Agathering of some Old Cranbrookians from the years 1958 to 1962 recently provided an opportunity to recall my time at Cranbrook. I came to Cranbrook in February 1949, when I was eight years old some seventy-three years ago now and left ten years later in December 1958 to continue my studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney. The welcome I received when I first arrived at the School set the tone of my life at Cranbrook. The welcome was an informal one given me by two senior boys that I remember best. My father, one day in early 1949, announced that I was to go to Cranbrook. One Saturday he decided it would be a good idea if I was to visit the school before my first term started. It was on a sunny Saturday afternoon and was to see the first eleven playing on the main oval. I have to say I took little notice of the match. What I do remember doing was wandering on to the oval and over to the unnetted practice wickets under the old Gymnasium where there were two older boys from the first eleven bowling and batting against each other. When I arrived and was watching, they invited me to join them and for a half hour I batted and bowled with them. This was a small gesture of course, but, for a young newcomer to the School, it was a friendly welcome and harbinger of friendships I was later to make as a member of the school community.

I remember my time at Cranbrook as an important period in my life, when horizons were opened on to the wider world, aspirations were formed, values were instilled and lifelong friendships were made. Certainly, my interest in cultures other than my own and their history was born in classrooms at Cranbrook. The School in those days, I remember, placed great store on what was referred to as “School Spirit”. Our headmasters spoke of the responsibilities we had to our fellows in the school community, our teachers encouraged it, and it was animated of course on the sporting field in competition with other schools. From time to time our chaplains reminded us of those beyond our nation’s boundaries for whom we also had responsibility. When speaking of the school community, I have not forgotten the unifying power of song, of three hundred voices singing English folk songs at Tuesday morning assemblies, hymns at the Thursday assembly, and on special occasions, the rousing sound of us singing the School Song. All this is not to say that I achieved all that I aspired to in those days. The values I learned at Cranbrook, however, have always been an important reminder of the kind of world in which I want to live.

Memories of my time at Cranbrook are still very vivid. I do not want to bore readers with the details of all that I remember but let me mention one or two things about the School when I was a student. My first classroom, where first Miss Putland taught us and then Miss Kingsford-Smith, was in the Old Stables, a fenced area next to the main gates across the drive from the headmaster’s house, which we shared with the school laundry and the warm steam which came from its coppers and irons. Later our class was moved up to Rona, a large two-story stone neo-gothic house with views over the harbour on the upper side of Victoria Road opposite the School’s main gate. Here the classroom we occupied also served as a boarders’ homework room, and in it, a desk I shared with one boarder’s blue tongue lizard locked inside.

Beyond the stable gates and along the red-gravel drive past the headmaster’s house on the right was Harvey House where George Woodger taught fourth and, if I am correct, fifth forms. The classrooms were on the ground floor with the library and the junior school common room at the end of the corridor. Upstairs were dormitories for boarders and where Mr. Rowland, the Junior School headmaster, had his study and flat. Further along the drive was the School’s main building, where once the Governors of New South Wales lived, with its impressive entrance into the Marble Hall, the Headmaster’s office, the senior common room, and the School kitchen and dining room. Below the parapet outside the school dining hall was the junior school playground situated on a terrace above grass tennis courts behind the Rotunda and extending along New South Head Road towards an elegant white art deco house where the Prep School was housed. Further along the driveway, past the Main Building, was the Perkins Building, where we  spent the years of our education in the Senior School. I could go on. These buildings, the classrooms, their furnishings and the views beyond their windows and the dull dark cream colour of their walls are all etched clearly in my mind as are the teachers who stood in front of classes all those years ago.

The men and women who taught us, in my memory, displayed a remarkable commitment to the School. We were aware that some, like Wally Potter who taught me in sixth form in the Junior School, W. B. Waters who taught me Latin in the Senior School, Justin O’Brien our art teacher and the headmaster at the time, Gethyn Hewan, had all seen active service during the Second World War. These teachers certainly did not regard their employment as a nine to five job. Nor was their contribution confined just to the classroom: among them were accomplished musicians, talented coaches of the School’s athletics, cricket, rowing, rugby, sailing and swimming teams. They directed school plays, mentored debating teams, and were responsible for the running of the School’s boarding houses and some joined and lead one or other professional teachers’ organization.

