Ian Bone Reports In

Hey there,

I have a mug shot for the address book – still alive, still sniffing petrol and racing in the odd event……..missed 2009 reunion but won’t miss 2014 – retiring like most of us by then and living in the fast lane – new baby also attached.

Kind Regards,
Ian Bone


Director
The RTM Group Pty Ltd
PO Box 64
Mount Omanney Qld 4074

John Whaite calling Geoff Kerr

Good day Stephen,

I’ve been trying to get in touch with Geoff Kerr, and came across your STHS blog. I was wondering if you have contact details for the STHS people, in particular Geoff. I was at STHS, in fact I helped with the BING must GO campaign by typing some of the little buggers, and then putting a clear sheet over the top, and finally cutting them into little strips (to Geoff’s specification). I recall being told that one of them turned up in a fridge in Bing’s office. If you do have a contact list, mine is

John Whaite

16 Dale St.,

SOUTH FREMANTLE WA 6162

0438 980 603

johnwhaite@yahoo.com.au


In retrospect, I feel most sorry for our teachers. What we did to one of the music teachers still makes me feel guilty – we were horrible little shits.


Thanks for your work on the blog. Hope to hear from you.


Regards,


John Whaite

Vale Norm Price

From Graeme Maclean:


"Hi Steve, sorry to report some very sad news….poor old Norm passed away yesterday…as you are probably aware he was in nursing home for past few years….Howard Rues, Chook Cohen and I were hoping to catch up with him soon….but we didn’t get our act together …
Can you pls place a notice on our class of 69 website to let everyone know…. Cheers, Graeme"


Howard Rues has provided the following funeral details:

Leura Memorial Gardens,
1 Kitchener Rd, Leura NSW 2780
Monday 2 November, at 3.p.m.
website: http://www.leuramemorialgardens.com.au/

Saturday October 31, 2009, The Sydney Morning Herald

PRICE, Norman Samuel.

The relatives and friends of the
late NORMAN PRICE are invited to attend his funeral
service to be held on Monday (November 2, 2009) at the
Leura Memorial Gardens Crematorium, Kitchener Road,
Leura, commencing at 3 p.m.
Please assemble at the
crematorium chapel.
In lieu of flowers, donations to
the Muscular Dystrophy Association of NSW would be
appreciated. Donation box available at the chapel.

Entrusted to the Care of Leura Memorial Gardens


STHS Lads are invited to add their tribute to Norm here, by clicking 'Post A Comment' below.

Norm Price (seated) 2005
L to R: Howard Reus, Brad Fair, Maurice Cohen, Graeme McClean, ? (I've forgotten)

---------------

29/10/2009 - Norm Price

Posted by Peter Coleman

What sad news. I am so sorry to see Norm pass away even though i realise he has been unwell for such a long time. Good reason to make sure we all get out there and live life to the fullest. I will always remember Norm's happy smiling face at school he was a good bloke.

29/10/2009 - vale norm price

Posted by Anonymous

Richard Hopkinson here. Norman was a good mate of old. He staunchly refused the 60s pop music revolution in favour of country music. I couldn't understand that at the time, but it made little matter. Tonight I'm having a libation and playing Johnny Cash in memory...

31/10/2009 - Norm

Posted by Peter Clements

Thank you for forwarding the bad news.I can easily picture Norm. Always friendly and with a unique character. He will always be there somewhere in my head. Pete.

31/10/2009 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Col Franks

Sorry to hear that news Steve- I remember hanging around with Norm & Greg Aitken . What ever happened to Greg????

5/11/2009 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Anonymous

Another memory of me and Norman: Norman and I did an epic roadtrip in 1971 to see the Springboks play NSW Country in Orange (isn't that a weird name for a town? How come they didn't call it Lemon? Because it is). Anyway we really struggled across the Blue Mountains - the only way we could keep the ice off the Cortina windshield was for Norman to hang out the window and scrub it free. We returned to Sydney after the game, it was a long trip. Needless to say NSW Country got thrashed as did the Wallabies thereafter.

Reunions - more of 'em? Comments, please.

Several lads have written to say that they always very much enjoy our Reunions, but there just isn't enough time to get around and talk to everyone, which we all want to do.

So - please add your comments to these proposals

1. More 'mini-Reunions'.

Peter Coleman has in the past announced informal gatherings at the Oatley Pub on a Friday evening. No notice is required - you turn up, or not. The pub is a large and pleasant place, well-appointed, with room outside for groups to gather, and it's located conveniently just across the park from Oatley railway station, which is on the Illawarra Line. The pub offers counter meals, and a restaurant, or there are take-way food shops in the main street.

