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The second meeting was held on Tuesday 28th November at the Royal Automobile Club Sydney. While downing pre-lunch tankards of Cascade Premium, the discussion was distinctly sour. Walker-Powell wondered about the club's apparent disinterest in its far-flung members. Gardiner complained that his carefully researched essay on the Late Commander Holbrook VC, a distinguished OP, had been similarly treated. Why is it, we mused into our tankards, that the most trivial happening in Oxford, London or Portsmouth is always reported in minute detail and yet anything else is treated with contempt? Possibly our egos are unduly sensitive, but, if this be so, then we ought to be excused for we were all pupils of D D Lindsay. We learnt then that to be ignored is an inconsolable disaster.
Our earlier pessimism dissipated after going in to lunch. We all confessed to having lapsed into a state of sloth since the winter luncheon and wondered if it were coincidental or was something we all picked up then. Cherry comforted us with the thought that without this we might easily have lapsed into even more deadly sins. In fact so slothful did we feel that we could have easily slid into a somnolent state had not we been joined by Graham Clarke (grahamclarke@eurest.com.au 1967 to 1974). Graham heads the Australian defence operations of Eurest and specialises in providing support services to the armed forces. In this he is extending his naval experience as a Supply Officer.
He was at the school after Ted Washington had lost his sight. He told us that Ted developed a form of compensatory radar: he knew every boy by name, knew where he sat and knew if he were playing up. How Milton would have admired him!
We found that collectively we had much more in common than out alma mater, not least an impossible-to-shake nostalgia when the temperature soars towards 100 on Christmas Day and a pronounced cultural schizophrenia during the Ashes series.
I am attaching a photograph of our first meeting. The reason why it is getting dark and we are alone in the dining room is that it was taken at 4:30pm on a winter's day.
