Ray Lowenthal

Brief bio – Ray Lowenthal
After leaving NSBHS I went straight into Medicine at USyd and the Royal North Shore Hospital. After graduation I did 2 years internship at RNSH. In 1967 I married Dianne Price, a nurse from RNSH; we immediately left Sydney and spent 12 months travelling overland across 29 countries to England, with various adventures en route. We lived in the UK for 7 years where I worked in hospitals and postgraduate institutions in London and Reading, and produced 2 children. We returned to Australia in 1975, where I took up a post in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tasmania in Hobart; we have been here ever since and produced 2 more children. The children in turn have produced their own and we now have 3 lovely grandchildren with another on the way!
We have remained in Tasmania which has been a wonderful place to live and bring up children. I am still working full time (for how much longer I’m not sure) as Director of Medical Oncology at the Royal Hobart Hospital and Clinical Professor at the University of Tasmania. I have been fortunate to be able to spend sabbaticals working in various countries including the USA, France, Germany and Israel, as well as having two trips to Antarctica as ship’s doctor! I have also been able to indulge research interests which have been mainly in leukaemia, bone marrow transplantation and clinical trials of new cancer treatments. Along the way I have been lucky enough to pick up a few gongs including an AO in 2006.
Outside medicine my avocations have included bushwalking (for which Tasmania is a paradise), cooking, and the arcane sport of Real Tennis of which Hobart boasts the oldest court in Australia. (and although you might think otherwise, this is the real reason I took my French sabbatical in Bordeaux).
NSBHS seems to have prepared me well for what has turned out to be a ‘fortunate life’. Even Latin has come in handy from time to time (though not my experience in the Cadets). As the offspring of refugees, I count myself as privileged to have lived in a country that presents everyone with opportunities.
9/10/08

BRIAN MITCHELL

How remarkable it is to be trying to convey enough pithy detail about myself to a great group of guys that I once shared five years school with and mostly have not seen since. The exceptions are Conrad Emert and Doug Aitken. Connie because we served together for so many years in the army and Doug because we really are dear friends and kept in touch afterwards in the UK and Australia.

I blame my parents and the 16 mile daily commute from Asquith to North Sydney High for my wanderlust. I’m now settled (for awhile) in my twenty-seventh house post NSBHS. I always wanted to see the world and I haven’t done so badly, having lived outside Australia for 29 years of the past 50. It all began because my “success” in the Cadet Corps at school led me to by-pass a very mediocre pass in the LC for a scholarship to RMC Duntroon. Duntroon was quick off the mark. They had me signed up in September 1958 long before the LC results! So I tripped happily off to four years of mild academics and lots of outdoor life, never realising the consequences of my commitment.

Six months after graduation I found myself in Malaya/Malaysia and Sarawak during the “Konfrontasi” with Indonesia, directing artillery at steep jungle ridges. After two years there, the reward was to be the aide-de-camp to the Chief of the Army which frankly was a bit too ceremonial for my liking. There followed a year in South Vietnam as the Adjutant (i.e. Operations Officer) of the Field Artillery Regiment during the Tet Offensive. On return they tried to capture my knowledge as an instructor at the Artillery School, North Head and subsequently as the Australian Exchange Instructor at the Royal School of Artillery, Wiltshire UK where I taught for two years. There followed a year’s study at the Australian Staff College, planning postings at Army HQ Canberra, six months study at the Joint Services Staff College, two years as CO of the 1st Field Regiment, Colonel Deputy Commandant Duntroon and then, Director of Artillery. This last job was the last straw for a non-ceremonial type. I resigned in August 1986 before my term was up.

I had two alternatives lined up. I had seriously prepared to set up an outdoors training company in south Queensland once I left the Army. I had studied by correspondence for four years to have a Diploma of Small Business Management but as my resignation date approached, I made a speculative application to join the United Nations in Jerusalem and was surprised to be accepted. I took the UN job, although I never filled that particular post until six years afterwards.

I was interviewed in Canberra and told the Jerusalem post might be filled internally but there was a similar post vacant in Cyprus/ Beirut. Within a month, I was employed by the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as the Field Administrative Officer in Beirut when by the best count of the day, there were 79 different factions contesting in the civil war. On my first day in the office we were evacuated to avoid the artillery that was misdirected at our premises. Such irony to have left the army, yet to be on the receiving end!

