Meeting 18 August 2003
We lunched on August 12th at the RAC Club: Downer, Gardiner, Woods, Walker-Powell, Venner, Bond and a new friend, Fred Blanks, were there. Illness and the desire to escape from a horrible winter caused our attendance to be down. Nevertheless, spring has almost arrived. Orchids, Daffodils and Wattle trees, Australia’s national flower, are all in bloom. Fred Blanks did not attend the Grammar School but was a pupil of Carbery School, whose premises Portsmouth Grammar School took over in 1941 during its time in Bournemouth. Fred has a interesting history. His immediate family escaped from Germany in 1938. They variously went to Switzerland, Holland and Fred ended up in England. He told us that he arrived as a boarder at Carbery not knowing any English. He taught himself by reading Biggles books. Since then his English became so proficient that he was the Music Critic for the Sydney Morning Herald for many years. I remember Carbery pupils because they wore bright pink caps. For some reason this enraged the black capped PGS boys. When a ‘crocodile’ of PGS Lower School descending the zig-zag at Fisherman’s Walk met an ascending Carbery ‘crocodile’, a cap-snatching battle would break out as the two groups drew alongside. It was rather like two wooden battleships engaging each other at close range.
The drought is only slowly yielding, most of the country is still officially drought stricken, although we are getting a little winter rain in the Southern part of the continent.
The next 4 meetings are on Tuesday November 11th 2003, February 17th, and May 18th and August 10th 2004 . We would love to see backpackers and others working their way around the country. Please do not be deterred by the thought of an unsought expense; I am sure we can work something out.
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