Keep Breathing

A memoir

Peter W Harris

Chapter
Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Lionel Parrott Tom Kosiki Who are You! Origins Blitz Stand in the Sausage Queue, Son We are Sailing Populate or Perish I Love a Sunburnt Country Pedal Power Industrious Endeavour Adolescence and All That Tertiary Trauma A Chain in Australias Future That Trip Sursum Corda Its Time

Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26

Together We Rise to God Popish Plots and Plaster Madonnas The Emerging Middle Class Growing and Caring Changing the Mindset Global Education Enterprises Transforming the People of God Revolution We Dont Do that Anymore I Am What I Am Heal the World Stop Talking and Start Listening

Global Education Enterprises Vision Statement Resume

Thanks I have to thank Pearl a beautiful and calm Thai yoga teacher in Phuket who are explained that for personal harmony and capacity

Foreword
The world of education is not a field of endeavour calculated to produce inspiring biographies. The heroes and heroines of education, for indeed there are many, for the greater part find their deeds lost in the history of educational institutions, where their doings, if they are fortunate, may attract a chapter, in very rare instances, two. A dedicated and loyal senior teacher in a government school once explained to me that he never considered setting his sails to become a school principal, because he had never met one who was happy. A comment such as this emphasizes that we too often overlook the complexity and magnitude of the role of school principal. The school principal is at once expected to be a distinguished educator, guarantor for future careers and personal uprightness, developer of buildings and real estate, spruiker for additional resources, employer of large numbers of staff and developers of their careers and aspirations, manager of significant annual revenue turnovers and expenditures, be in charge of complex relationships with past students, parents, and the broader community. Where they are involved, these relationships also involve coming to terms with churches, who are occasionally confused about their own position in education and why they are engaged in it at all. Peter Harris was one of many emigrants who found themselves in this country following the immigration drive spearheaded by Arthur Calwell. Without the benefits of well established networks formed over decades, and parents driven by a need to establish themselves on a sound footing, his early experiences of education were in government schooling plotting a middle and unimaginative course that demanded little more of its students than that they pass. As a product of this process, Peter was left with a sense of unease that his education was far from complete. Like so many of his contemporaries, he took advantage of an education department studentship to prepare for a teaching career. First placements as a teacher were a lottery, and he would be judged by many to have been fortunate in commencing in a suburban, rather than a rural posting, at Doveton High School. Postings that were not sought after meant that opportunities for advancement often came more

quickly. Inexperienced teachers would find they had volunteered for activities well outside their skills and experience. Not to be daunted, he was able to move to Haileybury College, where the differences between public and private education could not have been placed in a sharper relief. Most teachers who set their sights on moving through the promotional layers will recognise that a principalship needs to be gained between the ages of 35 and 50, if they are to make it at all. A few make it earlier, and some make it after 50. Most people will agree a principals best years are the forties and most again, believe 10 years is required in a principals position to make a lasting mark. Few principals lead more than one school. Peter has held CEO appointments at Maryborough, Billanook, Kormilda, and Shalom, plus advisory appointments of equivalent status. Peter himself, and those who know him best, will see his particular strengths as being in educational start ups, or in revitalising schools that need a new sense of purpose. He is less interested in consolidation roles than in striking out into new fields. With all of his appointments, he conveys a sense of vision, but it is doubtful that many realize his vision is an ongoing work in progress. The vision is always being tested, challenged and improved, and no vision will last, no matter how new, if a better prospect suddenly appears. Peter has been a rare person within education, because his focus is outside the school setting, as much as within it. Much as he may have desired it, he could never have been comfortable within the larger, better known, and more conservative schools. By his very nature, he has been compelled to place himself at the pioneering edge. Judged by any light, his external involvements have been far and varied: prisoner education, remedial education, Indigenous education, private training colleges, Round Square, school start ups, churches and education, and so on. His range of contacts and networks is extraordinarily wide and varied. In his post-principal phase he has displayed an endless capacity for seeking engagement in the new and different: womens refuges, energy audits, environmental concerns in addition to continuing his long pursuit of social justice and equity issues. Of course, the world is bigger than one man alone, and Peter could not have achieved what he has without possessing some very rare gifts. The more obvious of these are a capacity for discerning the future, and providing the type of leadership that inspires others to follow him, to the very end. Fearless to a large

degree, he has a capacity for persuading others to come on board, and although he has a personal dread of failure, he is not afraid of it. Education is a lifelong process. Adults coming into contact with Peter have been re-educated themselves, and continue their educational journey, but perhaps the last word should come from students themselves. The students who with their parents, embarked on the Billanook adventure at the beginning are now mid career, in their mid 40s. Many of these students have been very successful, by anyones standards. They have made their marks in a range of professions, and many have successfully completed university doctorates. But Peters vision was always that students attain the maximum success possible for them. And many students not regarded as academic high flyers have pursued successful careers. To encounter them today, and know them as they were as students, is to see in the flesh, how education transforms lives. This is the greatest gift that Peter and his co-educators have given our society. Lionel Parrott Life Governor of Billanook College Honorary Professional (Staff Related) Monash University

Preface

Introduction
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking! "Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed during the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass At the opening of each school year I challenged the various school communities and each student in them to seek an answer to the question asked by the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland Who are you? The answer of Alice is even more telling. I I hardly know sir, just at the present - at least I knew who I was when I got up this morning but I think I must have changed several times since then. Always energized, I like to think I also took seriously the command of the White Queen to dream six impossible things before breakfast. The task of education is to enable students to seek and find their own answers to the question. But the question and the reply were for me both a challenge and a changing journey. The answer constantly unfolds as new experiences, new people and new ideas constantly shape who we are. Self realization is not static. I began

with the simple assertion that we as human beings are merely flecks in human history? This memoir suggests a bit more than that. We are more than our physical frame in which we exist. As complex human beings we are shaped and influenced by a range of factors that continue to impact on who we are. The mystery of our personal life is always upon us and is there something mystical or greater than the physical frame in which we exist that shaping our destiny? It is as Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet) expresses For love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say God is in my heart but rather I am in the heart of God. Then we are awakened to the true nature of the consciousness of who we are as individuals and it changes all aspects of our life and our life on the planet. Not such an easy task to become or even be humble. Our history, class, gender, intelligence, physical attributes, religion, culture, race and sexuality all determine who we are and how we respond to circumstances in which we live. They make up the physical form that shapes the ingredients of who we are. The gathering, developing and using of those human features are the means by which we transform ourselves to a realization of what we can be or do. The courage to face ourselves can be a brutal experience. Seeing ourselves through the prism of where we end up brings regrets about unwise actions or words unwisely spoken but we can also observe through reflection the creative energy unfettered by conventional practice that drove our hopes and aspirations. This same prism shapes our actions for the future. It is the human condition. Having been born at the beginning of the Second World War and now living into the next century, for me the journey travelled brings a form of spiritual awakening, a flowering of consciousness about not only what you have done but how you have done it. For me I have enjoyed the journey. The great fun of having joy in the tasks you do is the dynamic that made it real. This joy associated with enthusiasm brought an empowerment that I didnt believe I had. I simply became awakened in the doing of things and in the doing found something new. I became aware very early how physically insecure I was and in many ways remain. Not immediately strong in conviction and even less so in physical prowess. It was only through the support and mentoring of others that I slowly came to a position of my own.

When told by my mother to stand in the sausage school son it was almost a statement of where and how lifes journey would unfold. You take what is given to you. Life is nothing but a series of sausage queues. However, I came from a family which was born into a poor agrarian setting, living within the last vestiges of the agricultural revolution in Norfolk with tenanted cottages adjacent to large farm holdings that housed the workers. Rosa, my grandmother, a strong and bold woman, forced by circumstances and personal resolve, made courageous decisions to change her life. My aunt in 1922 as part of the Empire Resettlement Scheme came alone to Australia and my parents, joining millions of others in 1949, to become part o f Australias post war development they are all pioneers. Their actions helped shape our nation and also the person I became. As many families struggled to build a new life, they did so in communities that shared the aspirations. The individual people in these families are the heroes of our nation. The giving of their all has no greater value. This is expressed simply in the terms of love. Jesus said I can of my own self do nothing. It is being surrounding by people of goodwill and wisdom that enriches and shapes. My forebears, for a long time only names, have now been given humanity as a result of research for this story. My parents, through their daily lives, shaped my values as does my sister, though her example of dedication and commitment to her family. I appreciate what theyve done to influence and shape my life over time. Any student is shaped by the teacher. From sound beginnings I was shaped and influenced by teachers in the classroom. Their role is central to the growing and awakened person. We are shaped also by those who had the courage to try something new, whether it is a cub pack, a school, political and social policy, Indigenous empowerment, climate change, a church or prison reform. The mere engagement with such people challenges and stimulates us to do something new. Thus it was with me. Everyone I met did something for the next generation. How much then do we owe to the people of the past, who have contributed to our lives. They set the scene. All these people gave me a strong essence of community. Having a long list of caring friends, and sharing with groups of people their dreams and aspirations, has meant my journey owes much to all the people with whom I have worked alongside. In this process I had to work out my personal identity; a realization that wasnt easy.

Throughout a lifetime I have explored the idea of faith. Has this come from childhood experience within a series of churches or is it something I evolved myself? This eternal thread of mystery called the spirit runs through many of us, irrespective of age, gender, race, sexuality or religious tradition. But how we relate to it depends on the circumstances and on our needs. There has been a quest to relate to a power beyond myself. I have questioned the issue of power and where it resides. I have been challenged by what I see as the lack of equity and fairness within some long standing religious institutions and why I was ready to join the new Uniting Church, a very human institution, and allowing myself to settle at Sophias Spring, an ecofeminist community. I am convinced of our spiritual nature. Throughout the journey I have been awakened to the special role of the middle class. They are energetic in trying to create a fairer world. I believe they have been more recently put under pressure by corporate leadership, perhaps a view to be tested. To aspire to the middle class is a legitimate and positive force for social good. Central to all of this has been my unwavering commitment to education. Education is the most potent force for change or for individual development. It is appropriate that individual people should shape the education that moulds them. It has a major role in every society. Students are shaped by it, and in turn school leaders shape a school. What shapes a school leader is the essence of this memoir. Australian schools have changed so remarkably in my time. They have gone from being mini-militaristic academies with uniforms, discipline, structured timetables, cadets, corporal punishment and with a curriculum that was heavily Euro-centric and teacher dominated to a partnership between teacher, parent and child, with much interaction with the community, shifting from teaching to learning as well as having global alliances. The worlds culture and influence is shifting and we need to be ready. The west will lose its dominance. Socrates is giving way to Confucius. Education is the basic right of every child and we must ensure that it is done at the highest standard which means a strong commitment to the training of teachers. Education is what empowers the young to make a difference to themselves and to their community.

In this memoir I have explored schools that were successful and schools that failed. This story is meant to outline how fortunate I have been and how each experience has taught me something new. So that then the challenge is simply what more can I do. This memoir asks its readers to join with me in the exploration of how education can create men and women of vision a vision of the world and the spirit. An unbinding vision of values and truth that can be called justice. The root meaning of the verb to educate is to lead out to discover potential. It is a tough world into which each person must go and it is certain that every young person we educate will be confronted by the challenges and opportunities which will tear at their very humanity. With all my being I trust that our students, and indeed our nation, will be driven by the greatest of all qualities - love. Dostoevsky wrote love in action is a harsh. terrible, thing compared to love in dreams. St Paul wrote Dont let the world squeeze you into its mould but mould your lives from within . Paul Tillich used the powerful phrase The courage to be. What we want for ourselves and our students is to have a toughness of love that allows ourselves to be awakened to who we are, holding a sense of personal wellbeing so we may live our lives with courage. In this memoir I have outlined a human journey with its many flaws in an attempt to contribute to the discussion on the importance of education and its success, which all depends on every member of our community embracing it. I dont want to offer mere peace or mere joy or mere safety but for every person I would seek they have an abundant life, a life of love and a life of personal harmony. A life that is loved and celebrated. It remains my deepest desire. It has almost taken a lifetime but it is time for me to stop talking and simply listen. Listen to others and the need to protect our beautiful planet. My thanks ever remains to every person who has given me so much Gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues but the parent of all others Cicero Peter W Harris

Chapter 1

ORIGINS
Real is something you become when a child loves you! Sometimes you are old and shabby before you come REAL. But you dont mind for you are always beautiful to the one who loves you. Margery Williams The Velveteen Rabbit It is appropriate that I begin with the family from which I came from. My tangible family really begins with my maternal grandmother, a strong, bold woman who,

forced by circumstance made a brave decision to break away from these circumstances. Born Rosa Drake in 1874 she was the third child of twelve children born to William (1846-1919) and Elizabeth Drake (nee Crane 1847-1920) in Seething, a small English farming village in South Norfolk, not far from Norwich. A directory from the period describes Seething as a well built village, and parish, with 451 souls, 100 houses, and 1,639a of land, chiefly the property of G. S. Kett, Esq, of Brooke. The large family all lived together in a tithed farmhouse called Ivy Cottage that was owned by a local landlord, possibly the G S Kett mentioned in the directory. In that era of paternalism, tenants had their occupancy determined on a year by year basis and the landlord was permitted to evict families whenever he deemed it necessary, especially if there was a suggestion of impropriety or immorality. This convention was tested for the Drake household when Rosa was nineteen and became pregnant out of wedlock. My great grandparents knew the scandal that this would bring could risk the familys lodgings at Ivy Cottage and as a result, when Rosa gave birth to her son Walter in 1893, her mother Elizabeth was forced to claim him as her own and bring him up as a son in order to save the family from possible eviction. Walter then grew up being treated as a brother by Rosa, although he did live with her later. As an adult he became a thatcher in Mundham, travelling all over Norfolk for work, and married twice, first to Betsy and then after her death, to Alice. He died in 1966 and is buried in an unmarked grave in the Seething churchyard. The stress that ensued from Rosas actions put my great grandparents under much strain and as a result she was told in no uncertain terms that if it happened again, she would be turned her out of the home and disowned by the family. Sadly thats just what happened when she became pregnant again a year later. She was sent packing and with no welfare system around to assist an unwed mother to be, she ended up at the Aylsham Workhouse near Hevingham. Conditions in an English workhouse in 1894 were fairly grim, especially for a young twenty year old girl away from her family for the first time. It is not surprising then that when she gave birth in that awful place she soon after wrapped her child in her flannelette petticoat and walked the eight miles back to Seething and the comfort of her family. Upon seeing her, my great grandmother rescinded her banishment and took her daughter back. However forced once again to hide

Rosas indiscretion, it was decided to farm this baby out to be raised by a woman from Norwich, a Mrs Gascoine. I should state though that this whole family story remains a mystery and is yet to be confirmed by any official records. My great grandfather William died in 1919 and, heartbroken, my great grandmother Elizabeth followed him a year after. They are buried side by side, surrounded by several generations of Drakes, in the Seething churchyard, one of those famous Norfolk twelfth century Norman churches with a round tower. Just before the turn of the century, in 1896, Rosa married William Eden, a labourer from Welford in Warwickshire. They were married in Cookham, Berkshire but eventually moved to the neighbouring town of Maidenhead so William could find work. Maidenhead was an important crossing point on the River Thames where a busy port and railway had been developed. At the time Rosa and William Eden moved here it had become an urban centre for Berkshire and one of the more significant towns in the Thames Valley. Not long after moving to Maidenhead they had three children. The 1901 census shows them living at 28 Ray Street with their children William Victor (4), Violet (3), and Jay Ivy (4mths), as well as her eldest son Walter Drake (8) and a boarder named William Hancock, listed as a barge launch engineer. Another family mystery is the story of another child, Archibald Eden, who doesnt appear on any of the family history trees. Official records show an Archibald Eden was born in Maidenhead in 1903 and died, aged seven, in 1910 in Maidenhead. Although the parents names arent listed on the records its hard to confirm exactly whether he was William and Rosas child, especially as he lived between the censuses of 1901 and 1911 and cant be confirmed as living with them. However my Aunt Dolly (Violet) possessed a photograph of a young boy who she says was her brother Archibald who died when he was seven. On the back is written my darling brother Archie, sadly missed, gone but not forgotten, how we loved him. Although its hard to link the family history with official records the evidence does seem to point towards the fact that this Archibald Eden was part of the family. At some stage between 1901 and the next census of 1911, Rosa's husband William Eden left her; some believe he immigrated to Canada although one family history source claims William Edens father had already migrated to Little Falls, Minnesota in the United States so he may have joined his father there. My Uncle Bill, Beatrices husband, claimed he actually only moved to the next village.

Whatever did happen to William Eden and why he left my grandmother still remains a mystery. Soon after William Eden disappeared, Rosa extended her relationship with the person who had been previously listed in the census as her boarder, William Hancock. He was the son of Samuel Hancock (1827-1896) and Mary Simmons (1833-1890) and had been born in 1875 in Bray, Berkshire at Tyrrell's (or Turrell's) building, one of their ten children. He was named after his grandfather, William Hancock (1796-1873), who along with his sons Samuel and Daniel worked at the Taplow paper mill for many years. He grew up in Cookham, where William Eden and Rosa had been married. William Hancock and Rosa Eden continued to live together with all those children at 28 Ray St, which must have been an interesting arrangement. Then before the First World War they all moved into an unpretentious cul-de-sac in Maidenhead known as Grenfell Avenue. Rosas son, William Victor Eden, later came to live nearby with his family at 1 Grenfell Avenue, after his service during the First World War in the Royal Navy where he had served on the battleships, HMS Renown and HMS Repulse. Grenfell Avenue was only six paces wide and contained a row of similarly designed brick terrace houses. They had been built in the 19 th century for the workers who toiled at the adjacent chalk pit by the owner of the quarry Charles Grenfell, then Lord Desborough and later a member of parliament (later two of his sons were killed in World War One). When Queen Victoria became the longest reigning monarch in British history in 1897, Charles Grenfells son William decided to convert the chalk pit into a local park as a way of commemorating her Diamond Jubilee. William and Rosa lived opposite the park at number 14, a small brick house, that was a link in a row of replicated brick houses, that made up Grenfell Avenue. In the years that followed William Hancock and Rosa added to the family; Beatrice (Aunty Tiny), Dennis, Eva and my mother Phyllis. Interestingly enough the surname listed on all the childrens birth certificates was Eden, my grandmothers married name, not Hancock, my grandfathers surname. My mother, Phyllis Rita, was born on August 15th, 1912 at 14 Grenfell Ave and grew up in Maidenhead. In September 1914, only a month after the First World War started, William Hancock enlisted in the British Army and was allotted to the Army Service

Corps, training to become a motor driver at the Depot in Aldershot. Within a year grandfather was in action in France and Flanders as a driver with the Motor Transport Company, stationed at the rear depot area at Rouen. He was there during the horrific campaigns on the Somme, where 58,000 of his fellow countrymen were lost on the first day of the battle, and at the Battle of Arras. In November 1916 he returned to England and married my grandmother Rosa, he was forty-one years old at the time and she forty-two. In view of his age and the fact he was now married with four children to look after, the army decided it was best to keep him in England and he spent the rest of the war working as a driver at a number of bases around the United Kingdom. He wasnt discharged from the army until June 27th, 1919. Back in civilian life he secured a job as a domestic motor driver. One of my relatives, Ron Eden, recalls William Hancock during this period but remembers that he always seemed to keep in the background at any family gathering. Then in 1929 grandmother Rosa died of pneumonia, at the time my mother, Phyllis, was seventeen and being the youngest child she took on the family responsibility of caring for her father William. A few years later my mother met my father Percy George Harris, a carpenter and motorcycle fanatic, who was two years older than her and lived in Binfield. He had been born on March 30th, 1910 and had grown up as part of a large family that included siblings; Helen, John, Edward, Emily, Louisa and Grace a baby that died early. He courted my mother on his motorcycle, she riding in the side car. They were married in 1935 in Maidenhead at St Pauls Church, which once stood at the bottom of Boyne Hill Road (the Bath Road) but was later demolished so that the road could be widened. After they were married my father moved in with my mother and grandfather to their humble brick house at 14 Grenfell Avenue.

Chapter 2

BLITZ
Irresponsibility? My brothers! he cried. Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live - to learn, to discover, to be free! Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull I was born on November 14th, 1940 at St Marks Hospital in Maidenhead. My arrival in this world took place at time of great crisis for Britain, not only was my country at war but it was also under attack. I burst on the scene in the middle of what was called The Blitz, an horrific period where for seventy-six consecutive nights German bombers unloaded their deadly cargo upon the cities of England. Every night my fellow countrymen experienced devastation and destruction that can only be compared in todays terms to experiencing seventy-six 9/11 disasters in a row. Over forty-two thousand civilians were killed during this period and much of London, Liverpool and Birmingham were destroyed. St Pauls Cathedral was bombed on the day I was born. World War Two cast a shadow over my early years. Not long before my sister, Pauline Rosa, was born on April 15th, 1942 my father was called up to serve in the army, on March 5th. Up until then he had continued to work in the building industry and at the time of his call up was working as a foreman for a local company. Dad was first with the Territorial Army on a part time basis before being called up for full time duty with the General Service Corps in April 1942. This un it had been established in 1941 to act as a holding unit for specialists who had not been assigned to other units or corps. I assume his skills as a carpenter warranted specialist attention. The good thing about him being stationed in England was that he was able to call home for a visit when he had leave. Every now and then we would get word that he was coming home, which always created a high level of excitement in the house as we anxiously awaited him. One time he arrived in the middle of the night and woke everybody up by throwing little stones on the back window to let us know that he was home. He came inside carrying a big round sausage bag in which he stored everything he had and produced, to our great delight, some strongly scented blood oranges.

In September 1944 he was posted to the Royal Engineers, not surprising seeing his history of working in the construction industry, and armed with numerous vaccinations for tropical diseases he was shipped off to India. We then had to experience a long period without him. Our family would all sit around in the kitchen and listen as mother read his letters out to us describing exotic places in the Far East and when we could we would pack food parcels in small waterproof tins to send to him. As my father was away for much of this time, my early life was dominated by my grandfather who we continued to live with. Grandfather always carried a cane and at dinner time it sat next to his knife and fork on the kitchen table. He made it very plain to us that at meal times, children were to be seen and not heard. If we did venture to talk during the course of the meal he would raise his cane almost to full height and with amazing dexterity rap the knuckles of my sister and I for infringing upon this rule. After dinner he would sit my sister and I down in the kitchen and he would outline to us the course of the war, inviting me to read and spell the words on the front page of our daily newspaper, The Maidenhead Advertiser. Grandfather clearly loved us very much and every night he would hug us before bed. Our house had a blue front door with a few steps leading up to it and it was from these steps that we and our neighbours would listen to the wars progress. In the front room of the house sat our wind-up gramophone, a chiming clock, two blue vases and a settee. On Sunday evenings we had tea together in the front parlor but at every other time it was strictly out of bounds. Tea was usually made up of bread and dripping but sometimes we were allowed to have hundreds and thousands or chocolate on our sandwiches. At the back of our house was the kitchen, attached to which was a little room called the scullery. After the war my father reconstructed the scullery so as to include a bath and an attached copper. The water would be heated up in the copper once a week and then it was transferred into the bath. One by one each of us would take turns having a bath; we had to use the same water because there wasnt sufficient for us each. Gas for heating and cooking was purchased with pennies at the meter that stood next to the front door. Before he left my father built a small bomb shelter under the stairs where we used to huddle when the wailing of the sirens sent out their warning - a sound that stayed with my mother for the rest of her life. I recall hearing the planes flying over on their way to the busy Maidenhead airfield which had been turned into an RAF base for the duration, in fact my Uncle Bill worked there. In our back yard

and on our allotments we supplemented our wartime food shortages by growing vegetables in our Victory Gardens and chickens were raised and tendered by grandfather. One day there was a knock on the front door to collect grandfathers old rubber gas mask, a relic of the First World War now needed for the current war effort. In those days my sister and I spent much of our time outside in the park opposite our house as it was a great place to play. The park was opened at sunrise and closed at sunset and there was a mound in the centre of the park on which sat a cannon. During winter this mound would be covered in snow and we would take great delight in sliding down it. On most Saturday afternoons all the local children would gather in the park and we would run races around its perimeter. I was usually last, as I was never very good at running perhaps an early sign that sport was never going to be a highlight in my life (and something I would fear). Our great delight was to buy sweets at the local corner sweet shop and slurp on round homemade icy poles on a stick. In those days there were very few motor vehicles about and each night a lamplighter lit the gas lamps in our street. Just before father went away to war, our family became involved strongly with the British Spiritualists Lyceum Union in Maidenhead. They preached a form of Christianity which was very personal and engaging and promoted the study and practice of Spiritualism as a Science, a Philosophy and a Religion. The group was dominated by a woman named Eleanor Robertson, a powerful and striking personality who at this time converted a significant number of the local community to become a part of the congregation. Each Sunday evening we would attend a service above the Chinese food shop in High Street, Maidenhead and eventually my sister and I were baptized into the Christian Spiritualist Church, I after the apostle Peter and my sister after the apostle Paul. Like other religious movements that seem to boarder on the occult, our familys attendance at this church was certainly not well received by other members of my mothers family. In May 1945 there was great excitement when the war in Europe ended. We had a typical V E Day celebration party in our street with all our neighbours and everyone indulged in races up and down the street, bobbing for apples in buckets and much singing and waving of flags. For my family however the end of the war in Europe didnt mean my father could come home. He remained on active service overseas and didnt actually arrive home until November 1946, long after the war in Europe ended, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and V J Day was celebrated.

During that period he had seen service in India and then later Burma. For most of his time there he was attached to 379 Works Section as part of Co re Royal Engineers Works, where he eventually rose to the rank of Warrant Officer. It was a traumatic period for him as he saw many of his colleagues killed and was lucky to have survived himself. On one occasion when he was a Platoon Sergeant he was wounded by shrapnel and sent to hospital. While he was away his platoon came under attack and most of his men were wiped out. Survivors guilt is not an easy thing to live with. Like many men of this era my father never ever talked about the war, either during or after. It was something he never spoke about it; the only thing I recall he ever said was I did it because we had to. There are too many memories that rest inside me over the war. He always got up early on Anzac Day and attended the Dawn Service by himself, as his way of honouring his lost mates, but he never marched. That generation saw too many tragic events that were too traumatic to ever relive again. Sadly many of them, like my father, ended up carrying their Second World War inside of them to their graves.

Chapter 3

STAND IN THE SAUSAGE QUEUE SON!

What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations? Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass The end of the war certainly didnt mean the end of food rationing. In those years following the war my mothers weekly routine was to always take my sister and I with her to do the shopping. As sausages were the only meat available during that period it was my job to stand in the queue for sausages, I can still hear her telling me to stand in the sausage queue son. The queue was always quite lengthy, in fact on most occasions it wound its way from Liptons, the local store, around High Street and into Grenfell Road. After standing patiently for hours, as I neared the big wooden counter, my mother would leave my sister standing in the other queue and take over my spot to make sure that we would receive our fair ration of sausages. Then she would take over from my sister and collect the eggs, butter and perhaps if we were lucky, the odd broken biscuit. My Aunty Nell worked in Liptons and when she saw us coming she would make sure that she accidentally cracked a couple of eggs, which she gave us in ad dition to our ration. Aunty Nell would say, Oh dear me. Youll have to take this home because theyre broken and we cant hand them out. When my father came home the family again ended up attending the Methodist Church, which stood at the top of High St. When you entered this church it was semi-circular in shape and was dominated by a large preaching pulpit that sat high and in the centre, reminding us that proclamation and scripture was at the heart of

its foundation. Once, at the Sunday school anniversary, I was selected to speak from it. I also sang in the choir and attended Sunday School, on one occasion winning a Just William book as a Sunday School prize. After my fifth birthday my mother decided I should attend school, the All Saints Church of England School at Boyne Hill. Ironically, seeing what my lifes calling has been, it was a decision that did not impress me. The All Saints school was based on the theology of the Tractarian Movement, which was established in the Oxford Diocese and sought to strengthen high church liturgy in the Church of England and serve the educational, welfare and religious needs of the local community. On my first day at school I was that upset about having to leave home in order to go to school that I had to be placated outside the school gates by a dustman, who gave me a rotating calendar as a little gift to try and lift my spirits. My first teacher was Miss Watson, a person who shaped my life in a positive way in those early years. I won a book prize and in it she praised me by writing in the cover: To Peter. First in class. With love from Miss Watson. Each evening my sister and I would walk home from school along Grenfell Rd and Boyne Hill Avenue and, when they were in season, played with conkers that were strung together with string. The school was located on the edge of Maidenhead, on the site of an old cornfield that had been given, to serve the poor of the area, and was an integral part of a remarkable nineteenth century edifice that comprised a school, an aged care centre and a church. The complex was built of brick, stone and marble while the almshouse, school, vicarage and church buildings were constructed using the polychrome technique, a fine expression of Victorian High Church architecture. The founders were two sisters named Maria and Emily Hulme. They were noted on a plaque at the church as being women of advanced churchmanship, which probably meant they were spinsters - and wealthy ones at that. During the 1850s they provided the site, with construction of the buildings commencing in 1857. The churchs interiors were very ecclesiastical and ornate, which contrasted significantly to the quality of life of those in the neighborhood for whom it was meant to serve. The huge iron gates that for some reason were always closed, seemingly to protect the sanctity of the nave but it was as though the nave was never intended to be

accessible to people like ourselves. Returning to Maidenhead in 2001, I visited the church and met with the vicar. I said to him, You know, as a child I can remember some gates. They were always closed. He took me to them and to my surprise they were only four feet high. He said, of course we dont close them any more. I remember that they made a very strong impression on me as a child, and they formed in my mind a long-lasting impression that people were expected to be separate from ecclesiastical power, a power which was vested in a church that we had no access to, and that even the sanctuary had to be far removed, even barred by iron gates, for those of us deemed to be the poor. On the weekends my father would take my sister and I for cycle rides to Windsor or down to the Thames River where we would row in small boats near the Maidenhead bridge. One of his great joys was to take us to catch rabbits at Thicket Corner, advising us that if we could put salt on the rabbits tail, this was a sure way of catching them. I did enjoy the outdoors and even went as far as joining a cub pack at Holyport. Each Christmas was celebrated at Holyport where the family would gather at the small house rented by Auntie Eva and Uncle Fred. This was located at the end of a cul-de-sac adjacent to a large open allotment and not far from the local pub, where all the men retired whilst we skated on the frozen pond outside. On Christmas Eve all of us children were put to bed upstairs early as the adults laughed and giggled as they filled the Christmas stockings for our delight the next morning. Our Aunty Nell was a great favourite. She wasnt really a direct relative but had been adopted as a baby by Uncle Bills family. They had worked for Lady Edward Spencer-Churchill, a great aunt of Sir Winston, at her estate Queensmead not far from Windsor Castle. The story goes that Aunty Nell was actually the child of a chamber maid and a younger male member of the Churchill family. When she was born, Lady Spencer-Churchill arranged for her to be farmed out to Uncle Bills family, as was the custom with the aristocracy at that time. All her life she refused to ever accept any sort of payment from the Churchill family. Aunty Nell ended up living most of her life with her adopted brother Bill and his wife, my Aunt Tiny (Beatrice). In 1975 Uncle Bill took me back to Queensmead, which by that stage had been turned into a Brigidine School for girls. On arriving he said wait and tapped on a panel on the wall which opened up to reveal a flight of stairs that was used by staff each morning to empty Lady Spencer-Churchills chamber pot.

Every year a circus would come to Maidenhead and bring the town alight and I watched the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip on a magical black and white television at school. I think our most exciting time was when the Thames flooded in 1947. Considered to be the worst disaster to befall Maidenhead, it was caused when a rapid thaw melted the snow quicker than expected and a large amount of water poured down the slopes of the Thames Valley and into the Thames. The River Authority and the Town Council were totally unprepared and vast areas of the town ended up under water. There was almost a complete breakdown in public services and we had to walk along raised planks to get to the shops. Soon though my world was to change. I would have to say goodbye to Maidenhead, to All Saints, to Sunday School, to Grenfell Park, to my extended family and worst of all to my grandfather. My family was about to make a journey that thousands of others had already done to the other side of the world, to Australia - the land of opportunity.

Chapter 4

WE ARE SAILING
If

you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass

After three years away serving in India and Burma, my father climbed the steps to our house in 1947 to discover a less than triumphant version of what he imagined life would be once the war had ended. He discovered in his absence that his fatherin-law, my grandfather, had been established as head of his family and that his arrival certainly caused disruption to our routine. Add to that the fact that we all lived in grandfathers house, which didnt help fathers confidence in reasserting himself as head of our close-knit family. With his red hair and a temper to match, this arrangement could not last for long. Britain had also changed since hed been away. He had returned home to a country troubled and exhausted, we had won the war but we were still subject to continued rationing and austerity. Society here was also clouded by political change, social disorder and a much altered labour force. Slotting back into his old job as a builders foreman in a depressed post-war Britain seemed to offer little prospect for improvement and growth for him.

So arriving home to a situation where he was trapped under his father-in-laws roof, and disillusioned by his mundane work options, made him desperate to make a new start and get out of Britain. The antidote to this seemed to be Australia and his ticket there was his elder sister Helen. My Aunt Helen was another of those amazingly strong and confident women who have been such a part of my life and it is not surprising that she had come from a line of women with similar attributes. Her grandmother Rebecca Pleass, my great grandmother, married three times. Her first husband, a gentleman called Pay, was believed to have been killed in the Crimean War. She then married Benjamin Bowyer and together they had two sons, Benjamin and James, before he died in 1865. The following year she married Richard Pleass (the third Richard in his family dynasty), who was a relation to her second husband, and together with her two sons they worked a farm in Warfield, Berkshire. In 1871 they had my grandmother, Mary Ann Pleass, who was only eleven when her father, Richard, died. After the death of her third husband, Rebecca continued to run the farm with the help of her two sons and the odd itinerant farm worker. In 1890 one of these labourers, John Harris, my grandfather, married Mary Ann and together they continued to live in Warfield, sharing their home with Rebecca until her death in 1901 aged seventy-six. In the meantime John and Mary Ann Harris began raising their own family; Helen Mary in 1891, John James in 1894, Edward Henry in 1892, Emily in 1903, Louisa Margaret in 1906 and my father Percy George in 1910. There was another child, Grace, who died when she was only a few days old. My grandmother blamed her death on the local Vicar who decided to have her christening ceremony at 4.00pm when the frost traditionally fell. With a wet head in the cold weather, the result was that the baby became ill and died soon after. The census of 1911 has the whole family except Helen all living at 4 Newel Cres, Warfield, by that stage Helen was nineteen and had left home five years earlier to find her own path in life. Helens first job was as a cook at Windsor Castle, not far from Maidenhead, and she stayed there until the First World War when she moved to London to take up war work. She spent the duration toiling in a munitions factory and when the war ended she again went back to a career in the kitchen and worked as a cook around London. In 1922 she walked past Australia House and no ticed a poster inside inviting women to come to Australia as part of the Empire Scheme, a program set up by the Australian government as a way of attracting British immigration to restock its population after the Great War. As part of their encourageme nt they offered prospective British migrants a healthy and prosperous life in another part of the Empire and more importantly assisted passage. With pressure on her to find well paid employment, she continued to send money home to her family to

help out there, and with the idea of a new start in a new land, Helen decided to join two hundred thousand of her fellow countrymen, who made the same decision in the 1920s, and sail to Australia. Arriving in Adelaide in October 1922 she secured a job almost straight away as a cook and companion for Lady Kidman, wife of Sir Sidney Kidman the pastoralist known as The Cattle King who owned huge tracts of land in central Australia. Her role here was mainly looking after her employers cooking and personal needs as well as general duties. For the next few years she worked for her, mainly at the Kidman mansion in Adelaide but also at their outback property in the north of South Australia, not far from Innamincka. It was Lady Kidman who introduced Aunt Helen to large hats, as a way of protecting her fair skin from the harsh inland sun. It certainly must have been a culture shock for this girl from Berkshire to suddenly be mixing with tough cattlemen in outback Australia. One story she relayed to her family was of seeing a cloud of dust in the distance and realising they would soon have visitors. As a result she cooked up a load of scones and had them ready in time for the guests arrival. Aunt Helen often accompanied Lady Kidman on her travels and often spoke of weekends staying at Victor Harbour. On one occasion she went with her on a trip to Sydney via Adelaide. On the ship voyage over she met William Spearing, a tailor from Melbourne who was visiting family in New South Wales. As he had grown up in Sydney before enlisting to serve in the First World War, and she had never visited the city before, he offered to show her the sites. Before long a relationship started and when he returned to Melbourne they corresponded. Helen left Lady Kidmans employment in Sydney and ev entually found a job in Geelong; she was known to ride pillion passenger on a motor bike so she could visit William in Melbourne. In 1928 she and William Spearing married. They soon moved into their own home at 310 The Avenue in Parkville and not long after had a daughter Janet. However the war years had taken a toll on William, at twenty-eight years of age he had enlisted in the AIF and had served for two long years with the 57th Battalion on the Western Front. During that time he had been hospitalised with trench fever while at Fromelles and had survived the horrific battles at Bullecourt, Ypres and Polygon Wood. In April 1918, during the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, he was wounded in action and then gassed, forcing him to be invalided to a hospital in England where he sat out the rest of the war until he was sent home in 1919. He suffered greatly after the war from the effects of the gas poisoning and post-traumatic stress, all of which helped to hasten his death in February 1943. Helen spent most of her married life caring for him. With Williams serious health issues and little work available as a tailor, William and Helen had decided to turn their property in Parkville into a boarding house,

catering mainly to students attending the nearby University of Melbourne. This ended up becoming their main source of income during the Depression years and when Williams health deteriorated, he changed the title of the house into Helens name knowing that, with no pension available in those days for widows, Aunt Helen would then be able to earn some money after he was gone. During the Second World War the house stood opposite the large US servicemens camp at Royal Park where Private Leonski, the Brownout Murderer, lived, in fact he murdered one woman only a few metres away from their house. And so it was that in 1949 my father wrote to my Aunt Helen to ask if there was a place for all of us. At the time Australia suffered a huge shortage of workers for the nation's reconstruction efforts and as a result employment was high, especially for those in the building industry. Despite her tough circumstances, and the lack of room for a family of four, Helen replied to her younger brother to tell him that we would be welcome and that she would sponsor us to come to Australia.

Chapter 5

POPULATE OR PERISH
Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail, 'There's a porpoise close behind us and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle -- will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass Not long after he received Aunt Helens positive reply, my father gathered us all together in the scullery and made the announcement: We are going to Australia, a land of sunshine and sheep. For me, this news promised an enormous adventure and I felt nothing but a huge sense of excitement, totally oblivious to the powerful dynamics playing out in the adult world. My grandfather saw my mothers decision to move to another country as a sense of betrayal, to take his beloved grandchildren and leave him behind alone hurt him deeply. In fact it affected him so much that once she left he would never speak or write to her again and even went as far as adjusting his will. How my mother felt I can only imagine, she had lived all her life with her father in that house and she loved him dearly. But not only that she would be leaving behind a close-knit family, her elder sisters and their families (remembering she was the youngest), as well as her friends, her neighbours and the many people that made up

her community and her life in Maidenhead. She wouldnt be the first migrant to experience these emotional pangs in the hope of a better life for her children and nor would she be the last. Before I left I had people I knew write messages in my autograph book. Mrs Cripps, the secretary of the local Christian Spiritualist Church, wrote I once had a cat and also a linnet, I still have the cat but the linnet is in it . Grannie Savage, the mother of Uncle Bert, was far more positive and wrote Happiness is like cookies, Best when homemade. And so it was on October 7th 1949, like many other immigrants in that period, the Harris family of Maidenhead boarded the train to Liverpool bidding a fond farewell to our aunts and cousins. We were joining thousands of other families wanting a fresh start with great hopes and expectations, little knowing about the tough conditions that lay ahead and the loneliness that was to lie within my mothers heart. My grandfather never saw us off, we had left him, alone and bereft, on the front steps of 14 Grenfell Ave. He watched us walk out of his life, not just for the time being but forever. As fate would have it, this was our last moment together and sadly none of us would ever see him again. At Liverpool we boarded the MV Georgic, part of the Cunard White Star line of passenger ships, in fact the last ship the company had constructed. This ship was built in the early 1930s to sail between the United Kingdom and the USA and was designed as a luxury liner, carrying cabin class passengers only. At the time of her maiden voyage in June 1932 she was considered to be the fastest motor vessel in the world. During the war years the Georgic was pressed into service as a troopship and carried thousands of service personnel to destinations around the world until it was bombed and sunk by a lone German bomber in the Gulf of Suez in 1941. Three years of repairs followed before she was again pressed into service as a troopship for the last year of the war. Between 1945 and 1948 she was used for the India run, sailing between Liverpool and Bombay, before being employed as a one class emigrate carrier for the Australian government. Our voyage was its third run as an immigrant ship. It left Liverpool on October 7 th, 1949 carrying 2002 passengers and 486 crew bound for Melbourne and Sydney. There were also quite a number of service personnel on board who were asked to assist with the management of the ship, as were many of the passengers although they performed their duties on a volunteer basis. The ship did have a bit of a troopship feel to it as all the male and female accommodation was segregated. My mother and sister were placed in a cabin on A deck with two other passengers

while my father and I were placed on H deck, below the waterline, wit h eight others. As we left England behind us it certainly felt like we were making a permanent break. We were now going to be part of a growing number of our fellow Britons who were making a new life for themselves and their families in another part of the world. Nearly three million immigrants would arrive in Australia between 1945 and 1970, of which almost a third would disembark in Melbourne. They came from countries as diverse as Italy, Greece and Latvia, although almost every second immigrant was like us and came from Britain. Australia's immigration program was then considered to be the second largest in the world and we all had to experience that sea journey to get there. The Georgic had a recreation room, a cinema and lounge area where passengers could write letters and read a book. Meal times were somewhat chaotic but the menu was quite good. Meals were prepared and served from an adjoining kitchen and we all sat, twenty people to a table, in the large mess hall. The ship rolled without stabilizers, so small flaps were flicked up to stop our meals from sliding off the table. The toilets and showers were all communal and seating was in short supply around the decks. This was blamed on the boys traveling under the Big Brother Scheme who were alleged to have been seen throwing deck chairs over the stern and watching them being sucked into the ship's propellers and smashing into splinters. A boxing ring was also erected on the open deck and competitions were organized, although the morality of this was somewhat shattered when the ships cook knocked out the Army Chaplain. The Georgic advanced through the Mediterranean stopping briefly at Port Said and Port Aden. There we were able to purchase trinkets from the sellers who came out to the ship in small boats, pulling their baskets up using strings. The next land we sighted was Western Australia, as the ship pulled in to Fremantle for a short time, and then for us our final destination, Melbourne. We arrived at Station Pier, Melbournes premier sea passenger terminal, on November 7th, 1949; our journey had taken exactly four weeks to the day. As we pulled in we searched for Aunt Helen amongst the throng of people standing and waving on the pier below. Sure enough, there she was with her black coat and black floppy hat, smiling and waving to us all.

We took our few belongings through the bureaucratic processes of the immigration and customs officials and before long we were with Aunt Helen and her daughter Janet and her daughters fianc Alec Philpott. Recently I sat at the tiny Pier Caf looking out at the sea, which had brought so many of us to Australia. For a moment I glimpsed the excited eight year old I had been on that day, racing down the gangplank of the Georgic, along the pier and straight to the beach. I recalled taking a handful of sand and touching the water. I felt for the first time I was breathing the air of my new adopted homeland and for the first time I realized this was a new beginning. But this is a story of just one migrant family. The courage that Aunt Helen had to migrate to the other side of the world also enticed the families of two of her siblings to follow suit. Some fifty Australian citizens in all are directly connected to these families because of one womans inspirational journey to make something better of her life. Similarly on my mothers side, my cousin Marilyn, daughter of Uncle Den, migrated to New Zealand. This in turn encouraged two of sisters and eventually her parents to move to the land of the long white cloud as well.
Chapter 6

I LOVE A SUNBURNT COUNTRY

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass Station Pier that day was a certainly a sea of people. Our small party bustled along with the other new arrivals, all excitedly chatting, and boarded a nearby train for the city. The train ride in was packed and soon after we came to the bridge that crossed over the Yarra River, Sandridge Bridge, which is now no longer used by the railways but ironically has been turned into a memorial to those who have immigrated to Australia. We alighted at Flinders Street Station and caught the tram up Elizabeth Street into Royal Parade, with all its exotic palm trees, and finally made it to 310 The Avenue, Parkville, our first home in a new land. Aunt Helens house was somewhat larger but not too dissimilar to what we had left behind in Grenfell Ave, Maidenhead. It was a two storied red brick Victorian terrace house that stood at the end of a row of similar replicated buildings with

ornate designs on the roof and concrete figureheads attached to the faade. It had traditional Melbourne bluestone laneways at the side and back and sat right next to a bridge which the local rail line, closed the year before we arrived, had once travelled under. Best of all it overlooked Royal Park and was within walking distance of the Melbourne Zoo. When we got there she was still running it as a boarding house. Helen and her daughter Janet shared a room at the top of the stairs while our family was given the larger bedroom upstairs which had a cast irony balcony attached to it, where my sister and I slept. All the other rooms were rented out to an assortment of boarders, mainly students at Melbourne University, who all seemed to be called Frank. Many of the houses around here had been turned into boarding houses. At the back of our house was another run by Mr & Mrs Murray where Les & Bet McMahon and their children lived. They became close friends and many nights were spent playing cards and eating Salada Crackers with Kraft Cheese slices and tomatoes. They later moved to a new housing commission house in Chelyer St, Preston which became a regular venue for visits from us. A lifetime in service had made Aunt Helen quite regimented in her routines and each evening at the same time she would cook a meal for her boarders and we would be part of that sitting. She was an avid reader and maybe because of her experiences in life she impressed on us all the need for education and she certainly impressed on me the value of an academic career. I do recall one night watching with her the flames from nearby Melbourne Universitys historic Wilson Hall as it burnt down. This building had been named after the notable pastoralist Sir Samuel Wilson and its construction had led to a series of events that had created the all important Eight Hour Day. Its stonework was later recycled to create Montsalvat in Eltham and a brand new building was reconstructed on the spot and opened in 1956. She was to also inspire another aspect of my life when one evening she dressed me up and took me to Scots Presbyterian Church in Collins St. She was determined I should get a taste of the robed formality of the clergy with its choirs and organs and stained glassed traditions. I was certainly taken with its teachings, especially those that emphasized an intellectual understanding of the scripture and a social conservatism regarding life. Even so my family continued to attend the Methodist Church, the nearest being in Sydney Rd, Brunswick.

