Newsletter 2

Newsletter 2
In this edition..
Julie Hatherell (Davies), and Tracy Giurietto write about their recollections of those early days at ASOPA and include as a bonus, a special critique on boarding houses in Mosman.

June Whittaker, the youngest staff member at the time, reveals how the place worked and why it was so unique. You won’t bedisappointed.




The weekend of 1st and 2nd February 2014 Planning is well advanced and you can expect to receive an invitation/ registration form in mid November 2013.

On the Saturday evening, we have booked for dinner in the Harbour View Room of the Mosman (RSL) Club in Military Road. Food prices are competitive and drinks can be purchased from the bar. Off street parking is available and public transport and taxis will be accessible.
Maurie Saxby has generously agreed to be our guest speaker. Formalities on the evening will be kept to a minimum.

On Sunday morning we will take over a café recently built between ASOPA and the oval. The new owners have agreed to provide us with brunch at 9.30am. At this stage the overall numbers for the
weekend should be about 80 to 100.


PUMPKINS OR PAPUA 
– Julie Hatherell (Davies)
It’s the end of 1965 and this 18 year old has just failed every subject at Uni. My father’s words are ringing in my ears… “you’re going to spend the rest of your life cutting pumpkins in the fruit shop”. Great!
But my father was also a feminist and he tried, successfully to instil in my sister and I the notion that ”you don’t want to have to be reliant on a man” in this life. I thought about that and decided I’d better have another go at some sort of higher education if I wanted an independent life free of pumpkins and men.
Enter Phillip Turner (ASOPA, 1965 – 1966), my cousin and a fellow Uni drop-out and party-goer (needless to say the reason I failed Uni was the partying, of course). He told me about this wonderful place he was going to in Sydney where he was training to become a teacher in Papua New Guinea, getting paid a salary while training and…partying. Sounded great to me…
”Where’s Papua New Guinea?” I asked. I applied and got an interview.
Thank goodness for the Department of Territories magazines left in the waiting room where I sat and waited for my interview. A quick read and a few pertinent facts hurriedly noted…PNG is located north of Australia, just south of the equator, hot, humid and covered with rainforest, the capital is Port Moresby, diverse and tribal with over 700 actual languages spoken, majority of people illiterate, people are Melanesian, PNG is a territory of Australia and administered by Australia but moving
towards independence.
Then into the interview… ”How do you do Julie…have a seat…”
Q. What do you know about Papua New Guinea?
A. I’d just read it hadn’t I? Thank goodness for those magazines. Not only that but suddenly, as happens with a rush of adrenalin in a flight or fight situation, I was able to embellish my answer with how people live in tropical rainforest areas remembered from my leaving certificate geography text book Ford and Rowe, of course…”Girls, take out your Ford and Rowe and turn to page…” and so it went lesson after lesson.
Q. Why do you want to become a teacher in Papua New Guinea?
A. I explained how I went to university straight from school, didn’t know what I wanted to do so wasn’t committed and failed, had been reading about PNG and independence and the high illiteracy rate and feel strongly that education will be the key to the success of that independence. At that stage I only wanted to go to ASOPA, I really hadn’t given much thought, if any, to becoming a teacher but somehow managed to tie becoming a teacher to the only thing I knew about PNG from the reading …the independence thing. Again the old adrenalin rush, I guess.
To this day I’m amazed that I was successful. I’ve missed out on a lot of interviews since.
My parents wouldn’t allow me to stay in a shared flat, so I ended up in a guesthouse at Mosman run by Mrs Boutagy (obviously student accommodation recommended by the College).
I found myself sharing with other new ASOPians – 3 who grew up in PNG – Nigel Ralph, John Caroll, Denise Patterson – Pat Braceland and Felix Kun. The girls shared one large dormitory-style room and the boys another. Mrs Boutagy took her role as chaperone seriously indeed. If you weren’t home by 10pm you were locked out. Mrs Boutagy served you 2 meals – breakfast and dinner and you were expected to be there…a home away from home! It was quite difficult in the first few weeks of ASOPA to join in the party scene and yet be home tucked up in bed by 10pm.

Needless to say the main preoccupation of us living in Mrs Boutagy’s guesthouse in those first few weeks, apart from the parties, was to find alternative accommodation in flats. Soon enough Denise and I moved into a flat in Manly.
Oh, I remember well that first day driving down the road with the bush on both sides and then realising that the college buildings (army–style huts) actually sat on Middle Head, which jutted out into Sydney Harbour. Who can ever forget sitting in a lecture room with its glass wall looking directly over the Harbour and watching the “Esmeralda” at full sail gliding through the Heads? What a spot! A million dollar view.
I’ve done a lot of studying and training since ASOPA but of all the lecturers/ trainers/ educators I’ve had the fortune (and misfortune) to experience, those at ASOPA were very special. I fondly remember those dedicated, highly qualified, professional, experienced and, in the odd case, eccentric team of lecturers in 1966 – 67. I came to realise over time that they all shared our desire to succeed.
I won’t single out any one lecturer here for special mention but I’m sure you can imagine how over-awed I was when I found out our geography lecturer was the great man himself…none other than Mr Edgar Ford, co-author of that same Ford and Rowe geography text which in no small way, contributed to my being given the opportunity to choose Papua over pumpkins!

