Recently, I met up with an old school friend for coffee in a cafe on Maroondah Hwy in Mitcham. We spoke at length about the old times, the mid-60s, about the times we spent at Richmond Tech and in Richmond the suburb. My friend summarized that era, and in that general location, as "The best times ever". Socrates is no fool; he has studied at tertiary level, he has worked in various professional jobs, ran his own businesses, has travelled widely, married and raised a family. And now he helps his daughters with raising their children. Socrates has done a lot. And now in his retirement he is reminiscing about "the times in the old school yard", about the time we spent in my parents' backyard, and he reminded me of how much he loved driving his MGB around the Kew Boulevard (more about this later). I wholeheartedly agree with Socrates "the philosopher", as I used to call him.

So, the next day after the coffee meeting in Mitcham, I drove to Richmond to see the old school, to see the oval where I, as a year-10 student, ran training laps around the oval. And where I also flew the model aeroplanes that I made with Carmelo. Oh, yes, images of the "best times ever" were starting to form in my head.

I walked along Gleadell Street to see the Richmond Girls School where my sister studied. And where our school held an end-of-year social during mid-year of the 11th year, my last year at Richmond Tech. It was 1966, the teachers from both schools organised a befitting event to mark the end of our secondary school education. I remember our art class was crafting invitation cards for the social. The invitation card that was chosen to be printed and to be used featured a cowboy boot (a trendy item in those days) on the front page. The event was topped off with the hiring of the pop group "The Five", who provided the musical atmosphere that was in keeping with the swinging 60s - the great years.

Things are different now. The girls' school has been replaced with a school named Lynall Hall Community School, a community school that caters for students that for various reasons don't attend mainstream schools. Leo Berry's boxing gym has been refurbished, and now it attracts people dressed in Lycra who punch hanging bags that don't fight back. Carlos Parara, the Spanish kid from Richmond Tech, would train there, in Leo's gym, with sparring partners who did fight back. The school's oval, now named Citizens Park, has changed into a playground for cute, manicured dogs, where for a short time of the day they are freed from their masters' tiny apartments and are allowed to run free and to relieve themselves in the park. Their masters dutifully walk around the park with blue plastic bags in hand, cleaning after the cuties. But the saddest thing of all is that Richmond Technical, together with the senior motor mechanics apprentice school, has disappeared altogether.

It's good to see progress, but it's sad to see the good times evaporate; we can't go back in time to cry over the tech school's demise, crying will not help.

So for now let us imagine that we are back in time, in the principal's office in 1966, where the head prefect Mario was suspended from school by the strict and determined principal of Richmond Tech who wanted to uphold the great reputation of the school. He told Mario to go home and to stay there and return only if he was wearing the correct school uniform.

All of this came about because Mario wore a jumper that his mother had knitted for him. Mario's mother wanted to show her appreciation for her son, who was voted head prefect of the school. Mario's mother knitted the jumper in the correct school colours, including the yellow band around the neck. But the principal dug his heels deep into the ground that day and demanded a machine knitted jumper. The principal underestimated the regard Mario had for his mother and because of that he paid dearly for his stubborn insistence for the correct school jumper. Eventually Mario relented and returned to the school, with a machine knitted jumper and a plan for revenge.

Mario prepared a wooden board with lots of large nails protruding through the board and placed it behind the rear tyre of the principal's car. Mario wanted to puncture the car's tyre. The principal drove the car over the board, but the car bent the nails without puncturing the tyre. Mario was still determined to get his revenge. So he asked me if I could devise a better tyre-puncturing tool.

I was happy to oblige, because I like making things and I knew how to improve on his design. I approached this task as a research and development project. Starting with the drawing of the car's wheel to scale, shaping a board into a wedge so that the tyre would ride over the board, and finally I fixed the nails to the board. The nails were pointing at right angles to the circumference of the tyre so that the nails would penetrate the tyre without bending. I didn't see my device in action, but I was told that it worked. Just then a strange feeling went through me, a feeling of pride that my device worked and a feeling of guilt that I was complicit in puncturing the school principal's tyre. The principal who did so much for the school and who was so good to me. I then wished that I hadn't designed that tyre-puncturing tool.

