Lance had a dogged, slightly awkward quality about him. He was the physically less impressive younger brother, earnest rather than confident. His smile was a grimace of endurance. He bore with dignity the role of public pianist at the school assemblies, pounding his way through hymns and national anthems. You would have thought him the willing instrument of Process, the man born to wear a school uniform through life.
And yet…Lance Meng was a Communist
What drove those hands and feet?
As an Australian of Chinese descent growing up Mackay, George Meng would have seen enough to know the dice were loaded. The Depression hit Queensland hard. Its miners fought the bosses at their game, until Pig Iron Bob’s ingots came back as Japanese Zeroes. Fred Paterson took the seat of Bowen in ‘44, but our first Communist MP was bashed into retirement by His Majesty’s Police. Marriage to the daughter of Italian immigrants brought no conversion for George. The system was rotten and needed changing, but whatever happened, the best chance for their children lay in education.
Lance Giovanni Meng’s early life was no easier than his father’s. Year after year, he was forbidden from playing sport unless he finished in the top twenty in the exams. Did he actually like music? Who knows, but he learned his lessons well.
The Party kept its hopes up through the sixties. An unpopular war and the jailing of Clarrie O’Shea kept the red flag flying, despite years of full employment. Young Lance was there, quiet but committed. Bong’s feint at free speech gave him the chance he had to take. Five minutes to address the school on Conscription…
Sincerity has a sound that equals music. Of Lance’s arguments I remember nothing. The fly-specked sheets of Tribune, stuck behind shop windows, would have been their source. I remember a pained and earnest voice, a badge on a uniform, a speech through gritted teeth. His head was tilted to one side, the eyes half closed, as he fought to remember the words he had learned by heart. And finally, the frozen face of Bong, and the mechanical delivery of claps from his hands.
“On piano, Lance Meng…..”
Paul Feldman
More Drama at STHS (Paul Feldman)
Somewhere amongst the sheafs of fading papers generated by his proposal for a National Theatre, LF Giblin mentions attending two amazingly good productions by secondary school students.
In a similar way, the audience of Brian Hodge's 1966 STHS production of The One Day of the Year were stunned by how good it was.
Seymour's play is powerful because it deals with the dominant realities of mid-twentieth century Australia . The Sixties was the last decade that Australians died in large numbers in an overseas war, and the last decade that parents came from a generation fifty years older than their children.
The play was so well-cast it was almost eerie. David Wilson as the blue-collar father seemed to draw on the anger inside himself, and once in character, spoke the lines as though they were his own. The actors playing his wife and his army mate were in different ways extraordinarily effective. Within minutes you had forgotten they were adolescent boys because they had taken on the reality of the people they were portraying. Their speech, movement and gestures conveyed whole life histories. By contrast, Garry Saunders who played the rebellious uni student was in real life almost absurdly self-controlled, and seemed awkward and ill-at-ease in the part. But given his role in the play, this tension actually worked to his advantage.
When I think about it, the play - and this production in particular - exemplified the benefits of drama identified by Giblin
(whose understanding of the social value of dramatic catharsis drew on a rare depth of experience and tested rationalism).
It's still one of the best things I've seen, anywhere.
The following year Hodge produced Reedy River, an Australian musical based on the shearers' strike of 1891. This lacked the character conflict and perceptiveness of Seymour's play, but was instead a rousing call to class consciousness, with lots of boisterous songs to the crashing and jingling of the lagerphone.
Like Tom Thumb, it was remarkable for bringing together a collection of students who would otherwise have had little to do with each other. These included:
* the pop star prefect, Geoff Fleming
* the even more talented Geoff McGill
* a real female
* the musicians Eric Kennedy and Jim Wilson
* the playground entertainer Paul Meller
* the clean-cut Christian Chris Appleby
* the science nerds Sugden, Gabriel, Cimbleris and Wright who did the technical production and produced a record
* Comrade Meng
* and on force majeur piano, Tillers
The strenuously painful McGill later went into ALP politics, via the Clerks Union. In a 1979 speech to a rally of 3000 revolting public servants in Canberra, McGill recited selected lyrics from The Ballad of 1891
to rousing effect. 'The squatter' was of course, that hated fascist free-marketeer, John Malcolm Fraser
Hodge and Ellis were creative, hard-working teachers. Both were moderately left-wing in their sympathies: Hodge I would guess was a compassionate Labor supporter; Ellis was a broad-minded Christian Socialist, cynical about party politics. Both showed dutiful respect for the hierarchy of command, but were privately quick to criticise it.
Hodge went on to be History Master at Sydney High School and eventually retired to Hill End. Ellis went to All Saints College Bathurst, where he had a hard time as House Master. I think he would up as Headmaster at a succession of Anglican Schools. I can't help thinking that was a waste of an excellent teacher.
In a similar way, the audience of Brian Hodge's 1966 STHS production of The One Day of the Year were stunned by how good it was.
Seymour's play is powerful because it deals with the dominant realities of mid-twentieth century Australia . The Sixties was the last decade that Australians died in large numbers in an overseas war, and the last decade that parents came from a generation fifty years older than their children.
The play was so well-cast it was almost eerie. David Wilson as the blue-collar father seemed to draw on the anger inside himself, and once in character, spoke the lines as though they were his own. The actors playing his wife and his army mate were in different ways extraordinarily effective. Within minutes you had forgotten they were adolescent boys because they had taken on the reality of the people they were portraying. Their speech, movement and gestures conveyed whole life histories. By contrast, Garry Saunders who played the rebellious uni student was in real life almost absurdly self-controlled, and seemed awkward and ill-at-ease in the part. But given his role in the play, this tension actually worked to his advantage.
When I think about it, the play - and this production in particular - exemplified the benefits of drama identified by Giblin
(whose understanding of the social value of dramatic catharsis drew on a rare depth of experience and tested rationalism).
It's still one of the best things I've seen, anywhere.
The following year Hodge produced Reedy River, an Australian musical based on the shearers' strike of 1891. This lacked the character conflict and perceptiveness of Seymour's play, but was instead a rousing call to class consciousness, with lots of boisterous songs to the crashing and jingling of the lagerphone.
Like Tom Thumb, it was remarkable for bringing together a collection of students who would otherwise have had little to do with each other. These included:
* the pop star prefect, Geoff Fleming
* the even more talented Geoff McGill
* a real female
* the musicians Eric Kennedy and Jim Wilson
* the playground entertainer Paul Meller
* the clean-cut Christian Chris Appleby
* the science nerds Sugden, Gabriel, Cimbleris and Wright who did the technical production and produced a record
* Comrade Meng
* and on force majeur piano, Tillers
The strenuously painful McGill later went into ALP politics, via the Clerks Union. In a 1979 speech to a rally of 3000 revolting public servants in Canberra, McGill recited selected lyrics from The Ballad of 1891
to rousing effect. 'The squatter' was of course, that hated fascist free-marketeer, John Malcolm Fraser
Hodge and Ellis were creative, hard-working teachers. Both were moderately left-wing in their sympathies: Hodge I would guess was a compassionate Labor supporter; Ellis was a broad-minded Christian Socialist, cynical about party politics. Both showed dutiful respect for the hierarchy of command, but were privately quick to criticise it.
Hodge went on to be History Master at Sydney High School and eventually retired to Hill End. Ellis went to All Saints College Bathurst, where he had a hard time as House Master. I think he would up as Headmaster at a succession of Anglican Schools. I can't help thinking that was a waste of an excellent teacher.
