To my dear son Jonathan, who completes his final year of school this month.
Twenty-nine years ago this month I finished year twelve at Oxley State High School.
The photos above are like book-ends for that year. The one on the left is at senior camp, end of year eleven, just before we embarked on our final year. The photo on the right is after the last day of school when one of our mates, William, was very sad to be leaving town to fly to Adelaide, so we all went to the airport to say goodbye.
The last few weeks of that year are a blur – exams, parties, excitement, thinking about uni, and planning to always keep in touch with my school mates. Collectively we thought we were the best bunch that had ever come through Oxley State High, and we were going to make sure we didn’t forget each other.
I had a calendar on the wall where I used to cross off the days until it was over. To my surprise, the last day came much quicker than I anticipated, and now, almost thirty years later I realize that the time has flown and now my own kids are doing what I did.
If my Dad had given me advice then, I wouldn’t have listened to it. So I’m not going to offer you any advice now. But I do hope you remember how brutally fast our life can fly by. We get caught up in so many things, and before we know it, the magical times of our late teens and early twenties are gone. And I also hope you remember good friends.
There are two good friends from 1978 that mean a lot to me. Greg, who is with me in both these photos. is still my friend. He still has the love for life and the easy laid-back attitude that he did in his late teens. He’s a great guy to spend time with.
And then there’s my best friend from 1978, who I’m married to now. In year twelve I couldn’t beleive how lucky I was to be with Liz. And today, I still can’t beleive how lucky I am.
Enjoy this special time, Jonathan.
I hope the time passes slowly enough for you to savour it.
In the back of her wardrobe, my mum found some old documents covering a period of almost a hundred years. It’s a bit like taking a visit to Narnia digging around in the back of old wardrobes. Perhaps that’s why C.S.Lewis wrote about them.
Rather than spoonfeed it all to you here, why don’t you take your own trip to Narnia and dig around by clicking on the slideshow and having a look at some of these amazing things.
There’s a picture of my Dad pretending to be a rich oil-sheik, a heart warming anniversary card from my Grandad to Grandma a couple of years before he died, a seaside postcard written by my Aunts shortly after the war, some concert programs from during the second world war, and much more.
I love this stuff. It tells me about life before I was born, before my parents were born, and gives me a sense of being part of an unfolding, fascinating history!
I visited Birdsville in August 1993 for the Birdsville Races.
I got arrested by an amazonian policewoman, drank lots of beer that cost an arm and a leg per can, sat on a toilet that got flushed by boiling bore water, slept in a tent city and had a fantastic time.
If you ever want to do something unusual when you visit Queensland in mid “winter” (I use the term loosely), then check out the Birdsville Races. It’s something you just have to do
Another one of my very early memories is visiting the Daily Mail Boys and Girls Exhibition at Olympia in London sometime between December 1964 and January 1965.
Dr Who had just recently hit the airwaves and was very popular, so they had a Dalek Exhibition.
I used to be terrified when Dr Who came on the TV. Just the music was enough to make me hysterical.
One my earliest childhood memories was sitting on the loungeroom floor of my Mum and Dad’s old house in the UK playing with their 45rpm records.
I used to call them “Reckles”.
We’d play them on an old portable white record player with a blue fabric front, and brass buckles, so you could do it up like a suitecase and carry it.
In an attempt to chase down old memories, I re-enacted the scene of the crime, playing in my own loungeroom with the same “reckles”.
(I mamaned to convince mum to give them to me).
No stunning results yet.
But as the Beatles say in one of their “reckles” that I played today. “It’s not like me to pretend, but I’ll get you! I’ll get you in the end!”.
Here’s a video I did of it – mainly to help jog my memory, but also to have a bit of fun!
This is the form that Mum and Dad completed in order to apply to come to Australia in February 1963. They were 22 years old at the time. I wasn’t even a year old, and Mum was pregnant with my sister, Karen.
Click on the thumbnails below to see any of the 32 pages in the application.
If you were a Ten Pound Pom, you can order your own set of documents. Just go to the Australian National Archives (http://naa.gov.au/) and follow "record search" links.
It speaks for itself. I have no idea how this turned up after 36 years. Sometimes it pays to be a hoarder!
