02 School Years

1952: First Day of school

I vividly remember my first day of school, in fact Edwardstown Primary School. I can't say I was looking forward to it, or really knew much about what I was in store for, but my mother walked me from Pearson Street along South Road, with my father, who went as far as the Edward Street corner, where there was in those days a shop which sold various things including comics, to make sure I knew never to cross South Road.

Grade 1 was the class in the front room, next to the Headmaster's residence. It was all fairly normal. We all took a seat in Mrs Fletcher's class, the mothers all watched for a few minutes, and then we were all by ourselves.

In those days the Headmaster lived in a house at the school. Our Headmaster from Grade 1 through Grade 6 was Mr Martin Fechner (Advertiser clipping 9Mb download). He was a lovely guy, a real old fashioned schoolie. I was very pleased to read in the Advertiser on 19 April 2003 that he turned 100, and declared that he had never had to use the cane, something which I'd never thought about, but certainly matched his personality.

Above is our class photo from that year. I am located in the third row back second from the left.

1953 to 1958: Other years at Edwardstown Primary School

My years at Edwardstown Primary School were very happy and certainly positively formative. I had Miss King in Grade 2, Mrs Francis in Grade 3, Mrs Green in Grade 4, Mr Hewton in Grade 5, Miss Milde in Grade 6 and Mr Hicks in Grade 7. Most of these classes were in pre-fabs on the other side of the main yard. I am shown below in Grade 3.

At assemblies there was a fife band and a drummer. The Australian flag probably was not as important as the Union Jack and the National Anthem was God Save the Queen, although we always sang Song of Australia immediately afterwards. These would conclude the morning and lunch time assemblies and then we would march in line to our class rooms to music played by the band. The shop commercially run over the road was essentially the school tuck shop. Every Monday I was given a shilling to buy either a pie or a double cut bread sandwich roll, and had to return the change. My parents knew a pie cost 8 pence.

We each had an ink well and knew how to fill them up. Our writing instruction was based about use with the ink pens, how to go against the grain with the upstrokes, slightly diagonal, and make full use of the downstrokes. Biros (ball points) were known but strictly verboten.

There were four houses. I was in Tudor (green). There was also Stuart (red), Windsor (blue) and York (yellow). This was the basis of the athletics carnival. In Grade 1 I came last in the sprint. My mother said it was because I spent the whole race looking for her in the crowd, knowing she was there somewhere. I learnt my lesson and improved each year to win the race for my year in Grade 7 and the hop step and jump.

Before school and at lunch times there would be self-organised cricket and football (of the Australian variety) and I always took part in these. There were school teams which would play nearby schools one afternoon a week. I tried to get in the school teams but could only make the B team in football and rarely the cricket team. Towards the end I changed my summer interests to tennis, where I did make the school team, usually playing at number 1. I also played in the state under-age championships each year but it was hard to win even the first round, although in under 12s I did make the quarter final in the doubles. In fact the photo below made the Sunday Mail while I was playing in the under 12s at Memorial Drive (I am at right, with school friend Robbie Miller left and Brett Johnson, later one of South Australia's better tennis players centre). We used to use this technique to check the height of the net before the start of a match. I do not know what they do now.

During my time I was given a bike for Christmas and in the last year or so would ride to and from school, which had a bike rack. My bike was a Greyhound with vertical handle bars and foot brakes with no gears. There were three or four very fortunate students in the school who had the black and white BSA (Birmingham Small Arms, imported from England) bikes with hybrid handle bars. hand brakes and Sturmey Archer gears which allowed 3 settings. I used to ride my bike a lot out of school hours and knew the whole district well.

We always had school reports and exams and were ranked in the class. In the early years we were mainly assessed in reading, writing, dictation, oral arithmetic (known generally as "mental"), and written arithmetic. Gradually in later years composition, grammar, history and geography were added and writing was replaced by a project. Typically class sizes were about 45 but I recall one about 54. In later years we would also have a scripture class. Most of this was rather secular, in a sense, or general might be a better word, but the few Catholics in the school were exceptions. A priest would visit the school once a week and all the Catholics would leave the class for their own sessions.

Most of the time I was in the top 3 or 4 of the class, but it seems towards the end I started getting on top, as the above Grade 7 report shows, and I ended up as official Dux of the School. In Grade 4 Mr Moyle (who normally taught Grade 7) used to come in for a General Knowledge class on Friday afternoons, which must have been possible as Grade 7s went to sport on Friday afternoons. I used to love this, and in fact was awarded a Prize for General Knowledge at the speech night. I hoped Mr Moyle would be my Grade 7 teacher. In the end I was put in Mr Hicks' class, and although initially disappointed at this, Mr Hicks proved an outstanding teacher and had a profound positive impact on me.