One of the first tasks that mother and father had to attend to was to enroll their children into primary school and as a result we were placed into the Princes Hill State School in North Carlton. This area has predominantly been a populated residential suburb of Melbourne and has therefore attracted many new migrants with its cheap housing. In our class of fifty children we had almost every conceivable nationality with us, the majority coming from Italy, Greece and the United Kingdom. My sister was less than impressed with all of this and, aged just seven, ran away from the school and walked half a mile back home to find mother. We spent most of our time here learning from graded spelling lists and tables on the back of Vana exercise books and copying with a writing script which used pens dipped into blue stained ink wells that sat in cold wooden desks. The ceiling of the classroom showed signs of dampened blotter paper that had been used as ammunition and torpedoed upwards, seemingly to remain there forever. One boy up the front must have had a superior talent for this sort of thing because he seemed to have managed more blotter bombs above his head than anyone else. We were not to stay with Aunt Helen for very long. With fathers work skills he soon secured a job as a building foreman at the Australian Paper Mills in Fairfield, which at that stage had started to expand. Because of his previous military experience he was entitled to a 10 allowance from the repatriation department to buy his tools in trade which he did. Every day he rode to work on a bike lent to him by Alec Philpott. Mother also got a position working as a routine operator at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. Both of them had now become a part of the Australian work force. Where to live became a real issue particularly as we had no money. My parents decided that the best and cheapest option for us was to buy land and build on it. A site was eventually chosen in Bulleen or Lower Templestowe as it was then known, one block back from Thompsons Road, and for reasons only known to the planners the street was known as Robinson Grove. This areas claim to fame was that the infamous Melbourne gangster, Squizzy Taylor, once shot and killed a taxi driver near here in 1916 and nearby was the Clay Pigeon Rifle Range where the popular American performer, Evie Hayes, once visited as a promotion for her long running musical Annie Get Your Gun. Bulleen was then a quiet, picturesque suburb of undulating landscape just a few kilometres from the heart of Melbourne and not far from the eastern suburbs tramline. The area was almost semi-rural in those days with herds of cattle & dairy

cows, as well as flocks of sheep, grazing in the numerous grass paddocks and market gardens and orchards covering most of the land. It was part of Melbournes food bowl and a very different place to the densely populated suburb it is today. In that post-war era there were no such things as large affordable estate developments that had water, gas and power supplied or even sealed roads. No the site we chose had been basically carved up out of a market garden that had been attached to a series of orchards. When we got it, there was plenty of grass but few trees; in fact it was all out in the open. But the land was cheap and was one block away from the main road. Not long after we bought the block, father put his lifetime of experience in the building industry to good use and began constructing a small wooden house on the site. There was certainly no money for a brick construction (apart from the chimney) as bricks then were both expensive and in short supply. Each weekend we would travel by bus to the property and my father would work on building the wooden house that would eventually comprise three rooms. In 1951 we all moved out of Aunt Helens house in Parkville and carted our worldly possessions to 6 Robinson Grove, Bulleen, with the help of our new neighbour, Len Churcher. Soon after we arrived at what was to become our first real home in Australia, one that was designed and created by my fathers own hands.

Chapter 7

PEDAL POWER
But it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass Our life in Bulleen was a real pioneer experience - no car, no power, no phone, no fridge and no toilet. We all lived in the three roomed house my father was building, as well as a caravan, on our bare bush block. Our lighting was a Tilley lamp and

our refrigeration a Coolgardie safe. To travel around we bought a small horse we named Judy. There wasnt much around either. In fact the model aeroplane club looked upon it as empty space and came up each weekend and buzzed our blocks from the hill opposite with their flying machines. The Yarra River was nearby and the duck season usually opened here with hunters firing off rifles along the banks where the Heidelberg School of painters once painted their landscape masterpieces. Nearby was McColls Riding School, Brodels Butchers and Whites Dairy where Mother worked occasionally. When Judy, our horse, had to be shoed it took me all day to ride to the forge in Whitehorse Rd, Balwyn and as there was no post office in Bulleen, we had no choice but to collect our mail from the North Balwyn Post Office two miles away. Everything we had was carefully managed and we went without rather than build up debt. It all had to be earned, there was no instant gratification. Our house was built slowly bit by bit because my father would save small amounts of money to buy some timber and then he would use it to build more of the house. Every now and then he would purchase a plank of 4 x 2 timber and carry it home. Somewhat different to these days when you buy a huge house and then shoulder a large mortgage for decades to come. That simply wouldnt have been within the framework of my parents thinking, or that of their neighbours. There was a strong sense of community spirit amongst those of us struggling to build new lives for ourselves on these small plots of land in Bulleen. Languages and accents varied but that mattered little when we were all living a common, if not shared, experience together. It very soon became a close-knit community and our neighbours became our friends and fellows, in fact we would share the little that we had with each other. Parties were celebrated amongst us for small achievements and big events alike as well traditions like Christmas or Easter. One Greek migrant, Mr Vasiliadis, who was building a petrol station by hand in nearby Thompsons Rd, asked my sister Pauline to be his flower girl at his wedding in the Greek Orthodox Church in East Melbourne. For the occasion she was all decked out in white with a garland of flowers around her head. There was a real spirit of survival and camaraderie in those new blocks of Bulleen scattered across that hillside. In particular was our friendship with the Churchers, Len & Amy and their young family, who were the second ones, after us, to move into the street and build a house. That family shared all the joys and sorrows along with us and Amy

Churcher was a beautiful caring friend to my mother and as far as I was concerned she lived out day by day the gospel challenge to love. Amy had been born in Bendigo in 1914 but grew up on a farm near Swan Hill with eight other siblings. As times were tough her parents decided to move to the city to find work and at the age of fourteen she left school to begin a varied working career that included labouring at the Woorineen South general store, doing housework for a doctor in Kerang, toiling as an invisible mender at Hilton stockings and waitressing in a caf for a Jewish family. In 1940 she married Len Churcher, moved to Heidelberg West and had two daughters, Patricia & Pamela. During the war years Len served in the army and while he was away Amy supported the war effort by packing ammunition in a factory in Footscray. In 1951 Len and Amy Churcher moved to Bulleen where they became very involved with the North Balwyn Methodist Church and later the Bulleen Uniting Church. In 1969 they were part of a group that helped form Doncare, a local community centre that offered care and counselling to those in need, where they both served for over twenty-five years. Len was in his sixties when he died and Amy continued on well into her nineties, being awarded both an Australia Day Award and a Super Veterans Badge from the Victorian Lawn Bowls Association, before she also died. Our street was not graded and sealed for a long time and many were the days that we had to push each others cars out of the mud. None of us could afford the money to pay for the road to be made or to bring the electric light poles along with it. The key house in the area was owned by Margaret and Geoff Bayliss who had a large family and the only phone in the street. When a call came for our family, Margaret would let out a piercing whistle and Mother would run to answer the call. Margarets father ran the well known Joyce & Son butchers in East Kew and one time he took myself and the said son to his farm where he astounded me by breaking a raw egg and swallowing it whole for breakfast. The Bayliss family also bred pigeons which inspired Dad to follow suit and get our own birds and we also adopted a cockatoo as a pet who we taught to say Hello Cocky. We were very proud when we installed a Hills Hoist. It wa s one of those inventions that became an icon in every Australian backyard and a rite of passage for every Aussie child to play on. My sister was swinging on a neighbours hoist one day with our neighbor Pam Churcher when it suddenly broke. She was very concerned about how she could explain to mum and dad what had happened, especially as she had also taken the day off school as well.

Most of the people from our neighbourhood who didnt have a horse or a car in those days travelled by bicycle including many going to work or school. The curved handlebars could easily carry a Gladstone bag that usually held all the things needed for our daily routines. Those who rode their bikes were often new to the country and more than likely had very little in the way of worldly possessions anyway. Many from our area would often leave their bikes near the North Balwyn tram stop. There always seemed to be a contrast between the newly arrived migrants on their bicycles and the new rich and middle class of North Balwyn who lived close to the 48 and 40 trams. Nearby the local congregational minister, the Reverend Albiston, had an old house with a large hedge that sat on the corner of Doncaster and Bulleen Roads. To many this hedge represented security and the Reverend Albiston would allow people to leave their bikes behind his hedge. We did regularly and in return our family promised attendance at North Balwyn Congregational Church every Sunday. We worshipped here and for quite a long time the minister was the Reverend Isabel Merry, who in 1936 became the second female to be ordained in Australia and the first in Victoria, she later became the first chaplain at the Queen Victoria Hospital. In her life time she had to overcome much male prejudice, even to attend the Congregational Theological Training College where she was supported in part by the Croydon Congregational Church of whom Dame Phyllis Frosts family were members. Years later Dame Phyllis Frost, who was married by Isabel Merry, and myself spoke at her funeral. On the day an old friend of Isabel, the Rev John Bodycombe, reminded everyone how hard it was being a woman in the ministry, telling the story of how the Rev Merry was refused an assistant ministry at the Wesley Central Mission. The notable clergyman, Rev Dr Sir Irving Benson, later acknowledged this decision was very much to his shame. Reverend Merry was another of those strong, confident women who helped shaped my whole value system in terms of who I should be and what I could achieve. Her passionate leadership and care of her Sunday School, which included the learning of scriptures every week and the celebration of the Sunday School anniversaries, left a powerful impression on me as I was moving into my teenage years. She inspired me to make sure I learned my scripture before church every Sunday, in fact I won first prize for scripture reading at one time. My sister was not so keen about scripture and used to threaten me saying things like If you don't learn my bits of scripture for me, I'II bash you and tell mum (I never thought that a sister could be so aggressive, mind you this is disputed, probably rightly, by my sister).

As for our education my sister and I attended the East Kew State School, a rural training school. I quite liked this school it was an old nineteenth century brick building that had a big verandah at the back with a wooden fire stairwell that went down the outside and lovely big rooms with tall ceilings and fireplaces inside. Out the front was a garden where each class had their own gardening plot. I found primary school quite a satisfying experience. Each day was started with an assembly in the courtyard at the back, an area that was monumented by the double storey building. The assembly established the daily routine of the classroom for the day which was very much to do with learning tables and graded spelling lists. I was quite good at spelling and it was also a great joy for me to secure top marks, although one time I felt completely hard done by when we were required to spell mare as in: The mare was running down the street. Having grown up on pictures of the Pied Piper story, I spelt it mayor. No howling appeals from me on this occasion succeeded and I must say it was the only time I felt my teacher hadnt listened to my point of view. The classroom had typical rows of wooden desks with ink wells at the front. Every day the cleaner would come in and scatter sawdust all over the wooden floor after cleaning it with kerosene. It would all settle back down with a thin film over the desks again. Of course like all primary school students in this era we also drank our supply of milk every morning at recess. I was in Grade 6 and my teacher was Miss Moroney while my sister was in Grade 5 and taught by Mr Munroe. Each lunchtime Miss Moroney and another teacher, Mr Jackson, would go off for a walk and share a cigarette, we were all sure they would get married. Miss Moroney would stand at the front of the classroom close to the fireplace and the back of her legs would end up quite red as a result of it. For those of us who were seated down the back of the room, it was our job to get the wood and put it on to the fire even though we received none of the benefit because we were so far away from the warmth. We often felt a great sense of injustice over this as those at the front stayed nice and warm and didnt have to put any effort in to achieve this. One of my greatest joys here was to be appointed the teachers tea-bucket monitor. Each morning the teachers emptied their tea leaves into the bucket in the small, second floor staff room and it became my responsibility to collect the bucket and empty its contents into the red brick toilets at the other end of the playground. It was always my great pleasure to carry out this important task whilst everybody else was stuck at assembly.

The only time that the daily routine of the tea bucket and school assembly was broken was on Empire Day. On this day we would all stand at assembly and chant: I love God and my Country; I honor the King and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the laws and rally around to sing Land of Hope & Glory and other stirring anthems. The school was very much a traditional Australian school and very proud to be part of the British Empire. Certainly the books that we read were usually based around the themes of English Kings and the Empire. The one major event in that period that has remained in my memory was of the tragic polio epidemic. When a fellow student died of the disease, school students and teachers alike would gather outside the school and watch the victims funeral procession go past. It was quite a powerful memory for me and a very serious epidemic for Australians. Travelling to school we were picked up in a neighbours T Model Ford and dropped off out front of the nearby Catholic School. No words were spoken once we reached the footpath as the sectarian conventions of the time forbad Protestants and Catholics from talking to each other. Often I spent my lunch money on a Boston Bun rather than something nutritious which then left me with nothing but the free, and often warm, milk that was given to us during the day. Going home we caught the tram from the Harp of Erin Hotel and alighted at Bulleen Rd where we then had to walk another two miles to get home, an event occasionally marred by the excitement of a swooping magpie defending its young. It was in this period that my views on education were beginning to form. I felt affirmed by the encouragement I received for academic endeavours but disempowered because I was not as sports minded as they would have liked. One time at the Kew Baths I informed a male swimming teacher that I couldnt swim and he told me to join the dunces end. This embarrassed me so much that I climbed over the locker fence and returned at the end of the session with a wrapped but dry towel and still not being able to swim. On the other hand Miss Moroney was far more understanding and in a class football photo she insisted that I was in it even though I was third reserve and never touched a football. She was one of those inspiring people who had the simple knack of knowing what it is to be a good teacher. Like any other child in that era, life at that particular time was very much geared to attending school, getting there, getting back and living with the family at home. I sensed no difference in my life until I joined the local scout troop.

Having been a cub in Britain it was a natural thing for me to join the cubs in Australia. The nearest cub pack was the 1st North Balwyn (15th Camberwell) who were then set up in the Congregational Hall. Later in 1950 a permanent hall was constructed by all the families involved in the troop at Macleay Park on Belmore Road. This came about after many meetings and fund raising activities such as square dancing with Jim Vickers-Willis and a cake stall caravan set up every Saturday, where Mother was noted for making popular cream horns. We also raised funds through selling debentures, a term I didnt understand and I was left thinking it strange to sell seats for money. Unfortunately a week long carnival we planned ended up being deluged with rain. The cub pack was started by an amazing woman, Beryl Lobb. Born in 1917, Beryl left school at the age of fourteen to begin work in Foys department store and later worked at Mantons until she married Wes Lobb in 1940. After the war years she wanted her son Douglas to join the cubs but found there was no vacancy at the nearby Arunta cub pack. As a result she decided to start one herself in 1948 and soon gained support from other local parents, her husband Wes becoming the senior Scout Leader. A scout troop had been established by Don Lithgow and Ian Coates in 1946. Beryl ran the troop in a very well controlled and organized manner, which was reflected in the success of the pack. By the time I was in the scout troop, it was a very successful group, winning most of the competitions including the A grade pennant at Gilwell Park and the Cohen Shield. Beryl served as a leader for twenty-five years, getting herself involved with the Camberwell Gang Show and later becoming District Cub Leader. When she and Wes retired they moved to Rye where she ran a local art and craft group through the Blairgowrie Uniting Church. She died in 2009. We wore brown jumpers, unlike any other troop, and it looked very smart. We would boldly chant Who are we North Balwyn, Blood and Mud North Balwyn, Up and Down, Red and Brown 15th Camberwell Yah! Im not sure what they sang when they were later forced to conform and wear the dreary scout tan colour jumpers. Our scarves had to be tied with a knot on each end to remind us we had to undertake two good turns a day. Funds for the scouts were raised through the boba-job program (later with inflation bobs-for-jobs) and endless bottle and newspaper drives. Also in this period my sister Pauline was taken along to join the Brownies but she was not as keen to be involved as I was. In fact she was known to hide her Brownies scarf under the floorboards so she could avoid attending, even though

Father made her a very nice mushroom (or was it a toadstool?) for her pack. I can see now that even at this age we were somewhat different and in many ways I secretly respected her capacity to play sport and be so easily social when I felt quite introverted and shy. During this time I had a perception that my life contrasted sharply with the other boys in the troop. North Balwyn was a new and affluent suburb full of wealthy and well off residents who had been riding high on the wave of post-war financial and social success. Peer pressure has always been one of the toughest issues a young teen will face. We are all different and we need difference but at that age all you want to be is the same as everyone else around you and to feel worthy enough to fit in. I couldnt help but compare myself to these peers and I certainly felt self conscious at our obvious lack of wealth. At the time I felt there were only a few of us in the scout troop who attended a government school. I felt it keenly when my father would initially take me to cubs on the back our horse Judy with a hurricane lamp hanging down by her side. This contrasted so sharply with the flash new cars that were always parked outside . One Easter my parents came to visit our camp in their newly acquired second hand motorcar, a 1949 Vanguard. The trouble was that I believed all the other parents came up in Mercedes. At the time I was ashamed. I had no understanding of values, loyalty or love (I apologized to my father before he died for even thinking these things). At one camp my insecurity was heightened when I felt I was excluded from listening to the broadcast of the Head of the River event because it was only for the boys who attended an independent school. The rest of us had to fill in the afternoon by going for a walk in the park. Even so the cub movement and the scout movement were very important influences in my life and became a part of me throughout my teenage years. It gave me much needed support because there really wasnt much else going for us during those early years we were a small migrant community and our houses were modest and often only partially constructed. We didnt have much money and I wasnt interested in sports, so the scout movement was my only avenue of support. As a result I put much time and effort into it. I worked hard to earn my badges in pioneering, estimation, first-aid, cooking, mapping and hiking, in fact if there was a badge on offer I tried for it. The hardest for me was the swimming test, in light of my experience at the Kew Baths and the fact that I thought I had small nasal passages that makes it difficult for me to breath while swimming. This test, which was a perquisite for the Queens Scout award, involved a compulsory fifty yard

swimming test and I only managed to complete the task thanks to the dedication of a young red-headed female swimming instructor at the Melbourne Baths in Swanston St who coaxed me into completing the test using backstroke (there was no rule that said it had to be done using freestyle). At that time I was appointed assistant scout master to the Yooralla handicapped scout troop, meeting at Yooralla on Belmont Rd, Balwyn, which began a lifelong interest in young people affected by a physical disability. In 1958 I was invested as a Queen Scout at Government House by Sir Dallas Brooks. Soon after I undertook training and completed, before the minimal age, my Wood Badge and was designated with my, hard to endure, scout name, Pee -Wee, after the character Pee-Wee Pete. Still the great positive aspect of the scouts were the great number of hikes we undertook, easily the best being to Lake Tarli Karng in Gippsland. To a certain extent I thrived in the scouting environment, in spite of the social differences. Slowly but surely by the mid-1950s our life in Bulleen began to improve. Electric lighting replaced our tiny kerosene lamp, a Linberg Foster kerosene operated refrigerator replaced the Coolgardie safe and our small horse Judy was replaced by our familys first small motorcar, a 1949 Vanguard (registration NJ539). On special weekends Aunty Doris and Uncle Bill, who we met on the MV Georgic coming out, would pick us up in their small car and our two families would travel to Keilor and light a fire and enjoy a billy tea near the creek there. This relationship was enriched by their daughter Christine who was a highland dancer and this inspired us to go and visit many highland dancing competitions. She also became a member of the radio show Swallows Juniors which led to a lot of excitement as we listened for her on the wireless. Once we had electricity installed the radio became a major form of communication for us. Each night I would follow the Biggles serials and listen to the Argonauts, although I never became a member. In this period Nicky Whitta and Graham Kennedy broadcast a hilarious and popular morning show on 3UZ and I was often known to take a sick-day off school just so I could listen to them on the radio. In fact at one stage I even considered becoming a radio announcer but alas, in spite of completing a short course, I failed the voice test at the ABC, unlike one of my fellow classmates, Keith Doc Livingston, who went on to a career in radio. We also loved going to the pictures at Balwyn or Heidelberg but if you ever wanted to go of a Saturday night you had to pick up your tickets in the afternoon

because of the demand. All of these things, especially the car and the radio, helped considerably to reduce our isolation from the rest of the world. Whilst there was a strong sense of achievement, none of this rested easily with my mother who had given up so much and was now starting to feel extremely lonely and separated from her family. In this new and unforgiving land she felt disappointed and embarrassed that what she had envisioned for us was not what it had turned out to be. It was a tough life indeed, so far from home and living in a partly built house and caravan. In fact she couldnt bring herself to tell her sisters about how we lived in Bulleen. What made things worse for her was the death of her father in 1952. A cable arrived from England from Aunty Tiny that simply said Dad died. He had not contacted her since we left and now there was no chance for either reconciliation or a reunion. All of this seemed to increase her sense of isolation and distance from what she had left behind. Added to this was my mothers serious health issues that were now beginning to have a major impact on her life. Before we left England she began to experience severe pains in her head. These headaches increased and often resulted in migraines and her having to spend a lot of time in bed trying to recover. In the end it turned out that these were being caused by a brain tumour. Even though she knew this, she stoically refused to deal with it until after my sister and I finished school.

Chapter 8

INDUSTRIOUS ENDEAVOUR
Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is -- oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass At the end of Grade 6 my parents had to make a decision as to what school I would attend for my secondary education. Most students at the East Kew State School advanced to the Central School, as it continued to Year 8, and then transferred to Melbourne High School, which commenced at Year 9. At this stage Balwyn High School, a new school being built in North Balwyn, was still two years away. When it did open it commenced with a strange rostered shift system that had half of the students attending in the morning and the remainder in the afternoon. My sister Pauline and our neighbours, Pam and Patricia Churcher, eventually attended here. Today it is the third largest secondary school in Victoria. In this period my mother had made friends with Mr & Mrs McGahy, market gardeners who lived not far from our house, whose bright young twin nephews had been attending the Box Hill Technical College and doing well th ere. As a result of the McGahys recommendation, my mother was inspired to look in this direction for my secondary education. The Box Hill Technical College had been established in 1943 as a way of meeting the growing demand for technical education in the east of Melbourne. In this era the Commonwealth Government decided to adopt an extensive program of national expansion, a major aspect of which was to be the development of industry, especially in the manufacturing and service sectors. At the same time there was an explosion in the building industry, as returned servicemen and new migrants settled into family life and built new houses and suburbs everywhere, and the transport and engineering industries, which had been greatly boosted by advances in technology during the war, were progressing rapidly. Add to this an emerging consumer society that was creating a need for more appliances and electrical products and the economy was beginning to show signs of booming. Now more than ever, Australia needed mechanics, builders and electricians.

The government had re-ignited their support for Tech schools in the post war period as a way of meeting some of the demands of industry and to help the country overcome some of the skill shortages that were emerging. There was a rapid growth in technical education, and institutions, like the Box Hill Technical College, looked to educate and train a young workforce that could meet the needs of the industrial developments of the era. Even the schools motto exclaimed Industrious Endeavour- nothing Latin for us! It was opened in 1943 as the Box Hill Boys Junior Technical School and at the time was called the jewel in the crown the prestige technical school in Victoria. It was then, and remained for some years to come, the showplace of technical education in the state. The land chosen for the school, after much debate, was approximately six acres in Dunloe Ave, Mont Albert which was on a hill with a wonderful view over the area, originally they had looked at the site where the Box Hill Hospital is now. The school buildings they erected were architectural magnificent with a modern streamline red brick design that had white painted concrete ledges and windows. At the time The Herald went as far as calling it the most beautiful building in Australia. Entry to Box Hill Tech in those days was undertaken in a completely different way to what it is done today. Whether it was because institutions in the area were limited or that there was limited space available at the Tech Im not sure, but each year they only made two scholarships available to each of the schools that fell within their regional jurisdiction 192 places all up. In 1952 I was one of a number of students from the East Kew State School who sat for the Box Hill Tech entry exam. Both I, and my parents, were absolutely thrilled when it was announced that I was one of the lucky two from my school to be successful. So in the new year, armed with boundless enthusiasm and optimism to try something new, and a brand new uniform and cap, I proudly became a student at the Box Hill Technical College. The school had an interesting educational philosophy for the first year where each of the classes, of which there were eight classes of 24 (192 all up), were all divided into alphabetical order. For example all the As ended up in 1A. Being a Harris I was in 1D, in fact most of us in 1D had names beginning with H or something close to it. The second year we were all graded by raw score results, from number 1 all the way to 192. So that 2A were the first 24, 2B the next 24, and so on until the last ones, who ended up in 2H (I do often wonder who was number 192 hes probably a multimillionaire now!). Whilst those in 2H might have felt a bit inferior under this system, its worth remembering that you still had to pass an exam to be selected to

get into the school in the first place so its not as though they werent bright students anyway. Our subjects were the standard fare of courses for a technical education. In those days this was a mix of English, Social Studies and Woodwork (far too much as far as I was concerned), as well as those subjects like engineering, technical drawing and solid geometry. The Principal was Mr Wilson, who wrote maths text books under the name Wilson & Ross, and the Head Master was Mr Dadsey. Sadly he died soon after I started and out of respect for him the whole school lined up in uniform along Dunloe Ave as his cortege drove slowly by. He was replaced by Mr Woods who we referred to as Little Hitler. The school in those days was basically staffed and managed by two sets of teachers. One set were a group of exservicemen who were re-training after the war and the other were young teachers straight out of teachers college. The school sat adjacent to Surrey Oval and Reserve which may have inspired the schools gardener as our gardens were always immaculately maintained. This also had a lot to do with the horticulture classes we had, that taught us all about weeding and what a hoe and mattock could achieve. Any reluctance on our part to be involved in this resulted in one weeks detention. Like every other all-male educational institution in this period, the school had a no nonsense approach to teaching, that was simply how it was. Punishments were freely given and could be anything from after school detention or writing one hundred lines of I must not to the ultimate, the strap. Mind you this was used as a common form of punishment, if you didnt have your equipment or wear your cap you got the strap. In the first week we were all lined up and I was administered the strap for not having an eraser. Our science teacher, Mr McCulloch, was quite able to strap the whole class and Tony Ollo, a recent migrant from Europe, managed to keep us appropriately dressed by giving blocks of wood a karate chop to remind us of what would be our fate if we didnt wear our shorts. The maths teacher had the best solution, he just turned his hearing aid to low and what he couldnt hear he couldnt punish. Another aspect of Australian education during this era was that so much was invested in sport. After the war people had more time for leisure activities and sport was by far the most common form of organized recreation available. For many it became the main theme of life over the weekend and in many places it was the cornerstone of the community. Schools were no different and so many believed

thats a schools reputation was wrapped up in the successes it achieved on the sports field. The more physical sports werent of any interest to me and by the time I was fifteen it was quite clear that I didnt really have any aptitude for the competitive games. All those sports that males were expected to undertake, which tended to be reinforced by the school system, gave me no pleasure at all. I felt that I was more sensitive and shyer than others and I was certainly embarrassed to be forced to be involved in these activities. Even so, it should be stated that I wasnt unhappy here, especially as we werent without our cultural moments. I was in the chorus of a number of the school musicals including The Pirates of Penzance (as a maid), The Yeoman of the Guard (as a beefeater) and White Horse Inn (as a soldier), all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. We also had Mr Bradley, the music teacher, who did his best to instill in us a love of music, even if his capacity to teach was often enhanced by the bottle under his desk, we did learn that a clarinet was a reed covered in soup spoons. One success he did have was Phillip Miechel who went on to become a saxophonist and a leader of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. At the same time Mr Allan, a young machine shop teacher, and his wife, would each year help us to prepare for our singing roles at the annual speech night, always held in the Box Hill Town Hall. Another annual event was the Exhibition Day where students work was proudly displayed at an open day at the school. I received first prize at one of these for my cigarette card collection that had been given to me by my Uncle Bert before we left England. However the most important task to which I was promoted at school was to become the bell monitor whilst my good friend, Laurie Mitchell, was proudly appointed School Captain. It was approximately four miles from our house to the Tech and apart from the initial few months I was at the school, when I was driven by my mothers friends, I rode my bike the four miles each way, every day with a group of fellow students. I quite liked the people I rode my bike with and occasionally wed all stop on the way home at the big hill on Elgar Rd and partake in the free self -serve apples from the orchard (I was too scared of being caught to be involved with this). I really enjoyed the company of this small group of friends that I had. Each evening on my way home I would earn money by delivering Heralds and magazines on my bike around the streets of North Balwyn. Saturday evenings were a little more exhausting though as I had to do two deliveries, the latter being the

pink Sporting Globe which reported all of the longed for football results. One customer, an elderly lady, would often bribe me with sweets to carry her magazines right to her front door. Around Xmas we would try to encourage donations from our customers by slipping a card into the newspaper that asked When in the midst of all your joy. Do not forget the paper boy. When I reached Year 9 I swapped the paper boy job for a position at a store called Whites Corner where I worked each afternoon after school. This was a lovely old nineteenth century red brick building that had once been a grain and grocery store known as Serpells, it was later demolished to make way for Doncaster Shopping Town. It stood on a hill and from there you had a magnificent view all the way to the city. Originally a tram ran from Station Street, Box Hill to Whites Corner and there was a viewing tower at the end of the tramline. As a day out, people would catch the train to Box Hill and then the tram to Doncaster to see the wonderful panorama on offer. It was all market gardens and orchards around this area until the post-war development took over. My mother had worked at the store for a while when she was able to secure for me a part time job here as well. I had quite a happy time working here. Inside the store was a huge wooden counter and customers would arrive armed with their grocery lists and queue up to be served. This was all before the advent of supermarkets and we were required to hand write the orders and add up in pre-decimal currency. My job was to prepare and put together their orders and sometimes deliver them. We would slice the bacon and ham for the orders and cut cheese into large blocks. A great delight was hooking the biscuit tins from the top shelves and catching them as they fell. I worked here some weekends also and during the week, if I was on holidays. During these times there was a high level of passing trade when day trippers would stop for morning or afternoon tea. On these occasions I would serve cups of tea, milkshakes, lemonade spiders and slices of cheese and tomato on Sayo biscuits. I really enjoyed it and I met a lot of wonderful people through it. Mum also worked hard here and in a small way it helped with the familys finances. A small shop was eventually established opposite by Mr Glascock (to save embarrassment we called him Mr Glassick). This shop was a forerunner to self service stores and quite a retailing pioneer. 1950s Australia was very much a male-driven society. Women, when they went out to work, usually didnt receive the same salary as men. It certainly was a very safe and secure society compared to the rest of the world but it was also a very

restrictive environment to live in. Rock and roll certainly hadnt arrived to save us as Patti Page was able to make it to the top of the hit parade in 1952 singing How Much is that Doggy in the Window? One woman who dominated this period was the young and beautiful Queen Elizabeth II. With a lot of excitement I had attended the cinema with my fellow students to watch film of the Queens coronation in 1953. A year later, when I was in Year 8, she visited Australia and we were all caught up in the adulation and excitement of the first Royal visit. When she drove around the MCG I was happily waving my flag as part of one of the Es that spelt out WELCOME on the oval. During this period I was starting to develop my own moral views on life. This happened almost without thinking and in a subtle but safe way through my participation in the Inter School Christian Fellowship. I became involved with the group when Laurie Mitchell, a school friend who had also been with me at Sunday School, and I met one of the boys from the Griffiths family (who later went on to become a Doctor) and he introduced us to the Crusaders. This was a Christian boys association with strong links to Scotch College and Ivanhoe Grammar and they often met of a Saturday evening at the Griffiths home in North Balwyn where they would discuss spirituality and Christian devotion. From here we became involved with the Inter School Christian Fellowship, which was led by Bruce Teale (later of the Canterbury Fellowship). Laurie and I often organized camps at Toolangi or Lake Victoria, where I once worked as the camps cook. One day on the way to the Inter School Christian Fellowship camp at Toolangi we passed a little rural school on the way called Chum Creek State School. In the school readers of the day, there were many stories of children living on farms and enjoying life in the country. As a result of seeing this school it formed a goal in my mind about becoming a school principal of a country school just like Chum Creek. By the time I'd reached Year 9, I was quite clear that I was going to be a school principal. No question. Not a teacher, a principal! When I reached my third year at the Tech our class divisions changed once again. The first four classes of twenty-four students were streamed into professional courses and the last four classes into the trades. So if you were in the last four, you picked up more practical subjects with the clear view that you were going to enter the various trades and complete an apprenticeship after Year 10. If you went through the professional classes, it was then generally expected that youd transfer to Swinburne, a senior technical college, and complete the equivalent of a diploma. That was the model and it attempted to address the skills shortages of the time to

produce craftsmen, tradesmen, engineers and teachers and so on. To my delight I made it into the professional stream and stayed there until the end of Year 10. Making the transition from shorts to long trousers was another aspect of reaching the third year. We wore short trousers and when you felt that you were ready, you then went to the mens wear shop to buy some long trousers. To a certain extent it also became a symbol to others that you were going through puberty. I didnt get my long trousers until nearly the middle of Year 9, which was quite late as some of the others had started wearing them in Year 8. I was one of the last because my parents waited as long as possible to buy them for me because we really didnt have the money to spend on that sort of thing. Not that this worried me because I was extremely slim and my body found it near impossible to hold the trousers up my waist was practically non-existent. In fact when I did get my trousers I used to wear a pair of shorts underneath to make myself seem bigger. Again it was a real struggle for any of us who didnt fit the average mould of what an adolescent should be at the time. Made worse for me with acne and poor quality teeth, a legacy from the fear I had of English dentists with their gas masks and old fashioned drills. My education in this period was mainly affected by one man, my English teacher Bruce Wright. Bruce was a wonderful person who encouraged us to enjoy literature and who did his best to teach us about the importance of Shakespeare. One time he compelled us to learn two poems by heart from The Poets Way and to his horror we all learnt the shortest poem which was I have written to Aunt Maud, who was on a trip abroad, when I heard she died of cramp, too late to save the stamp. He was a committed teacher who often told us in an affirming way Well done, go forward. He shaped a large number of people including me. I found out not so long ago that he completed his teaching career as a vice-principal before he died. By now I was clearly more interested in literature and the arts than sports or trades. I became involved in the school drama club, which was also very important to me because every Thursday we participated in the religious education broadcast through the sound system, which I enjoyed immensely. Also through my involvement in the Scout movement I joined the Ralph Reader Gang Show, a musical event run by the Scouts and operated from Cathedral Hall for one week every year. Inspired by similar events organised by the Scout movement in Britain, it featured a series of songs and dances and involved scouts from all around Victoria. I was part of the show for three years, from Year 9 to Year 11, and got a real buzz out being involved in that and with the drama club. I think this really

sustained me emotionally in this period of my life, especially those moments when I had some leadership role and when people were applauding our efforts. Looking back, I probably didnt adequately affirm who I was at this time mainly because what I seemed to enjoy, seemed to actually set me apart from the Australian male stereotype of the 1950s. The pressures of stereotypical white male Anglo-Saxon power were then, and still are, considerable. You really struggled to step outside of that system in those days. Arriving at the age of 15 or 16 was a big struggle for me because of my lack of interest in sport and my keen interest in drama. Society told us - to look manly, you played sport. I wanted to read literature and I learnt to play music so where did that leave me? My experiences at Box Hill Tech shaped my later approaches to creating an educational environment in two ways. One, to deny a child the full range of a curriculum does the child a disservice, and two, that affirmation is far stronger in terms of an incentive to progress than punishment. This has done much to help me shape my own contribution to contemporary education in schools. Because I went to a vocational school, subjects like literature, language and music were not really on the agenda so I have always regretted not being given access to those things which I know I would have liked. We were being geared to be partners in the post-war industrial development and had to be trained in the skills needed for that. As a result we were really being denied the opportunity to engage with language, literature, music and art, which I believe adds greatly to the soul. I have struggled to pick up these threads in later life. As a principal, I have always insisted that these are core elements of every school that Ive been involved with and that Ive started. If you want to opt out of them, thats fine, but at least you have a choice. Its much more difficult to opt into t hem later and you can miss so many important aspects about life if you dont. Corporal punishment didnt hurt me and it didnt fuss me, but it didnt get me anywhere either. I was little influenced by the times I got the strap for not having a piece of equipment or didnt wear my cap. On some days when I was particularly stubborn they could have hit me all day and I still wouldnt have put my cap on. In fact one day, I simply refused to wear it. I cant remember why but I was on my bike and I wasnt wearing it and the teacher called me in and he said, You can sit there until you put it on. I said Well Im staying for the night. He eventually went home and so did I without my cap on. All of this formed a strong conclusion of mine early on that education is more effective when it involves affirming and saying something positive to students instead of providing a dose of

corporal punishment when you broke a rule. I have always tried with the schools Ive started to make sure that every student feels comfortable in their environment, and feels positive about who they are and what theyre good at. Australia was going through a transition of sorts during the mid-1950s. Sir Robert Menzies had led a reinvigorated Liberal Party into the 1949 election promising prosperity, safety and a strong stance against communism. He then spent the next twenty years drawing our attention to the dangers of communism as an identifiable threat to industrial peace, the church and our way of life. Fear of communism swept throughout Australia and dominated political debate for years, even tearing the Labor Party apart along the way. Campaigning on an anti-communism platform allowed Menzies to become a dominant force for a long time to come and in Victoria it also helped herald Henry Boltes Liberal party into government at the 1955 election. Bolte would go on to become the longest reigning premier in the state. All of this was really set against a world which was rapidly changing. The Suez Crisis in 1956 really made Australians feel that we were now isolated from Britain, particularly those like me who had sailed to Australia via the Suez Canal. China had turned communist and there was a real fear in Australia about the movement of communism through Southeast Asia towards us. (I was sitting at Tiananmen Square not so long ago and reflecting on the fact that I would have never dreamt that one day I would be sitting in that spot which gave us so much angst in the fifties). Our sense of isolation and even our fear of a communist Asian expansion became a turning point for Australia. We began moving towards strengthening the American Alliance and happily sent troops off to the Korean War to help assist the US. At the same time American culture came to dominate our lives especially in the entertainment industry. They gave us rock and roll and I, like thousands of other teenagers in this period, gave up an afternoon to go and hear Bill Haley sing Rock Around the Clock in the film Blackboard Jungle. I also remember sneaking off to see Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe perform in the most evocative film of the time, River of No Return. Those of us who identified with British culture felt that it was a time of profound change and this transformation seemed to be brought into our living room every night via television. When television burst on the scene in 1956, we all crowded around shop windows where little black and white sets would be broadcast to the onlookers standing on the outside. What began as a flickering curiosity soon came to be regarded as a

necessity in every home and much excitement was created in our house when we finally purchased our own 17 inch television. Every night at 9.30pm we would all be glued to the set in our lounge room to enjoy and laugh at everybodys favorite show, In Melbourne Tonight with Graham Kennedy and Princess Panda, the Darrods Barrel girl. The show represented so many things to so many people and we all learned to sing: Being a Chum is Fun, that is why Im one. Always smiling always gay. Television may have shown the world to us but what bought the world to our door step was the 1956 Olympic Games. When Melbourne was chosen as the venue for the games of the XVI Olympiad it evoked great excitement and enthusiasm in all of us and was considered a huge triumph for our city. My own personal involvement came when the scouting movement were given the job of providing some of the services at the Olympic Village in Heidelberg. Every morning during the games I would travel to the village in my scout uniform and sit at the entrance and undertake errands and messages as required. Surprisingly there was very little security, it was just like any other village and we just sat at the front entrance waiting for our next assignment. Another great moment was when we were rostered to carry the medals at the MCG for the presentation. I can also recall the huge fight that happened between the Hungarians and the Russians in the swimming pool, all to do with Russian invasion of Hungary that had just occurred. It was certainly a glimpse of life beyond the horizon for us here in Melbourne. By the time I made it to Year 10, myself and my peers had to make a decision about where to go next. I had been quite happy at Box Hill Tech, and whilst I didnt like the trades or the sports, I enjoyed English and I loved Social Studies. Because of my vocational education, the options for going into Year 11 and 12 were very restricted. There were a few of us who looked as though we were going into plumbing or typewriting or mechanics because we couldnt afford the next educational step. For me I was lucky I had Bruce Wright because he did his best to encourage me to continue studying and to even consider going on to university. It was a decision that would have a huge impact on my life.

Chapter 9

ADOLESCENCE AND ALL THAT

What are little boys made of ? Snakes and snails and puppy dogs tail; And thats what little boys are made of. Robert Southey After completing Year 10 at the end of 1956, I had to make some decisions about what I was going to do next. I was one of the many who at this stage of their life what to do next was no easy decision. Mind you I may not have known clearly what my next step would be but I definitely knew what I didnt want to do. I know I didnt want to train as a plumber or any other trade for that matter. Many of my contemporaries from the Tech followed a career path by transferring to the Swinburne Institute of Technology at Hawthorn. I had visited Swinburne to see what they offered and believe it or not they presented us with horseshoe making and glass-blowing demonstrations. This was certainly not the progressive future I saw for myself. So many intelligent minds were wasted by being forced into this stream of a trades career. Terry Howell, a friend of mine, went off to Swinburne and trained to become a totally unsuited typewriter and business machine mechanic. He later studied to complete his matriculation and became a medical practitioner.

As I couldnt find anything at Swinburne that I enjoyed I had to look elsewhere. In this period my father had given me a chemistry set that I found fascinating and I thoroughly enjoyed undertaking the practical experiments it offered. Imagining that the study of chemistry would be just an expanded version of what I had enjoyed with my chemistry set, I thought that this could possibly be the way to go. However to study chemistry I would have to follow a more academic career path and the best, and nearest, place for me to undertake Year 11 chemistry was Box Hill High School. My parents supported my decision and in 1957 I was one of only two students who transferred from the Tech to the High School. Box Hill High School had been established in 1930 as an all -male secondary school, at the time the first High School created in the eastern suburbs. Its main building was an imposing two storied brick structure that was centred by an entrance that was framed by four huge columns. During the 1950s it was considered to be one of the largest high schools in the district with just under seven hundred and fifty students attending. Because I had attended a tech school I was considered to have studied technical rather than academic subjects. As a result when I arrived at the High School I had to study English, Geography, American and British History, a very General Maths which was basically Geometry, and of course Chemistry which is what I had set out to pursue. The Maths teacher, Cec Carroll, was a legend at the High School for his longstanding service and tolerance and he certainly inspired many to do better. American history was taught by Gavan Daws, later a notable historian, author and film maker, best known for his publications on the history of Hawaii, Father Damien of Molokai and prisoners of war of the Japanese as well as the AFI award winning documentary Angels of War. Our one period of music was taken by the Director of The Australian Boys Choir, Vince Kelly, who founded the choir in 1939. My academic focus towards Chemistry however took a real hit as the year progressed and I soon realized it wasnt what I had imagined it to be. In fact I ended up failing Year 11 Chemistry, achieving only 49% (it was all those equations). I was very angry with myself about this and I clearly came to the understanding that Chemistry wasnt the answer. I was just lucky the school had a drama club for this, and my continued involvement in the scouts Gang Show, were my salvation that year.

Once again Box Hill High School was like most of the other single -sex boys schools of the era; a very male-driven, sport-oriented place, in fact the tennis champion Frank Sedgeman had once been a pupil there. The annual athletic sports were a compulsory affair and each house member was required to march in house coloured shorts (mine was green). As I felt I had limited skills to be involved, little own compete, in most of the compulsory sporting activities on offer, I ended up joining the lacrosse team, and even then I played in the reserves. Usually on sports day I prayed for rain so it would be cancelled. Throughout my school life my disinterest in sport had set me aside and isolated me from my peers and my schools expectations and left me feeling more unusual or different rather than exceptional or uncommon. My desire to achieve something in a competitive activity led me to be involved with ballroom dancing in the hope of securing some sort of medal in old time or Latin dancing. This type of activity was not seen as being part of the male stereotypical norm in the late 1950s. I was forced to sneak off to dancing lessons and, after completing my session, would change into a hockey uniform and visit down the local football match so my friends would think I played sport. Social issues and sex were virtually not discussed in this era and there was a very one dimensional view about it all. This was also reinforced by the scouting movement where a particular kind of male-oriented family value system was promoted. A compulsory task for all scouts was the reading of Baden Powells book Rovering to Success, which seemed to state that to be manly you had to hike a lot. It even had rules about controlling sexual activity. For me, moments when I felt affirmed to what I was told were societys normal conventions and actions were few. One day walking home past the oval and across the railway line, I was bashed by four boys from my class who teased me as a sissy and went as far as calling me a poofter. My ribs were cracked and when mother reported this to the headmaster and I was eventually interviewed I couldnt tell who did it. I was too fearful that the word would get out and others, like these boys, would perceive any variance to themselves as something to be attacked. These issues that I experienced during my high school years influenced me greatly as a school principal later in life. I have always held a firm belief that all students should be treated equal and have the same opportunities regardless of their economical background, their race, their creed or even their sexuality. My efforts

towards social justice, my battle against discrimination, my anti-bullying stance and my work with minority ethnic groups all bear witness to this. I also feel that the curriculum of any school needs to be diverse and not judge any student on their physicality. My one solace in this period was the church, whilst still being part of the social norm of the day, it made life for me safer as it provided a context that didnt threaten my personality, physical insecurity or sexuality. My teenage years saw a strengthening of engagement in the safe and solid protestant experiences that continued to give a sense of personal safety. Attending Box Hill Technical College and Box Hill High School at a time when government education was essentially protestant education, included participating in the regular religious programs of the school that reinforced a strong Christian-Protestant world view and work ethic. In those days of sectarianism it also reinforced a subtle anti-Catholic view on life. We were not allowed to talk to the girls who went to the Catholic Convent School across the road and there was almost a fear of the St Patricks Day marches as all the Melbourne Catholic schools paraded from Xavier College into St Patricks Cathedral in the city, always led by the redoubtable Irish Archbishop Mannix. I was not allowed into a Catholic teenagers club with my friends, the McMahons, as we were told the club was to encourage Catholic girls and boys to mingle, and to end up getting married I suppose. In this period my family joined with others in the area to help form the Bulleen Presbyterian-Methodist Church. This was a time of expansion for the Christian churches and in these new and developing communities, churches became a part of the social fabric. Under the support of the Rev McNight-Jones of the Presbyterian Church of Kew, the first services were actually held in peoples garages until a place of worship was built on the corner of Prospect Road and Kenneth Street, Bulleen in 1960. The church was initially led by a part-time minister in training but the numbers quickly grew and, in spite of the constitutional issues of the united nature of the church, the church was able to recruit a permanent clergyman, the Rev Brace Bateman, a young theological graduate from Florida. Even though he was qualified, he was required to be mentored by the Rev McNight-Jones. The Sunday School and the Presbyterian Fellowship Association also helped push the newly constructed building to its limits and the church ended by becoming so well patronized that it sponsored a Bulleen United football team.

A profound issue for my family during this time was my mothers continued illness. Throughout our teenage years mother had been suffering from acute headache pain which had eventually been diagnosed as a brain tumour. Knowing that an operation would be a dangerous and life threatening experience she purposely denied herself an operation until after my sister and I completed most of our secondary schooling, I suppose she thought if she didnt make it we would be better equipped then to cope without her. When I was in Year 11 she finally succumb to the doctors requests and submitted herself to an investigation that led to a very lengthy eleven hour operation at the Prince Henrys Hospital to remove a benign tumour on her brain. During the delicate operation part of her skull was removed and replaced with a metallic plate. While she was being operated on Mother, still a believer in the teachings of the Christian Spiritualist movement, claimed that she had an out of body experience. She later recalled quite vividly that the surgeons were saying shes gone and that she was saying back to them no I havent. As she said that she found herself levitating above her physical form but then suddenly re-entered her body. The operation had a huge impact on my Mother and in many aspects of her life she almost had to begin again. She lost the sight of one eye and she had to learn to read and write once more under the care of a therapist. The metal plate they inserted into her head often reacted to the heat which forced her to spend a lot of time in bed. Aunt Doris, who we met on the Georgic, was an important support to my mother as she recovered, as was our neighbour Amy Churcher. Throughout this time our father totally dedicated his life to her and it placed an enormous a strain on him. As he had red hair, and a spirit to match, he had to develop much patience to overcome the frustrations of caring for someone in the situation Mother found herself in. To allow him to continue working he had to pay someone to look after her and during his lunchtime he would travel home from work to check on her. Even so he still ended up taking much time off to care for Mother and as a result he gave up any chance of career opportunities within the company he worked for and in the end lost his job over it. With the prospect of his family facing poverty again he worked as cleaner, without our knowledge, to continue to pay for mothers care. My Fathers dedication throughout all of this was one of my lifes big lessons.