UNRWA HQ was in evacuation in Vienna and after 18 months in Lebanon where I gained a reputation as a management trainer of executive staff, I was transferred to Austria to establish an Agency-wide staff development programme – we had almost 20,000 staff members at this point. Over the next four years, I shuttled between Vienna and the Near East (Egypt, Syria, Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Cyprus) conducting week long seminars for senior management after which I was rewarded with the post in Jerusalem that I had applied for back in 1986! The first Intifada and the first Gulf War had just ended leaving a highly suspicious population and it is an understatement to say that keeping hospitals, health centres and schools operating then in the Occupied West Bank was a challenge too often ending in total frustration.

In August 1995, I was head-hunted by UNHQ New York to administer the peacekeeping mission in South Lebanon (UNIFIL). The area was part of the Israeli Security Zone constantly under fire and over-flights but gracefully by both sides, not often directly at UN installations. For security, all International staff of UNIFIL had to reside in Northern Israel and cross the border daily to get to and from work, quite often being halted at the border to await the exchange of fire to stop. Although the situation may sound frightening such that only someone with a death wish would want to stay, it was a rewarding job and mostly an enjoyable experience working with a multi-national group in a diplomatic setting. We had lots of high ranking visitors and I met many heads of state, prime ministers and government representatives.

Much changed when the Israelis withdrew and instantaneously a hush came over South Lebanon while Hezbollah sauntered in to fill the vacuum. The changes were ominous. Shortly afterwards I talked my way into a transfer to New York as the Chief of Civilian Training in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and after three years at UNHQ, they retired me on age. When my wife passed away from breast cancer three months after I stopped work, I moved to Florida and formed a consulting HRD company. I currently manage part of a distance learning programme that puts out courses on aspects of peacekeeping. The parent non-profit organisation is called “the Peace Operations Training Institute” which proudly boasts over 20,000 world-wide enrolments per annum. I am able to work part-time from home while at other times my new wife, Ann, and I are trying hard to carve a track through the Country Club golf course.

I have three kids, two in Australia (a lawyer in Sydney and a geologist in Canberra) plus a 12 year-old in the USA and two grandchildren.
Life is wonderful and NSBHS has a lot to answer for.

ALAN TILLEY

Alan Tilley, 5 April 1942 -


We all know what happens When Ordinary People Achieve Extraordinary Things but what about when an ordinary person ordinarily runs late achieving pretty ordinary results? When I see and hear what my remarkable fellow 1958’ers have done, perhaps I am extraordinarily ordinary but, c’est la vie.

I’m ordinary enough not to have a white picket fence out front – nor 2.2 kids (we, Robyn and I, had 2 – I say had, because they’re not kids any more).

I once thought that someone like me, who as a 14 year old took a lead role in a small group involving ‘sulphuretted hydrogen’ being generated in ‘our’ classroom just before it was to be used for the weekly English Honours class of ‘Sago’ Rice, would be destined to a career in chemistry - but no. Nor did I go on to earn any fame as a serial nuisance or troublemaker. (I might add as an aside, the incident did raise my respect for Stony Mason, who despite a classical education, was able to momentarily delay the infuriated Sago as he worked up a head of steam for the canings, by observing succinctly, but with some sense of pride with his knowledge, that sulphuretted hydrogen was “H2S”.)

In 1959, I repeated the LC (voluntarily) to address several shortcomings that I then perceived (and I thank my late parents for their unquestioning acceptance of my decision):
• my error in not electing to do Maths I & II in ’57 & 58,(I scraped through both in ‘59)
• my failure to win a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1958 (I suspect I missed by more in ’59)
• never having made an effort to represent the school in a sport - never likely in rugby, cricket, tennis or swimming, so, athletics it was to be); and,
• relative immaturity. (The 1959 photo confirms that.)

At Uni, 60-63, (Sydney, chosen for its more prestigious athletic club than UNSW) I continued immaturely to vacillate about career aspirations between Science and Chemical Engineering, eventually leaving with no more than a University Blue in athletics. As a guilty response to my academic ‘philandering’ I did graduate years later through part-time study at NSW Institute of Technology, in Mechanical Engineering.

Moving on, I married Robyn Charles, a former Wenona girl, in December 1965, my life-time best decision, and lived in West Pymble for 7 years before living ever since in Gordon. Amongst an alumni since distinguished across the entire world, I have to admit the longest period I have spent out of Ku-ring-gai Municipality has been 3 weeks.

