I retired
in December 2015 and returned to live near South Beach in South Fremantle,
Western Australia.
My
childhood was spent on the family farm at Broomehill in the South West of West
Australia, where each day I would ride my trusty, oversized bike to the Hollys’,
our neighbours, farm to catch the bus to St Patrick’s, the Catholic primary
school in the regional centre, Katanning. The bus trips, though regularly
occupied with joshing other kids, were otherwise uneventful, apart from the odd
occasion when fist fights were required to defend some, now long forgotten,
point of honour – for which I was sometimes put off the bus to walk the last
mile or two home.
As with
any farm boy, I spent my evenings and weekends helping my father (Bert) and
mother (Marie), on the farm, playing with, annoying and being annoyed by my brother
(Michael) and sister (Margaret). My parents have passed on, though they still
live in my head and heart where I find myself often conversing with them still.
But my brother and sister are still around, which, of course, is great.
From the
age of eleven, I boarded. It was way too early and something I never wanted to
do, but Dad and Mum felt it was the only way I would get a half way decent education
(something which, at the time, did not concern me over much). I spent three
years at St Ildephonsus College in New Norcia, a monastery town north of Perth,
established by Benedictine Monks from Spain in 1846. The college was initially run
by the Marist Brothers and then by the Benedictine monks. Highlights of those
years were cross-country harrying, swimming in dams, annoying sheep, school
picnics, handball, and tennis.
For the
last four years of Secondary School, I boarded at St Louis, a Jesuit college in
the Perth suburb of Claremont. The highlights of these years were morning runs
to body surf the dumpers at Swanbourne Beach (so exciting in Winter!) tennis
and hockey, debating, public speaking competitions, drama, working weekends and
Show Weeks with Hollywood Caterers at the Showgrounds with a mix of strange and
wonderful women, men, and other boys), spending weekends with my favourite Aunt
(Eileen) and Uncle (Albert), when I’d swim the Swan River and try to surf Leighton
Beach with my best mate (John), and early morning cray fishing off Rottnest
with his father.
I also
learned to play the piano, which I dropped after leaving school, much to my
present regret.
On
completion of Secondary School, I worked for a year on the family farm, then, in
1971, having decided I wished to become a Catholic Priest, I entered the Marist
Fathers' Seminary in Sydney where I studied theology and philosophy (which,
surprisingly, I loved, despite never being much interested in the academic side
of schooling), firstly at the Novitiates in Armidale (north of Sydney) and
Hunter’s Hill (a suburb of Sydney), and then at the Seminary proper at
Toongabbie (a suburb in the western district of Sydney). Highlights, other than
Philosophy, included working at the Matthew Talbot hostel for homeless men, late
night parties with chicken, unconsecrated hosts, and awful wine, gruelling
games of rugby.
After
deciding in 1974 that I did not have a vocation to the priesthood, I returned
to Perth where I completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Western
Australia. During this time, while maintaining a moderate interest in my studies
(Philosophy, History, Anthropology, Politics and English Literature), I was
mostly interested in participating in anti-Vietnam and ant-nuclear
demonstrations, being a member of the Perth Free Press collective (UWA’s
student newspaper), dabbling in theatre, working with First Nations peoples in
the North of WA as a member of the Fred Hollows Trachoma programme.
On
completing my BA (which I managed to stretch to eight years, ‘uni life’ being
just too good to rush through), I worked for an insurance company, for IBM, and
then for ten years in Change Management with the Department of Social Security,
after which I spent two years as a Buddhist monk in Thailand engaging in
pastoral activities and doing intensive meditation, after which I lived and
worked for nearly 30 years in Thailand, China, Hong Kong, the Middle East and
Vietnam where as Country Director and then Regional Director, I was responsible
for managing the student recruitment and testing businesses, and English
language centres of IDP Education, an Australian company, though I took time
out from IDP between 2002 and 2005 to work as a business consultant in China
advising and assisting Chinese companies and government institutions in
identifying and establishing links to overseas partners.
Now that
I am retired, I am indulging my long-term goal of becoming a poet, spending
most of my waking hours writing poetry, doing a bit of walking along South Beach,
and hugging trees.