A YOUNG MAN’S JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN 
–Tracy Giurietto
The first taxi driver that I approached at Mascot laughed and drove away (“Middle Head – give us a break!”). The second one took in the fact that I was wearing a suit and carrying (not wheeling in those days) a suitcase, and decided to take the risk. Puzzlingly, and notwithstanding my beard and long hair, he asked if I was army or navy – a confusion that I didn’t understand until arrival at Middle Head and ASOPA.
So - I arrived overdressed and taxi-fare broke from Melbourne. I was also a week late because the NT bureaucracy had forgotten, with typical efficiency, to tell me that I had been successful in my application to be appointed as a Cadet Education Officer for the Northern Territory, which was of course just a fancy name for
“student teacher”.

I was promptly shown into what I thought must have been a staff meeting, but which in fact turned out to be my new classmates attending a lecture. I suppose that I was expecting fresh-faced kids straight from school – not this experienced and worldly looking group. My immediate thought was “why are all these clearly diverse people here,” and my next thought was “why am I here”?
I suspect that at the start most of us were looking for something new and different, and that we had our own personal differences for doing so.
Anyway – back to day one. I had found ASOPA, I had met my new classmates, I had been given a vague idea of what was going on including that ASOPA also provided training for Papua New Guinea as well as the Northern Territory, and all that I had to do was find somewhere to live. I was recommended a lovely boarding house in Mosman run by a Mrs Phillips, and used by a number of other ASOPA students. The house was a fine old Northern Sydney structure, very clean and tidy, and Mrs Phillips was a very warm and welcoming grandmotherly Eastern European lady. All seemed well until I discovered that I had to share a room, which in itself wasn’t too bad as it was a very large room, but my fiercely demeanoured roommate was not too happy about sharing at all. He was Mark Sage, an ADC from Kiunga on a training course, and after the initial misgivings, we actually got on very well.
What I wasn’t prepared for was Mrs Phillips’ best friend – a Mr Smirnoff (by the bottlesful). The guessing game of what we would get for dinner, and when or if we got it at all, was a constant companion to the boarders, who included John Kleinig and John Fennell (PNG), myself and Brendan
Scarfe (NT) and a couple of no-accounts who were studying somewhere else.
Sometimes we got dinner, sometimes we didn’t, sometimes we got it but it wasn’t cooked, and sometimes we got it but it had already been chewed into. Sometimes we cooked it ourselves; stepping carefully over the comatose body of our hostess on the kitchen floor (“I was tired and hot so I lay down to catch the breeze coming under the kitchen door”).
One thing that I learned was not to come home during the day, as invariably Mrs P would just be accidently getting out of the shower and wandering up the hall at whatever time you arrived – I would have preferred the crocodile pool at nearby Taronga Park Zoo.
Why did we stay? I’m sure that we weren’t that desperate for a mother figure, and eventually we all moved out, but the experience had its share of fun and adventure in its bizarreness, and in the expectation of the unexpected.
Socially there seemed to be no great divide between the NT/TPNG student groups, and the location of the Phillips Asylum in close proximity to the pubs and eateries in Mosman. There was accommodation sharing involving members of both groups and it meant that our lives were not
immersed in study.
Dare I say that study may have even been secondary to some?