Sex Education on Allawah Station - Manners and Morals at STHS (Paul Feldman)
It was in 1960 that the expressive potential of swearing was first demonstrated to me by Stephen Ollerton, a fellow student at Athelstane Primary. Ollerton was probably dyslexic and could hardly read. He came last in the class, behind even the mute, obedient girls from the Salvation Army Girls Home. His main value was the comic entertainment he provided when being caned, or when the class lined up for polio vaccination. But one day, when I happened to be the last to leave in a group that had been teasing him, he lashed out with 'Ah piss off, yer bloody bum-faced bugger! Leave me alone!' This stopped me dead in my tracks, and for some time afterwards I was perplexed by surreal images of a bum-faced human.
1963: Masturbation, Arkinstall informed me, was 'fucking without the dame'. The term 'dame' was in its last throes, having been imported from US culture of the thirties and forties. It was to disappear within a year, to be replaced by 'bird', as part of the pop culture re-colonisation led by British TV comedy, the Beatles, and James Bond. Already in 1963, boys in First Form were imitating Harry Corbett from Steptoe and Son with 'You dir'y old maaaan!' complete with glottal stop and unsounded consonants.
I was familiar enough with the sight of my sister's small vertical smile, but was unable to identify that with the concept of a cunt, up which one supposedly fucked a dame. This led to the following embarrassment while waiting for a late afternoon train at Allawah Station
.
'Hey Arky, do you fuck a dame up the bum?'
'Naohh! What are ya, some kind of poofter? Heh, what... whaddaya think ya came out of ya mother's arse like a turd? Hahaha... See you with your wife on your wedding night: Argh! Stop! Whaddaya doing?" Hahaha...
Keith Hart was the boy who had repeated intercourse with the science bench in Room 13. He and Arkinstall persuaded me that the fish and chip shop just up from Arncliffe station doubled as a 'brothel shop' . They had it on the authority of a Kogarah High boy, whose elder brother was a 'real hood', that one had only to ask for a 'black and white milkshake' to be taken up the back stairs for a session with the proprietor's daughter. She was a 'real moll' who 'roots herself with an oyster bottle". 'Go in there, you can see the bottles on the shelf'.
Hart offered me a shilling if I would go in and ask for a black and white milkshake. Swallowing hard, I walked slowly into the dim shop and made it to the counter. The proprietor had his back turned to me, then he turned round. He was a swarthy man in a white apron.
'Yes, what you want?' '
Can I have a milkshake please.'
He stared at me like Bela Lugosi. '
'What kind of milkshake you want?'
I bolted from the shop and ran past Hart, who was laughing.
1964: Swimming at Ramsgate Baths, I ran into Graham Young. Over a pineapple fritter, he told me it was the first time he had been back to the baths in two years. Last time he had broken out in festering sores that turned into scabs. The Baths pumped sea water in from the Bay, just across the road. A travelling circus had been in the park opposite the Baths, and they had washed out the monkey cages right near the water pipe. Fortunately, the scabs had all dropped off, and there were no scars or anything...
I already knew from my friend Philip Miles that the Victoria Baths in Prince Alfred Park were 'seven percent urine'. My brother was having swimming lessons there.
1965: A distinctive sarcasm developed amongst the hoods in Third form, involving insertion of the prefixes 'non' in front of whatever adjective or proposition they wanted to affirm. Exposure to these formulations came from Robert Lever who lived across the road from me. He was an accomplice of Greg Wyner, who probably invented them. For example, 'on my last day I'm non-gonna go up to Fatgut [Hurst] and job him', or 'There goes Sykes, friend of all, non-deadshit!' or 'Don't ask Pedro, he won't know... small fool! many want him'.
A favorite routine amongst this lot, when travelling on a bus, was to see a particularly elderly or ugly woman on the street, and call out 'Hello Mrs [insert surname of friend]!'
Around this time, a classic scene is said to have occurred at the back of a bus in Hurstville, where Ron 'Gobbo' Stokes and 'Dirty' Young sat smoking, wearing their own parody of the school uniform. Enter Paul Lyons, Senior Prefect, loathed and detested for putting them on quad regularly. They called Lyons 'Neck' because of his acned shaving rash. With military sang froid, Lyons strides up to Stokes, rips the cigarette out his mouth and tears it in half, drops the burning end on the floor and stamps on it. Howls and threats ensued. 'Gobbo' acquired his nickname from the story that his sister was forced to fellate a gang of bikies...
1963: Masturbation, Arkinstall informed me, was 'fucking without the dame'. The term 'dame' was in its last throes, having been imported from US culture of the thirties and forties. It was to disappear within a year, to be replaced by 'bird', as part of the pop culture re-colonisation led by British TV comedy, the Beatles, and James Bond. Already in 1963, boys in First Form were imitating Harry Corbett from Steptoe and Son with 'You dir'y old maaaan!' complete with glottal stop and unsounded consonants.
I was familiar enough with the sight of my sister's small vertical smile, but was unable to identify that with the concept of a cunt, up which one supposedly fucked a dame. This led to the following embarrassment while waiting for a late afternoon train at Allawah Station
.
'Hey Arky, do you fuck a dame up the bum?'
'Naohh! What are ya, some kind of poofter? Heh, what... whaddaya think ya came out of ya mother's arse like a turd? Hahaha... See you with your wife on your wedding night: Argh! Stop! Whaddaya doing?" Hahaha...
Keith Hart was the boy who had repeated intercourse with the science bench in Room 13. He and Arkinstall persuaded me that the fish and chip shop just up from Arncliffe station doubled as a 'brothel shop' . They had it on the authority of a Kogarah High boy, whose elder brother was a 'real hood', that one had only to ask for a 'black and white milkshake' to be taken up the back stairs for a session with the proprietor's daughter. She was a 'real moll' who 'roots herself with an oyster bottle". 'Go in there, you can see the bottles on the shelf'.
Hart offered me a shilling if I would go in and ask for a black and white milkshake. Swallowing hard, I walked slowly into the dim shop and made it to the counter. The proprietor had his back turned to me, then he turned round. He was a swarthy man in a white apron.
'Yes, what you want?' '
Can I have a milkshake please.'
He stared at me like Bela Lugosi. '
'What kind of milkshake you want?'
I bolted from the shop and ran past Hart, who was laughing.
1964: Swimming at Ramsgate Baths, I ran into Graham Young. Over a pineapple fritter, he told me it was the first time he had been back to the baths in two years. Last time he had broken out in festering sores that turned into scabs. The Baths pumped sea water in from the Bay, just across the road. A travelling circus had been in the park opposite the Baths, and they had washed out the monkey cages right near the water pipe. Fortunately, the scabs had all dropped off, and there were no scars or anything...
I already knew from my friend Philip Miles that the Victoria Baths in Prince Alfred Park were 'seven percent urine'. My brother was having swimming lessons there.
1965: A distinctive sarcasm developed amongst the hoods in Third form, involving insertion of the prefixes 'non' in front of whatever adjective or proposition they wanted to affirm. Exposure to these formulations came from Robert Lever who lived across the road from me. He was an accomplice of Greg Wyner, who probably invented them. For example, 'on my last day I'm non-gonna go up to Fatgut [Hurst] and job him', or 'There goes Sykes, friend of all, non-deadshit!' or 'Don't ask Pedro, he won't know... small fool! many want him'.
A favorite routine amongst this lot, when travelling on a bus, was to see a particularly elderly or ugly woman on the street, and call out 'Hello Mrs [insert surname of friend]!'
Around this time, a classic scene is said to have occurred at the back of a bus in Hurstville, where Ron 'Gobbo' Stokes and 'Dirty' Young sat smoking, wearing their own parody of the school uniform. Enter Paul Lyons, Senior Prefect, loathed and detested for putting them on quad regularly. They called Lyons 'Neck' because of his acned shaving rash. With military sang froid, Lyons strides up to Stokes, rips the cigarette out his mouth and tears it in half, drops the burning end on the floor and stamps on it. Howls and threats ensued. 'Gobbo' acquired his nickname from the story that his sister was forced to fellate a gang of bikies...