These gatherings were quite well-attended, often with up to two dozen present. They happened about once every three to six months, and were suddenly announced, when Peter had the urge to see his STHS mates. No organization by anyone is required - one circular e-mail is sent. Some lads phoned others to let them know, or see if they'd be there. No bookings, no payment up front. Easy as.

Mini-Reunions don't have to be at Oatley Pub, of course, but the venue seems to work for a lot of blokes.

So - more of these?


2. Long-stay reunions.

The weekend at Murramurrang Resort seemed to allow everyone more opportunities chance to catch up with more blokes. Is this a better model than the one-evening reunion? It doesn't have to be at Murramurrang, of course.


3. One-night Stands

We are all busy people - the One-evening Every Five Years model is probably as much time as many of us can spare. If these one-nighters leave us wanting more, then that's great. Makes us look forward all the more to the next one, and try hard to get there.

4. Delegation

There was some disappointment expressed about the lack of material on the display table, the absence of name tags so we could identify each other... all quite constructive and apposite criticisms. Clearly, some reunion organization tasks need to be delegated to co-ordinators.


Comments, please. And comments on the comments...

2009 Reunion - The Aftermath

It was another memorable night. Final headcount - 56 Techos. As always, one left the venue wanting more. There were so many stories to hear, from so many lads, and there's never enough time to get around to everyone.

We're sorry if you weren't able to make it, and hope you'll be able to join us at the next one.

The Next One

27 September, 2014.
Same place.
So, claim the date.

A video reprise of the evening:

 

We have been thanked so often, with such warmth, and so graciously, in person and via e-mail, by so many, for our organization of the 2009 Reunion, that our ears are red with embarrassment. Thank you kindly for your kind thanks. We were left in no doubt that our efforts were greatly appreciated. The spark is always there - Lee and I just fanned the embers a bit, and the flames leapt upward.

Keynote Address

Several lads have asked for a copy of the text of Gard's Keynote Address. It has now been posted here on the blog: click here.

THE 1989 REUNION - Names for Faces, Please

This photo, courtesy of Martyn Yeomans, who was the 1989 (20th Year)  Reunion Organizer, of the attendees:

1 G Sparkes 2 D Lewis unknown 4 unknown 5 M Ferrier 6 unknown 7 unknown 8 Lowndes 9 unknown 10 M Yeomans

11 unknown 12 unknown 13 T Jones 14 unknown 15 unknown 16 unknown 17 unknown 18 P Lawrence 19 M Eastwood 20 G Murphy

21 P Brown 22 ? Wormald 22 unknown 23 unknown 24 unknown 25 unknown 26 unknown 27 unknown 28 unknown 29 W Harmon 30 R Overall

31 unknown 32 unknown 33 unknown 34 unknown 35 unknown 36 unknown 37 unknown 38 unknown 39 unknown 40 unknown
41 unknown 42 unknown 43 unknown 44 S Edge 45 L Ecclestone 46 unknown 47 P Coleman 48 T Pearsall 49 J Shepherd 50 S Kelly

Just add the correct names below as a 'Comment'

All About Trevor White

First of all , Stephen, thank you for the remarkable, indeed FANTASTIC, job you have been doing on the STHS website for the last “eternity.” CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

However, I am not sure yet if I can make the next reunion as our daughter (who is 27 and has been working for the ANZ Bank in India for the past year, returns to Aussie late Sept ) is getting married on 3rd October 2009 and we will be busy in Melb the weekend of the reunion finalising “stuff”.
Will see if I can get a brief leave pass to attend the reunion- but will have to be a very, very good boy – which is almost impossible for me at the best of times.

Am alive and very well, keeping active bicycle riding around 120 klms each week, swimming ,play tennis, bush walking and occasional surf , but water tooooo cold in Melb.
My wife Judy (who I am proud to say only took 4.5 kgs of total luggage ( including lip gloss) with her compared to my 6kgs) and I trekked , kayaked, bused, biked, walked, climbed etc around Cambodia, Vietnam , Laos and Sth. India for a few months earlier this year, then ( as I had been a good boy) I was allowed to go surfing in Lombok with Coleman and Murphy in May.

