Frank Catt's parents, Susan and Leslie Catt, were married in Carlingford, Sydney, on 12 July 1898 and the following day took the steamer, S S Coraki, to Taree. Why they chose Taree for their home is unknown as their families lived in the Carlingford area; however, about a week before his marriage Les returned from Taree where he had gone to spy out a place to live and to find work. In Taree the newly-weds could not have come to a better place for the nurture of children with an interest in dance and music, and Frank would be interested in both. Frank Manning Catt was born on 8 November 1912 in Taree. He was their sixth child and their second son. Taree is on the Manning River and Frank's middle name was almost certainly derived from it—it was fortunate for Frank that he was not born a little further up river on Dingo Creek.
Franks's father, before he was married, worked for Craig & Aitken, a large haircutting business in George Street, Sydney. He conducted his own barber's shop in Victoria Street, the main street of Taree, until about 1930 when he opened a barber's shop in Wauchope, near Port Macquarie, which suggests that Frank's mother and father had separated.
His father joined the local Taree band where he played trombone for over 25 years which indicated a family interest in music.
Frank attended the public school at Taree (left) where he was an average student with a flair for neatness and good handwriting for which he won prizes at school and at Taree show. His first love was dancing and when he was only 9 he won first prize for Irish jigs and the Highland Fling. He continued to win prizes at eisteddfods for dances, and for the Sailors Hornpipe at which he excelled. By the time he was 11 he was often dancing with Maggie Gollan and with Ila McCormick, and together they were hard to beat in the Irish Jig and the Highland Fling. They also performed at concerts, boxing matches, festivals, eisteddfods, opening ceremonies and the Taree show.
When his parents were in Sydney they had been involved in the Wesleyan Methodist church and Frank regularly attended Taree Methodist Sunday School where he was awarded various book prizes.
The first indication that he was interested in music came when he was 11 and competed in the piano solos section of the Taree eisteddfod. He did well but had problems with staccato and hit a few wrong notes. On the other hand he came first in the Sailors Hornpipe at the Manning River Music Festival, and later in the year was a big hit with his Highland Fling at the opening ceremony of the Mt George School of Arts.
From 1925, when he was in sixth class at Taree Public School, the piano began to take equal place with his dancing. He still found time to dance a Highland Fling at the outlying town of Nabiac which was holding a pioneers' carnival to celebrate the first settlers in the area. By the end of the year he had secured honours in his division in the Sydney College of Music examinations, and had also passed his Qualifying Certificate to attend Taree High School which he did from the start of 1926.
He continued to attend the Methodist Sunday School, and to enter his work in the local show; at the St Patrick's Day sports carnival he won first prize for his Sailors Hornpipe; he won prizes for his piano playing, and generally competed in the multitude of events that Taree had to offer.
His musical growth continued in 1927 and he was awarded a silver medal for piano from the Sydney College of Music, an examining organisation that had been operating since 1894 with the aim of improving the professional and technical education of music students. By then he had an excellent long-term piano teacher, Miss Linda Ruprecht, whose family had settled on the Manning around the 1860s, and whose talents, like Frank's, were fostered in the Taree environment. Linda had studied under Professor Pederson from the Sydney College of Music and obtained honours in the higher certificate for piano. She also achieved honours in 1917 in advanced harmony and the licentiate in piano, still under Prof Pedersen. By 1919 she was a skilled accompanist at concerts, and from 1921 she began teaching music at Taree and nearby Wingham. Under her tuition Frank was starting to play duets and more demanding music. At the October 1927 eisteddfod, when Frank was still only 15, the adjudicator for piano remarked that he was 'a fine little musician showing much musical feeling'.
In 1928 Frank was featured in photos in two Sydney newspapers when he won the medal for the NSW junior higher grade piano examination at the Sydney College of Music for the second year in a row. In the following few years he continued to perform at functions in Taree for the Scouts, his school and other musical events. By now dancing had faded away as he concentrated on the piano.