Honour My God - Scripture at STHS (Paul Feldman)
It was a hard road to salvation for the Reverend RN Langshaw. Week after week, he stood before us in the dim back quarter of the auditorium, and week after week we teased him, rattled him, and brought forth from him the persecuted Christian. His pouchy, querulous face pursed, frowned and grimaced.
These were testing times for a 60 year old divine. Billy Graham might have had the penitent masses queuing in the rain at the Sydney Showground, but these boys! Call them the best school in the St George district? Where was the discipline? When they sought to drown out the Lord's word with animal noises, loud humming and wild silly laughter, where were those good men who smote impious youth with rods? And that headmaster! You could look him in the eye and tell him that his boys were the worst-behaved in Sydney, and already lost to God, and what does he say? He says he's wanted on the telephone.
Was scripture like this for those of us who were not Church of England? I learned at the age of five that I was something called 'Church of England' because everyone was, unless they were something else. My informant was an older boy (later, the same boy told me that school was the boss of me from the moment I went out the door until the moment I got home.) So that was how it was. I had to go to Scripture and hear all about God and Jesus. (I already knew that Jesus had something to do with knowledge: 'Jesus Christ!' said the man next door. 'Where are those bloody hooks?')
Scripture Classes: a succession of men, most in late middle-age, began to appear in front of us, usually late in the morning. At Infants school there was a friendly old chap, a little like the English actor Stanley Holloway, who told us stories from the Old Testament. Through the terrible reign of Miss Peachey, a vigorous smiter of youth, I found comfort in his words about Daniel in the Lions' Den and took refuge in the tunes of certain hymns. This man came closer than anyone to bringing me to God. I pleaded for my parents to visit the church one evening, as a family. Of course, I got to watch cartoons while my parents got a soft-sell about sending me to Sunday School. Still, I came close to disappointment when my father said he didn't believe that superstitious nonsense...
My first scripture teacher at Tech was a pharmacist with conviction, named Smythe - a red-haired man who put on a determined show of annoyance at our laziness and lack of interest. He made us bring exercise books, and dictated lists of Biblical facts to us, which we were then examined on a half-yearly basis. He tried to shame us into trying harder, by matching us against Narwee Primary. Like Frazer, he wanted to see maximum colour in our books. As a cheerful insult to my father, I had decided to come top in scripture. A lesser McGonigal of Art, I tried hard with the cover of my exercise book. The result was an overweight Jesus with a Beatle haircut ascending to Heaven on a thought balloon. My book got ten out of ten 'because I cared'. Arkinstall (of 'The Plough' fame) didn't care, and what was worse, he argued with Smyth about the authority of The Bible. Arkinstall was going to Hell. (He went instead, to the Public Service.)
Smyth begat Langshaw, who eventually left in a lather of vexation and was replaced by the Reverend Lindsay Bovis. A broad-faced man in a bad suit, Bovis faced down the animal chorus with weary contempt, and kept talking. There was something painful about him, which I later recognised as middle age. The Reverend Bovis had been 'Called from business life'. You never knew when you were going to get The Call, it just happened. He wasn't expecting it, but it happened, and look at him now. Look at this suit I'm wearing, it's a bomb. I was a businessman and I could afford to wear good clothes and drive a decent car. But now I can't. The Government says you need religious instruction and I'm going to give it to you. You don't care. I can tell you're not interested. But I'm going to give it to you, because I care. Apart from a burdensome sense of duty, religion seemed to have done nothing for him.
Stanley Holloway excepted, those men missed their mark badly. They looked at the boys in front of them and saw spoilt lazy beings they could not reach, and retreated to their own displeasure. 'Plough' Arkinstall eventually responded to a challenge from two Christians and attended Inter School Christian Fellowship meetings - admittedly conversion did not follow, but that would indeed have been a miracle...
These were testing times for a 60 year old divine. Billy Graham might have had the penitent masses queuing in the rain at the Sydney Showground, but these boys! Call them the best school in the St George district? Where was the discipline? When they sought to drown out the Lord's word with animal noises, loud humming and wild silly laughter, where were those good men who smote impious youth with rods? And that headmaster! You could look him in the eye and tell him that his boys were the worst-behaved in Sydney, and already lost to God, and what does he say? He says he's wanted on the telephone.
Was scripture like this for those of us who were not Church of England? I learned at the age of five that I was something called 'Church of England' because everyone was, unless they were something else. My informant was an older boy (later, the same boy told me that school was the boss of me from the moment I went out the door until the moment I got home.) So that was how it was. I had to go to Scripture and hear all about God and Jesus. (I already knew that Jesus had something to do with knowledge: 'Jesus Christ!' said the man next door. 'Where are those bloody hooks?')
Scripture Classes: a succession of men, most in late middle-age, began to appear in front of us, usually late in the morning. At Infants school there was a friendly old chap, a little like the English actor Stanley Holloway, who told us stories from the Old Testament. Through the terrible reign of Miss Peachey, a vigorous smiter of youth, I found comfort in his words about Daniel in the Lions' Den and took refuge in the tunes of certain hymns. This man came closer than anyone to bringing me to God. I pleaded for my parents to visit the church one evening, as a family. Of course, I got to watch cartoons while my parents got a soft-sell about sending me to Sunday School. Still, I came close to disappointment when my father said he didn't believe that superstitious nonsense...
My first scripture teacher at Tech was a pharmacist with conviction, named Smythe - a red-haired man who put on a determined show of annoyance at our laziness and lack of interest. He made us bring exercise books, and dictated lists of Biblical facts to us, which we were then examined on a half-yearly basis. He tried to shame us into trying harder, by matching us against Narwee Primary. Like Frazer, he wanted to see maximum colour in our books. As a cheerful insult to my father, I had decided to come top in scripture. A lesser McGonigal of Art, I tried hard with the cover of my exercise book. The result was an overweight Jesus with a Beatle haircut ascending to Heaven on a thought balloon. My book got ten out of ten 'because I cared'. Arkinstall (of 'The Plough' fame) didn't care, and what was worse, he argued with Smyth about the authority of The Bible. Arkinstall was going to Hell. (He went instead, to the Public Service.)
Smyth begat Langshaw, who eventually left in a lather of vexation and was replaced by the Reverend Lindsay Bovis. A broad-faced man in a bad suit, Bovis faced down the animal chorus with weary contempt, and kept talking. There was something painful about him, which I later recognised as middle age. The Reverend Bovis had been 'Called from business life'. You never knew when you were going to get The Call, it just happened. He wasn't expecting it, but it happened, and look at him now. Look at this suit I'm wearing, it's a bomb. I was a businessman and I could afford to wear good clothes and drive a decent car. But now I can't. The Government says you need religious instruction and I'm going to give it to you. You don't care. I can tell you're not interested. But I'm going to give it to you, because I care. Apart from a burdensome sense of duty, religion seemed to have done nothing for him.
Stanley Holloway excepted, those men missed their mark badly. They looked at the boys in front of them and saw spoilt lazy beings they could not reach, and retreated to their own displeasure. 'Plough' Arkinstall eventually responded to a challenge from two Christians and attended Inter School Christian Fellowship meetings - admittedly conversion did not follow, but that would indeed have been a miracle...
Hemlock at Bexley - The STHS Socratic Society (Paul Feldman)
Teachers Mackie and Henderson arrived at Tech in 68. They were not as cool as Reg Byrne. Mackie was flabby and bearded, wore a cord coat and spoke in an educated voice. Henderson dressed conventionally but seemed lackadaisical.. They came to work together in Henderson’s damaged white car, with newspaper stuck to the side panel.
Both tested boundaries in a way the system did not like.
They would sometimes sit on the ground and talk to boys in the senior playground. Anyone who wanted to talk to them was asked to sit down first.
