On one of my last trips to Armidale (October 2013) the plane
took a track to the east of the city, over the edge of the Oxley Wild Rivers
National Park in the Dangarsleigh area, then, once it was north of the airport,
swung west over the city for a north-south landing. This track gave me, seated
on by a window on the left hand side of the aircraft, a wonderful opportunity
to capture some of Armidale’s landmarks.
Starting the descent.
A glimpse of Oxley
Wild Rivers National Park.
View of the city from
East Armidale, looking towards the Golf Course (right of centre, towards the
top).
South-East and
Southern parts of the city. Former Teachers College at right of frame.
Former Teachers
College, now the Conservatorium of Music and University of New England Heritage
Centre, more or less at the centre of the image. Armidale City Public School (built
on the site of the former Armidale Demonstration School, where I did my primary
schooling) a couple of blocks down the street on the edge of the frame at
right. Armidale cemetery in the top left hand corner. Sadly, these days I think
I know more people in the cemetery than I do in the town.
The Armidale School,
where I did my secondary schooling (1956-60) and my father completed his
(1933-36)
The road south to
Sydney (formerly part of the New England Highway) swings past the New England
Girls’ School (NEGS) to link up with the Highway near the airport, which is
visible in the upper right quadrant.
A view of Dangar
Street, showing (bottom) St Peter’s Anglican Cathedral; Central Park; opposite
Central Park on the other side of it, St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral; behind St
Mary’s the former St Ursula’s College, founded by Ursuline nuns from Germany in
1882 (closed 1977); across Rusden Street from Central Park, Smith House,
formerly the residence for female students at the Teachers College; and further
up the hill, Armidale City Public School. Several of the houses on the opposite
side of Dangar Street from the public school were in my day “town houses” university
students while the university colleges were being built. In the very bottom
corner, the former Methodist Church (now a video shop or something) and around
the corner from it in Faulkner Street, St Paul’s Presbyterian Church.
Another view of the
former Teachers College, with Armidale City Public School down the hill from
it. The railway line runs behind the Teachers College and swings south to Kellys
Plains and Uralla, and on (eventually) to Sydney. The Dangarsleigh area is in
the upper left quadrant, and just off screen from there you would find the
spectacular Dangar Falls in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park – only about 10
miles from Armidale Post Office.
View towards the South-East,
taking in the Dangarsleigh area.
Armidale Railway
Station (now the terminus of a line which used to run through to Brisbane).
My search continues for information about SAS warrior Jock
McDiarmid, School Sergeant at The Armidale School for part of my time there,
and I am grateful to old classmate John Swain who recently sent me a link to a
piece on the National Library’s Trove website containing a scan of a Hobart Mercury item for 14 March 1952,
reporting on the presentation of his Croix de Guerre by the French
Consul-General in Sydney.
The item has a photo of Jock in uniform and reads:
Sgt James McDiarmid, who on Wednesday in Sydney received the Croix de
Guerre from French Consul-General Strauss.Sgt. McDiarmid, a member of the 13th National Service Battalion,
Ingleburn NSW, won the decoration on August 14, 1944, as a member of the
Special Air Service of the British Airborne Division.With another paratrooper he cleaned up a
troublesome German machine-gun post behind enemy lines in France.
Earlier in the year John sent me a link to a Polish webpage
describing the birth of the SAS; there is a photo of Jock on operations in the
Netherlands at the foot of the page (right hand photo, Jock standing alongside a
jeep). Access this webpage here.
I was very sorry to hear recently from one of his relatives
of the death in 2009, at Tugun, of Jock McDiarmid, former School Sergeant at
The Armidale School in northern NSW.
I now have little more information about Jock, and by
courtesy of a relative a photo of his Croix de Guerre citation, so in due course
I will post a roundup of all the information I now have about him.
This is a photo of a scheduled passenger aircraft arriving in Armidale in about 1958, evidently for the start of term.
Note the NEGS uniforms of the day. Note the Akubra on the TAS boy just to the right of the fuselage – we were never to be seen outside the school grounds without it.
Following the death of a distinguished old boy of The Armidale School, Rex Budd DFC, in November last year, I was asked to write a tribute to him for the February edition of the Old Boys’ Magazine.