The year 1930 was important for Frank. He gained the Associate Diploma in Music, Australia (A.Mus.A) which is awarded by examination only to students of outstanding musical ability. A few months later he passed the Leaving Certificate although he did not matriculate. He was offered a scholarship at Armidale Teachers College, provided he passed the selection interview. On leaving Taree for the interview, he had a farewell party with some 50 of his high school friends who presented him with a travelling rug, knowing that Armidale would be a lot colder than Taree, and perhaps not as music-friendly as Taree. He passed the interview and was accepted into Armidale Teachers College. The college was the second teachers college in New South Wales – after Sydney Teachers College – and had opened three years earlier in 1928, offering a 1-year teacher training course which had been increased to 2 years shortly before Frank began his course.
During his time at college he found that Armidale was just as music-friendly as Taree. Nevertheless, he returned to Taree on numerous occasional where he performed at local functions, sometimes playing duets with his former teacher, Linda Ruprecht, or taking part in dramatic productions. He also gained the bronze medallion and silver medal from the Royal Life Saving Society.
In July 1933, having finished his teacher-training course, he was appointed to the small school at Coramba, inland from Coffs Harbour. A few months later he was sent to the one-teacher school at Bundarigo (later Braunstone), about 15 km from Grafton, where he again only stayed a few months before being transferred to the large staffed public school at Lidcombe in Sydney where he taught for the next 18 months. During this time he was able to pick up his studies at the Conservatorium of Music where he met the composer, Alfred Hill, who was teaching musical harmony.
In 1935 two major events occurred in Frank's life: at the end of the May school holidays, as he and his mother were waiting for the train to take Frank back to Sydney, they were informed that his father had died of a heart attack at the age of 59; and the following month Frank was appointed to the dual position of assistant lecturer at Armidale Teachers College and music teacher at Armidale HS. Even though he had had less than two years teaching experience, his musical ability and his ability to enthuse students had clearly been recognised, and he was to stay a lecturer in a teachers college for the remainder of his working life, with an interruption during World War II.
Frank thrived in Armidale. He formed the Armidale City Juvenile Choir which first performed on the local radio station, 2AD, in July 1936. At the end of 1936 he organised a concert at the college using the Juvenile Choir supported by a number of well-known and popular artists. Of interest the choir sang Alfred Hill's, Waiata Poi, which the local newspaper described as a Maori song which gave wide scope for expression. At the end of the concert the Juvenile Choir presented Frank with a cigarette case, appropriately engraved. Frank was already a smoker. The reviewer considered that 'Mr Catt's versatility was demonstrated when he joined with Miss Joan Oliphant in a bracket of pianoforte numbers', but his artistry in solo pieces 'won him rounds of applause and enhanced his reputation of a musician of great promise'. His true strength lay as a music educator and inspirer, when he visited outlying schools from Armidale and helped with their musical activities
In the years that followed, Frank was involved in concerts, musicals, choir work, piano recitals and despite this busy schedule managed to teach at the high school and do some lecturing at college. In 1938 he was awarded the Performance Diploma by the Trinity College of Music London. The Armidale Express and the community warmly congratulated him, firstly because of the place of eminence he had attained in his profession, and secondly because he had been generous in his service to the city. Also in 1938 Terrance Hunt, who some will remember from school music broadcasts, produced the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, Iolanthe, at Armidale Teachers College, with Frank as assistant conductor. At this time Frank was intent on attending university and had been working towards matriculation which he gained in March 1939. He immediately began studies at the New England University College in Armidale.
In 1940 the Armidale Express considered that Frank Catt had probably done more than anyone else in Armidale 'to cultivate a love of music among the younger generation'. He had been the accompanist for the philharmonic, operatic, and teachers college choral societies, and formed a choir from the Girls Memorial Hostel. Frank continued this work during the next two years, getting footballers to sing in choirs, organising radio broadcast concerts, entertaining members of the armed forces, and joining in anything else musical that was going, whether at Armidale or Taree.
In May 1941 all of these activities were interrupted when Frank was called up for military duty. At the time Frank was 28 years old, single, had finished 6 out of the 9 subjects for his BA degree and was living in Beardy Street, Armidale. On his mobilisation form he swore that he would 'well and truly serve his Sovereign Lord, the King, in the Military Forces of Australia until the cessation of the present time of war and twelve months thereafter'. Frank, however, did not begin his full-time war time service until April 1942, at which time he left Armidale. Radio station 2AD Armidale regretted his loss, as it considered he had won 'wide popularity among radio listeners'. He was regarded as an accomplished pianist and his departure from Armidale would be a great loss to the music world there. There was a farewell party for both Frank and George Hurrell (also called up) from Armidale Demonstration School, and very generous speeches were made, one being from Alton Greenhalgh who had been at the college since it started, and who would later meet up with Frank at Balmain Teachers College, and who may in fact have been the one who recommended him for a position at Balmain Teachers College after the war.