My early full-time jobs involved both Chemistry and Engineering, with James Hardie, then Abrasive Products. In 1972 I joined Rheem Australia as a mechanical engineer, in metal products manufacture. In 1983, I was offered a job by Rheem as an in-house intellectual property specialist, which I took. It then seemed a good idea to learn something about intellectual property so I studied privately at nights for several years and sat the Statutory examination program of the time, becoming a Registered Patent and Trade Marks Attorney, a relatively rare occupation even these days. Rheem was purchased in 1989 by SA Brewing, later Southcorp Limited. Southcorp divested piecemeal its diverse manufacturing, retaining only those assets which put it at the forefront of the world of wine. I therefore gravitated to making wine trade marks my specialty. Southcorp was purchased in 2005 by Fosters, whereupon I took one Friday afternoon a redundancy package based on 33 years service with Southcorp, then resumed the following Monday with a part time consultancy to Fosters. I presently consult also for a private practice firm of Patent and Trade Marks attorneys in Sydney and soon I expect to scale back gradually from my present 4.5-day working week.

Our elder son Charles (1974), a lawyer, and his wife Sal, a vet, have brought us the joy of a grandson, Robert, born June 2007. Our younger son Alex (1977) has inherited my indecisiveness and after graduating in biomedical science and journalism (post grad) now is well on the way to graduating part time in law while he works in the NSW Coroner’s Court. Robyn and I hope (privately) he will soon pop the question to his long-time partner Sara.

My pastimes currently are orienteering, including computer aided drawing of orienteering maps; bushwalking – mainly local; listening to music, mainly classical and opera but not too heavy and nostalgic ‘easy listening’; gardening, enough to get by; grandson minding and reading. I suffer from chronic hoarding of memorabilia and continually need to work on the problems that habit creates.

MARCUS VOWELS

Marcus Vowels

In the intervening period since the HSC did Medicine and although the vision was to become a GP, ended up in Paediatrics and then Oncology.

Professionally,
Established the first bone marrow transplant program in Australia and (later) the Banking of Umbilical Cord Blood Project in Australia. Order of Australia Award for the former.

Personally,
Happily married - second time lucky
3 children – 37, 34 and 25; 2 grandchildren

Medically,
2 shoulder reconstructions and almost a knee, all caused by skiing which has been relegated to the “not-to-do-anymore” basket.

Finally,
Retired 2008 to Jervis Bay
Family, scuba diving, gardening and travel (with the grey brigade) are the challenges; plus fighting cholesterol and outliving the children.

GRAHAM JEFFERYS

Graham Jefferys’ biographical note for NSBHS year of 1958 fifty years’ reunion

Began studying electrical engineering at UNSW in 1959. Became a Christian believer that year during the Billy Graham Crusade in Sydney. That resulted in a change of vocation for me. Studied at Moore Theological College, Newtown NSW, 1963-66, and was ordained to the Anglican ministry in Sydney, 1967.

Married Elizabeth Gerber in 1968. Three children were born to us: Andrew, Stephen and Catherine.

We went to Chile as missionaries in 1974 and served there from 1974-80, 1982-88 and 1994-2002. I was mainly involved in church leadership training, especially theological education by extension. We and our family lived in the Valparaiso region, central Chile, during the first two periods. Elizabeth and I lived in Osorno, southern Chile, during the third.

Between our periods of overseas mission venture-adventure, we served in churches in the Sydney area.

Elizabeth and I now live at Tahmoor, southwest of Sydney. Andrew and his wife and family live nearby at Bargo. Stephen and his wife and family live in Santiago, Chile. And Catherine, her husband and their daughter currently live in London.

To keep fit, I walk briskly – but not as often as I should!

DAVID COHEN

DAVID COHEN

The class of 1958 at NSBHS was something special. They were memorable years, and it is with a sense of anticipation to be sending this for the reunion some 50 years later.

After an undistinguished time at North Sydney Boys’ High, a Leaving pass of 4As and 2Bs was sufficient to gain a Commonwealth Scholarship. Hoping eventually to become a diplomat or a barrister, I planned to do Law, but at 16 was too young for admission into Law School. So I began an Arts-Law degree. After 2 years of Arts, perfecting skills at billiards rather than academia (even having to answer a question in English 1 comparing two of Shakespeare’s plays, only one of which I had read! I was grateful for having read ‘How to Pass Exams without Really Trying!”), I proceeded to Law School. At the end of that year, I was convinced that Law was not to be my chosen career, and not surprisingly, my examiners wholeheartedly agreed. Coaching tennis to support myself had not paid off.

I returned to complete my Arts degree, majoring in French and English, while teaching French (as Senior French Master – with three Leaving students, including the next Headmaster!) at St Andrew’s Cathedral School. In January 1963, I was married. I was appointed to Sydney Grammar School as an Assistant Master, as well as Warden of Latimer House Anglican Hostel for university students at Petersham. They were a tough couple of years.