MEMORIES OF MIDDLE HEAD
- June Whittaker
Whenever I think of my golden days at ASOPA – that is the period between 1966 and 1974 - I want to laugh out loud for the sheer joy that was in them. I clearly hear Noel Gash’s broad Australian tones coming through the thin fibro walls that divided his office from mine in that crappy old weatherboard ex-army hut full of asbestos: “Hey, Ju-une! Isn’t this a great job? Is it true that they actually pay us to work here? Ha! Ha! Ha!”
At the time of my arrival in 1966 as the youngest on staff, Charles Rowley had just resigned as Principal of ASOPA to take up the newly created chair of Political Studies at UPNG. He was succeeded by the principal lecturer in Law, Jack Mattes. I met Jack, the only person still around during vacation. I asked him what the hours of work were. “Aw”, he replied, we don’t have any hours. You can come and go as you please. As long as you’re here when the whips are cracking.” I asked him how many lectures a week I was expected to give. “Aw,” said Jack, “I don’t rightly know. As many as you like, I guess. Make sure you leave yourself a couple of days free, cos you’ll want time to research and prepare material.”
A week before the students arrived, I attended a staff meeting in the library, eager to find out how the place ticked. After introductions, I pulled a thick notepad and a bunch of sharp pencils from my bag,
poised my pencil and waited. Jack addressed the meeting, “We have three items to discuss. The first is that 125 students will arrive at the end of the week and there seems to be no accommodation for them anywhere on the North Shore. But Victor is looking after that.” Victor, I learned, was the Registrar, an academic in his own right, Mayor of Mosman and President of the National Trust. Victor smiled and nodded. Jack continued, “The second is: all of the pubs between Mosman and North Sydney have closed their doors to our students. The damned publicans tell outrageous stories of our students’ conduct – I don’t believe any of it. It’s all exaggerated. Anyway, Victor is going to talk some sense into one or two of them, aren’t you, Vic?” Victor smiled and nodded, then asked: “The students?” “Nah,” replied Jack, “the publicans!” “The third and last thing,” Jack went on, “is
that some of you have been going off to New Guinea and not getting back when you say you’ll be back. I’m not talking about a week or two, cos sometimes it’s difficult to get transport there when you
want it. I’m talking about months. One of you was late back by three months last year. (Everyone looked at John Reynolds.) Now, are there any questions? … Does anyone have something to say? … No? Well let’s go and get a cuppa.”
I returned my blank notepad and pencils to my bag and joined the rest of the staff in the staffroom, where I learned that Jack never ran a meeting for longer than 10 minutes, never made a speech longer than 2 minutes, and never believed that ASOPA students could do wrong.
I recall ASOPA staff as totally unlike any other staff of tertiary institutions I had come across. They, for the most part, actually liked one another … and helped one another … played jokes on one another … laughed a lot and loved their work. They were also, for the most part, eccentric, disrespectful of authority at all levels up to and including their political masters, were unassuming, loved to discuss and argue, and treated everyone with equal nonchalance.
In the staffroom during morning tea and lunch, there’d be standing room only for rowdy debates about the wisdom of Independence for New Guinea, colonialism and village labour policies, or the
Government’s Aboriginal assimilation policy or land rights. No one wanted to miss time in the staffroom, while I, for one, was always eager to get back to work after end-of-term vacations.
I recall ASOPA’s students as to some extent mirror images of the staff: friendly, co-operative, independent -minded, quick to take up an intellectual argument; many from interesting backgrounds and possessing stimulating ideas; intolerant of arrogance and humbug, and skilled at making lecturer’s life miserable if they felt it was deserved!
Perhaps the ASOPA experience spoiled me for any subsequent training institute. It seemed to me that although successive endeavours on the Middle Head site enjoyed improved buildings, gardens and
resources, they lost the sustained leadership qualities that had given lustre and uniqueness to the ASOPA years; qualities that are difficult to describe even for those of us who experienced them. As Norm Donnison said, one had to experience ASOPA to be believed.

The organising group…
John Colwell,
Jan Garrard (Raff),
Tony Mikus,
Helen Pollock,
Jan Roberts (Kleinig),
Dawn Taylor (McArthur).


Facebook and Blog:
Tony Mikus is coordinating these sites and
you can access them at
www.facebook.com/ASOPA Class of 1966/67 and
asopaclassof19661967.blogspot.com/


I wrote Noel's obituary following a request from his partner. It was published in the SMH.
Actually, the original obituary that I wrote was much shorter, but I had a phone call from the editor,
Hicks, who thought it so funny, he asked me for alonger obituarywith more funny stories
-­‐-­‐
and that was the one that was published, together with a photograph of Noel.
You might remember that Noel was a very funny man; there are so many stories one could tell about
him and so few known, let alone published.
June Whittaker
27 August 2013


June’s full obituary of Noel Gash will be
published in the next newsletter.

Helen Pollock Bio written August 2013

Helen Pollock, August 2013.

My ultra conservative parents were astonished when the great big fat envelope arrived in the post.  I remember the interview very well and came away thinking that it all seemed very exciting.  I knew little about TPNG.

As I lived at home with my parents in Epping it was an excursion merely to get to Middle Head every day but I soon hooked up with Lois who lived in Eastwood and she kindly drove me to ASOPA.  Having gone to an all girls’ school and only out of school for a year I found the lectures to be amazing.  Enough of the C group had had a year or two at university so had learnt “lecture behavior” from there and were quite happy to interrupt, challenge and engage in discussion and to …miss lectures.

Other memories from ASOPA include:

·      Members of parliament (?) who came for a visit and sat in the dining area discussing the “value” of the females at the college.  A kindly (?) pidgin speaker translated!

·      The health lecture that consisted of slide after slide of “toilets” from around the world but mainly from third world areas.

·  Jeannie’s obsession with whether or not we were pregnant and the dreaded worm infestations we would get if we went bare footed.