Frank was immediately assigned to the 2nd Australian Psychological Testing Section which operated between Sydney and Bathurst, but later in other parts of New South Wales, testing, interviewing and recommending men for particular units. Although he was immediately promoted to corporal, he did little army work because in May 1942 he was struck down by a mystery illness (later diagnosed at cerebrospinal meningitis) that saw him in Prince Henry Hospital on the seriously-ill list, so serious that his mother, sister and brother caught the first train from Taree to Sydney as they feared the worst; however, he was soon taken off the seriously-ill list and moved to the Lady Gowrie convalescent home; he did not rejoin his unit until October 1942. By December he was in Armidale on leave and playing piano on 2AD. The following year he was helping with concerts to entertain troops at Wagga Wagga.
During his time at Armidale Frank had met Elsie McLean who was teaching at one of the local schools. Elsie came from a strong Scottish-Presbyterian background in Bowral. Like Frank she he had grown up dancing Highland flings and entering items in the local show, although in her case it was cakes and scones rather than neat handwriting. She continued her dancing longer than Frank had done but had a much more limited musical background. She trained at Sydney Teachers College in the early 1930s and was teaching at West Wyalong before her appointment to Armidale. In May 1944 Frank and Elsie married at St Stephens Presbyterian Church in Sydney. By this time Frank was Sergeant Frank Catt and still involved in psychological testing. He continued organising concerts and musical events in different parts of New South Wales. In April 1945 Frank and Elsie had their first child, a boy they name Malcolm Francis, and a year later on 25 March 1946 Warrant Officer Frank Catt was discharged from the army just in time to be called up by another tightly-run unit, the new teachers college at Balmain. His appointment was provisional because it was uncertain the college would survive on such a cramped site in an unsuitable old school building in a smelly industrial suburb. But survive it did under its principal, George Cantello, who Frank knew from his days at Armidale Teachers College, when George was the principal of the demonstration school. The college flourished and so did Frank who was again in his element. Subsequently, many students of the college would owe their love affair with music to Frank Catt, the boy from Taree.
Franks's father, before he was married, worked for Craig & Aitken, a large haircutting business in George Street, Sydney. He conducted his own barber's shop in Victoria Street, the main street of Taree, until about 1930 when he opened a barber's shop in Wauchope, near Port Macquarie, which suggests that Frank's mother and father had separated.
His father joined the local Taree band where he played trombone for over 25 years which indicated a family interest in music.
Frank attended the public school at Taree (left) where he was an average student with a flair for neatness and good handwriting for which he won prizes at school and at Taree show. His first love was dancing and when he was only 9 he won first prize for Irish jigs and the Highland Fling. He continued to win prizes at eisteddfods for dances, and for the Sailors Hornpipe at which he excelled. By the time he was 11 he was often dancing with Maggie Gollan and with Ila McCormick, and together they were hard to beat in the Irish Jig and the Highland Fling. They also performed at concerts, boxing matches, festivals, eisteddfods, opening ceremonies and the Taree show.
When his parents were in Sydney they had been involved in the Wesleyan Methodist church and Frank regularly attended Taree Methodist Sunday School where he was awarded various book prizes.
The first indication that he was interested in music came when he was 11 and competed in the piano solos section of the Taree eisteddfod. He did well but had problems with staccato and hit a few wrong notes. On the other hand he came first in the Sailors Hornpipe at the Manning River Music Festival, and later in the year was a big hit with his Highland Fling at the opening ceremony of the Mt George School of Arts.
From 1925, when he was in sixth class at Taree Public School, the piano began to take equal place with his dancing. He still found time to dance a Highland Fling at the outlying town of Nabiac which was holding a pioneers' carnival to celebrate the first settlers in the area. By the end of the year he had secured honours in his division in the Sydney College of Music examinations, and had also passed his Qualifying Certificate to attend Taree High School which he did from the start of 1926.