By the time I had reached the end of Year 11 I had decided to continue my studies and undertake the matriculation year. In this era there were only four per cent of students across the state that commenced Year 7 who went on to complete Year 12. I worked hard during Year 12 studying English Expression, Geography, Modern History, British History and Economics, having now dropped Chemistry as a bad idea. Economics wasnt available at Box Hill at the time and as a result I ended up being tutored at Taylors on Swanston St, where we were taught by the legendary George Taylor himself. Every Friday afternoon I would leave school, work at Coles in Richmond for a few hours where I had a part -time job, and then attend class in the city. Here I would sit with at least fifty others reading the notes from Taylors booklet and trying to avoid the endless row of ageing chewing gum under the desk, presumably put there by disinterested students over the years. At the end of 1958 the results of the matriculation subjects were traditionally advertised in the daily newspaper and as each subject came out, we scanned the paper for our results. We were transfixed day by day as we sat and waited for the paper to arrive and it was agony sitting through the whole week to secure your results. Everyone was sweating on the compulsory English which was always the last result published. The arrival of my Matriculation Examination Certificate, that confirmed I had passed all subjects, heralded the end of my secondary education. Like many before, and after me, the question was what to do next? By now I was feeling even stronger that I really wanted to go on to run a school. Here I knew was some way that I could make a difference, where I could have an important role to play that would give me security over who I was. It would be a role that would give me the sense of worth and confidence that I felt I lacked. Those adolescent years were powerful for me in terms of social evolution and struggling to work out who I was and where I belonged. What I identified about myself was not what I thought others felt my identity should be. But how much of my identity was really to do with my familys situation and my emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual insecurities? At the time, a little like Lewis Carrolls Alice, I didn't know.

Chapter 10

TERTIARY TRAUMA
The time has come,' the Walrus said ,'To talk of many things: shoes -- and ships -and sealing wax. Of cabbages -- and kings -- And why the sea is boiling hot -- And whether pigs have wings.'

 Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass At the same time as I completed Year 12, my sister Pauline was also finishing Year 11. In those days it was rare to go on to Year 12 and if you completed Year 11 you were considered to be successful enough to go on to study primary teaching, which is what Pauline decided to do. As I had no firm commitment to where or what I taught, excepting a dream of one day becoming a Principal, I decided to study primary school teaching as well. As a result both of us attended an application interview to attend the Burwood Teachers College. In the end we were both successful in gaining a position to study at the teachers college, and undertake a two year Trained Primary School Teachers Certificate course. However soon after I met Mr Senior, the father of Paulines friend Meryl, who gave me other advice. Mr Senior was an Inspector of Schools and naturally when I met him he asked me how I went with my Year 12 matriculation results. When I replied that I passed quite satisfactorily he told me straight out, Well you shouldnt be going to teachers college, you should be going on to university. When the offer came I jumped at the chance. In the meantime Mr Senior arranged an appointment for me to visit the Faculty of Commerce at Melbourne University and I ended up securing entry there and swapping my teaching studentship from primary to secondary. The reason I commenced studying Commerce was because I basically had no qualifications to satisfy the Arts Faculty requirements. Arts was really what I wanted to do but I had neither a language nor Maths to get into a Melbourne University Arts degree. So with my parents strongly supporting my attendance, in 1959 I began a Bachelor of Commerce with a secondary studentship. At the time, in order to encourage teachers into the professions, the study fees were paid for by a government scholarship and this also carried with it a reasonable living allowance. A large number of students went through university teachers college on these teaching studentships; in fact many of us couldnt have undertaken teaching otherwise. In those days you either had to be rich or have a Commonwealth scholarship or a teaching studentship to afford to become a secondary teacher. My teaching studentship, plus my work at a newly opened milk bar in Thompsons Rd and a cooking job over Christmas, sustained me through my years at university.

For my first day at university my main thought was what will I wear?. Remembering of course that this was to be the first co-educational experience of my life so, how you dress when you dont have either a school or a scout uniform to wear and how you dress so that you fit in, was quite an issue. In the end I dressed myself in a reefer jacket and tie that didnt stand out and headed off to become a uni student, eventually though this gave way to corduroy trousers. In those days Melbourne University was very much a conventional, and even conservative, institution compared to what it became a decade later. Many of the males who were on Commonwealth scholarships tendered to enter Law, Medicine or Engineering courses while the women seemed to undertake Arts, Social Work and Physiotherapy. The Commerce Faculty was comprised of students, mostly male, who in the main had either attended Melbourne High School or one of the independent private schools. Many of them were studying Economics text books that had been written by their former teachers (such as Nakervis, Drohan and Day) and as a result appeared quite blas about it all. My first lecture was a very formidable experience as I sat in the back of the lecture theatre and watched these students make life difficult for our various Economics Lecturers including Professor Woodruff. Then, and throughout the year, they loved calling out loudly, laughing whenever they wanted and throwing paper darts as he battled to teach us about economic theory and John Maynard Keynes (who I learnt not only invented a new economic theory but also married a ballet dancer and made his money on the stock exchange whilst still in bed). To me a Commerce degree seemed to be very much a reinforcement of the establishment line. There werent very many of us here who came out of public school backgrounds, Melbourne High School did provide a large number of these enrolments but really if you removed them there werent very many students entering Commerce who hadnt come out of one of the larger established private schools. Once again I felt Id come from a background that was nothing like my contemporaries and I couldnt escape this sense of a gap between the rich and poor. For my first year I managed Economics, Economic Geography, British History as well as Accounting, with its 8.30am tutorials of a Monday morning in what was referred to as a Nissan hut. History was the study of the Tudors (1485 to 1688), which I enjoyed and thought I was doing well in until I read the end of year results in The Sun newspaper and saw I received a no pass mark. Approaching the lecturer with dismay all he said was serves you right for reading The Sun, you

should really be reading The Age. It seems The Sun had actually published my number upside down and I had passed. I found university study difficult, mainly because I let myself become intimidated by the vocal majority and wasnt confident enough to write something down of my own creation or to even contribute my thoughts to tutorial discussions in case they ridiculed me. I felt I tended to follow or even copy what others said, rather than produce an original view of my own. Throughout the year my results in Commerce reflected this and these tended to be very mixed. In the end I felt that all I could do was pray to God Id pass. A friend I met at university was Peter Faris, who later went on to become a Queens Counsel .We often travelled around together, once visiting Canberra before it had Lake Burley Griffin. My adolescence had been spent almost exclusively in single-sex environments, either at my secondary schools or the scouts. Now suddenly at the ripe old age of eighteen I was at university and had to form relationships with women who were my peers. There were some outstanding female students and I became besotted by Sue, who had been the school captain of Firbank, her father was a significant officer in the Royal Australian Airforce. Most men seemed to have sorted out how you go about this well before then but for me this was all unknown and confronting. I had continued to be involved with the Inter-School Christian Fellowship and attended their Crusaders drawing room meetings in North Balwyn, but that didnt really ready me for this new world I now needed to manage. During this period I was still spending a lot of my time with the scout troop and it was no surprise really that in the end the first girl I ever took out was one I met through here, the Cub Mistress. Essentially she was the first female I met who was both my age and a friend, so when I had to start going out to social events and were expected to take a female partner, we both went out together in a car borrowed from my Mother. She later declared publicly that she had been my first girlfriend even though I barely got past the front step of her house. This was a period in my life when I was being exposed to many new environments, and making many different types of friends, than what I had previously been used to. I became involved with the Evangelical Union and I found that this had a wonderful support group. Im not too sure why they attracted me immediately,

perhaps I was looking for affirmation and support within an environment that I felt secure about. Even so through this group for the first time I was beginning to meet women in a more relaxed environment and in an atmosphere that was less constrained than what I had to deal with before. Through this Christian group I met some fantastic, able and intelligent women and getting to know them gave me much of the confidence I needed. Evangelism was at a peak in this period. The charismatic American Christian Evangelist, Billy Graham, visited Australia for a four-month nationwide crusade in 1959 and took the country by storm. His rally at Melbournes MCG attracted nearly 145,000 and still holds the record as the largest attendance ever at an event at that venue. His visit triggered mass conversions and tens of thousands came forward to 'give their lives to Christ' and I was one of them. Another thing that attracted me was that the Evangelical Union had a prayer group that met early every morning in the warm surroundings of the union building, the only university building open before classes. This suited me as I could only get a lift to university in a neighbours car at this early time so I had somewhere to go when I was dropped off. I found at the core of their belief was John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that for those who believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life). They also had a hockey team (SCM) which I played for, rather poorly. To assist us with our game we would pray in the centre of the field before each match. This must have helped because I secured my one and only prize in sport with this team a teaspoon. This was given to all the team members, not just me. My university days were often relieved through my ritual of sipping coffee and eating coffee scrolls in the little coffee shop under the newly opened Baillieu Library. It was a lovely spot and many an afternoon was spent aslee p inside the very comfortable and warm library. Our neighbour, Margaret Bayliss, often helped me while I was at university. Being the only person I knew who owned a black Remington typewriter she often typed my essays up for me, including a pink copy. While I was at Melbourne University during this era, the King of Thailand visited the campus, as part of the Colombo Plan and possibly as a forerunner to many of his fellow countrymen studying there, and Princess Alexandra commenced a drive pass the university as part of her royal duties during her visit to Melbourne.

I continued along at the university for two years but by the end of the second year it wasnt turning out as successfully as I hoped, in fact I ended up failing my course. The thing that really affected me was how could I tell my parents what had happened? Theyd worked hard and had suffered a lot to give me this opportunity, an opportunity they never really had. I knew they had wrapped up much of their hopes for me in achieving this course, the Australian dream may have been to own a home but the migrants dream is to see their children gain a more successful and better paying job than they had. I couldnt bear the thought that Id let them down and I certainly didnt have the heart to tell them, I just couldnt do it. Too embarrassed to face the truth I kept attending each day as though nothing had ever happened, avoiding the fact that at some stage I would have to leave. Fortunately for me, the Education Department in those days was so s hort of teachers that if you failed they still allowed you the opportunity of undertaking a Teachers Secondary Training Certificate, which took one year to complete. So I studied that for a year, which allowed me to start teaching after three years instead of four. As fate would have it I worked hard to achieve my Teachers Secondary Training Certificate and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. As part of my training for the certificate I had to undertake teaching placements at various secondary schools and ended up working for a time at Norwood High School, Heidelberg High School and Balwyn High School. One of the classes I took was Drama Methods where I had the opportunity of being part of a Noel Coward play Family Album, where I had the chance of getting on stage and starring as the butler with the one memorable line, You rang sir?. At the same time I was also able to complete a projectors certificate. I was sitting the certificate test I accidentally reversed the spool of film and it fell out all over the floor resulting in me having to sit it a second time. Once I achieved it though this qualified me to borrow and then show films, mainly educational ones, in schools on Bell and Howe projectors. That certificate really was a significant moment for me. For the first time I was given the opportunity of teaching, which established in me my lifelong love of being an educator. Also, armed with this certificate, I could start teaching full-time and this in turn enabled me to finish my Commerce degree part-time. As a result I was able to experience this happy combination of teaching and studying at the same time. For the first time in my life I finally felt as though I was heading towards my true vocation.

Chapter 11

A CHAIN IN AUSTRALIAS FUTURE

And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass In November 1961 I attended a meeting with all of the students who had completed a Trained Secondary Teacher Certificate to hear the announcements of where our exit appointments would be. On the day we were all joking around with each other about where we would be appointed. Soon however the Principal of the Melbourne Secondary Teachers College announced that my appointment was to be the Doveton High School. A year earlier my sister Pauline had also achieved a Trained Primary Teacher Certificate. As a result, at the young age of 18, she moved out of home to begin a teaching career in country Victoria, at the Culgoa State School in the heart of the Mallee between Wycheproof and Sea Lake. This was a very proud time for my parents, to have both of their children beginning careers in the teaching profession. Mind you she was appointed to run the infant classes of Grades 1 & 2 for which she had been given no training. There were many of us in the teaching profession in those days who had to fly by the seat of our pants. The day after I received word that I had been appointed to the Doveton High School, I drove down to visit this secondary institution where I would be working. The school itself had only just been opened and sat on the Gippsland side of Dandenong in Melbournes south-east, on the eastern side of Eumemmering Creek (which is now a drain). In those days it was designated to be a rural school, mainly because it serviced many communities from rural areas such as Cranbourne, Berwick, Narre Warren, Harkaway, Beaconsfield and Officer. It also provided secondary schooling to the new estates being built to the east of Dandenong. Doveton itself had been established in 1954 as a housing commission area to help cope with the increased population growth that resulted in the post-war era. Many families were transferred to here from Camp Pell, a former American

military base during World War Two that had been used for temporary housing since the war and was located in Royal Park not far from Aunt Helens place in Parkville. The suburb also provided affordable houses for the workers and their families who were employed in the large manufacturing industries around Dandenong South such as General Motors Holden, International Harvester and Heinz Foods. At the time I started at the High School there were around 1,500 homes just in Doveton itself. In fact we often referred to Doveton High School as a link in the chain in Australias future (a line from a GMH advertisement) because we serviced so many families who were involved in these industries. On the first day I arrived, I was met by the Senior Master, Miles Lowe, who showed me around and introduced me to Len Wenborn, the foundation Principal at the school. Mr Wenborn had originally trained as an arts and craft teacher and had done a great job organizing the movement of students into the brand new school buildings. When I returned in February 1962 to start teaching, on the first day all the students were gathering around the entrance door and Mr Wenborn came out and called If there are any staff members out there could they come in first. This was the start of a very happy period in my life. I know the day that I started teaching I was really excited and felt very content. I couldnt help but feel I had a real sense of belonging here. I was passionate about my role and committed, undertaking many extra courses in my own time as well as working full-time as a teacher. As I was to learn, Doveton High School was a very different institution to other schools I would work at, mainly because of the shortage of teachers. There were also many new teachers at the school and many were unqualified. The curriculum though was similar to that of what I had experienced as a student at Box Hill Tech. The boys undertook trade subjects such as Wood work whilst the girls completed Domestic Science, Shorthand and Typing. I started as the Commerce and Geography teacher, which also included Shorthand and Typing. This may amaze anyone who has tried to read my emails that I once taught typing but I did. I knew very little about typing, but we were nominally trained for that by Miss Haining, an expert in this field. My classes were initially all with girls and they were divided into two groups. There were the brighter girls who completed Shorthand and Typing and the remainder undertook Typing and Home Economics. That was the career and social expectations at the time.

When we opened, such were the shortages that we had no typewriters. For the first six months I taught the students to touch type without any typewriters, having A S D F all done as finger exercises. My shorthand classes were all taken using the Australian Dacomb Method. Inexperienced as I was, the editor of Assistant Secretary, Ian Allen, asked me to write the beginners shorthand page in the Victorian Association of Commerce Teachers Shorthand and Typing Journal. Ian was a commerce teacher at nearby Lyndale High School and later completed a PhD and became Director of Higher Education. I was an enthusiastic young teacher and really enjoyed doing that bit extra to assist my students. I established a model office and used it to dramatically demonstrate how the south east trade winds bring rain to eastern Australia and I was active with Gail Sjogren in the start of the Doveton High Society, the schools drama group, helping also to stage a production of The Crimson Coconut. I worked on numerous speech nights, including a Beatles themed evening, always held in the Dandenong Town Hall, and was involved in arranging a number of s chool excursions, including ones to the Kiewa Valley and Tasmania. Being the Commerce teacher I became responsible for the dreaded bookstore, which meant all students had to purchase their books and materials from the school through me. This was a great fund raiser but even my accountancy training never quite ensured that I could make the books balance accurately. I also dutifully taught Hosies Hundred Hints, which was prepared by the Commerce Inspector of Schools. Before I had started working here I had celebrated my 21st birthday. I didnt seek to have a party but instead went along with my parents to see the wonderful production of The Sound of Music, starring June Bronhill. At this stage I had still not experienced alcohol and milkshakes were my favourite drink. I certainly hadnt been involved in a Six Oclock Swill, caused at the time by the pubs having by law to close at 6.00pm. For the first few years I continued to live at home in Bulleen and each day drove the round trip to Melbourne University, to complete my degree, and to work at Doveton. It wasnt long however before I felt it was time to move out of home and as a result I boarded at a house in Stud Rd, Dandenong. As I was now residing in the area I decided to become involved in the local community. I joined the local Drama Society and the local Historical Society and became an active member

of the Sunday School staff of the Dandenong Presbyterian Church, led ably by former Chinese missionaries the Rev George and Mrs Yule. Like every district in this era, of a Saturday in winter the men played football and the girls played netball. Local teams attracted much support and loyalty from their community. Even I was caught up in this and became a member of the Beaconsfield Football Club Committee, due much to the encouragement of Bill Jessep, the father of one of the school prefects Robert Jessep and head teacher at Upper Beaconsfield Primary School. He was later to become an iconic teacher at Haileybury. Through my involvement with the club, every Saturday evening was devoted to attending local alcohol-free dances in the various halls scattered around the district, praying that the first girl you danced with didnt live in Cranbourne because protocol demanded you drove her home. These dances were so typically country and had wonderful suppers. I often escorted Kathy Smith, the cousin of one of our students, to these events. I had much admiration for Kathy who at twenty-two decided to go back to school and complete her Year 12. To do so she had to return to Dandenong High School and wear the school uniform as well, swallowing much pride to achieve her goal. During this time I helped to start the Doveton High Football Club, ironic seeing my lifelong aversion to being forced to play sport, and this led to my involvement in the Dandenong and District Junior Football League. I served as Secretary to this organization and as a delegate to the Victorian Football Union. I also managed to squeeze in football umpiring at Bulleen. By my second year at Doveton High School the school population had quickly risen to five hundred students with seventy students deciding to sit for the external intermediate examination. This placed even more pressure on the sc hools resources. At the same time the school had many community issues to deal with. There was a strong social division between the rural students and those from Doveton and there were many who were from migrant families and who lived in poorer circumstances. Having grown up as a migrant child and as one of the Battlers from Bulleen I felt I had an understanding of what some of these students were experiencing, which gave me the confidence to try and help. Through the Doveton High Society we sought to establish high standards of social behavior and to

improve students understanding of social mores in an attempt to give them a better chance with future careers. On one famous occasion The Truth newspaper published an article which claimed that a girl in one of the classes had had an affair with one of the teachers. It finally transpired that the girl had been absent from school at the time she claimed this had happened and had told her parents this lie in order to cover her absence. Her parents kneejerk reaction was to report it all to the press. This was an era when the Victorian Education Department was also dealing with a number of issues. There continued to be a shortage of teaching staff, a lack of qualified teachers and women were still on a separate and lower pay scale and lost their conditions when they married. In fact during this period my sister Pauline fell in love and married and as a result she had to resign completely from her position as a teacher. Gail Sjogren, in her first year as a teacher, came into the job armed with a BA Dip Ed and was appointed Senior Mistress because she was the only qualified female member of staff. There was also significant industrial unrest, with the emergence of unionism amongst teachers and the growth of the Victorian Secondary Teachers Association which was concerned about the standards of professionalism within the Education Department itself. A number of strikes were organized in this era and many teachers like myself struggled over whether they should go on strike to improve conditions or stay in the classroom for the sake of the students. I could understand why the strikes were there but on the other side of it, I liked being in the classroom. For me there was an emerging tension over what was the priority and Im afraid these remained unresolved. The times were certainly a changing and they soon would for those of us at Doveton High School. The popular Principal, Len Wenborne, was transferred to another new school at Warnambool, in fact he referred to himself as Siteworks Wenborne as he started off so many new schools. The new Principal was Ed Johnson, a former President of the Victorian Secondary Teachers Association whose son nevertheless attended Scotch College, a fact much resented by staff at Doveton. One of the first acts of the new Principal was to take away the school keys from all the staff, indicating that school runs from 8:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the evening. From then on there were no more after school activities and soon after the Doveton High School honour board no longer had head prefects. The school

underwent a social change and became far more rigid. As a result I ceased enjoying it. At the end of 1965, instead of taking the promotion I was offered to go to Kerang High School, I decided to take leave for a year and travel overseas. My four years at Doveton High School was an extraordinarily happy time for me and I left feeling I had achieved much. More and more of the students were now holding tertiary ambitions and were starting to achieve considerable success in doing so. I received outstanding teaching marks from the Schools Inspector and was awarded my first promotion to class 111 at the end of my third year. Importantly it confirmed for me that my career path was to always be within the framework of education & educating and, after witnessing the positive and negative aspects of what could be achieved as a Principal, I was even more committed to one day becoming a Principal myself.

Chapter 12

THAT TRIP
The adventures first explanations take such a dreadful time. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass The Sixties were a decade of transition for Australia. It was a time when we clung to the last vestiges of our British cultural traditions before we willingly absorbed the cultural influences of other nationalities, especially American. The last great moment when we embraced all things English came when the younger generations were swept up by The Beatles and other idols of the booming British pop culture. By 1965 London was thought of by everyone under twenty-five in Australia as the centre of the universe and we all wanted to be there. So many of my contemporaries in those days had plans to travel and work in Europe and were madly saving for the trip to England. The migrant ships were still coming to Australia from Europe but now they were returning with shiploads of teachers, nurses and childcare workers, all clamoring to do the Continent before they settled down. Our parents smiled at us for wanting to explore the Motherland and strengthen sentimental ties with the Old Country but in reality we just wanted to party in Swinging London.

Venturing abroad was then a very Australian phenomenon and it is still common practice for young Australians to make the big trip to explore foreign shores. To me it seemed to be a good thing to experience and the right thing to do in my life at this time. As a result I gathered up as much money as I could, borrowed some from my understanding parents and bought a one-way ticket on an economy liner to Britain. It was one of the most exciting things Ive ever done in my life. I spent a pre-trip Christmas with my parents and then on December 28 th, 1965 I boarded the Greek cruise ship, RHMS Ellinis. Built in 1931 as the Lurline for the US Matson Line, she was used for the San Francisco to Honolulu service in the thirties and then operated as a troop ship during the war. In 1963 she was sold to Chandris Lines and refitted with accommodation for 1,668 -single class passengers. I was in cabin 147. Sixteen years earlier I had arrived at Station Pier from England and now, here I was, making the return trip from the same spot. This marked the beginning of what was to be an important personal pilgrimage in many ways for me. My parents came to see me off, braving the sea of coloured streamers that traditionally marked the departure of passenger ships. I recall my mother waving her white gloves on the pier, easily recognizable amongst the crowd below me. The ships first stop was Sydney and here I had the chance to spend time with my sister Pauline and her family, who were holidaying there at the time. By this stage Pauline had married and made me a proud Uncle with the birth of her son Craig. She would have a daughter, Julie, while I was away. At Auckland, New Zealand I was able to catch up again with a number of cousins who like ourselves had made the move to immigrate to the other side of the world. Marilyn had married Roy Dickson and the family became notable for their yachting prowess. It was a nice way to start my trip for once we left New Zealand my life would never be the same again. The liner was full of people like me, everyday Australians looking for more in life and prepared to take a bite out of the world. In taking this trip we were all leaving everything wed known behind and breaking out from the constrictions of our lives. There was no safety or security on board when behaviour needed to be personally established. For the first time we had to completely self-manage and this was in an environment where there were no rules, no authorities and no expected behaviour. Excitement mingled with fear as I realized that I was without the support or structure of an institution like the church, which up until then I had used to somehow justify who I was. It was all part of the journey as we tried to find our place in the world.

I was a non-drinker when the ship left New Zealand but I wasnt for much longer. On the ship alcohol was cheap and plentiful and the parties were many. I wrote to my parents telling them that shipboard life is really quite exciting, it seems to be a quaint mixture of eating, sleeping, playing and drinking. I soon made three great friends on the trip, Elizabeth, Dorothy and Elaine, all from New South Wales and like myself, all teachers and in their twenties. Elizabeth had brown curly hair, Dorothy blonde and Elaine was a red head and we all got on like a house on fire, enjoying many a ball, costume party and on board games over the coming weeks. As an experienced Geography teacher the trip was a dream come true as we got to stop and visit many exotic and interesting countries along the way. Our first port of call after New Zealand was Port Moresby in New Guinea followed by Colombo in Ceylon where Dad had given me a list of places to see that hed visited during the war years. However while I was here my few travellers cheques were stolen and I took a rickshaw ride to impress a beautiful blonde called Sue but along the way the wheel fell off our rickshaw, and soon after our romance, as we had to walk back to the ship. Onward to Aden, in Yemen, and then through the Suez Canal where we stopped to take a bus trip to Egypt to visit the Ancient Pyramids, from here to Greece, where we got to see the impressive Acropolis, and then to Italy, where the girls left the ship vowing to catch up with me when they got to England. Eventually I arrived at the port of Southampton and was finally back in Britain. My Uncle Den, who since we had left had been awarded the MBE for services to the British Army, met me at Waterloo Station and organized to put me on the right train to Maidenhead where I was to stay with Aunty Tiny and Uncle Bill. My mother had written to them telling them that I was a non-drinker. When I arrived and told them about the trip and all the fun we had, my Aunt said, I dont think youre the person that your mothers been talking about. I said, I was the person mother talked about, before I stepped onto the boat. For most of the time I was in England I stayed in Maidenhead with Aunty Tiny and Uncle Bill, two wonderful people who treated me like a son the whole time I was there. For me this was a personal pilgrimage, to reconnect with the places and people of my childhood. I visited our old house at 14 Grenfell Ave and was amazed at the reality of how small it was compared to how I remembered it. I visited Grenfell Park opposite and was surprised that one of our favourite playthings, the old cannon, had gone and that electrical lighting had replaced the gas lamps in our old street. I walked past my former school, All Saints Church of England School, at Boyne Hill and visited the Methodist Church where I once spoke from the pulpit.

More importantly I visited as many relatives as I could. A large part of this journey for me was to help my parents reconnect with their families. For years now my Mother had slowly broken off contact with her beloved sisters, still feeling keenly a sense of embarrassment of where and how we lived was not exactly what she had envisioned and that she had had an illness that had forced her to re-learn basic functions like writing. The whole time I was there I did my best to persuade the relatives in England to write to her and in my letters home did my best to convince her that they wanted to hear from her. My trip became the catalyst for reuniting my parents with their families. I even visited Dads sister and his home town of Bracknell to ignite his interest. By the time I left for home they were all writing to each other and even speaking on the telephone. As I needed to find a job while I was here I soon went out in search of a teaching position and within a few days I was able to secure a role for the rest of the term as a supply teacher at the Borough Green Secondary Modern School in Bracknell. As it took too long to travel to the school via public transport I bought for myself, with the help of Uncle Bill expertise, a 1953 Triumph Mayflower with a side value engine for just 35. This meant it would only take me twenty minutes to get to work and I would also have my own mode of transport to go exploring of a weekend. The Bracknell of 1966 was very different to the town my father knew. In 1949 it had been designated a New Town, an area planned to disperse the population following the Second World War. As a result new estates were built around the older village to accommodate the overspill of people from the London area. To a certain extent it was not too dissimilar to what Doveton had been to Melbourne. Even though I had already experienced ethnic diversity and students struggling because they came from poorer backgrounds, I was ill prepared for this. Since we had left England, Britain's non-white immigrant population had rapidly increased in size. The reconstruction of the British post-war economy had come to rely on a large influx of immigrant labour and for the first time this had included those from outside Europe, mainly from the Caribbean and from India and Pakistan. As a result the school certainly had its fair share of social and racial issues. Think of the film To Sir With Love and youll have some idea. Although the classroom confronted me, I did my best to help them, even assisting with the school concert, but it was certainly trying. I was referred to as mintie by my students as I was white and the crude behavior and foul language was something I had to contend with. One time I had a number of mothers band

against me because I had chastised one of the girls for her sluttish manner. They were all up in arms, accusing me of calling their daughters sluts. But when it came to the weekend I did my best to get out there and explore as much of England as I could. I had some enjoyable times visiting the Thames Valley, Bristol, Windsor and Norfolk seeing as many castles, lakes, historical buildings and gardens as I could. During the Easter break I upgraded my car to a high petrol consuming Austin A70, after the Mayflower collapsed on a freeway, and with a group of friends toured Blackpool, Wales, Devon and Cornwall. Along the way I often stayed with relatives and friends or other contacts I had made. The big draw card however was London. In 1966 it was the beating heart of the Swinging Sixties; it was Carnaby St, Kings Row, Piccadilly Circus, the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Dusty Springfield, Twiggy, Mods, Hippies, crushed velvet and clothes made of bright colours. The year before the British model Jean Shrimpton had scandalized Australians by wearing a mini-skirt to the Melbourne Cup but in 1966 London they were everywhere. Sure I visited all the major attractions like Westminster Abbey, St Pauls and Madame Tussauds, I even saw Laurence Oliver perform in Othello, but I also enjoyed the pubs and cabarets and all the dazzling nightlife London had to offer. For some reason most young Australians congregated in an Aussie ghetto known as Earls Court. I attended a number of parties here and on one occasion met the daughter of Sir Walter Pretty who became a good friend. She took me home to meet her family and as it worked out Sir Walter was actually Air Marshal Sir Walter Pretty, the then Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff. Through his contacts we were able to obtain seats in the Royal Box to see the Royal Tournament. In June I started a new teaching job at Windsor, which paid better and was closer to Aunts house in Maidenhead. With the skills I had learnt at Box Hill Tech I was able to teach first and third projections in solid geometry at the Secondary Modern School. During this time I volunteered to act as judge of the javelin competition at their sports evening only to discover later that the previous judge had resigned after being speared by a wayward javelin. I also had the opportunity of seeing the large Scouts Parade here which was attended by the Queen. Early on I was reunited with my friends Elizabeth, Dorothy and Elaine from the ship. After they had disembarked in Italy they had bought for themselves a groovy off-white Renault car in France and had driven it to England. One weekend we all piled into it and drove off to visit the sites around Bristol and Bath. We enjoyed

this so much that we all decided to undertake a larger trip on the Continent in the car later in the year. Ian, a friend since my university days, came over to Britain while I was there and we were able to catch up. Two years later Ian married in Northern Ireland and asked me to be his best man. After the wedding the bridesmaid and I went on our own honeymoon and travelled to see The Mountains of Maun that Go Down to the Sea. This was all during the height of the sectarian tensions with the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Sinn Fein committing acts of violence on a regular basis. In fact the venue where the wedding reception was held, Crawfordsburn, was later destroyed in a bombing attack. In July the girls and I loaded up the Renault, squeezing in the minimal amount of luggage we could, and drove to Scotland where we caught a car ferry to Bergin in Norway. This was the start of a wonderful ten week tour of Europe that opened up my eyes to a wider world. On most occasions we stayed at youth hostels along the way, always a great way to meet people, or with contacts I had made in England. I often had to rely on Elizabeth to do the translating, which resolved in me a need to learn more languages. Ian also came over and spent some of the trip with us as well. From Norway we travelled into Scandinavia then on to Sweden and Denmark. We each took our turn driving the car and some days we managed to travel one hundred and twenty miles in a day. We ate produce from the local markets and tried the local cuisine when we could. Its hard to believe nowadays, but my expense budget for the trip ran at 2 per day and on most occasions I kept to that. After Denmark we crossed over the border into Northern Germany and made our way to Hamburg. From here we travelled through Holland and Belgium before crossing the Rhineland to the divided city of Berlin. Passing through Check Point Charlie we ventured into Communist controlled East Berlin and on to Czechoslovakia. The Berlin Wall was constructed during my first year o f teaching and in those days we never dreamt wed live to see it one day collapse. We visited Austria, taking in Vienna and Salzburg, the setting for the Sound of Music, before again entering Germany and seeing Bavaria, Eidel Veis becoming the popular song to sing in the car. The whole time Im sure there wasnt a castle, palace, historical building, ruin, tower, Cathedral, gallery, exhibition or theatre we didnt visit.

From Southern Germany we continued on to Switzerland and then Italy where we visited Rome, Venice and Florence. Throughout my time away I was a conscientious correspondent to my mother, writing letters on aerograms every few days outlining my experiences and the wonderful people I met. In one letter I stated it is really good meeting so many people of every race, colour and class. It certainly helps people to understand one another. After Italy we headed back to England and undertook a ten day tour of Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland where we enjoyed the breath taking natural beauty and scenery of the Scottish countryside and the cheap meals of fish & chips and pies that we couldnt get on the Continent. By the end of September I was back with Aunty Tiny and back at work in Windsor. The trip had been a powerful time for me. It brought about a break from all those protocols and conventions that Id been brought up with and it gave me a real sense of freedom. We were left to determine by ourselves what matters, my morality, behaviour and beliefs were all open for reconsideration. The discovery of alcohol, not previously part of my life, encouraged me into more bolder actions and created a lack of temperance, a matter thats has remained beyond normal discipline and control. I also fell deeply in love with Elizabeth and we were considering not returning to Australia but going on to Canada together where I had been offered a job as a supply teacher on a higher salary. For a while now I had been wrestling with my emotional feelings and my insecurities over my emerging sexuality. I certainly felt mixed up and confused. I knew attraction to the same sex was certainly a taboo in my religion, in my upbringing and in my society, remembering that homosexuality was actually against the law at this time and that poofter bashing was talked about as a sport by ugly masculine mobs in Australia. I had no wish to allow this issue, which was very uncertain in my mind, to alienate me from mainstream culture. When I was twenty-two I went to a doctor who referred me to a specialist. This practitioner treated my feelings as a medical problem and put me on a hormone treatment which gave me big shoulders and great aches in the legs. In the end like other men in this era, think Graham Kennedy, I was determined to sort this out without letting the world know about it. It would take another thirty years before I did. Back at work I had time to think about my options. If I went to Canada I would have to give up my employment with the Education Department in Victoria and I certainly didnt like to feel like I was to be cut off from doing what I loved in the place I called home. I had my promotion at Kerang High School waiting for me

and I had also been offered another position at Bon Beach High School. In the end what did make the decision for me was my mothers illness, which seemed to be getting progressively worse. So I decided to head home, Elizabeth and Dorothy went off to Russia and Elaine sailed off to New Zealand. Originally I thought of coming home via America but in the end I decided to take five weeks and return via Europe and the Middle East. Again I had to borrow money from my understanding parents and when school finished in December I started packing my bags but not before I had a short trip to visit Reading, Winchester, Plymouth and Cornwall. I spent Christmas with my wonderful Aunty Tiny and Uncle Bill and bid farewell to all my relatives. Before I left Uncle Den gave me grandfathers war medals, a lovely reminder of a person who was a loving and instrumental influence on my life. I had certainly loved England and my time with my relatives but I was also looking forward to getting back home to my parents. Aunty Ivy wrote home to my Mother saying that I had crammed a lot into my years stay, adding young people have more advantages than we had, and live their lives much more independent of their parents now. Historically, a ship had been the common mode of transport for Australians like me travelling on holiday to and from Britain but the return voyage was to take two months and I couldnt afford that time. By now air travel was offering a cheaper and faster method of travelling to Australia and you could break your ticket and visit places along the way. So in January 1967 I flew to Paris, where I got sick from eating raw food, and on to Madrid, where the car I hired was towed away by police for illegal parking. From here I flew to Rome and then Athens and on to Tel Aviv. My time in Israel was quite special to me; this was after the closure of the Suez Canal but before the Arab-Israeli war that happened later that year. I was able to travel by domestic buses and visit some of the new farming collectives and areas of emerging tension such as the Golan Heights. Importantly I had the opportunity to wander around the biblical sites, renewing my Christianity, and even stayed for a time in a Franciscan Monastery in Nazareth. From here I flew to Teheran, New Delhi, Calcutta, Djakarta, Singapore, Darwin, Sydney and on to Essendon airport where my parents were waiting for me. This was a wonderful interlude in my life and a fondly remembered experience. It was certainly a time when things were simpler and more open and people were

more willing to try new things. My trip also inspired my parents to later do the same and visit their families in England, air travel having made Australia not so much the land of exile as it was to previous generations of British immigrants like my Aunt Helen, who died in 1967 having never returned to the land of her birth. Being away also helped me see that there were other ways by which I could develop a career. On my return, I drove to where I had been appointed at Kerang High School. I visited for one day but soon realized that this was not to be the school for me.

Chapter 13

SURSUM CORDA
Ah! Then yours wasn't a really good school. Now at ours they had at the end of the bill. French, music and washing extra. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass While I was still overseas, Miles Lowe, my former colleague and the Senior Master at Doveton High School, wrote and told me how he had resigned from Doveton, as a result of all the industrial agitation, and had taken up a new teaching position at Haileybury, the leading independent school in the south -east of

Melbourne. He also stated There is a new position at Haileybury for an Economics teacher. I can arrange for a meeting with the Headmaster if youre interested. This option seemed to me to be a more progressive career move than a government high school in Northern Victoria. I also felt the need to transfer on social grounds and I had a burning need for some sort of change in my life along these lines. Having now travelled overseas and experiencing the personal growth that I had, I now felt I could make the bold move that I wanted from the sanctuary of the Education Department. So when I returned to Victoria I applied for the position of Economics teacher at Haileybury and was interviewed by the Headmaster, David Maxwell Bradshaw or DMB as he was nearly always known as. DMB had grown up in the country before moving to Melbourne to be educated at Scotch College, where he eventually returned to serve, firstly as a Master and then as Head of the Junior School. After twenty-four years at Scotch College he was appointed Headmaster at Haileybury in 1954 and from the start he had an overriding ambition to make it a great public school. The chairman of the school council later described DMB as a disciplinarian with a sense of humor and a man of high Christian principles . You could add to that a firm, loyal Presbyterian and a dedicated educator. Even though I had never taught Year 12 Economics before, DMB must have seen some potential in me as a teacher as I was successful in securing the position, either that or there were no other applicants. This was to be the start of another happy experience in my life, so much so that I ended up staying at Haileybury for six years. The school itself was established in 1892 by C H Rendall, an Old Boy of the respected Haileybury College in England, who wanted to create in Australia an English Public School with a distinctive tradition of classics and cricket. Over the following decades the school had its ups and downs until the 1930s when it purchased the Castlefield Estate in Brighton East where it had room to develop the schools facilities. Under the leadership of DMB Haileybury grew quite extensively to the point where it was invited to join the Associated Public Schools of Victoria. In 1963 a new campus was opened at Keysborough on Springvale Road by the Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, in response to the market demand from Melbournes east. At the time I joined Haileybury, the school was split between

the two campuses at Brighton and Keysborough, two suburbs where the communities were distinctly different, Brighton being more established and Keysborough drawing on the growing populations of Mt Waverly through to Berwick. Haileybury was very much a white male, Anglo-Saxon dominated educational institution which very much reinforced the conservatism of the Menzies era. The students that went here were by and large successful if they werent successful, they didnt stay. Most of them tended to move on to study Economics, Accounting, Law and Medicine at university and soon after enter the professions. Even though Doveton High School and Haileybury were probably no more than a few kilometres away from each other, the social differences that existed between them were a world apart. Doveton students mainly came from a housing commission area while Haileyburians parents were from the professional and aspiring middle classes. The social wall that I kept seeing in my life, whether it was real or whether it was imagined, was straddled by going to Haileybury. Haileybury seemed to me to be a step towards acceptance and success on the other side of the social divide. It would give me an opportunity to work in a framework which Id alw ays sensed had been denied to me. It also gave me a strong feeling that I had now shifted over from one of those who hadnt anything, to one of those that had. I finally felt that I had made it. I quickly settled in and became extremely happy here. I found those first few years of teaching Economics and Geography at Haileybury very enjoyable. My initial year of teaching HSC Economics relied heavily on notes from my university classes but still, I had enough experience now to make a success of the role. One thing that impressed me was that the school had a policy amongst the staff regarding the welfare and performance of each student in that no boy was to become lost at Haileybury. The school had high expectations of its students and achievements were usually recognized at assemblies where honours were bestowed. This was also an environment that I hadnt experienced before. I was very proud in that first year when two of my students, Graham Cunningham (later senior partner with KPMG) and Russell Allison (later CEO of Springvale Crematorium and Lawn Cemetery), secured first class honors.

Both of them became life-long friends and during my years at Haileybury I was lucky enough to meet numerous students and some generous families who took me in and shared their family life. They became important influences on my life and many of these have remained very powerful relationships that I value immensely. Similarly with a number of colleagues I worked with at Haileybury. John Nelson was a good friend who, like me, had transferred from Doveton High School to teach here. He later went on to his own distinguished career in education that included being appointed Vice-Master at Ormond College where he witnessed the storm around the sexual harassment scanda l known as The Ormond Affair. This issue challenged the culture of these colleges, especially in relation to their connection with the church. The Master, around who the scandal played out, was previously a teacher of mine during my education course and supervised my Master of Education degree. For me he was always an able, erudite, caring and compassionate teacher who I valued. The art teacher, Graham Bennett, also became a dear colleague. Graham had previously worked with John Truscott on his Academy Award winning set design for the 1967 Hollywood film Camelot and later designed the main stage curtains that hang in both the Melbourne Concert Hall and the Melbourne Town Hall. One student Graham taught and inspired at Haileybury was Adam Elliott, who in 2003 won an Academy Award for the short film Harvie Krumpet. Jim Brown (Economics and Politics) and Andrew Cox (Geography) were outstanding heads of departments who served the school well and did their best to instill in me a sense of thoroughness and detail, although Im afraid I was too impatient to listen then. Ian K Chapman (who later became principal of Illawarra Grammar School) managed the schools main administration during my first two years until the office was transferred from Brighton. DMB himself impressed me by the way he gave strong Christian leadership to the school and the way he showed keen attention to the detail of every aspect of the working life of the school. Each year he recognized every completing Year 12 student by personally writing scripture in a bible which he would present to them on Leavers Day. I chose to emulate this in the schools where I later became Principal. In spite of DMBs staunch Presbyterianism, he nevertheless appointed to his staff teachers from a wide spectrum of religious backgrounds. This included those who were Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and even former Roman Catholic clergymen

including Dally Messenger (one of the first civil celebrants in Australia), Pat Tierney and Brendan Dwyer. With its compulsory sports program and its wide range of other activities, the school suited me well. It was what I enjoyed and what had distressed me at Doveton High School when it was removed. There was then in my mind a sense that being a white, Anglo-Saxon male and being successful at sport was a symbol of social accomplishment. So as part of my engagement at Haileybury I wanted to emulate and share in that success. Coaching the First XI Hockey Team gave me a real sense of engagement with sport that I had previously lacked. John Nelson and Andrew Cox, head of the hockey team, were far more experienced and capable than me but they graciously allowed me my turn to coach the firsts, which included visits to Tasmania and New Zealand. On the latter trip our hockey sticks were almost abandoned after some miserable losses, with the only consolation being the great friendships we made with a Maori hockey club. I can admit here though that as coach of the Fifths in both cricket and football that the short term goal for all of us involved in the team was to complete the match before lunchtime. We felt that a win or loss was not going to impact on our APS status but would certainly impact on our ability to have a free afternoon. During the first three years I lived in the schools boarding house, Rendall House, named after the first headmaster. This was located at the Castlefield campus in South Road, Brighton and was formerly the original house on the property when it was purchased in 1922. A myriad of rooms were later added to the house to turn it into accommodation for boarders and included dormitories, a dining room and a cinema. In the period I was there it housed boarders from across Victoria and even New Guinea and the boarding house masters were Brian Pearson, Ernie Jones and Barry Densely, who later went on to be principal of Katherine High School, Director of Education in Samoa and president of the Civil Celebrants Association. The boarding house reinforced strong British traditions with its strict rules, regular routines, morning runs and cold showers. Every morning DMB made a point of sharing a porridge breakfast with the staff and the boarders. All of us who lived at Rendall House were required to attend the Hampton Presbyterian Church of a Sunday. Also drawn by my need to be part of a higher

profile liturgical church, during this time I became confirmed as a communicant member of the Anglican Church by Bishop Sampbell at St Pauls Cathedral in Melbourne. This put me on the invite list to various state church occasions including the visit of Prince Charles. When I first joined Haileybury the Senior School was operated from both Brighton and Keysborough, which in some aspect made it quite difficult. From the start of 1969 all Years 9 to 12 were located at Keysborough with Brighton now becoming the Junior School. This then allowed for a greater range of teaching capacity because the classes originally were quite small. In this environment I found myself teaching Politics as well as Economics. This was certainly an interesting period in our history to be teaching Politics. Menzies and Caldwell had handed over leadership of their parties to younger, more modern thinking men like Harold Holt, John Gorton and Gough Whitlam. The last remnants of anti-communist fervor were played out in the 1966 election and Australias commitment to the war in Vietnam increased. Civil rights were emerging and Australias Indigenous people were finally given the right to vote via a hugely successful referendum. Strong protest movements began to develop and we witnessed people demonstrating in the streets against the visit of US President Lyndon Johnson, the hanging of Ronald Ryan, the introduction of conscription and the Vietnam War. Recently in China I met a former school captain of Haileybury who had studied Politics at the school. In the Politics curriculum at that time we taught all about the containment of China and our grave concerns arising from Mao Zedong standing on the gate of the Forbidden City overlooking Tiananmen Square as the military might rolled passed him. As we were having breakfast in Beijing I intimated that I could never have imagined then, that one day I would be sitting in the place that held so much fear for conservative Australia, peacefully having a meal with him. At Haileybury, the school continued to align itself educationally and politically to strong British conservative traditions and I certainly enjoyed parts of these traditions. Haileybury of old had always reveled in its military heritage and numerous Generals and war heroes had attended the school both here and in Britain. Not surprising then, with this sense of militarism in its traditions, that Army Cadets were, as the school historian stated, very much at the heart of the Haileybury experience.

I too became involved with the schools Army Cadet Unit, a move that was initiated by my need to somehow be involved in the army. I had a strong feeling that I needed to make a contribution to Australians defence but I really didnt know that there was any alternative to service other than enlisting. My National Service obligation had been deferred when I went to university and by the time I was finished it had been scrapped and replaced by the ballot for twenty year olds, and by that stage I was too old. I was very self conscious about this, especially as both my father and grandfather had served their country in time of war and their experiences had loomed large in my life. In the end I visited the army recruitment office and asked how I could serve. As the Army Cadets was then considered to be almost a recruitment scheme for the Australian Defence Force they suggested I join the schools Army cadets. At the time I became involved with the cadets it was reorganizing as all the units were coming together at Keysborough after years of separated activities over two campuses. The cadet unit was extremely large, there were well over 600 students involved, although Scotch College had the largest in Victoria. The units Commanding Officer was a school icon, Vice-Principal Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Northcott (or Fanny as he was fondly called) who at that stage had served for over thirty years in that role and had seen active service in World War Two. Cadet training was seen then to be providing leadership experience for the young men who were going through the Haileybury system. My training to become part of the cadets seemed to be adhoc. I went up to Puckapunyal to undertake training to become a Rifle Range Officer. There was a written exam to test theory training and I studied hard and sat for the exam. As for the practical training, fortunately on the day of the exam there was torrential rain and it was cancelled. Much to the distress of the military hierarchy at Puckapunyal, I came top of the graduating class on the basis that I had secured the highest result I could for the theory exam and the practical exam had been cancelled. In the end I qualified as a Rifle Range Officer with a certificate to oversee any rifle range in Australia. I would have been terrified if ever called upon to actually supervise a rifle range! Initially I felt my involvement with the cadets was a contribution I wanted to make to the countrys defence but I also wanted at the same time to provide some useful education to the students involved. I was appointed a Company Commander and as a result introduced more practical courses into the training such as first aid, search and rescue as well as the Duke of Edinburgh program. I attempted to organise the cadets within a framework which would give them some useful community skills

within their program. I think at that stage I tended to rub the establishment more around the edges. As the Vietnam War escalated and the number of Australians killed in the conflict rose, many came to question the war and our reasons for being involved. Even within the churches the war became an important issue with numerous clergy and church followers joining the protest movement and all of the Roman Catholic Bishops in Australia coming out in opposition to the war. As a result the militarism of traditional cadet training started to come under scrutiny and in Sydney a headmaster was sacked for his vocal anti-military, anti-cadet stance. However at Haileybury, to not be in the cadets, a student had almost to be a conscientious objector, expressed by joining the Scout troop or the Social Service Group Students. This would have certainly meant social expulsion so opting out of the cadets was by far the exception, even though many parents were expressing their concerns about the ballot and the possibilities of their sons having to serve in Vietnam.