·  Being rostered on to make milkshakes at morning teatime.  I remember Jack Jensen’s having a collision with a surfboard and him living on milkshakes as his jaw was wired shut.

·      SRA reading…OMG

·      I loved Geoff England’s philosophy lectures.  Later studied philosophy at UQ and again loved it.

·      Life saving at Balmoral Baths.  It was a very windy day and the water was very rough.  I was very grateful that I had had the foresight to get a bronze medallion whilst at school as we were excused and allowed to sit by the water watching.  For some it was a nightmare.

·      Fred Kaad’s lectures where all the girls had to sit down the front.  I wonder if any of us accurately predicted the future of PNG in that second year assignment.

·      Games of 500.

·      The Noel Gash interpretation of history.

·      The St Patrick’s Day Balls.

It all came to its logical conclusion in November 1967.  My first trip in a plane was very exciting especially as we landed in Brisbane in the early hours with fire engines racing alongside! We arrived at Madang in the late afternoon.  It was spectacularly beautiful with the sea and the palm trees and much cooler, thankfully, than Moresby. 

Ros, Lois and Lesley in our first month in Madang.

Prac. Teaching was at Madang Tech.  The principal, Jim Watson, called me in for a little chat.  There are two school rules: the first was that the students must wear clothing to academic classes and I forget the second!  I was the only female on the staff.  The classrooms in pairs were roofed concrete slabs with a storeroom in the middle.  They were quite cool and breezy as the school was by the water.  However when it rained you moved the desks into the middle of the room and gave up.  Jim, found out it was my 21^st a week after we arrived and thought it was a good enough excuse for a party.  I don’t think he needed much of an excuse.

I spent my first TPNG Christmas with John Colwell and Bob Gray at John’s parents’ place in Moresby.  Christmas, Colwell style, beginning with midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, was another in a very long list of new experiences.

Back to Madang and where Ros (Marks) and I were allocated a three-bedroom house on the girls’ school at Tusbab.  We had a succession of housemates including one who rode a restored WW 11 BSA bike and did not wash her sheets for the 6 months or so she was with us.

Academic Classroom

Memories include:

·      Boarding school duties, with the girls using sarips to cut the grass and the snakes on the oval.

·      Sex education lessons with my care class… 14-15 year old all boys’ class.  My biggest surprise was the belief that you had to have sex eight times to have a baby!  They knew just having sex once did not result in a baby…but to believe that sex once, the baby got a body, twice a head etc. until the baby was given life on the eighth time was difficult to argue against in the light of their experience.  In their belief system this accounted for stillbirths and miscarriages. I kept all their written questions and interestingly this folder was missing from my effects when I came back to Australia.

·      School parades on the basketball courts.

·      Watching the landing on the moon (film) in the mess and being asked why we could not see the flag.  Thanks Bob Brown.

·      The dancing troupe.  Ros and I were not part of this but we had our photo taken in the gear.

·     The 7.1 earthquake that shook the town in the early hours.  Most of us had been to a function at the golf club the night before and to have the 6’ long bookcase fall over, the bed end up on the opposite side of the room and the contents of the kitchen cupboards on the floor added a whole new dimension to the term “guria”.

·      The visit by some Maths specialists from UQ who were interested in the developing mathematic concepts of our students.   They gave the kids a basic computation test and reported back that they had done appallingly. There was no logic to their answers just seemed like random guesses until someone realized that they had not specified base 10.  Seems the kids had guessed the base depending on the question…that sorted, the kids did very well! Some local villages had a base 25.

·      The visit of the Queen and Prince Phillip.  I believe that Ros Marks actually went to the function at the DC’s residence.  I was on boarding school duty and delivered several of the girls who acted as waitresses for the evening. 

·      Having two children at the Madang General Hospital.

Madang General Hospital.

·      Leaving daughter, Kimberley, born (21/6/72) in the care of two school girls when she was about 9 months old and finding that the girls had woken her to play. Here she was having had a bath and dressed in the most impractical clothing she owned.  She, however, seemed to enjoy the late night entertainment!   Lachlan arrived 10 weeks before we left PNG at the end of 1974.

By the end of the 70’s I had been diagnosed Type 1 diabetic, was a single parent, and had gone back to full-time teaching to support myself and my two children.  The only teaching position was at a Special School in a low socioeconomic area about 30 mins from home. For the first three weeks I wondered how I would survive.  My principal was a godsend.  He encouraged me to go to UQ to get a degree, as this was to become the expected standard.  So it was teach all day, collect the kids from school, off to Uni…I barely had time to scratch myself.  By the time my head was above water, I had the degree, kids were settled in school and we were OK, diabetes under control, well almost!

