Old School

After nearly a week in Sydney, we spent our final evening at a lovely restaurant on the bay called Bathers with our hosts Michael, Catherine, Nick and Julia, and Tom’s cousin Trish and her husband John, enjoying Sydney rock oysters, barramundi, pavlova and other local delights.

Saying a fond farewell to them the next morning, we set out for the airport where we picked up our rental car—a Chery Omodo 5 with fewer than 1200 km on the odometer. It’s a Chinese car, which, as we were soon to find out, looks great and appears to have all the bells and whistles, but has MANY glitches and annoying features and gets really atrocious gas mileage. It is comfortable, though!

We headed west, towards Canberra, where we were meeting Patrick Bill Williams, (my once-fiancé, back in university days and now treasured friend) for a nostalgia tour. First, however, we detoured to a Millpost, a historic family farm near Bungendore where another friend from university days, David Watson, has lived since 1979 along with his wife, Judith. Their 3 grown sons and their own families also live in the compound and together they run about 2500 head of merino wool sheep on 3000 beautiful acres that they are managing as a sustainable farm, growing and raising almost all their own food, living as simply and carbon neutral as possible and returning the land to a more native state by planting thousands of trees.

David took us on a tour of the property with some of the dogs, and we were able to see the fruits of his nearly half century of labours, admiring both the property and the trees.

We were invited to dinner with the entire family including three year old Poppy, who appeared wearing a red tutu and who charmed us all with her bubbly personality. She was in turn charmed by photos on my phone of my four year old granddaughter Elena wearing the rainbow tutu I made for her.

For dinner, we had barbequed sheep, steak, beef sausages and kangaroo kebabs all from the farm, fresh salad from the garden and freshly picked wild blackberries for dessert. David and I exchanged books—my book on the Kindertransport for his two fascinating books on the history and management of Millpost. We had corresponded fairly regularly over the years, but fell out of contact about 20 years ago. I found him again on the internet, on Millpost Merino the family’s website through which they sell their own beautiful super-fine merino yarn. I had no idea if my contact attempt would be successful, but it was, and it was quite moving and emotional reuniting after nearly 50 years. The visit went all too fast, but we parted that evening vowing to stay in touch.

In Canberra, we had another reunion, this time with Patrick Bill whom we last saw in England a couple of years ago. I was excited to see him again, this time in Canberra, where Bill (as I have always called him) and I first met in 1972. We had a little time to catch up with one another that evening and the following morning, set off for the Australian National University, where Bill got a law degree and I got my BA in history.

Driving through the campus, it was clear that almost everything had changed, but it still had a familiar feel. One thing that had not changed was our old residence hall—Burton Hall, where we had both lived for several years.

Although we couldn’t enter the dormitory buildings, I could remember the locations of our various rooms and we spent a bit of time outside reminiscing about our lives as students there.

The common dining hall has changed beyond recognition inside, as the students now cook their own meals, unlike in our time when we were served in a cafeteria and ate at long tables presided over by faculty members seated at the head table set on a dais at one end of the room. Every week a few students were selected to dine at the head table and I remember when it was my turn feeling both pride at being among the hallowed professors and embarrassment at being ‘on show’– elevated above and removed from my fellow students.

We retraced the steps we used to take to our lecture halls, seminar rooms, student union, book store and library, most now gone and replaced with more modern buildings.

It was the second day of student orientation week and the campus was pulsing with enthusiastic new students signing up for various clubs and societies, mingling and getting to know one another and their new school. It was impossible not to imbibe some of the energy, excitement and anticipation that filled the air.

Our campus tour complete, we drove up to the Arboretum to have lunch overlooking a beautiful view of the city and afterwards toured the fantastic bonsai display there.

Before we departed Canberra, we visited the house Bill grew up in and where I had spent much time during my university years. It was still there, largely unchanged, but surrounded by much larger, newer houses that had replaced the original 1940s homes like Bill’s. It appeared to be the lone remnant on the street and was vacant and empty—clearly slated for demolition as all the others of its vintage had been.

It was a bittersweet moment, but I was glad we had seen it one last time. I left Canberra feeling that though much had changed, much had remained the same, and I was very happy to have revisited my old school and the city where I had spent four of the happiest years of my life.