Chapter 14

ITS TIME
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass In 1971, while I was completing a Bachelor of Education at Monash University, I accepted a position as a resident tutor in philosophy at the universitys Farrer Hall. As a result I transferred my residence from the boardin g house at Haileybury to Farrer Hall at Monashs Clayton campus. In this period Monash University was Australias centre of radicalism and there was significant civil and political unrest everywhere. On one occasion I observed a huge and angry anti-war protest on the university grounds from the university council room. At first I was angry with all this because I still had a feeling that I was part of the establishment. Apart from the radicals at the university, Farrer Hall, the residential hall w here I lived and tutored, was co-ed and there was a growing movement by those here for egalitarianism, womens rights and student consensus in governance. I was uncomfortable about often being challenged by many of these students when I felt that all I was trying to do was to contribute to providing education at the university. I soon started to feel that my tutoring position lacked any sense of authority. Luckily for me I had the affirmation of my lecturer Val Hawkes, whose support shaped my life in terms of an approach to encouraging students at school. Val Hawkes lectured in Sociology of Education, in which I was also enrolled, and in response to one of my assignments made the comment good work you could do honours. I felt empowered by this positive comment and she showed me that I was able to study at a much improved quality. I also became a post-graduate representative of the Education Faculty and, at the urging of Anne Clarke, I taught Politics at Mentone Girls Grammar School of a night, where the school had embarked upon a community education program, and I taught HSC Economics at evening classes for the Education department. At the

same time I became a member of The Australian College of Education (MACE) and as a result of being too vocal at the annual conference I was co-opted onto the council and joined Sir James Darling and Dr Laurie Shears in their final years as councillors. A lucky opportunity but barely deserved. As various subject areas across the state sought to work more closely together they formed the Joint Council of Subject Associations of which I became the secretary. During this period Farrer Hall, where I lived, often invited significant speakers to special dinners, which encouraged a regular supply of journalists, many completing post-graduate studies, to come along and interact with us. Views both right and left wing became a regular part of the debate at these functions. Soon I found my own thinking was starting to change and felt that something inside of me was forcing change. By now I was getting older and began to feel more aware of what the Vietnam War was really about. My anti-military feelings about life began to surface as the issues of the period became clearer. I was soon starting to shift my priorities away from being socially successful in an established school. Australias social framework was changing and I was starting to feel that the material I was teaching in Economics & Politics, and by being involved with the cadets, was reinforcing an established and possibly outdated model. In my mind the Vietnam War had become significant and my own views of it had begun to change. The major aspect that confronted me was the concern that the seventeen or eighteen year-old students that I was teaching could very likely come back from Vietnam in a body bag. I had met many families of students who felt the same way and was quite anguished at the thought that I was supporting a war on the basis that it contained communism. During this time a colleague tutor at Monash University was completing her Masters Degree on French colonialism in Vietnam and this, associated with the reading of Ho Chi Minhs biography, I began to feel that Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader in Vietnam, was really engaged in a war of liberation. All this challenged me to ask myself: In any other context this man would be seen as an inspirational leader, removing the yoke of foreign imperialism. Isnt that understandable and commendable? Up until this point I hadnt had to think about these issues. Id been a young teacher and Id travelled overseas and just wanted to succeed. I thought that by becoming part of an established institution would give me that success. I guess I

hoped I would eventually be the principal of an established sc hool like Scotch College and then I would feel that I would have achieved a successful life. But now these issues were at the forefront of my mind and I had to answer the question to myself Why am I teaching here and why am I training young men in cadets who might never come back from Vietnam? By 1972 I was quite concerned about the social order in Australia and Vietnam in particular. At Haileybury we still continued to teach students about the communist threat and the Domino Theory. Towards the end of 1972 a federal election was called by the Prime Minister Sir William McMahon which rallied Gough Whitlam and his ALP supporters into action to create the Its Time election campaign. To a certain extent I felt it was time for me to act as well and after considering my own position I decided to stand as an Australia Party candidate in the seat of Isaac on an anti -Vietnam, proabortion ticket. The two key issues of the 1972 federal election as far as I was concerned. The Australia Party had been established in 1966 by Gordon Barton a quixotic, Australian businessman and political activist who had been born in Indonesia to a Dutch mother and an Australian father. He showed his intelligence and originality early on while still at Sydney University by starting the International Parcel Express Company (IPEC), a company that remained a core element of his business interests. During the mid-sixties he used some of his wealth to form the Liberal Reform Group, a splinter group of Liberals disenchante d with the Liberal Party's support for the Vietnam War. This group later became the Australian Reform Movement and then the Australia Party. At this stage the party was led by Dr David Smith and mainly attracted disaffected Labor Party supporters. For the past six years they had been contesting state and federal elections and had begun to make some headway. A well-known local Liberal Member of Parliament, Billy Snedden, had offered to pay the Aus tralia Partys expenses if we changed our preference allocation to the Liberals, not surprisingly we didnt accept. In fact the Australia Party didnt hand out our preferences to any one major party; we had a two-sided ticket with Labor on one side and Liberal on the other. Haileybury wasnt very excited that one of its teachers, and in particular one of its Politics teachers, was standing as a candidate for the Australia Party. I possibly crossed the boundaries to the extent that here I was engaging in the election process while I was teaching a completely alternative viewpoint. However

I noted the DLP candidate, Bill Skinner, was a maths teacher at Beaumaris High School. In my teaching of politics, I encouraged my students to take a questioning stance and that year I felt I set a good example of that. Fortunately the election was after the exams and I was very happy when they performed well in the Year 12 exams that year. Many of them turned up on Election Day and helped me hand out cards. Im happy to say I did stir up a lot of interest especially at a public meeting held at Beaumaris High School between myself and other candidates including Bill Skinner (DLP) and Gareth Clayton (ALP). A report of the meeting in the Sandringham Advertiser called it a rowdy one where it was said that the DLP candidate abused one of his students calling him a bloody liar. However it also stated Speaking at one of his first political meetings Mr Harris was received more quietly and was almost allowed to speak without interruption. I was also quoted as saying that the party believed that Australia, with good government, will be the best country in the world and that Seven per cent of the gross national product should be spent on education and that weaponry, not numbers of 40,000 or 50,000 conscripted individuals, is the answer . The last comment was met with loud cheers from the young people present. In the end I didnt win, securing just less than five percent of the vote, the seat was won by the Liberal Party candidate David Hamer, brother of the Premier Sir Rupert Hamer. I was pleased that the Whitlam Government won the election though. I saw Gough Whitlam as a major social reformer on a range of issues from education and health to Aboriginal land rights and recognising China, all of which I felt needed a shakeup in this country to make Australia more contemporary in a modern world. I was excited to be a part of the political process at this time of change and during such a significant election. The Australia Party eventually evolved into the Australian Democrats with a platform of free enterprise and social conscience (Keeping the Bastards Honest). A number of Australia Party members later entered federal parliament as Australian Democrats Senators included Colin Mason (NSW), John Siddons (Vic), Sid Spindler (Vic) and Jean Jenkins (WA). After the election, life settled again. As a teacher of Economics and Politics at Haileybury I felt I wasnt advancing my career very far. Then the libr arian resigned at the I V McGregor Library, on the Keysborough campus, resulting in

this position becoming vacant. I decided to apply for the job of librarian, even though I had no library qualifications, and was grateful when DMB encouraged and then supported me to take on the role on the understanding that I would complete my library training. In reality it was shameful that I was appointed as the Head of the Library with no library training. The Deputy Librarian, a very able and qualified woman, could have undertaken the role, and later did, but DMB wouldnt appoint a woman to this position at the time. Even though she had much more experience and all the qualifications, she couldnt apply for one reason and one reason only - she was female. Sexual discrimination was still part of the employment regime. I must say she was very gracious to me and later lent me all her exam notes. I sat the library exams at the end of the year in one sitting and, thanks to her notes, I passed eight of the nine subjects. The only subject I failed was Cataloguing, which would have been simple for any practical librarian, but I simply couldnt pass it. The embarrassing thing about this was that the Australian Library Association offered me a supplementary exam. In those days examiners reports could be obtained and used to study from so I rang the Library Association, which was conducting the exam, and asked whether I could have a copy of the report to prepare. They said, Well theyre not really printed yet, but well s end you out a copy by hand, and they mailed it to me, which I thought was very helpful. When I eventually sat the supplementary exam, I realized that they had actually sent me the same exam! In the end I received a credit for Cataloguing. During this time I also became a member of the School Library Association and its Treasurer, a role which I remained in for seventeen years eventually receiving an Honorary Life Membership for my efforts. The Library Association was then at the forefront of pedagogical change and did much to change institutional attitudes so that a librarian was no longer seen as the keeper of the books, but as a resource person who facilitated independent learning. This was the beginning of a major curriculum shift in Victoria from rote learning to independent learning. I continued teaching Politics and Economics, but I also enjoyed the experience of working in the library. In the classes, it was often about dictating notes and issuing a vast amount of material printed on the overworked gestetner duplicating machine. We then ensured the students understood all this by requiring them to write high quality essays. For example as an introduction to Politics in Year 11 every student was required to read and comment on George Orwell s Animal

Farm. That was the way it was done and as a result we continued dictating day after day. I was also active in providing content for the liberal studies classes and even DMB once allowed me to speak at his all important and austere assembly. On a cold winters morning I paraded on his stage wearing a St Kilda football jumper and armed with floggers prepared by acquiescing parents while the school sang When the Saints Come Marching In. I look back on that period of the late sixties, early seventies as a time of great social change for Australia. Education was also changing and was affecting the way things were done at Haileybury. Since 1964 the federal government had begun a program of state aid including the provision of four million dollars per year to independent schools for science facilities. When an increase in state aid became an issue in the 1972 election, those at Haileybury were concerned that this would be the thin end of the wedge that would reduce their proudly fought independence and autonomy. At the same time the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches were moving towards a union. DMB was a staunch Presbyterian while his brother was a key protagonist in the Presbyterian schools debate and both fought for a continuing independent Presbyterian Church. In 1977 they managed to secure control of Scotch College and the Presbyterian Ladies College, ensuring they remained Presbyterian schools not become Uniting Church schools. This debate was to shape the education agenda of the newly emerging church. The school also became challenged when Richard Cornish, formerly the Head of the Haileybury Junior School, took up the position of Principal at St Leonards College, the girls school established in 1954 just across the road from Haileybury in Brighton. While he was in this role he became a leading educator introducing the International baccalaureate and outdoor education, well before it was common. He also expanded the school and in 1972 introduced co-education, making it an alternative educational institution to Haileybury and in some ways its competitor. This was seen as an act of betrayal by DMB and he never communicated with Richard Cornish again. As far as DMB was concerned the file was closed. It was also a time for me personally to shape my own social agenda and to come to terms with what I wanted to do in education. At this point I was totally committed to becoming a Principal of a school and as such I was only applying for p rincipals

positions, the thought of having to travel through the normal promotional path of Director of Curriculum and Vice Principal was too much for me to consider. I also believed in being a backcaster not a forecaster. This model takes you fir st to where you want to be, then you go back to where you are and find the shortest distance to get there. As far as I was concerned then, there was no room for intermediate steps for me. DMB supported me in my Principals applications. From time to time I certainly bewildered him but he never ceased in encouraging me in my applications for leadership positions. Perhaps he thought this was his and the schools way out! Eventually my gamble paid off and I was successful in obtaining a position as the foundation Principal of a Christian Community College in Maryborough, Victoria. DMB and I left Haileybury at the same time. He decided to complete his theological training and on his retirement became a fulltime minister of the Presbyterian Church at Surrey Hills. Both of us were on different paths, representing different periods of time, but we certainly shared a heritage for a few years which shaped us both. I respected his fairness in carrying out a difficult role in those fast-changing years. He remained a good and loyal friend although I was never able to call him David which he often offered. I left Haileybury not necessarily criticizing it, but acknowledging that it promoted an education that satisfied a particular cohort. I had sensed that if you had social capacity, you were in a much stronger position in Australian society to sustain it. I certainly realised the great advantage the Haileybury students had and my question was why shouldnt everybody else have it as well? Students of Haileybury received quality outcomes and knew what they wanted, why couldnt other students have it? There was a growing sense of social justice within me and this was a question I was determined to resolve.

Chapter 15

TOGETHER WE RISE TO GOD

Tut, tut, child! Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass I had grown up in Australia during a period when sectarian tension between the followers of various churches was a part of the culture. It never evolved into the violence or hatred I witnessed in Northern Ireland or Israel, but it was still an ugly aspect of Australian society. Which is why, when I became the foundation principal of the very first ecumenical school in Australia, it was such a significant event. The seventies were probably the last decade in Australian history when the majority of Australians belonged to one of the denominations that preached their brand of Christianity. For over a century previous it was part of Australian culture to belong to a church where every Sunday you would gather together and worship with other like-minded followers and then socialize after the service or come together for special events or as part of church associated organizations. At least up

until the First World War the different denominations conducted a cordial relationship with each other. Then in 1916 came the savage debate over conscription, which was dividing the nation anyway but when the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Daniel Mannix, publicly spoke out against the issue, and rallied the Catholic vote behind him, it well and truly brought to a head the sectarian animosity that had been brewing away for years in Australia and left a scar that would not heal for a generation. In the decades that followed the social divide widened between the Catholic and Protestant churches and both groups set out to demonize the other and both became highly suspicious of the political motives of each. As a Protestant child, we were almost forbidden to talk to Catholic children and both sides regularly exchanged childish insults. I also remember once being banned from a Catholic teenage club because I was Protestant. What was the catalyst for breaking down some of this animosity was Vatican II, a Catholic council in the early sixties where the church addressed relations between itself and the modern world. A big part of this was the ecumenical decree which referred to initiatives aimed at greater Christian unity or cooperation. Soon after the Australian Council of Churches was created and this sought to bring together a number of Australia's Christian churches in dialogue and practical cooperation. In the midst of this was born a school that would break down a number of age old sectarian barriers and open the minds of many. St Josephs Secondary College was situated in the central Victorian town of Maryborough, an industrial township with a pastoral and gold mining history. For over seventy years the Brigidine Order of Sisters had provided Catholic education to that area and had taught students on both a primary and secondary level. The Brigidines were originally from Ireland and part of the churchs answer to solving Catholic education in Victoria during the Nineteenth Century by recruiting large numbers of religious orders from overseas. The Brigidines aimed to foster dignity and worth of each person through its educational ministry and first arrived in Maryborough to begin teaching in 1902. For decades they ran two schools, St Augustines Primary School and St Josephs Convent School, the latter being turned into a secondary girls school in the early sixties. Even within the Catholic system there was quite a social discrimination because the children at St Augustines Primary School werent encouraged to mix with what was considered to be the more socially elite girls at St Josephs College, where students still wore hats and gloves.

By 1972 however student numbers at the school had dropped to just eighty-five pupils and there were only four nuns on the teaching staff. This wouldnt provide enough income to keep the school going nor could the small number of qualified nuns teaching there offer a wide enough diversity of subjects for the students needs. Something had to be done drastically or the school would be forced to close. Maryborough, being only 8000 in population, couldnt draw on wider communities anywhere else so they had to solve the problem within their own framework. Enter Father Peter Claridge, Catholic Priest, and Canon John Leaver, Rector of the Anglican Church, who were both members of the ecumenical inspired Ministers Fraternity in Maryborough. Over afternoon tea one day they came up with an answer to the problems of St Joseph College turn it into an ecumenical school. There had hardly been any post-war migration numbers coming to Maryborough, so it meant that the Catholic population was about 18% and that meant there simply werent enough Catholic people to sustain their own school without having other religions being involved. So the only way to save St Josephs College was by doing it together and having a Christian alternative in the town. The idea went further and was presented to the Ballarat Catholic Education Office and the Brigidine Provincial for the district, Mother Perpetua Corrigan, who both agreed to the concept. Fairly soon it was being discussed in a positive light by the Anglican Bishop of St Arnaud and by the Catholic and Anglican communities in Maryborough. Geographic ecclesiastical boundaries also proved important. Maryborough was located in the Anglican diocese, as it was, of St Arnaud which was in the process of amalgamation, and it was also in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat, where both the bishops were very ecumenical minded. Mind you if it had been the other way round, for example if it been in the Anglican diocese of Ballarat, where the Bishop was extremely high church and traditional, or in the Catholic diocese of Bendigo, where Bishop Stewart was a very conservative Catholic, it wouldnt have happened. By June 1973 there were now four locals churches involved; the Anglican, the Methodist, the Catholic and the Church of Christ. For the first time there was a realization that it may be possible for Christians to stand together without dilution of individual beliefs and traditions. A Council was then created to fund and plan for the Christian Community College, the first ecumenical school to be created

by a community in Australia. All it needed now was a Principal and they began advertising for one across the nation. For a long time I had been formulating in my mind the idea of creating an education environment based on what I had experienced and what I knew worked well. I was determined to build something of my own which I could shape with all the ideas and strategies that had come to pass in my life. To do that I needed to be in a position of leadership, so during 1973 I began applying for Principal positions where I could. One day I happened to read a small ad in The Age newspaper which simply stated Principal wanted. It was for a job advertised in Maryborough, Victoria to appoint the Foundation Principal of what they called the Christian Community College. Foundation Principal sounded exactly what I was looking for so I applied and was soon invited for an interview. In October 1973 I headed off to Maryborough to attend the job interview at the Brigidine Convent. Id never been to Maryborough before and I ended up in Daylesford on the way by mistake. When I arrived at the grand Nineteenth Century red brick Convent I rang the bell on the door and could hear the noise of a meeting being held inside which suddenly became hushed upon my ringing. The door was opened, not as I feared by a Catholic Nun in long, dark ecclesiastical robes and habit about to burst into Climb Every Mountain, but by a slim woman, in her late forties, in white religious dress and refined habit. Straight away this gave me the impression that the Brigidine Sisters were contemporary thinkers and well aware of the new moves within Vatican Councils. Sister Miriam Liston, CSB, introduced herself, she had been appointed to the Convent as Mother Superior one year earlier by the Provincial Superior to monitor the Brigidines involvement in this new venture in both religion and education. She had been teaching at the school since the early 1960s, having come to there after having taught at Mother of God school at Ardeer. She ushered me across the patterned mosaic of the tiled floor and along the way I peered into the Convent music room to see Sister Margaret Mary Cassidy teaching her private piano students. Further ahead were the double swinging glass-paneled doors that denied visitors access to the sanctuary of the Convent. I was invited to wait in the Convent parlor, to which visitors were invited, and had time to observe the surroundings. The room was painted pink and wires enclosed in plastic ducting ran across the solid plaster walls, obviously added in after the

introduction of electricity. The tall window frames were painted green and the brass window attachments had been painted over to reduce the polishing workload on the diminishing numbers within the Convent community. The curtains flapped gently beside the white paint, ensuring privacy of the parlor from without, and the ceiling was made of pine and had been recently restored after water had poured over the top of the old lion-clawed bath above it, causing the paper to peel off the timber. The room was dominated by a marble fireplace in which blue 'Delft' like tiles immediately surrounded the black grate. Soon I was invited into the interview room and around a large table sat the interviewing committee including Father Peter Claridge and Canon John Leaver, the authors of this ground breaking experiment, the Reverend Clem Dickinson, Methodist clergyman and energetic community worker who had personally committed himself to the success of the project, Michael Scadden, Catholic and a teacher of Commerce at the Maryborough Technical College, (who also served as the Treasurer to the committee) and Dr Barry McIlroy, local medico, who with his Anglican wife, was stimulated by the vision of the venture. Noticeably absent, because of leave, was the new curator of the Catholic Parish of St. Augustine, Father Pat Flanagan, who had given strong pulpit support to the proposal. The meeting was chaired by a Catholic layman, Max Trainor. He was not only Chair of Council, but being the father of ten children he had a unique interest in the establishment of the new school. Furthermore, his residence was situated directly opposite the back of the school building and acted like a sentinel over the activities which seemed to be sandwiched onto the two-acre school site. Close beside his house sat the home of the resident Police Inspector, Bill Bell, another who seemed to act as a moral watchdog over the teachers and teenagers who frequented the school. After my interview there was a waiting period as other applicants were also interviewed and the Committee completed its report in preparation for the Council Meeting on 7th November. When the Council met, the committee presented their recommendations for approval. In their words the applicant who was accepted was considered suitable on the grounds that: He was able to adequately relate to the Brigidine Order, staff, pupils and community at large, as well as to the Council; He had an understanding of the concept of the school; He had a breadth of teaching experience in independent as well as government schools.

The day after the meeting the Chair of the Council made a telephone call that has since loomed large in my memory. 'You are invited, said the Chair, to meet with the College Council next Wednesday evening in the hall. I headed off once again to Maryborough, this time the route up the Calder Highway being more familiar. When I arrived at the gathering there were twenty people present, all keen to chat with me as we ate the homemade cakes and drank the cups of tea. The evening was marked as a significant occasion, not just because it happened to be my birthday, but because it was this day that I was appointed and my contract duly signed. I do recall on the night the leading Anglican making a public announcement that whilst it was significant occasion in terms of the appointment, it coincided also with the birthday of Prince Charles and that he would have to leave to watch Princess Anne's wedding! I wondered then whether Captain Mark Phillips' name would be added to the list in the Book of Common Prayer. On the return to Melbourne the moon shone above the distance plains, streaming like a ribbon upon the road, appearing close enough to touch yet beyond one's grasp. As I drove down that darkened highway admiring this scene, the hopes and aspirations for the new venture raced through my mind. The memories flooded forth of all the feelings and attitudes that had helped to formulate the statement by this new principal to the community of Maryborough. There was a desperate bid to match one's own ideals with those of the College founders. The result would turn out to be a mix of Catholic pragmatism and Protestant zeal, welded together by an idealistic Presbyterian. It was clear that the College had to have a religious foundation, it was clear that it had to provide an education to students, irrespective of age, sex or socio-economic position, and it was clear I had to give the leadership required to see this important venture through. At the end of the Haileybury school year I left the vicinity of Melbourne, with its myriad of established schools, and I drove up to Maryborough with all my personal belongings to start a new school. This time it was to be no rushed return trip, this time a stay of six years lay ahead. I soon bought a small house here at 80 Burke Street, a former doctors surgery built in the 1870s with lathe and plaster walls. It had been broken up into flats which deceptively hid the lead light doors and some old fashioned furniture. The old water tanks stood sadly unused since the town water supply was introduced and a swimming pool had been quickly added, as was a sauna in the maids quarters. I had no money to furnish it so I basically lived in one of its rooms.

In January 1974 I walked through the school gates, along the concrete drive, past the roses and bounded up the six steps to the big white front door and rang the bell. The ring could be heard echoing inside through the high ceiling. Unbeknownst to me the Brigidine Sisters were all away on holidays and the Parish Priest of St. Augustine's, an octogenarian Irishman, was guardian of the Convent keys. As he handed over the long, thick, black iron key of the Convent, he raised himself to full height and in his thick Irish brogue gave a clear expression of what he thought of the venture, It won't work son, you will probably run away with one of the Nuns! The music room that Id seen on that first day had now been turned into my of fice and immediately a desk was purchased. Telecom was requested to move the telephone to the office from its current location in the corridor on a wooden tripod pot stand and a flowering begonia was put in its place. I took a walk around the school for the first time. The Convent had been built in 1907 and sat on a hill overlooking the town like a medieval fortress surrounded by a mixed array of dwellings, constructed as funds became available. Right along the front there were some old pine trees, which delineated where the original boundary had been, and there was a corrugated iron fence, that the children in the town ran their sticks along, that traversed it. The Convent itself was late Victorian in style, a tall double storey building made of solid red brick walls and cement rendered decorations. It had a gabled roof and shallow eaves and the front door was ordained with two columns. When it was first unveiled it was said that it was a statement by the Catholic community about the importance of their faith. Importantly at the top of the building were displayed two green crosses, somewhat in recognition of the Brigidines being an Irish Catholic Order. To me they pointed defiantly upwards against a fairly dry and parched earth where the little English roses and the green grasses were struggling to exist. Twentieth Century buildings, which represented Catholic education in Maryborough, surrounded the convent. Two wooden buildings standing in a fairly temporary yet permanent way housed some of the classes and there was the new science laboratory which had been paid for from Commonwealth government funds when state aid was reintroduced. But apart from these two classrooms, the whole place looked sort of exhausted from a lack of funding.

That day there was no one to tell me what to do and a glorious sense of freedom came over me as I walked triumphantly and humbly around those rooms which were to be my school. I had a strong feeling of pride and achievement at having finally made it to a Principalship but there was also an overwhelming determination that this new school - one's own school - would be uniquely different and yet would stand equal with other independent schools in the State. Maryborough was going to suit me well. It was a small rural school fighting for its existence with all sorts of students and all sorts of needs. It made me feel good about what I was doing. In the prospectus we sent out to prospective students in the area it stated: For the first time in this country, Christians are seeking to stand together as one in the pursuit of the good life in education, and in so doing are cutting away all areas of prejudice that have resulted from Christian divisions and are making a contribution to the quality of life we seek for our children. Suddenly now I had something I really believed in, something that had been conceived and fostered in a spirit of enlightenment.

Chapter 16

POPISH PLOTS AND

PLASTER MADONNAS
We're all mad here. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass The immediate task at hand was to assess the staff needed in relation to the expected enrolment of one hundred and twenty. There were to be three Brigidine Sisters: Sister Miriam Liston was to be Vice Principal, Sister Margaret Mary Cassidy was to forego the teaching of piano to tackle the demands of a coeducational class of twenty-five and Sister Maureen Titford was to teach Science. Robin Coutts, already a teacher at the College, was prepared to stay on at a minimum salary, as did Trish Walsh, the art teacher. Joining later were Sister Stephanie ONeill, a retired Principal from Holden Hill, and the Rev Peter James, the Methodist minister from Newstead who was himself later a Principal at the school. Struggling to be a co-educational institution, it was essential that more males be added to the team and as a result other staff were rapidly brought together. Daryl McLeish, a former Mr Australia and owner of the local squash centre, was recruited to teach physical education, and Geoff James, who later became Principal, was also brought on board. The Catholic Education Office was able to help us overcome our male teacher shortage by recruiting a number of teachers from America. Bill Luense, who was on tour from the USA, was recruited from NSW and Danny Price, a short, high voiced gentleman, who always wore glasses, arrived in Australia on a group flight from Detroit and a few days later found himself with a teaching job with us. Danny, as he became popularly kn own, had a cheery and bouncing manner and immediately tested the ordered routines of the Sisters convent life by expecting breakfast at a time the Convent was normally silent in prayer. Throughout January rooms and toilets that had remained virtually unused were scrubbed and painted by volunteers and turned into offices or teaching spaces. Soon after we proudly placed an advertisement in the local paper stating that our office was now open for business. In the meantime I was able to inherit some school furniture from Haileybury and old wooden desks were borrowed from surrounding schools. Attempts were also made to devise timetables and a

curriculum was developed from the booklist that I virtually purloined from the Camberwell Boys' Grammar School, thanks to Andrew Cox who was the Head of the Junior School there and who Id known at Haileybury. With little time to plan it was certainly a hectic month. Our uniforms were designed by a parent, Marie Elliott, who was also well known in the area as the barrel girl on In Ballarat Tonight. What she came up with was impressive and bold, especially for a country town. The boys were to wear red polo necks and the girls had to wear pale blue, all with pastel blue blazers. It looked fashionable but absolutely nobody wanted to wear them. Still they did stand out and looked very good on television when we were guests for the first day of broadcast on colour television. Before we opened the boys were taken to the Haileybury campsite along the Banksia Peninsula, adjacent to the Gippsland Lakes, for a camp. We were assisted by two past Haileybury students here, Marcus Powe & Michael Wood, who we made associate members of the school for their efforts. However the girls were unfairly discriminated against and just given some day trips. On February 7th, 1974, the students duly returned to the same premises but in addition to recognizing the familiar faces of the Brigidine Sisters, there were new faces to see amongst the staff and students including myself. In addition the name board at the corner of the school property proudly announced that the school was now the Christian Community College, Maryborough. In March a congregation of almost seven hundred worshippers came together to witness the inauguration and commissioning of myself, as Principal, and the staff of the college. The service was conducted at St Augustines Catholic Church in the presence of fifty Brigidine sisters and the heads of several churches, all gathered together with a single purpose, to give their blessing and approval to the ecumenical college. We were now dealing with a group of students who were coming from a mix of Catholic, Anglican and Protestant backgrounds. Our religious education program focused more on spiritual and developmental aspects. We really wanted them to think for themselves and arrive at an acceptance of the Christian faith, from a study of the meaning and purpose of life and of basic moral concepts . The task was not to look for the lowest common denominator in Christianity but to recognize there were some things we had in common, and these were expressed

through our religious expansion program, and some things we did different, which had to be treated separately. In short we needed to respect each others traditions. The college aimed to cater for specific needs of denominational religion and had to work through the ways in which it recognized the different positions on such key issues as abortion, contraception etc. It was agreed that there would be no policy which would compromise the religious position of any church. In those early days every student was a designated Protestant, Catholic or Anglican so when the different churches had their different feast days, they were celebrated by the various students according to their religion. The Catholics and Anglicans always had to attend far more services than the Protestants and sometimes there were howls of rage by students who had to go to church whilst others played a local game called Scrab Em. But here, almost for the first time I could remember, Catholic and the Protestant communities were working together. My favorite quote was Who would have thought that I, a Presbyterian male from England, would be working in a school with the Brigidine Irish nuns? Every Monday we would have an assembly, a tradition I inherited from DMB. Assemblies were an essential part of the school routine and each week a guest speaker from the community was invited to speak and I would have the prayers taken by a different clergyman. Sister Miriam was responsible for maintaining decorum as the various clergy spoke, requiring students to stand or sit as their tradition demanded. These assemblies sometimes took place in the various local churches and we would also go round to visit these, all as a way of assisting students to understand the different traditions and cultures of each of the churches involved. As a result students became aware of the meaning of full baptism at the Church of Christ. It was a way to try and strengthen their own faith whilst appreciating the traditions of others. The important value I tried to remind the college community almost every day was God matters and people matter! We later opened a Chapel of Unity on the school grounds and I was pleased that DMB from Haileybury was there on the day. At these assemblies the students heard talks on local events and on every conceivable interest. I do recall however one time when Sister Miriam had trouble keeping a straight face when she introduced Captain Cock of the Salvation Army. On another occasion there was an uproar when the President of the local Bird Watching Club announced we were going to see a slide of some marvel recently seen in Maryborough, a red fronted tit. During this time we also managed at our

assemblies on two separate occasions to bestow associate membership status on both Archbishop Woods and Premier Rupert Hamer. However the seriousness on the last occasion was somewhat lost when a hen escaped from the box and flew onto the piano of Sister Margaret Mary. I also tried to put an emphasis on the word community, even though it really began as a group of Christian churches. We tried to get the message out that we were a community responsive school and we actually did a large amount of work within the framework of the local community as part of life at the school. We had purposely kept the school fees down because we didnt want to aim to make the school in anyway elitist. However that meant in that first year we had no money for the amount of teachers we needed, so every teacher had to teach every period apart from the last two. We also had volunteers who came in to run our Duke of Edinburgh Scheme, something which Id been interested in and had picked up from my time at Haileybury. However at Maryborough I put it on a wider scale and it became the framework to do all sorts of activities, closely following the Kurt Hahn model which has four key principles: outdoor education, community service, physical activity, and leadership & school improvement. A large number of local people helped us out and that was one of the great advantages of working in a town like Maryborough. We had people coming in to teach everything from bark weaving to pottery to horse riding, absolutely everything. This showed how fantastic this local community was. As we had very little money the staff ended up working every period and the community would come on a Friday afternoon and take over to run the Duke of Edinburgh programs. This army of wonderful volunteers gave our students probably the best education they could have received. By the middle of the year we were running out of money so Mary Chow, the local doctors wife, organized a Chinese dinner at the Railway Station, that the community supported and this saved the day. As a response we worked with the local youth club, in fact I was elected its president in 1977, and we regularly held events at the college for the community like Family Film Nights and workshops, we even had Kevin Heinze come and give a gardening talk to the community. I tried really hard to make sure that wherever there was a local issue; our students would be responding and getting themselves involved, whether it be land care, recycling or solar energy. I also made sure that we would be involved in any of the local processions or community events, like the Wattle Festival Parade. I felt it

was an important aspect for us to be really involved in what we saw as the issues of the community and appointed Terry White as a Community Liaison Officer to drive this. Room at the school was at a minimum so I lent out part of my house for Jean Dowies cooking classes and the Convent had a shed that parents turned into an art room in which art was taught. There was absolutely no money available for the materials the art teacher required for some of the work she wanted to do so whenever there was a crash or an accident down the street that involved broken glass, she and her children would rush out and grab all the spare bits. She did the most wonderfully creative work in this tin shed. There was a vacant block next door to the school which the Brigidine Sisters had been trying to purchase for a long time and in that first year we were able to do this. We then laid down a strip of concrete on this block so that the students could play cricket, even though there were barely enough boys at the convent that year to field a team. In fact football proved a problem because you needed even more numbers and so the nuns would end up recruiting some Grade 6 boys from St Augustines Primary School. We at least had some football jumpers as we had gotten the government slightly confused as to how many schools we were and we ended up getting paid twice. Our local solicitor advised that this should be returned but until we did we should invest the money, sufficient enough to pay for the jumpers. I brought a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, energy and fun to my role as I knew I had to be out there attracting more students if we were to become viable. I was also trying to forge our own identity as the school was still known around the town by various names; some still called it was the Catholic School and others the Church of Christ School. What I learnt from the experience of setting it all up was the immense grace and generosity of the pious women of the Brigidine Order who were intelligent, committed, and passionate about this new view on life. By allowing others in, many of their routines were to be tested. It would have been no easy cultural change for these Catholic sisters to adjust to men, and Protestant men at that, who had little understanding of their religious community life and who often tiptoed around the creaking floors at times that were previously silent and sacred times for them. I had an abiding friendship and appreciation for them all.

Sister Miriam Liston became one of my best friends here, always a wise counsel to this new young Principal we worked wonderfully well as a team. She was always a person of great compassion but had firmness when it was needed; I once described her as an iron fist in a velvet glove. She also had a wonderful sense of fun and often was the time we would laugh heartily at things that had happened. She really taught me what loyalty meant as she stuck by me through thick and thin. Later she went on to become Principal of St Josephs in Echuca. Also ever committed and inspirational was Sister Margaret Mary Cassidy. Every day Margaret lived out her vows through her wonderful example of Christian leadership and through her personal insightfulness to the religious education program. She later became the Victorian Provincial. As it was a Brigidine Order, there was a nun recruited from Ireland, Sister Frances, who did all the cooking for the Sisters in the convent and who poured out cups of tea on a fairly regular basis. Many of the retired Sisters that lived here also ended up becoming involved in the school community as well. At the back of the convent there was a little strip of land which wasnt owned by the convent because it was the lavatory lane right of way but was owned by the Council. I used to say, Its so nice to know that even nuns are human to the extent that you have to have a lavatory and somebody has to come round and collect it. During our time Sister Paschal, who served the order for fifty years and called everything bonza, died. She had earlier admitted to me that when the local Catholic Primary School would have assemblies to salute the flag, the nuns would stand around inside the school with Irish flags and sing God Bless the Pope. We made her an associate member which she carried with her, along with her rosary beads, to her grave. In good Catholic tradition we all celebrated her life but after her funeral the bishop and the sisters returned only to find the afternoon tea had been consumed by a group of visiting African educators in their robes. At this stage the nuns had only just entered the motoring age and they organized to close the front door of the convent and put in a fibro cement tubular steel shelter there to house their new motor car. However watching them drive reinforced my view that religious orders should stick to praying rather than driving! Mind you I later learnt that nuns of the Brigidine Order had attended my campaign speech at Beaumaris during the election campaign and were aware of my views on abortion, not exactly those held by the official Roman Catholic Church. However they never held this against me.

When it came to the school though, the Sisters were never interested in status; they were more interested in individuals working with a sense of community and a strong sense of values. The Brigidines motto is strength with kindliness and they showed me that, if people of good will can get together, the previous problems of religious difference can be overcome. Goodness and understanding can really move a community forward and as servants of Christ and partners in faith they proved this. I also think they found the ecumenical experience a rewarding experience. Father Pat Flanagan, Flags as he was affectionately called, was also a strong supporter of the Sisters and what we were trying to achieve with the school. As far as I was concerned he represented more the views of the recent Vatican Council established by Pope John XXIII. But the concept didnt meet well with everybody and there are always extremes on the either side. The Reverend John Hawkin, a Congregational Minister, was a leading opponent of the school and when the schools registered number was inadvertently left off the front sign he raised merry hell over it. Many in the local Methodist congregation were tentative in their support but the locum Redemptorist priest came right out and charged me with being in league with the devil as well as accusing us of being sacrilegious for holding dances in the sanctuary. My toughest moment however was when I was called up before the elders of the Presbyterian Church to hear a Scottish legal member, Rory McLeod, mount a direct challenge to the concept. He basically charged me with surrounding Protestant children with popish plots and plaster Madonnas. He said this to me, even though I was a member of the Presbyterian Church, however the Presbyterian Church in Maryborough had voted not to be involved in the school. He was later buried in the Presbyterian section of the cemetery, even though nowadays people are buried together in chronological order, a thorough Presbyterian, even in death. Not surprisingly we didnt make him an associate member. The college was the first ecumenical school, not only in Australia, but in a large part of the world. As a result Sister Miriam Liston and I often visited other communities to address public meetings and talk about our successes and the community unity that we had achieved. This led to the formation of similar schools in Portland and Woodend and I was often called upon to visit many of them as they looked to respond to similar pressures. The idea mainly took off in Victoria because of the decentralization of the curriculum but in NSW it wouldnt have happened because there was much stricter control of curriculum and the resources

that were required for it. In Victoria a new way forward was pioneered and fairly soon an Ecumenical Schools Association was being formed, all because of the work wed done to establish our school in Maryborough. Later I was invited to speak at the first Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue on sharing schools in the United Kingdom. The Whitlam Government was really important for us as well because there was now more money flowing into the non-government sector, which enabled us to keep going and to construct new buildings. It came at a time when a large number of low-fee schools across Australia were trying to get off the ground, including ours, and it was a big part of my job to negotiate with government bodies, or any other organization, for further funding. In 1975 we opened two new classrooms and a toilet block and invited Kim Beazley Snr to unveil them. Although detained on the day he sent a message through that stated: any school which can tolerate difference, encourage co-operation and mutual respectmight be justly proud of the example it sets. It was a great shock when I heard of the Whitlam Government dismissal because of the level of support we had received, however pragmatically a building recently opened was soon reopened at the other end by the new education minister Senator Carrick. I became a member of the Presbyterian Education Committee and I was also a member of the Catholic Principals Association, representing different interests on both. Catholic principals at that stage were mainly clergy; there were very few lay people involved. Dr George Pell, recently arrived from the Vatican with a PhD from Oxford, was Principal of Aquinas College, the Catholic teacher training institution. He was amongst several educational positions from the Diocese of Ballarat and as a result was on our committee for a year. There was never any doubt that he would one day be a Cardinal. Each year the role of chairperson of the Catholic Principals Association in the diocese of Ballarat was rotated. As Maryborough was the next one in order, and they couldnt really bypass me, I became chairperson for a year, by order of rotation. As a result I was involved in the opening of Catholic schools across the diocese of Ballarat, and would often say Think of anywhere else in the world, your Grace, where you would be associated with a Presbyterian leader of your educational system. Pioneering times in deed. My faith, which was almost naively born within me, was almost routine in its nature. The philosophy of the college emphasized developing a relationship with God and Im afraid at this time other forces in me were challenging this. During

this time I undertook to complete a Bachelor of Arts as a parttime external student at Melbourne University, majoring in Philosophy and Middle Eastern Studies, and I had already finished a post graduate Bachelor of Education program at Monash University where I studied a unit on the Philosophy of Education. These courses challenged me to think of existentialism. Existentialism is attractive if we see no more to life than we are born, grow, decay and d ie. I read J P Sartres Being and Nothingness and Simone De Beauvoire A Very Easy Death which suggested that life was just that. Platos Theory of the Soul allowed me to perceive that man has both a heart and a mind which react one to another. The spirit was separate from the body. Did this mean the Christian view of the soul and even the Holy Spirit was but a manifestation of a Greek world view? Had the values and tenets of Christianity, Judaism and even Islam come from a single source? If this was so then what made Christianity so unique? The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was nothing new, was he merely a prophet? They left their mark and reason started to prevail. Out went any idea of faith and in came a period of secular but sensitive humanism. No longer was the first commandment to love God required to espouse the second to love your neighbour as yourself. There was a constant reminder that there is a wider communion seen in the beauty of nature and kind acts of mankind or an ontological argument that dictates there has to be a reason and a cause of mankind. I began to accept that my mothers tortuous years of tumour were nothing more than a process of growth and decay. By 1977 her health had deteriorated greatly and we were all called to her hospital bed when she fell into a virtual coma. On her 65th birthday she shocked us all by suddenly waking up and singing Happy Birthday. She died three weeks later on Fathers Day. When she died I felt something inside of me happen. On seeing the lifeless form of my mothers body could I accept that this is the final end? Was this the decay of the body as foretold by Simone de Beauvoir or was it as the Greeks had foretold and Christianity espoused that the spirit left her body to be free? I was an existentialist no longer. I made the clear decision then that within everyone is something called the human spirit which remains and allows us to be in permanent communion with people we love. There was a greater meaning for life and I realized the world inside of me was changing because of the love and support of

kind friends and the incentive to improve came from affirmation. A lesson finally learnt. Simple it may be, but, during that time the spirit re-entered my soul from which it had left. It did not re-enter in an institutional form but as a spirit of community. Throughout the world and through various visits I observed the many visible signs of this ecumenical spirit. It is this spirit which recaptured my life that enabled me to say her physical form is dead but her spirit is ever within us. A few years earlier my parents had left their beloved home in Bulleen and had moved into a comfortable house in Mordialloc. I am grateful that during this time I got the chance to say to both of them how grateful I was for all they had given me and as far as I was concerned my career was a result of all their hard work and importantly I was proud of them as my parents. Maryborough was in reality a small regional community. It was a very human place and wasnt always perfect, it certainly had its tense times. For me there were personal struggles and after five years or so Id felt that what I had set out to achieve had been completed. Id overcome all the challenges and had worked with a community to make this ground breaking venture a success. I now needed to move on to something else and after the death of my mother I had a feeling of isolation here and wanted to be a bit closer geographically to my father. The Maryborough experience was one of the most powerful influences of my life and without a doubt it reshaped the next stage of my education journey. The people I dealt with were fine Christian and ecumenically minded people who had been very committed to higher ideals. The school started with one hundred and thirty students and when I left it in 1979 it had an enrolment of three hundred and seventy students (an increase of 300%), it now has five hundred. It was also achieving high academic success. During the life of the college the ecumenical nature of the community was strengthened with the formation of the Uniting Church. The continuing Presbyterian Church maintained a presence in nearby Carisbrook however the Uniting Church became a member of the Board. At the beginning of 2006, the education department opened a new major government education complex in Maryborough that incorporated the old technical and high school facilities. Rather than this government initiative being a threat to the Christian Community College, it actually increased the enrolment numbers as

some people, not everybody but a sufficient number of people, wanted something smaller that was driven by a sense of values and a strong sense of pastoral care. The Christian Community College is now bigger than it has ever bee n and yet one would have thought that with its vast range of facilities, the government school would have been more popular, but thats not really what matters in the education system. What the average parent wants is for the child to be recognized, supported, cared for, to feel safe and taught a good set of values that makes them a contributor to our society. It is also important that they have an education that allows them to be independent and to move on. The school would continue to have a global focus and seek to challenge its students on international and national social justice issues.

Chapter 17

THE EMERGING MIDDLE CLASS

Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of arithmetic -- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass By 1977 many of the goals that I and others had set out to accomplish with the ecumenical school at Maryborough had been achieved. That initial heady rush to build and create what had been a communitys vision was now over and the role became more administrative and routine. As a result there was a restlessness growing inside of me and I had a feeling that I needed to do more and that I could offer more to education. My vision was to create a liberal educational institution a system which would provide students with cultural enrichment through access to music and the arts, youth training, sport and other activities which were so frequently denied to the majority of students, all those things I felt I had missed out on. Rural Maryborough, although isolated, provided an amazing range of education

opportunities to its local students, due largely to the commitment of so many community minded people who believed in the vision. However I was now beginning to assess what I could do next in my career and in particular transfer the Maryborough experience to a wider community. My social needs were definitely expanding. Towards the end of the following year I took leave and visited a number of places around the world where I was honoured to witness the many visible signs of the ecumenical spirit including the Taize community in France, the Brigidine Superiors Convent in Tullo, Ireland, The Dublin School of Ecumenics and the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, an inspirational church that was later to be headed by Bishop Desmond Tutu and who had some very progressive views on ecumenical and social issues. On the returning Qantas flight from South Africa to Perth in May 1978 I read an advertisement in The Age for a foundation principal of a new school being developed by a group of interested parents in Melbournes outer east. The role of foundation principal was something I had thoroughly enjoyed and a role I felt very comfortable with. They sought a person of enthusiasm, experience, initiative, ability, integrity and leadership and I felt I had at least some of those qualities. I also felt I still had a number of educational and social goals I wanted to achieve through the schooling system and this seemed like an ideal opportunity to pursue those while building a school that could benefit the students that attended, and the wider community. So when I returned to Maryborough I applied. The conception of this school began when Kingswood College, formerly Box Hill Grammar, realized that its increasing student population meant that it would have to look at expanding by establishing a second campus. As land was cheaper in the Yarra Valley, and it sat at the end of the same railway line, they looked to this part of Melbourne for their plan, especially as there were also few independent schools in this fast growing area. In order to ascertain what support there was for a new church-based independent school in the Yarra Valley, a meeting was held in November 1976 to gain expressions of interest from those who lived there. Even though the response at the meeting was encouraging, Kingswoods school council decided not to go ahead with the project. However the actions of Kingswood College had sown a seed with those in that area, who now decided to look into the possibility of establishing a new coeducational independent school themselves. For years now there had been a growing awareness in the community of the importance of education and the

emerging middle class families of this area were now in a financial position to give their children more than a government school education. There was also a concern regarding the lax attitude in local schools including the perception that casual dress and smoking in schools was allowed, all of which was not to their immediate liking. They wanted a school that could provide a disciplined, structured, caring approach to education. With Kingwoods support these much energized parents organized another meeting of supporters in Lilydale in September 1977 where they formed a steering committee, the Chairman of which was the Rev Leigh Speedy, the energetic Principal of Kingswood College. With his experience and knowledge the steering committee, made up mainly of prospective parents of the school, looked closely at what the Rev Speedy had helped to create at Kingswood and modeled much of the school on that. Over the coming months they decided it would be a school founded on Christian principles, designed to deliver a sound academic education within a caring environment. They also wanted to keep the class sizes small, the fees low and to open the school to a wide cross section of society. At the time it was suggested that school teachers should be able to afford these fees. Eventually they came up with a name for the school Billanook College, coming from the Indigenous name for the Yarra Valley area that it is said came from the sound of croaking frogs, and a motto: Growing and Caring. Later the music director Bruce Rowland, best known for having written the film score for The Man from Snowy River, wrote the school song Oh Billanook. Helen Hoyle was convinced it was the same tune as the Raoul Merton Shoes advertisement from the sixties, which Bruce had also written. Still we made him an associate member for his efforts. The committee initially sought a location at Mt Evelyn but finally settled upon ten hectares of land in Cardigan Rd, Mooroolbark, which sloped down towards Brushy Creek and had formerly been used as a market garden. The original formation group of parents signed as guarantors to borrow the money for the land which was supported by some assistance from the Uniting Church, even though they had given no undertaking to be involved with the school. The action of these parents to initially guarantee the loan was a significant act of faith and thus they truly deserved the title of Founders.