Henderson played Like a Rolling Stone to his First Form English class, and then told them to write whatever came into their heads. He smiled at the boys, and was passive about disruptive behaviour. It was not long before his sexuality was questioned.
Mackie had studied under the libertarian George Molnar at Sydney University and maintained that Philosophy ‘teaches you how to think’. He started the Socratic Society at STHS as a public speaking and debating forum to promote the ethic of accepting nothing and questioning everything. Questioning the establishment and accepting the need for radical change went down particularly well with us.
The lunchtime meetings were well attended, attracting boys from all years. Speakers and topics included:
John Flaus [bearded, trenchcoated, WEA stalwart] - Anarchy as a way of life
Ted Noffs – his work with drug addicts
Tom Kistle – the US primaries, as a leadup to the 1968 presidential election
Morris Cohen and Paul Feldman – the Arab Israeli conflict
Geoff Brookes and Brian Cleary – the Vietnam War
Mackie was disappointed when Reg Byrne declined to speak against the education system, before leaving for Sweden.
When Noffs came to the school, there were about 80 people in the audience. His presentation ran overtime and got the predictable cheer. Ray Hau, a Chinese maths teacher, got into an argument with him on his way out, about using drug rehab. to push Chtistianity. Ralphie Satchell, then maths master, appeared and ordered Hau to go to his class. When Noffs got to his car, Bong came out of the Admin block. He looked flustered but managed a warm greeting to Noffs. He said it was a pity you boys didn’t let us now about this, we would have invited Rev. Noffs to the assembly, etc etc.
I think it was the success of the Socratic Society that prompted Bong, perhaps at Haddrill’s instigation, to introduce a public speaking segment at the school assembly. The two presentations I remember from that forum were one by Lance Meng, on conscription, and one by Stephen Riley. Both were received with grim tolerance, except by Fin Cook who leered with distaste at Riley.
It was not surprising that Mackie and Henderson volunteered to produce the main event for the School Concert. What was shocking and deplorable, to me, was their choice of Brigadoon - about as bourgeois as you could get. Mackie said he wanted to do something ‘much more professional than last year’s effort’ [which he hadn’t even seen – it was Reedy River, a musical about striking shearers, directed by Hodge].
At some point later in the year, Booth announced to his Science class that some of the teachers had failed their annual inspections, and made a reference to beards…
At the end of that year, Haddrill arranged to have a drink with his Level One class after the HSC exams, but ‘not at the Bexley Hotel’ [at which M&H were known to drink]. Over drinks, he confided he had ‘been worried about what they [M&H] were doing to the senior school.’ In similar vein he went on to ask ‘what [we] thought about Reg Byrne as a person’.
Mackie and Henderson were involuntarily transferred to Blacktown High.
Mackie obviously survived the experience, and eventually came ashore on Masturbation Island – a lectureship in Education at the University of Newcastle, where he taught radical education and Marxist social theory and produced ‘Literacy and Revolution. The Pedagogy of Paulo Freire’ . Of Henderson’s fate I know nothing. He might have become an Orange Person, but I’d say he’s a retired public servant.
The Socratic Society was banned in 1969.
What distinguished Mackie from Reg Byrne was that he was a political rebel with a more immediate focus. He wanted to apply new teaching methods to change the way we were taught. As such, he ran less risk of having a sense of futility confirmed, than someone who wanted to change the world political order. He was also around at an excellent time for an educational radical - the start of the 1970s. And he made a great move by going to academia, where he could nourish his ideas in a supportive, less stressful environment.
All of this explains why he was able to stay radical into late middle age, and why in his salad years at Tech, he presented more of a danger than an anarchistic non-conformist like Byrne. The were two things that pissed me off about Mackie's choice of Brigadoon. The first was obvious. The second was that at that time censorship was still in force. The NSW Chief Secretary Eric Willis had just banned America Hurrah, a stage play produced st Sydney's New Theatre, featuring humanoid dolls who did naughty things. The police attended the play and closed the show. I would have applauded Mackie if he had tried to test the STHS boundaries with something daring. But he would have chosen Brigadoon (a) because he thought it was an excellent musical, and there was no incompatibility between being a revolutionary educator and promoting excellence in anything and (b) because he wanted to keep his powder dry for the main event rather than get martyred over a single night of fireworks.
Both tested boundaries in a way the system did not like.
They would sometimes sit on the ground and talk to boys in the senior playground. Anyone who wanted to talk to them was asked to sit down first.
Henderson played Like a Rolling Stone to his First Form English class, and then told them to write whatever came into their heads. He smiled at the boys, and was passive about disruptive behaviour. It was not long before his sexuality was questioned.
Mackie had studied under the libertarian George Molnar at Sydney University and maintained that Philosophy ‘teaches you how to think’. He started the Socratic Society at STHS as a public speaking and debating forum to promote the ethic of accepting nothing and questioning everything. Questioning the establishment and accepting the need for radical change went down particularly well with us.
The lunchtime meetings were well attended, attracting boys from all years. Speakers and topics included:
John Flaus [bearded, trenchcoated, WEA stalwart] - Anarchy as a way of life
Ted Noffs – his work with drug addicts
Tom Kistle – the US primaries, as a leadup to the 1968 presidential election
Morris Cohen and Paul Feldman – the Arab Israeli conflict
Geoff Brookes and Brian Cleary – the Vietnam War
Mackie was disappointed when Reg Byrne declined to speak against the education system, before leaving for Sweden.
When Noffs came to the school, there were about 80 people in the audience. His presentation ran overtime and got the predictable cheer. Ray Hau, a Chinese maths teacher, got into an argument with him on his way out, about using drug rehab. to push Chtistianity. Ralphie Satchell, then maths master, appeared and ordered Hau to go to his class. When Noffs got to his car, Bong came out of the Admin block. He looked flustered but managed a warm greeting to Noffs. He said it was a pity you boys didn’t let us now about this, we would have invited Rev. Noffs to the assembly, etc etc.
I think it was the success of the Socratic Society that prompted Bong, perhaps at Haddrill’s instigation, to introduce a public speaking segment at the school assembly. The two presentations I remember from that forum were one by Lance Meng, on conscription, and one by Stephen Riley. Both were received with grim tolerance, except by Fin Cook who leered with distaste at Riley.
It was not surprising that Mackie and Henderson volunteered to produce the main event for the School Concert. What was shocking and deplorable, to me, was their choice of Brigadoon - about as bourgeois as you could get. Mackie said he wanted to do something ‘much more professional than last year’s effort’ [which he hadn’t even seen – it was Reedy River, a musical about striking shearers, directed by Hodge].
At some point later in the year, Booth announced to his Science class that some of the teachers had failed their annual inspections, and made a reference to beards…
At the end of that year, Haddrill arranged to have a drink with his Level One class after the HSC exams, but ‘not at the Bexley Hotel’ [at which M&H were known to drink]. Over drinks, he confided he had ‘been worried about what they [M&H] were doing to the senior school.’ In similar vein he went on to ask ‘what [we] thought about Reg Byrne as a person’.
Mackie and Henderson were involuntarily transferred to Blacktown High.
Mackie obviously survived the experience, and eventually came ashore on Masturbation Island – a lectureship in Education at the University of Newcastle, where he taught radical education and Marxist social theory and produced ‘Literacy and Revolution. The Pedagogy of Paulo Freire’ . Of Henderson’s fate I know nothing. He might have become an Orange Person, but I’d say he’s a retired public servant.
The Socratic Society was banned in 1969.
What distinguished Mackie from Reg Byrne was that he was a political rebel with a more immediate focus. He wanted to apply new teaching methods to change the way we were taught. As such, he ran less risk of having a sense of futility confirmed, than someone who wanted to change the world political order. He was also around at an excellent time for an educational radical - the start of the 1970s. And he made a great move by going to academia, where he could nourish his ideas in a supportive, less stressful environment.