We remember our teachers and respect them for all sorts of reasons and not always for their hard work in the classroom or as sporting coaches. Often it is for some small quirk of character, special talent or interest they had. Jock Mackinnon, for example, who was my House Master of Davidson House and coach of the First Fifteen in 1958, the year I twice broke my collarbone and did not play a match, I remember for two reasons: for the French cars he owned, the first, a magnificent black Citroen Traction—the car the French police drove in French movies in those days—and the second, a French racing blue Peugeot 203 from about 1955. I remember also the kindness that Jock and his wife, Elizabeth, who showed when I was dealing with the frustration of being injured and unable to play rugby. I was invited to lunch with them every Saturday before every rugby match that year.

I have mentioned Gethyn Hewan, who was headmaster throughout the period I was in the Senior School. Gethyn was the topic of apocryphal stories. He is well known for the divots he left in the School’s main oval much to George Eccles’ dismay and was also reputed to have made a citizen’s arrest one night when he discovered someone trying to break into the old Gymnasium above the oval and marched the culprit to the police station across New south Head Road. Gethyn was an eloquent speaker and well-known for his sporting ability on the hockey, and cricket fields and on the golf course as well. However, it was in the classroom that he most impressed me. I was and am no mathematician. I only passed both Maths I and Maths II at the same time once in my life when I sat for the Leaving Certificate. In 1956, Gethyn arrived in the later part of the year when I was in Upper V to teach us Calculus. It was then that I discovered just how brilliant a teacher in the classroom he was. I found the clarity of his explanations quite breathtaking.

I cannot let this opportunity pass without saying a little about John Caiger. John died only recently in Canberra. He taught me history in my second year in the Senior School but it was in my final year when I took History Honours in Asian History for the Leaving Certificate that John supervised my studies. John was a quietly spoken and dedicated teacher. The range of duties he undertook was fairly typical for most of our teachers in those days. He was a tutor in Rawson House, the master in charge of the Library, the Debating Society and as an army Lieutenant was second in charge of the cadet corps at Cranbrook. Later John completed his studies in Japanese History in London and taught Japanese History in the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University. In my final year at Cranbrook, at a time of some controversy surrounding the Prime Minister Menzies’ opening of trade relations with Japan and a time when still the Japanese treatment of Australian servicemen was fresh in Australian memories, John offered me an opportunity to meet a family from Japan. He introduced me to the son of the Japanese Consul General in Sydney who visited his parents during Japanese school holidays. I spent a number of afternoons and evenings enjoying the hospitality of the family in their apartment in Double Bay. I remember we listened to Japanese music—quite foreign to my musical experience and tastes—and I dined with them. I also recall the warm welcome my parents, who were certainly aware of the way in which Japan had treated Australian prisoners of war, gave to my Japanese friend when I invited him to eat with us. The opportunity John provided me opened my mind to not just an interest in societies and cultures other than my own but underscored for me the importance of doing so.

Justin Obrien was the Art master at Cranbrook throughout the time I was at Cranbrook. Justin built up the Art Department and mentored or influenced a number of Australia’s leading artists, John Montifiore, Martin Sharp, and George Hatsatouris among others. I was grateful to Justin for the interest he took in paintings in which I transformed the visual world about me into abstract representations. He hung them regularly on a board in the Perkins Building, once even in a national exhibition and even negotiated an offer for me to sell two of them for £1.10 one Speech Day.

