbourne Uni. The next five years was a fabulous, free and formative time, during which I met and married my wife of 33 years, Sherrin. We bought our first house in Brunswick in 1969, married in 1970 and I graduated in 1971. I was a member of the Melbourne University Mountaineering Club and for several years was an enthusiastic rock climber, meeting my wife at Mt Arapeles in western Victoria.

My first job was as a cadet with E A Watts Pty Ltd, a large building contractor based in Melbourne. After several years of site experience I joined Merchant Constructions, the commercial arm of a well-known project house builder of the time.

In 1974 my wife and I travelled to the UK via southern Europe and spent two years working in London for the construction giant, Costain Ltd in a project-planning role. We lived in South Kensington and then near Hammersmith in shared houses. This was a time of more freedom and interesting times. We were in London when some of the earlier events dramatised in “In the Name of the Father” took place. My work took me all over England and I managed to always travel via the scenic routes. We also travelled privately to most parts of the UK and Western Europe. For most of that time our mode of conveyance was a 1956 Volkswagen Kombi van which required a fill of break fluid at every petrol stop. It was then that I fell in love with France and most of its trappings.

After a big travelling spell, including a fabulous skiing holiday in Austria, we migrated to Canada and looked very closely at putting down routes in Vancouver. I was offered a job there but home in good old Aus was calling. After an eight-week vagabond expedition on the Greyhound buses around Canada and the US we headed for home and back to our house in Brunswick which we had let while we were away.

My travels had stirred an entrepreneurial spirit in me and I set about setting up my own consulting business in project management. After two years I learnt that I was too inexperienced and while there were no disasters, I decided to close up shop and joined Civil and Civic, at that time the construction arm of the Lend Lease Group. I stayed at Civil and Civic for ten years and learnt most of what I know about the property and construction industries in a succession of project management and similar management roles.

My later years in Melbourne saw us move house to North Carlton (madly in the renovating mode) and the birth of our two boys and girl, now 27, 24 and 21. (Tom lives in Curl Curl and recently ceased working for the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in Sydney to complete his study for a Master Five Certificate and James now works in Chicago, USA for an air conditioning company, in a marketing role. He now proposes to work in the UK. Sally, after travelling in the US and Canada, is now studying full time in Melbourne.)

A great job opportunity brought me back to Sydney in 1986. I worked for CRI in project management roles for five years. My baptism of fire in Sydney was the project management of the Harbourside Festival Marketplace, a Darling Harbour development project laced with the most amazing political and industrial complexities. Our client was the most bizarre risk-taker and I learnt much about business common sense in that process.

We bought and settled in Killara and raised our family over the next thirteen years. This was a very happy time for us all and the experience reminded me of the happy, secure childhood I had a little further up the line.

The construction downturn of 1991 took me to another construction contractor, which was an experience I prefer to forget. In the latter part of this period I commenced a part time MBA at Macquarie Uni and completed it in 1997, specialising in Marketing and Financial Management. This was one of the best things I’ve done with respect to my business life.

1994 took me to a major contractor, Thiess Limited, a subsidiary of the Leighton Group. In business terms this was the most enjoyable and successful period of my life so far. I took seven week’s leave to allow myself the indulgence of a walking trip in France.

I walked one of Europe’s classic walking routes, the GR10, dipping my feet in the Atlantic and via the Pyrenees dipped them again in the Mediterranean six weeks and 860 km later. While I started on my own, I met and walked with some great people on the way. It is probably the best thing I’ve ever done and I treasure several friendships from that journey still. I plan several (more ambitious) trips like this when I can create the time.

In 1999 was mad enough to be head hunted back to the Lend Lease Group, something I regretted within a month of moving back there. It was clearly an organisation in decline and nothing like the company I had known before. I should have known better!

I am now the Business Development Manager for A W Edwards Pty Limited, a medium to large privately owned and established construction company based in Sydney and Brisbane.

Approaching empty-nesterhood, we moved to Glebe in 1998 and live in an 1850 sandstone pile in the rough part. It’s fabulously convenient and I’m having a great time in the local community. For my sins, I’m just completing my second term as President of the Glebe Society. We have plans to eventually move to a 1950s house we’ve had for about 17 years in Clareville, on the Northern Beaches. This could be five or more years away.

Last October my eldest son and I did a one-month trek in Bhutan following the “Snowman” route. It is apparently regarded as one of the toughest and riskiest treks in the world, largely arising from a combination of high altitude, unreliable weather and isolation. It was a fabulous trip and I would recommend it to anyone with reasonable fitness. However, I learnt that such high altitude brings on mild bronchial troubles for me so in future I’m going to confine myself to lower altitude adventures!