All of this explains why he was able to stay radical into late middle age, and why in his salad years at Tech, he presented more of a danger than an anarchistic non-conformist like Byrne. The were two things that pissed me off about Mackie's choice of Brigadoon. The first was obvious. The second was that at that time censorship was still in force. The NSW Chief Secretary Eric Willis had just banned America Hurrah, a stage play produced st Sydney's New Theatre, featuring humanoid dolls who did naughty things. The police attended the play and closed the show. I would have applauded Mackie if he had tried to test the STHS boundaries with something daring. But he would have chosen Brigadoon (a) because he thought it was an excellent musical, and there was no incompatibility between being a revolutionary educator and promoting excellence in anything and (b) because he wanted to keep his powder dry for the main event rather than get martyred over a single night of fireworks.
Who was Bong, Who Was He? (Paul Feldman)
According to the online index of NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages, Harold Bird Brown was born at Narrandera in 1906.
He was therefore 65 when he retired in 1971. The school Journal I acquired from my brother has three pieces by or about him. The STHS admin. file in custody of NSW State Records also yields insights.
The biography says that HB's father taught for 42 years, starting as a pupil teacher at 14. HB may have been encouraged to follow in that tradition. He was probably a pupil at his father's school [one who did not rebel]. HB is between 8 and 12 during WWI. Like HB twenty five years later, his father sticks to his profession and does not join up [so probably takes huge dose of patriotism to counteract guilt]
As might have been expected, HB is encouraged to get as good an education as possible. He does his Leaving at Sydney Boys Hiigh at the old age of 18 in 1924 [illness? repeating in order to matriculate?]. He gets into Sydney Uni where he does well in Geology [and could therefore go into mining]. But he decides on teaching [admires his father, wants to outdo him, believes in the betterment of mankind...] He finishes his science degree in 1928 and the following year starts teaching at North Sydney Boys High. He sets the seal on this choice of occupation by going back to uni. and completing a BA. He spends a few happy years at Broken Hill as educational desert missionary, sharing his knowledge of science and geology. He courts and marries the attractive young Connie.
For the next fifteen years he moves around NSW, spending three years here, three years there. He ends up at Newcastle Tech High as science master in 1945. He does that for only three years, then it's off to Young in 1948 to become Deputy Head. He stays there until 1957, becoming Headmaster at some point. [Did they keep moving you around until you became part of management, therefore a lot of attraction in getting promoted?] He has at least one child by this stage.
STHS is a jewel, and he gets it. The school has only recently been established in Bexley. There are apparently fights with the Old Boys Union over the name of the school and other traditions [hats? teachers in academic gowns?]. The school used to be the feeder institution for Sydney Technical College, so it's not surprising there is a lot of Old Boy sentiment and muscle. Many have gone on to greater things and can lean on politicians - they win the fight to retain the school name as STHS rather than St George Boys High. My 1963 journal has a feature about the "Consecration of 'Lodge Sydney Technical High School" featuring men called Worshipful Brothers Les Rice and Les Padman, with photo of exhumed old man with far-away eyes. But HB cultivates countervailing power in the form of the P&C, headed by smooth-spoken George Brown and supposedly has a number of victories over the OBU.
[How seriously did HB take these challenges to his authority, how nervous did they make him feel, and how much did he feel reliant on the Department's backing in them?]
HB wants the school to be conspicuously successful and well-regarded After all, it is a selective high school and both the Department and the community expect and deserve excellence. He gets active in promoting the school and lobbying for resources. [Most years I was there, Speech Night featured someone important and interesting, and was reported in the Herald and on ABC Radio news the following day.]
HB takes criticism of the school very personally . The school admin. file shows that in 1960 Mr X writes to his MP, who is the Minister, and complains that on the basis of this year's Leaving results in English, this is indeed a Technical High School because it produces illiterates. Department sends HB a 'please explain'. File shows HB smarting with indignation. 'Mr X has never approached me to discuss this. If he had, I would have told him (blah blah blah)...'
Eight years later when Gary Simes tops HSC English, HB and Haddrill arrive on his doorstep at 7am carolling praise. HB recounts incident of Mr X and says 'this will show Mr X and his ilk'.
Given these sensitivities, HB must have been fretting throughout 60s about weakness of Science staff and later Language staff. In 1963, the school recalls ancient retired Science master to drag Honours class through Leaving.Certificate His replacement then leaves within the year. In 1965, departure of ailing Baldwin and feisty Simmonds further dilutes degreed staff in Science causing over-reliance on specimens like Frog and Bitmead. In Language Department, Scrag Edmonds retires. Then follows sad ordeal of Smiley Walker. Then Whittaker, Rennie and Pettit leave en masse in 1967. These traumas are glimpsed darkly through a bureaucratic glass, on school admin. file.
HB is equally sensitive to any suggestion of disrespect. I did not realise he was nearly 60 when so many of us became surly and challenging in the mid 60s. His opposition to long hair and free speech now more understandable. Not surprisingly, he bans the Socratic Society and sends Mackie and Henderson to teach at Blacktown. The 1971 journal reprints text of speech he delivered at 1970 speech night. Front half of speech is about why 6th Form boys are under so much stress. Then follows Reichstag rave about university sit-ins providing model for mass student vandalism. Visions of flying squads of vandals and police contesting amid rubble of school bathed in flour, eggs, treacle and sump oil...
Quotes:
'He was a hollow man... one of many unfortunately...' (Chris Ellis)
'His doctor told him he was thinking too hard about things, so he gave up thinking' (Alby Jenkins).
In '63. HB is extremely disappointed when tries to drum up enthusiasm for a visit to the Moore Park sports ground to see the Queen - very few put up their hands. In '65 he is predictably pleased about Askin's election victory and not just because he is an old boy of the school. You can tell he thinks Askin is wonderful.
In 1968 Bing goes on the warpath about people crossing Forest Road without using the pedestrian crossing, but then Bong gets collected by a car one morning when crossing illegally. The car is moving slowly, but HB actually goes up onto the bonnet and slides off after hitting the windscreen. No injuries and all kept quiet.
Shortly after that event HB comes down with suspected meningitis. We are never told what the eventual diagnosis is, but when he comes back it's obvious he's gone a bit silly. He gets vague at assemblies and starts being light hearted, which is strange. He bids a jovial public farewell to Mr Twigg as Mr Quigg. He makes a reference to 'Professor Hesser' and there is a swell of sniggering. And he laughs and says 'Well you might think that's a funny name, but my name's Brown and that's as common as dirt.' Loud sardonic laughter. One or two teachers look embarrassed, one or two others struggle with facial control.
Bing comes back to an assembly early in 1968 to be presented with a farewell gift, after retiring the previous year. Bong makes a speech about how Bing is 'Captain of South Strathfield Bowling Club, and now when he goes bowling he can go along to his club with his very own bowling bag.' More sardonic laughter.
Instantly Bing steps to the microphone and says 'All right now, settle down...' with signature menace. 'Oh Bing, you're back...' croons someone softly.
He was therefore 65 when he retired in 1971. The school Journal I acquired from my brother has three pieces by or about him. The STHS admin. file in custody of NSW State Records also yields insights.
The biography says that HB's father taught for 42 years, starting as a pupil teacher at 14. HB may have been encouraged to follow in that tradition. He was probably a pupil at his father's school [one who did not rebel]. HB is between 8 and 12 during WWI. Like HB twenty five years later, his father sticks to his profession and does not join up [so probably takes huge dose of patriotism to counteract guilt]
As might have been expected, HB is encouraged to get as good an education as possible. He does his Leaving at Sydney Boys Hiigh at the old age of 18 in 1924 [illness? repeating in order to matriculate?]. He gets into Sydney Uni where he does well in Geology [and could therefore go into mining]. But he decides on teaching [admires his father, wants to outdo him, believes in the betterment of mankind...] He finishes his science degree in 1928 and the following year starts teaching at North Sydney Boys High. He sets the seal on this choice of occupation by going back to uni. and completing a BA. He spends a few happy years at Broken Hill as educational desert missionary, sharing his knowledge of science and geology. He courts and marries the attractive young Connie.