Tony Brough, who did so much for the teaching of Latin and rowing at Cranbrook and who taught me Latin, ran meetings of the Greek Play Reading Society on Sunday nights and once in his September break took a week to teach a small group of enthusiasts the elements of ancient Greek.  He later became Headmaster of Christ’s College in Christchurch New Zealand. I remember too W. B. Waters who was sent triumphantly off from the School at the beginning of the Second World War and who from time to time displayed evidence of the traumatic stress disorder from which he suffered. He taught me Latin. Guy Moyes, I remember. He taught me Maths in a junior class in the Senior School and was a demanding trainer of the School athletics team when I ran half-miles for the School. He later became Head of the Junior School and retired the year I returned to Australia from the Netherlands. Cheerie Bell taught English to senior classes and, as his nickname suggests, never smiled. I remember him as the trainer of some of the School’s best rugby sides of the nineteen-fifties. He took over after Jaika Travers left. He used to stand in the corner of the field under the Rotunda during training, gave instructions to the team, sent them off to practice the manoeuvres he wanted them to perform and then without moving from where he stood clapped his hands for them to return back to his corner of the field. Peter Newell was the School Chaplain I remember best. He was the Catechist at the South Rose Bay Anglican Church where he taught my scripture class on Sunday mornings. I remember him giving us interesting and eloquent sermons. Ken “Zunny” Felton taught me English during my first year in the Senior School. He ran the stationary cupboard, the lost property office, coached School swimming teams and was reputed to swim at Bondi Beach early each morning in all seasons of the year before walking to the School. Mark Bishop who taught Chemistry, I remember turning out to coach rugby teams in those long, pocketed rugby shorts that only Englishmen wore in those days. Mark was the headmaster when I taught briefly at Cranbrook in 1963. I remember him as a great judge of character and having real concern for the wellbeing of the boys in the school. Gilbert Jones, I recall, had his classroom upstairs in Perkins House on the sunny western side of the building. In it he taught French to many generations of boys at Cranbrook. He had prints of impressionist painters hanging in his classroom, Cezanne’s “The Card Players” and one of van Gogh’s paintings of the “Bridge at L’Anglois” which exited a lifelong appreciation of impressionist painting and the visual arts more generally. It was really only in my fourth-year honours at the University of Sydney that I realised just how good a teacher of French Gilbert was. I had read no French since I left school but the thesis I was researching in Indonesian and Malay Studies at the time required that I read French. It was quite a revelation to me that Gilbert had taught me so well that I could still read French, certainly with a little help of a dictionary, but without any great difficulty. Gilbert also directed many of the School plays in the period when I was at Cranbrook. I met him quite by chance one evening not long after my return to Sydney from the Netherlands on a bus on my way home from the city. He had retired from teaching and just been awarded his PhD at Macquarie University.

I cannot finish without a mention of George Eccles, the School’s groundsman. George was a phenomenon at Cranbrook. George could be seen mowing the main oval, preparing the practice wickets and the main pitch when we arrived at eight o’clock in the morning and would later walk to Dangar oval at Rose Bay to prepare the six or seven grass wickets there in the summer and the rugby pitches in winter. George was well known in Sydney for his work as groundsman. I remember in my last year at Cranbrook, it was rumoured that George had been offered the job as groundsman at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He turned the job down to remain at the School. I remember going with him to the Cricket Ground one afternoon at the time to give the groundsman there advice on the difficulties he was having with their Bulli-soil wicket. So well-known was his wicket on the main oval at Cranbrook that visiting test teams used to come to the oval to practise. I remember with some excitement seeing members of Len Hutton’s 1953-54 English team gathered at the top of the steps down on to the oval in front of the Rotunda and bowling to Colin Cowdrey in the nets and standing in the slips next to Freddie Truman one afternoon in 1958 when Peter May’s team were in Sydney. What I remember most about George was his retreat under the old Gymnasium where often one or two boys could be found talking with George. George was no psychologist but he did provide us the opportunity to relax and sit and talk about life.