Kimberley studied Arts at UQ and became curious about PNG after several anthropology units.  She was very keen to go back (by herself!) and see where she was born.  After speaking to John Colwell one Christmas we flew back to PNG for a visit. Firstly, to Madang where Lach did some diving on the war wrecks off the coast and Kimberley and I played tourist.  Lach (still studying to be a paramedic) after visiting the hospital stated that it was irresponsible of me to have had him there. From Madang we flew to Goroka and travelled down into the Asaro Valley and finally flew into Moresby to be met by John.  Kimberley walked the Kokoda Track with John and the seniors from Sogeri and still believes this to be one of the most significant events of her life. Lach and I flew back to Australia.  That Lach did not walk the track when he had the chance is one of his greatest regrets.

Seems I have a job attention span of about 5 years…

I have been:   Classroom teacher of mildly intellectually impaired kids,

                        Classroom teacher of physically impaired kids,

Integration teacher at a High School

                        Education Adviser (Statewide)                                                                                           Advisory Visiting Teacher

Completed my 25 years for Ed Qld, got the Apple and retired in 2006.

My twenty-five years with Ed Qld saw the kids graduate from their respective high schools and go on to their respective universities.  Kimberley is a teacher at an international school in Seoul, is married and has two children…at last count I had been to Korea twenty six times in thirteen years.  Lach is also married with two young sons and works as an Intensive Care Paramedic with QAS and lives here in Brisbane.

I am spending some time trying to locate our colleagues and have been very interested in seeing the paths that others have taken since our common ASOPA and PNG experience.  I wonder who would have accurately predicted where they would be after 48 years.

The rest of my time is spent doing what I want to do: movies, theatre, lunches out, gossip sessions, reading, and grandmother duties.  I take one grandson to school three days a week and stay and volunteer in a composite one/two class.  Look after another for 3-4 hours on Tuesdays and of course my regular trips to Korea.  I have much to be grateful for…

Hope to see as many of you as can make it to the reunion.

Helen

Bob Brown Bio as written July/August 2013

BOB BROWN – ASOPA 1966/67

I never wanted to be a Cadet Education Officer.  In my final year at St Edwards College, Gosford, thanks to  prompting by my geography teacher Joe Driscoll  to consider a career in Papua New Guinea, my original intention was to do the Cadet Patrol Officers Course at ASOPA when I was old enough. My parents were horrified and managed to persuade me to do the CEO course instead.

My memories of ASOPA are doing all the hard swot in the first year and then enjoying the second year as co-tenant with Ian Johnson of 64 Vista St, Mosman – which tended to be the party house of 1967.

Practice teaching was at Tusbab High School and I was genuinely pleased to be posted there afterwards. Madang was as good as any place to be in TPNG. I never regarded being in TPNG as 'work' – it was just a wonderful & unforgettable place. Amongst my memories are:

·      All the students I knew

·      The student strike/riot of ’68 at Tusbab

·      The earthquake of ’70 at Madang

·      Being admitted to the Hansenide Colony at Hatzfelthaven with typhoid

·      Playing rugby league all over the Territory

BINARY BITS & ALL THAT

Teaching was never my chosen path and I was always considering alternatives. Whilst on annual leave in Sydney in 1969/70  - Ian Johnson had suggested we go to London instead - I rocked up at IBM in response to an ad for trainee computer programmers. I was offered a place the day before I was scheduled to fly back to Madang and asked them to keep the position open for me until I returned in a year's time. Not surprisingly, they declined.

Once my three years were up I returned to Sydney, not without plenty of regrets, and lived most of the time around Mosman and Kirribilli. I enrolled on a full-time Computer Programming course at the Control Data Institute in North Sydney. By the time I had finished the course I realised I didn't want to be a computer programmer – despite the terrific salaries on offer. No silicon chips in those days and everything had to be coded in 'machine language' – i.e. binary arithmetic. Punch cards were king!

A PRIVATE LIFE

Looking for jobs in the private sector I came across one at P Rowe International  who were Dupont's distributor in Australia. They were looking for somebody to implement a computerised inventory control system. My final course assignment at Control Data had been identical to what P Rowe International needed. At the interview I must have appeared like a whiz kid and my career in operations management was launched in the private sector.

Around this time I read two influential books. One was entitled 'How to Get Real Estate Rich'; the other on how to progress in business. A key feature of the latter was that you should never stay in a job any longer than when you had mastered the essentials of that job. Sell yourself to a higher bidder!. So just about every year I changed jobs. First to the Readers Digest and  then Select Distribution to launch the Readers Digest and Family Circle magazines at every supermarket checkout in the country – a hopeless task. I went six years without a holiday.

THE CORPORATE SPY

Next  came an intriguing project. Pykes Tours – the oldest tourist coach company in NSW – were having problems. Its ultimate parent company, British Electric Traction, which included P & O and Wembley Stadium amongst its portfolio – were  constantly having to inject funds into Pykes despite the business appearing healthy. The existing management of Pykes were being evasive.