He continued to attend the Methodist Sunday School, and to enter his work in the local show; at the St Patrick's Day sports carnival he won first prize for his Sailors Hornpipe; he won prizes for his piano playing, and generally competed in the multitude of events that Taree had to offer.
His musical growth continued in 1927 and he was awarded a silver medal for piano from the Sydney College of Music, an examining organisation that had been operating since 1894 with the aim of improving the professional and technical education of music students. By then he had an excellent long-term piano teacher, Miss Linda Ruprecht, whose family had settled on the Manning around the 1860s, and whose talents, like Frank's, were fostered in the Taree environment. Linda had studied under Professor Pederson from the Sydney College of Music and obtained honours in the higher certificate for piano. She also achieved honours in 1917 in advanced harmony and the licentiate in piano, still under Prof Pedersen. By 1919 she was a skilled accompanist at concerts, and from 1921 she began teaching music at Taree and nearby Wingham. Under her tuition Frank was starting to play duets and more demanding music. At the October 1927 eisteddfod, when Frank was still only 15, the adjudicator for piano remarked that he was 'a fine little musician showing much musical feeling'.
In 1928 Frank was featured in photos in two Sydney newspapers when he won the medal for the NSW junior higher grade piano examination at the Sydney College of Music for the second year in a row. In the following few years he continued to perform at functions in Taree for the Scouts, his school and other musical events. By now dancing had faded away as he concentrated on the piano.
The year 1930 was important for Frank. He gained the Associate Diploma in Music, Australia (A.Mus.A) which is awarded by examination only to students of outstanding musical ability. A few months later he passed the Leaving Certificate although he did not matriculate. He was offered a scholarship at Armidale Teachers College, provided he passed the selection interview. On leaving Taree for the interview, he had a farewell party with some 50 of his high school friends who presented him with a travelling rug, knowing that Armidale would be a lot colder than Taree, and perhaps not as music-friendly as Taree. He passed the interview and was accepted into Armidale Teachers College. The college was the second teachers college in New South Wales – after Sydney Teachers College – and had opened three years earlier in 1928, offering a 1-year teacher training course which had been increased to 2 years shortly before Frank began his course.
During his time at college he found that Armidale was just as music-friendly as Taree. Nevertheless, he returned to Taree on numerous occasional where he performed at local functions, sometimes playing duets with his former teacher, Linda Ruprecht, or taking part in dramatic productions. He also gained the bronze medallion and silver medal from the Royal Life Saving Society.
In July 1933, having finished his teacher-training course, he was appointed to the small school at Coramba, inland from Coffs Harbour. A few months later he was sent to the one-teacher school at Bundarigo (later Braunstone), about 15 km from Grafton, where he again only stayed a few months before being transferred to the large staffed public school at Lidcombe in Sydney where he taught for the next 18 months. During this time he was able to pick up his studies at the Conservatorium of Music where he met the composer, Alfred Hill, who was teaching musical harmony.
In 1935 two major events occurred in Frank's life: at the end of the May school holidays, as he and his mother were waiting for the train to take Frank back to Sydney, they were informed that his father had died of a heart attack at the age of 59; and the following month Frank was appointed to the dual position of assistant lecturer at Armidale Teachers College and music teacher at Armidale HS. Even though he had had less than two years teaching experience, his musical ability and his ability to enthuse students had clearly been recognised, and he was to stay a lecturer in a teachers college for the remainder of his working life, with an interruption during World War II.