The efforts of Carolyn Stone during this period cannot be understated, her and her husband Derek were part of that initial group that drove the project hard. Anne Knowles was a co-sponsor of the advertisement and provided a wonderful creativity having been a potter before becoming an active teacher in the art department. Once the committee had a site for the school they now needed to appoint a principal to provide the leadership and vision. I applied and the interview was undertaken at the home of Rev Leigh Speedy at Kingswood College by a panel of seven from the Billanook Education Committee. It was made clear to me that the role would require me to work closely with the parents, as they were the founders of the school, as well as local church and community groups, which was not too dissimilar to Maryborough in the early days except there were no Brigidine nuns. In September 1978 I received the good news that I was to be offered the position with unanimous support from all panel members. The plans were now to open the school in February 1980 with Grade 5 to Year 8. As I didnt want to suddenly leave Maryborough, and I felt it was important to have a detailed hand over to the next Principal, for the next twelve months I managed both the school in Maryborough and acted as the Principal-Designate of Billanook. I enjoyed the dual role, even if it did mean extensive travel between the two schools. Once I finished up at Maryborough I moved to 34 Wellington Rd, Clayton, right opposite Monash University, where I lived before moving to Kew at the end of my first year. The locating to Kew was as much determined by the fact that in my last year at Maryborough I became involved with four others in the establishment of the Goldfields Restaurant in the town. This restaurant was virtually constructed by hand, including the mud bricks, by my partners. Of a weekend I was permitted to put my youthful work experience into good use and act as a waiter there, which meant driving to Maryborough and back every weekend. You could say at that stage that I was serving the area of the outer east rather than living in it. Billanook College was to be a school that was to have its own distin ct ethos, one that I was closely aligned with, and so once again I was given the task of transforming an educational vision into the reality of an educational institution. Over the next eighteen months I worked closely with the Planning Committee, all

very energetic people who were mainly young professionals in their thirties and seeking to provide an education facility for their children. It also meant for me an endless round of meetings and information nights to get everything up and running. In September 1978 Neville Skewes and Kathleen Evans came on board to start running the school administration centre. I started a few days after them and just managed to answer my first welcome phone call from Carolyn Stone on that first day as I was sound asleep on a mattress on the floor. The day before I had been flying back from the UK when the flight I was returning on was diverted because of a fire at the Bombay airport. As I was running behind time because of this I ended up driving straight to the school from the airport at 5.00 am. My main tasks throughout 1979 were to assist in the development of specific educational outcomes, establish an appropriate organizational model, borrow funds and appoint staff. The founding staff were a group of highly dedicated professionals, who worked hard to espouse the value system upon which the school was based. Peter Barnes, a former colleague from Haileybury, Rick McWaters, the physical education teacher and a past student of mine, Cath Foliot, who taught languages, Tom King, a highly regarded primary teacher, Val Edwards, who taught special education and had followed me from Maryborough, and Ruth Small & Jane Tyrrell who brought together art and home economics into the one portable. Peter Barnes, our Chaplain, had learnt to respond to various church settings. He was the Presbyterian chaplain at Haileybury which he gave up at the Union of the Uniting Church. Subsequently he was admitted as a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church and then as chaplain at both Billanook and Kormilda. He was our own Thrice Vicar of Bray, the vivacious vicar who lived under King Henry the Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth and was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. Peter stayed true to the Uniting Church and therefore better than the Vicar of Bray. Tom Yardley who, with extensive curriculum experience, became the Director of Studies and did exceptional work, and Helen Hoyle was a special appointment who became Vice-Principal. Helen was brought in to teach liberal studies, at the time she was being put offside by the Presbyterian Ladies College, where she worked, being taken over by the Presbyterian Church and was happy to transfer to us. Some of the other original staff of that first year included Jean Ness, Andrew Smith, Jan Padgham and the grounds team Stuart Barnard, assisted by Kieran Schmidt from Maryborough and Andrew Grevis-James from Haileybury. They all helped set the very foundation of the college.

Essentially I believed management should be by group consensus and not a top down patriarchal model. This meant staff were involved at different levels of the education management process, although I am sure that not all agreed that this is what actually happened. For me it meant I was dependent on the integrity, skill and trust of the staff that made up the various working groups. Another major task was to negotiate the relationship of the College with the Uniting Church. There was a significant debate at the time as to whether Billanook should be a Uniting Church school or not. During this period the Uniting Church Synod argued amongst itself about the role of Uniting Church schools, an argument that was aggravated by the pressure from a number of exPresbyterian Schools to gain more independence in their governance. Our initial application to the Presbytery of Maroondah to become a Uniting Church school failed on the casting vote of the Presbytery Chairperson. Billanook College then sought recognition by the Synod and the debate that followed became so lengthy that it was deferred to a Saturday meeting where a quorum was not secured. Our application was then referred to the Synod Standing Committee and as a result Charles Lavender, Moderator and Chairperson of the Standing Committee, decided to facilitate Billanooks involvement as a Uniting Church school. In fact it ended up taking another three years, after much negotiation between the Uniting Church Synod and the School Board over the nature of the partnership between the two bodies, before we actually became a Uniting Church school. I was involved in the development of the building program. Architects plans were discussed and agreed to and in the end it was decided the school would have a staged opening with Stage 1, a modern, functional building that would be the Junior School for Year 7 to Year 8, to be ready by term two of 1980 and would be the first of three sub-schools to be built. I felt the centre space should be the resource centre and you face all the classrooms into it. I always looked upon the design as a library with a school attached. Billanook secured a government grant to assist in getting this building constructed and undertook a loan to finance the rest. The Board was much relieved later when the school secured a State Government guarantee over its loans. Its design, with a central space, had been shaped in my mind by a lecture organised by Areta McCulloch, the President of the School Library Association of Victoria, and her husband Professor McCulloch of Monash University, who arranged for

the Morrisons from the USA to speak on the changes in librarianship. The concept of making the library part of the educational program was part of the broader growing community library movement, which was quite radical when I was a librarian but is now part of most educational centres. It was a privilege to have served with John Ward the tireless worker for the School Library Association of Victoria and the Australian School Library Association who was active member of the board to establish Braemar College, a new ecumenical college at Woodend borne out of Clyde School that consolidated with Geelong Grammar. The school was set in a beautiful environment, in fact in the early days you could hear bellbirds, and at its heart was Brushy Creek. From the outset, the Board decided that the school buildings should be clustered around the creek, which we called the Peace Sanctuary. As the Peace Sanctuary was the geographic centre of the school, it provided a sense of nurture and reflected the school motto Growing and Caring. The Board also insisted that a sports oval was included in the plans, to which I reluctantly agreed. My only contribution to the oval was to secure some goal posts from the VFL which I audaciously suggested that we use as supports on which to grow beans at the rear of the property. Early on Dame Phyllis Frost agreed to become the Patron of Billanook College. All her life she had been a tireless welfare worker and a philanthropist, most notably helping women in prisons and acting as chair of Keep Australia Beautiful. Her Christian philosophy of love your neighbour and treat others as you would like to be treated; together with the belief that it is only in helping others that the human spirit can achieve happiness and rest, underpinned her work and made her an inspirational Patron. Throughout my time at Billanook she was a good friend to me and, as she only lived in Croydon, we had regular lunches together, artichokes being her specialty. She gave an excellent address at our Foundation Dinner in Blackburn and later officially planted the Billanook Tree on the school grounds where she gave me a tea towel for Mrs Harris. Wherever she could she gave great support to the school. When she died in 2004 it was a privilege to read a gospel passage at her State Funeral at St Michaels Uniting Church in Collins St. By the end of 1979, with the new staff on board, we had worked out the curriculum and had organized the booklists. Kay Roberts was brought on to tackle the new resource centre, and did so with enthusiasm, Janet Beaves, fresh from Maryborough, assisted her and Gerard Murphy, a former school captain and teachers aide at Maryborough, was paid to cover the books which he then

promptly outsourced, making a profit in the process. Peter Silverwood, also from Maryborough, joined us in the second year to head up the science program. It was determined that the school would have a Christian ethos and the curriculum framework would be similar to the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme. Extra -curricular activity was focused on social issues rather than sport, unlike other independent schools, there would be no compulsory after school or Saturday sports activities. That initial creating period was one of the most interesting periods in my life. The Junior School building wouldnt be ready until term two. Rain and mud slowed the process on several of the buildings being completed on time, adding greatly to the costs. I felt unable to report to the Board that some of these delays were in fact the result of one of the bolder girls who had decided to bare her breasts at the workmen. Their union representative said if happened again work would stop completely. However the beginning of the school was saved by having portables trucked on to the site in readiness for the arrival of the first students in February 1980. On that first day I introduced these foundation students to one of my favourite books, Alice in Wonderland, with its theme of who are you?. That along with The Little Prince (it is time I have wasted on my rose that makes my rose so important) and Jonathon Livingston Seagull (is it wrong my brothers to find and follow a meaning) pointed to a wider set of values which encouraged the discovery of the uniqueness of each person, to give generously the resources we have and the possibility of finding and following a meaning in life. I would quote from them often during my years at Billanook. I was concerned that every student should understand the power of love. Then, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon in June 1980, Billanook College was officially opened with an Opening Ceremony and Service of Dedication at the newly built Junior School. Over five hundred people were present including many VIPs from the three tiers of government and from the church to watch the Federal Minister for Education, Wal Fife, perform the opening duties. As it was stated in the school history the school, which had been a parent dream only two years earlier, had now become a reality. Soon after government funding for Stage Two, a primary school building, was announced. That first year was certainly an exciting and demanding time. I do have to admit though that the first year was darkened somewhat by the passing of two of my aunties in England and a number of emotional family issues that arose, the worst

being the death of my Father. He had showed by his dedication to my Mother what is meant to love, the best quality of love. We interred him alongside my Mother at the Templestowe Public Cemetery and we had written on his plaque I loved and I tried. He certainly did. I know his example of the way he lived his life taught me the very meaning of love.

Chapter 18

GROWING AND CARING

It is the time that I have wasted on my rose that makes my rose so important. St Exupery, The Little Prince By the end of the first two years a School Council and a College Association had been established to assist with the schools future planning and fund raising. The school was created by the parents and they continued to serve on the School Council and the various committees of the school. They drove th e establishment of the uniform & book shops and after I conceded defeat established a successful canteen. The money raised secured the adjacent block of land on which the viticulture farm is now located and the Old Market Theatre was later built and constructed by parents staff and past students to provide a centre for alternative theatre in the region. We also introduced school camps and organized the first of the annual school musicals. Mind you I felt driven by some inner need, yet with no talent, to participate in the school musicals beginning with Joseph and his Technicolor Dream Coat. Thanks to the staff and June Tyrrells costuming I managed it. However some years later as the Modern Major General, matters came to ahead when little did I know I was creating chaos for the producers because my splendid costume was see through. By then the staff had enough so it was either me or the musicals. I have to concede they grew from strength to strength after that under the leadership of Bill Robinson. In all my assemblies I left all the hard discipline matters to the Vice-Principal and the heads of levels as I was mindful of being clear of the message. One time I rode into assembly on a horse, owned by the school captains mother who taught pony riding, which was led by an eight year old. The theme was Dont be Led - be Yourself but alas when I turned the horse around it sped off like a horse in the final scene of the movie El Cid. This incident took me back to my youth when I was asked to ride and exercise the local butchers horse when suddenly it decided we should be in a steeple chase and jumped the nearest fence throwing me onto the ground beforehand. I do have to admit that the horse riding badge I earned in Scouts came from riding our old horse Judy. I should have given up any pretence of being an equestrian then! My entertaining five minute assemblies finished off with a grand finale with me riding in on the back of a Harley Davidson while the Beatles All You Need is Love played, my final message to the school. I believed that if the Grade 1 five year olds could understand the message then the seventeen year olds at the back could as well.

Speech Nights gave me another chance to perform with the highlight being taking a primary school presentation evening dressed as B1 from Bananas in Pyjamas. On another occasion I dressed as Superman and flew around the stage, well by video at least, after having changed in a telephone box on stage. I hoped that students not only remembered these but also understood the messages they gave. I was also driven to ensure that every member of the community was recognized and felt special. Each year I would borrow a strategy from DMB and interview each Year 12 student and write in and sign on a bible especially for them. The end of year staff party was always held at my house after the presentation night and I tried to organize for these events to be a happy time to celebrate. Mind you the performing staff always growled as they had to tidy up after the presentation evening and usually missed out on some of the food and fun. But at this annual staff function I always made sure everyone received a small gift and a personal letter. Towards the end there were so many I had to write for that it felt like I had to start the project in May! As I wrote those letters I would focused on that person at the exclusion of all others, just as if they were the most important person in my life at the time. I wanted to recognize each one as being important. The site was wonderfully landscaped to emphasize its natural beauty by Rodger Elliott, who had once worked for the gardening guru Edna Walling, a renowned landscape artist who once lived not far from the school grounds. Working alongside him on the project was his wife Gwen. By the end of 1981 Stage 3, the Middle School and Science block buildings, were completed and the following year Stage 4, the Senior School and gymnasium, were also built. The only major crisis I faced in that first year at the school was whether to continue to allow the home economics teacher to continue to put sherry in the trifle after a complaint was received about children using alcohol, even if it was only for cooking. It was during this period that the State Minister for Education wrote your school represents the very best of what can be achieved by co-operation between government, committed individuals and the community in which you live. Billanook offered the opportunity to create a wider national and international outreach, which enabled me to participate in an emerging range of world issues. With this growing interest in globalization and international education, I explored the involvement of Billanook in the Round Square Organization and in the establishment of an International Schools unit. The Round Square Organization was a grouping of twenty international schools based on the philosophy of Kurt Hahn, who established the Duke of Edinburgh Program. Kurt Hanh, a German Jew, escaped Nazi Germany and established Gordonston, a school in Scotland

that was later attended by the Duke of Edinburgh, and then very reluctantly by Prince Charles and Prince Andrew. The current Chair of Round Square is King Constantine, the former King of Greece. He had been taught in the palace by Jocelyn Winthrop Young, a Hahn protg and later Director of Round Square. I recall meeting the King one time in Canada, he is the same age as me, and I asked him when we were in Qubec whether he would be climbing this certain mountain that afternoon. He indicated he was too busy negotiating the sale of the crown jewels to go along so I staggered off up the mountain. Later on I asked him if he had sold the crown jewels and he said no but he had sold a palace. A number of years ago I arrang ed for him to visit Darwin to see the Essington School where I was working as a consultant. We booked him into the expensive Beaufort Hotel but alas when he turned up there was no sign of a booking until someone finally located it under the name Mr King! The Round Square Organisation connected us to a range of schools throughout the world as a way to try and lift the schools thinking as it was still a very Anglo Saxon community. My desire to teach mandarin to all students was a fine idea that I thought would link in to our need to understand Asia better. Unfortunately the Anglo Saxon culture was too strong and it was eventually phased out. I really wanted the students to experience a sense of creativity, independence and to be empowered with a sense of social justice and a clear understanding of the world view. The Round Square and Gap programs began a series of significant exchanges both ways to other countries. The involvement with the Pan Pacific Association of Private Education, which represented private schools across the region, was an annual event. As a VicePresident representing Australia, New Zealand and the USA I brought our Anglo culture to the group, which had been formed by education leaders in Japan, Korea, Taiwan (ROC) and the Philippines. It was always hard to argue to the National Council of Independent Schools Association that this body, representing so many educators running large schools, deserved the same recognition at the Headmasters Conference in the UK or USA. This didnt happen in my time but I suspect now that the times have changed with the emergence and even dependence on the Asian student market. Global Connections, another program, linked the college with educators from around the world that were doing amazing things. Like for example the Principal of a school in the wildlife park in Zimbabwe, he told me his balance sheet included

two worn out giraffes and some lions, and the Principal of the school on the West Bank in Palestine who, whilst outlining the daily program, indicated that it was occasionally interrupted by a siren that required the students to throw stones at nearby Israeli soldiers. Mind you this was all upstaged by the founding Principal of a Doon School in India, which was located in the Maharajahs palace. His royal son was enrolled at the school and arrived every day on an elephant and with body guards on horseback. The Principal was required to direct only the traffic and students inside, elephants etc were to stay in the car park outside. Another program we instituted was at the completion of each term students were required to participate in either rural placement, community service, environmental stewardship, placement with Indigenous communities or an outdoor education experience. These were issue-driven programs to enable these young people to perceive a role they might play in their local communities through participation in social justice. A rural placement would include the expectation that the student would live on a farm, catch the bus and go through the routines of what it was like to live in that setting. We also commenced environmental expeditions into the Daintree Forest. I was trying to create a situation where the students were asked to consider the social issues of the day. Work experience was a key part of these programs and Glenn Bock played a pivotal role in organizing this, his daughter Caroline later became a playwright and formed her own production company. The school also purchased a site on the beautiful Banksia Peninsula, an area Id known since Haileybury days, where we regular conducted outdoor education programs. Tony Pammer, a youthful and energetic leader, established this along with the outdoor education group. Sadly the site was later sold when the nature of outdoor education changed and the site was considered surplus to the colleges needs and was required to help the colleges cash flow. For me though, with the new emphasis on sustainability in schools and the community, it could have been kept in its natural state as a contribution to the environment. Our Patron, Dame Phyllis Frost, had a very long commitment to changing the thinking on womens prisons and she encouraged me to become involved in the advocation of education-in-prison as a way to reform. I had been a Commissioner for Taking Affidavits for a number of years which led me to become an Honorary Probationer in the Juvenile Courts. Here I became very aware of the impact of custodial sentencing and as a result I helped to establish at Billanook the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre. This was a program to enroll students who were facing custodial sentences with the aim of re-integrating them into mainstream education

and training and it later extended its services to all students with a physical or learning disability. The program required significant dedication from the staff and it was not well received initially. However if our expenditure on these students was kept at 15% of our total expenditure, our funding level improved. In fact it meant we reached a level 6 (out of 10) that gave us much better government funding, better than we would have received otherwise. This level was maintained over the life of the college while I was there and gave it huge benefits. Billanook College also explored a memorandum of understanding with The Village School in Croydon, a school established by Carol Glover. Carol had grown up in England where she had worked as a teacher at a number of progressive schools there. She came to this country in 1972 when her hu sband Trevor was appointed managing director of Penguin in Australia. Planning to stay only three years, they enjoyed their life here so much that they decided to stay on. For a number of years she worked at ERA, an alternative school, but soon realized there was a need for a balance between the traditional approach to education and the laissez-faire approach adopted by alternative schools. In 1982 she and two other teachers decided to set up a community school on land she was able to negotiate to lease from Penguin that next to their office in Ringwood. Starting off in a weatherboard house, a small warehouse and an old army hut she took on the role of founding Principal. Carol always held a strong belief that this school should be child-centred and provide a progressive, independent primary school with class sizes small enough to allow meaningful interactions between children and teachers. Before long they moved to a four hectares site in Croydon that had a series of portable classrooms. The Village School was a progressive alternative community school with a local student focus which, to a certain extent, had a large influence on junior teaching in Victoria, in fact at one stage there was talk of amalgamating the school with Billanook. Carol Glover and I became close friends and I soon had her join the Billanook School Council where she helped shape the design of the Billanook Primary School during her time there. An agreement was reached so that students completing their primary education there could enter the Billanook Secondary School. Chris Smith attended both schools and was elected a Billanook School Captain and recently graduated as a PhD from Melbourne University. Unfortunately the arrangement did not last because of the different cultures of the schools and it all fell apart when Carol moved to the United Kingdom in 1987, her

husband became managing director of Penguin in the United Kingdom, and I took leave to go to the Northern Territory. To cater for the specific needs of some students, Billanook introduced a vocational education and training program, which was a new initiative in independent schools. The college promoted vocational subjects off campus at the Wantirna and Croydon campuses of Outer Eastern TAFE where many of the more able students enrolled for an electronics course. Russell Eley made sure the timetable was flexible to cater for this pioneering move which set the scene for Billanook to be a strong VET provider, including the innovative Horse Studies and the Viticulture program that was introduced by the next principal. There wasnt strong support for this move at the time, and to gain some level of political acceptance, I joined and later became Secretary and Chairperson of the Australian Council of Private Education and Training (ACPET). This organization played a significant role for me, as I became Chair when it was technically bankrupt and had only twenty-five members. I was involved in organizing conferences, working with Alan Manly on the introduction of the Tuition Insurance Scheme and with Laurier Williams on constitutional change to introduce a federal structure. ACPET now holds a leading role in Australian education and training with over a thousand members. Once Billanook secured its position as a Uniting Church school, I followed Rev Bert Stevens, Principal of Penleigh and Essendon Grammar, Rev Leigh Speedy, Principal of Kingswood College and Des Davey, Principal of Eltham College as Secretary and Chairperson of the Uniting Church Education Committee. These men were active church people in education and drew on the resources of the schools to assist with the work of education within the Uniting Church. The Uniting Church Education Committee represented many fine educators in both government and Uniting Church schools, tertiary training institutions and chaplaincies. The Rev Alex Fergusson was a leading Minister at the time who promoted the concept of Uniting Church low-fee schools. I chaired a Committee of Review which, because of the nature of the people appointed, led to a result suggesting there would be no change. I always struggled to keep Billanook as a low-fee school, as it was nonsystemic, and there was continual pressure to raise the fees in order to meet the increasing demands of the market. A pressure I bowed to was reducing the class sizes to twenty-five with the objective of all students of all abilities being catered

for in the class. This did not eventuate and only put added upward pressure on the fees. Throughout this time I continued with post graduate study using as the theme my time at Maryborough, it was entitled Ecumenism and Education The Christian Community College, Maryborough. By now the college was being accepted by the wider education community. Things were progressing very well, so much so that I decided to take twelve months leave from the college to take up a position in the Northern Territory where I had the opportunity of assisting a group in our society who had long been denied access to good education, our Indigenous people

Chapter 19

CHANGING THE MINDSET

We called him Tortoise because he taught us. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the LookingGlass I initially visited the Northern Territory to review St Philips, a residential hostel and school for isolated students set up at Alice Springs. At the time Jan Heaslip, the President of the Isolated Children and Parents Association, had been advocating for the creation of an independent school in Alice Springs and Chris Tudor, a former staff member at Maryborough, was now the Principal at St Philips and had requested the Victorian Synod to send a representative there to review it. As I was selected I worked with Chris to put together a strategy for submission to the Northern Synod. This was eventually successful and the St Philips became an independent school. Then in 1987 I was invited to speak in Tennant Creek at the annual general meeting of the Northern Territory Isolated Childrens Parents Council. This I did in my capacity as a member of the Country Areas Program and as an educator who had experienced life in rural Maryborough. After the conference I was approached by both the Minister for Education and a member of the Northern Territory Department of Education who wanted to speak to me. They basically said to me look weve got this school in Darwin which used to be an Aboriginal school owned by the Federal Government that was given to the Northern Territory Government when we became self-governing. Its not very

economical for us to run and weve offered it to the Presbyterian Church but theres been such a negative reaction about that. We need to l ook at different ways of running the school and we have formed a board. In short would you consider applying for the position of Principal? This put me in a real situation, what was I going to do? Whatever the personal struggle I had had over the years with the nature of the divine, there has always resided within me a deep sense of compassion for, and a struggle with the need to care for, the less disadvantaged. The church does espouse a social concern and this has allowed me, apart from whatever personal status it provided, to have a strong level of engagement in different councils of the church, particularly in education. It is a sense of spirit and a commitment to the validity of every human being that inspired me to espouse a Christian view within the educational establishments that I worked in or managed. At each point there was a drive to widen the mission of the church to give hope and empowerment to those who did not have it and our Indigenous people certainly didnt. I went to Darwin for the interview on the Queens Birthday weekend in 1987 without telling a soul. I was interviewed by an Interim Board, representing a cross section of Northern Territory interests, and at sunset that day we went out to East Point and Henry Newland, the secretary of the Northern Synod, offered me the position. The role was strengthened the following day when I went by small aircraft to visit Milikapiti (Melville Island) and Oenpelli (Gumbalanya). Graham Benjamin, the first principal of Kormilda, suggested they mus t have wanted me as I had used up his entire travel budget in that one trip. The weekend was finalized by consuming far too much red wine with Geoff Spring, the Director of Education. Once I had been offered the job I was almost too scared to tell them at Billanook. In the end the Board at Billanook, Chaired by Lionel Parrott, was very gracious and gave me leave to go and establish this new venture. Lionel has been an outstanding support to all my endeavours in education. Not only was he Billanook Chair for four years at the time that I established Kormilda, but he has been an active member of the Uniting Church Education Committee. He has battled bravely to get the church to acknowledge a role in TAFE and Higher Education and strongly supports chaplaincy. Lionel has also been willing to assess the performance of all the schools with which I have been involved. With his twenty-three years in personnel at Monash University he has an excellent perception of what motivates people and is always ready to help others, provide support to his local primary school and is a prolific commentator on all aspects of education. Most importantly he is a trusted, critical and non judgmental friend.

After seven years, in the middle of the last term at Billanook, I was allowed a years leave to transfer to Darwin to help get Kormilda College realigned to a more purposeful educational outcome. Helen Hoyle had the confidence of the College Council and was appointed principal for 1988 and given full powers to act as such. However as Helen mentioned in her own memoirs I found it difficult to stay away and the fax machine ran hot throughout the year. My going to Kormilda for a year was a big commitment for Billanook College to make, especially as it meant taking on the problems of an Indigenous school on the other side of the country, and taking several staff to help me as well. In fact I took with me two teachers, two past students, the librarian and a secretary. These staff were augmented by young exchange students also from the school under the GAP program. Little did they know they were all about to be in the forefront of change, to change a significant school from one of welfare to an independent learning model. Im not so sure that people in the Northern Territory really quite recognised the effort, and the commitment, that Billanook made towards that school then. Theres no question in my mind that Kormilda wouldnt have developed the way it did without the team of people who were committed to the project at that particular time. In fact some of the staff, who went for a year to help out, remained for a long time and one is still there twenty-five years later. John Gaulke was recruited from Ballarat College insisting he would stay just one year and ended up staying for seventeen years, giving outstanding service as a maths teacher throughout that time. Kormilda College had been started in 1967 as a transitional school that would take in Aboriginal students from traditional communities and help them to adjust to non-Aboriginal society while undertaking post primary education. It was stated that the institution tried to provide a solution to all of the problems of Aboriginal education in the Northern Territory. However many felt it was more about assimilation than education and it received its fair share of criticism in those years leading up to my involvement. This was made clearer to me when I inspected the school and found several dozen pairs of highly polished black shoes in a store. When I asked what were they for, I was told they were purchased for the students to wear during a tour by Princess Margaret. Rolf Harris had also visited and the library had been named after him.

I took over the Directors responsibilities in Darwin in September 1987 and I worked there full-time all of 1988, concluding in December 1989. During that period one of my major tasks was to help transfer ownership of it from the Northern Territory Government and to a non-government school owned by the Anglican and Uniting Churches. At the time managing to commit the Uniting and Anglican churches to the ongoing development of the school was a huge achievement. The Kormilda Board during the transition was excellent indeed and the Chair of the new Board was Dr Jan Hills, a veterinarian and a formidable Northern Territory personality in her own right. In the first year the funding model was simple, Geoff Spring indicated he would give me whatever it had cost the government the year before. The school had been transferred from the Federal Department of Welfare to the Northern Territory Department of Education when the Territory received self government in 1977. After I chased every different department that had some dealing with Kormilda I announced that the figure was $26,000 per student. I then realized why Geoff looked so worried, he had to draw up a cheque for $500,000 (or thereabouts) to give to John Legge, the newly appointed bursar. Using this cheque we managed to open a National Bank account, only after much looking into by the bank as they didnt believe the cheque was real at first. As we were the only two signatories we quickly decided it was insufficient for us to do a Ronald Biggs and escape to Brazil with! This model, which was effectively a block grant for the year, gave security to the school for its employment. Thankfully the Minister, Daryl Manzie, was extremely supportive. The school was virtually transformed over the Xmas by Geoff Cross who, carrying his brick sized mobile phone, worked with the Department of Works to change the school from its dull grey Besser Bricks, mostly covered with graffiti, to a modern learning setting. To receive the all important Federal Government funding we also had to shift the curriculum from being a post primary school to a non-government school. What didnt help was at the same time the Northern Territory Government announced it would establish a Darwin International Grammar School. This came as a great shock to us trying to reopen a new Kormilda, however in the end, for whatever reason, the Grammar school was never opened and it didnt eventuate to become the threat we imagined it might be. The successful Essington School was established later and this responded very well to the needs of the emerging middle class.

Kormilda was created at the tail end of the assimilation policy, which simply looked at receiving students from their traditional communities and teaching them basic skills to cope in non-Aboriginal society. Rightly or wrongly, my feeling at the time was that learning the English language wasnt enough to significantly improve Indigenous education; we had also to change the mindset. My change in emphasis was to develop an educational program that was something closer to the approach taken at Billanook. My main aims were to provide all the students who attended with a high quality education aimed at assisting them to take their place, and play a constructive role in society. I wanted the school environment to support individual and cultural identity while encouraging rigour in learning and personal achievement. I also looked to have an increase in retention rates amongst the Aboriginal students as well as an increase in the attainment of qualifications and an increase in employment rates amongst the Aboriginal school leavers. Students previously were required to wear a different coloured uniform that they changed into everyday day as a means of controlling their cleanliness. Pocket money, books and living materials were also handed out on a daily rationed basis. We shifted this to a more mainstream approach, built some boarding houses and made the students maintain their own uniforms and taught them to be more independent. Also the first task we had in the library was to remove the books that had been generously sent to the school and replace them with contemporary publications that were of a higher interest to the readers. In many ways, working with Indigenous groups was a huge learning curve for me. Before I started there I didnt realise that different community groups spoke different languages. At Kormilda there were seven major languages and twenty seven Indigenous dialects spoken in the school making English the main communicator. There was also much rivalry between the different community groups, so much so that when the young Physical Education teacher, straight from Melbourne, organized a football match he unwisely organized one team from Arnhem Land and one from the centre. After the ball was thrown up it became a case of intense rivalry with fights breaking out all over the place and many students fleeing never to be seen again. The ABSTUDY forms, which are the curse of public accountability, have to be methodically and accurately filled in by each school. To my dismay when the first bus load of students arrived I could not seem to match the ABSTUDY forms filled in with the students getting off the bus. I was then told the ones on the ABSTUDY

list were needed for a football match so we sent twenty others. How do you explain that? Then the day I formally opened the new school in 1988, the local TV station rang to ask if it was true that the school had been declared a sacred site by the local Indigenous people, I had no idea. Furthermore I was told that the sacred Pukamani Poles placed in the front of the school by the local community were in fact facing in the wrong direction. I certainly had a lot to learn and these werent my only problems. The teachers union decided that starting a non -government school wasnt a useful thing for its membership. That quickly became another headache I had to solve. An important change I instituted was to open the school up to all students, not just Indigenous ones. We also looked at isolated Anglo families, Darwin day students and even overseas and interstate students. I was never sure whether establishing a multi-racial school was doing the right thing by the Indigenous people or not but I felt strongly that having an exclusively Indigenous school created an environment that was paternalistic. That was quite a big issue, because in effect I started a new independent, multi-racial school and for both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous families involved it was a big leap of faith. I was also concerned about the teaching of the English language; was it better in an all Indigenous setting or in a multi racial setting? I am now of the view that the multi-cultural setting is more effective. I also had to look at whether Indigenous people from isolated communities are better served when they are in a broader community, which has a sort of social infrastructure to support, or should the social standards of a particular community, which is still undergoing a lot of growth and development, be upheld to the exclusion of all others? I know that question is still being discussed as well. In that one very busy year we appointed new staff, reformed the curriculum, obtained extra government funding, doubled the enrolments to over three hundred students and launched a new building program. To secure the maximum funding we were initially required to have an aboriginal majority, about three quarters were, but after I left the government legislation changed to equalize funding and this assisted in bringing the balance towards more non-Aboriginal students. A brand new boarding house was designed for the school that totally reversed the managed model and encouraged students to self manage. In the end it won a

Northern Territory award for its innovation and led to the architect winning the contract for the new Northern Territory parliament house. In time, we set the curriculum so it became more a response to the needs of the European community, not necessarily the Indigenous community, one standard only. I also explored the idea of introducing the International Baccalaureate to give recognition to Indigenous languages. This was later introduced but used European languages, which really just catered to the non-aboriginal population of the Darwin community. However the good thing was that Indigenous students began completing Year 12 here, which had never happened when it was being run all those years by the government. Also while I was here I became aware that the Northern Territory didnt belong to the National Council of Independent Schools Association in its own right, rather it was represented by South Australia. My feeling was that there was specific interests, mainly to do with rural communities and Indigenous communities, which meant they deserved to have a seat at the national table, especially as it was a federal structure. After some significant debate and a constitutional change, both Kormilda, and St Philips met to form the Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory. At the time I had an overwhelming sense of profession isolation, an inability to talk to other educators close by and a sense that there wasnt much other support around by people who would understand how the private sector worked. Between the two schools we formed an incorporated association and claimed a place on the Board. Even though the two Northern Territory schools had a total of just two hundred and fifty, while Victoria had several hundred thousand, they did graciously accept us in. The national body, to give them credit, with the support of its Executive Director Fergus Thompson, embraced the new association. During that period we brought about recognition that there were specific interests in the Northern Territory such as rural education, isolation, Aboriginal retention, distance education, country areas programs, boarding and size of schools. These issues needed to be articulated in a national forum and we also needed to have these interests heard by Canberra, where all the key decisions were made. The Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory late r expanded when they added the Montessori Pre-School, which became registered as a school with fifty pupils. This number also included some very advanced 2 to 4 year

olds that made up the transition class. Brother Paul Brookes, who was seeking more independence for St John's College from the Catholic Education Office, was next to join and they were followed by the Lutheran Schools. The Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory managed to work with the Minister of Education, Fred Finch, in a significant shift by transferring their properties from leasehold to freehold and thus increasing their borrowing capacity. As result of my connection with the Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory, I was on the National Council of Independent Schools Association for seven years representing the Northern Territory; Chris Tudor followed me and later became the National Chairman. The Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory also ensured that the sector was represented on a broad range of committees including membership of the NT Export Committee and the Faculty of Education Board that was being formed after the Northern Territory took the brave and significant step of establishing a Northern Territory University, in spite of the Dawkins Reforms which required a higher minimum level of enrolment. I didnt really notice the isolation of Darwin being on the other side of the country until the pilots strike. Bob Hawke tried to break the strike and save our tourism dollar by bringing in airlines from near and far, including international ones. Sometimes we travelled in luxury with Brunei airlines with its gold taps and other times we were shaking with fear on a Yugoslavian Airliners or an RAAF transport plane. One time I was forced to travel by bus and Max Walker, the Australian cricketer who was in the midst of marketing his latest book, joined the bus. As he slept beside me I thought I could add another chapter to these memoirs calling it My night with Max Walker, but he said nothing and neither did I. In 1989 I returned to Billanook and once again to my role as Principal however for the following year I also continued on as the CEO of Kormilda College. During this time Billanook helped provide all the resources to assist me to do this dual role, which meant travelling from one end of Australia to the other on a week by week basis. For the following five years I continued to visit the Territory now and then to visit the independent schools and to represent the Northern Territory on the National Independent Schools Association. It wasnt probably entirely appropriate, but it was where the resources were at the time. I returned to Billanook feeling renewed and inspired by my time at Kormilda. I really felt there had been a major mindset shift in Indigenous education. I was also very committed to the idea of a partnership with Billanook College and the

Northern Territorys Indigenous people. We also formed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indigenous community on Melville Island and we often had student exchanges and worked closely with the Aboriginal College Worawa in Healesville. I was really hoping that all the students could see themselves as equal partners in a whole range of different community groups. Whether it was a global connection; whether it was to do with the environment and sustainability issues; or whether it was to do with Indigenous partnership. The conviction for me was always that these are the all-important issues. The Rev Leigh Speedy once said of me that the world was my parish. I desired also that when the students left school they felt they were imbued with a desire to contribute to a more compassionate world themselves. Kormilda College has now found its own path in the education world and it has become internationally significant. I believe that much of that early shaping wouldnt have happened without the commitment and support of the people and staff at Billanook who, like myself, were ready to have a go with a new school. If God does exist and exists within the Uniting Church he certainly showed himself on the day of the preliminary match played at the MCG as part of the centenary celebrations of AFL football. The game itself was partly sponsored by Rio Tinto, an interesting question in itself as the Uniting Church was opposed to uranium mining. On the day the Moderator of the Northern Synod gave a blessing for Kormilda while the Moderator of the Victorian Synod gave a blessing to Billanook. I sat as a guest in the MCG watching the match in one of the new corporate boxes, which I noted had changed a lot since I was made to be part of one of the Es in WELCOME for the Queen's visit in 1954. As the game came to an end the Kormilda full forward took a mark and kicked a goal which evened the score. The siren then sounded making the match a draw and both moderators were vindicated God had answered my prayers, so I went home for a quiet drink. Throughout the nineties Billanook College acquired more land, committed itself to a new building program, expanded its enrolment to 1200 students and refined the curriculum. I also worked hard on further developing our open-entry policy and getting support for integration. I firmly believe that the heart yearns for a sense of fairness in the world where every individual in the world can be recognized and included in equal partnership because of their unique nature irrespective of age, gender, race, religion, disability or sexuality.

Early on I was challenged by a pamphlet filed under the health section entitled Young Gay and Proud. Over my time at the last three schools I was aware or participated in the ceremonies for six past students who suicided. The loss of life with its associated hurt remains inexplicable and it leaves for everyone an emptiness and a sense of failure. The Peace Sanctuary provides a spot where the life of every person can be recognized and over the years it became a treasured place to remember and celebrate the lives of people who had been important members of our community. There are many poignant memories. In 1990 Roger Hawthorn wrote a most detailed tenth year history of Billanook which not only stood the test of accuracy, but was a marketing triumph as he had assiduously ensured every member of the community was mentioned. Any memoir will always leave out someone who deserves attention but some who had to work closely to me, and had to handle the exhaustive pace I imposed, I believe need a mention. Russell Allison, a former student from Haileybury, and Judith Jorna, who flew her own plane to the interview and thus secured her appointment, established the Senior School. We had a ceremony to officially open the Senior School to which I wore my new bright blue academic gown with a soft dark blue mortar board and gold tassel. When Dame Phyllis Frost, who opened the school, saw me she asked me where my handbag was, did she know something? As a result I made sure I never wore the mortar board again. The Senior School went on to also develop an alternative Year 12 program that ensured that a range of student abilities were catered for. Throughout that time Russell managed to protect me, and the school, from my excesses and for this I am grateful. Russell later decided on a high profile business career in the funeral industry and was known for converting old reflection ponds into reception centres. Lately he has been heard to be promoting the freezing of bodies with cryonics, till science had discovered a means of their restoration, and sending the departed into space. There is much value in a B Comm from Melbourne University. Ian Moore and Jack Moshakis developed the Middle School and in spite of my reputation for not seeing sport as a high priority, I believe the securing of George Wilson, the many times retired Kingswood teacher and Secretary of the Eastern Independent School Sports Association, as the Head of Sport was a coup. This was enhanced when he became part of an almost unholy sports alliance with Stephen Clarke, a former dux of the college and physical education graduate.

Throughout my time at Billanook there were always strong, passionate and highly professional women who gave strong pastoral and counseling support. Commencing with Helen Hoyle and Val Edwards they were followed by Lynne Symonds, Wendy Cavanagh (nee Storey), Sue McChesney and Heather Marshall, a very supportive chaplain. Lois Dolphin burst onto the scene and drove so many areas of the schools values and culture program with passion and integrity. She originally believed that I had plucked her from the choir after seeing her sing at the Brigidines centenary celebration at Echuca. In fact she had been recommended to me by Sister Miriam Liston. The Head of English was Keville Bott, a former Principal of a school in Fiji, and when he retired from Wesley he joined our team with outstanding success and then continued on with a career in China. Cheryl Mutabazi, who I had to explain when she got the position was not African but married to an African and had two stunningly talented daughters, was employed as an English teacher and extended the Liberal Studies program in the senior years with a focus on key issues through the study of literature and film. Unfortunately this program was later squeezed out by the new VCE. Cheryl also had the unenviable task of implementing our HR policy and she promoted, and almost single handedly, established the school as an environment centre. My successor rightly appointed her VicePrincipal. Our public relations, which included Saturday morning tours, form dinners and magazine articles, was well organized by Marcia Cadoret who came with great style and flair, many said I was attracted by her hats. Following Marcia came Margaret Lanyon, a person who taught me the power of positive thinking. I dont think she knew an unkind word and always spoke glowingly of activities at the school. The curriculum was central to the school and specific in the schools formation. In this the college was well served by all its directors of curriculum beginning with Tom Yardley, who left a fine legacy, and followed by Russell Ely and Terry Boland who both gave outstanding service. Some appointments ended up giving a double benefit. When we had a vacancy for an art teacher I employed Barbara Bateman, a capable artist who used to live in my street in Bulleen. Barbaras husband was Brace Bateman who at that time was considering taking up the position of Presbytery officer for the Maroondah Presbytery. In the end we had Barbara teaching at the school and Brace serving on the College Board. The performing arts were always a hotbed of student activity and cultural dispute. Views varied from the need to expose students to classical music and drama to

allowing students to fully express themselves in their contemporary language . Glenn Davidson, with untold energy and a desire to completely revitalize the way drama and the performing arts portrayed the issues of the day, confronted the parents as they arrived at one Speech Night at the Dallas Brookes Hall with a display of poor students draped over the steps. This had a mixed reception but the majority of the parents and students loved it. At one time it was my dream to have a string orchestra but I learnt to accept and enjoy the cacophony of sound from the rubbish bin lid ensemble. Apart from Albert Long, who joined the staff to teach guitar after a career as an insurance salesman, most of the instrumental teachers were young students undertaking their training. Don Grimmett commenced as a young eighteen year old saxophone teacher and because of his commitment and enthusiasm ended up becoming the Director of Music. Flutes became a strong feature of the schools musical prowess and this was led for a long time by Nerida Coleman, an outstanding leader of the flute within the wider community. Pam French also taught the Suzuki method of piano. Short of a French teacher and a baroque music teacher, we advertised for a French speaking baroque flautist. With no local responses we were able to sponsor Hans Dieter Michatz to the country. He later went on to numerous teaching and conducting positions in this country and certainly contributed to baroque music through his work. Fresh from studying, Kodaly Andre De Quadros, an Indian from Goa, brought to the school a completely new approach to music education for children by introducing skills in accordance with the capabilities of the child, almost a child development approach. This required us to add to our musical instrument assets one crumhorn, nothing conventional for us! Andre moved on to significant posts within our universities and is now a very successful Professor of Music at the University of Boston. We had the full range of flutes including both alto and one of only two bass flutes in Australia. The bass flute and the crumhorn both disappeared and were eventually found by police at a Cash Converters. The school bell, which came from the Croydon Congregational Church, suffered a similar fate but we managed to find a replacement. As for the missing school flag, it was eventually found by a parent who discovered it when their son moved out of home! In this era I decided to move closer to the school and purchased a house first in East Ringwood and then at 6 Starcross Ave, Croydon, next to Gallipoli Crescent, affirming the view that post war expansion along the railway line was very much

by Anglo-Australian settlers. Locating to the area changed my whole view about community education and I became convinced that if you want to serve the community, you will best know it you live in it (a criticism that was justifiably levelled at me when I chaired the Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory). At Billanook I knew we were playing an important role in education. Thanks to the understanding of the Board, the school housed and supported the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, Pam Grant from the National Education Committee of the Uniting Church, the Victorian Synod Education Committee, Ed Marshal from the Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory, the National Council of Independent Schools Association, the Round Square group plus the PAN Pacific Association of Private Education. As well it gave eleven years of support to my position of Chair to the Sunshine Christian School and my involvement with the Outer Eastern Planning Council. I certainly owe a lot to Lyne Kelly the Secretary and Neville Skewes who tried to keep the various budgets under control as well as John Macarthur who tried to make sense of agendas. Even so, as the years 1995 and 1996 began to unfold, I felt that my time at Billanook was drawing to an end. There were quite a few issues elsewhere that I was wanting to be involved with and found it hard to divide up my time. There were also emerging issues at the school which had to be dealt with, apart from marketing and human relations issues, and I found contractual issues were becoming extremely frustrating. Just as important it needed a new person and new energy. As the school was not part of a system, and the market for students was constrained by the Yarra Valley itself, I knew the need to increase resources for the new educational paradigm was by an incremental increase in fees. However the position of the school, starting in the local community, was also shifting dramatically. As much as I would have loved to have started another campus in a growth corridor in opposition to a government school, financial prudence prevailed. Once again I enjoyed the creative part of the education but the ongoing maintenance of it I found very demanding, almost relentless, and not very stimulating. The management model allowed me to undertake the creative development of the college whilst the oversight and care of the people and members of the community was undertaken in a highly professional manner by the heads of levels and the directors of various programs, particularly the chaplain,

manager of health care (nurse) and the manager of human relations. These checks and balances were essential to the balanced growth and development of the school as it attempted to live out the motto of Growing and Caring. I was so fortunate to have so many capable people around me who could discern issues and make decisions in the interests of students and the college. By 1995 I sensed that I needed to conclude sometime soon. In September of that year I had come to the opinion that the college needed new energy and leadership to move forward. That confirmed in me the need to change where I worked. I indicated to the ever thoughtful and concerned Chair of the Board, Ros Morton, that I would not be seeking to have my contract renewed at the end of 1996. I felt that I would have a better sense of individual freedom to operate away from a bigger system and just to work for myself doing those jobs which I felt more comfortable doing. At the end of 1996 I completed my time at Billanook College and closed another chapter on my educational story. It was a correct decision and I was grateful to all of those who supported me in the journey, humble in the knowledge that the success of a school is judged not in the end by the leaders or in the buildings, but in the lives of students who have attended. When a student has, as Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote, the Courage to be, the school has succeeded.