This is reproduced below. Copyright in the image belongs to the Australian War Memorial.
Rex Robert Budd, DFC (1935-2010)
Flight Lieutenant Rex Robert Budd DFC died on 4 November 2010 after a short battle with cancer.
Rex was born in Murwillumbah on 5 September 1935. He grew up in Murwillumbah, and attended The Armidale School from 1950-52. He participated very actively in the life of the school, being a member of the Dramatic Society for the three years of his attendance, a member of the Swimming Team, the Choir, and the Library Committee, a Sergeant in the Cadet Corps, and a Monitor in his final year. He received a Merit Award, and matriculated with Honours in Maths.
After leaving school he spent time at Nerrigundah station outside Quilpie, roo shooting and filling in time until he was old enough to join the Air Force.
After joining the Queensland University Squadron at Archerfield to undergo his National Service training, he was accepted into RAAF pilot training. He graduated top of his flying course and served in flying roles with two Air Trials Units (Meteor), two Fighter Operational Conversion Units; 3, 76, 79 Fighter Squadrons (Vampire and Sabre); 5 and 9 Squadrons (Iroquois and Bushranger gunships)and in administrative appointments with other units.
He served two operational tours of duty with 9 Squadron between 1968 and 1970 flying Iroquois helicopters during the Vietnam War. He was the first RAAF pilot to log 1000 hours during that campaign and was the third of five gunship flight commanders, all having previously flown fighter aircraft.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his superior leadership, courage and devotion to duty during 625 days service overall in Vietnam. During that service he showed both his daring and his innovation. On one occasion he rescued six SAS soldiers who were under enemy fire, lifting the patrol out of the jungle on 45 metre ropes, needless to say coming under fire himself in the process.
He was the third of the five “Bushranger” gunship flight commanders to serve with 9 Squadron. This gunship variant of the Iroquois helicopter, was a simple yet very effective air weapons system, created through typical Aussie ingenuity. Legend has it that the prototype aircraft was constructed from weaponry and other components bartered from the Americans for slouch hats and Australian beer. The whole Squadron contributed to the development of the project in some way and it was a fine team effort.
After returning home from Vietnam he started his own helicopter mustering business based in Mareeba and became one of the pioneers of helicopter mustering. On so doing he recognised the skills needed from people who had worked in the bush and who understood stock – he felt that it was easier to teach a stockman to fly a helicopter than to teach a helicopter pilot how to be a stockman.
As he worked his way around the various properties Rex kept a weather eye out for good stockmen who were interested in becoming pilots. He was a man of generous spirit. In 1972, in the early days of helicopter mustering, he went to Highbury Station where Kerry Slingsby was head stockman. Kerry Slingsby had started his working life at age 14 as a ringer in outback Queensland and by the time he was 24 he was head stockman at Highbury. Highbury had invested in its own helicopter and pilot, but the pilot had little livestock experience. Rex took suggested that Kerry that he learn to fly the helicopter himself, took him for his first ever helicopter ride, the whole matter was settled over a bottle of rum, and Rex handed Kerry a cheque for $1000 to help pay for him to have the necessary flying training at Long Beach in the US. Rex didn’t leave Kerry to sink or swim. After Kerry had been in the US for a while he received a telegram from Rex saying, “By now you will think a helicopter is totally impossible to fly but stick at it and it will come to you”. When Kerry returned to Australia Rex gave him a mustering endorsement.
Some time later Kerry went to Kununurra in the Kimberley and started his own mustering business, branched out into charter and tourism, and by the time he sold the business two years ago he owned 25 helicopters and 25 fixed wing aircraft. Kerry Slingsby was just one of several people who launched themselves into successful helicopter mustering businesses after coming into contact with Rex.
In his spare time Rex enjoyed motor bikes, cars and gardening, for which he had a particular talent.
He is credited with the importation into Australia of the Hughes/Schweitzer H269 piston engined helicopter and its application to mustering cattle.
For my friends with Armidale connections, and perhaps even more importantly for all of her friends in the Sydney theatrical world who will not be reading country newspapers, the 9 March edition of The Armidale Express had a nice piece, Play for tolerance, about Emma Buzo’s return to the town in which both her parents grew up, to manage the Michael Hoskins Creative Arts Centre, and to teach drama.