Our daughter was born in November 1963, and the following June 1964, we were on our way to Mauritius to pioneer the work of the Bible Society in the Indian Ocean, covering such exotic outposts as Reunion, Rodrigues and the Seychelles. Our son was born in Mauritius in 1966, and at the end of that year, while on furlough in Sydney, I was ordained a minister of the Anglican Church in St Andrew’s Cathedral, having completed my basic theological qualifications by extension while in Mauritius.

After nearly 6 years in Mauritius, I was invited to New Zealand, to promote the work of the Bible Society there as Deputy General Secretary, and to open up the work in the French South Pacific: New Caledonia, New Hebrides (as Vanuatu then was), Tahiti and later extending to the rest of the South Pacific: Fiji, Tonga, Samoa…such a heavy cross to bear!

While still 29, and with another 4 years to go before the plan to take over as General Secretary on the retirement of my boss, he suddenly died. I was appointed as his successor, and within a month was in Addis Ababa for the World Assembly of the United Bible Societies. There I was invited (pressurized!) to become the Regional Director for Africa, with responsibility for the continent, based in Nairobi, Kenya. The job demanded 9 months travel a year, so we decided that the family would stay in Sydney with my wife’s parents. It was a bad decision, and a major contributor to the ultimate breakdown of our marriage.

After two years, and having found my successor, an Ethiopian who followed up with 16 years of distinguished leadership, I resigned from the Bible Society, and returned to Sydney to be with my family. I was appointed to a tiny parish in Sylvania for nearly three years, and was then invited to become Rector of St. Matthew’s Manly, a large and dynamic church closer to my original home base in Mosman. They were good years, but with growing marital and family tension.

Unexpectedly in 1985, I was invited by Scripture Union in the UK to become their General Director. I thought they had sent the letter of enquiry to the wrong person! Eight extraordinary years followed, with a steep learning curve, and opportunities I could only have dreamed of had I remained in Australia, including preaching in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, and broadcasting regularly on the BBC.

But highs and lows tend to be companions in the journey of life. Our marriage had come to the point where my wife wanted to live apart. I was invited to join the staff of Tear Fund UK, a Christian relief and development organization, and ended up in Goma Zaire (as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was) following the horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994. I was the team leader, living and working with 1 million refugees, in the most abysmal conditions, until the camps closed for political reasons in 1996.

On returning to Australia, ostensibly to care for my ailing mother, with little prospect of Christian ministry given my divorced status, I was invited to head up an organization called Christian Nationals Evangelism Council (CNEC)/Partners International, working in relief and development in some 60 countries around the world. Ten wonderful years followed. In 1999, at a mission conference in the USA, I met Kathi, and to cut a short and romantic story even shorter, was married 7 months later in April 2000, after only 14 days in the same country! She bravely came to Australia, sight unseen, as my wife, and is now a happily settled Aussie, delighting even in cricket, AFL, ARL and other Australian pastimes, not to mention her love of gardening, birds, sheltie dogs, and other Australian wild life. Together we have visited every State and Territory, as well as a number of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific in the context of our work.

After 10 years in this last position, having taken the initiative to hand over leadership of the organization, in 2006 we formed ourselves into an incorporated, not-for-profit charitable association called Moringa Associates Inc., involved in leadership development, community transformation (primarily though micro-enterprise development in the developing world) and conflict management. Life is full and fulfilling.

Our home in Blaxland in the Lower Blue Mountains, gives us great delight. Our west wing/guest wing means we can have people stay, which we love, and we hope it will be our base for whatever lies ahead. ‘Retirement’ is n ot a word that has much meaning for us!

RONALD MORRIS

RONALD MORRIS
34 Ocean Ridge Terrace
Port Macquarie NSW 2444
Phone: 02 6582 7006
EDUCATION (Tertiary) 1991 University of Technology Sydney- Grad Dip. in Adult Ed.
1987 University of New England - B. Economics
1970 Sydney Tech College - Industrial Engin. Post Cert.
1969 Granville Tech College - Mechanical Engin. Cert.
EMPLOYMENT 1989-1994 TAFE Teaching (P/T) mainly at Port Macquarie, Hornsby & Wyong campuses
1989-1990 BP Aust Ltd Consultant - staff training, plant re- designing
1959-1989 BP Aust Ltd Various technical. administerial, technical and management positions after completing traineeship
ASSOCIATIONS Institute of Engineers, Australia
Association of Independent Retirees
Mixed Probus Club of Port Macquarie
Lake Cathie Bowling & Recreation Club
Port Macquarie Golf Club
PEERSONAL Married to Marjorie
3 children (aged 39 to 45), 8 grandchildren
4 step children
2 Cavalier King Charles spaniels
INTERESTS Lawn bowling, golf, gardening, managing own superannuation fund, travel (less now due to dogs)

FRANK HATHERLEY

My strange Leaving Certificate result — 3 Bs and Honours English — wasn’t good enough for a university entrance, which was fortunate because my mother said she couldn’t afford to keep me any longer.