There is another thing I wish that I didn't do and that I am ashamed of. This incident is as strange and as weird as a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The incident is about an innocent girl and her mother. And I understood how this incident came about because I knew, like that particular girl's mother, another mother who had a similar past. A single mother from a war-torn European country. So, back to the school where this uncalled-for incident occurred. It was when I was ushering a group of girls from Richmond Girls School to Richmond Tech for a stage play in our school. One particular girl was staring at me for a long time, looking at me as she went past, she turned around and continued to stare at me. I was annoyed and I yelled at her "Boo" in a demeaning way, which totally embarrassed her and I felt guilty straight away. Her mother, who was nearby, came up to me and told me that her daughter "can sew collars on shirts" (in the past people replaced worn collars of their shirts by sewing new ones on). I instantly shrank to the size of a mouse and I wanted to disappear.

This is what a desperate and lonely mother would say. I knew straight away that she was looking for a suitable husband for her daughter, and I knew that I hurt that girl's feelings. The mother wanted to secure her daughter's future. That's what people from Eastern European countries did then, just after the Second World War. This incident was a prelude to the "marriage game" that Macedonians practised. The marriage game will be covered in another chapter. I wish that I didn't do that to that innocent girl and her lonely mother.

Let us now go to the better times that Socrates and I reminisced about, those "best times ever".

Every time I meet up with Socrates he brings up the Wednesday afternoon sports days at the ice-skating rink, the St Moritz ice-skating rink in St Kilda, with Miss Leane Wesley. Miss Wesley was one of those adventurous teachers who was courageous enough to teach at Richmond Tech. On Wednesdays she supervised the four boys who participated in speed skating at the ice-skating rink. We went there in my Volkswagen Beetle, with me driving, Miss Wesley in the passenger's seat, and the other three boys in the back seat. The rear passengers were making rude remarks and suggestive motions behind Leane all the way to the St Moritz skating rink. I still can't believe how the principal of our school allowed four hot-blooded boys to drive a young female teacher, clad in a mini skirt, to St Kilda. I suppose he trusted us because three of us were prefects after all, including the head prefect, Mario.

The other teacher who was brave enough to teach at our school was Miss Marrie Cooper. She came all the way from Williamstown to teach us history and she captivated us with her considerable naval-history knowledge and her entertaining presentations. However, her lack of knowledge regarding the Russian communist movement was exposed by Vasyl Mayanko.

"If the hat fits, wear it, Mayanko," shouted Miss Cooper.

I didn't know what she meant by that statement, but Vasyl went on and he corrected Miss Cooper about the "Bolsheviks" communist party. I suspected that Vasyl had firsthand knowledge about the Bolsheviks from his family. Miss Cooper graciously accepted Mayanko's correction and because of that she gained the boys' respect.

Miss Cooper's specialty was about the naval operations in the Pacific Ocean during World War 2. She liked talking about the naval action in the Malacca Straits and we liked listening about the "Malaka Straits" and we kept on asking her to tell us more about the "Malaka Straits". During all that time that we were kidding her about our interest in the "Malaka Straits", she didn't realise that we had our private joke about the word "Malaka". Ask someone who knows Greek what that word means in Greek.

Miss Wesley didn't last long in the school; a mini skirt can hold the boys' attention for so long. Miss Cooper on the other hand, who didn't wear a mini skirt, but drove a mini, a Morris Mini that is, kept her job by virtue of her knowledge, bubbly personality, charm and sense of humour. The Morris Mini played a crucial part in the rapport she built up with her senior students. As they enjoyed lifting her Morris Mini and placing it in unusual locations around the school's car parking lot, just for fun.

Yes, Richmond Technical School within the Richmond community was an amazing place then, in the 1960s. That time really was the "best time ever". And it was where I think Multicultural Australia stemmed from. I felt that I belonged in this multicultural Australia, but I felt that outside those multicultural inner suburbs of Melbourne lurked the "true blue Aussie". Unlike the mythical Australian bunyip that doesn't exist, there must be some true blue Aussies who do exist out there. And I was determined to find some of them and to be like them If I could.

< Return to Index or Next Chapter >