Mr Frank Walsh, Leader of the Opposition and local member for Edwardstown, as noted in Chapter 1, used to implore on us at speech days we had to go to Government schools for high school, as did the Headmaster who replace Mr Fechner for my Grade 7, and most of the students were to go to Marion High School, in whose district we lived. Despite this my parents had my name down for Scotch College. But Mr Hicks told my parents Pulteney Grammar School would be better for me and they put my name down there. I sat for scholarship exams there and St Peter's College. In the latter I got a high score and was offered a quarter scholarship at Saints, but in the end it was decided it was not enough and I was headed for Pulteney.

1959 to 1963: Pulteney Grammar School

South Australian secondary schools had five years. The Matriculation year was in fact the fourth, known as the Leaving Year. There were two other years with public exams. The third of the years culminated in the Intermediate Certificate, while the fifth year was technically optional, as we had already matriculated, and known as Leaving Honours. Everyone did Leaving Honours rather than go straight to University, as had more been the custom in the past, and it became an important year as the University of Adelaide imposed some of the subjects as prerequisites.

The first two years were named "Remove" (for some quaint reason, probably only in private schools) and Subintermediate, which was a more logical name. I arrived in 1959 and was placed in Remove A2, where all the new boys, who had not attended Pulteney in primary school, were placed. After a couple of weeks though I was pulled out of the class to go to Remove A1, or RA1 as it was known. This was a particularly unusual situation for me because all the other students already knew each other. Whereas there was some bad behaviour for a couple of teachers the class did not respect, most teachers did have respect, not the least being the iconic Headmaster, Canon Ray, who had lifted the school from an enrolment of only about 100 in about 1949 to a number approaching 1000. This had become a prominent school under his leadership. Canon Ray, known as "The Boss", was a really remarkable person, and knew every one of the 1000 or so students in the school by name.

First year was a real eye-opener for me, having specialist teachers in all subjects. There was English, Mathematics and Science (both of the latter being double subjects), as other subjects. For one we had to eventually choose between Latin and Geography, and I chose Latin. I guess there was a chance I might do Law, and Latin was compulsory for Law until about this time. There was also a choice between History, French and German. I chose German, but was also able to maintain History as an eighth subject through Intermediate by attending special classes instead of what was known as Group Activities (hobbies etc). Overall the teachers were very good. Certainly I was not bored and found myself motivated, even though my reports suggested, I felt unfairly, that at times I was not fulfilling my potential. These reports were often ridiculous, got me into trouble at home, and showed the teachers often didn't understand me. I would have liked to have shown some of these back to the teachers involved, when it occurred, in later life. The reports were possibly intended to stir me up, but were unfair as I knew I was motivated and not understood.

By the Intermediate Year things were becoming clear for our first public exam. Counting a later four years of exams at University, this was the first of seven consecutive years in which I was to go through Swot Vac and prepare for formal exams at the Wayville Showground. Until this time I had always taken mathematics for granted. It is a subject requiring logical process, and until this time I never had to study for it, as it just seemed like a mechanical subject, albeit yielding me good results. But that year we had for mathematics Ellis Harris (who incidentally died of cancer in 2014 - I had a beer with him late 2013), in his first year out of Teachers College. I understand when he otherwise taught girls, which he did, the girls would swoon because of his remarkable good looks and blonde hair. But to me he was the first person to demonstrate that mathematics was a vast and fascinating subject. It started one day by one student, who was probably looking for a distraction from the normal fare, asking what was this Pure Mathematics that was taught at University. His response was to open up a whole new world for me. Mathematics had now become a glamour subject rather than a monotonous sea of calculations. Until then I thought that all mathematics was known and basically as a result a closed shop.

I got really good results in this year. The English exam had been unusual, as it involved reading a macabre scene with bodies hanging from gallows and a lot of students had fainted and been taken out for medical treatment. The heat in Centennial Hall also contributed. Adelaide's century heat often started by November. But somehow I hung in. In those days the results used to be released subject by subject, night by night, in the Advertiser. So a month after the exams, crowds would gather around the back of the Advertiser building on the corner of King William and Waymouth to buy the midnight edition. As a result, each night an extra subject result, or maybe two, was known. Students got a result ranging from A (credit) to B, C and D, different grades of pass, through to E, F and G, different grades of failure. I was fortunate to get 5 As and 3Bs, which enabled me to win a cash prize from the government known as a Continuation Exhibition. It was enough for me to buy my own radio.