It discusses the enduring significance of her father Alex’s play Norm and Ahmed, and makes the connection between subject of the play and the experiences of Emma’s Albanian-born grandfather Zihni, who came to Armidale to work as a civil engineer in 1954.
A rather nice piece on Emma Buzo was published in the Monday 21 February edition of The Sydney Morning Herald. Unfortunately it does not seem to be in the online edition, so I reproduce it in full below.
For an earlier post on Emma and the company she founded to promote her father’s work, see The Alex Buzo Company.
A father’s legacy takes centre stage
Natalie Muller
Few people follow in their father’s footsteps to the extent that Emma Buzo has done.
The Sydney-based actor and theatre producer has moved to Armidale to teach at The Armidale School, where the late Australian playwright, Alex Buzo, first discovered his love for language and drama about 60 years ago.
She is also teaching his first play, Norm and Ahmed, which rose to national prominence in the late ‘60s after being at the centre of a fierce censorship battle, being banned in three states.
Now the work is part of the HSC drama syllabus and year 12 students at The Armidale School would be hard pressed to find someone more qualified than the author’s own daughter to teach it.
“They’re being taught by the daughter of the playwright at the school the playwright went to,” Buzo says. “I know the background and can talk about the inspiration behind it that hasn’t been published anywhere.”
After the theatre great’s death in 2006, Buzo founded the Alex Buzo company and produced several plays, including Norm and Ahmed, under its banner. Then she lobbied to get the text included in the 2010-2012 HSC syllabus.
The play’s themes of racial tension, as valid today as they were in the 1960s, are talking points in the classroom. “It’s eerie, the journey of that play,” Buzo says.
“Since 9/11 and the Cronulla riots, it’s only gathered momentum.”
Buzo says exposure to theatre was lacking in regional schools.
Besides teaching drama, she will also manage the school’s Hoskins Theatre, a 200-seat performance space, where she is hoping to bring theatre professionals from around Australia.
Buzo says she is excited to evoke the potential in her students.
“It only takes one teacher who sees the potential in a student,” she said. “I hope I can light the flame, because once an interest is established they’ll seek more.”
The school’s headmaster, Murray Guest, says her experience in the industry is a plus.
“That means a lot for the boys, that she is not a teacher pretending to be a theatre producer, she’s the real thing,” he says.
Buzo has been a teacher for the last 15 years and has taught at NIDA and the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP).
The following obituary for Ken Atkinson, an old boy of the Armidale School who was in his final year in my first year there, was published in yesterday’s edition of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Kenneth Hugh Atkinson, 1939-2010.
Ken Atkinson was a gynaecologist and an unpretentious man of achievement. He was a dedicated oncological surgeon and taught many of Sydney's currently practising gynaecologists.
The secret of his success in work, his marriage and friendships was that he possessed a rare quality: he listened. Not just politely but with genuine interest. He was also a great teacher and had an extraordinary ability to convey the practical skills needed for the management of patients.
Kenneth Hugh Atkinson was born on August 1, 1939, in Moss Vale to Athol (Dod) Atkinson and his wife, Ethel Cameron. The Atkinsons moved to Fiji, where Dod managed a cattle ranch but died of typhoid when Ken was 18 months old. Ethel also contracted typhoid but recovered, returned to Australia and moved to Armidale, where Ken grew up. He went to The Armidale School, where he was dux of his final year.
In 1957, he went to the University of Sydney to study medicine. He spent six years at St Paul's College.
His contemporaries remember that he studied little and on one occasion remarked to a fellow student that he ''could not believe how easy the medical course was''. He passed his examinations with ease, getting credits and distinctions each year, and graduated with honours in 1963. In 1964, he married Susan Vail.
He then went to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and two years later became a registrar at King George V Hospital at RPAH. In his second year at King George, he sat the membership examination for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and got the top mark in Australia.
In 1968 he was appointed clinical superintendent at King George. He single-handedly altered the whole ethos of the hospital - introducing formal resident training and running regular seminars incorporating interaction with other clinical specialities. In his teaching, when manipulative obstetrics (correcting abnormal presentations by hand) was still practised, he taught the resident staff to practise it as an art form.
