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?