Leaving was a bit more rugged. I did get As for the two Mathematics subjects, and Physics and Chemistry, but English and German were catching up on me and I went back to Cs here. The result was good enough to win me a Commonwealth Scholarship, which meant the Australian Government would pay my fees at University. In Leaving and Leaving Honours I had my other great mathematics teacher in Bruce Robson. Quite a different personality from Ellis, Bruce was also the school's Deputy Headmaster and more experienced. He was a highly organised teacher who had constructed his own set of notes, which were excellently structured. His policy was to complete the syllabus in the first two terms. He had all the exam papers back to 1944 and in third term we completed all of these. I think Bruce was confident (if not fully following the Principle of Mathematical Induction) that if we could complete 20 exam papers we would probably be able to cope with the 21st. Bruce was soon to leave the school and found as Headmaster Temple Christian College.

In Leaving Honours I was able to drop English, and I also controversially dropped German, to Canon Ray's annoyance. But I was going to study Science, Maths and Physics were pre-requisites, and German no longer was needed. I got through the remaining subjects well and qualified properly for the University subjects. I was awarded at speech night Dux of the School Proxime Accessit, which I think means I would have been Dux of the School, but you had to do 5 subjects to qualify. I also won the school mathematics prize, the EE Scarfe Memorial Prize, which was one of the four named prizes for final year.

In final year I was appointed a School Senior, equivalent to an Assistant Prefect. The Seniors are photographed above in front of the School Chapel. Back row left to right Richard Gayler, Ian Craigie, Peter Frith, Peter Taylor, Jack Playford, Phil Gerner, K Lian, Peter Wood, front row Malcolm Taylor, Robb Muirhead, Fred Wildy, Jason Garrood, John Paterson, David Jervis, Chris Mansfield.

There were many other things I was able to do at Pulteney, partly because at private schools there was more emphasis on sport and other activities. My most successful activity was probably Chess, where I played the number 1 Board for the school in inter-school competition and won the School's Chess Championship after a marathon tournament which went through many lunch times. I played football and tennis. In both sports I could not make the first team at any time, but was a regular in the second teams.

In final year at school also my brother John was born. He was to get an honours maths degree and become a maths teacher at Pulteney Grammar School, and a real part of the Pulteney community.

Cubs and Scouts

This major part of my life started in 1955 when I joined the Wolf Cubs of 1st Clarence Gardens, whose scout hall was at the Nieass Reserve on Dinwoodie Avenue, where I had also attended kindergarten. I had probably been encouraged to join by my father, who had been with the Gawler Scouts, and attended the first Australian Jamboree in Frankston in 1934 (also attended by Baden Powell).

Major highlights in the cubs were the camps, held at Adelaide's camp called Uralla. It was a large hall, near Belair in the hills, with bunks at the end of the hall. I was keen, particularly on passing the two "stars", passing various proficiency badges and becoming a "sixer", that is leader of a "six".

After two years' I was old enough to become a scout, which was a lot tougher, with camps out in the hills in tents and relatively demanding hikes. We needed to complete a couple of overnight hikes to pass our First Class badges.

Camp highlights were the Easter ones. Above is our patrol's setup at the 1960 camp near Mylor in the hills, complete with tent, kitchen and dining area.

My scout career culminated with the highlight, the national jamboree, which was held at Lansdowne, near Villawood in western Sydney over the New Year of 1960/61.

Above is our troop there. From left Peter Taylor, Graham (Ham) Henderson, Geoffrey Boyce, Graham Edwards, Peter Hawke (who lived opposite us and we did a lot of things together), Merv Edwards (Graham's twin brother), Robert Wilsen (who was later killed as an Australian soldier in the Vietnam War), Peter Smith, Chris Davis, Bill Slater, Roger Smith, Lyn Pritchard and assistant scoutmaster Tom Sag (referred to elsewhere, assistant scoutmaster to brother Andrew but later a lecturer in Numerical Analysis at Flinders University and almost became my PhD supervisor).

We traveled by special train to Sydney and lived there for the best part of two weeks, meeting scouts from all over Australia and some nearby countries. We also had some excursions around Sydney, including the Harbour and the Blue Mountains.

As with the cubs I was a keen hoarder of proficiency badges and eventually passed the "Scout Cord", the highest achievement available.

