JUST BECAUSE WE HAD A REUNION IT HASN'T STOPPED THE BIOS ARRIVING.

HERE IS ONE FROM SALLY BORTHWICK:

Attended Telopea Park Primary School 1953-54 (Grades III & IV)

Attended Telopea Park High School 1958-1962

Memories: ….Memorising German grammar and German culture, thanks to Frau Watson

….the time Sue Falk pretended to faint in French to stir up Mrs Irzykewicz (I believe she ended up at a more appreciative school)

….being told in the bike sheds after school that Marilyn Monroe was dead

…the bus trip to the Snowy Mountains

…My unsuccessful effort at composing a school song: “Torment and terror, in dungeons dark and deep/In them do thy children sleep their last sleep/Over them bereaved mothers wait and weep/But still the children thou dost keep.” For some reason, Mr McPherson didn’t like it.

Post-school life:  Gained an ANU degree in Chinese in 1966; brief postgraduate studies in London; exchange student to China 1974-1975 in the last days of the Cultural Revolution. A fascinating time: imagine Shanghai with only 20 resident Westerners, Spartan living conditions (we rose at 5.30am for morning exercises) and cultural diet restricted to rigidly controlled propaganda. But I managed to make good friends with my Chinese room-mates and had some fine teachers; I still see them today.

In late ’75 returned to find the Dismissal unfolding. The expected revolution did not eventuate and I returned to the ANU where I met my husband. We were both doing history doctorates but ended up in the public service: he joined Foreign Affairs in 1979, and I joined the Education Department (aka DEET, DEST, DEETYA, DETYA) in 1985. There I worked mainly in a research job alongside a team of economists.

Our first posting was Singapore, to which we took 6-week old Lisa; Christopher was born there, and Owen in Canberra before our next posting, to Japan. (I married rather too late to follow my mother’s example of a child in every post and every space between postings, which resulted in nine children). We were also posted to Brazil (1992-1995) and most recently to China (2003-2006) and Brussels (2007-2010).

We’ve retired to a terrace in Sydney, where two of our children live (one is in London). A part-time online job polishing translations from Chinese for Social Sciences in China keeps my mind ticking over.