Chapter 20

GLOBAL EDUCATION ENTERPRISES

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass For the first time in decades I didnt have another full time job to go straight into, a situation that was all my own decision. At this point of my life I was very clear about what I wanted. I was at an age where it had become acceptable to retire, as I was able to access my superannuation fund. The bigger question for me was to be free to explore projects of interest, without the accountability of a board. I wanted to be able to chose or not chose to take responsibility for a project and more importantly I wanted to feel I could initiate something new if I so desired. As I was still getting requests to be involved in projects that needed my experience and drive, I decided it would be best to set up my own consultancy company, Seething Pty Ltd trading as Global Education Enterprises. My company would be used to provide a range of educational, training and community services, encompassing all that I had experienced and all that I had seen had been successful and worked well. I wanted to ensure that any person in any circumstance could be empowered to be who they want to be, for me education was the answer. My vision statement for the company would be the culmination of everything I firmly believed, all of my attitudes and sentiments on social justice that I had developed after fifty-five years of a crowded life experience in the world of education. Global Education Enterprises clearly affirmed every persons equal right to education and a place in the world irrespective of age, race, religion, gender, sexuality, geography and physical ability. Many of these matters had already been addresses within the schools that I had been involved with. Education at Billanook for example was designed not only to create access, although this was somewhat diminished later on by price rises, but to create young people who would have strong views of the world and an understanding of the contribution they could make in it. My view was underpinned by my belief that the individual working as a private person or in a private business has the capacity to deliver with fairness, most of the

key social issues of the day. Where the task is so great or so impossible then government has a role to play. This philosophy underpinned the Australia Party of which I had been a member of in the early 1970s. They were fine ideals with mixed success. At the conclusion of my time at Billanook I believed that I would have sufficient resources to manage. In my first year as a Principal I had a gross salary of $22,000 per annum and in my last twenty-three years my gross salary was $120,000. Not a large fund was accumulated and the superannuation fund I had was modest because the cost constraints of the foundation years at Billanook could not pay out what would have been a target as set out in the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia membership documents. So eventually a sum that would generate $5,000 per month was agreed upon and now that I had retired as a Principal this amount would be used to help support the pro jects for Global Education Enterprises. Any fees received would also be used to promote and further the outcomes. However little did anyone expect years later that there would be a global economic crisis and this sum would end up being reduced to $700 per month. I am sure many staff and many communities were also affected in the same way and were forced to review their priorities. Still I believe people who have run schools have skills that can be successfully applied to a wide range of activities. In fact the most important resource someone like me can take with them is their Xmas Card list, it is people and networks where something new always ended up emerging. Commencing Global Education Enterprises allowed me to initiate a series of small training programs and consultancies with a variety of educational institutions and organizations right across Australia. Eventually it would also take me overseas to work at the regional international level. In those early days I transferred all of the activities I was involved in to a house I had purchased in Mt Dandenong Rd, Croydon, right behind my own house in Starcross Avenue. In the first few years we had quite a team going in that house as the Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, the Outer Eastern Planning Committee and the Uniting Church Education Committee Secretariat were all located there, as were the management of several conferences that were being organised. Eventually most of these bodies moved on to locations that were more central to their governance but it was certainly fun while it lasted.

At the time I left Billanook I was still involved quite heavily with the Australian Council of Private Education & Training (ACPET). This association had been formed initially by a number of business colleges that had lost their funding and had decided to create a working committee to respond to their economic situation. It commenced with an office in Canberra and a part time secretariat and in those early days both membership and funds were tight, so much so that when I joined I ended up becoming both a Board member and the Secretary to help out. The Chair, Kathleen Newcombe from Lorraine Martin Colleges, and the Treasurer, Carmel Thompson, attended the Pan Pacific Association of Private Education conference in Alice Springs, along with a number of stalwarts from Victoria like Julie Moss (later to become a long term Chair). While here they initiated the first ACPET conference, to be held in Surfers Paradise and to be organized by John Legge (from Kormilda). However at the conference Carmel Thompson was unable to secure a resolution passing the financial statements because ACPET was technically bankrupt at that point. Then Kathleen Newcombe resigned to start a family and I, as secretary, had to take over as Chair. Luckily Lorrier Williams and his colleges did not call in their loan and the conference was able to raise enough funds to keep the organisation afloat. Our finances were helped initially by what we made at the conference and with Billanook College assisting with a range of secretarial services. To minimize administration costs I also shifted the office to Melbourne, not a move that was greeted with delight by our New South Wales colleagues. Initially ACPET needed to respond to the way training was managed and the governance was restructured to ensure that the states were represented because of the role they played at the local level. This took some time, particularly in the smaller states, and I was pleased to be able to nominate David Cannon as the first representative of the Northern Territory. Fortunately the constitution at that stage didnt require the nominator and seconder to live there as it does now. David Pask, the state representative worked hard to look after Victorias interests and allowed me to extend and develop the local network. For many years we strengthened the local membership and introduced ACPET Training Awards, with the first Award Evening held at Treasury Place. Then the Federal Government Minister for Education and Training, David Kemp, introduced a minimum skill level for each trades training packages. ACPET, whilst being concerned about the one size fits all model, decided to become

extensively involved in Victoria with the implementation of the scheme to its private sector members, the hairdressers however were most reluctant. With the introduction of the Tuition Assurance Scheme for overseas students, its membership grew rapidly improving our financial situation a great deal and resulting in ACPET becoming the most recognized association of private providers in the country. ACPET had initially been a voluntary organization, apart from a professional executive officer, so when the group grew so quickly, the strain from the increased workload soon began to impact on the role of the directors. When it transformed from a voluntary organisation to a fully professional organisation there became a need to separate the professional functions from the directors functions and as a result there were a few casualties along the way. Now ACPET stands with around twelve hundred members and has clear governance guidelines in place. From small beginnings ACPET went on to respond to mammoth changes in the training market including the advent of the Australian Qualifications Framework, shifts in funding to the private VET sector and the increased diversity of training demands across each individual state. Now there are over three thousand private training providers training some 1.5 million students in a hugely diverse sector throughout Australia. It is to the credit of the Board of Directors and the professional staff at ACPET that so much was achieved. In 1998 I received a phone call from a young man who had lived within our community and who had been returned to the remand centre to be charged with, and later convicted of, armed robbery. He had already spent seven years in a custodial sentence for manslaughter and when he had come out of prison that first time I had been contacted to see if I could help because of my involvement in the courts. However during the short period between his sentences he hadnt been able to secure accommodation, a job or a loan. I assisted with guaranteeing a loan for a car for him and providing temporary accommodation in a rental house I had but it all ended with him resorting back to the drug scene which led him down a one way road back to prison. In the remand centre, and with the approval of the very professional correction officers, I spent many hours with him there to look at a long term strategy by which he could reposition himself into society when he exited from corrections next time, so that he would be secure and confident to have a meaningful role within the community. I offered to help on the basis that he would commence a university degree, even though he had left school at Year 9.

He seemed very able and as I had experience with Open Learning Australia, a consortium of seven universities that provided external tuition without any requirement for entry apart from the fee, I enrolled him in a unit of Sociology, a unit I always stipulated because of its focus on society. I paid for the fees from the funds I had received in Global Education and by the time his case was heard he had commenced study. When he came before the court he received a fair sentence which required a long parole period. Education and a long parole provision was, in my view, the means to assist with long term effective rehabilitation. I had later witnessed that whilst there was provision for rehabilitation in the final years of a sentence, it was often not taken up because of the cost of delivery and the desire to not cause any trouble. Therefore a long parole could be helpful. From this simple beginning I became very much aware of the complexities of securing adequate resourcing and support for prisoners in custodial settings. For five years I was involved with visiting and encouraging him as he completed a Bachelor of Arts as an independent student. It was during this time I became aware of the great deficiencies in the education system in regards to the correction settings. Most of the reports on mens prisons indicated the very low literacy rate amongst the eighteen to forty year olds that make up the majority in the prison system. Literacy was the focus and the Scaffolding Literacy Program that was used successfully in Indigenous education was a good model. I would advocate that these programs should commence at the point of sentencing but as the programs were TAFE administered they followed the teaching times of those schools and left many timing gaps as a result of their starting times. Open Learning Australia, and the associated universities, were always extremely helpful. The provision of higher education was not really on the prison agenda and would only happen because of the self motivation of individuals. I sensed that in the corrections system there were highly skilled and trained administrators but at the delivery level there was limited training of prison officers, who had a variety of backgrounds including military service. The ongoing upgrading of professional training and qualifications for these officers was an issue I have raised on numerous occasions. Supported by my good friend Dame Phyllis Frost, I have often rallied against societys idea that education is a luxury for a prisoner and have advocated that education is a way to improve recidivism rates. His success reaffirmed my view

that education intervention can change the mindset of an individual. I saw him become personally empowered through education, it gave him hope and it helped him to strive for something better in his life. Dame Phyllis was of the view that incarceration was the punishment, not everything that went on inside. She strongly supported the need to provide an effective setting for women and was instrumental in the development of Fairlea Womens Prison. Small in stature but fearless in natu re, I watched as some correction officers almost shook as she went on tours of the state prisons. It is my view that prisoners should be able to be part of a seamless pathway to take them through all the levels of the Australian qualifications framework, which means that if they are able then they should have the capacity to articulate directly into higher education. I said as much when I presented at the International Forum on Education in Correctional Systems Australia Conference in November 2001. I also presented a case for the review of access and delivery of higher education courses to adult prisoners to the Senate Committee inquiry into the quality of vocational education and training in Australia. On a visit to the Vice Chancellor of Monash University, who was Chair of the Vice Chancellors Committee who were advocating reform for prisoners, I sat in the office next to the council chamber and commented that last time I was here, the committee I was on were barricaded in by a student protest led by the political activist Albert Langer. You would be surprised how many people say that he replied. I wonder what happened to all of those protesters who wanted to change the world in those days, how much did they achieve for the betterment of our society? They did at least help get us out of the Vietnam War and that was a major achievement. When I stood in the 1972 campaign election I managed it out of my small flat at Monashs Farrer Hall. I suspect all I achieved was to add to the universitys running costs. For a year I also became the acting principal of St Johns Greek Orthodox School, a co-educational independent school in Preston also known as St Johns College. In 1984 the college moved to its present location which is on an old brickworks site, a move not originally supported by the New Schools Committee. Luckily though the school sat in Bob Hawkes electorate of Wills and the Greeks there very quickly gained the support of the Prime Minister and were able to achieve what they wanted. The College was founded to provide a form of education that reinforced Greek Orthodox cultural and religious values to the first, second and third generations of Greeks who lived in Melbourne and it came under

the auspices of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. I quickly discovered that there is a difference between the orthodox and more liberal Greek communities, with the orthodox communities originating mainly from around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. For a while St Johns had been experiencing a period of tension between the liberal and orthodox Greek communities and as a result the Bishop decided that it would be best to appoint an independent non-Greek person to act as principal of the school to help sort out the educational priorities. The General Secretary of the Synod, Rev Robert Johnston, received a request from Bishop Ezekiel of the Greek Orthodox Church as to whether he could nominate an acting principal from one of his schools. I had been undertaking some work for the Registered Schools Board at the time and so I was asked to come on board as principal to assist in rescuing its registration. On my way to the United Kingdom from Alice Springs I spoke to the Registered Schools Board and they agreed to defer their registration visit. During my time here, I restructured its overall curriculum program, re-advertised most of the positions and appointed heads of departments. It was quite a challenging environment, half the curriculum was in Greek and as I didnt speak or read the language I had no idea what was going on. Christian orthodox religious education, the Greek language and various teachings of Greek culture were an integrated part of the school curriculum in the years prep to 10 with students in Years 7-8 encouraged to try all subjects offered including dance, religion and the Greek language. This created some challenges however as, in order to meet the requirement so that the courses would be recognized, half the programs had to be taught in Greek. This meant the students were well ahead in Greek and when they sat their Year 12 Greek, in Year 11, they usually scored very well and were able to complete a full range of subjects in Year 12. To assist, the Greek government sent four modern Greek teachers to the school to help with the language lessons but unfortunately their modern Greek was from the nineteenth century and the books did not sit well with our modern Greek Australian students. Furthermore it was my task to ensure that these teachers were taught English. I do recall on one cold frosty morning convincing the primary school parents that we would have an assembly with a difference and we all got up and learnt to dance Zorba style, all holding hands with Teddy bears, and sang the Teddy Bears Picnic. This Zorbas style was a very real feature of the student presentation ball and it was lovely to see all the families join hands together and dance. Mind you my involvement in all things Greek on went so far and I gave the task of reading the school roll over to the Vice-Principal.

Still the purpose of this was to secure the schools ongoing registration. Illicit phone calls of complaint had been made to the Registered School Board outlining the schools weaknesses and at the conclusion of their visit they met and asked to see the library. I told them they were in it and that since the days of Socrates and Plato, the Greeks werent keen on books (I was trying to be smart). That evening I was downing a bottle of red wine pleased it was all over when I received a call from the caretaker to say that the school library was on fire. As I was in no condition to get there, the following morning I arrived to find the bishop berating the students for this misadventure, which had occurred on the last day of swat vac, I suspect the cause was a disaffected past student. In the end all went well as the Registered School Board indicated we had passed the inspection and our insurance covered the burnt out library, in which we had really only stored the Greek antiquities, and thus a new library would be built. I managed that for one year and it was quite an interesting experience. In the end we were able to appoint a new principal who had been vice-principal of a large Roman Catholic school and he knew how to work with religious leadership which is no easy task. The school is now however back in safe Greek orthodox hands and doing well. My desire now was to contribute to the broader development of school communities in a variety of settings. This included assisting the Seventh Day Adventist School to shift from Croydon to Lilydale and to extend my consultancy to become involved with the Essington School in Darwin. The review of some schools who were participating in the registration process gave me a sense of the breadth of education that was provided within the state. In all the schools I dealt with, the overwhelming positive aspect was the commitment of the teachers. From 1990 I had been living and working in the outer east and I soon came to realise that this area had a burning educational issue in that it was vastly underserved by higher education. A report at the time noted that the outer eastern suburbs had the lowest proportion of young people in Year 12 and the smallest participation rate of 17 to 24 year olds in higher education of any of Melbournes six main regions. Even the western suburbs, which had long been said to be the most neglected and impoverished, now had a bigger proportion of young people at university than us. At the same time the area was the second fastest growing region in Melbourne and 5.6% of all of the metros students resided here. Yet the outer eastern region was the only region in Melbourne without its own higher education facility, excepting a small satellite campus that Swinburne had set up in Mooroolbark to much local

controversy. Outer eastern students who wanted to undertake tertiary education had to travel many kilometres to do so, and if they caught public transport, spent hours a week to get there, which is why so many were opting not to do tertiary studies. As far as I was concerned those in the outer east deserved higher education facilities as much as anyone else. A Victorian Post-Secondary Education Commission set up to investigate the problem, believed the answer was for a single higher education provider to be established in the outer east. One person who quickly rallied to the cause was the local Member for Nunawading, the Hon Rosemary Varty, another extraordinarily determined woman whose path was to cross with mine. Rosemary Vartys family migrated from Scotland in the 1870's to establish a cherry farm in the Yarra Valley, on which descendants still live today. Rosemary, having been to school in Seville and Lilydale, moved closer to the city and soon became active in local council politics at Box Hill. She eventually secured a nomination as a candidate for a legislative council seat and in one historic bielection was declared a draw with her opponent, only losing the contest when her name wasnt drawn out of a hat. After an appeal and a re -election process, Rosemary won the seat of Nunawading and for many years was one of the few women in State Parliament and the only Liberal member in her area. With the election of the Kennett Government she was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to Cabinet and as her good friend I was honoured to share part of her political life with her (fondly called the handbag role) as I accompanied her to dinners, events and a Government House reception. The best of all was when she represented the Premier at the Australian Open and we got to sit in the big chairs in the first row behind the backline. Tennis may be good on TV but nothing is as good as sitting that close, you can hear the players breathing! For as long as Ive known her Rosemary has been ever gracious and a women of intense integrity. Rosemary soon gained support from her State opposition colleagues who began a campaign to push for a sixth university to be set up in the outer east and before I knew it I was fighting alongside her out of a sense of justice for the area I lived and worked in. We soon formed a working committee of supporters known as the Outer Eastern Planning Council of which I was elected Chairman. Believing strongly in the cause I became a vocal advocate for the sixth university attending numerous meetings and information nights over the coming years.

During this time I came in contact with another State member, Lorraine Elliott, who I found to be a very intelligent person and a dedicated local politician. We both got on well and she became an active member of the community liaison committee and even opened Billanooks Old Market Theatre in her position as Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts. Our initial aim was to get a stand-alone greenfields university however the powers that be werent keen on that and looked to a current tertiary institution to be responsible for it. In the end the only one really capable and willing to undertake the role was Swinburne Institute but they wanted to be upgraded to university status before they agreed. The government eventually allowed this to occur if they agreed to centre themselves in the outer east, something that never happened, and provide higher education to the outer east. By 1996 a beautiful new university campus was opened at Lilydale, above the lake area, and it was soon joined by a TAFE campus, which eventually merged under the Swinburne umbrella. For eight years Swinburne ran it as a regional university for the outer east and under the leadership of the inspirational Vice Chancellor, Professor Barbara Van Ernst AM, it became an innovative and multidisciplinary university that achieved much through its flexible teaching methods and successful range of undergraduate and post-graduate courses. It also forged important links locally with industry, community and Indigenous groups as well as encouraging international students. Swinburne University at Lilydale also looked to my expertise to assist them. I was hired as a consultant to undertake a range of tasks including: chairing the Outer Eastern Planning Council, initiating a range of activities with schools and tertiary providers within the region, developing policy for submission to governments and providing information to the university regarding the needs of the region. A major aspect to my role was to advise the university on marketing the Lilydale campus for the purposes of investigating the establishment of an International Student Centre at Lilydale. I also assisted them with the amalgamation of the independent TAFE on the site with the university. However in these institutions money unfortunately rules and in 2005 Swinburne decided that Lilydale would no longer be a regional stand alone university but merely a campus of Hawthorn. Then in 2012 TAFE cuts were announced by the State government and Swinburne took the opportunity to shut down the campus at Lilydale completely. With the prospect of the outer east once again being faced

with no higher education facilities I once more joined forces with local supporters to form a committee to help find a solution to the problem. Around this time I received a call from my old school at Maryborough, now known as Highview Christian Community College. The Principal there, Geoff James, asked me to assist with their strategy plan and commissioned me to conduct a survey of exit parents. The results helped the school decide what they needed to change and what they needed to keep to assist them with their future directions. During this period I became a registered Civil Celebrant (A3502) as part of a desire to provide a further layer to my community service. Meanwhile Australia was moving towards the end of the 1990s and the centenary of Federation was coming up. I was invited by Michael Wooldridge, the Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care, to sit on the local committee in the electorate of Casey to help decide which groups and which projects should get Federal funding to celebrate the centenary in Australia. It was one of the last projects I was involved with before I moved out of that area and into inner city Melbourne. This period also marked the end of my work with the Australian Council for Private Education and Training and the Uniting Church. Another organization I was actively involved with at this time was the Pan Pacific Association of Private Education, a Japanese driven international organization of schools in the region. I was elected Vice-President of this group and I ran two national conferences for them, presenting at the conferences in the Philippines, Jogjkarta, Kuala Lumpur and in Honolulu. I quite enjoyed being involved with these conferences, mainly because the English speaking people in these forums were in the minority. These international conferences were quite Asian driven and I think I learned quickly to understand that there are different frameworks to acknowledge and promote in the learning environment. I also spent much time organising the International Education Schools movement in Victoria and ended up managing a number of international conferences here as well. As a way of commemorating the centenary of Federation, it was agreed that that the 2001 Pan Pacific Association of Private Education conference would be held here in Melbourne in early October. Never one to waste an opportunity I asked Geoff Spring, the Director of Education in Victoria, if the Department of Education would be prepared to help sponsor the forthcoming conference and he agreed. Wesley College also came on board as the venue for the conference and Dame Phyllis Frost agreed to be the patron. As I was working on the organizing committee for that conference for almost a year, I ended up investing $40,000 of

my own money into it with the idea that when the participants arrived in late September, they would pay and I would receive my money back The conference was all set to go for late September and then two weeks before it was to start, an Islamist terrorist group hi jacked four commercial passenger airliners and in a coordinated attack drove one into the Pentagon in Washington and two into the World Trade Centres Twin Towers in New York, killing some three thousand people. The event shocked everyone and quickly resulted in huge impacts around the world. One moment we were all rolling along and then, like everybody else, we couldnt believe what was happening. As a result the various countries involved in the conference were advised not to travel and they wouldnt. As there was a very real fear of flying and nobody was going to leave home during that time, the conference folded overnight. Usually the delegations brought their fees with them and as they hadnt paid, I ended up losing my money in it. We had a few people who still turned up, the mainland Chinese came because it had taken them so long to organise it, so we had the task of making sure they had a worthwhile visit and ended up showing them around. We ended up holding a more modest conference in Cairns, where some of our money was recovered, however our insurance company didnt cover terrorists attacks and refused to pay for any losses. At the same time the Department of Education asked for its money back as the conference wasnt held and after much protesting and highlighting of the fact that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was cancelled also without asking for return of public monies, they graciously allowed me to keep the money for one more year. We had well and truly spent all of it by that stage anyway. This was a time when all the sort of issues and all the very things that we were trying to improve through education, like understanding, self-worth and all those other things of global importance needed some serious review. In the midst of this, and with the cancellation of the Pan Pacific Association of Private Education conference, I was suddenly struck down with the debilitating pain of shingles. At the same time a colleague of mine, who had travelled to Darwin to be the foundation book-keeper at Kormilda, went missing, presumed dead. His clothes were found in a neat pile on the beach with a note, it was assumed he had walked into the sea to be never seen again. For about three months after that I had to take stock of what had happened and gather my strength to be involved once more in the activities that allowed me to

believe in the values of education. I certainly didnt hav e to wait long for that to happen.
Chapter 21

TRANSFORMING THE PEOPLE OF GOD

It would be so nice if something made sense for a change. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass June 22nd, 1977 marked a momentous occasion for the Christian churches in Australia for it was on this day that most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, the Presbyterian Church of Australia and the Congregational Union of Australia came together to form the one Uniting Church. I celebrated this event with many others at St Andrews Church in Maryborough and I recall there was a high level of excitement over the coming months as elections were held for the congregational positions, with the Rev Koos den Hooting being appointed the Minister. The Uniting Church was the natural place for me to be, it was a non-Episcopal, non-hierarchical, inter-related set of councils where pastoral oversight was by Presbytery (the local representatives of congregations). It had a strong commitment to social justice, the ordination of women, was ecumenically minded and strongly endorsed the self determination of Indigenous peoples. It also developed a strong commitment to sustainability but has struggled mightily with the issue of recognition of gay and lesbian ministers, a matter that still remains unresolved but acknowledges that same sex relationships should not bar members from ministry. The establishment of the Evangelical Members of the Uniting Church HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Members_within_the_Uniting_Church_i n_Australia" HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Members_within_the_Uniting_Church_i n_Australia" HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Members_within_the_Uniting_Church_i n_Australia"(previously known as the Evangelical Ministers of the Uniting Church) within the church was, in part, as a result of their opposition to the ordination of gay and lesbian candidates in the lead up to the 1997 Assembly.

They, and the Reforming Alliance, were a very strong force and influence within the Uniting Church I felt that the Uniting Church brought together different streams of theology including evangelical, fundamentalist, mainstream, left wing, progressive and liberal. I always sat comfortably between liberal and mainstream. The Uniting Churchs education policy was really born out of its churches strong commitment to state education; in fact it could be argued that the free secular acts of the 1870s were protestant in nature as the Roman Catholic Church had committed itself to a separate education system. The Uniting Church ended up maintaining several large schools which had not closed during that century before the church was formed. Many of these had been opened to support a social justice issue (for example the education of women or rural interests) and with determination and little support from government they continued into the postWorld War Two period occasionally being assisted by the church if they struggled financially. Christian education was still undertaken in schools and the churchgoing populations maintained very large Sunday Schools and Youth groups, with the preparation of curriculum materials usually being undertaken by a very effective Joint Board of Christian Education. But these were times that had been a changing; post war migration changed the nature of the Australian population, as did the removal of the White Australia policy. Indigenous people were finally recognized through our constitution, although its hard to believe now that there was a need to recognize peopl e who had lived here for thousands of years. Government schools were rapidly changing as well, especially in their character in terms of school governance, pupil composition, the culture of its teachers and their values (i.e: not all Christian). It was into this mix that the Uniting Church was born and an education committee was created. For fifteen years I was involved in the Uniting Church Education Committee Synod of Victoria, a group created soon after the formation of the Uniting Church. This committee brought together many professionals from government and non government schools, chaplaincy (CCES & CTI) and the tertiary residential colleges associated with Melbourne University. It developed policy for the Uniting Church and, with the reworking of some of the trust fund functions thanks to the efforts of its Chair, Des Davey, it became sufficiently sustainable to be able to employ Pam Grant as its executive officer. Following the outstanding leadership of the Rev Leigh Speedy I became the secretary and then Chair succeeding the

deeply committed Des Davey, two people the church certainly owes a debt of gratitude. At the state level, the Education Committee developed policies on key areas of education and social justice. We published the Kooris Study Resources Index; Finding the Balance a report on issues in Government Funding; Education and the Aged and a Suicide Resources Directory, a cause close to my heart. There were also of number of seminars and conferences organized by the committee and many of its members were asked to be representatives on numerous education groups. Just what the education committee achieved was rarely recognized, mainly because of the good will of its leadership and their readiness to draw on the resources of their schools. The State Education Committee of the Uniting Church advocated the need for a national education focus and after much debate, the National Educational Committee of the Uniting Church was formed, although concerns were raised over the perceived potential for control to be passed to a central agency. The Uniting Church formed a lose association with the Lutherans and the Anglicans to form a national alliance of Christian interests, partly to offset the significant growth of the Christian Parent Controlled Schools movement. The state and national committees were later regrettably subsumed into broader areas of the Commissions for Mission a step I felt didnt adequately recognize the role of education within the Uniting Church. The transferring of the training provided by Coolamon College, of which I was a board member, to the state Synods was also part of this process. I believe much ability and experience was lost to the church as a result of that. I also cant underestimate the outstanding leadership of John Emmett during this time, who travelled this journey of change and development and in my opinion showed much wisdom and scholarship. In 1991 the National Education Committee was recognised by the Assembly as a National Committee, thus reporting to the Assembly under the umbrella of the Joint Board of Christian Education, the Assembly agency for Christian Education. This was all the result of the Uniting Church Synod of Victorias Education Committee proposing recognition. A year later the National Education Committee was constituted as an Assembly Committee which meant that its membership and mandate was approved of by the Assembly as a national body of the Uniting Church or the Assembly Standing Committee acting in the place of the Assembly itself. Reporting provisions were then confirmed and the Joint Board of Christian Education report to the Assembly formally included the report of the National Education Committee.

Then, in response to advice from the Board itself, in March 1997 the Joint Board of Christian Education was terminated by the 8th Assembly during a full session meeting. This action recognised that the Joint Board of Christian Education could no longer fulfill its purpose as set forth and agreed by its partner churches according to its Constitution. The Assembly also acknowledged that a national role existed for Christian education and thus a new Assembly agency, 'Uniting Education, was formed and later confirmed by the Standing Committee as the Uniting Churchs national agency for Christian Education, Uniting Church Schools and Education. For the first time, Uniting Church schools and Commonwealth of Australia educational institutions were formally included in the mandate of the Assemblys appointed agency. The Uniting Education Reference Group included people from Uniting Church schools and the wider education context. Within the broad agenda of the reference group, members persistently, and with good will, engaged in the Uniting Church schools and education elements of the mandate. Under this mandate the Assembly convened and conducted consultations between itself and the various Synods of the Uniting Church, with respect to Uniting Church schools, and between the various schools of the Uniting Church and the Assembly and the Synods of the Uniting Church, with respect to the schools as institutions of the Church. This enabled me to visit each Synod and nearly every school connected in some way to the Uniting Church. Under this mandated function three main projects emerged: 1. Annual consultation between the Assembly and all Synods with respect to schools and Commonwealth education, 2. Research into the practical ministry and mission based activities shared between Uniting Church schools and the various councils of Church (e.g. Chaplaincy, etc) and 3. Leadership building events such as national conferences and such. Other activities engaged during the period 1997 to 2004 included: Assistance for Shalom College, funding and governance issues, curriculum development issues (with which I was directly involved) and the building up the youth spirituality research project (which eventually included three universities, several other denominations schools and the Christian Research Association). This project continues but in another guise and without the partnership of the Uniting Church, however the Christian Research Association remains a core player in this project. I know it has had a profound impact in other traditional schools, but not so much in the Uniting Churchs schools.

Further aspects included participation in national advocacy gatherings, together with the governance bodies of other independent school systems at the Commonwealth of Australias education half yearly policy forums, partnership with the Lutheran Schools System and some Anglican Schools systems in national leadership development events (including events focusing on social justice in education provision etc) and the development of, proposing of and implementation of a National Education Charter. This was inclusive of, but not limited to, the input and perspectives of Uniting Church Schools. The Charter positioned the Uniting Church with respect to a broad policy framework for socially responsible education in harmony with principles of the Christian gospel. Also during this time three national conferences of Church and Schools occurred, one of which is memorable for Rev Prof James Haire addressing the Uniting Church school principals delegation on the nature and purpose of the Church and indicating in no uncertain terms where the schools fitted in. This was in direct response to a challenge by John Bednall, the Principal of the Uniting Churchs Wesley College in Perth who held an established church theological view on this matter, he subsequently went on to complete a PhD on the question of Who is the Head of the School? The Uniting Church did not share this view at all; hence confrontation arose on various fronts when the church asserted its rights under the Uniting Churchs Constitution and Regulations with respect to its relations with Uniting Church schools. This was a position in contrast to my own. The question, and the power attached to the answers, was at the heart of a long struggle between established churches and the Uniting Churchs leadership. It is finally and fully a theological question. Subsequently the role for schools and education saw the education element dismissed and the focus returned and limited to relations between the Uniting Church and Uniting Church schools. Later, when the Assembly's Standing Committee restructured Uniting Education for the third time in eight years, the role for schools and education saw the education element dismissed. The focus of the Assembly's agency was limited to relations between the Uniting Church and Uniting Church schools. At least we were able to fully participate at the 2nd National Reconciliation Conference in September 1999 and Mark Spain, a former school captain at Billanook College and a young lawyer with Clayton Utz (l ater to become a managing partner of Clayton Utz Darwin and a Board member of Billanook and Aitken Colleges) chaired the conference. Uniting Education formed an incorporated body to plan, prepare, run and deliver the 2nd National Youth

Reconciliation Convention and this event sent a delegation of young people to Canberra to present their recommendations to the then Minister for Reconciliation and the Governor General. This was a profound event and catered for about three hundred young people from State, Catholic & Independent schools. The issue of the nature of religious education in schools was now a far more contentious debate. In 1998 I asked that a special time be set aside at the Synod to discuss what I considered to be a matter of importance. I was concerned that for me, as a mainstream-veering liberal Uniting Church member, that Christian education in schools, whilst funded by the larger mainstream churches, had been effectively taken over by the younger more evangelical churches for delivery. However this discussion was surpassed by a heated debate over a resolution condemning the Kennett government for school closures and the issue lost impetus. Eventually though, following the implementation of the John Howard Chaplains in Schools program, the issue arose again during the current function and as a result of the role of the ACCESS Ministries. As I recall there was a fair bit of thinking went in to understanding the role of school chaplains, and a position description was prepared but never approved. The poor theology of education that I felt was reinforced by the inability to agree on the role of chaplains, ironically now funded by government in government schools but hardly any of whom are Uniting Church. The Church has also had no serious dialogue with education professionals for at least a decade now, and seems disinclined to do so. The University Colleges remain an anachronism for the Uniting Church, almost in the too hard basket. Geoff Spring, who had previously been the Director of Education in Darwin and was now the Director of Education in Victoria, felt that a report produced earlier by the Anglicans on government schools was not balanced and lacked information, not that the Department of Education would provide any information. As a result Geoff Spring invited me to lunch and offered me full access to all policies and data should the Uniting Church wish to undertake their own report. I had already been invited by the general secretary of Synod to complete some work on the funding policies of the Kennett government in schools because the issue had been raised at Synod. So after lunch we went to the car park basement and unloaded all the reports, that had not been available to the Anglican Church, from his car boot into mine and afterwards he gave me right of access to his office and access to senior managers at 2 Treasury Place.

Geoff McPherson, a respected and early retired school Principal, and I prepared the report that we called Finding the Balance. This report really suggested it wasnt the wealthy inner areas that needed money, they had enough, and it wasnt the western suburbs either, they were more than compensated, it was in fact the lower middle classes that were under pressure (ie: Bayswater, Epping etc). They were a key social-political group and our report showed they certainly deserved more. For the church the pressure was on the chaplaincy program, which required one third school, one third church and one third parent approval, and was really forcing a question of delivery. The report went a long way to help explain the concerns raised by the church but in the end it simply disappeared when the Kennett government lost the election. The issue of the middle class however has become central to much of the education decision making today, giving cause to reflect. This highlights the difficulty the Uniting Church had in making comment on government schools policy. There were many members of the government school system but were they really free to comment on government policy or did they have access to all the information they needed. Finding the Balance happened by accident, mainly because of the relationship I had with Geoff Spring, it isnt always that easy, as the current debate on Victorian State TAFE funding cuts testifies. In this period the population of Melbourne was expanding along huge growth corridors and unfortunately the government schools were barely coping with the expansion. At the same time the larger established Uniting Church schools, even with government support, were being forced by cost to cater for the higher end of the education market. Some had consolidated to become larger co-educational schools such as Wesley & Cato, Ballarat & Clarendon, Hamilton & Alexandra and Penleigh & Essendon. Morongo was an interesting story, this was a seventy year old former Presbyterian girls school in Geelong that was taken over by the late Yoshimaro Katsumata, a Japanese educator and a member of Pan Pacific Association of Private Education, after a bid by local interests failed. He was able to purchase the school with all its buildings, grounds, facilities and resources as well as its legal entity, almost in the shade of the Modern Major General from the Pirates of Penzance who acquired his ancestry by purchase. The school opened in 1996 as Kardinia International College, with thirty-one secondary students and forty-two kindergarten children and it now has one thousand eight hundred students although it has been the subject of a wider debate about ownership. The Uniting Church

Education Committee was part of the protocol for the changes however I had no sense we had any real authority to influence the outcome. The Uniting Church, unlike the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Seventh Day Adventists, Anglicans and the Christian Parent Controlled Schools did not have a central education authority or a system. They held the view that these issues should be a local congregation Presbytery matter. It may be part of the independence culture that made up much of the debate of ex-Presbyterian schools during the early 1980s however this meant that, as a result of its initiative into mission, virtually no new schools were created by the Uniting Church in Victoria. My personal view is that the Uniting Church has yet to come to a considered theology of education so that it can recognise what it is about education (and by extension, early childhood institutions, schools & universities) that constitutes the apostolic vocation of the church. I think this a very sad commentary, especially when I witness the growth of other school communities and sense that the Uniting Church cant quite come to terms with the issue of potential mission to families. As a result we have recently seen the closure of three Uniting Church school communities yet there has been very little ability for a wider system response. The Rev John Leaver had no such concerns. He encouraged the opening of the Maryborough Christian Community College, as well as the meeting that Si ster Miriam and I addressed at Woodend that formed a committee to establish Braemar College and the meeting I addressed in Portland that led to the formation there of the Christian Community College (later Bayview) in 1975. All of these ecumenical projects had a strong involvement by the Uniting Church and John & Wendy Leaver remain as inspirations for their bold educational leadership in this period. The Uniting Church has given scant recognition to their involvement in ecumenical schools. The Roman Catholic Church on the other hand was represented on these ecumenical projects by either the Brigidine or Loreto Orders and they didnt participate where their numbers were large enough or where they had their own system in place. By 1996 the list of who were ready to be associated with the ecumenical association or the ecumenical system was sixteen, surprising given the benefit at the time of the system funding from the federal government. Almost by default the Uniting Church was involved with this yet over time they have given little acknowledgement to their involvement in the ecumenical schools movement. A great loss I think. Still John Rickard, the new Director of the Commission for Mission, worked hard to get some protocols in place and at least con vinced the

bulk of the Uniting Church schools to contribute to fund the appointment of Margaret Scanlon, who did an outstanding job to develop and facilitate curriculum and policy for these schools. The Sunshine Christian School, whilst being small in number, represented some of the complexities of delivering a school which is committed to social justice but facing the issues of funding and positioning itself within the broad policy of state government. It also had to deal with pastoral and behavior matters and issues of local governance versus the tension between the evangelical and mainstream theology of the Uniting Church. In this period I served as Chair of the Sunshine Christian School, which was initiated in 1982 in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. They travelled the same journey of recognition with their community as Billanook did; actually they applied for membership of the Uniting Church in the same year as Billanook. The school was very much driven by Isabel Bell, Presbyterian, a school librarian and a very committed Christian education activist seeking Christ Centered education. She believed there was a need in the area and, having previously supported the Belgrave Christian School, she devoted her energies to working with members of the Sunshine congregation to establish a school there, that looked to the Christian evangelical tradition of the church. This school, and the Moonee Vale Christian School, were both connected to the local Uniting Churches, in fact when they opened their doors it was in the old Sunshine Uniting Church building in Westmoreland Rd, Sunshine. I became the Synod representative and served on the board for eleven years including some time as Chair. I supported their right to be there as they responded to the needs of a multi-cultural community and their religious position, whilst not my own, was recognized as part of the Uniting Church tradition. Numbers and finances varied over the years and throughout that time Isabel Bell and Elizabeth Nelson, as well as most of the committee, gave outstanding service. Of concern to me however was the statement on the front of their school brochure that stated: spare the rod and spoil the child. Perhaps this represented the issue which the Uniting Church addressed in 2003 when they sought to review the governance of the school, an event that led to the school becoming part of the Lutheran system in 2005 with the support of St Matthews Lutheran Church in Footscray. During the mid-nineties I became involved with the creation and development of Aitken College in Greenvale. This school was the initiative of a group of four

teachers who had become disenchanted with their previous schools decision making processes and believed there was high demand for a co-educational Christian college in the developing estates to the north-west of the Melbourne Metropolitan area. Pam McDiarmid, one of the key founders who had much experience working for educational institutions, attended a meeting I spoke at in Werribee, which was exploring the establishment of a new ecumenical school in that area. John Leaver, ever the leader and driver of new ecumenical schools, and John Nelson, the proposed new Principal, also spoke at this meeting. The school didnt eventuate unfortunately, which was a great loss. At this meeting Pam invited me to become involved with them and I attended several meetings. In the end I suggested that they should look at becoming a Uniting Church school as there may be funds available. Through my positions within the Uniting Church we were able to steer the project through the Education Committee, the Commission for Mission, the Board of Mission and Resources and the Standing Committee, however the Presbytery was initially by-passed in this process. No mean feat but on this occasion the committees met in some order which allowed acceptance of the project and the issue was a lot less contentious at that time. Initially the Uniting Church supported my consulting work with a fee, as it related to the governance of the school and its relationship with the Uniting Church. Two days before Christmas I was told this would not continue, which came as somewhat of a shock. This small but dedicated group was outstanding and tenacious in their determination to establish the school. Doug Mahoney, who was appointed Principal from the group, gave outstanding leadership and he had a clear vision for the school and was very aware of the cost imperatives and the need to get the school on a sound financial basis. Throughout his time there he kept the college maintained in a tight fiscal manner while at the same time ensuring that there was a high educational delivery that responded to the parents expectation. I was delighted to be the Chair of the school when it was officially opened in a marquee on the site by the Hon Rosemary Varty (whose maiden name ironically was Aitken). At the Colleges first presentation evening, which was held in Wilson Hall at Melbourne University, I couldnt help but reflect back to the time I was living with Aunt Helen and we witnessed the fire in the old Wilson Hall. I also recalled her strong desire to have me involved in education. My feeling at that moment was that she would have been pleased to see so much come together in a place that she was so fond of.

Later on in this period Pam MacDiarmid and I sought to establish a new school, Acacia College, and recognized that the area around Sunbury had eme rged as an area of potential growth. We negotiated with a local developer for a site for the school and with a market in place we put together a governing board and started to meet. Sadly the project quickly sunk when the Commonwealth Bank decided to shy away from lending to us, as we were a new school with no equity, even though they had stated they do support such projects in their policy. The Uniting Church Commission for Mission also decided not to come on board as they felt that at the time they were overstretched with their commitment to aged care and that Aitken College still needed to be more fully developed. As a result of all of this there was a sense on the board of Aitken, and perhaps by the Uniting Church, that there was a conflict of interest between Aitken College, of which I was the Chair, and this new school we were looking at developing at Sunbury and as a result I was voted off the board (more of a disappointment than a shock this time, especially after I had just completed a review of the bursar). As far as I was concerned I saw no conflict of interest. I had a vision of a series of Uniting Church schools and interests across the emerging and growing growth corridors. I believed, and I still believe, that for the church to be relevant, it has to be where the people are and it has to be central to their interests. For me education is key to that. I thought it would be an exciting challenge for the church at a time when all the signs were showing ageing and declining numbers. Perhaps I am nave on such matters. Another victim in all of this was Pam, who had resigned from her position as VicePrincipal of Aitken College to take on this challenge. Even though this failure would have been at a great personal cost to her, she never gave in and went on to become the founding Principal of a small Anglican school in Benalla A few years after his retirement, Doug Mahoney became the acting Principal for about ten weeks in 2012. Aitken College however went on to open in 1999 and remain s a progressive school whose vision is to provide an environment in which students are able to achieve their potential; to expand their skills and intellect, to develop self-esteem and confidence, and to become a vital and compassionate member of the wider community. The current long standing Chair is the Rev Clem Dickinson, who years before had taken the brave step to commit the Methodist Church in Maryborough to a new ecumenical school.

A few years later I had moved into my new house in Fitzroy and decided to take a walk around Napier St, with its old blue stone buildings, and thought this would be a perfect spot for a small community school to service the housing commission flats of Atherton Gardens. Inspired, I met with Terry Trewavas, the Presbyter y minister for the Yarra Valley, who said he had a better idea and asked me to undertake a review of the Uniting Church ministry in the growing Northern corridor of Melbourne, an area just near where I had tried to get Acadia College up and running. The Presbytery of the Yarra Valley was committed to developing new ways of ministry and mission and to growing the Uniting Church by presenting to the community the Gospel of Jesus Christ in action. After an initial review, the Presbytery wanted to move forward and established an Intentional Strategic Christian Ministry in the Whittlesea Region. Then, following a report by the Reverend Dr Doug Fullerton entitled Moving on and out in the Plenty Corridor, the Plenty Corridor Consultative Council was established that comprised representatives of the local Uniting Church parishes in the City of Whittlesea.

The earlier report I had helped prepare for the Synod, entitled Finding the Balance, examined educational resource allocations across Metropolitan Melbourne. The findings showed that the greatest pressure on families for educational resources was in the outer metropolitan areas, resulting in lower retention and attendance rates. These areas include Mernda, Epping, Croydon, Bayswater, Boronia, Lilydale and Healesville, all communities that reside within the boundaries of the Yarra Valley Presbytery, but it was the Mernda-Whittlesea region that stood out in this particular period. On August 25th, 2005, the Presbytery of Yarra Valley committed itself at a meeting to the significant enhancement in the Plenty Valley growth corridor as a response, in word and deed, to the challenge of renewing and developing the life of the Uniting Church within the region. As a result extensive consultations took place over the next six months with congregations, agencies and community interests, all funded through a Board of Mission and Resourcing loan of $170,000. By March the following year a conjoint council, under the constitution and regulations of the Uniting Church, was established representing all Uniting Church interests in the region. This council was accountable to the Presbytery of Yarra Valley via the Mission and Strategy Resources Committee. Soon after, at a special meeting of the Presbytery, resolutions were passed that established the Strategic Ministry Centre, a resource that would provide a range of ministry services, including education and training as well as a low-fee school, lay training, aged care, preschool, social intervention programs and a commitment to the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress. It also made the commitment to live out our baptism as a loving community in Christ, nurturing one another in faith, upholding one another in prayer, and encouraging one another in service until Christ comes. In the City of Whittlesea the Uniting Church had three congregations: Plenty Valley, Mernda and Whittlesea (that also includes Kinglake West) and these have a total membership of two hundred and fifty people. The Whittlesea Regional Mission Council was formed from the diverse Uniting Church interests including these three churches with their very different theological positions that co-existed under the one umbrella. It was my task to work with all these groups and each Sunday would see me participate in the worship of different congregations. The aim was not to replace these congregations but by establishing a ministry centre it would connect more members of the community to the Uniting Church.

A National Church Life Survey undertaken at the time indicated that the Uniting Church was at a high level of risk, as over 60% of its membership was over the age of sixty and its resources were slowly diminishing. As a result this mission was really a response to directly tackling the Uniting Churchs position in this growth corridor. At the same time the City of Whittlesea had 130,000 people, with a growth rate of 2.94% per annum, all with a high level of cultural diversity. However the educational qualification completion and retention rates at its local schools were 10% lower than metropolitan Melbourne. Its public schools were also in short supply and its one Anglican school was a high-fee school. This new school the Uniting Church looked to establish in this area would seek to position itself as a low-fee, mainstream school committed to the values of the Uniting Church. It would also be seen to be one part of the overall Ministry, which sought to connect to the new family dynamic in the growth corridor as well as working with lay members of the Uniting Church to support Christian education in government schools. It was a very bold and exciting project. Whilst this project was strongly supported by the Presbytery through the Mission and Strategy Committee, and endorsed through the Board of Mission and Resourcing funding arrangements, the Commission for Mission insisted on a delay while it reviewed its processes. It was the Presbytery view they had been empowered to proceed with the project and the appointment of officers in accordance with their constitutional authority and this they did. Soon after land was identified and purchased in Bridge Inn Road, Mernda, an area located around ten acres of wetlands. The site would not only contain a school but a holistic centre for Ministry for the region as well, that would be seen to be a one-stop shop for Ministry. The unique wetlands would also be developed as a key sustainability feature for the centre and for the wider community. Surprisingly the new school was to be called Acadia College the same name chosen for the school Pam McDiarmid and I had tried to start up in Sunbury. Towards the end of 2007 a Principal was appointed after an extensive selection process and a presentation to the Whittlesea Regional Mission Council. As a result my appointment concluded around this time. The College, as a part of its ministry, worked towards the Charter of Uniting Church Schools that committed its schools to provide an educational experience

and learning community that offered young people spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical growth to wholeness as well as a reverence for the environment. In light of this the College committed itself to a belief statement which included for our students to make responsible choices for a peaceful and sustainable future. They must be filled with reverence for the gift of life we share. Acacia College was developed to be low-fee and based on the Aitken model for capital development. The committee sought $22 million for the project and in the process of review, especially as there were now concerns emerging regarding the Global meltdown, the Uniting Church withdrew its financial support for the project. Bruce Dolan, who had experience with private funding of projects, agreed to take over the funding and the Uniting Church would then become a tenant. The developers bank, the Commonwealth Bank, would in the end not fund the project which left the Uniting Church with a school already commenced, a set of buildings beyond what would have been expected and a high expectation from the community. The Uniting Church tried several times to extend a loan to the developer to allow the process to conclude but in the midst of tense discussions the developer died and the Uniting Church had to assess its position. From the financial modeling it undertook, it believed it could not support the full funding of the centre especially in light of concerns over timing delays, cost overruns, the Global Economic Crisis, and competing requirements for ministry and mission. This then led the Church, through the Property Trust and the Standing Committee, to consider its position and to make a significant shift from supporting Acacia College as a separate legal entity in a rented facility to one of potential long term Uniting Church ownership. Within the period 2010-2012, Acacia College was opened and quickly established an enrolment of five hundred and thirty, with another two hundred enrolments registered for 2013. In fact there was a potential forward enrolment, which could have grown the school to one thousand, two hundred within a short period. Many families financed housing so as to be located close to the school and their commitment was supported by letters from the Moderator and the Chair of the Acacia Board indicating the Uniting Churchs support to maintain the school until the completion of Year 12. The success of the school was even publicly stated in the Uniting Church Funds Management newsletter. It was not that the school as an educational institution was not successful in this short time but the concern of costs continuing to escalate, and the need to rearrange finance in what was perceived as a complex and deteriorating property deal,

became the issue. In the end the property was sold to the Seventh Day Adventist School system for $10 million with a peppercorn rent until the caveat had been removed, something that had been put in place by the builders who were owed substantial sums. A minimum of $30 million would have been lost by the church (called socialising the cost) and it would have been the target of much angst from the parents who had made commitments into the area (a group of them have already commenced the process to establish their own school in the area). The whole thing was really a huge setback for the image of the Uniting Church. The challenge of the Acacia Ministry Centre was to respond, in word and deed, to the growth of the Plenty Valley corridor, so that the Uniting Church could appear to be contemporary, relevant and providing a spiritual centre to the community. The original challenge, which still remains, was Transforming the People of God and this was a collegiate response to this region to do this. Social justice demands that the Uniting Church responds to areas of need within its community. The Uniting Church governs itself through a series of inter-conciliatory councils and the Presbytery is a crucial part of this system. All Uniting Church interests unanimously endorsed the original concept which was approved by a Presbytery resolution. Before the Synod Standing Committee closes down the Ministry, the voices of the local congregations, parents, staff members and community interests should be appropriately heard. Certainly resolutions from the local churches in the Plenty Valley region have expressed their sense of dismay at being overlooked in the process. Much discussion will take place as to why Acadia failed and why Aitken did not. The time frame and economic circumstances are one reason, as was the restructuring of the Uniting Church Presbytery arrangements, which left no one to monitor and advocate for the project. Even though the project had the strong endorsement of the local churches, their views were overlooked in the securing of a solution. In this process the church did not come to terms with a theology of education which is what we need to recognize what we are about in education. I often asked myself why did I belong? In the end it was because I felt an honest struggle with the spirit and the social issues of the day. The Uniting Churchs attempts to establish a new identity in the midst of the continued strength of the traditional churches and a growing secularism in society was also my issue.

