Memoirs - Page 12

The decade 1941-1950 must loom large as significant in my emergence as an aware and developing member of the world and my immediate community. I "graduated" from the convent (primary) school, moved into the exclusively boy school referred to above and completed my secondary education in 1948 (just prior to my father's death) when I sat for the NSW Intermediate certificate. In the course of those ten years I

1. contracted my first major illness, in the early part of the decade, in the form of rheumatic fever [I believe that polio, a scourge of the time, was first contemplated by the medicos as a possibility]. This laid me low (i.e. actually bedridden for long periods) and saw me suffering considerable joint(s) pain and raging fevers. I recall being treated by a specialist with rooms in Quay Street, Ultimo (on the fringe of Central Railway) and had to digest regular doses of the vilest, black medicine. What everyone (or nature) did to bring about my complete recovery in due course I do not know.

2. pressed on at St. James' School - despite the aforementioned hiccup for a while - and each year managed to top the class in most subjects and in the overall best student stakes. I won several annual prizes for scholastic performance - I was particularly "hot" in religion - and was twice awarded Dux of the School prizes. Strangely, and to the consternation of myself and my teachers, I didn't carry my record and the form into my Intermediate Certificate exams and results from whence I exited with only average outcomes.

3. was, at school, a keen and much better than average student; an enthusiastic - very average - sports' participant and a diligent aid to the teaching brethren (one of whom, Bro. Aloysius, I teamed up with to help tend his garden - voluntarily and out of school hours (even weekends) - so developing a love which I carried into my adult life. I recall, too, that my efforts at assigned homework exercises were much sought after by fellow students upon my arrival in the school yard each morning. Notwithstanding my brush with the illness referred to above, my recovery enabled me to participate in athletics (I did have some turn of speed over a short course for a while); cricket (of course) and rugby league but I do not ever recall being touted as a champion in the making in any of them.

4. commenced my working life in February 1949 when, successful in completing the NSW Public Service Examination (highly ranked well in the top 10%), I was recruited to join the administration, as a junior clerk, in the Department of Agriculture (in Bridge Street near the Quay). I worked in their Registry as a filing clerk and progressed whilst there in the normal fashion (with annual, incremental salary increases) for a young, aspiring, career public servant. I know that my father, before his death, had counselled me to seek the safety, security and certainty of a public service career (no doubt evaluating it as a better path than he was able to pursue through his lifetime) and I suppose I was thrust in that direction, too, by my teachers and mentors at school.

5. was, as I look back, a somewhat compliant and non-inquisitive young person. Religious doctrine/dogma was put to me at home, at school and in the church (here by uncompromising brethren - teachers mainly of Irish origin, and priests "ranting" from a high pulpit each Sunday). Most - and their like doesn't seem to exist any more - were very professional about and effective in instilling the fear of God and the message of the goodness of His mercy and justice in congregations (let alone impressionable young souls). Notwithstanding all this, I did think at times about a vocation to join the brotherhood or the priesthood in due course. Perhaps it was thoughts of the flesh and of the joys of the alternative life that eventually drew me away.

6. might record here that, at about the tender age of 10 years, my father convinced me there was no joy (perhaps even sin or idleness) in the "filthy" habit of smoking - notwithstanding his addiction to it. The scenario was that he interrupted me in the process of having a few quiet drags on a "roll your own" in our backyard toilet in Bridge Road. He burst in the door just as I (having been alerted by the sound of hurried footsteps on the path to someone's impending arrival) had disposed of the fag in the toilet bowl and had cleared most of the smoke pervading the cubicle. No words were uttered other than a "sorry" from him but I was not off the hook. He did not thrash, berate or counsel me on the spot - or in the near future - but often, over the ensuing days and weeks, raised the topic of smoking and my obvious attraction to the habit. This virtually convinced me that the aggravations of my trying to prove my ignorance of and non-involvement in the practice was not worth the effort. And, thus, I became a converted (saved) smoker, never to take it up again.

By the mid-point (end calendar year 1950) of the twentieth century

1. my father was two years in his grave (dying at the relatively young age of 60 years)

2. my mother was two years into her widowhood, which was to continue for almost another 24 years and

3. I was (at almost 17 years) embarked on my working life (if not my career!) and not very far removed from meeting (in August 1951) the girl who was my first real love and, subsequently, the woman who was destined to become my wife, companion and dear friend, not to mention the mother of our children.

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