My first paid job was in advertising, where I was following my highly successful elder brother. Then I side-stepped into radio announcing, where I was following my noted father. Alas, 2WL Wollongong, the Voice of the South Coast, proved not to house the Grail.

In 1963 I ran away to London, which suited me just fine. After some false starts, I won a Trainee Director’s Scholarship to a respected regional theatre company in Sheffield. Great, exciting, long days: rehearsing one play during the day, performing another one at night, writing my own in any remaining moments.

By 1971 my actress partner and I had a baby, so we headed for London to attempt a less precarious existence and I stumbled into BBC television drama, first as a script editor, soon as a producer. I visited Sydney for four months in 1976 to co-produce The Emigrants, a four-part drama I had devised. By now Patricia and I had two daughters, and I hurried back to London.

I moved to Thames Television, had a time of being out of work which coincided with the birth of daughter number three, answered an advertisement for a 10-week teaching stint on a BA Media Studies course at the Polytechnic of Central London. The bloke I was replacing never recovered, so I became Senior Lecturer and stayed for the next 18 years. The Poly eventually became the University of Westminster — so despite my 3 Bs I made it to university after all.

Offered early retirement at 55, I grabbed it. My long relationship with Patricia had ended. Returning to Sydney in 1996 for a first visit in 20 years, I happened to meet Janice, my first official girlfriend from age 15-18. She had accompanied me to the NSBHS Prefects Ball in 1958: we are now 10 years married.

Two of my accomplished daughters come to Sydney often, my eldest now lives here and has recently produced my second grandchild. In my fortunate dotage I returned to writing stage plays which make no money but which give me much satisfaction.

DON RADFORD

FROM DON RADFORD, YEAR OF 1958
After the LC, I studied science at the University of Sydney where I specialized in chemistry – no doubt as a result of the excellent teachers we had at NSBHS in the science department. Mr Moulton, Mr Rintoul and Mr Butts come to mind especially.
I had intended to seek employment in industry, enthused by the visits the school took to places such as Monsanto and the AGL at Mortlake. However, instead my interest in teaching chemistry at university developed, partly because of the often poor performance of many of the lecturers and my belief that chemistry could be made much more interesting for undergraduates. Consequently I completed a PhD in physical chemistry and also a Dip Ed at the University of New England. For most of my working life I was employed in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, ultimately as a senior lecturer in the first year teaching group. I retired in 2001 but remain active in the School as an honorary staff member where I continue with several projects involving first year teaching.
I have lived at Bilgola Plateau since 1968 and regularly get together with Warren Yates and Ray Woolcott from our year.


The old photo above was taken in 1957 or 1958 on the way to cadet camp

TOM CAMPBELL

CV - Tom Campbell

It's now 50 years since we all parted company, and it's true to say that I haven't kept regularly in touch with anyone since, apart from Brian Bagnall, the brother I never had.

Married Helen in 1966 - we are still together. Blessed with a daughter, and grand-daughters nine and seven. Pleased to have lived in Glebe for over twenty years.

Have always counted myself very fortunate to have been good at school work at Asquith Primary School, and to have been "selected" to go to NSBHS. This opened up for me the world of flush toilets, and the bourgeois view of life. I suspect that if I had gone on to Hornsby Tech, I might never have had the same opportunities for personal fulfilment that went in those days with the privilege of a university education, and the certainty of a secure, well-paid job which didn't require you to get your hands dirty.

Probably haven't changed much since 1958. NSBHS gave me the gift of the gab, a love of language (French in particular), a penchant for intellectual, cultural and philosophical posturing, a deep interest in music (I still play trumpet), a pathological dislike of organised sport, and a lifelong uncertainty about women.

I really liked school, and became a teacher of French and Latin. Worked in secondary public education for forty years, in a wide variety of roles which enabled me to lead and make something of a difference. For me, it was a sort of lay ministry, and I was very suited to teaching. NSBHS gave me another crucial leg up in 1987, when as Deputy-Principal I qualified for promotion to Principal. At the end of it all, retirement came without regrets. I owe NSBHS a lot. I've been very lucky.

