HELLO FELLOW TPHS BLOG READERS.

DESPITE ALL THE WET WEATHER UP IN NORTHERN NSW HELEN ANDREW (NOW PYE) SENT US THIS BIO:

My life really started when I escaped a very strict primary private girls school to discover the freedom of learning with out bounds at Telopea Park High School. I was bribed to go there with the chance of doing fun subjects like Cooking, Art, Agriculture and lots of sport.

These subjects I adored especially the fun cooking classes with Carol Wade and Lyn Page. Then finding the joy and freedom of circus gymnastics under Mr McNab. Where we could do cartwheels and summersaults across the school oval, even Dianne Summerhayes watched me. What a buz. 

Going to Sydney to swim in the inter school competitions was a real adventure.  Our Hockey teams were the best, winning many inter-school competitions. Going to Cootamundra for hockey, was a climax to my sporting career at Telopea Park. Mind you the bus trips to the snow were pretty cuddly too…

My only sad time was when I got a 2H in Agriculture for the Leaving to be denied attending Wagga Agricuture College because I was a girl. At that time they did not have a girls toilet or that was their excuse.  It broke my heart so I chose my 2^nd choice and took the shortest course a 2 year scholarship offered to me to Sydney Teachers College. Here I trained to be an Art, Home Science and Needlework teacher. Life is amazing, I never wanted to be a teacher, hated the course and yet now I adore teaching. To me it was like been sent to a finishing school. I was too young at 17 years to cope with inner Sydney tough teenagers, who were older and bigger than me and attempt to try and teach them something. So I gave that away and tried 5 different jobs in one year.

I finally landed a job at the ANU in the John Curtin School of Medical Research as a Technical Officer in “Electron Microscopy”. Here I could put the 2 loves of my life Science and Art together into a marvelous job which became my career. I had 10 years aside establishing the “Pig and Whistle” in Braidwood NSW. A wood working business with my first husband Allan Geier where we made rocking horses & furniture. A very rewarding time.

I have two wonderful children and 3 grandsons, my son Florian runs a Solar Electrical Business in Canberra. My daughter Colette with her husband manages a large sheep and wine growing property near Albury NSW. 

When I retired from CSIRO 30 years later I formed a Company called Insignis selling the designs from under the microscope and putting them on clothes, carpets, and curtains. I did this for 2 years selling all over Australia. During this time I met my 2^nd husband Ross Pye and we moved to Maclean in Northern NSW and built a home at Ashby on The Broadwater. 

Interests:

Well it was hard when I first retired trying to think up what to do with my self, but came up with the following things: 

I tried Tennis and Tap dancing not so good. There seemed to be a gap between my feet and my brain.

I love reading historical, travel, cooking, adventure and detective novels and working in our sub tropical garden where I breed Khaki Campbell ducks. 

Ross and I do a lot of snorkeling, crabbing and keep Koi and salt water fish.

We have done a lot of fun travel through out Asia and found our three adult

Godchildren in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, who we have helped with their studies and life, and in return they give us so much love and pleasure. 

I joined U3a and played Mahjong and started a cooking group, then I realised there were many adults here who look after their grandchildren at the beach and pool and cannot swim. So I created a Water Confidence class and then progressed to Swimming Confidence class under my business name of:

 

Water Confidence Australia.

My students range in age from 4 - 93 years. Imagine waking up one morning when you are 93 and saying to yourself  “I think I will learn to swim today"!

Because Ross knew I could skate back in 1959 when he used to watch me roller skate on the basketball courts at Telopea Park on weekends, he assumed there would be no problems skating now. So he said, “why not join the local Roller Derby group”. I was terrified, having not skated for 50 years, but now it’s become my latest life’s adventure.  Mind you I can’t skate as fast as the 20-40 year olds I wonder why!!

ANY HALF FINISHED BIOS SITTING IN A FOLDER ON YOUR PC?

WE WAIT WITH MUCH INTEREST!