However in the midst of serious doubt I almost by accident began attending the Napier Street Uniting Church, which had a long established Presbyterian history and a commitment to early childhood education. Under the leadership of the Rev Coralie Ling, an amazing change took place here as she led this small devout and committed community to undergo the most amazing transformation. In a short amount of time they secured a long lease at CERES Sustainability Park, sold the old blue stone church in Fitzroy and became active in transferring the Annie Todd Centre into much larger premises. They then started to build a new community location in the heart of Brunswick, built with dedication by community effort in what was once the old Brunswick tip. Soon after a new minister was appointed, Robyn Schaeffer. Robyn outlined her vision to us all and this powerful personal statement has shaped my recent thinking. She stated: The initial impetus for this work emanated from a personal spiritual wasteland. It was a desolation felt more acutely for the fact that the sense of spiritual drought was not always so. I grew up in a church-going family whose Christian traditions go back several generations in evangelical strands. A personal relationship to God and participation in church community were considered crucial components of the right way to live. This thesis has been motivated by a deep grieving, due not only to lost confidence in old time personal faith, but also to a gradual recognition, beginning some years ago, that some of the valued main-stays of that faith were founded upon unstable ground. For me, the metaphoric solid Rock of biblical texts and church traditions, featured in ecclesiastically-treasured old hymns, had become an unhelpful icon. As my personal awareness of feminism developed, I realised that the Christian faith had engendered unhelpful and untrue imagery dispersed with gems too precious to lose. As a minister of religion initially with Churches of Christ and, in more recent years with the Uniting Church, I did not feel as free as I perceived lay people might be to ignore the problem, much less walk away from it. A task of unravelling lay ahead. I have been propelled by a thirst for workable and heartfelt feminist theology that could reinstate the Christian faith as honest and viable from a personal perspective. Therefore, the thought processes for this work began not only with a flickering hope of discovering some core, gender-inclusive tenets at the heart of Christianity, but more than this, as a way of spiritually embracing these for individuals such as myself, who bore the marks of conservatism. And what is this theology and faith that has now so supported me?

Sophias Spring is an eco-feminist community of the Uniting Church that meets at CERES Environmental Park that embraces eco-feminist theology. Ecofeminism and eco-feminist theology offers a further and multi-layered perspective on the creature gender earth God relationships and inter-connectedness. It is a feminism that draws the connection between the oppression of women and the ecological degradation of the earth. Intrinsic to many theologies, is the traditional stance that separates the spiritual from the earthly, the body from the soul, the ephemeral from the eternal. Many hermeneutics have taught, or at least implied, that the male gender aligns to the spiritual, contrasted to the female that is relegated to the things of earth. Men own the tools of culture. If God is male, this then has implications for inherently gender biased theologies and spiritualities, the most intrinsic being the place of women as off-side to God and not quite made in Gods image. It is this t hat has shaped me, knowing how powerful the leadership of women has been and how poorly it has been recognized, I had to change my thinking and I have. The Uniting Churchs attempts to establish a new identity in the midst of the continued strength of the traditional churches and a growing secularism in society was also my issue.
Chapter 22

REVOLUTION
Please dont stick your chewing gum under the seat Part of a Christmas Pastoral letter on a church door in Manilla As a boy of eight I had arrived on Australias shores with next to no knowledge of its Indigenous people. My initial understanding was very much mirrored by the European attitudes of the day and reflected in the charity programs of the various churches to which I belonged. If anything, during this time when they all believed in assimilation, I would have held a welfare view of Aboriginal people. During the fifties we would store our bikes in Bulleen Rd, North Balwyn and in the very large house opposite lived two Aboriginal children who had been adopted by the family. They were possibly the first Australian Aboriginals I had seen, a

curiosity in their own land. Their story was extensively promoted in the newspapers and was seen by many as an improvement to their living standards and their life on the mission. Today we would recognize that they were part of the Stolen Generation. In my matriculation year I studied Australian History, which really concentrated on the various colonial acts leading up to federation. In this class I completed an essay on aborigines that I based on the work of Peter Elkin, an Anglican clergyman and professor of anthropology. He was fascinated by Charles Darwins book, On the Origin of Species, and in 1918 made a visit to the outback near Bourke where he first came into contact with Aboriginal society. Intrigued by artifacts, deserted occupation-sites and burial grounds, he began to read widely about Aborigines. No anthropology courses were then available in Australian universities, but he chose the religion of the Australian Aborigines as the topic for his master's thesis. During his research he not only met traditional Aborigines, but also observed the brutality of the frontier, the clash between settlers and Indigenous tribes, the ambivalent experience of the missions and the apparent aimless policies of governments. Soon after he began campaigning for what he regarded as social justice for the Aboriginal people. He regarded protection as the basis for growth and considered that Aborigines would inevitably be assimilated into White Australia. His description of their unique way of life in his book, The Australian Aborigines: How to Understand Them, moved me, and hundreds of others, towards a sympathetic appreciation of the Australian Aborigines. In 1949, the year we arrived in Australia, the right to vote in federal elections was extended to Indigenous Australians who had served in the armed forces, or were enrolled to vote in state elections. Over a decade later all Indigenous Australians were given the right to vote in Commonwealth elections in Australia by the Menzies government and the first federal election in which all Aboriginal Australians could vote was held in November 1963. During 1967 a referendum was passed with a 90% majority, which allowed the Commonwealth to make laws which stopped discrimination of Aboriginal people and allowed for them to be included in counts to determine electoral representation. This was the largest affirmative vote in the history of Australia's referendums. In 1971, the Yolngu people at Yirrkala sought an injunction against Nabalco to cease mining on their traditional land. In the resulting historic and controversial Gove Land Rights case, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia had been terra nullius before European settlement and that no concept of Native Title existed in

Australian law. Although the Yolngu people were defeated in this action, the immediate effect was to highlight the absurdity of this law, which led first to the Woodward Commission, and then to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The Whitlam government drafted the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1975, which aimed to restore traditional lands to Indigenous people. A reduced-scope version of the Act (known as the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976) was introduced by the coalition government led by Malcolm Fraser. While its application was limited to the Northern Territory, it did grant inalienable freehold title to some traditional lands. Kormilda College opened at this time as an initiative of the Federal Department of Welfare. In 1992, the Australian High Court handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, declaring the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid. This decision legally recognised certain land claims of Indigenous Australians in Australia prior to British Settlement. Legislation was subsequently enacted and later amended to recognise Native Title claims over land in Australia. Six years later, as the result of an inquiry into the forced removal of Indigenous children, known as the Stolen generation, from their families, a National Sorry Day was instituted to acknowledge the wrong that had been done to Indigenous families. Even though the antecedents of the Uniting Church had been involved in the negative issues around welfare to Indigenous people such as missions, for which they later gave a formal apology, the Uniting Church has made a strong commitment to Indigenous people and has established the United Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress as one of the key interlocking councils of the church. There was an active campaign within the church to shift resources through the sale of assets and to organise inventive fund raising projects (ie: the mile of $1 coins). It was my task during this time to discover what could be achieved here through the Uniting Church schools. During this period I had been party to some of the discussions on the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Congress within the Uniting Church and after my time in Darwin and my involvement with Kormilda College I became more aware of the need to participate in education reform for Indigenous Australia. As a result in December 2000 I attended the Aboriginal Policy: Failure, Reappraisal and Reform Workshop in Melbourne and spo ke there as a person really wanting to affect some change, noting what I had already realized, that Changing the Mindset was the key to success.

I knew that many Aboriginal people continued to live in degrading and hopeless conditions and that the evidence was clear that educational opportunity were not equal. Indigenous people were participating in, and obtaining significantly less, from education than the rest of the Australian population and this was impacting adversely on their economic and social well-being. Even the Federal Minister for Education at the time stated The Commonwealth Government believes that the principal challenge facing Australia today is the achievement of educational equality for Indigenous Australians. Although a great deal of progress had been made in increasing the education levels of Indigenous Australians over the previous thirty years, the fact then remained that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students still experienced an unacceptable level of educational disadvantage. It was clear that more needed to be done to improve Indigenous peoples educational opportunities. It was also clear that we needed to make sure that Indigenous Australian children succeed in schooling and had skills to enjoy a more secure economic, social and cultural future. I felt this was the challenge for the new century and I really wanted to ensure that the Indigenous members of our community would be treated in a fair and just way and that their educational outcomes would be the same as the rest of the community. In late September 2001, as part of the National Education Committee of the Uniting Church, I was involved in a teleconference regarding the future funding and ongoing resourcing of the Shalom Christian College. This institution w as a co-educational boarding school that offered a Christian education with a culturally inclusive curriculum, designed to cater for Indigenous students from Prep to Year 12, which was situated in Far North Queensland, just outside of Townsville. A revolution in education thinking was taking place back in 1987 when the Rev Shayne Blackman, Pastor Bill Hollingsworth and a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders from various towns and communities across Queensland, who were associated with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, came together to discuss the establishment of youth/adult educational facilities and community development enterprises. These were all brave, bold, determined people with a vision for change. This forum highlighted a number of serious issues that were then facing their communities and a year later they held a workshop to consider these matters, including the educational needs of Aboriginal children within the mainstream government system. From these initial meetings, a decision was made to establish an Institute for Community Development, to be known as Yalta Bimbi, that

would work towards overcoming some of the difficulties that these communities were experiencing. At the same time the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody report found that the most significant factor in the incarceration of Indigenous peoples was their unequal social position, the underlying factors of which included health, housing, infrastructure, economic opportunity and schooling. This Indigenous community however had already recognised the distress felt by so many at the failure of their schooling to equip them and their children adequately for life and employment in wider society. In the nearby Northern Territory it had already been discovered that the retention rate for Aboriginal students going through to Year 12 was 7%, compared with 66% for non-Aboriginal students. Yet the fact remained that Aboriginal parents sought what every Australian parents sought, to have their children go to a good school with strong care, good education, opportunities for employment and a value system that supports family and community life. In the end this community came to a decision to develop their own pre-school, primary school and secondary school with boarding facilities. Their vision was to create a school that would differ significantly in two respects : it was to be culturally sensitive and provide a community based supportive learning environment. Colin Young from the Uniting Church addressed the council and provided an explanation of what was involved in setting up a Christian School. The group resolved to call the school the Shalom Christian School (Shalom meaning peace) and an eighty acre site for the college on Herveys Range Road near Townsville was given to them by Hank Young, the brother of Colin Young. Hank was a retired shearer and mushroom grower who generously gave the initial sum of $860,000 to the Indigenous community to be used for their cultural purposes. A board and advisory committee was then established with legal, financial, building, educational and promotional expertise and other matters were soon resolved including enrolment strategies, curriculum design, educational philosophy and fees. Their vision statement outlined that the college will be an inspirational, caring, Indigenous Christian educational organization for releasing and empowering students to reach their full potential and to contribute to shaping the Australian nation. In January 1992, Shalom Christian College opened its doors with Alan Rendell as Principal and an enrolment of fifty pre-school and Year 1 students. Within two years they had grown to one hundred and seventy students spanning pre-school to Year 8 classes and drawing students from some eight different cultural

backgrounds. Approximately half of the secondary enrolments were boarders living in the first of two planned boarding homes. Student numbers grew steadily from there but by the end of the nineties they were experiencing some pressures in terms of their funding to deliver programs. At the same time there was a falling out between the Youngs and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Colin had an expectation that he might be Principal while the congress were determined to assert their authority over the new venture. Colin went on to be founding Principal at River Mount while Hank went on to give $10,000 for an Indigenous centre established as part of an engagement with Worawa College, Healesville. I later had the task of reconciling the two parties which unfortunately resulted in limited success. Before I knew it I was invited to go to Shalom, basically for one year to examine and implement an intervention strategy to reposition the school and to see whether we could get the resources together and put a new curriculum in place. In early 2002, I arrived in Townsville and began my work but it was no easy task. The school had an Indigenous governing board, under its national director, and this Board was in complete control of the college. The pressure was on them to constantly deliver improved educational outcomes yet this was against a background of low levels of support by the families, low levels of literacy and low levels of health and nutrition. I soon discovered it was really a much bigger task than I imagined, you couldnt engage students in these circumstances with learning by simply adjusting the curriculum. The situation was more like Maslows Hierarchy you needed to satisfy all the basic needs first like food, shelter and safety, before you could begin the process of learning. Education in Australia tends to be structured around key areas of the curriculum but if you dont eat you cant even begin to learn. Despite this the school was ticking over, it had a strong primary school and the secondary school was managing to struggle along. It also had a vocational education and training arm and a wider organization in Townsville, while at the same time it ran a number of important community programs connected with aged care (the Shalom Development Services Elders Village), drug rehabilitation (the Stag Pole Drug and Alcohol Unit) and social intervention. They even created a publishing company called Black Ink Press. On one memorable occasion I was appointed CEO of their training company the day before a visit by two officers of the compliance unit, who had flown from Brisbane for their annual two day audit task. When I went to check our records I

discovered that they amounted to just one manila folder. They were somewhat shocked when I indicated that we kept our records to a minimum but they did give us two months to get it in order, which we did. The task ahead for me was to grow the enrolment of the school and prioritise the educational goals while continuing to provide sound education outcomes. The funding of non-government schools was always based on the number of students who turned up on Census Day, which was usually in August, so you had to maximize your enrolment on that day and make sure that everyone present was listed on the roll. The problem with this approach is that recruitment is often very fickle. Theres a lot of coming and going by students and retention rates can be quite low, while on the other side of it, staffing is a fixed cost. Funding cant respond quickly and easily to the fluctuations in attendance and securing appropriately trained staff to handle this kind of work is also quite difficult. We grew the enrolment and by the Census Day, we had managed to achieve an enrolment of approximately four hundred. This created something of a national reputation for the college and our story was run on the front page of The Australian newspaper in color and presented on the local TV and radio stations who were also impressed with our achievements. The next thing we received a call from some Aboriginal families from Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory who were interested in sending their children to the college as well. We sent a staff member across there to discuss with them the possibility of this happening and discovered that there were forty-three Indigenous students wanting to get on a bus and come here, mainly because they were pleased to be able to get out of Tennant Creek. The students and their families, after completing the forms, all secured places on our bus and excited, they rang the newspaper and sent off some pictures, for them there was a real sense that they were taking matters into their own hands by coming across to the school. The Northern Territory authorities however werent quite so pleased about this and there was quite a strong reaction to their students moving to Queensland to study. The next thing we knew the school had managed to secure the front page of The Australian, this time with the heading that we were black birding students from the Northern Territory, referring to the old practice of kidnapping Kanakas to work on plantations. The bus trip across the outback was followed by the national media who may have thought it was an Indigenous version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

The issue really was that Tennant Creek had very poor attendance of students from the Indigenous community and there was a feeling, maybe not fairly, that the local high school wasnt doing the job adequately and that many felt that it catered only to the white students. It was very clear though that these Indigenous people wanted to come to the Indigenous school in Townsville and so the Board supported them. And why shouldnt they I say. People from other cultures go interstate to attend boarding schools, so why not them? It created an interesting issue, and it did put pressure on policy makers to consider whether education in the Northern Territory was contemporary and relevant to the needs of young people in isolated and rural communities, especially Indigenous children. What I soon became aware of though, was the very low attendance at schools by Indigenous students and even more surprising, that some of them hadnt been to school at all. So during that time we restructured the school and managed to grow the enrolment by adding some new boarding activities and committing ourselves to the building of a library resource centre. We also implemented a whole Information Technology Program and Thomas Umzumbe, a young man from the Starehe School in Kenya who was a part of the Round Square Exchange Program, attended for six months and helped with the implementation of this scheme. Later we introduced GAP placements for students who, after their final year at school, came to work with us for twelve months before they commenced at university. This gave them the opportunity to get a very honest understanding of Indigenous issues and linked the school to international contacts. Throughout that whole period of time, we wrestled with the quest for measurable improvement and the issues of attendance, health, nutrition, staffing and literacy. Many students who were involved in the school came out of low literacy environments, Palm Island was one of those centres. We ended up implementing the scaffolding program, which had been developed by the University of Canberra as a means by which Indigenous people could lift their levels of literacy and awareness of language. It was quite a structured program but it used contemporary language. We had to assess it every day and it showed it really had the capacity to lift students literacy levels quite dramatically over time. But when youre starting with a very low base you can certainly achieve significant results . The Board Chairman was always concerned that we were always in the bottom two quartiles and my argument was that we were, but before we started they barely rated in the lowest quartile. The students who tended to come to school were the

ones who came out of those very low literacy environments. The improvement really lifted the schools reputation quite considerably. The most positive achievements we had in that year were the rise in enrolments and the fact we were able to put the issue of Indigenous education on to the national agenda for a short time. We were also very proud of the fact that we won the National Literacy Prize in the non-government sector, receiving $10,000 from the Minister, Brendan Nelson, at a ceremony in Sydney. By the time I left we were seeking to link in with the world-wide Indigenous movement by having Nelson Mandela as our patron. Even so, at the end of that year, I indicated that I didnt wish to continue in the position. The reality was the Principal was really only a head teacher as the Board Chairman held the position of CEO, an untenable position for me. I realized it was safer for me to be a consultant Director, as any decision I made had to wait for the CEOs approval. They advertised for a Principal to follow me and they subsequently appointed Chris Shirley to the position. After leaving Shalom College in Townsville my next Indigenous project was Wangetti College, a secondary college about forty kilometres north of Cairns that catered for day and residential Indigenous students in Years 8-12. Just like Shalom it was governed by an all Indigenous Board however this school didnt belong to any church or association. At the time I arrived the school had been closed down the year before, mainly because the resources had all but run out, and I was asked by the Board to see if we could re-open the school. This was an extremely tough environment. Most of the students came from remote communities scattered across Cape York where there were very little levels of support towards learning. The school was attempting to respond to the needs of these people, who were some of the most highly disadvantaged groups in the country. For some of the young Indigenous women in particular, lifes chances werent looking particularly good and there was probably little value placed on their ongoing education. My initial task was to inform the Board of the current state of the finances as well as come up with some positive educational outcomes. It soon became clear however that with outstanding amounts still owing to Abstudy, because the school had closed early, the school was technically bankrupt. The only way for them to move forward was to trade on and increase the enrolment to a minimum of sixtyfour.

As a result we tried to put together a new secondary program that would aim at providing for up to eighty Indigenous residential students in what we hoped would be a safe and secure environment. Because of the low literacy intervention, I decided to target Year 8 secondary entry students using the Scaffolding Model. We then focused the curriculum on literacy, numeracy, health, recreation and pastoral care with a designated pathway to post Year 10 education, training or employment. Our mission was to enable young people to operate within the framework of the dominant Australian culture and to ensure through a human rights framework that they could effectively and actively participate and become successful advocates for human rights within their community. We also had to turn around the fairly free situation which had existed previously and create a more constrained culture, which the teaching of literacy and other skills required. When they came back to the school, not all of them appreciated this. It was extremely hard for the staff every day and it was also very hard for the administration. There were often fights between the students, verbal abuse of staff and there continued to be low levels of attendance. After securing approval from appropriate agencies it was decided we would run an alternative program under the supervision of the CEO, Kurt Noble, for the students who needed intense social adjustment. We also instigated some very positive approaches to health and nutrition issues. The government was greatly concerned by the attendance rates. Having completed our report I had indicated that ours would be sitting at 33%, a huge improvement on the past I thought. I was then reminded that policy at the time was a delivery of over 80% and that I needed to rework the statistics. I had calculated the number of days in attendance over a full school year, 192, but was told the policy was, if you arrived day one and left the next day and was absent one day during that time - the attendance rate was 90%. My attendance rates improved remarkably after finding that out however I am not sure what happened to the students for the remainder of the year. Looking at these attendance rates it is not surprising really that literacy rates were so low, the only way to learn to read and write is to attend school. The school then focused on the Year 10 certificates and at the end of the first year we had our first students graduate. At the annual general meeting there was a transfer to another Indigenous group led by Terry OShane, who became the chair of the College and was chair of the regional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

There was enormous pressure on us to grow the school. A strategic plan was being put into place, which once again depended on an injection of funds that could only be acquired by ensuring the highest possible attendance on Census Day. As a result we encouraged as many students as we could to attend on that date, as huge attendances would ensure a large number of legal enrolments which was crucial to the success of the project. Students travelled from all over Cape York to be there. An enrolment officer had been appointed but unfortunately left two weeks before the day. So on Census Day we gathered all the students together accurately and carefully marked the rolls. Each student was required to have completed the enrolment form and to have had it signed by their parents prior to the day and then either be in attendance or have a reason for non-attendance. In Indigenous schools this could include illness, travel problems or cultural reasons. This year was to be the first that the census would be gathered electronically and a real issue for us, as I explained to authorities later, was that we were on the edge of Telstra coverage and our internet was, at best, intermittent. However there is no doubt we were aware of the very serious status of the rolls we had to take. Some thirty-three students were already at school and many more were still arriving by boat, air and small buses. In the midst of this a volatile situation occurred when a fight, brought on by a jealous girl, broke out which soon led to a riot in the school yard. The census rolls that we had been able to gather were simply put into manila folders and stored in piles on the floor. Before we knew it students began streaming down Cook Highway brandishing sticks and it was only for the efforts of a passing policeman that the whole thing didnt get further out of control. The police arrived and the situation only calmed down after six students were removed to the local police station. Meanwhile the girl who had caused the difficulty was being calmed down in the office but unfortunately they lay her on top of the manila folders containing the enrolment forms that wed managed to fill and in her emotional state she wet them. When we told the Federal police later what had happened they just shook their heads with disbelief and were extremely reluctant to carry the evidence away. In reality we just didnt have the professional people in place to ensure that the census information was accurately recorded. The CEO was away this week and with him was a missing roll with numbers known to be about twenty-six. Somebody had to sign off on the figures and through the lack of anyone else left in the office I felt under pressure and signed the census, which was witnessed by a previous principal who taught in the afterhours program. This was not the wisest decision but one thrust upon me. I signed off on the forms in and later on of course,

when the government came to review them, there were doubts about their accuracy. There was then a review of the situation about whether in fact a fraud had been deliberately planned. That wasnt the case, but on reflection, you could look back and say we should probably have been sharper with the people who were doing this important work. That kind of scrutiny would have created great tension. But as an Anglo-Australian consultant charged with undertaking the task, I had to ask myself: do you trust these people to do the work or do you check it? I took the option of trusting the people to do the work, however I did sign it off and so therefore, whilst the work was somebody elses, I had to take the responsible for it, I knew the rules. In many ways this appears amusing but it was far from the case, it was an extremely difficult time for me when this was unfolding. Teachers were under threat and I was laboring under the knowledge that funding the school was essential. On one side we prepared a strategy on how we could deliver improved education outcomes but on the other there was this census accountability back to the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth of course was responsible for public funds. The government required accurate recording and accountability. However the governance of the school did not have the experience and training and the model of funding hardly catered for the volatile enrolment patterns we found ourselves in. Unfortunately this pattern still prevails, possibly more than is widely known. Funding really needs to be known or predicted over the year, so schools can plan strategies to ensure steady progress over a year, not this enormous pressure on census dates. The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations instigated a review of the finances, which I strongly supported, and there was an investigation into the possibility of fraud out of all this. By signing the document I had accepted responsibility for work being done by people who were untrained for the task. The big difference in this circumstance was that the Aboriginal Board didnt belong to any network therefore there was nowhere for them to go for support. I had no opportunity to present the long term strategies that I had been working on and there were many new program initiatives that were being undertaken. In the end, when the Commonwealth said it needed to cut funds, it was my position that was wound up, so I left fairly promptly and the Bursar ended up being appointed CEO. Ive reflected a bit on this period and I have to admit that its partly a result of my own nature. When Im interested in moving something ahead, there has always been someone else to manage the small details and the follow up work. But in this

case the people who Id left to do the follow up work really werent experienced or trained to undertake it. I had to accept some responsibility for what happened. The school continued under its new leadership although the issues we tried to work on were still prevalent. By 2007 however it had racked up a debt of $1 million and the Federal Government axed its funding, again stating concerns of financial mismanagement, student bullying and curricula problems. This time the Board was forced to step down and Djarragun College, an Indigenous school at Gordonvale run by the Anglican church, ended up taking the school over, with support from the Commonwealth, and turning it into one of their campuses. Djarragun had previously suffered some difficulties of its own and more recently ended up being taken over by Indigenous leader Noel Pearson and the Cape York Partnership. Recently however Jean Illingworth, the Principal at Djarragun and an Australian of the Year awardee, has recently been stood down and charged over census fraud, so these issues are still there. For me Jean is a Principal of integrity, in fact in her nomination for her award she was described as a revolutionary Principal. Originally from Zimbabwe, Jean wanted to ensure her children received a good education so she migrated across the ocean to Perth. Following teacher commitments on Groote Eylandt and Batchelor College she became Principal at Djarragun. She was instrumental during her time there in transforming the dysfunctional aspects of the school and turning it into a much admired model of success. Prior to her arrival class attendance was low, and violence and drugs were rife. Through tough love and a focus on student learning and outcomes, she transformed the school into a safe place for both boarders and day students and soon gained high retention rates, which she partly attributed to the schools extensive vocational education program which covered areas like engineering, construction, music and business. She also deliberately employed a multicultural group of staff from across the world to break down the barriers that existed between the Indigenous and non Indigenous community at the school. Even Noel Pearson has described her as a true social entrepreneur. For an outstanding achiever like Jean to be caught up in accusations of census fraud only highlights the wider issues of effective management and governance for these schools. There is a high level of public accountability and a lack of skilled people to manage it. It is beyond my thinking that capable experienced people that this country needs, should go through the trauma of this without thorough investigation. It can be seen that these schools are under enormous pressure yet funding doesnt match the need. In the end students deserve outcomes and who governs doesnt matter, it is their competence as educators that should be the key.

I guess I finished all that work in Queensland and the Northern Territory without knowing exactly how to ensure an Indigenous school is successful. If I had the chance again I would probably go back to the Kormilda model, where there was a better integration of the two main cultures. Soon after I took what I had learned at these two schools and used it as the basis of a talk I gave at the ACPET Top -End Training Forum entitled Indigenous Training: A New Model. Soon after Noel Pearson was quite strong in suggesting that Indigenous education is better served by having Indigenous students participate in more mainstream schools. The Chairman at Wangetti College, who had the job of saying Peter we think its time for you to finish, phoned me the week after I left and said, Look, you know I had to do that and I let him know it was okay. He then employed me to establish a new project called the Warrama Education Centre. Warrama was an area of land which had been given to the Indigenous people during the early 1980s. It was north of Cairns and had a varied hi story but it was a substantial piece of land. The plan was to establish an education and training institution for students across Cape York and in the Cairns region, similar to the model adopted at Wangetti College. Over the next six months I wrote up the curriculum for this next project and I met with the Chairman many times. We looked at establishing a junior secondary school based on the international baccalaureate that recognizes Indigenous languages and promotes a holistic view of education. We wanted to work with regional communities to provide sixteen to twenty-year olds with a case managed approach to training which would include identification of the specific skills needed for the community and the development of programs for fifty weeks of the year that included training using TAFE, private provider and employers. We also created a six week residential program that included training in personal management and presented strong cultural support through activities. Just as the Warrama project was about to unfold however, it became caught up in the wider debate around the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). As ATSIC were the owners of this land, there were discussions on how to proceed and it took a while for them to make a decision. By the time the ATSIC Regional Board had accepted the report, the Federal Government passed legislation that abolished ATSIC. Suddenly all property rights previously held by regional ATSIC boards were transferred to Canberra and we were left with a project that relied on ATSIC land but ATSIC no longer had the land because they no longer existed. As a result the Chairman of the Boards position no longer

existed, so his approval was no longer valid, and in the end the land went to the Indigenous Business Council in Canberra. It also took many months for me to be paid as well. The greatest scandal in all of this was that the land was surrounded by development and the property owner next door, who bought the pineapple plantation, constructed a wall around it and moved the creek back onto our site, forcing a change in the waterway that created health and safety concerns. The City Council, which was quite pro-development then, gazetted that a bus road would also be constructed through the middle of the site. It was quite clear that development issues were overriding Indigenous ownership. So against all of these debates was an Indigenous community who really didnt have very much, or even a strong capacity to represent itself, who were being overridden by decisions in Canberra and development pressures in Queensland. Tragically the land has now all been sold for residential aged care development; a wonderful resource given to the Aboriginal people twenty-five years ago has now been lost as an educational option for the people of Cairns. There was nobody left to fight for it because the board was abandoned and no replacement board organised. ATSIC may have had its problems but at least it provided a layer of governance. In my mind it didnt make sense to just remove it altogether rather than try and improve the quality of the governance. In a sense the service is now being delivered as a bureaucratic function in Canberra and to me this is quite sad. Those three years that I spent in the north gave me a better perspective, which was set against the bigger issue of Indigenous relations with government. I saw some improvements, like the literacy program, but I have had to have a very serious rethink on how Boards should be managed and how members can be adequately trained so that Indigenous people on these Boards can run important institutions like Warrama. I certainly valued the experiences I gained during my time up north, but Im not sure that I achieved as much as I would have liked. This is because my efforts were set against a backdrop of a withdrawal by the Federal Government from genuine partnership to one of paternalistic overseer. I really believe in my heart that when some people use words like reconciliation, they dont actually believe it rather they think it makes them look good in the eyes of others.

Im sensing that theres been a growth now of what I call corporate western modeling. The current approach reminds me of what I saw when I came to take over Kormilda its almost a welfare model, not an independent model. Mind you many people have tried this and have been hurt, and will continue to be unless there is a genuine belief in partnership and changes to the training of Indigenous people to manage their own affairs. There needs to be more of a move to competency. We cannot risk the education of the young without addressing this matter. Revolution has to be sustained by long term action day in and day out. When I look back on this period, I have to wonder whether I contributed to the improvement of Indigenous education. What I was really interested in was a sense of social justice and I probably came away with a better understanding of where Australia stands in terms of who we are and what we believe. The big questions are still Can we do anything? and Are there still things that we can do about it, or do we just let it go and try to move forward? While I may have achieved a few things, I really wonder whether I have shaped much in terms of the public perception of what has to be done, which is where the change really lies. I made a contribution to the recently established Bennelong Society, a right wing Indigenous think tank, by giving a talk on Changing the Mindset. I was suggesting a middle of the road approach whereby both European and Indigenous cultures had to give a bit. Paddy McGuinness, editor of Quadrant, assisted by the Professor of Philosophy at Flinders University, dismissed me as being of the old welfare model. It was a very difficult but serious challenge to my thinking and as a result I have moved more in that direction lately. The Uniting Church has recently signed an ongoing agreement with its own Aboriginal Congress about partnership. The Congress itself wishes to continue within the framework of the church and to me that is quite encouraging because it is a transfer of resources and self-determination. Its not perfect and we all know that it doesnt always work all the time, but at least theres one group within the community that is trying very hard to bring about a meaningful partnership with Indigenous people. The recent debate on the Northern Territory intervention is a test for that. On February 13th, 2013 the Commonwealth of Australia Parliament passed legislation recognizing that Aboriginal people had lived on the land prior to European settlement. This will be a precursor to a referendum which will seek permission to include it in the constitution. These statements tend to override earlier recognitions and the impact on key social indicators will be significant. In

education it will hopefully not just be reflected in outcomes but also in accountability and governance.

Chapter 23

WE DONT DO THAT ANYMORE

Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass In 2007, on my way to the United Kingdom, I called into Darwin to meet with Mark Spain. As earlier mentioned Mark had been a former school captain at Billanook and after he completed a year in South Africa as a Rotary exchange student, and during his tertiary studies, he and his brother drove my car to Darwin where he received his first taste of the Northern Territory. Sometime after he completed his law degree and having been seconded onto the Boards of Schools and the Reconciliation Congress, he took a six months locum with the Darwin office of the law firm Clayton Utz. He was subsequently offered a permanent position and after the restructuring of Clayton Utz into a federal structure, he not only became a managing partner of the Darwin office but had similar status to managing partners across the country. Mark is committed to the private sector through his legal practice but he also maintains a concern for social justice issues. Soon after I arrived Mark offered me a position to assist with some of the programs being run by Clayton Utz. Clayton Utz is one of the largest law firms in Australia and has a strong pro bono practice; in fact this represents more than 3% of their total legal work. In the past ten years they have given much financial support to a number of charities through the Clayton Utz Foundation and taken some important social responsibility programs including those that looked at community involvement through Community Connect; Indigenous support under the Reconciliation Action Plan; and environmental initiatives. My task was to connect their Reconciliation Action Plan with its commitment to shared understanding, positive relationships, respect and opportunity, all in all a model which recognised a new partnership free of welfare. However a great

tension existed especially as all of this was to be set against the national policy framework. In the midst of all of these positive projects and partnerships came The Northern Territory National Emergency Response or the intervention as it was also called. This was a package of changes to welfare provisions, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007 to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. Operation Outreach, the intervention's main logistical operation, was conducted by a force of six hundred soldiers and detachments from the Australian Defence Force. It was claimed that this was the Federal government's response to the publication of the Little Children are Sacred report but by the time the intervention ended in 2008, only two out of ninety-seven of the report's recommendations were ever implemented. The opposition to the policy was articulate. Human rights activists criticised the plans calling it is a cancer killing Aboriginal communities. The Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress also condemned the Intervention, describing widespread detrimental effects on Indigenous peoples lives and communities. Even so both the ALP and the Coalition made commitments to maintain the legislation with minor variations, which really validated the original proposals. Clayton Utz Darwin, under Marks leadership, decided to embark on a commitment to Groote Eylandt as part of their community programs. Groote Eylandt, Dutch for Big Island, lies approximately six hundred kilometres east of Darwin and forty kilometres from the nearest point of mainland in the Gulf of Carpentaria. There are three main centres of population on the island, two Aboriginal communities (Angurugu & Umbakumba) with an average population of 1200 and 325 respectively and a mining town called Alyangula, with an average population of 800. Alyangula was created by the Groote Eylandt Mining Company (GEMCO) as a facility to support the manganese mining operations. 56% of the total population speak a language other than English at home, primarily Anindilyakwa. Groote Eylandt was really a microcosm of the issues in the Northern Territory at the time. Against a history of mission involvement, mining operations and changes to the acts of recognition, which gave the community the opportunity to manage much of its own affairs, are the serious realities of issues around health, housing and education that were way below the national standard. The long term answers to

these matters lay with the community themselves. Yet we cant deny the fact that we have displaced our Indigenous communities whilst creating an affluent society for ourselves to live in. How do we resolve this by ensuring that everyone gets a fair and equal chance without being paternalistic. Clayton Utz were originally approached by Joanna Martin from the Top End Womens Legal Service to discuss the potential involvement of the firm in a number of domestic violence cases in this area. In May 2005, representatives from Clayton Utz attended the Northern Territory Legal Aid Providers and Pro Bono Conference in Darwin and following this reached an agreement with the Top End Women's Legal Service to work together with them on the issue of domestic violence on Groote Eylandt. However soon after this group were re-assigned to look after women in urban areas of the Top End and as a result a new organisation, the North Australian Aboriginal Family Violence Legal Service (NAAFVLS), was established to deliver services to the remote communities. Clayton Utz then committed itself to a Memorandum of Understanding to provide pro bono legal assistance directly to NAAFVLS for these domestic violence cases and to assist them in the establishment of a safe house for the women of Groote Eylandt, which they had been advocating for. In light of this the firm was prepared to ensure an appropriate legal body was formed and that all other legal requirements were undertaken to secure leases on the buildings and other facilities that would be required to provide the safe house. It was proposed that a safe house would be opened in January 2008 and that an appropriate constitution and management operation would be established to make sure it met the community's needs full time. The pro bono assistance during this period was significant and was a huge contribution in time and financial resources by those involved with the Darwin office. Clayton Utz remained actively involved in the establishment of the community safe house during this time. The initial project was to be explored by a grant of $15,000 to NAAVFLS and I was employed to undertake the appropriate research. NAAFVLS was an incorporation of the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention Legal Units that was funded by the Commonwealth Attorney-Generals Department Indigenous Law and Justice Branch. It was into this that I was appointed and the key task I had was to consult with and assist in the broader communities' understanding of the Intervention Safe House Model and determine if the community wished to accept the model as presented by the Northern Territory Safe House Project Team.

This took me on several visits to Groote Eylandt whereby I became very aware of the different standards of living between Alyangula, managed by GEMCO and where school attendance was the highest in the Northern Territory, and Angurugu, 27kms away which had the lowest in the Northern Territory (some 23%). Originally the safe house was to be located at Alyangula because it was within the framework of the police precinct. However the police presence was as much about looking after the mining interests as it was about undertaking Indigenous policing (it was a popular placement in the police force if you liked deep sea fishing). I soon discovered that most of the domestic violence was in Angurugu, so locating the safe house in Alyangula was too far away from where it was needed as well as being unacceptable to the residents of Alyangula. As a result the final report required an urgent and early settlement of the site be concluded with GEMCO, the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the safe house project team. It soon became very clear to me that governance of these communities had many layers, including GEMCO, the Anindilyakwa Land Council, East Arnhem Shire and a whole lot of Federal and Northern Territory Government departments and agencies. Somehow they all had to be included in the discussion. During this time the role of NAAFVLS was reviewed and strengthened as a significant partner in the safe house project. Also the Northern Territory Government identified the governance model and clear lines of accountability for it and reviewed the process of local engagement in the safe house so as to empower community involvement, as established in the key principles of the Sexual Assault Research Project. The Women's Safety House and the Men's Cooling Down Shelter were identified as central to an updated community plan and in the end were placed on the agenda of the network's meeting, chaired by the business managers of the Northern Territory Intervention Programs. An appropriate long -term budget was then developed by the project team to ensure property development, maintenance and the recurrent funding needed for service delivery and the ongoing governance and development. A financial proposal for the development of a permanent safe house including potential sources of funding was also prepared. However because of the dispute regarding the location, the safe house project went from a number one priority in the Northern Territory to the bottom of the list at number ten. This was not really finally resolved until we could get it to be part of a variety of safety measures for the island, including a police presence in Angurugu.

The eventual decision, after many discussions over ownership and substantial financial resources as well as needing to make it suitable, was the old Anglican manse that had once been the centre of the mission. Finally this important community facility was located where it always should have been. In my mind it was the strength and determination of the women such as Mildred Lalara and Hannah Wurramabarra, that eventually did something about it and saw it through. These women, sister in laws who had married young and were widowed early, still had no claim over their own house and continued to suffer from family violence. As they were the ones living on the ground and facing the issues, they trailed me around in the back of their truck showing me where their problems lay and explaining their issues. They also showed how to keep my hair black with the roots of plants and offered me the chance for a wonderful Xmas in which I could end up dancing while covered in ochre and feathers, unfortunately I had other plans. It is to them the community has to thank, as well as Rhonda Solien of NAAVLS for the support she gave. As a result of all this, Clayton Utz became active with the Red Cross to provide some holiday recreation programs so as to help support the young people during the holiday period, when there was little to do on the island, and during the time close to the commencement of the school term, as a way of assisting them with their re-commencement of school at Angurugu and try and lift the attendance numbers. The firm believed that as well as providing a service to the community this would give its staff exposure to, and a better understanding of, the issues impacting the Indigenous community here. In 2009 they funded the first holiday program in Angurugu, which involved a week of activities for young people during the June/July & December/January school holidays. The similar Tiwi Island programs were deemed successful but in a review there was some concerns raised by the Red Cross, who believed that the way the project was arranged was no longer in accordance with Red Cross Australia policy. They felt more consultation needed to take place before and after the completion of each program and as a result community members were asked to be involved at every planning session. This was in line with a community development approach and helped with appropriate activity planning, cultural awareness, risk management and evaluation. Cultural training is now an important part of this program where issues around appropriate dress, behaviour, kinship and knowledge of ceremonies and cultural events are discussed. Other aspects of the induction training also essential included child protection laws, appropriate clothing and equipment and general Red Cross principles.

The current volunteer position description has been deemed outdated and irrelevant and does not reflect Red Cross ways of working nor a desirable community development model. As a result the choosing of the volunteers remained with Clayton Utz so that they could select the appropriate volunteers to assist with the program and organize a more diverse range of activities needed. In all feedback from the communities, it was clearly stated that they wanted more hunting, more fishing and more camping. Community members are now engaged to facilitate such activities while the tension of how to deliver programs appropriate to community needs required further exploration. The biggest issue the Australian Red Cross had to resolve during this time of management and philosophy consideration was how to best utilise the commitment of Clayton Utz. This included the staff using their holiday leave, and paying associated costs, and the payment by the firm of the salary cost for one day per worker per program. The issue was also, how to bring together the genuine desire of Clayton Utz to be of some sort of use, and give the staff an opportunity for firsthand experience, and the clear commitment to a locally empowered initiative. There is no one answer and I moved to a position suggesting that Clayton Utz emphasizes giving support which will directly impact on Groote Eylandt and allow its community to be self sufficient. As part of these discussions it was decided that a partnership would be formed between the Australian Red Cross, Clayton Utz and the Anindilyakwa Art Centre. It was proposed that promotion would take place to assist in the extension and development of the art work which was being produced on Groote Eylandt. A most successful initial launch, and one of the best Indigenous experiences I have ever had, was held on Groote Eylandt, which engaged all members of the Groote Eylandt community, and the second stage of the project was an exhibition and sale held in Sydney in May 2010 in which $40,000 was raised by the Sydney office of Clayton Utz, who had undertaken the responsibility and promotion of the exhibition and sale. This was a very successful venture with the Sydney office indicated it would be willing to participate in further exhibition and sales in the future. Clayton Utz remains committed to working with the Anindilyakwa Council because it strongly supports the strengthening of Groote Eylandt culture, the providing of more opportunities for employment and the support of the community towards economic independence particularly as the mining interests diminish.