A very brief update on Whitey from Melb follows :
I retired (hooray) from fulltime working for $ about seven years ago, after years of valium intake running international businesses.
Then did some lecturing across various facets of business at Melb Uni (which I stopped last year). Continue to do lots of pro bono stuff in charity and philanthropy these days, after I got great personal satisfaction in helping to set up and guide CanTeen’s development in Australia during the early nineties.
Have also been and continue to be very involved with Rotary International.
In addition to our soon to be married daughter, we also have a son, who is 24 and who after completing two degrees in Business and in
Biomedical Science (with first class honours) got one of only four quite prestigious scholarships offered in Australia and is currently doing his PhD (to do with blood cancer) in medical research, at the Walter and Eliza Institute for Medical Research in Melb. (gets his brains from his Mum, not me that’s for sure). – Yes, Steve, we are obviously proud of our kids achievements so far, both for themselves and for others.
That’s enufff from meself.
Keep Well, Take Care and once again, thank you !!!! for the great job you are doing.
Kind Regards,
Trevor (almost a Senior and old fart) White

Ken McLean explains...

... why he can't make the next Reunion.

"Phil Meade sent me the details of the event.I doubt whether I will have dug the car out of the f...... snowdrift and got through the pack ice in time to make it. Actually we will be exploring the eastern rockies in the Jasper National Park in September."

This is probably not Ken, though travel can change people.

Is this Ken's weekender at Eastport?

Smithy - Was He Expelled...?

This just in from Class of 1962 lad Roger Higgins:
___________________________________________
From: Roger Higgins
Subject: Charles Kingsford-Smith at STHS

Hi Stephen,

I was at STHS from 1958 to 1962, and have come across your website while googling Joan bielski, whose obituary for her husband was in the Sydney Morning Herald of 7 March 2009.

In 1962, rumours abounded in our year that Charles Kingsford-Smith was at STHS for only a short time, then expelled for reasons unknown (to us at the time). I was wondering if you or any of your STHS contemporaries have any knowledge of if and why "Smithy" may have been expelled. The author Peter FitzSimons is writing a biography on him, and is keen for any gossip he might be able to follow up on.

Congratulations on your website.

Regards,

Roger Higgins

PS    In our time the grass at the front of the school was known as "The Boss's lawn", and we did 'wheelies' on it on muck-up day. The stories about Fin Cook were all true. He 'taught' me French for 5 years!!    Allen Whitehurst introduced me to the joys of classical music, by playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony in class.

Vale Neil Treverrow

From Toowoomba last week came the sad news that Neil Treverrow has passed away

Neil left in 1968 to study Rural Science at UNE, eventually becoming an entomologist. He had a long career with NSW Agriculture, working in the Riverina and later in Lismore where he became an expert on the pests of tropical fruit. Along the way he did intensive fieldwork with communities in Malaya, Vietnam, Thailand and China ‘good fun, good food and sightseeing, and occasionally achieving a bit of agricultural advancement’.

Like many of us, Neil was a late rebel. Moving to Armidale meant leaving a household where an attempt to grow sideburns was met with the edict ‘No bloody pop stars in this house’.  At his work farewell he recalled arriving as a longhair who made snide comments about conformist bald headed old farts and finishing up as a bald headed old fart grumbling about longhaired dole bludgers at Nimbin.

Indeed, Neil took the hippy path further than most, embracing the profusion of hair, Herman Hesse and for a time, hallucinogens. This time in space was to prove helpful many years later. When diagnosed in 2005 with motor neuron disease by a tearful specialist, Neil coped with it calmly, thinking ‘wow, heavy trip man…’

Ignoring the text book stuff about denial and rage preceding acceptance, Neil lived his last three years to the utmost, fulfilling a childhood dream of visiting Egypt (during his years at Tech, he built a tomb under his house). His emails were a wonderful mix of serene reflection and wicked humour. In his last, he wrote ‘I am short of energy, and thankfully words of wisdom’.

Neil is survived by his wife Florence and four children.

With (and without) Respect to Fin Cook

From: "malcolm and elaine cato"
Subject: Fin Cook

"In defence of Fin I would like to say that, although yes he had an ocker French pronunciation and yes he took shortcuts like not teaching us the 2nd person familiar "tu" forms of verbs, he nonetheless connected with us adolescents and gave me an abiding interest in the French language. This has lasted to this day and has resulted in me having travelled to France for a language school and having French friends in Nantes. He spiced up sentences for translation by throwing in words like "petticoat" and told us to say anything, "wheelbarrow" even, if we couldn't translate a French word. An unforgettable teacher."

