Roger Meischke

From the past:

"Andy Royal and I used to rank cigarette brands according to how big a stain a mouthful made when blown through a fresh hanky. The darker, the browner, the better. Filter tips weren't real cigarettes....."

2004

My memories of ABHS are clear and fresh. Great mates, full of good fun and willing to give anything a go. I have nothing but good memories about what really could have been dark days (if one is to believe modern educational theory). Eugene was a tormented soul, and we probably didn’t help by forcing him to swing the cane higher and higher until it lost purchase....then backing him into a position where it got stuck in the door. Every twinge was worth it. I learned to laugh a fullsome paralysing belly laugh. We had a great sense of the ridiculous and a marked inclination to defy authority together, which I still do with pleasure. I remember Jeremy Cahill swinging round and round on the walkway steel poles (?pole dancer?)....he always got around more times than anyone else - broken many more limbs Jeremy? I was elected prefect, but vetoed by the teachers. My appointment eventually happened after Michael Bell went to Barker, and the objecting teacher was away. (After the Intermediate my parents sent me to Shore - something I still regret). Being a prefect taught me that power corrupts. I learned to smoke great brands like “Temple Bar” and “Salem” and “Camel”. Andy Royal and I used to rank cigarette brands according to how big a stain a mouthful made when blown through a fresh hanky. The darker, the browner, the better. Filter tips weren’t real cigarettes....I finally gave up in 1979. I married Marion Begbie in 1970. She and her three brothers were in a folk singing group ‘The Kinsfolk’ and had just returned to Australia aften spending 6 months touring the USA. My sister Carla (get your hand off it, Falster) married Marion’s brother Richard. They live at Rossi south of Bungendore, and we live at Gundaroo - Australia’s umbilicus. Marion and I had five kids...cold nights and fresh air is great for fecundity...three girls and two boys. The youngest is 21. The two older ones are married. We have five grandchildren. I scored the best woman a man could have, and the best bunch of mates in the next generation that could be imagined. They are all fun, full of life, cheeky, honest, clever, considerate, irreverent and I treasure every moment we spend together.

My career involved becoming a vet, doing an external Masters (Syd), then a PhD in cancer pathology & virology at Glasgow Uni. I worked for 18 years with the Commonwealth DPI, 17 years in private practice and I have just completed the first year of my third reinvention as a Senior Product Evaluator of Veterinary Medicines with the Aust Pest & Vet Medicines Authority (APVMA). Love every minute or it! I have published around 140 papers on a range of topics - but thanks to Eugene and you lot - managed to get my finger up the nose of most people in authority ever since. Occasionally such actions have hit the national media and occasionally it has put me in touch with some of you.