I'm not a networker, so have never received an award, honour, or accolade. Resolutely secular, republican, I hate meetings, clubs, good works, chardonnay, Australian reds, commercial TV, fiction, games (whether sitting down or standing up), dancing, the theatre, the abomination which is popular music, and the posturing of public figures who demonstrably lack intellectual and philosophical depth. So there!

There is much that I do like, however. As a kid, I loved fishing and boating. I still do. I love my music. I also like to move, and so have been to lots of places. I cherish our current fleet of six Citroëns, three of which we've had for over twenty-five years. Helen and I have just spent a month on a rally in our 2CV in Western Australia with fifty-five others, on the worst possible roads the organisers could find. It was a great adventure and an endurance test not to be missed, if you like that sort of thing. There is another one in four years time. Will we still be able to put the tent up?

So, what is the meaning of it all? At university I was seduced for good by the absurdity of the human condition, Sartrian existentialism, and all that stuff. So I can't look at the night sky for more than a few seconds at a time - too perplexing. Perhaps Brian B. and I got it right when we decided at the age of eighteen that God only accepts those who have the courage to reject Him. Or perhaps Le Petit Prince by Saint-Exupéry says it all.

WARREN YATES

After leaving school Warren studied Electrical Engineering at University of Sydney graduating BSc BE in 1964, he then went on to do a PhD in Radio Astronomy which he completed in 1967.

He married Judy Potter on December 31 1966. Judy came from Port Pirie in South Australia and had studied Economics at ANU as a cadet for the Australian Bureau of Statistics. They met at a church youth camp that both of them had accidentally ended up attending, Judy because she lost the semi final of a netball match and Warren because he was asked to stand it at the last moment as a discussion leader. At the time, Judy had accepted a job at University of Adelaide and was due to return there in six weeks. This focussed their minds and they became engaged before the six weeks were out.

Judy and Warren lived for three years in Holland while Warren worked for Philips and Judy did a PhD at University of Amsterdam.

They returned to Australia in 1971 and settled in Mosman, Warren working at the then NSW Institute of Technology and Judy at University of Sydney. They had two children Kylie in 1971 and Mark in 1972.

Warren is still working at UTS today. His professional career covered teaching and research in digital coding modulation and multiplexing schemes at a very exciting time when Moore's law was delivering every more processing power per device and one after another analog technologies were being replaced by their digital equivalents with in every case new levels of performance and new applications. From 1990 too 2001 he served as Professor of Electrical Engineering and Head of the School of Electrical Engineering and then Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Engineering

His academic career included two one year periods of sabbatical leave, the first at British Rail research labs in Derby, England in 1979 then at University of Bristol in 1986 when he co-authored a book on digital signal processing

Warren and Judy built a house on a vacant block of land in Mosman in 1976 and have lived there ever since. When the children were that age Warren was a leader in cubs then scouts then venturers.

The years have flown by and, the world has changed but in the Yates family some things have remained the same: Bridge with neighbours every Friday evening over a bottle of red, bush camping on the South coast one a year, regular social events with school friends Don Radford, Ray Wollcott and Phil Butt and their families, Mosman ALP meetings ( a very select community!), Belvoir theatre subscriptions – and Radio National

Since retiring from academe in 2001 Warren has been employed at UTS as a consultant working on various IT systems projects. He has taken up Croquet and been elected as a Councillor on Mosman Council. The Yates have four grandchildren.

Most remembered holiday: Cycling in the Czech Repulblic

Favourite movie: Closely Watched Trains (1968)

Favourite novel: Anything written by Emile Zola

CONRAD ERMERT

Brigadier Conrad Ermert (Retd)

I enjoyed my time at NSBHS which has left me with a legacy of great friends, wonderful memories of good teachers, a great cadet unit and a certain satisfaction of having been to one of Sydney’s great schools. I joined the school cadets fairly early (at the time my rifle was taller than I, and I haven’t grown much since) and worked my way to the exalted rank of Cadet Under Officer. I eventually managed to pass the Leaving Certificate / matriculation with results sufficient for a Commonwealth Scholarship. As it turned out I did not take up the Scholarship, choosing instead to accept a place at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, together with Brian Mitchell, our Senior Under Officer, and Fred Stahl, the Drum Major of the band.

Four years later, having graduated from the engineering class at RMC, I went to Melbourne to complete my studies in electronic engineering at RMIT. Most importantly, however, in Melbourne I met and married my wife, Muriel, with whom I have been fortunate enough to spend our forty-three years of marriage. At the time Muriel had completed her nursing and post-graduate theatre training and was working as a theatre sister at the then Footscray & District Hospital.

