From: Stephen Gard [mailto:stephen@stephengard.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 7:47 AM
To: Paul Feldman
Subject: Re: STHS Staff Anecdotes
Paul
Thank you for your delightful letter!
How much of it will you permit me to add to the web-site?
I am also delighted that someone else studied so closely those odd-balls who attempted to teach us. One of the reasons I left teaching twenty years ago was the absence of eccentrics, characters who were also scholars, in classrooms. They are now all lower-middle brow bores who play squash and talk about the footie, and the men are even worse (snob? me?). I blame Whitlam for opening the flood-gates to the academy, but then, I wouldn't have my degree if he hadn't done so. I've since denounced Hawke for the HECS I've had to pay, and Howard for his mealy-mouthed abolition of post-grad scholarships - he removed the fees, but also the living allowance. It's just as well my wife is willing to support me while I pursue yet another boutique degree.
Thanks also for adding names like 'Scrag' to the list, and other vital data like the lyricist of 'Sumpter, Sumpter'. Who coined 'Bing Must Go?' Its echoes of 'King Must Go' (headline at the time of the abdication of Edward VII, methinks) could only have occurred to a scholar, some reviled academic snob.
What have you authored since, wordfish?
Stephen Gard
From: "Paul Feldman"
To: "Stephen Gard"
Subject: RE: STHS Staff Anecdotes
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 21:37:14 +1000
Stephen
Do feel free to add as much as you like to your website.
I am fairly sure it was Geoff Kerr of my year who ran the Bing Must Go campaign, perhaps in collusion with his friend John Waite. Geoff not only had the requisite morbid fascination with Bing, I think he also had a father who owned a printing factory - remember all those stickers that appeared around the school? I often wonder what happened to Geoff - he was a talented writer. If you have the journals, take a look at his short story from 1968. He was also responsible for the placement of a toilet pedestal on top of the entrance to the auditorium on the last day of Sixth form in 1968. Immediately underneath was a banner with the line from 'All along the Watchtower': 'There are many here among us who think that life is but a joke'.
I last saw Geoff Kerr in 1970 - he'd just come out of gaol for possession of heroin. Those were the good old days when they gaoled people for being addicts. He had that in common with Bruce Searle, who was in the year ahead of mine. Searle survived to become an artist of some endeavour, but is etched in collective memory for adapting the STHS School Pledge into 'I'm on with my God, I serve our queens, I salute the fags' which continued on into (what else?) 'God save our gracious queens....'.
Bing was responsible for the only corporal punishment I ever received in high school - he belted me quite hard on the head with a copy of 'On Course Mathematics' one day in Fourth Form, for not responding to some command. Through the swirls of stars, I remember being quite impressed with the man's casual adaptation of the object he happened to have in his hand into an instrument of physical punishment. Another memory I have of him is his obsession with people banging the seat in front of them when they brought their hands down from their hearts after completing the School Pledge during the weekly assembly. One day he had about twenty of the more junior teachers deployed in the aisles of the auditorium to spot offenders. But perhaps the darkest insight into the man's character was provided on the day he addressed the assembled school in the main quadrangle, delivered a homily on misbehaviour during Scripture class, and [I swear this is true] then asked if 'any boys of the Jewish faith would line up at the bottom of the quadrangle, down near the incinerator...' (faint smile...).
John Hamilton of my year was the son of a teacher who had taught at James Cook High when Bing was Maths master there. His father told him how one day a dog entered the Maths staffroom. One of the teachers said to the dog 'Go on, make yourself useful - go and piss on George's chair' - which the dog promptly did. The dog then left the room. A minute or so later, Bing came in and sat on the chair. At that moment, the dog howled outside the window, and the room convulsed in laughter.
My attitude to modern school education has thawed significantly over the last 6 or 7 years, largely as a result of my older daughter's experience at one of the ACT's secondary colleges, and my younger daughter's progress at primary school. Both of them benefited from an imaginative curriculum, and dedicated teachers (though none who could really be compared with ours).
I'd love to say that I've written heaps of creative stuff, but unfortunately just about the only writing I have done since leaving school has been in the course of my work in the National Archives of Australia, part of the Commonwealth Public Service: memoranda (in the days when people still wrote them), policy papers and procedures. Lots of passive voice, very formulaic, heavy on the abstractions and buzzwords. Still it's paid my way through two marriages, three children and five mortgages.
That said, I have a very long period of leave beginning next month, and would certainly like to trick myself into a bit of creative writing. It will have to be a sidelong approach, to catch the inner censor off guard. My newfound interest in cooking will help, maybe also setting my ten thumbs to work on learning keyboards. Perhaps the most reliable stimulus though, is the zany banter I get into with my twelve year old. I'm reminded she's my daughter when she writes a story for school that features spider children called Thomas and Eloise.
I'm sure I have some more anecdotes about STHS teachers from those years. When I go on leave I will work on them and send them through to you.
A few things while I think of them though.
Thing one: There was a character called Kelver Hartley who taught French part time at Sydney University in the early 1950’s. Hartley was another highly disciplined eccentric who went on to become Professor of French at Newcastle Uni. He was amongst other things a dedicated fascist who had taken part in the Action Francaise riots in Paris in the 1930’s - you can read the truly bizarre story of his life and death at
Thing two (and maybe you know this): Frannie Dransfield, who features in your STHS web page, was the sister of the late great Michael Dransfield, who (degrees of separation) was a friend of Richard Hopkinson.
Thing three: Reg Byrne, the rebel teacher from 66-68, was one of the youngest members of the fabled Sydney Push. He was a disciple of the push leader Darcy Waters, and a sometime bedmate of Germaine Greer, who apparently rated him highly. He appears in at least one of Frank Moorhouse's short stories as Reg the Punter, who frequents the Balmain laundromat.
I'll get back to you shortly, but in the meantime, may you continue to enjoy your boutique university course, and of course your understanding wife.
Paul