In a conversation with the manager of the Anindilyakwa Art Centre, it was suggested that the turnover then was approximately $70,000 per annum of which the artists receive around $45,000. She raised the issue of reduced supply and the concern regarding the ongoing training of appropriate artists in the range of art and cultural products that could be available. The manager also indicated that at an art sale held in Darwin recently, two hundred items were taken, of which forty craft items and twenty art items were sold with a total sale of $8,000. However the costs included freight of $2,000, insurance of $2,000 and $2,000 in air fares and accommodation. I know Clayton Utz would be prepared to help create a long term financial plan to run a series of art exhibitions and sales in Darwin, however this would need to include all the associated costs. The ongoing concern really is the ongoing supply of artwork however the firm believes that it can work with the community, and with other schools and vocational training centres, to assist in the identification of young artists in schools, which would encourage them to participate in this new project. In the Strategic plan the Anindilyakwa Land Council acknowledged that mining will not be on Groote Eylandt forever and that we need to prepare for the point in time when mining ceases (current mine-life is fifteen years by tracking the fluctuations in the world economy) and wants to invest now for a viable, culturally rich, sustainable and low cost economy, not dependent upon mining royalty income beginning now and into the future. The purpose of the 2012-2027 ALC Strategic Plan is to allow the Anindilyakwa people to take the future into their own hands. The objectives of the consultative processes that underpinned most of these projects were to ensure that the traditional owners make informed decisions and that the decision making processes are consistent with the cultural tenets and drivers by which they make choices within their own culture. The key discussion, which we must acknowledge and adhere to, is the recognition that decisions made outside of these parameters will hold minimal legitimacy and will not engage Groote Eylandt people in applying any plans. The key features now are to protect, maintain and promote Anindilyakwa culture, invest in the present to build a future and to create pathways for youth to stand in both worlds. I think they need to aim to provide opportunities for economic participation and for culturally based enterprises to be developed. Enterprises and employment opportunities also need to be explored including the areas of arts and manufacturing, media, film and radio, music, language services, fishing and

tourism, as well as developing links between iconic Groote visual art styles and demand for Indigenous designs into the manufacturing sector. They need opportunities to take up positions in providing the early childhood development, education and training services. During this period Clayton Utz became an active participant in the establishment of a community safety plan, which was a response to the earlier higher levels of domestic and family violence. This project was financed under the Regional Partnership Agreement and was significant at the time as it represented a collaboration between the Anindilyakwa Land Council, all levels of government and the mining interests. Overall the agreement was committed to improve a range of social development factors including schooling, childhood development leadership, economic development, participation and support of youth sport, recreation activities and health and safety in the communities. In June 2008 I was invited to make a submission to the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs about the developing of the community safety plan and was requested to have it completed within that month, presumably they were using up the remainder of a budget. Working with Amanda Reed, we established Social Action Enterprises to undertake the task and acquitted the project via NAAVFLS. During this we were being micro-managed, the new form of management structure for consultants, which was somewhat of a shock to me as I was rather used to managing my own projects. Also I was made aware that I wasnt local and I was non-Indigenous and as there had been many reports before, how could I do this with any sense of integrity knowing this was an issue for the community to manage. Rather than prepare a report as such in the end I built up a manual which could be used by anyone and was very much an articulation of what the local community had said to me. The community recognised that family violence, crime or lack of fault engagement in community life had made a major impact on the quality of life of each individual on Groote Eylandt. This community had seen people restricted in their daily activities as well as being upset and traumatised by having the need to use policing, correctional and emergency services. Over recent years there have been two community safety plans introduced and these earlier safety plans identified a range of issues that need to be confronted. These issues included criminal damage, assaults, abuse and neglect of children, sexual assaults, offensive weapons,

domestic violence, petrol sniffing, alcohol abuse, cannabis use, driving safety and unlicensed driving. The community took direct action to respond to some of these issues through the Alcohol Management Plan, which had been in place since 2004. This plan, established by the community, has led to significant improvements in community safety and the data provided by the Department of Justice indicates a substantial reduction in recorded incident. In fact the communities on Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island did not have regular access to alcohol until the opening of the manganese mine in the 1960s. In the years that followed, alcohol exerted a rapidly increasing adverse effect. The Aboriginal communities and key stakeholders in the region have worked together for many years to try to reduce the severe impact of alcohol. On July 1 st, 2005 an Alcohol Management System was implemented, which required every person in the region, Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, to hold a permit to buy or consume takeaway alcohol. Incidents of drunk people fell by 90% and the 2008 -09 figure was the lowest level for the previous five year period. Incidents of disturbance general fell by 74% and there was a 68% decrease in property crimes, for example house breakins had the largest decrease of 90%, commercial breakins 79% and motor vehicle thefts 62%. All other thefts were down by 58% and the number of persons placed in protective custody fell significantly. Also notable were the number of police callouts for aggravated assault, which fell by 68%, and the number of distinct adults received into Northern Territory correctional centres fell to its lowest level over the previous seven years. Add to this the numbers of adult and juvenile home detention, probation, parole and community work orders were all decreasing. The community was also amongst the first to introduce Opal fuel which eliminated the malaise of petrol sniffing overnight. However in its place has emerged the widespread use of cannabis within all communities and families. According to a report on substance misuse on Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island, a staggering six out of ten Anindilyakwa people regularly smoke marijuana across both islands. When asked why people smoke, the most common reasons were because of boredom, unemployment, lots of stress and everyone else is doing it. Alcohol is also a big problem for Anindilyakwa people when off the island. It is estimated that at any one time there up to one hundred and fifty Anindilyakwa people drinking in Darwin. During royalty, rent or holiday time, many go to

Darwin to drink. Drinking on the mainland can cause considerable family problems and is also felt in the workplace as people are missing and a lot of money ends up being wasted trying to bring them back. The indicators of safety were supplied by the Department of Justice which included drunken disorderly conduct, property crimes, motor theft and sexual assault. These indicators (while not telling the whole picture) are benchmarks for improvement in community safety. They were used to assess the impact of the alcohol management plan. Our community safety plan was to be a process of engagement by the community to accept more responsibility for both individual action and collective action in relation to community safety. The focus of our work was to address community safety issues from a legal justice position. It was noted there were other issues that impacted on community safety but these were subject to other programs. I found that difficult as my own belief was that it is education that needed to be addressed. I am very glad to hear that this is now a priority concern of the Anindilyakwa Land Council Strategic Plan. Before I began I needed to clarify the governance structure. This project was set against an unfolding set of changed social circumstances which include the Northern Territory Intervention, the establishment of the East Arnhem Shire and changing policies of government agencies as well as the economic reality that the most substantial part of the Groote Eylandt income is derived from royalties which has to be regularly re-negotiated. There are only a limited number of members on the local communities and it was essential not to establish more and competing number of committees. Members often simply couldnt attend, which often left meetings under represented. It was important to use the existing structures and ensure that they operate on a known and regular basis with clear lines of communication. The engaging of the local community, professional networks, government departments and senior elected members of the Groote Eylandt community was the main strategy to improve community safety through awareness and increased responsibility. The community safety plan was a process of engagement by the community. The establishment of working groups and identifying processes by which issues can be identified and acted upon is the main instrument for change. The holding of meetings was extremely difficult and for the plan to be successful it required the facilitator to go and visit, meet with and talk to various individuals and groups to secure an agreement over a particular policy. I discovered the most

effective time to meet with members of the Anindilyakwa Land Council was in the early morning, when they all gather for breakfast. Another positive element was there was strong representation at the meetings by the women, who have a real desire to improve community safety and well-being. As identified at the local community level, it is mainly the older women who have raised the concern on community safety. At a meeting of some thirty members they harkened back to the days of mission and actually passed a motion asking the church to return. The real sentiment though was about safety, it was such an overriding concern they were willing to have mission life back. The issue of young women engaging in community safety and the need for men in responsible positions to accept an increased role in community safety, remains an issue to be addressed. Whilst there is an expression of desire to improve all the social outcomes of a community (ie education, health, safety, housing), actual action for improvement is often constrained because of family groupings and low levels of social education which in turn reflect low levels of education. I felt the lifting of expectation through education should be a priority. The number of organizations I ended up encountering was thirty two, with a distribution list of over eighty. It is possible for more than one agency to seek to respond in the same field of endeavour without knowing what the other is doing. I know at some stage, some significant work will need to be undertaken in identifying the governance of the island and the key leaders within each of the groups. The Anindilyakwa Land Council, which has oversight to the key economic activities of the island, is representative of the nine separate clan groups. Any delivery of community safety needs to ensure that each of the clan groups are represented. From time to time it was sensed that there is a tension between different groups. The role of the East Arnhem Shire in the delivery of service is also a vital one. It provides some of the major services including roads, womens resources, sport and recreation and night patrols. The role of the manager within the community is evolving and needs constant review to ensure that the relationship between the Anindilyakwa Land Council and the East Arnhem Shire is an effective one. The delivery of many services is provided through the Anindilyakwa Land Council but there also exists the Groote Eylandt Aboriginal Trust, which has had a long-standing role within the community for the distribution of some royalty

funds. It should be noted the significant role this body, which is separate from the Anindilyakwa Land Council, plays and there is an ongoing need to ensure effective liaison and coordination. All school principals that I met were most active and supportive o f the community safety plan and all effort needs to be made to ensure that the education review, which directly tackles education and training issues, is well supported. There is a sense that the professional members of the Groote Eylandt & Milyakburra Youth Development Unit, medical clinics and other agencies are extremely committed and desire to work hard in the interests of the community. There has also been a most encouraging development by the major sporting associations being involved on the island. Both the Netball Association and the Australian Football League have committed personnel and resources. This has had the occasional hiccup though, such as a report I later heard on a Radio National that stated that a match being played on Groot e Eylandt between two teams at Angurugu was going well until half time when the police left. However they soon had to be recalled when there was a dispute which led to the umpire being threatened and attacked and the game being abandoned. The Department of Justice, including corrections, plays a significant role here but there are restrictions on sentencing options and the issue of the quality and extent of professional legal support has also been raised (anecdotal only). The police inspector is highly engaged and interested but is restricted by his own resource capacity. It is encouraging that there is now a review of the police presence which needs to be strongly supported by the engagement of the local community, as it has traditionally been a major tension. The Regional Partnership Agreement has suggested the establishment of a task group and its membership and its relationship to both the Anindilyakwa Land Council and the community safety plan management group needs early resolution. Betty Herbert, who does a fantastic job as an ACPO worker, acknowledged that at meetings the local communities didnt take any notice of her and there was a shortage of local community members who are both qualified and willing to take on these responsibilities. The strength of the community safety plan, on which I was working, depended on the willingness of myself, the worker, as well as future workers, to develop good and strong relationships with individual members of the community. There have been significant appointments of women to key community roles and this position would be strengthened by male appointments to give balance. The overriding issue of this engagement process was to secure personal and community responsibility

for actions of domestic family violence. The concept of many of the community to stand up and say we dont do that anymore, not just for others but also for themselves became the theme of the action plan. The community safety plan embodies restorative justice principles that aim to challenge behaviors and assist in achieving a process and a outcome. It does require the perpetrators of injustice to consider what they did and what they have to do to make it right. Because of the close knit nature of the community much conversation still needs to take place to get individuals, mainly women, to speak out on the impact of the incident and what needs to be done to make things right. This principle needs to underpin all decisions within the community and it is encouraging to see some beginnings within the courts but is a process worthy of further exploration. The community safety plan management group can succeed, like the alcohol management plan has shown, when the community has the will, assisted by high quality professional expertise, significant change can take place. After all of this I came to the simple view that whilst this community safety plan is driven by the needs to deliver justice through the direct reduction of family violence, all the community interests strongly need to work together so there are no gaps in community service delivery, which is not consistent with this principle. This will need to include schools, public housing and health. In the end the work moved beyond the previous community safety plan by sett ing up the processes of engagement for action. Further reduction in domestic and family violence will only occur by consistent dealings with issues and ensuring that community engagement regularly takes place through the structures set up and the responsibility for change is accepted by the Anindilyakwa Land Council and other community leaders. There have been significant changes taking place and for me it is right and proper that we acknowledge the responsibility and accountability of the locally elected land council and affirm strongly their strategic plan.

Chapter 24

I AM WHAT I AM
I am afraid to tell you who I am, because if I tell you who I am you may not like who I am and its all that I have. John Powell Upon my return from the Top End, I felt it was a time in my life at which I needed to reflect on the journeys that had passed and how those various parts of the journey shaped me as a human being. Life keeps on unfolding and its a matter of how its going to unfold that gives a sense of harmony. Minorities, like the Indigenous communities I saw in the north of Australia, are defined by society through their difference and how far society tolerates or accepts these differences varies over time. Today the global context has changed but

complacency must not be allowed to obscure the fact that some fights are never over and there remains those who are vehemently opposed to such changes in the old social order. Most Australians are increasingly taking pride in that sense of freedom which springs from the considerable diversity within our society diversity of race, religion, culture and sexual orientation. Increasingly we have seen this diversity engender a greater environment of inclusiveness, respect and tolerance. Indeed, more than 'tolerance', rather 'acceptance', an acceptance and respect. My task was to educate, so that students could make informed choices. The task was to create a climate or culture within a school where students could allow themselves to be free without fear of admonition from peers, school community or family. The focus of learning is to allow students to see humbug in whatever the form. To encourage students to think clearly without fear or favour, that is what a school can offer. I was very aware from the suicide statistics that sexuality was a factor for some. Suicide accounts for a large proportion of all deaths for people between 15 & 24 years of age, and 25 & 34 years of age. In fact over the ten years from 2001 to 2010 the crude rate of suicide for males 15-24 years of age decreased from 20.4 to 13.4 deaths per 100,000 population. The crude rate of suicide for 24-35 year old males almost halved from 34.0 to 18.2 deaths per 100,000 population across the same timeframe. Age-standardised suicide rates for males, which take into account differences in the age-structure of the population and cover all age groups, declined from 20.3 to 16.4 deaths per 100,000 population between 2001 and 2010. It is encouraging that the figures show reduction. Any loss of life creates emptiness and an overwhelming sense of loss to those directly connected. It is important that the activities and leadership of schools be affirming through its curriculum and programs and where students could feel free to talk to staff and counsellors. In the Uniting Church Education Committee we produced a Suicide Directory which outlined signs to look for and it listed all the resources that were available. This was made available to every secondary school in the state. The policy in government schools has changed and the Rainbow Coalition is impacting on the way schools behave. There is a need to remain vigilant as some school communities still make it difficult for young gay and lesbian people to thrive. Returning to Melbourne I sought to attend the nearby Fitzroy Uniting Church which provided an interesting blend of eco-feminism and gay and lesbian social

action. Here to me seemed to be a church that was responding to the marginalized with a sense of community and they later moved to CERES in Brunswick. In the beginning of 1995 I wanted to address the issue of what response I could make to the issue of sexuality. This has been a lengthy and often polarised discussion which has changed considerably during the course of my own life time. As a teenager I had no immediate sense that this was a problem, for me or anyone. I was a happy person, although not interested in physical activities, and perfectly happy to enjoy music, dancing and going out on Saturday nights to drivein cinemas. I had every expectation that I would get engaged and marry as I enjoyed the company of intelligent women far more than the company of men. Still with the reinforcing of male stereotypes in the scouts and certainly at school and with the associated teasing and bullying, and during various stages of my career when my sexuality was challenged, I decided to address the situation. Commencing when I was twenty-two I sought advice right up until I was fiftyfour. In the early days it was assumed I had a physical or mental illness and that I could be changed and over that time different psychiatrists had me experience hormone treatment, hypnotherapy, meditation and numerous psychological examinations. During that period psychiatry changed although it wasnt until 1973 that it was removed in the USA off the list of mental disorders. Still the question was always how to live a positive affirmed life as the person you are. In many ways I mirrored the changes in society that were taking place. I had decided in 1995 to address fully the question of my sexuality and make a clear decision about my future before I made a decision about my next career move. This time psychiatry had changed and when seeking advice I was told that I cant change who I was, and that I am what I am, but I could change the context. I made the decision that I would forego any long term position as a school principal and rather undertake small projects which mainly involved myself. It was the final factor determining my position not to seek an extension of my Billanook contract. What it did was to increase my resolve to provide opportunities for gay men and women from different communities to be given a chance. For that reason I have supported the sponsorship of overseas students to study in Australia and provide some educational support to students living overseas. This all came at a time when attitudes to the gay community were becoming more enlightened. To highlight the change, in February 2005, Professor Marie Bashir,

the Governor of NSW, launched the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. She told those gathered there that the event had been 'absolutely priceless' in helping change social attitudes to sexual variation and as a result this had helped create a more tolerant society. Such public approbation from the head of state is in stark contrast to the views, expressed over two hundred years previously, by the first governor, Arthur Phillip that There are two crimes that would merit death murder and sodomy. The Uniting Church has wrestled with the issue of acceptance and it remains a tension within the church however the fairly broad consensus throughout has been that a person's sexual orientation should not be a bar to attendance, membership or participation in the life of the church. More controversial has been the issue of sexual activity by gay and lesbian people, and arising from this, the question of appropriate behaviour for ordination candidates. As a member of the Synod of Victoria and the Assembly, from time to time I have witnessed the anguish of individuals as they have tried to fully express themselves. The 1982 Assembly Standing Committee decided that sexual orientation was not a bar to ordination and left the decision about candidature with the presbytery however the 1997 Assembly, after an very emotional debate, decided they couldnt make a firm decision either way on the issue. I was in attendance on this occasion and this was a very heartfelt discussion as different councils of the church could not agree. Hard for me was to observe the walk out by the indigenous members of the church who felt they had more than enough issues to deal with without a recognition of homosexuality. I had observed and still observe that indigenous communities are no different to the rest of society. More recently I walked through a Uniting Church school and saw a poster on the library door advertising a same sex ball. Quiet, unobtrusive and just naturally there amidst all the other posters. That for me is how it should be. The Reforming Alliance was later set up to represent many ethnic congregations and those in the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress. The Assembly resolution and subsequent material from the Assembly Standing Committee made it clear that when presbyteries select candidates for ministry they may be guided by a presbytery commitment to a particular approach to sexual ethics, but each determination of candidature must still be made on a case by case basis. The Uniting Church in Australia is one of the very few Christian denominations that acknowledges and supports the ministry of people in same-sex relationships.

I do believe that knowledge is the best tool to wisdom and decision making. I come from a position of ensuring that, without proselytizing, students can have a balanced access to sexual education material without fuss and be able to have their natural questions answered. Within Australia there has been increased recognition of civil unions but no recognition of same sex marriages. In all Australian states and territories, cohabiting same-sex couples are recognised as de facto couples and have the same rights as cohabiting heterosexual couples under state law. On May 27 th, 2004 the then Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, introduced the Marriage Amendment Bill 2004, intending to incorporate the common law definition of marriage into the Marriage Act 1961 and the Family Law Act. In June 2004, the bill passed the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the amendment by thirty-eight votes to six. The bill subsequently received royal assent and became the Marriage Amendment Act 2004. The amendment specifies the following: Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia. This is an interesting challenge for me in my position as a civil celebrant. Throughout my life I have also developed a sense of awkwardness and almost disbelief in the power taken by men. I have to recognize that my own life has been so strongly shaped by women. My mother, my sister, my first grade teacher Miss Watson, Aunt Helen, the Rev Isabel Merry, Margaret Murdoch, Kathy Smith, Val Hawkes, Sister Miriam Liston, Dame Phyllis Frost, Rosemary Varty, Carolyn Stone, Helen Hoyle, Lois Dolphin, Anne Clarke, Cheryl Mutabazi, Pat Hancock and Robyn Schaeffer. I cannot deny that I would be a different person today, or may not have gone down such a positive path as I have, without the guidance, wisdom or encouragement from these individuals. I have a strong feeling that the role of women, which has so powerfully shaped my own life so much so that one feels humble beside them, have for so long been has been denied an equal place in religious institutions. I know there are murmurings of change, the Uniting Church has included women in equal ministry partnership and the Anglican Church has now appointed female bishops. However the Christian church of Constantine holds in its liturgical language, and its structures, all power to men. Even though the evidence suggests that there was a positive and

creative role in the formation of the early church by women (Sophia), there seems little recognition of it. I am convinced there exists a community of the spirit which bonds us together. Recently I was shaped by a mix of fictional and theological reading and by my attendance at a religious retreat at a Benedictine monastery in beautiful Bedfordshire. I am no longer confident in the claims of the Christian church that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only hope and panacea of mankinds sin. Holding the possibility that the deification of Christ was essentially to establish the powerful Roman church, which at this time needed to separate itself from Judaism and Islam. It is to a new spirit I look and a new awakening, for when we remove the wrathful God then the spirit of community is set free and is liberated. This spirit emerges as human and equal and it does challenge the physical limits of earthly power which enables us to celebrate a spirit which is powerful, mystical and divine. Each day the world confronts us with acts of human compromise whether it be in Myamar, Zimbabwe, the Sudan, in the destruction of the planet and sustainable land, in the exploitation of children by the British American Tobacco Company or the family violence I have witnessed on Groote Eylandt. I know I am called to act with integrity, to my highest potential to a fullness of life. I am conscious of the many times when my human frailty has failed me and I lacked the courage to face myself. I am awakened to the spirit which is sensible and coherent which touches every emotion of the human heart. To be called as part of a community of mutual care. To love not for what it can offer to an eternal life but for the possibility of a life fulfilled for all. In this context Jesus of Nazereth is an inspiration. Ive picked up various threads and these include a belief that most people have a sense of spirituality or a value system, whether its institutionalized or not. Mankind for most people includes a sense of personal values and spiritual growth. Over more recent years Ive become more conscious of environmental sustainability issues and seeing these as part of the social justice agenda. The destruction of the planet really is quite unfair in terms of what we leave to future generations. China is now high on our national agenda. I began my trips to China in 2005 and each time I travelled alone and even without the knowledge of the Chinese

language I always seemed to manage. However I sensed a desire by the Chinese people I met to learn English and get to know the west. The crowded trains and pollution was overwhelming yet the people charming. Huang Jie was a journalist with a weekly ethnic newspaper who had an obvious love of Chinese history and culture. He showed me many of the local sites including where European cannon fire inflicted damage on the summer palace during the Opium wars. During this time my attitude towards China rapidly changed giving me somewhat a sense of guilt of what was perpetrated on China by the west during the nineteenth century colonial expansion. I was standing in the mausoleum queue on a winters day when a young man wanted to chat and walk with me for the day, which made me slightly nervous. At the end of our time together he handed me a piece of jade and said thank you before disappearing into the fog. He really just wanted to learn English. Another man from rural China invited me to travel from the Forbidden City to the old city and join him at a tea shop which had existed for five hundred years. I was waiting for something to happen as we shared so many teas, but really all he wanted was to share this place with me and to let his children know that he had been there. It was bull dozed down later for the Olympics and an upmarket western style mall is now there. He put me in a cab and I never saw him again. However travelling alone is not always wise. I once got cornered in a bar, I was only after a lime and soda, and was terrorised by two huge bouncers and forced to pay for a triple Scotch whisky for everyone in the bar. Management suggested if I wasnt happy I could speak to the police, not a group of people I felt confident would assist me. This event was upstaged when out of nowhere I received a blackmail email asking for a substantial sum of money and if they didnt get paid they would spread false information about me (which they did). I was bewildered enough at the time to ask for the information, a great mistake I was told later by the legal authorities to whom I reported it, as that gave them a green light to try and attack me. What I didnt know was that it was a popular scam at the time and if I had pressed delete I wouldnt have heard from them again. . My experiences overall in China have been very positive. These trips to China have made me think about myself and the world, looking at Tiananmen Square with its Gate of Heavenly Peace and standing behind it was 2000 years of Confucian history, culture and religion. Walking along the Great Wall I sensed something eternal and a desire to have that fulfilled in a relationship with another and with a better understanding of the world.

I have a strong awareness of and feeling toward the global world. It is for this reason that I have supported two university students from Asia and Africa each year to discover their own journey. I am hoping to establish eco-leaders programs in different communities which will give support to young people to contribute to their local community. The ease of travel and communication has changed our understanding of other cultures on a daily basis, no longer is there the separateness that my own parents felt when they left the United Kingdom for Australia. I remain committed to some key social justice issues such as when people have been disenfranchised by life, not by choice but because of where they happened to be born or who they were born to. Whether its somebody with a disability, whether its in an isolated environment, whether its by race, whether its by sexuality or whether its by age. From what I have witnessed from where I have worked, and in the country in which I have lived, Ive seen many of us have opportunity, wealth and resources. Im not interested in diminishing the wealth of people, but in making sure that other people can get resourced in the same way. I have come to the simple conclusion that this harmony I have sought and now rediscovering is simply here within me. Personal harmony which gives a sense of belonging to oneself is no easy journey.

Chapter 25

HEAL THE WORLD

Somebody must listen, answered the Frog, and I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments. Oscar Wilde, The Remarkable Rocket

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWf-eARnf6U

In a sense, when I look at the opinions I have regarding the issues of environment and sustainability, I feel that theyve come more from people who shaped me along the way, rather than conclusions Ive developed for myself. Like many teenagers of my era, my first exposure to the great outdoors came through my involvement with the Scouting movement. Here I learnt to camp under the stars, cook on an open fire and go for hikes in the bush. For me the hikes were the most demanding yet the most rewarding. I found them quite rigorous expeditions yet I was proud when I was able to exhaustedly conquer some of the taller mountains around Warburton. My greatest time of all was the hike into Lake Tarli Karng via Licola, a tiny settlement on the Macalister River, where we learnt to tickle fish. The Grampians also proved to be a special spot where we returned many times. Even the first and second class badges had a hiking component, which meant I became familiar with the compass points and trig points on maps. During my quest to become a Queens Scout I managed to collect a number of badges on flora and fauna along the way and as a result became very familiar with the publication of What Bird is That? A Guide to the Birds of Australia, a book that was Australias first fully illustrated national field guide to birds when it was published in 1931. For the next forty years it remained the most comprehensive authority on this subject and one I consulted often. I also collected eucalypts and was able to classify them by size, habitat, flowers, bark and leaves. At the age of eighteen with my Queens Scout Badge on my sleeve and a driving licence achieved, I was relieved to discover that most of the outdoor education we had from then on was essentially at static camps. During this time I enjoyed the experience of helping with the cooking at the Inter-School Christian Fellowship campsites at Toolangi (near Healesville) and on the Banksia Peninsula (Gippsland). Both of these places charmed me with their beautiful surroundings and I would visit them often in the decades that followed, especially Banksia.

All of this prepared me for my time as a teacher organizing Middle School camps for Haileybury in the pouring rain at Cockatoo and school opening camps on the Banksia Peninsula. Later when I had Billanook involved with the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme one of pillars of this program was outdoor pursuits. Into this came a young outdoor education entrepreneur in a pink shirt (colour not politics) named Tony Pammer, who effectively developed the program at a static camp on the Banksia Peninsula (which we purchased and later sold) and then at a range of different destinations including his own site at Eildon. In the end we organised for each student to have an outdoor education experience. When Tony came to Billanook to set up our outdoor education program it was only the beginning of his journey. He is now the CEO of the Outdoor Education Group, an organisation he helped found in 1984 with two friends. This group educates over 20,000 students annually from one hundred schools and offers a diverse range of programs purpose-built for educating students. It is also a major contributor to program practice, program development and political awareness about outdoor education. Neville Skewes, the bursar at Billanook, felt that we gave him the cash flow to get this program started and put outdoor education on the map (a statement later to be proven correct!). Meanwhile the issue of environmental education, including what was being offered as a subject in VCE, was on the agenda. Discussions on its relationship to science, physical education and sociology have been fluid. For two years I was on the faculty board of the Ballarat CAE where teachers linked both of these themes by majoring in physical education and environmental science (although I felt they should have a maths major as well to give them more career options). For me the role of outdoor education programs is best summarised in the 1978 UNESCO-UNEP intergovernmental conference on environmental education: 1. The goals of environmental education are: (a) to foster clear awareness of, and concern about, economic, social, political and ecological interdependence in urban and rural areas; (b) to provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment; (c) to create new patterns of behaviour of individuals, groups and society as a whole towards the environment. 2. The categories of environmental education objectives:

Awareness: to help social groups and individuals acquire an awareness of and sensitivity to the total environment and its allied problems. Knowledge: to help social groups and individuals gain a variety of experience in, and acquire a basic understanding of, the environment and its associate problems. Attitudes: to help social groups and individuals acquire a set of values and feelings of concern for the environment, and the motivation for actively participating in environmental improvement and protection. Skills: to help social groups and individuals acquire the skills for identifying and solving environmental problems. Participation: to provide social groups and individuals with an opportunity to be actively involved at all levels in working toward resolution of environmental problems. Over time the focus has become more on sustainability, which is being recognized in curriculum design and will look at opportunities to engage more strongly with broader sustainability issues like in the statement we wrote f or Billanook College: Billanook College is committed to a sustainable environment and as such reducing our impact on it. We will endeavour to practise waste wise initiatives, promote energy efficiency, reduce water usage and increase biodiversity, as well as educate individuals within our community to make a personal commitment to reduce their impact on the environment. The College will also continue to work with the community in practical and supportive ways to act out this commitment. Our vision was to be the soul of sustainability by reducing our ecological footprint and also empowering our young people to make changes themselves through involvement. Our student leadership structure was modelled on the pillars of the International Round Square movement and one of those pillars is Environmental Stewardship. Through this we organised for each student in the Senior, Middle and Primary Schools to hold an Environment Portfolio and we had other students involved with the Environmental Leaders of the Future program. All of these students were involved in activities which raised awareness of environmental issues within the college community and we encouraged them to look to make a practical difference by helping with projects around the college grounds and beyond. However as I ventured out on my own into the world of education, environmental issues went into a vacuum, apart from registering the trade name and forming a company called International Year of the Mountain, much to the despair of my accountant Greg Kitch who has spent a lot of time trying to register in legal form

some of my ideas. In November 1998 the UN General Assembly declared that 2002 would be the International Year of Mountains, with the goal of raising international awareness about mountains, their global importance, the fragility of their resources, and the necessity of sustainable approaches to mountain development. On December 11th, 2001 nearly one hundred people gathered at the UN Headquarters in New York to launch the International Year of Mountains. I honestly thought the federal government would commit to this and I would be able to make a submission for some sort of a grant, how could I go wrong? Only that climate change had not yet become a part of the political agenda and the declaration was all but ignored in this country. Soon after though I had contact with an organisation called Planet Savers. This had been created by Mark Smith, an activist with considerable technical skill, Eric Bottomley, a former Billanook parent, and Glenn Davidson, a former drama teacher extraordinaire at Billanook. Eric and Glenn had worked together at the CERES Sustainability Park in Brunswick where Eric had co-founded the Sustainable Schools Program. They were quite a team and had formed Planet Savers to undertake a range of technical and advisory services on the topic of the environment as well encourage school to be more active in sustainability issues. It is impossible to state the extensive passionate contribution that Eric has made to sustainability. He taught geography, economics and environmental science in schools for almost twenty years, and was coordinator of CERES Education for thirteen years before taking on the role with the Sustainability Projects. He has written a number of books on development and global warming and designed much of the CERES Educational program and the Australian Sustainable Schools Program. He also spent five years establishing the Urban Water Conservation Demonstration and Research Facility at CERES and later hosted the Victorian Round Table on Sustainability Education through CERES. Erudite, amusing, compassionate, he certainly lives out what he believes. He currently spends most of his time managing the CERES role in implementing Resource Smart/AuSSI Schools across Victoria and in consulting with community run sustainability projects around Australia. Planet Savers had secured a contract to undertake energy audits in the sixty highest energy consuming schools in the Northern Territory. Essentially, with pressure on the costs of power increasing, many of the older schools were high electricity users; air conditioning not surprisingly was taking up approximately 70% of the overall energy expenditure. Submissions to the Federal government for funds to upgrade ageing school facilities required quite specific detailed technical

advice and the Energy Smart Schools Program, an initiative established by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, aimed at achieving a homogonous approach to energy management and sustainability in government schools. The program was designed to assist with the integration of sustainability practices as a core component of Department of Education and Training schools and corporate culture and to specifically reduce energy use throughout these school facilities. This energy audit was commissioned by the Northern Territory Government Energy Smart Schools Program for the Department of Planning and Infrastructure to identify energy saving opportunities within the schools to help reduce their energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions. At the completion of the school visit a very detailed report would be sent to the school and include the progress that they had made to become consciously sustainable. I was initially asked to make appointments for the Planet Savers to visit each of the schools on the list and these were scattered right across the Northern Territory. I soon found that rather than being the appointment officer I ended up having to argue the case for this process. This forced me to do some thinking on sustainability issues and by the time we completed the task, some eighteen months later, I was aware of the emerging concerns and became very familiar with every school community. Two key factors seemed to have a significant impact on energy consumption within any Northern Territory school. The quality and energy saving potential of existing school electrical appliances and infrastructure and the way in which staff and students use that equipment and infrastructure and/or the level of control that staff have over that infrastructure. These were the matters that needed to be addressed. Even though the schools had been notified and nominally agreed to the process, which required the active engagement of parents, principals, teachers and students, the reality was quite different. I found that attitudes varied. There was a high level of community engagement in the middle class areas of Darwin (they usually won the NT Melaleuca Environment awards). It was expected that resistance would be highest in the rural and remote schools, because of the many demands placed upon the staff, but that proved not to be the case. The program began in a dramatic way with discussions with government departments happening during torrential storms and floods whilst Melbourne, and in the areas around where most of the team lived, were being destroyed by horrific bush fires. The amount of detail provided and the extensive nature of the reports was a direct result of the experience and expertise of the Planet Savers team. Savings of up to 20% were possible if the school was determined to make the change. As ever,

through all the visits one is constantly reminded of the commitment made by teachers in what can be very demanding circumstances. With government policy changes (i.e: NAPLAN), restructuring, staff turnover and low attendance at some schools, to involve the schools in yet another project was a lot to ask, however most did so. It was also clear that if any gains were to be made by schools they needed to have some incentive, altruism has its limits. There was a debate, not finally resolved, as to whether the schools would receive the benefits of the savings made. In 2010, as part of maintaining the commitment by schools in the Darwin area, a Student Sustainability Summit was organized. At this conference was a refreshing, dynamic and passionate parent and teacher called Susan Wills, who had an intense love of, and commitment to, the environment. With some support of the Department of Education the first conference was organised and there was no doubts there, that students wanted action, after all it is their future. To hear an eleven year old girl extol the virtues of the recently installed solar panels on the school gymnasium roof, convinced me that the future is in good hands if we dont destroy it first. Susan is now Director of the Botanical Gardens with a focus on community involvement in environment practice. The Student Summit was continued the following year and organized within the framework of the Education Department. The aim was to link the activity into the Alice Springs Eco Fair as the local community were working together to build the Eco Fair up so it would become a regular annual activity and it seemed to be a rather good focus for all the schools to somehow be involved. It was thought the schools could run part of the overall program and it was hoped that there would be mixed activities both in school and in communities. It was intended to extend and build the project up with the rural and remote schools. The securing of an Environment Grant by the Association of Independent Schools Northern Territory ensured the involvement of the non -government schools at the fair but the small rural schools had only limited engagement because of the cost of travel and lack of staff. Linking into a community action plan seemed a successful way to go and Centralian College ended up working with James Cocking of the Arid Land Environment Centre to develop a program. Long term change requires it to be embedded in the education culture and as a result this was an extremely successful community event. Around the same time I had the chance to be involved in a new ministry within the Uniting Church. On this occasion I looked to the churchs recent statement on

social justice and thought this would be central to the development of this ministry. This policy expressed that the Uniting Church believes that all are equal in the eyes of God and this extends to the use and enjoyment of Gods creation. Gods creation (including future generations) is to be respected and recognized for its intrinsic value. The Church also believes it is called to advocate on behalf of the poor and most vulnerable members of the global community. Because climate change is predicted to impact on the worlds poorest people first, we acknowledge we have moral responsibility to prevent this from occurring. In the establishment of the Whittlesea Regional Ministry Centre the aim was to ensure that the Uniting Church social justice policy would be implemented and would ensure the centre would be both a community and an organisation that strove to make minimal impact on the environment as well as incorporate education and knowledge about sustainability into both the development of the centre and its operations and serve as a model of sustainable living for local communities. It also considered environmental principles in undertaking all aspects of the development and operation of the centre and its services. It looked to maintain and restore natural assets using resources more efficiently, to reduce everyday environmental impacts and specifically to reduce overall consumption of resources by reducing total energy use. It certainly was aiming to minimise its Ecological Footprint Also, in developing the Whittlesea Region Ministry Centre facilities, the Uniting Church engaged an architect who had knowledge of, and was sympathetic to, environmentally sustainable design principles as well as adhere to Zero Waste outcomes particularly in concern to selection of building contractors having them use a waste wise approach during construction. It would also use energy and water efficient fittings, appliances and control systems for solar systems for the heating of water and air, use passive cooling systems with building and design elements that support energy efficiency and explore the vi ability of grey water systems, especially for the watering of gardens around the centre and ministry buildings. In developing a context for stewardship and Eco spirituality, the Uniting Church would use the scriptures for guidance and inspiration, e.g. use Genesis to establish a context for stewardship of the earth through faith, reflecting on Indigenous cultures of the world, in particular the Indigenous community of the area, as inspiration and reference for stewardship and creating faith contexts and templates for other schools to develop a sense of sustainable community using faith as a foundation.

A model for a sustainable school had been developed by CERES and in the proposal to establish this new centre, sustainability features have applied. These features would become central to the discussion when later engaging with schools in Thailand Now basing myself in Darwin, I became more connected to the region and felt that the lessons learnt on the school visits and the model developed by CERES and the Uniting Church might be usefully shared with countries in the region where Australia had a developing interest. Without much success, I applied to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for funding however I did manage to secure one significant grant to establish relations with the Princess Mother School in Phuket, Thailand, a school of two thousand eight hundred which was located adjacent to a mangrove forest. Contact was made through the Royal Thai Embassy in Canberra and then I was able to meet a most enthusiastic and experienced teacher, Benjalak Ungsupchua, who was working hard to promote the school. This led to a visit by the Australian Deputy Head of Mission, the development of an eco leaders group, workshops organized by Eric Bottomley and a Skype exchange and visit by Billanook College. The school was headed by an enthusiastic and committed Director, Nachai Keimnipatt, who was then Chair of the Thailand English Language Schools who had the strong support of the Federal Department of Education (there are 32,000 schools in Thailand). The Princess Mother School working with the Asia Pacific Environmental Network and CERES Sustainability Park, organised an ASEAN Student EcoLeaders Summit and 60th Year Celebration of Australian-Thailand Relations conference as part of the English Language Program of Southern Thailand that was supported by the Muang District of Education. As a result the workshop was held during a very wet June for three hundred students from Thai schools in the region. The summit organized a list of the individual schools and contacts so their environmental projects could be communicated between schools and students. This included links with other schools in ASEAN countries and the Sustainable Schools movement in Australia via CERES. The students were very enthusiastic and ended up posting over one hundred and fifty comments on facebook. The students were exceptional with their patience, perseverance, interest in ASEAN and sharing with each other environmental improvements. These students are a

resource to be treasured and supported with future interactions via meetings and on line to be encouraged. Students identified the key issues of the island including overpopulation, loss of trees and the issues of drugs and related crime. I personally witnessed the death of one teenager, who was shot and killed by another teenager whilst the both of them were riding motorcycles, one angry with the other over a karaoke song. Sadly drug related gangs are commonplace resulting in high profile thefts and murders including of overseas guests. Also Phuket appears dependent on labour from Myammar, who are paid half the local wage and schools are not made available for their children. Comments were made about energy conservation needs and it would be worth considering having simple energy audits for schools done professionally. The cost is usually covered within one year through savings and these savings will increase dramatically over time. These student assisted audits have been under discussion with Planet Savers in Australia who are planning to implement them last year. These audits are essential to counter the waste through poor design, increased electrical equipment and air conditioner use. Similarly, there is a need to search for reductions in water and resource use and link this work to new curriculum units. Provision of some basic equipment for students to monitor weather, water and air quality, and energy use, will help motivate students I feel. Better wet weather preparations are needed (the conference period faced days of continuous rain and local flooding necessitating constant revisions and some cancellations of trips). Also sticking to times and plans, consulting more with visiting teachers, using young, local environmental project speakers and reducing work load and waste at the conference. A clearer command structure would improve these conferences with provision for a paid coordinator and organizers volunteering their unpaid labor time. Teachers had to add to their existing loads so that in the end time pressures affected decision making. Several teachers asked for more project examples so environmental change actions need to be incorporated in the learning program. Themes such as hands-on student energy and waste auditing, wildlife protection campaigning, organic gardening, etc would be useful inclusions for teachers and students. However the school should be commended for the energy it put into this new project and the engaging of teachers across all subject areas in environmental education. This success was very much a result of strong leadership commitment by the board of the Princess Mother School.

It was clear that many of the teachers had limited environmental experience even though they were outstanding in supporting the students. Teacher training in sustainability initiatives should be a high priority and it would be helpful to consider the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative as coordinated by CERES in Victoria. Without teacher education it will be hard to maintain improvements in school resource use, cost savings and curriculum advancement. Whilst certain teachers such as the environment and agriculture teachers often take a lead, a successful program requires all teachers and subjects to be involved as well as the administration and operations managers a whole school approach. There was strong affinity for ASEAN and it would be an advantage to establish a network of environmentally active schools in ASEAN who can maintain directly through on-line contact. Working on ASEAN themes motivated the students. The work started at this conference could lead to a strong interacting group of schools supporting one another across Thailand leading to a Thai Sustainable Schools program that could be paralleled in ASEAN countries so that the unifying principles for sustainability across the ten countries are reflected and spearheaded by developments in a leading network in each country. ASEAN has become a world example of Sustainability Education. This was a very commendable effort, which brought together English Language, ASEAN, the Environment and the strengthening of relations with Australia. The learning process for the school community was huge and many lessons were learnt which will ensure future success. The future in education will be driven by electronic information and connection. The students through facebook began a process of long -term strategic engagement linking them with other students and schools over the next five years. It is not impossible to have well over 5,000 students reached by this process. The aspect of the program, which relates to Australia, was initiated under a project funded by the Australian Thailand Institute Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and there has been a strong contact made between these groups, which were assisted by the visit of the Deputy Head of Mission of Australian Embassy. Our organization wasnt perfect but the discussion and findings of the students were exceptional. At the close of the summit, certificates were presented by Dr Benjalug Namfa, Deputy Secretary General Office of the Basic Education Commission of Thailand. Dr Namfa emphasised the importance of the English Language Program across the nation. One twelve year girl, when I asked her what

she intended to do as a career, told me a psychiatrist (I expected nursing!). I said I could never do that because I cant spell it. Hmmm, she said with confidence, But I can. In the engaging of this project I met Sean Panton. A half mad enthusiastic Englishman who had been working on an extensive development for a private owner to cater for an international sports training market as well as an international school. He has been active in the establishment of SEEK, a sustainability model based on compass points. This model of a Sustainable Community represents the very best of persona and community living, to SEEK personal harmony with a sense of compassion and justice for others. Following the successful conference I have worked with SEEK to examine a response to the growing concern in Phuket, which has been an issue in Northern Australia also, of the rise of dengue fever. This may be an opportunity for our two communities to work together and build healthy communities. The framework would need to be based around a Core Module (systems and culture change), and Resource Modules - water, waste, biodiversity and energy. Healthy Communities in Thailand is another project I will focus on with some key elements of the program relating to water and waste resources, with the aim of careful use, minimal wastage, cost savings, conceptual understandings, and school planning to implement improvements around the school in minimising the waste of materials and water. We are proposing a program Healthy Communities in which the background planning for water and waste incorporates a community education program on dengue fever, so it would be of great interest also in both Thailand and tropical Australia. The health needs of the biosphere and human are sometimes separate but often compatible. In this project we are working for biosphere health needs by minimizing waste of water and materials. At the same time we are trying to protect from biotic threats through the understanding, treatment, and communication about dengue fever in Phuket. We are proposing to achieve this through school health centres and community education. Education, community and the Office of the Chief Medical Officer have a shared responsibility as mosquito control workers cannot eliminate dengue mosquito breeding in all homes and businesses in Phuket. An important element of dengue management is the education of members of the public about their role in eliminating dengue mosquito breeding at home and protecting themselves from dengue. Education programs use media releases, public relations, advertising, promotional materials (brochures, posters), training sessions and information

sheets. Programs are either targeted at the general community or specific community settings such as schools, work sites and travellers' hostels. This project begins with schools and hospitals. As a person who has taken a while to understand the need to connect to the environment, and to do something about it, I believe that a regional approach is essential. As a country seeking to strengthen its regional connections we could do much to support the policy of ASEAN. Commit ourselves to promoting programs for raising domestic awareness on climate change and to inculcate habits towards a low emissions society through enhancement of education on climate change (ASEAN Summit 2010) As I have written, the more aware I am of the need to encourage within myself a sense of healthy well being, the more mindful I am of how I can bring together all my physical, emotional needs together in harmony. Each experience of awakening has given me new insights into the world, along with its issues, and what role I can play in making our world a sustainable place for all people to live in peace, prosperity and harmony.

Chapter 26

STOP TALKING AND LISTEN

Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin. Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass Exploring Phuket and enjoying the experience of yoga and rigor of a detox program, I explored with SEEK where the future lay. It seemed that the issue of long term sustainability was impacting on island communities throughout this region and it was an issue I needed to explore further. Boracay Island is located off the northwest corner of Panay Island, and belongs to the Western Visayas island-group, or Region VI, of the Philippines. The island is approximately seven kilometers long, dog-bone shaped, with the narrowest spot being less than one kilometre wide, it has a total land area of 10.32 square kilometres. South facing Cagban Beach is located across a small strait from the

jetty port at Caticlan on Panay Island, and the Cagban jetty port serves as Boracay's main entry and exit point during most of the year. When wind and sea conditions dictate, east-facing Tambisaan Beach serves as an alternative entry and exit point. Boracay's two primary tourism beaches, White Beach and Bulabog Beach, are located on opposite sides of the island's narrow central area. White Beach faces westward and Bulabog Beach faces eastward. The island also has several other beaches. White Beach, the main tourism beach, is about four kilometres long and is lined with resorts, hotels, lodging houses, restaurants, and other tourism-related businesses. In the central portion, for about two kilometres, there is a footpath known as the Beachfront Path that separates the beach itself from the establishments located along it. North and south of the Beachfront Path, beachfront establishments do literally front along the beach itself. Several roads and paths connect the Beachfront Path with Boracay's Main Road, a vehicular road which runs the length of the island. At the extreme northern end of White Beach, a footpath runs around the headland there and connects White Beach with Diniwid Beach. Bulabog Beach, across the island from White Beach, is the second most popular tourism beach on the island and Boracay's main windsurfing spot. This island, which twenty years ago had nothing but a few fishing villages and a few backpackers, has undergone enormous change with over one million tourists visiting a year. This is a microcosm of what is happening to island communities throughout this region. Rapid over population has ruined the once peaceful atmosphere and created environmental issues. Degradation of water quality caused by sewage from uncontrolled developments is taking a heavy toll on the health of Boracays coral reefs, fisheries, residents and even tourists. By letting the world in, the world community should feel a sense of responsibility to Boracay and immediately help address the environment and social problems before they become overwhelming. There is a task to do. When visiting the local supermarket I noticed that under the Health Products was the cigarette stand selling cigarettes at $2 per packet of twenty. Thus it is as human beings we have a responsibility to protect and nurture planet earth. Education is the means that we become aware. Experience comes from those millions of people who create their very being from responding to our planet. The answer to Who are you becomes clearer when we act to protect this planet and the people on it. As a singer on Boracay Island said to me, when I asked him how do I solve the problems of the island, he simply said Stop talking and just listen. Wise words indeed.

Just somehow I know it is always a time for renewal and to empty myself and allow the spirit to enter into my heart and soul and to listen to the voice of this spirit which will allow me to serve and contribute selflessly to our fragile world. This is the ongoing journey and the memoir is never finished because people and our world continue to exist. To create healing in our world is the challenge of all people. Still the future awaits and I need to book my ticket, as I have just discovered a School in Djakarta for transvestites seeking to strengthen their Islamic faith; a solution to the destruction of coral reefs at Boracay using wave power; and the joy of sharing with a group of parents their determination to build a new education community in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne.

RESUME
Name: Peter William Harris

Professional History: Civil Marriage Celebrant 1996 Director, Pan Pacific Association of Private Education and Training, Aust Chair, Outer Eastern Planning Council re University Chair, Australian Council of Private Education and Training 1995-1997 State Rep, Aust Council of Private Education & Training 1998-1999 Chair, National Uniting Church Education Committee 1992-1999 Chair, Vic Synod Uniting Church Education Committee 1985-1999 Chair, Assoc of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory 1989-1995 Board Member (NT) National Council of Independent Schools Association Board Member Round Square Organisation (50 schools world wide) Founding Member Global Connections (70 educators world wide) Chair, Aitken College 1996-2001 Manager The Wangetti College 2005-2006 Community Development Dir, Whittlesea Region Mission Council 2006-2007

Founding Principal, Christian Community College, Maryborough 1973-1979 Australias first ecumenical school. Founding Principal, Billanook College, Mooroolbark 1980-1986 A Uniting Church School of some 1,100 students. Founding CEO, Kormilda College, Darwin 1987-1989 An Anglican-Uniting Church School Providing services to traditional Aboriginal Communities. Director Education and Training Shalom Christian College 2003 Principal, St Johns Greek Orthodox College 1997 Consultant to Essington School, Darwin; Townsville Edinburgh Seven Day Adventist College, Lilydale; and Montessori Colleges Consultant to the Northern Australian Aboriginal Family Violence Legal Service 2008 Clayton Utz Pro Bono program coordinator on Groote Eylandt, Registered Schools Board Victoria Community facilitator for the Groote Eylandt Community Safety Plan Director Planet Savers (Northern) responsible for the ESSP project of 60schools and Environment Project in Thailand (DFAT grant) SEEK Director Thailand

Teaching Experience: Economics, Accounting, History, Religious Education, Business Studies Tertiary: Philosophy tutor Publications: (UCEC) Koori Index (1995) (Ed) Youth Suicide Directory (Ed) Aged Care Directory (Ed) Finding the Balance a Review of Government Education in Victoria (Ed) Qualifications: BA BComm MEd PhD ALAA FACE TSTC Teaching English as a Second Language Diploma Honorary: Life Member School Library Association of Victoria (Hon) Life Member Billanook College (Hon) Life Member Highview College (Hon) Life Member AISNT (Hon) Life Member Australian Council for Private Education and Training (Hon) Life Member Australian College of Education (Hon) Fellow Round Square (Hon)