Torrential rain, Grammar flooded, 21 March 1968

Typically, my diary entry began Today we had the best novelty so far this year.

After listing a number of calamaties - the flooded quadrangle, a Junior School sandpit washed away, water coming in through the doorways, sandbagging, a bucket brigade through our study, the fire brigade pumping water - all amid general panic and pandemonium, I concluded that everyone had a jolly good time... best entertainment so far this year.

Clipping: The Ballarat Courier.

Four covers of "Chaos", 1966 -1967

Chaos was a student newspaper first edited by Steve Carroll in 1966.

After Steve left the school, it was taken over by me and a couple of friends, Bob Bloomfield and Phil Porter.

You may notice that the house style changed a bit under our semi-autonomous collective.

Chaos was typed onto wax stencils in the school office and run off on the office's Gestetner duplicator. Graphic content (such as the covers) was drawn onto a stencil with a stylus, a type of inkless metal pen. The layer of wax was thin and fragile, and it was easy to tear. Bob's drawing for his cover, below, would have been a finicky job.

Click on images to enlarge.



1967 #3: Cover by Bob Bloomfield






















1967 #2: Cover by Lyn Nuttall






















1967 #1: Cover by Lyn Nuttall






















1966 #2: Edited by Steve Carroll

Prefects' Party invitation, 6 December 1968

This was an end of year event run jointly by the prefects of Grammar and Queens. On this occasion it was held in the woolshed of Carngham, a property outside Ballarat.

I designed the invitation. Well, it didn't take much designing: I used a panel from the trendy comic strip Modesty Blaise Tiffany Jones which ran in the Melbourne Herald at that time.

There was some controversy about the invitation because for some reason the headmistress of Queens objected to the name of her school appearing on it. (I think it had something to do with the party being held on private premises after exam time and so being outside of school control.)

The original cards had some space around the comic strip panel which carried the names of the two schools. Before the invitations went out the Queens prefects had to alter the wording in some way by writing on the cards. I was so annoyed by the final effect that I trimmed the card before preserving it in my diary.

I was one of the Grammar prefects who somehow persuaded the organising committee to hire Compulsion, a wild and loud Jimi Hendrix-style band from Melbourne. This blew most of the budget for the party so that little was left for refreshments.

Program for "Oedipus Rex", 1966

See Rehearsing "Oedipus Rex" at Queens, 1966

Click to enlarge.