I was planted in the business by the parent company as operations manager with the brief to find out what was going on. My reward if  successful was that I would get the top job at Pykes. It did not take me too long to discover a business beset by fraudulent invoicing; abysmal cash control and being dictated to by the Transport Workers Union. When I announced to head office that I could cut payroll costs by 25% without affecting the efficiency of the business and sort out the other issues   – the top job of General Manager was mine within days.

From there it was downhill. A merger with Australian Accommodation & Tours (AAT) - owned by TAA, helped prove that the business inherently was a rotten egg. It was time to move on – but where to?

WHERE TO NOW?

I had become good friends with the company accountant John Babula – we played touch footy on Sunday mornings for the same team in the South Sydney competition. During the summer of 77/78 we had gotten into the habit of taking a two hour lunch on Fridays and going to Maroubra beach for a surf. On one such February Friday while resting on the beach we addressed the issue of where we should move. John decided he was finished with the private sector and wanted the security of the public service. He went on to become Chief Financial Controller of the NSW State Railways.

For me, I declared that I  was going to buy 10 acres of land in the South of France and grow grapes and make wine! Having never been to Europe, let alone France, nor make wine this was some statement but my broad intentions were serious aided by a general disenchantment with Australia.

I discussed this with Joan, my long-term girlfriend of five years  – a '£10 tourist' from Britain' who had fled Britain during the '3 day week'  -  and she was not all that keen. But in July 1978 off we went to investigate - bumping into Ian Johnson in the toilets at Bombay airport, as you do.

By the end of our two month visit we decided that Britain and Europe was where we wanted to be. First Joan had to complete her 4 year Librarian course and me my external Bachelor of Business (Accounting) at Mitchell College of Advanced Education and we had to sell up property.

In the meantime, after a brief stint with Mr Icee – The Coldest Treat in Town - I left the private sector and spent my final year in Australia working for the Spastics Centre at Allambie Heights. Being responsible for having to move so many handicapped children and adults great distances across Sydney, I  left Australia a humbled person.

BRITAIN or BUST

When we arrived in Britain in April 1980 there were 3 million unemployed; interest rates were 15%; the inner cities were burning and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. For me there was no turning back.

Job offers were few and far between but in September I was offered two good jobs on the same day. One was General Manager of  Cheshire-based Berkeley Travel who operated package tours to the south of France and Florida. They promoted their business throughout the workingmen’s clubs of Northern England on the basis that the first thing a person did when  made redundant was to spend some of their redundancy money on a holiday. And there were plenty of potential customers!

The other offer was from West Herts College, just outside London, who had initially interviewed me for a tourism lecturing position but then offered me a post lecturing in Accounting and Statistics. A return to education was not what I had planned.

In the end, Berkeley Travel were offering a better salary, a company car and lots of travel benefits. But also long, long hours. As a lecturer I would have 20 hours class contact a week and 14 weeks paid holidays a year. The road to France was clear.

Throughout that decade we prospered under the Thatcher Revolution and I did my part by canvassing for her party in General Elections. There were regular trips to France  - day, weekends and weeks - and plenty of looking at French estate agents windows and thinking “if only”.

FROM MAROUBRA BEACH TO NOIZERET

In 1990 the opportunity arose to buy an eight acre former vineyard in the heart of the Burgundy vineyards of France in the tiny hamlet of  Noizeret. Built in the late 18^th century the dry-stone property had not made wine since the mid 50's and was a bit of a wreck  The giant wine press , fermentation tanks  & cellars remained but, alas, no grape vines. For the next few years I spent the bulk of my 14 weeks' annual holidays renovating part of the property (the Farmhouse) with Joan accompanying me as often as possible. Having no children made this easier. Maroubra beach had been 12 years ago.

Changes were afoot in education with the government announcing that they were proposing to abolish the practice of teachers retiring on a full pension at 50 and then returning to work the next day as a part-time teacher. Retirement would be at 60 instead. I had no wish to go on to 60 so in 1997 jumped out of the paid workforce just in time to collect my pension.

WWW.NOIZERET.COM

We still had a need for additional income so we set about developing our French property as a holiday destination. First the Farmhouse was rented out successfully for short term lets when we were not there. Then we decided to do a total renovation of another detached building on the site where the wine had been made – The Winery.

We leased our house in Roman St Albans in England and moved to France. The Winery had no electricity, no water, no sewage, an outside dunny (just a hole in the ground - French style) and a huge hole in one of the floors. We had intended using the rent from our St Albans property to fund a lot of the works but our English agent cheated us and we had to move out of the Farmhouse so we could earn some rental income from it.