For the next fifteen years he moves around NSW, spending three years here, three years there. He ends up at Newcastle Tech High as science master in 1945. He does that for only three years, then it's off to Young in 1948 to become Deputy Head. He stays there until 1957, becoming Headmaster at some point. [Did they keep moving you around until you became part of management, therefore a lot of attraction in getting promoted?] He has at least one child by this stage.
STHS is a jewel, and he gets it. The school has only recently been established in Bexley. There are apparently fights with the Old Boys Union over the name of the school and other traditions [hats? teachers in academic gowns?]. The school used to be the feeder institution for Sydney Technical College, so it's not surprising there is a lot of Old Boy sentiment and muscle. Many have gone on to greater things and can lean on politicians - they win the fight to retain the school name as STHS rather than St George Boys High. My 1963 journal has a feature about the "Consecration of 'Lodge Sydney Technical High School" featuring men called Worshipful Brothers Les Rice and Les Padman, with photo of exhumed old man with far-away eyes. But HB cultivates countervailing power in the form of the P&C, headed by smooth-spoken George Brown and supposedly has a number of victories over the OBU.
[How seriously did HB take these challenges to his authority, how nervous did they make him feel, and how much did he feel reliant on the Department's backing in them?]
HB wants the school to be conspicuously successful and well-regarded After all, it is a selective high school and both the Department and the community expect and deserve excellence. He gets active in promoting the school and lobbying for resources. [Most years I was there, Speech Night featured someone important and interesting, and was reported in the Herald and on ABC Radio news the following day.]
HB takes criticism of the school very personally . The school admin. file shows that in 1960 Mr X writes to his MP, who is the Minister, and complains that on the basis of this year's Leaving results in English, this is indeed a Technical High School because it produces illiterates. Department sends HB a 'please explain'. File shows HB smarting with indignation. 'Mr X has never approached me to discuss this. If he had, I would have told him (blah blah blah)...'
Eight years later when Gary Simes tops HSC English, HB and Haddrill arrive on his doorstep at 7am carolling praise. HB recounts incident of Mr X and says 'this will show Mr X and his ilk'.
Given these sensitivities, HB must have been fretting throughout 60s about weakness of Science staff and later Language staff. In 1963, the school recalls ancient retired Science master to drag Honours class through Leaving.Certificate His replacement then leaves within the year. In 1965, departure of ailing Baldwin and feisty Simmonds further dilutes degreed staff in Science causing over-reliance on specimens like Frog and Bitmead. In Language Department, Scrag Edmonds retires. Then follows sad ordeal of Smiley Walker. Then Whittaker, Rennie and Pettit leave en masse in 1967. These traumas are glimpsed darkly through a bureaucratic glass, on school admin. file.
HB is equally sensitive to any suggestion of disrespect. I did not realise he was nearly 60 when so many of us became surly and challenging in the mid 60s. His opposition to long hair and free speech now more understandable. Not surprisingly, he bans the Socratic Society and sends Mackie and Henderson to teach at Blacktown. The 1971 journal reprints text of speech he delivered at 1970 speech night. Front half of speech is about why 6th Form boys are under so much stress. Then follows Reichstag rave about university sit-ins providing model for mass student vandalism. Visions of flying squads of vandals and police contesting amid rubble of school bathed in flour, eggs, treacle and sump oil...
Quotes:
'He was a hollow man... one of many unfortunately...' (Chris Ellis)
'His doctor told him he was thinking too hard about things, so he gave up thinking' (Alby Jenkins).
In '63. HB is extremely disappointed when tries to drum up enthusiasm for a visit to the Moore Park sports ground to see the Queen - very few put up their hands. In '65 he is predictably pleased about Askin's election victory and not just because he is an old boy of the school. You can tell he thinks Askin is wonderful.
In 1968 Bing goes on the warpath about people crossing Forest Road without using the pedestrian crossing, but then Bong gets collected by a car one morning when crossing illegally. The car is moving slowly, but HB actually goes up onto the bonnet and slides off after hitting the windscreen. No injuries and all kept quiet.
Shortly after that event HB comes down with suspected meningitis. We are never told what the eventual diagnosis is, but when he comes back it's obvious he's gone a bit silly. He gets vague at assemblies and starts being light hearted, which is strange. He bids a jovial public farewell to Mr Twigg as Mr Quigg. He makes a reference to 'Professor Hesser' and there is a swell of sniggering. And he laughs and says 'Well you might think that's a funny name, but my name's Brown and that's as common as dirt.' Loud sardonic laughter. One or two teachers look embarrassed, one or two others struggle with facial control.
Bing comes back to an assembly early in 1968 to be presented with a farewell gift, after retiring the previous year. Bong makes a speech about how Bing is 'Captain of South Strathfield Bowling Club, and now when he goes bowling he can go along to his club with his very own bowling bag.' More sardonic laughter.
Instantly Bing steps to the microphone and says 'All right now, settle down...' with signature menace. 'Oh Bing, you're back...' croons someone softly.
Frog Cook - Smallest in the Pond? (Paul Feldman)
Animals without backbones – our years with Frog
Pale skin with bulging eyes. The dead brown hair of a muppet. Hairless forearms extruding from a crumpled white shirt. – a shirt that could have been a sheet, torn from the clothesline on his way to work.
He drove a large old Austin.. Once grey, it was now darker still, with patches of sandpapered rust. A child’s car seat hung in the back seat, exciting a morbid pity.
This was Frog.
Like others without formal qualifications, Frog came to us from Industry. The industry that spawned him, who could tell…? It conjures up images of men standing next to huge vats full of chemicals or hoppers loaded with iron ore, but they could have done anything from look after lab animals (a good backgrounding) or quality control in a Schweppes factory (staring at soft drink bottles). Often they came from Industry and went back to Industry, the schoolie thing being just a bizarre interlude in a life otherwise packed with useful endeavour.
One thing alone was sure: Frog detested us with grim relish.
The man exuded relentless contempt. Having established a willingness to beat and behead on Day 1, he ruled us for the next three years by force of negativity alone.
‘Appalling lack of understanding of the basic principles’, ‘really no reason for this’ ‘total lack of application’, ’complete lack of effort’, ‘Well these results are terrible, if you want to go out into the world with that level of ignorance go right ahead….’
Science with Frog was the absorption of categorical fact. Through grey triple periods in Room 13, hunched on benches, we transcribed slabs of text at his diktat.
Moments of humour stood out in stark relief: the electric shock delivered by magneto along a human chain of hand-holding students, when Davies mimed a dying fit and Frog broke into a horrible grin; the day Keith West lurched into the line outside Room 2, throwing us forward on top of Frog, who staggered backwards in alarm. Best of all, the day he left a Geiger counter running, its face to the class. Unbeknownst to Frog, the counter was racing towards a million. He may have been surprised at our sudden intensity, our smiles of interest, our forward leaning focus. When the counter hit the target, the whole class cheered. No less welcome was the blank confusion on Frog’s face, and then the consummate derision.
On his last day at the school, I walked in front of his car without realising it for about twenty metres, slowing his progress as he was driving out. Finally, he blasted the horn. John Hamilton said to me 'You should have seen the look of hatred on his face'. Frog drove through the school gates and out of my life...
Pale skin with bulging eyes. The dead brown hair of a muppet. Hairless forearms extruding from a crumpled white shirt. – a shirt that could have been a sheet, torn from the clothesline on his way to work.