In May 1966 I found myself posted to an Army Field Workshop bound for Vietnam where we spent a year maintaining in service all the equipment of the Australian Forces. Being the first workshop there our year was spent trying to create workshop facilities in the sand hills of Vung Tau while living under WWII tentage that leaked badly throughout the monsoon season. However it was an experience and I was fortunate enough to see a bit of the country, often from the open door of a Huey helicopter. In the meantime Muriel organized a house removal to Ingleburn and held a job as a medical representative.

On my return from Vietnam we had yet another house removal, this time to Monegeetta, Victoria, where our two children were born. Then another move to Wodonga, Victoria, where we stayed for less than a year, leaving for three year in the UK. We lived first in Shrivenham where I completed my Masters in Guided Weapons Systems at the Royal Military College of Science. Then we moved to Purley near London where I was ‘on loan’ to the British Ministry of Defence, in the project team developing the RAPIER guided weapon system, later to be used so effectively in the Falklands.

After a wonderful three years in UK we returned to Australia and a variety of different postings in Perth, Brisbane, Queenscliff, Melbourne and Canberra. While in Canberra I was also appointed as an Honorary Aide-de-Camp to the Governor General (Bill Haydon) which was a fascinating experience. For most of those years Muriel brought up the family and entertained wonderfully, as well as shifting house 21 times while continuing her work as a Theatre Sister for various hospitals and surgeons. Compared to that my job was easy and after promotion to Brigadier and a posting as Head of Corps I retired from the Army in 1990.

We then moved back to Melbourne, where we intend to stay! Here I spent the first five years as the Director of Facilities at the Alfred Group of Hospitals, responsible for the construction and commissioning of a radio-therapy centre, MRI unit, pharmacy, psychiatric and general wards, lifts and a multi-story car park. I then established our consultancy working in the area of power supplies for hospitals. I also became a Director and eventually Chairman of AMOG Consulting P/L, a firm of engineers specializing in structures and hydrodynamics, particularly in Defence and the offshore oil and gas industry. I was also appointed as a part-time member of the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a position I still hold.

In the meantime our daughter has given us two wonderful grand-children, now aged 16 and 13, and in January of this year our son and his wife presented us with our newest grand-daughter.

We have had the great pleasure of travelling extensively to Europe, Asia, America, Antarctica and most recently to China. We are blessed with a lovely family and look forward to spending many more years together with them all.

Conrad Ermert
September 2008

BRIAN BAGNALL

1957




2005

Brian Bagnall NSBHS 1954-1958

After two glorious years in a wonderful co-ed “opportunity class” at Fort Street Primary School my five years at NSBHS by comparison seemed like five years of incarceration in a cruel prison. With canings for those who strayed from the rules and a competitive male militaristic hierarchy of captains, prefects and sports teams, as a small and immature child I struggled to survive both there and also in a dysfunctional family with a divorced working mother. Most of the teachers at the school were pretty incompetent in my mind then. Fortunately my NSBHS classmates were a fabulous bunch of witty interesting characters who greatly enriched my life.

Despite my quite poor Leaving Certificate results, just 2 A’s and 4 B’s, I somehow got a scholarship to go “Uni” where I studied veterinary science for five years and had a lot of fun. In 1964 I went into clinical practice in Wollongong but returned to Sydney University a year later to get the higher education I had previously resisted by teaching in the blood and guts veterinary surgery department.

Like many at my age I then went to the UK in 1967 to see more of the world and told my mother I’d be away just a year. I never returned to work in Australia again. I was lucky to get another clinical teaching job in the vet school at Cambridge University and soaked up music and beauty in the historic city. I got married there in 1969 to a vivacious English girl and in 1971-72 we spent a year in Vienna where I did some irrelevant graduate study in veterinary dermatology and learned to speak passable German. I returned to Sydney in 1972-75 to do a PhD at the university and there we had our first son. We went back to the UK and, after some postdoctoral work and the birth of our second son, I got a job in the pharmaceutical industry with Smith, Kline & French in Welwyn Garden City north of London.

I spent 27 years with the company, now GlaxoSmithKline, in a wide variety of intriguing technical, marketing, government affairs and public relations jobs in both animal and human health that took me all over the world. In 1980 they relocated me to the USA in the Philadelphia area where I lived for 26 years and became a US citizen in 1999.

I retired at the end of 2003 and in 2006 moved to Florida to escape harsh winters forever living full-time now in tropical oceanside Fort Lauderdale. Here I join other old geezer pensioners who wander aimlessly about wearing just sunhats, Speedos and flip-flops. I have rediscovered my creative side and sing in a men’s’ choir as well as going to lots of classical music and other concerts.