I had the good chance to spend the ten years I was at Cranbrook with a group of classmates whose company I not only enjoyed but whose achievements inspired me. I remember Tim Drysdale, Jack Thurston, Will Hagon. Michael and Peter Corlette, Bibi Alidenis, Tom Breen, Scot Jelley, Peter Welsh, Barry Staggs, Peter Moline and many more. I admired Bob Paton and envied his excellence in Maths and Physics. Gavan Thomson, I remember, for his achievements on the athletics track and rugby field and for his captaincy of a strong First Eleven in 1958. I shared the classroom with Mungo MacCallum from the age of nine. Mungo was a little eccentric even at school. He was a mathematician of great ability and his command of English was put to good use as editor of the School Magazine in 1958, his final year. In that same year he, John Gaden and Jeremy Davis won the Associated Schools debating competition. Mungo shared the stage in school plays with John Gaden and I remember him playing the role of the pie-making Mrs. Lovett alongside Blaine Hogue in the role of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street one year. But what I most remember about Mungo in his final year was his dedication to mastering the art of leg spin bowling under the influence of Richie Benaud and Johnny Martin. Then there was Martin Sharp whose talents as a painter and cartoonist were already very clear at school. His paintings were regularly hung for the school to admire. I played rugby alongside Barry McDonald in the First Fifteen in 1957 and in that same year he was picked for the Combined Associated Schools First XV. Barry was of course picked in 1957 for the Wallabies. He decided to boycott the 1971 South African Tour of Australia along with seven other members of the team. This was a proud moment in the Rugby tradition at Cranbrook. Three of the seven Wallabies who decided on the boycott the tests that year were from Cranbrook: Barry, Tony Abrahams and Paul Darveniza.

Amongst my classmates were those with whom I formed lifelong friendships. The earliest were with Brian Manning and Bill Perraton who I met in my first year at Cranbrook. Bill Perraton hooked for the First Fifteen and opened the batting for the First Eleven. After he left school Bill went on to play for the Paddington Club in Sydney in the club’s first eleven. Bill passed away a number of years ago now. Brian lives in Brisbane and still plays tennis and we talk on the phone a few times each year. Along with Bill Perraton and Brian Manning, Bill Jones and David Marlin and I were members of a group of close friends who in our final years at Cranbrook and for some years after, met on Saturday evenings to listen to jazz in pubs in Sydney, played cards till late in the morning and most memorably spent Saturday nights at Bill Perraton’s house on the beach at Collaroy to wake early on Sunday mornings to surf, lie in the sun and dine on fried chips, potato scallops and chicken legs. Bill Jones is no longer with us. We scattered his ashes in the surf at Collaroy not so long ago. David Marlin, I got to know first on the athletics track. He was a formidable middle-distance runner who won the mile at the Associated Schools carnival in the remarkably fast time for a schoolboy in those days of 4 mins 33 seconds in 1957. David was also member of the School’s Debating team in 1957. We still see each two or three times each year.

Mike Curtin was a very close friend. I met him when he came to Cranbrook in 1956. Mike was a little bit special. If he could find a way to bowl a cricket ball from some unusual grip or invent a batting stroke that was atypical, he did. Mike was a talented sportsman. He played cricket and hockey for the University of Sydney. After graduating with honours in History, he joined the diplomatic service. Our ways parted but we remained in contact. He had postings to Saigon, Beirut, and London where I saw him, and finally in Geneva at the time of his death. I remember the occasion when I was staying with Michael in Canberra at the time of his youngest daughter’s birth, visiting Mungo at his home. Mungo, at the time, was embattled by his neighbours who were objecting to the screeching of the many peacocks which Mungo kept in cages around the perimeter of his back yard. I was in Bordeaux in France when my mother rang from Sydney to tell me that Mike had passed away at far too young an age of 45.