Frank thrived in Armidale. He formed the Armidale City Juvenile Choir which first performed on the local radio station, 2AD, in July 1936. At the end of 1936 he organised a concert at the college using the Juvenile Choir supported by a number of well-known and popular artists. Of interest the choir sang Alfred Hill's, Waiata Poi, which the local newspaper described as a Maori song which gave wide scope for expression. At the end of the concert the Juvenile Choir presented Frank with a cigarette case, appropriately engraved. Frank was already a smoker. The reviewer considered that 'Mr Catt's versatility was demonstrated when he joined with Miss Joan Oliphant in a bracket of pianoforte numbers', but his artistry in solo pieces 'won him rounds of applause and enhanced his reputation of a musician of great promise'. His true strength lay as a music educator and inspirer, when he visited outlying schools from Armidale and helped with their musical activities
In the years that followed, Frank was involved in concerts, musicals, choir work, piano recitals and despite this busy schedule managed to teach at the high school and do some lecturing at college. In 1938 he was awarded the Performance Diploma by the Trinity College of Music London. The Armidale Express and the community warmly congratulated him, firstly because of the place of eminence he had attained in his profession, and secondly because he had been generous in his service to the city. Also in 1938 Terrance Hunt, who some will remember from school music broadcasts, produced the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, Iolanthe, at Armidale Teachers College, with Frank as assistant conductor. At this time Frank was intent on attending university and had been working towards matriculation which he gained in March 1939. He immediately began studies at the New England University College in Armidale.
In 1940 the Armidale Express considered that Frank Catt had probably done more than anyone else in Armidale 'to cultivate a love of music among the younger generation'. He had been the accompanist for the philharmonic, operatic, and teachers college choral societies, and formed a choir from the Girls Memorial Hostel. Frank continued this work during the next two years, getting footballers to sing in choirs, organising radio broadcast concerts, entertaining members of the armed forces, and joining in anything else musical that was going, whether at Armidale or Taree.
In May 1941 all of these activities were interrupted when Frank was called up for military duty. At the time Frank was 28 years old, single, had finished 6 out of the 9 subjects for his BA degree and was living in Beardy Street, Armidale. On his mobilisation form he swore that he would 'well and truly serve his Sovereign Lord, the King, in the Military Forces of Australia until the cessation of the present time of war and twelve months thereafter'. Frank, however, did not begin his full-time war time service until April 1942, at which time he left Armidale. Radio station 2AD Armidale regretted his loss, as it considered he had won 'wide popularity among radio listeners'. He was regarded as an accomplished pianist and his departure from Armidale would be a great loss to the music world there. There was a farewell party for both Frank and George Hurrell (also called up) from Armidale Demonstration School, and very generous speeches were made, one being from Alton Greenhalgh who had been at the college since it started, and who would later meet up with Frank at Balmain Teachers College, and who may in fact have been the one who recommended him for a position at Balmain Teachers College after the war.
Frank was immediately assigned to the 2nd Australian Psychological Testing Section which operated between Sydney and Bathurst, but later in other parts of New South Wales, testing, interviewing and recommending men for particular units. Although he was immediately promoted to corporal, he did little army work because in May 1942 he was struck down by a mystery illness (later diagnosed at cerebrospinal meningitis) that saw him in Prince Henry Hospital on the seriously-ill list, so serious that his mother, sister and brother caught the first train from Taree to Sydney as they feared the worst; however, he was soon taken off the seriously-ill list and moved to the Lady Gowrie convalescent home; he did not rejoin his unit until October 1942. By December he was in Armidale on leave and playing piano on 2AD. The following year he was helping with concerts to entertain troops at Wagga Wagga.
During his time at Armidale Frank had met Elsie McLean who was teaching at one of the local schools. Elsie came from a strong Scottish-Presbyterian background in Bowral. Like Frank she he had grown up dancing Highland flings and entering items in the local show, although in her case it was cakes and scones rather than neat handwriting. She continued her dancing longer than Frank had done but had a much more limited musical background. She trained at Sydney Teachers College in the early 1930s and was teaching at West Wyalong before her appointment to Armidale. In May 1944 Frank and Elsie married at St Stephens Presbyterian Church in Sydney. By this time Frank was Sergeant Frank Catt and still involved in psychological testing. He continued organising concerts and musical events in different parts of New South Wales. In April 1945 Frank and Elsie had their first child, a boy they name Malcolm Francis, and a year later on 25 March 1946 Warrant Officer Frank Catt was discharged from the army just in time to be called up by another tightly-run unit, the new teachers college at Balmain. His appointment was provisional because it was uncertain the college would survive on such a cramped site in an unsuitable old school building in a smelly industrial suburb. But survive it did under its principal, George Cantello, who Frank knew from his days at Armidale Teachers College, when George was the principal of the demonstration school. The college flourished and so did Frank who was again in his element. Subsequently, many students of the college would owe their love affair with music to Frank Catt, the boy from Taree.