Schooling (or lack of it)

I wasn’t very academically attributed. I had a very retentive memory that got me by most assessments. I was good at geography, physics, geometry, and history. I was poor in general mathematics but had a skill for algebra, quadratic equations and long division. Where I failed here was that I did most of my workings in my head so that my teacher frequently failed me for not showing proof of how I reached my conclusions. I would take affront at that and one day I just told him that he was jealous ‘cos I could do in thirty seconds in my head what took him ten minutes to do with pen and paper – and I walked out of the classroom and went swimming!

Then the Marist Brothers found a flaw in my armour. It was 1952 and I was ten years old. For a sports day we were taken to Boronia Park,  a short walk from our Mark Street school – a new area for me – and it was heaven. Not only did it offer more regions to explore it was also situated above the Lane Cove River, a short journey through the scrub from its No.3 oval. Again, I found ‘stash’ areas for my school gear and I would then take off to explore the bush along the upper reaches of the Lane Cove River. Eventually I was again ‘tagged’ for absenting myself from school without permission. I was suspended from school for a week and ‘grounded at home – however, that didn’t work ‘cos there was no-one to supervise my grounding. Useless solution that I made the most of.

Boronia Park had other attractions, however, and an astute Marist Brother spotted it in my make-up. I showed an interest in football (Rugby, i.e.) and Boronia Park was also the home ground for the Hunters Hill Rugby Club and I was soon pestering my parents to be allowed to play Rugby on a weekend during the winter season.  Boronia Park and playing ‘footie’ was my heaven.

The Marist Brothers recognised my sporting talents – I was a good athlete, I competed in the track and field sports days, played cricket and also played football. These were tools that were used to control my frequent ‘absences’ – stay in school or no sport on sports days!

Problem was, Villa Maria did not play Rugby Union Football, they played Rugby League Football and I was finding the rules confusing, switching from one game to another twice a week. At school we played ‘weight rated’ rugby league, based on your weight in stones and pounds set at the seven pound limit of stone weight – 7’”7’s, 8’7”’s, 9’7”’s, etc – and being largish build I was playing above my age, whereas Rugby Union was ‘aged based’, so I was a ‘big boy’ in the right age group. The Brothers approached Dad and suggested I play one code or the other. There was also the problem of getting me from Ryde to Boronia Park two evenings a week for training – something that often didn’t happen and if it were not for the fact that our side was short on the player roster I probably would not of got a game on the weekend. Dad had a friend at the Gladesville Sports and Bowling Club where they played junior rugby league up to “A” grade. He very quickly talked Dad into moving me to weekend rugby league, especially as their training oval was at Ryde Park, just up the road from home!

So there I was, playing cricket in summer, running with “The Harriers” cross country running club in the spring and autumn, playing football once a week for school in winter and on the weekends for the Gladesville Sports Club and also training two nights a week at Ryde Oval. I was in – starting in “F” grade playing as a forward! My youth was loosing its free spirited innocence and I was about to be melded into the discipline of playing club football as a team member! By the time I was fifteen I was playing “D” grade on a Saturday and then backing up to play the “C” grade game on the Sunday. I would then hang around in the hope I could pick up a game with the “A” grade if they were short of players – which they often were. Playing with the 'big boys' I was a 'protected species' with two hulking great prop forwards looking after me as I 'raked' the scrums for them. Touch me and they'd square up the ledger. It also meant I earnt the privilege of drinking beer with them after the game in the locker room and joining in the club songs.

I was as fit as a mallee bull!

What’s a mallee bull:

“From the earliest days of settlement, grazing of sheep and cattle under licence took place throughout the Mallee Region.  Most recorded history refers to sheep but there is ample evidence that cattle were also grazed in substantial numbers.  Inevitably, cattle strayed from the main mobs and set up their own select herds.  In the harsh environment of Mallee summers, the waterholes became the main battlegrounds for the survival of the species.  William Gould reported on finding the “Natural Waterhole”, having to remove the carcass of a dead beast from it before the water could be used.  W.L. Morton of Morton Plains writing of his experiences stated that “no other animal can put on a more fear-inspiring aspect than a full grown wild Mallee Bull”.  Mr. Stephen Laver, lessee of Black 56A comprising of a large tract of land within the Shire of Birchip in the 1890’s, often killed a wild beast for meat which he shared with the Aborigines of the area.”