Before leaving the clinical superintendent position, Atkinson was awarded the Joseph Foreman Fellowship. This took him to Boston, Massachusetts, where he was surgical resident to Howard Ulfelder, one of the greatest gynaecological surgeons of the time.
In 1971, he returned to Sydney where he progressively took up a series of appointments: as visiting medical officer in obstetrics and gynaecology at RPAH then at Ryde Hospital, Poplars Private Hospital in Epping and Sydney Adventist Hospital in Wahroonga.
He demonstrated an almost superhuman capacity to work. His days started at 4.30am with rounds at the Adventist, then Ryde, Poplars and RPAH. He then began his day in his rooms, seeing 20-30 patients a session and being intermittently interrupted by a delivery at any of these geographically disparate hospitals. He was delivering close to 400 babies a year.
After he gave up obstetrics in the mid-1990s, he concentrated on gynaecological cancer surgery. He handled most of the difficult gynaecological cancer surgery on the upper north shore and, of course, at RPAH, where he was on call for surgical disasters. He never complained about being called in at any time of the day or night; he did it all with good humour but no one equalled him ''when the chips were down''.
In 1974, Atkinson was a member of the NSW committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 1984 he served on the executive committee of the Australian Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and became chairman of the committee in 1994. In the same year he was elected to the council of the NSW Medical Defence Union and in 1995 he served on its executive committee.
In 1996 he became a director of United Medical Protection and later deputy chairman.
He was the spokesman for UMP during the medical insurance crisis that resulted in major reform to tort law and insurance in Australia. This increased his interest in medico legal problems and he took a master's in health law at the University of Sydney.
Ken Atkinson is survived by Susan, children Tracey, Josephine and Bill, son-in-law Adam, daughter-in-law Kim and grandsons Sam and Jack.
Thus did organiser and MC Philip Bailey introduce brothers James and Robert White, and Robert’s son Anthony, for one of the moments of sheer delight in the Gilbert and Sullivan Singalong which was staged at the TAS Old Boys’ Dinner on 10 September to celebrate the launch of Jim Graham’s memoir A Song to Sing-O – a rendition of “Three Little Maids from School”, which James and Robert had sung, with Graham Giblin, just fifty years previously, in the School’s 1960 production of The Mikado.
They didn’t ham it up – no nonsense about singing it falsetto or anything like that, it was simply transposed for male voices, a good song well sung:
It was good fun, and a wonderful reminder of that performance all those years ago, as captured in Jim’s memoir. As the second photo shows, Bailey himself played Poo-Bah, as perhaps befitted the Senior Prefect of the day, and a very fine Poo-Bah he made.
By 1960 these performances were beginning to do a modest amount of touring. The photo below was taken on a trip for a performance in Inverell:
James White has been Visual Arts Master at the School since 1994, and is a well know artist in his own right, having become a member of the prestigious Australian Watercolour Institute in 1991. For more about James, see here and here.
The photos from 1960 were scanned from Jim Graham's A Song to Sing-O.
To acquire a copy of A Song to Sing-O, please get in touch with the School’s Director of Development, Cressida Mort (cmort@as.edu.au). If you email Cressida, she will send you the book, and you can either send a cheque or ring the School and pay by credit card. The price is $45 including postage and handling.
The weekend of Friday-Sunday 10-12 September was Old Boys’ Weekend at The Armidale School (TAS) and for the Class of 1960 it was of course the fiftieth anniversary of the year we sat our New South Wales Leaving Certificate, and we decided to make it a big one.
After years in the grip of drought, Armidale has had some rain, and the School looked a treat:
The weather throughout the weekend was brilliant – not a cloud in the sky, calm, mild – 15.4 deg C max on Saturday, 18 on Sunday.
A group of us had decided that a fine way to commemorate the year would be to commission a painting by classmate Harry Pidgeon, and commemorate also our late classmate Alex Buzo, for which purpose we sought the participation of Alex’s daughter Emma who had kicked off Old Boys’ Weekend 2009 with her revival of Alex’s first play, Norm and Ahmed (see Norm and Ahmed go to Armidale).