It’s amazing the facts that co-incide with this old letter:
1. Tropical Cyclone Emily occurred from 27 March to 4 April 1972. Eight lives were lost at sea. It crossed the QLD coast south of Gladstone, wreaking havoc in the Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race, in which only 5 of the 25 starters were able to complete the race.
2. Dad’s brother Brian was working in the merchant navy at the time. His ship was in Brisbane on 17 March 1972. Next time I get to the State Library, I’ll look up the name of the ship in the Courier Mail.
3. Mum’s Father, John Mitchell let us know he’s be visiting us in September 1972.
4. The TV talent show, "Opportunity Knocks", very popular in Britain at the time, started screening in Brisbane.
5. Bruce (Dad) spars with Australian Light Middleweight boxing champ, Jeff White. Dad was a heavyweight, and says White wanted some sparring practice with a heavier boxer. Dad landed a beauty on White’s nose, and White got pretty annoyed after that, and Dad had scars and bruises to show off for weeks after.
Here’s the interpretation for those who can’t read the writing of a 9 year old:
3/4/72
Dear Gran,
Hello, I’m sorry I couldn’t write, it just skipped my mind. I hope you had a happy easter and that you are keeping well. Easter was great over here. I had my bicycle fixed not long ago and now it’s got a puncture, but I need not worry because I bought a puncture outfit. There’s a new cyclone coming down the coast called "Emily". At six pm yesterday it crossed the coast. Uncle Brian came last month and we had a lovely surprise. It was a coincidence because he was here for Karen’s birthday. Grandad says he’ll be coming over here in September. I said a lille prayer for you so you could get better. Now we are having "Opportunity Knocks" on over here. Dad goes to boxing now and he sparred with Jeff White, in case you don’t no who he is, he’s the champion boxer of Australia. We’ll it’s signing of time I guess, so good bye and god bless you. From your grandson Neil xxxxxxx PS. Sorry the letter was so short.
This was the day Mum, Dad, Karen, Kevin and I flew to the UK, aboard a BOAC Super VC10 flying to Darwin, Singapore, KL, Abu Dhabi and eventually London (Heathrow).
It was really good of Robert and Bob to come up to the airport to see me off.
I used to sit next to Robert in grade three in Henry Palasczuk’s English class. Henry was really strict. He’d sorted the class into rows according to ability. If you didn’t do well on your weekly spelling test, you’d have to go down a row. Eventually, if you didn’t do well while you were in the lowest row, you ended up getting moved to lower level English class next door.
Robert and I used to do science experiments in our spare time, mixing up whatever chemicals we could find, or wiring up old radios to see what we could do.
Robert and I discovered our love of Science together.
When my mum and Dad needed some time alone together in the early seventies, Roberts parents (Brenda and Marshall) kindly let me stay with them for a while.
Bob was a ten pound pom like me, but he arrived in 1972. His family were from Nelson (near Manchester) in Lancashire. I actually visited Nelson in 1997 when Liz and I went back to the UK. Where their family moved to in Rosella Street Inala was much nicer than Nelson, although the view of some of the green hills around Nelson was quite pretty.
Bob and I used to ride our bikes down the bush and smoke cigarettes that Bob used to magically procure. He and his brother Graham were brilliant at soccer, and I think Graham actually went on to play it profesionally.
Bob was the main reason that I decided to go to Oxley State High School instead of Inala High or Richlands. That decision changed my life.
The schools in Inala were rough. As a result, most kids under achieved. I went to primary school at Serviceton South in Inala. I found it very difficult since I was younger than most kids in my class, and smarter than most of them. So in their jealousy they made life tough for me.
So Oxley High was a big step up for me.
I ended up being School Captian of Oxley High, and am very grateful that I did well academically, eventually being able to get into Uni.
It was at Oxley High that I eventually ended up getting mixed up in the church, which in a way was a good thing, because it’s how I got to meet my lovely wife, Liz.
So Bob, I owe you a hell of a lot, mate. You changed my life, and neither of us realized it at the time.
I am so glad I met both Robert and Bob, and I very much regret not keeping in touch with either of them.
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