We lived in a single room in the Winery with a makeshift bathroom that had just a toilet; and a bathtub in which we washed ourselves, our clothes and our dishes. Our kitchen was an outside BBQ. Over 20 months the Winery was turned into a two bedroom & two bathroom character cottage forming part of the small portfolio of Noizeret.com.

Returning to live in the UK, for the past 13 years we have successfully marketed Noizeret.com to the English and German markets while also picking up bookings from North America and Australia. From late March to early November we do the 900 kilometre commute by car from St Albans to France every four weeks or so to do a little bit of 'Spring cleaning'.

RUGBY LEAGUE

Throughout all those years – and even before my ASOPA days – I have had a lifetime involvement in rugby league. When I initially settled in the UK in Hemel Hempstead there was no local rugby league club so I started one. At 34 I thought I would be an administrator but immediately found myself playing competitively until I turned 40. The club I founded –  now called Hemel Stags – started off as a pub team playing in borrowed shirts on a hurling pitch. Today it has over 40 employees, plays in the professional ranks and I am the full time (almost), voluntary C.E.O.

A couple of websites:

www.noizeret.com

www.hemelstags.com

Dawn McArthur (nee Taylor) Bio as written 2007 added August 2013

Dawn Taylor (now McArthur) Bio as at August 2013

from D Group ASOPA 1966/67

 

In Lae, I had my final prac at Busu High School along with Sharon McDonald and Penny Winser. I was totally amazed at the sheer volume of rain that could fall in one night and flood the path through to school up to our knees, a wet journey getting to work.

In the holidays, a group of us travelled up to a mission at Kaiapit, where Penny, Sharon and I stayed. But the guys, Denis, Hans, Brian, Keith, Tony and Kevin had to sleep in the village. Kevin managed to fit in a game of squash with the RI, Jeff Hodgeson. It was a learning experience doing a study of the life in a village. We all had Christmas together in Lae. In January, a group of us did a crash course in Home Economics (2 weeks) and stayed at the Boroko Guest House. All the 66/67 students were invited to a party at the Johnson residence. And, a really great time was had by all.

I was then posted to Lae High School, but on the first day of teaching was posted back to Busu (a fortunate thing as by my reckoning was written up for well over 40 periods at Lae HS.  In Lae, I was heavily involved in sport and as well as Subjects for which I was trained taught Art, Music, Commerce and PE and took the after school Sport. Also played in the School teams in the Town Comps - Basketball, Softball (badly, but always managed a walk) and was the only non-ethnic in the Netball (which meant umpiring Finals and Grand-finals, with John Budby enjoying himself on the sideline) Penny and I also danced with the band Johnny Deewy and the Splinters.... a bit of fun, but frowned on by the upper echelon. Was also involved in the Mainland Carnivals and got to see Moresby and Madang and ran the female events in the one held in Lae.

We were a small boarding School and only had the Headmistress Dorothy Davies and 3 on-ground teachers; Bruce McArthur, Penny and myself. Plus there were two married daytime-only teachers, so boarding school duties were fairly intensive, lasting until 9 at night and weekends. We had specially selected female boarders from all over the Territory. In 1968 the school became co-ed as some boys from the local villages also attended. Some of the males were much older as their English skills had to have reached a certain level and they were accepted, and, indeed were well spoken and articulate when questioned. I also brought a girl home with me for the 1968 Christmas holidays.

John Budby, Peter Beck and I decided to visit Wally and company in Goroka (and thanks for the loan of your jumper Wally) for Easter ‘68. The trip up there was one to remember. We started with 3 spare tyres, but managed to suffer our 4^th flat on the Lae side of Kassam Pass. I guess the roads were a bit rough. 

I recall another trip to Moresby on Air Papua with students travelling to the Mainland Carnival. The plane was an unlined shell and most of the students were violently air sick as the flight was rough.with much turbulence...a disastrous journey. The students were a delight to teach and so respectful, they were so well behaved and always gave all they could. They had very inquisitive minds and loved to hear as much as they could about Australia and the World in General.

I returned to Australia and taught Maths at Hurstville Boys High. Bruce McArthur and I married while he was studying medicine and we were involved in a serious head-on collision (critically injured) when a driver fell asleep. It was the first day of our honeymoon. That year I was attempting to study at New England Uni (but was in no fit state) and came across Warwick Irvine at a vacation School. I taught for 7 years at Hurstville Boys High and in my last year there set up a GA class, so managed to teach Maths, English, Science and PE to the boys. We moved to Newcastle for Bruce to do his residency, and did an extra year there. We had our son Michael and the same year moved to the same street as Phil & Lyn Turner (Phil was 65/66).  Not long after, Bruce I separated and eventually divorced. We still maintain contact.

