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Class of 1951 Reunion

and 1949 Intermediate

 

A 50th year Reunion for ex-students of the above classes happened on Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th September 2001 at Katoomba.

Here are scenes of of the Dinner on Tuesday and their visit to KHS on Wednesday

Afterthoughts to be Articulated

And now the party's over ...

Another reunion, another crop of oldies. When we were booking at The Carrington and were negotiating a "Seniors" rate (and don't we all do that these days,) we were asked: How many of you are seniors? ... All of us ... We're ALL 67 (well, who was the lucky 66?).

What a prospect for the Events Co-ordinator: a dining room with a crowd of dour wrinklies, pity the other diners stuck with that lot. Not quite the way it was ...

So what did happen? Well, no names, no pack drill.

Just entering The Carrington is to feel the time-warp, those magnificently restored 1880's grande lounges, High Victorian passages replete with love-seats and cul-de-sacs for intimate tete-a-tetes, broad bedrooms along lofty halls, doors to the left and right, cornered further. Plumbing restored to operational dependency upon the occupant in the adjoining suite.

So keenly was our event anticipated that eight of us were in residence by the Monday, tongues wagging, photos flipping, and coming to grips with the recognition factor. Just to keep our senior brains in full mettle, we eschewed name tags, which set us all turning the pages of that mental register for friend or foe, and how to keep track of the spouses, seven of whom came to keep an eye on ... well, whatever. So how do you keep up with fifty years of depredation to the physiognomy? Surely one can't have forgotten so-and-so? To start with, the acne had gone, but so had the hair, for some souls. One formerly youthful hirsute fellow averred that he remembered the girls by their hair ... fatal error ... all those wonderful blonde / copper / auburn / brunette locks were no longer, and no longer either were the plaits or endearing curls. Lack-a-day. And of course most of the men now had cranial profiles rather than wonderful waves. One trick was association: if you knew who A was, then the probability was that the other would be B; or that you knew D was coming with C; there was also subtractive deduction: the "who is left to arrive" approach; or perhaps it was an aural recognition: those mellifluous vocal tones. The downer was, of course, the "who are you" when a gentle prompting was a little too late in being offered.

It was suggested that those who arrived too early would be all talked out by dinner. Talked Out?? Just gathering steam, more likely, and The Carrington's relaxed service gave plenty of scope for the endless anecdotes between five courses of delectable dishes, a rollicking reunion which effortlessly eased itself over the date-line, as yesterday's youth brightly burned the midnight oil of nostalgia.

Those photographs ... between us all a good cross-section of the main events (many observed how few photos each of us seemed to have, a product of the stringent times we were then not conscious of) and their memorabilia, including one or two errant personal notes, irreverently retrieved from an apparent storehouse of youthful indiscretions.>And what an interesting array of activities we were: actors and accountants, clerics and clerks, choristers and chemists, doctors and developers, farmers and pharmacists, gourmands and grannies, gymnasts and geographers, hairdressers and harriers, partners and projectionists, teachers and travellers, thespians and theologists, writers and wives, ... families, friends and flames ... all older now ...

Seeking out the past proved less than elusive: from the elegant Carrington lounge, the eyeless Parke Street building sadly desolate as a blustery rainstorm swept across our playground, flooding through the broken windows, washing over cars parked where the garbage bin cricket run had filled the lunch hour breaks. What a converse view it was, compared with our envy of the smoking central heating stack on an icy August morning in the 40's!

Cinema Savoy, scene of steamy (?) Saturday holding-of-hands (or perhaps some purple back-stalls passion) to the golden years of Hollywood, shuttered now and permanently dark these thirty years.

The old Town Hall, Speech Day spruik place, better remembered as host to those fleet-of-foot fanciers, Canadian Three Steppers, Fox Trotters, and the brave Maxinas, remembering that long Victorian sequence of steps. Later, the sweaty square dance craze swept through. No more now, torn down, termites perhaps, or did our later students lose that lust for two-steps?

No doubt the Martin Street auditorium became the scene for twist, shout and stomp, but who could beat the 40's for dancing as a legal contact sport?

Echo Point parking metered, the Scenic Railway blossoming with cable cars, roller coaster, and multi-storeyed car parks. And were there trysts beside sun-sparkled waters of Katoomba Falls? (Was it Groucho Marx or W.C.Fields who said that youth is wasted on the young?) Inevitably, meandering minds wandered wistfully, slipping into time past, time-warp of memory, events, and friends ... good, great and best.

Katoomba High greeted us as V.I.P's, tours hosted by students, morning tea with Principal and staff, all commendably co-ordinated by Bob Foster, who drew out all the photos, registers and records from the archives, together with an ancient player capable of converting Norah's 78 rpm shellac of the school choir into sounds of which Luton Girls' would have been proud.

Did they marvel we had survived that old school, that past era, that post-war? Were we now dinosaurs, orperhaps a view into the future?

And as the party ended, how did we, each of us, Dr. Who-like, escape the time-warp, retrieve the present?Was it via the Tardis that we took our leave?

Now where did I park the Austin?

Barrie Brown.

For more information, Email to: jbarriebro@yahoo.com.au

 

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