There have been surprising renewals of friendships. My friendship with Barry Fisher began in the Junior School. Barry left for England like many Australians in the nineteen-sixties. After a couple of years rousing about working in London pubs, Barry joined the RAF, flew as navigator in Canberra bombers from a base in Germany and finished his career in the RAF in rescue helicopters. I saw him a couple of times when he visited our home while I was studying in the Netherlands. I attended his marriage in London to Françoise, who came from the south of France near Lourdes, stayed with them once more on the RAF base at an airfield at Windy Ridge on the Norfolk coast and then did not see him for another twenty-five to thirty years. On one of my stays in France I rang a telephone number in Cheshire to be greeted not by Barry or Françoise but by Barry’s mother who must have been well into her nineties when I rang. She gave me a telephone number and an address in the small village of Cote-de-Bareille in the south of France. I drove down to see Barry and Françoise at their home. Meeting again was a remarkable experience. We began our conversation as though we had met only the day before. We see each other every year when Dominique and I spend the summers in France. This kind ofexperience has been repeated only a couple of other times in my life: when I met up with Peter Corlette in Bowral when my wife Dominique discovered she was teaching Peter’s youngest son at Chevalier College, again when I met with lan Calvert when I moved to the Blue Mountains. and then again with Peter Carrol who I discovered lived just around the corner from my house in Leura. Peter and I walk regularly together, sometimes two or three times a week if the weather is good—two old blokes who reminisce, recount life’s experiences, and solve the problems of the world on long walks through the streets and bushland tracks around Leura. It is a great thing to do, and I recommend it to you all.

The world has of course changed radically since I was at Cranbrook in the 1950s and and taught there briefly in the early 1960s.  My parents were children during the First World War, survived the influenza epidemic which followed and grew to adulthood in times of depression to marry and begin family life during the Second World War. The post-war period when we were at school was one of social and economic reconstruction. These were optimistic times of full employment, industrial growth and rural prosperity, and a period of significant cultural change in Australia as an awareness of sectarian differences gave increasingly way to a recognition of cultural differences with the arrival of new immigrant communities. It was a period when we went regularly to the cinema on Saturday nights, and a time when the crooners of the forties and fifties gave way to rock and roll, Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley and Beatle mania—all a prelude to the sixties and major changes in social mores. The war and recognition of the demands of social reconstruction brought with them a strong sense of unity and a patriotism largely focused on the British royal throne. All was not rosy, however. The Cold War governed international relationships and European powers were engaged in the sometimes-violent business of divesting themselves of their colonies. We lived internationally under the cloud of nuclear war, when Australian forces were called on again to go to war in Korea. We witnessed the disastrous Suez crisis of 1956, the Russian suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in that same year, and the Australian government began the slow march towards involvement in the Vietnam War and its consequences both domestically and internationally.

The educational challenges which the Cranbrook School community confronts today are different now. The headmaster, Nicolas Sampson, gave those who attended the recent gathering of Old Cranbrookians from the classes of 1958–1962 a considered and frank assessment of the challenges which the School has at the present time. He spoke in particular about the advantages for the School’s curriculum of the introduction of the International Baccalaureate, of the need to widen the intellectual, cultural and moral horizon of boys at Cranbrook and plans for a program of coeducation in years eleven and twelve, and the difficulties of recruiting and keeping good teachers who can no longer afford the costs of living close to their place of work and which many, if not most of our teachers, were able to do. We also had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the very impressive new facilities which future students will have available for them—teaching, cultural and sporting facilities which set an impressive benchmark for those that should be available for every school student in Australia. There are other wider challenges which school communities now confront—some as worrying as the ones which challenged the School when I was there. Rapid changes in the international economy have given rise to insecurities and we worry about corporations which are in some ways more powerful than nation states which have governed our lives for the past two hundred years. We have the existential threat of a rapidly deteriorating climate to deal with and the increasing likelihood of epidemics, not to forget the diplomatic and strategic consequences of renewed but ancient imperial Chinese ambitions and now the violence to which Russian hopes of re-establishing their former influence in the world has given rise. Advances in recent years in science, medicine, and technology, far reaching progress in our knowledge of the universe in which we live, and a more immediate and deeper awareness and knowledge of  the cultures of societies other than our own, all these give us reason for great optimism and innovation in the curriculum.