One interesting annual activity, which I didn't like, but nevertheless participated with enthusiasm, was "Bob a Job" week. We were required to go round the district knocking on doors and offering to do jobs for people for a bob. Sometimes we even got two bob. If we got a pound, which was the main target, we would get a beaver badge for our efforts. You can see my beaver badge on the flap of my left pocket.

Sunday School

Sunday School, at the nearby St Francis of Assissi Anglican Church on South Road, was a regular event for many years.

Several of the children in our street would be dressed better than normally, as the above photo exemplifies, me back left and Susan in front, for school and all proceed together. I write though on religion, my thoughts on it, and religious experiences, in a later chapter.

Family Holidays

Family holidays are important bonding activities, and our family had many. The first holidays I remember were when we were quite young and we would go down to Normanville to stay in the bank flats, the holiday camp owned by the Commonwealth Bank.

Susan and I are shown in front of the flats in 1953. We used to get bored on the way down from Adelaide in our Ford Prefect as it seemed a very long way. The flats were originally a church. Normanville was named after our ancestors. Our ancestor John Norman had farmed at Aldinga and opened up the road, celebrating by building the Victory Hotel on Sellick's Hill (originally named after him as Norman's Victory as he was the Chairman of the Aldinga Council and mainly responsible for getting the road built at the time). His brother Robert Norman had been the first dentist in South Australia, practicing on North Terrace, and he had eventually settled at Normanville and the building above is the church he built.

By 1955 our holidays became more ambitious. We drove to Mount Gambier, where we saw television for the first time. Melbourne was gearing up with television to use in the Olympics, and our relative John Sheard, who ran an electronics shop in Mount Gambier, had a set and big aerial, with which he could get a rough picture from Melbourne.

We went further, in fact on to Melbourne, and both on this occasion and a couple of years later we went on to Cowes, renting a friend's holiday house.

Cowes was a great place for us. There were lots of koalas in the trees and penguins land on the southern coast.

We were also able to go on boat rides in Westernport Bay.

1957: Air Travel

On 26 January 1957 Susan and I took our first plane ride, in an Ansett Airways DC3 flight to Mount Gambier.

This is the ticket. Our parents had not even travelled by plane to this point. There was considered more danger in air travel in those days and our parents called the airline to make sure the plane had landed safely. This was the first of several holidays which Susan and I were to take there to stay with our grandparents. Grandfather Taylor, Bernard, managed Sheards department store, the main one in town and it had cables from each payment point to a room which overlooked the whole store. Susan and I used to like working in this room receiving the canisters off the cables and returning the change to the payment points.

We sometimes traveled by plane, on other occasions by bluebird train, while our grandparents still lived in Mt Gambier. They kept chooks and I recall my grandfather would slaughter the one which we would roast that night. This was the last generation when this practice was applied.

1960 and 1961: The last frontier, Sydney and Canberra

The last frontier to us was to be Sydney. In the summers of 1960 and 1961 we drove further, and stayed in Sydney each time for the best part of two weeks. The harbour was a major attraction, and we certainly went on plenty of ferry rides, also on Broken Bay. And both our parents had first cousins with family living in Sydney, so we got to know more of our relatives. And on the first of these we also visited Canberra...

1960: The man who signs the bank notes

My family made our first visit to Canberra in January 1960. The lake did not yet exist. A lot of work was going on creating Anzac Avenue.

We had checked in to the Hotel Civic, on Northbourne Avenue, close to the Sydney Building, the only hotel in the Civic precinct.

The four of us walked up to the next block, the Sydney Building on Northbourne Avenue.

I heard a man say "Hello, Jim". A man came up to us. Dad turned around to our mother, me and Susan and said "This is the man who signs the bank notes". Even though I was only 13 I knew who this man would have been. He was HC Coombs, Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, then also the central bank as well as a retail bank, and I knew what the bank notes looked like, was familiar with the signature and had heard of him anyway. Dad, as a Commonwealth Bank Manager, had been in Sydney for Professional Development, which the Bank did.

We all were introduced to this legendary figure and I shook hands with him. Whereas I knew who he was I did not know at the time his outstanding contribution to Australia in areas such as post-war reconstruction.

At the age of 13 I was impressed by many things. I was impressed that Dad knew him. I was impressed that HC Coombs had such memory and intricate care about everything he did that he could confidently identify Dad on the streets of Canberra, when he really lived in Adelaide. And I was impressed by what was obviously a high standard of job training in the Commonwealth Bank.