I started doing casual teaching and after many years of virtually full-time casual, especially in Maths, was appointed to Broadmeadow High (which later became Hunter School of Performing Arts) to teach in Special Education (students with a mild intellectual disability).  Taught that for 15 years and we were a pilot unit (with 2 IM classes and a visual group) for the introduction of Transition Education. Finally, after doing Dem lessons and helping with the training of numerous SE Teachers, the Dept paid for my training at Newcastle University in the final year of my Special Education course in 1991. The Dept moved the 2 IM classes to other schools in 1998 (political and contentious), so I taught English till I retired late 2000.  I have always been involved in sport, especially coaching - coached Basketball at the Boy’s High, Athletics at Toronto High (officiated at Zone) and Netball at Broadmeadow. Also did Karate for a few years, but decided to stop at Brown belt (for my ribs) and coached the young students. Currently I go to the gym to stave off rheumatics and it stopped osteoporosis. 

I then started playing Demo poker on the net (Omaha High/Low) and made friends with some lovely people in the USA. After going to a wedding of a friend from San Francisco in Las Vegas in 2004, I went back to the States each year to stay with them. Have stayed in Orlando (at a resort and Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Have always maintained contact with Ros, Julie, Mal, Penny, John & Vera Budby- till his death in 2007 and then Denis, and more recently Don and Barry. Have also caught up with Les & Helen Pearson.

I went to the reunion in 1995 at ASOPA. It was amazing to catch up with so many familiar faces from the 1966/67 group at the 2007 reunion in Brisbane and we were fortunate to be welcomed by lovely weather so made our get-togethers so much more enjoyable. The only sad notes was that John Budby was desperately trying to go to this reunion, but sadly passed away before it. And Maurice Rousell has since passed away since, but what a treat it was to see him and his lovely wife Glenys. 

After the reunion in 2007, Julie Davies and I decided to travel to see some of our friends. So on Oct 1, 2008 we headed off to Dakha to stay at Barry Ison’s boutique Guest House and what an amazing city it was with such diverse and beautiful sights to see. Next we saw Denis Murrell in Macau and were treated to delicious food and views, a great place to stay. We caught the ferry across to Hong Kong where we caught up with a friend’s family and enjoyed Disneyland and an ancient culture and buildings mixed with the new. Finally we went to Bangkok, but unfortunately failed to catch up with Don Daniels as he had flown back to Brisbane after a close friend passed away. But we were fortunate that Julie’s brother Steve lived there and managed to see a range of sculptures and art - Indian, Burmese & Thai along with many temples, Siam Miramit - a show and a ride on the Death Train from the River Kwai. This fantastic trip would not have eventuated had we not gone to the 2007 reunion

Have led a quiet existence since ceasing the trips to the States apart from becoming an ardent supporter of Damien Leith (Idol winner 2006). I still maintain my 4 days of gym and have recently been involved with giving almost daily assistance to Michael’s partner with her 2 children as Michael is an Exploration Driller and works away 14 days at a time. My grandson, Aiden, is only 17 months old.                                                                                     

Other memories that just flashed up:

The hilarious interview, with Fred Kaad and a senior Education Officer, which they spent arguing as to who would make the better marriage material.

The first day at College which became a blurred haze after it was revealed that I was not enrolled in a Primary Teacher's Course for PNG

.

The time a student excused himself in a History lecture and then wrote in the College News how he'd missed 500 years of History during that visit to relieve himself - I believe full-on is the term.

The defiance of youth, when a group of non-smokers decided to light up after a lecture on the ills of smoking.

In Winter, the long, cold walks in the chilly winds from Mosman down Middle Head Rd to Georges Heights - a form of penance for those of us who enjoyed the heat of PNG. As opposed to the glorious Summer days spent in lectures wondering why we weren't outside to enjoy it all.

Driving around Mosman in a small sports car with no front windscreen, in the cold, with the wind creating crazy variations in the windswept look.

The College Athletics Carnival when it was suddenly realised that half the women's relay team was down on the beach at Obelisk Bay, so unprepared non-runners suddenly had to free their inner sprinters.

The Women's Basketball game against the cute little blondes who did spectacular shoulder throws so players slid down welts and along floors.

The day we were driving from College to Manly when a woman literally jumped in front of the car for our assistance with her asthmatic husband after a heart attack, unfortunately, too late. But we gave CPR until the ambulance, which we rang, arrived - the smell and taste remained with us for quite some time.

The scintillating review in Mosman Town Hall where the biggest prude in college dropped her clothes to change costumes in the wing, in front of an open-mouthed colleague, as time allowed no other option.

The dinner party where the non-drinking guests became inebriated by the heavily laced crepe suzettes. And then the long walk along the Esplanade at Manly to sober them up.

The Second Year Finals all-night study session in the unit where people studied till they fell asleep in a cosy place and then woke up and continued studying. How we stayed awake in the exams is unknown

August 2013

Dawn McArthur (Taylor)