More Mt Waverley

Ricky Ralph came up to visit me last Saturday. He said he enjoyed reading my posts about Mt Waverley and was looking forward to reading more. Rick and I met in 1964 at Malvern Grammar, our first year of secondary school. We were in the same class but didn't become close friends until say 1966/67 by which time we had moved on to Caulfield Grammar, Malvern being its Junior school. What brought us together was probably that we didn't quite fit into the system very well and felt some resentment to the rigid discipline, especially as it was sometimes unfair and to be truthful quite absurd. Ralphie wants me to be brutally honest and tell all as it was. I don't know about that, that period of my life I find a little embarrassing looking back, say 15-20yo. At least he's given me the green light to write about him. Rick's parents moved to Mt Waverley in about 67/68 and by then we were best mates who spent nearly all our spare time together.

But first I have to finish the Mt Waverley Primary school story. In Grade 4 Mr Laub watched as me and Bill Genat kissed our girlfriends Janyne and Marilyn before they boarded their bus to home. Other kids were with Mr Laub and they tipped Bill and me off that he'd seen us kiss the girls and we'd be in strife. Next day he asked us to stay back and gave us a bit of a lecture that we were not to be doing that, his exact words I can't recall, but the gist of it was that we should leave that sort of thing till we were about 18. We would have been 9 yo so 18 seemed like never.

The next year I was in a different Grade 5 to Janyne, much to my disappointment. I had Mr Worthy (Bob), a good bloke whom I liked a lot. As he called the roll first day when he came to me, nearly last as I always was as it was alphabetical, he asked me did I have an older brother. When I said yes Joddy, who had been in Mr. Worthy's class two years earlier, he just stared at me. Meredith said when she went into Mr Worthy's class two years later, when he did the roll first day, he asked her did she have two older brothers and when she said yes he put his head on the desk and covered it with his hands. Mind you I was always quite well behaved and a good student at primary school. Mr Worthy did have occasion to give me the strap once, along with Graeme Burrowes and Chris Barker. He caught us teasing Gay Elliot, who had an unfortunate habit of bursting into tears in class and got the nickname 'Geeza'. Now Burrowes was a bit of a nutcase, he had the reputation of being the best tweedie fighter and challenged all comers. I don't claim that me and Chris were innocent but it was definitely Burrowes who was relentless in his taunting of Gay- "Geeza, Geeza, Geeza," until she'd burst into tears. This day at lunchtime Gay broke down and I don't remember if she dobbed us or Worthy caught us but after lunch we had to line up for the strap. Burrowes was first and he almost screamed with each cut. Chris next, winced and grimaced but was noiseless. Other kids in the class told me I got the hardest but I neither flinched or made a sound. I don't even know if it hurt, I think the brain just shut off. This was toward the end of the year and a few days later in a casual sort of moment me and a few others were near Mr Worthy's desk and I found him looking at me with a bit of a stare. When I looked back at him, holding eye contact for some seconds, he said, "I'm beginning to lose my fear of you now."

What he meant was he'd had Jod two years earlier and had been traumatized by the experience, and was expecting me to explode at some point, especially when he strapped me. I remember when Jod was in Bob Worthy's class a couple of years earlier there was an incident where Jod refused to do what he was asked, yelled expletives and bolted out of the class, climbed onto the roof of the toilets and into the pine trees and they couldn't get him down.

Grade five saw my love affair with Janyne come to an end. In seperate classes now (they probably did this on purpose) she seemed to be avoiding me at playtime and lunchtime. I went up to her one day, she was playing knuckles with her friends, sitting on the asphalt in a circle. I said to her "You said you wanted marry me when we grow up."

She replied, "Oh that was last year." It was over, but I did carry a torch for her for years, secretly.

By this time I was great mates with Graeme Forster, we were inseperable for five years or so. I had holidays with his family at Lorne and Torquay and we were always playing cricket, football, shuttlecock, or snooker or billiards, or riding bikes somewhere. His nickname was Bubs, because he had brothers 3 and 4 years older and the name had stuck from his early days.

We were in Terry Stabler's class in Grade 6, a fantastic year. Mr Stabler was English and very popular with his class. We spent time nearly everyday playing rounders. In the 1980's and 90's Mr Stabler used to come to our farm to buy honey. He lived in Berwick then. I thanked him for that happy year and commented on how relaxed and fun it was and asked him how he got away with letting us play rounders for much of the day. He said that class was not supposed to be his, all the bright well behaved kids were selected to give another teacher an easy time because they were recovering from an operation, or almost retired, something like that. It may have been Davo or Skippy himself, Mr Skipworth was the headmaster, a good old bloke, rotund, silver haired, always wearing a dark suit with braces. At the last minute it didn't happen and Terry Stabler got the gig. He said he really didn't have to do anything as all the kids were on top of the carriculum from early.

Football and cricket were a big deal in the last two years of primary school. In Grade 5 I played in the school footy team, Graeme did too, and we won the comp. The next year not so good. We played against Syndal, Glen Waverley, Chadstone, and later Pinewood, and maybe others that escape me. I had great success in cricket, bowling leg spin, copying Richie Benaud. I had figures of 7/10 in one match, 4/5 in another. Geoff Burston and I saved the day against Syndal in one match with a big partnership after a top order collapse. Geoff later was an accomplished bass guitarist in 'The Black Sorrows' who were quite famous for a time. Robert Rose cleaned me up one day though against Pinewood, carting my leggies all over the ground. He was the son of Bob Rose, Collingwood legend, and played cricket for Victoria in the 70's, and football for Collingwood and Footscray, .

That'll probably do for my Mt.Waverley PS  recollections. I have been good friends with Ian Sinclair who was in Jod's year for about the last fifty years, he lives in Whitehorse in the Yukon Canada. His brother Colin who was in my year and captain of the football team in our last year runs a fishing tackle shop in Adaminaby and takes people fly fishing. Graeme Strachan died in a helicopter crash in Qld. Graeme Forster last I heard was living on the Gold Coast. So was Janyne Wilcox. Other names such as John Weatherley, John Fitzgibbon, Steven Perry, Gary Royal, Bruce Warne, Alan Lightfoot, Philip Shine, Bill Edwards, twins Frank and John Gammon, Ross Walters, David Jewell, Tony Smith, Jimmy Slatter, Denis Chambers, Jeremy Hartley, Terry Thorrington, Gail Beaton, Pam McCauley, Pam Hope, Meg Ockendon, Marilyn Williams, Dianne Cunliffe, Dianne Edgelow, Robin Hudson, Linda Wallace come to mind, as would more if  I thought long enough. It's amazing what you do recall when you get immersed like this. I would be very curious to know what happened to all those kids I went through school with. A Mt.Waverley PS reunion from 1963 would be most interesting, but I don't think it possible. Too long ago and people would be dispersed all over Australia and the world.