Malcolm Cato

Paul Feldman responds:

"An ex-teacher I worked with once said 'To be happy at teaching, you have to enjoy wielding authority over young people'. Fin certainly appeared to meet that criterion. But because I wasn't much good at sport, and was never in his French class, he came across to me as a self-indulgent disciplinarian who cultivated and favoured the sporting elite. It is interesting and challenging to hear people speaking up for him as a teacher. I can remember shuddering on hearing him say to a group of parents, 'I can get your boy a good, solid, 60 to 70 percent'. I can remember also, his painful embarrassment at being confronted by a native French speaker brought to the school by Joan Whittaker.

But perhaps within his chosen domain, Fin was able to be creative at imparting a set of knowledge, and able to encourage confidence in learning - amongst some kids anyway. His authority, and the pliability of his class, gave him the confidence to enjoy what he was teaching and find it interesting. For him, teaching remained much as it was for those primary school teachers - mostly males - who created a whole world around their classrooms and their arcane enthusiasms. This whole experience led Fin to become a spokesman, on parent/teacher nights, for the teaching of non-practical subjects, and proclaim himself "a man of culcha rather than science". To them, as teacher and sportsmaster, he was the genial salesman for a set of experiences. To us, depending on who we were, he was clearly something else.

Unforgettable certainly, and it's impossible to think of him as a ghost. But what would someone like him be doing these days? Still teaching? And if so, where?"

________________

22/1/2009 - fin

Posted by Anonymous

fin was an abomination and an insult to anyone who had the misfortune to be in his class. remember when he castigated a student in the quad for not having his sleeves rolled up to the correct (in his mind) level. and remember, he was a teacher at a selective high school. god alone knows what those poor bastards down the road had to put up with. i'm sure it took many of us years to get over his bombastic and thoroughly distasteful antics. unless of course you were peter carpenter. he probably thought paris was in texas. ironic about his name though. 13/8/2008 - Neil Treverrow adds... Posted by Anonymous “I was taught by Fin Cook and to this day I would be confidant in asking any Parisian the location of the pen of my Aunt. Merky bowcoop Fin.” Neil Treverrow (class of 68) 14/8/2008 - re Fin Cook Posted by Anonymous To add to my previous overly cryptic comment, obviously Fin Cook succeeded in inspiring some with an interest in the French language, but I wonder how much further this would have bloomed under a more competent teacher. For my part the Ardath afflicted ocker accented tones of Fin, and his approach to teaching said “this is a subject to be cranked out and bugger the prospects of being able to converse with a native French speaker”. A constant statement of contempt for pronunciation. I recall attending some after- hours French tutorials run by “Madam Bottler”, a native of France, which underlined the gulf between French and the Finnian dialect. So much so that there was almost a need for an interpreter to bridge the gap. I cannot imagine Fin as a modern teacher but I can picture Fin’s character as a loveable buffoon in a “old school days “parody, bumbling through his classes (punctuated by bursts of canned laughter every time he annunciates a stilted phrase), tolerated by the headmaster for his endeavours with the rugger team, hidden away by nervous French Master during staff assessments, creating bewilderment and consternation on holiday in France attempting to speak the lingo. I guess an effective teacher is many things to many people. My recollections were of a number of competent teachers who greatly benefited from reflected glory of some amazing students, a few really fine teachers who were able to take a whole class along with them, and a number who were incompetents (unconscious incompetents hopefully, rather than total scoundrels). All in all nothing to refute Mark Ierace’s recollected comment “we were bright but in a dull school” . Neil Treverrow

Les Lads Battishall

From Ian Battishall. on 16 July 2008:

____________________________________

Hi, just thought I’d let you know that Alan Battishall is living at 15 Coaldrakes Lane, Hannam Vale NSW 2443. Ph 6556 5304

I note that Tom Jones is organizing the next reunion and remember that Tom, Paul Brown and Alan were mates so I’m sure he’d be happy to hear from you guys.

I am Alan’s brother Ian from 2 years later.

I’ve enjoyed reading all the stuff that’s been put together and it has brought back memories as many of the same teachers were still around for many years after you guys left.
My younger brother Ronald (Ron) tells a story about how he visited the school many many  years after he had left, walked down the corridor of the science block and was spotted by Bob Booth who pointed and yelled “BATTISHALL”…..I guess Ron was memorable.

Regards
Ian
ianbatt@dodo.com.au

Col Franks in Retirement (Class of 1968)

Hi Stephen ,

I was a student of STHS 1963-1967, but left in 5th year to pursue apprenticeship , would like to be included on your contact list please .

Colin Franks , PO Box 263 Maryborough Qld 4650.

You can e-mail Col here: colgf2[AT]optusnet.com.au