WE HAVE TWO NEW BIOS!

THE FIRST IS FROM LYNETTE PAGE  (now LYN KELLY):

After leaving Telopea at the end of 1961, I went into the Public Service for 18 months, but being cooped up in an office finally got to me. I was reading the Canberra Times, looking for a new job when I came across MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, at Kenmore Hospital near Goulburn. Goodness knows what I was thinking of, because I rang for an interview and they said “just come along and bring your suitcase!” 

Dad had gone out with a nurse from Bloomfield (Orange) and my aunt was a Mental Health Nurse (unknown to me at the time), so he decided to take me down for a formal interview. The Matron there was his old girlfriend from before the war, so my foot was in the door and she kindly looked after me for the next 2 years.

I left to get married in 1965, after a hippy kind of holiday in Cairns, but still married after 46 years. My husband is from Goulburn originally, from a transport business.

The next 12 years were spent having 3 children, moving to Sydney from Goulburn and back before finally moving to Sydney 41 years ago. I always wanted to go back to nursing but with 3 children and a husband away most of the week I just had to wait.

I finally started again aged 32, Psychiatric Nursing it was now known as, and finished in 1980 at Rydalmere Hospital near Parramatta. I nursed out in the community, as it fitted in with school hours, until I decided to do General Nursing before it went into the Universities. So, in 1984 aged 39 I was a student again, this time at Canterbury Hospital. I really enjoyed my time there (2.5 years) before going to the big Westmead Hospital for a year. In early 1987, a couple of former colleagues were nursing in a Crisis Team in Blacktown, in western Sydney. This kind of treatment of the mentally ill in the community was in its infancy, so I stayed for 3.5 years, enjoying the challenge until a new boss came along. I completed a BA (Social Science) along the way, and when I moved to the Inner West (1991) I completed a post graduate diploma in Community Teaching. I thought I might switch to Primary school teaching but the grandkids came along, and they needed more time than I could put into another course.

I have had an interest in politics, but nurses are a funny lot. They want to be in the union, but mainly vote to the right especially if they are from rural areas over the mountains.

We had been thinking about moving closer to the city, and some friends were nursing on a community team in the Glebe/Leichhardt area. So I went to that area,which is connected to RPA, Rozelle and Concord hospitals, and have been here in this area since 1991. We bought a townhouse in Leichhardt in 1994, and apart from the busy times under the flight path it has been a good move for both of us. I have made a lot of friends in nursing, and we all enjoy a hearty social life.

Our 3 children live in Sydney, the boys in the building industry and Sonja is an office manager for Railcorp.

I have deferred retirement as I have 2 grandchildren aged 12 and 14 who need our help, not every day but certainly every week, and what do you do?

We talked about travelling to Europe etc when we were a lot younger, commitments stopped us most of the time, and now we need Business Class!!  We have been to Samoa, New Zealand and Indonesia, most of Australia so we have been lucky.

I have only had one contact with someone from schooldays, Thea Preller for a few days up north in 1989, so I am looking forward to seeing you all next month.

THE SECOND IS FROM
WILLIAM (BILL) WILSON:

 

I took the Leaving Certificate again in 1963.  A very wise move on the part of my parents, because I obviously gained in confidence and undoubtedly grew physically, academically and socially.  Of course I naturally regressed when I encountered the freedoms of university!  I took my B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry at the ANU, played Rugby, but most importantly met my wife Kay Bussell (Elizabeth Cranston’s cousin!); we celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary in January.  Indeed how time flies when you are having fun!

I took a position with the then Department of Supply (later to be absorbed into the Department of Defence) as Defence scientist, and we moved to Melbourne where eventually we bought a home in Greensborough, while I worked at Maribyrnong conducting explosives research.  We had two sons, Scott and Haydn, and I continued to fill in my weekends playing Rugby for Melbourne University.  I also represented Victoria intermittently between 1975 and 1977.

A life-changing experience came for us all in 1981, when I was offered an 18-month Defence Science Fellowship posting to the US Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, in the Californian Mojave Desert.  It was a wonderful experience professionally and socially, and we vastly broadened our experiences.  We took full advantage of the opportunities to discover the US as a nation and Americans as people.  We also discovered that we are essentially small-town people, and specifically desert rats.

We returned to Melbourne and my career in the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), but 18 months later I was offered a permanent position at China Lake.  After due consideration we decided to accept this position, as much as anything for the opportunities it might open up for Scott and Haydn in the future.  So we emigrated, and I took up US citizenship with all that entails.  It always struck me as appropriate that the Presidential elections occur on Melbourne Cup Day!

Life was most enjoyable, but certainly different from our previous sojourn as tourists.  We now had commitments to maintain a home, but also to play our part in providing entertainment for our sons in a small town, with involvement Boy Scouts, and travelling soccer and swim teams.  Kay taught mathematics at the local schools (to help fund the boys’ college education), and my physical exercise continued with road racing (including the Boston marathon), climbing in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains, mini-triathlons and finally cycling.

In 1997, with Scott and Haydn both through college, I was offered a position at DSTO Edinburgh in South Australia, to regenerate the explosives research programme after it was migrated from Maribyrnong.  So, instead of changing the door-locks when the boys left home, we sold the doors (and the house too) and migrated back to Adelaide.  (Adelaide does not like to hear it, but it is really just a country town, which suits us down to the ground.)  So I took out Australian citizenship, while Scott commenced practice as a lawyer in Chattanooga TN, and Haydn became a winemaker-cum-financial analyst in Napa CA.  Haydn has two sons Julian and Xavier (aka Spot), so there is much demand for frequent travel to the US to visit our grand-children.

So I continue to work while it still keeps me interested, to fund the travel addiction, and to keep Kay in the luxury to which she would like to become accustomed.

IT'S NOT MARCH YET SO THERE IS STILL TIME FOR YOU TO SEND IN THAT BIO AND PHOTO!