My 20-year marriage ended in 1989 after I told my wife, who I adored, that I thought I was really gay. After a year trying to cope with this marital bombshell, we ended with an acrimonious divorce and much needless family estrangement. We only reconciled when she got a brain tumor and then died in 1999. My 34 year-old son Clive lives in the Philadelphia area with his young wife and my 32 year-old son Peter lives in California as a single parent with three kids aged 6 –12, who I rarely see. For the past 16 years I have lived with my partner Michael, also a foreign-born veterinarian, and we have enjoyed the best of American domestic life with many exotic travel vacations. Last year we spent 80 days travelling around the world including five weeks in Sydney and NSW and recently we spent two weeks in Japan. Sorry I won’t be at the Reunion but send my best wishes and greetings to all in the unforgettable Class of 1958. (see photos on next page)

ALAN FELTON

ALAN FELTON

After an undistinguished 4 years at NSBH – where without doubt the single greatest teacher influence on me was Arthur Henry, in 1957 I became a challenge to parents (and teachers) and was sent for my 5th year to Boarding School – the Scots School (TSS) at Bathurst.

Interesting contrast as TSS – mostly “bush“ kids – many strugglers academically. When I got by 4 Bs it was considered special.

Oddly, I am still very close to a string of schoolmates from there.

No further education – a series of jobs in a semi-planned way, to get a variety of business experience before joining my father at 21 in the small family export trading business.

Then, in my late 20’s my father entered semi retirement and I took over the business.

Enjoyed modest success, founded a separate professional design business, and commenced our business activities in the US in the late 60’s., which continued thru the 70’s and early 80’s, to the point when we decided to move there in 1989.

In 1972 did the smartest thing I ever did and married Pamela who I still love madly but whom I still do not understand! Friends tell me that is normal!
She is far more than wife and mother to our offspring – we had 4 children – 3 survive Peter (32) David (28) and Rory (26).
She has been and still is my partner in business – or more correctly – businesses.

Our boys were of course in elementary and middle (that is US Midwest terminology for early High School) and then have gone on to various (expensive US) Universities.
Their mother being the smartest of us all went off and did her MBA at night several years ago.

We have lived as a family in the US since 1989 and our ties to Australia are now somewhat tenuous.
We chose for business and personal reasons to locate in Kansas City, on the Kansas side, and that was a sound decision. We have had some ups and downs, but living here is really great. Its a little Adelaide like – not too big and not too small, surprisingly cosmopolitan, easy to get around and centrally located.

Our last (sold in May 2008),(15 years) business was Felton Medial, Inc that functionef as an importer and distributor nationally of animal health products.

In 1997 we founded another related business, Felton International (trade name now Pulse) which is involved in the design, manufacturing and marketing of needle-free injection systems for animals and humans.

The basis of that entity’s technology was actually developed over many years by the Russian Military, and we organized a complex international transfer of technology and some key personnel from what was the USSR, now Russia.
The US and Russian Governments were involved and our lawyer always tells us that it was by far the most interesting transaction that he has ever been involved with – unsaid he also did quite well out of it!

We do have a full life here, with business, Church and a variety of other volunteer activities –
Pamela is working towards a slow down, but I am pretty much hobby less, and most mornings wanting to get up and go at it.

Our boys seem a long way from settling so without grandchildren we rattle around in our (too) big 5 bedroom home with our two Shih Tzu dogs and a cat.

So we have tons of room – and it really is a great city to visit – not so good for Aussies in winter with 12” snow – but at other times excellent and anyone is welcome to come and stay – do plan on renting a car though – Public transport is not any good.

We travel a lot and Kansas City is beautifully central and Europe only 7 hours away still with some cheap fared. I went to Germany for a short trip several weeks ago and the round trip KC Frankfurt was $380!

I must tell the story of how we linked into the big October event.
I was talking to my wife commenting that 1958 was 50 year anniversary of NSBHS and maybe I should enquire – and then a few days later – I was in an airport lounge in Washington DC and got talking to this good looking intelligent lady who mentioned that she was on her way to Australia for a conference.
She sod “you probably have no idea where this conference is - its at Terrigal” – what was staggering is that that’s where my dad retired and my brother has lived there for some 30 years.
So I arranged for her to call him (my brother) if she had time.
Then, a few days later I get and email from Phil Gough asking if I was me = he turned out to be one fo the Terrigal Conference organizers, and then he went on to explain ablut the 50 year reunion event
Real life beats fiction every time doesn’t it?