He drove a large old Austin.. Once grey, it was now darker still, with patches of sandpapered rust. A child’s car seat hung in the back seat, exciting a morbid pity.
This was Frog.
Like others without formal qualifications, Frog came to us from Industry. The industry that spawned him, who could tell…? It conjures up images of men standing next to huge vats full of chemicals or hoppers loaded with iron ore, but they could have done anything from look after lab animals (a good backgrounding) or quality control in a Schweppes factory (staring at soft drink bottles). Often they came from Industry and went back to Industry, the schoolie thing being just a bizarre interlude in a life otherwise packed with useful endeavour.
One thing alone was sure: Frog detested us with grim relish.
The man exuded relentless contempt. Having established a willingness to beat and behead on Day 1, he ruled us for the next three years by force of negativity alone.
‘Appalling lack of understanding of the basic principles’, ‘really no reason for this’ ‘total lack of application’, ’complete lack of effort’, ‘Well these results are terrible, if you want to go out into the world with that level of ignorance go right ahead….’
Science with Frog was the absorption of categorical fact. Through grey triple periods in Room 13, hunched on benches, we transcribed slabs of text at his diktat.
Moments of humour stood out in stark relief: the electric shock delivered by magneto along a human chain of hand-holding students, when Davies mimed a dying fit and Frog broke into a horrible grin; the day Keith West lurched into the line outside Room 2, throwing us forward on top of Frog, who staggered backwards in alarm. Best of all, the day he left a Geiger counter running, its face to the class. Unbeknownst to Frog, the counter was racing towards a million. He may have been surprised at our sudden intensity, our smiles of interest, our forward leaning focus. When the counter hit the target, the whole class cheered. No less welcome was the blank confusion on Frog’s face, and then the consummate derision.
On his last day at the school, I walked in front of his car without realising it for about twenty metres, slowing his progress as he was driving out. Finally, he blasted the horn. John Hamilton said to me 'You should have seen the look of hatred on his face'. Frog drove through the school gates and out of my life...
The Plough - A Poetical, Penile Exegesis (Paul Feldman)
On 25 July 2007, were you present at a seminar hosted by the State Government authority Transgrid, to guide and facilitate public discussion of options for the economical distribution of electricity in south-western New South Wales?
You weren't?
Would you perhaps have been at the ACT Law Society's fortnightly get-together, where the topic for discussion was Commonwealth Liability for Actionable Torts Pertaining to Easements between Leasehold Properties in the Territory Jurisdiction?
No? That's a real shame.
Because the man sitting at the head of the table was the President of the ACT Law Society, Denis Farrar.
And Denis Farrar can do something that I bet you can't.
He can grab his nose and blow so hard that stuff comes out of the corners of his eyes! Yes, that's what he used to do on the bus, the blue and red bus, that ran along Forest Road to Bexley in 1963. Then he and Rodney Ferrier, the forensic accountant, would try to put itching powder down the back of your pants.
But let us go now, back to Transgrid - to the afternoon seminar on the 14th floor, to the tasteful grey panelling and the waxing and waning sussuration of the air-conditioning, to the dismal views across to Redfern, poignantly relieved by a side glimpse of the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Ah... let us inhale the scent of overbrewed Transgrid coffee, waiting to be poured into those identical white cups...
The topic under discussion is not to be dismissed lightly. There will be, one suspects, at least one voice struggling to maintain composure as the deficiencies of a shire transponder are carefully and politely explained. And the presiding voice, the forger of consensus, will call for expert comment to enforce the Transgrid line. And all eyes will turn to a white-shirted figure, who may smile and lean forward, as he calmly dissects the technological alternatives and points the way to the optimum .
I give you... Leon Arkinstall, Principal Electrical Engineer.
And as the white-shirted figure plays his part, the camera draws back, losing focus on his careful gestures. And the noise of talking becomes the drowsy hum of a distant substation, and the mind races back decades, as if over flattened grass.
In the words of Chris Ellis, ' He was a boy who could have been very good at English'.
How good? Consider please, his reading of The Plough.
Of course, to read The Plough as construed by Arkinstall, you have to recall the craft and prowess of a 15 year old, and then place yourself in a whole class full of such, with the wit to appreciate the ingenuity of Arkinstall's exegesis.
This talent for innuendo was evident elsewhere, nay everywhere, in the Third Form of 1965. Did not a whole busload, returning from the Long Reef geology excursion, groan in unison as the bus rutted in first gear at a set of uphill traffic lights? And were the hole-exploring feats of Hill End confined to miners of the previous century?
The agrarian romantic AG Street set his sights on inspiring those city-bound middle classes wealthy enough to indulge a hankering for the great outdoors. His essay The Plough is an accomplished piece, rather too quaintly written to survive its generation, but the sentiment of recapturing a lost simplicity is as old as urban civilisation.
To we Third Formers, of course, it was just shit boring, like every other supposedly entertaining essay in that dreary little book.
[Here it is, read it yourself. The Plough]
It was Chris Ellis who sowed the seed of Arkinstall's stimulating reinterpretation, with a discussion of medieval allegory. Things had got bogged down, you see, with Richard the Second. There he is, locked up in that bloody tower, talking to himself for a whole Act before Bolingbroke's boys break in and put him out of his misery. Ellis has to do something to get us interested, so he gets us to decode some of R2's ramblings, by telling us about how Shakespeare uses parallel metaphors from the animal kingdom. You have to understand that everything stands for something else...
Eventually, in the mind of Arkinstall, this comes to fruition:
' The plough, which looks so clumsy and uncouth, changes its character... It is no longer an ugly, awkward inanimate thing, but a delicately flexible instrument, which responds to your lightest touch'
'You and the plough have become one, a common intelligence with but one idea only, to plough - on and on and on.'
'..you are drunk with the urge of the plough and do not stop. Stop? Why, to stop would be absurd, and on you sail, unheeding, on and on and on'
'Why cannot one plough one long straight furrow for ever, without these petty hindrances? But one is forced to turn.. then to turn again into the work, and swing away on a new tack, happy and interested once more'
And finally:
'...I would suggest in all sincerity that three months steady ploughing would cure any man of a nervous breakdown.'
' ... and if ploughing generally be conceded a pleasing thing to do, then to plough virgin land is pure joy.'
The word spread rapidly around STHS. Within days, a hapless student teacher was convinced to allow Arkinstall's whole essay to be read aloud to the class and Room 14 rocked and convulsed with laughter.
'Good at English'? Arkinstall was a genius. I think I can hear AG Steet down there, bumping the lid of his coffin...
You weren't?
Would you perhaps have been at the ACT Law Society's fortnightly get-together, where the topic for discussion was Commonwealth Liability for Actionable Torts Pertaining to Easements between Leasehold Properties in the Territory Jurisdiction?
No? That's a real shame.
Because the man sitting at the head of the table was the President of the ACT Law Society, Denis Farrar.
And Denis Farrar can do something that I bet you can't.
He can grab his nose and blow so hard that stuff comes out of the corners of his eyes! Yes, that's what he used to do on the bus, the blue and red bus, that ran along Forest Road to Bexley in 1963. Then he and Rodney Ferrier, the forensic accountant, would try to put itching powder down the back of your pants.
But let us go now, back to Transgrid - to the afternoon seminar on the 14th floor, to the tasteful grey panelling and the waxing and waning sussuration of the air-conditioning, to the dismal views across to Redfern, poignantly relieved by a side glimpse of the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Ah... let us inhale the scent of overbrewed Transgrid coffee, waiting to be poured into those identical white cups...
The topic under discussion is not to be dismissed lightly. There will be, one suspects, at least one voice struggling to maintain composure as the deficiencies of a shire transponder are carefully and politely explained. And the presiding voice, the forger of consensus, will call for expert comment to enforce the Transgrid line. And all eyes will turn to a white-shirted figure, who may smile and lean forward, as he calmly dissects the technological alternatives and points the way to the optimum .
