Yes, that 65th Reunion strikes again
On Facebook I posted yesterday:
The Class of 1959 are still exchanging messages! One great outcome is that thanks to some very generous contrubutions from classmates richer than I a bursary in the name of our Dux Eddie (Ted) Oliver is to be set up! Ted passed away around the time of our class reunion.
Otherwise there has been a to and fro about who may have been our best PM, with several accounts of meetings with Gough and Margaret Whitlam. Phil W. out at Baradine and I have exchanged thoughts on a range of things, some very personal. Herbert Huppert drops in here and comments on the occasional photo.
We are all stirred one way or another by the realisation of how far in various ways we have travelled in those 65 years! Fascinated to see that one (Shire too!) classmate went on the be a Brigadier in the Engineers. As you can see.
I had a bit of a dispute with him on historiography… All civil though. Now he is helping us track down another classmate we believe to be in Melbourne.
PS. No sooner had I posted this than a long email arrived from Bob, to which I have just replied.
That’s the first extraordinary career…
Brigadier Robert (Bob) Slater AM RFD
In his email to me:
I have been fortunate to have met many interesting people and taken part in enlightening events over my journey so far and learnt many things that don’t appear in Wikipaedia, history books or PhD theses.
Stay well,
Bob Slater
Bob is of a conservative bent, to say the least, but Harry G, much less conservative, has remarked in a recent email to us 59ers:
I’d like to tell you about the relationship between Bob and me. We had very little to do with each other at school. I remember Bob for a couple of things – the swinging arms which stamped him as a soldier, and the comment he made to me “You’re a fool, Goldsmith”. When I saw Bob and his wife at Moore Park Golf Club at the 60year reunions, I walked up to him and before I had the chance to say to him. “You were right, Bob” he was extolling my virtues to his wife, the virtues being the dubious honour of a great knowledge of the form of current racehorses and the ability to recognize when bookmakers were offering over or under the odds. He did not use these words, but I think Bob would agree this was the essence of what he was saying.
We settled down and had quite a conversation, and I felt a significant friendship/respect grew between us.
I recall Bob and I on occasions walking from Central Station — we were both from The Shire — via Devonshire Street to High, with Bob telling me about the latest book he was reading, usually the biography of a World War 2 hero such as Douglas Bader….
Wayne Young, School Captain 1959
Probably the only one of us to be written up in Vanity Fair!
FernGully at 25: How an Upstart Disney Rival Created a Millennial Silent Spring
When environmentalism finally became cool in Hollywood, a team of Aussie animators arrived to tell the story of an enchanted forest endangered by humans—and, even facing skeptical critics and a furious Jeffrey Katzenberg, they shaped a generation…
While living in the Australian surfing village of Byron Bay in the late 1970s, Wayne Young had an unhip idea for an animated children’s movie about the rain forest. Young’s wife at the time, Diana, told their children bedtime stories inspired by the subtropical woodland around them, home to platypus, kookaburra, luminescent mushrooms, and more (“basically unbelievable,” Young says). That tale, about a tribe of fairies living in endangered nature, would make a great children’s movie, Young and his wife thought. “But,” he says, nearly 40 years later, “we had to wait until Hollywood star power got behind the environment.”…..
Quite a journey….
To learn more, go to Profiles of Australian Rowers for an article by Ian Stewart:
Wayne began his Sydney High career in 1955. His name first appeared in sporting reports during 1956 when he was stroke of the Junior Eight and as a member of the School’s Fifth XV. During the latter part of that year Wayne continued in rowing and became a member of Dick White’s first Second Four squad. Wayne went on to stroke that crew to a Penrith victory in 1957, using the revolutionary Canadian style which Dick had observed at the Melbourne Olympics. This crew won every race it rowed in the Sydney season but one and capped the year off with a win in the Head of the Northern Rivers race in Grafton. In rugby 1957 saw Wayne advance to the Fourth XV.
Rowing in 1958 was another successful year for Wayne. Unfortunate injury to the stroke of the Eight, Peter Phillips, led Wayne to move from six to stroke. The crew registered a creditable third at Penrith. In football Wayne advanced to the Third XV, CHS runners-up for 1958.
1959 was Wayne’s year as far as his time at SHS was concerned. Elected School Captain at the beginning of the year, he went on to become Captain of Boats, stroke of the Head of the River VIII and a member of the school’s First XV. At the end of the year he was awarded the Sydney Girls’ High Cup for Sportsmanship and gained a Commonwealth Scholarship at the Leaving Certificate.
After leaving SHS Wayne enrolled in Commerce at UNSW. During his university time he rowed with Colleagues RC and UNSW, under the coaching of Alan Callaway at both venues. He won a University Blue for rowing and rowed in a State representative crew.
After graduation Wayne joined the Australian Diplomatic Corps. After training in Canberra and London he was sent to the Australian Embassy in Vienna where he spent four years as the Assistant Trade Commissioner. There followed a year in Germany at the Australian Embassy.
At this point Wayne sought a major directional change in his life. He left the Department and went to India where he spent time in contemplation and spiritual learning. This sojourn was cut short when he became dangerously ill with hepatitis and was repatriated to Australia where he slowly recovered.
Another directional change occurred when, in 1969, he linked with Peter Shenstone in a venture called Spectrum Research, a psychological research and creative advertising company, with offices in Australia and South-east Asia.. Their organization was instrumental in driving the “It’s Time!” campaign for Gough Whitlam and, arguably, may have tipped the balance in favour of the Labor Party’s election to government in 1972. Advertising work for the Whitlam Government continued but came to an abrupt end with the change to a Coalition Government under Malcolm Fraser.
Since then Wayne, working out of an Australian base in the Byron Bay hinterland, has gone on to be involved, via his company, ’Youngheart Entertainment’, with movie production, starting with “Crocodile Dundee” in 1986. In 1992 an animated feature, “Fern Gully, The Last Rainforest”, won a number of awards There has followed a number of environmentally oriented productions. More recently he has been involved with the Julian Lennon film “Whaledreamers” and John Pilger’s biting documentary “The War on Democracy”.
Ian Stewart
April 2009
Wow! Is all I can say!
Bow, P W Shenstone; 2, I J Stewart; 3, I D Toll; 4, A J Skinner; 5, J A Campbell; 6, G F Cohen; 7, S R McGill; Stroke, W L Young; Cox, R G Caddy; Coach, A R Callaway, Esq
Never knew this before! Class of 1959 Sydney Boys High Captain: “Another directional change occurred when, in 1969, he linked with Peter Shenstone in a venture called Spectrum Research, a psychological research and creative advertising company, with offices in Australia and South-east Asia.. Their organization was instrumental in driving the “It’s Time!” campaign for Gough Whitlam and, arguably, may have tipped the balance in favour of the Labor Party’s election to government in 1972…” 
Neil's Commonplace Book 