We asked Harry to paint something that captured the feeling of an aspect of the New England landscape, but left him to decide how to give effect to that. The result is stunning, Rising Moonbi,a painting in acrylic of the moon rising over a granite tor, so characteristic of the Moonbi range which rises so steeply to the tablelands from the village of Moonbi north of Tamworth, and of the tablelands country itself. In early maps the village and the mountain range are labelled Moonboy, apparently a reference to the fact that the ascent of the first part of the range was so steep that the teamsters had to yoke the bullocks or horses of several teams to one wagon and haul them to the top one by one, an operation best performed at night, but for which it was necessary to have a “moon boy” walking ahead showing the way and scouting for obstacles. The painting represents also the brightly coloured birds which suddenly appear out of the rather dull coloured landscape.
On the Friday afternoon I went with the 1960 Senior Prefect, Philip Bailey, and with Harry Pidgeon, to the Hoskins Arts Centre to do the last minute setting up of the painting for the presentation, to talk to Headmaster Murray Guest about where it might best be displayed in the long term, and to talk to Pat Bradley, the School’s Business Manager, about how it would best be lit at the presentation function:
Pat arranged for it to be lit from a gallery above, with stunning effect; the painting glowed, but it was not evident where the light was coming from, or indeed that it was lit at all.
Needless to say, we paused for a photo-op; from left to right your correspondent, the artist, and Philip Bailey:
No photos by me from the presentation ceremony – being the MC for the occasion I was not in a good position to wield the camera, and I will post later any good photos that come to hand from the occasion. There were two presentations: Harry’s painting, unveiled by former master Jim Graham (see below), who fittingly had started his 43 year career at TAS in 1956, the year that the bulk of the Class of 1960 had started secondary school.
The second presentation was a presentation by Emma of a photo of Alex from the 1970s, framed with a bio that Emma herself had written. Thanks to Visual Arts master James White for the photo.
I could not help concluding the presentations by observing that the Class of 1960’s most important gift to the School was Emma herself, as she will be taking up duty at the School from the start of next year as drama teacher and manager of the Hoskins Centre. For more on Alex, Emma, and the company Emma founded to produce, promote and perpetuate the work of her father, see The Alex Buzo Company.
On Saturday morning we had a casual brunch in Big School, which had been the centre of the School’s activities in the 1950s – assembly hall, place of Saturday night films, roll-call, exam room, and place of Saturday morning detention:
Needless to say we had invited Jim Graham, and a photo or two was taken:
Before we left we set up Harry’s painting there for the rest of the day, to be on display for the many visitors passing through:
We then went off for a tour of the School’s new trade training centre:
which is also a community sports facility:
After that we went to the barbeque on Back Field (Hoskins Centre in the background):
and watched the First XV play the Old Boys:
As none of us made the cut for the Old Boys’ team we watched from the sidelines:
At the dinner, Paul Griffiths launched A Song to Sing-O, Jim Graham’s memoir of 43 years’ involvement with musical drama at TAS (to acquire your copy see below):
Jim responded and delivered an amusing address about the hazards and delights of attending decadal anniversary gatherings of old boys:
After that, a Gilbert and Sullivan sing-along organised by Philip Bailey, with the willing participation of some of the current pupils, as well as girls from NEGS and PLC (a refreshing development, we didn’t see much of them in our day) and some stars from yesteryear, of which more in subsequent posts:
following which we retired to Lower Maxwell for coffee:
On Sunday morning there was chapel for those who were inclined either by conviction or nostalgia; girls from PLC & NEGS joined the choir:
followed by the annual Passing Out Parade of the cadet unit (participation in which was a compulsory activity in our time):
following which Richard and Lynne Bird turned on lunch for those who were able to attend, on the distinctly provençale terrace of their lovely home at the foot of the Devil’s Pinch a few miles north of Armidale:
where there is a granite tor just across the road:
Needless to say, before going our separate ways, we paused for a final photo:
And a good time was had by all. Our special thanks to Cressida Mort, Donna Jackson and Shona Eichorn, who did so much on the spot, both beforehand and throughout the weekend, to meet our incessant demands and make the whole weekend run so smoothly.
And just for the record, here we are, the Class of 1960 as photographed half a century ago:
Note:
To acquire a copy of A Song to Sing-O, please get in touch with the School’s Director of Development, Cressida Mort (cmort@as.edu.au). If you email Cressida, she will send you the book, and you can either send a cheque or ring the School and pay by credit card. The price is $45 including postage and handling.