I give you... Leon Arkinstall, Principal Electrical Engineer.
And as the white-shirted figure plays his part, the camera draws back, losing focus on his careful gestures. And the noise of talking becomes the drowsy hum of a distant substation, and the mind races back decades, as if over flattened grass.
In the words of Chris Ellis, ' He was a boy who could have been very good at English'.
How good? Consider please, his reading of The Plough.
Of course, to read The Plough as construed by Arkinstall, you have to recall the craft and prowess of a 15 year old, and then place yourself in a whole class full of such, with the wit to appreciate the ingenuity of Arkinstall's exegesis.
This talent for innuendo was evident elsewhere, nay everywhere, in the Third Form of 1965. Did not a whole busload, returning from the Long Reef geology excursion, groan in unison as the bus rutted in first gear at a set of uphill traffic lights? And were the hole-exploring feats of Hill End confined to miners of the previous century?
The agrarian romantic AG Street set his sights on inspiring those city-bound middle classes wealthy enough to indulge a hankering for the great outdoors. His essay The Plough is an accomplished piece, rather too quaintly written to survive its generation, but the sentiment of recapturing a lost simplicity is as old as urban civilisation.
To we Third Formers, of course, it was just shit boring, like every other supposedly entertaining essay in that dreary little book.
[Here it is, read it yourself. The Plough]
It was Chris Ellis who sowed the seed of Arkinstall's stimulating reinterpretation, with a discussion of medieval allegory. Things had got bogged down, you see, with Richard the Second. There he is, locked up in that bloody tower, talking to himself for a whole Act before Bolingbroke's boys break in and put him out of his misery. Ellis has to do something to get us interested, so he gets us to decode some of R2's ramblings, by telling us about how Shakespeare uses parallel metaphors from the animal kingdom. You have to understand that everything stands for something else...
Eventually, in the mind of Arkinstall, this comes to fruition:
' The plough, which looks so clumsy and uncouth, changes its character... It is no longer an ugly, awkward inanimate thing, but a delicately flexible instrument, which responds to your lightest touch'
'You and the plough have become one, a common intelligence with but one idea only, to plough - on and on and on.'
'..you are drunk with the urge of the plough and do not stop. Stop? Why, to stop would be absurd, and on you sail, unheeding, on and on and on'
'Why cannot one plough one long straight furrow for ever, without these petty hindrances? But one is forced to turn.. then to turn again into the work, and swing away on a new tack, happy and interested once more'
And finally:
'...I would suggest in all sincerity that three months steady ploughing would cure any man of a nervous breakdown.'
' ... and if ploughing generally be conceded a pleasing thing to do, then to plough virgin land is pure joy.'
The word spread rapidly around STHS. Within days, a hapless student teacher was convinced to allow Arkinstall's whole essay to be read aloud to the class and Room 14 rocked and convulsed with laughter.
'Good at English'? Arkinstall was a genius. I think I can hear AG Steet down there, bumping the lid of his coffin...
Tom Thumb the Great - Drama at STHS (Paul Feldman)
Oh Huncamunca, Huncamunca oh!
Thy pouting breasts, like kettle drums of brass,
beat everlasting loud alarms of joy!
As bright as brass they are, and oh, as hard!
Oh Huncamunca, Huncamunca oh!'
In 1965, Chris Ellis produced the play for the School concert. The previous year's offering had been The School for Scandal. Ellis moved back a further 50 years to Henry Fielding's sex comedy 'The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great'.
The play parodies a Shakespearean royal tragedy.
To quote/paraphrase Thomas R. Cleary
'Its action centres round a farcical, ever-complicating plot line in which Tom Thumb, a six-inch hero who has conquered a race of giants, and a captive giantess called Glumdalca, become involved in the political and sexual rivalries of a normal-sized kingdom ruled by King Arthur, himself smitten by Glumdalca. King Arthur's wife, Queen Dollalolla and daughter Huncamunca are both enamoured of member-sized Thumb, who loves the daughter in return, in rivalry with the normal-sized Lord Grizzle. It resolves itself through a sustained third Act blood letting. Glumdalca is killed by Grizzle who is killed by Thumb, who is reported to have been swallowed up by a cow 'of larger than usual size'. The Queen kills the bearer of bad news, which triggers an ever more absurd series of murders. The last character left alive is the King, who kills himself.'
The players were Third Form boys. By far the most impressive were those in the female roles. Ierace played Glumdalca bare-armed in a sheepskin vest and a metal helmet with curlicues protruding on both sides. But Paul Meller stole the show as an overweight randy Queen Dollalolla (think Noeleen from Sylvania Waters). Shrieks of laughter when Dollalolla rushes on for a midnight tryst with Tom Thumb, semi-nude and distrait, bearing a candle...
The play featured a number of boys who were not in the least bit intellectual or arty. Tom Thumb was played by Doug Embleton, a tough little character who went back to being a rev-head. John Keller, who played the Ghost, resumed his low profile somewhere in the E classes, but later became an educational theorist.
There was lots of laughter throughout, and thunderous applause at the end. Years later, Ellis told me that the crowning moment of the evening, for him, was when Constance Brown (Lady Bong) encountered him as they were leaving. With a tight look of formal politeness, she said 'I never thought that you would put on a play like that, Mr Ellis'.
Ellis was assisted in the production by Ann Jennings and Virginia Sumpter, who rubbed make-up onto my face...
Thy pouting breasts, like kettle drums of brass,
beat everlasting loud alarms of joy!
As bright as brass they are, and oh, as hard!
Oh Huncamunca, Huncamunca oh!'
In 1965, Chris Ellis produced the play for the School concert. The previous year's offering had been The School for Scandal. Ellis moved back a further 50 years to Henry Fielding's sex comedy 'The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great'.
The play parodies a Shakespearean royal tragedy.
To quote/paraphrase Thomas R. Cleary
'Its action centres round a farcical, ever-complicating plot line in which Tom Thumb, a six-inch hero who has conquered a race of giants, and a captive giantess called Glumdalca, become involved in the political and sexual rivalries of a normal-sized kingdom ruled by King Arthur, himself smitten by Glumdalca. King Arthur's wife, Queen Dollalolla and daughter Huncamunca are both enamoured of member-sized Thumb, who loves the daughter in return, in rivalry with the normal-sized Lord Grizzle. It resolves itself through a sustained third Act blood letting. Glumdalca is killed by Grizzle who is killed by Thumb, who is reported to have been swallowed up by a cow 'of larger than usual size'. The Queen kills the bearer of bad news, which triggers an ever more absurd series of murders. The last character left alive is the King, who kills himself.'
The players were Third Form boys. By far the most impressive were those in the female roles. Ierace played Glumdalca bare-armed in a sheepskin vest and a metal helmet with curlicues protruding on both sides. But Paul Meller stole the show as an overweight randy Queen Dollalolla (think Noeleen from Sylvania Waters). Shrieks of laughter when Dollalolla rushes on for a midnight tryst with Tom Thumb, semi-nude and distrait, bearing a candle...
The play featured a number of boys who were not in the least bit intellectual or arty. Tom Thumb was played by Doug Embleton, a tough little character who went back to being a rev-head. John Keller, who played the Ghost, resumed his low profile somewhere in the E classes, but later became an educational theorist.
There was lots of laughter throughout, and thunderous applause at the end. Years later, Ellis told me that the crowning moment of the evening, for him, was when Constance Brown (Lady Bong) encountered him as they were leaving. With a tight look of formal politeness, she said 'I never thought that you would put on a play like that, Mr Ellis'.
Ellis was assisted in the production by Ann Jennings and Virginia Sumpter, who rubbed make-up onto my face...
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