Welcome Speech at the 2015 reunion of
Balmain Teachers' College graduates of the class of 1957
DR W.L.G. Summers
President of the BTC Students' Representative Council in 1956
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you here today on what is a Most Significant and Auspicious Occasion! It is some 58 years since we graduated from the lovely Balmain Teachers College, tucked away in the peaceful climes of the condemned Smith Street Public School in the captivating Smith Street, Balmain. We were turned out of our nurturing Alma Mater into a large variety of situations, in various locations across our great state of New South Wales, having been prepared to a greater or lesser degree to face the trials and tribulations which were part of employment in the Department of Education. It's a strange situation! So much has happened to each of us! I’m still talking to that 17-year-old person hidden inside that 70-plus-something-year-old-body of yours! It’s spooky casting your mind back to those days of yore! The ghosts of staff are still there – John McKee Braithwaite – our Principal – affectionately known as “Curly” – silently patrolling the corridors, quietly inviting recalcitrant male students to visit his office to discuss their 'intimidating mode of dress,' hair style, or behaviour and the means to resurrect their aberrant deviations; Vice Principal Alton Greenhalgh doing his best to elevate the tone of staff-pupil relationships by addressing us as 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' and Edna Holt, warning the female students of the dangers of wearing the colour red. No doubt you can quickly recall others who impinged on your experience for one reason or another! They won’t be the only ones resurrected this weekend! This reunion owes its genesis to another reunion, one which Tony Re and I attended in 2005 to celebrate 50 years since we did the Leaving Certificate in 1955 at Sydney Boys High School. Originally I started out to find three people – Peter O’Brien, Tony Re and Les Tattersall, who, with me, comprised the male component of Section 104 in 1956. The female component consisted of 27 women. Finding Tony was no problem, since we both attended the Sydney High reunion. Finding Les turned out to be relatively simple. I Googled 'Les Tattersall' and found several in the White Pages. The first one I rang turned out to be none other than the missing Les! So I had three out of the four men—Tony, Les and me! Finding Peter was more difficult. I knew he had left the Department to work at Macquarie University, so I started there. Eventually, several months later I rang a phone number I had been given and Peter answered the phone. Four out of four! We arranged to meet for lunch at the Sheraton-on-the-Park Restaurant in town. Les was unable to join us, but we other three had a great time, and agreed to meet again in a few months. While trying to find Peter, I had found a few others – Betty (Payne) McKeogh; Margaret (Sedgman) Shaw – who knew the whereabouts of a couple of others – Christabel (Rae) Thorley; and Jim Fletcher – who had organised our earlier reunion. They wanted to know when the reunion was going to be held? Given this amount of interest we arranged to meet at the Tradies Club at Gymea. There were fourteen of us by this time and we had a most enjoyable afternoon. We decided to meet again. Several people had been unable to join us at the Tradies and wanted to know when the next gathering would be held. I had set out to find three colleagues – and the situation was getting beyond my limited capabilities! James John Fletcher—bless his cotton socks—found the contact materials he’d gathered when he’d organised our 20-Year Reunion in 1978, and took over the role of organiser. Jim has great skill and enthusiasm for the task and has contacted most of us who are alive today. |
I wondered whether any staff were still alive and did my Google trick with the White Pages and was pleased to find David Stamp, who had lectured in Geography, alive and well and pleased to be able to join us. Bev Scott also made contact with Bev (Gould ) Frame. I knew that Dr Bill Andersen had been alive and well and did my Google act again and was pleased to find him still alive and well at 93 years of age. He’ll join us later today. Jim [actually Tony Taylor] also found Judy Taylor, the co-author with Professor Cliff Turney of the jubilee book, To Enlighten Them Our Task - A History of Teacher Education at Balmain and Kuring- gai Colleges, 1946 -1990. So it is with great pleasure that I welcome you all—visiting speakers, former students, former lecturers, husbands and wives and partners of former students. We look forward to interacting with you and hearing your stories. And we thank those of our alumni who have volunteered to take on duties over the weekend to make our gathering so much more relaxed. Today we are remembering our College days. We are remembering old friends, renewing old comradeships. We are all different, yet we all have our College experience in common. However we have developed, however much we have travelled, we all have memories of our College days and of our College traditions. There isn’t one of us who wouldn’t have some recollection of a College event, a College sporting match or a College character. Dare I say it? Some of us even were those characters! Balmain Teachers’ College gave us much more than an education. It gave us the opportunity to discover our particular talents, our own skills. Above all though, it gave us a common background and friendships which have lasted throughout life. This weekend though is giving us a different opportunity. It is giving us the chance to meet again those who have left our lives. It is giving us the opportunity to hear their stories, learn of their achievements and marvel at their accomplishments. It is giving us a second chance perhaps, to pick up on that friendship which we had thought was lost. Make the most of this opportunity; make the most of these friendships—they are the real stuff of life. Many of our number have travelled considerable distances to be here: Raise your hand if you have travelled from Qld? NSW? Victoria? Tasmania? S.A.? NT? WA? OS? Where? How good it is to be able to welcome some College staff members from those days of long ago—David Stamp, Bev Frame [Bev Frame did not attend and may have died Jan. 2015] and Dr Bill Andersen. Spare a thought for them, and the other lecturers who, often despite ourselves, helped make us what we were when we first faced a class of eager young minds. This College was about discovery, about entering new worlds. It was all about the development of us as persons. Hate it or love it—you cannot forget the days we spent there! This weekend there will be many stories doing the rounds. There will be lots of 'Do you remembers?' There is much interest in what others have been doing since we broke free and escaped into the 'real world.' For some of us there will be nostalgia and the idea that College days were the good old days. For all of us there is the acknowledgement of what we owe to our College and those who taught us. This weekend then let us renew old friendships, swap reminiscences and have a fun time. Let us recognise that our College days made a significant contribution to who and what we are. Welcome to the Balmain Teachers’ College 58-Year Reunion! |