Radschool

Newsletter

Vol 7

Page 2

Well the footy season’s over for another year, the two lots of games in Sydney have been and gone, no one was shot or blown to bits, we won tons of medals, the trains worked, everyone had a great time, much to the apparent annoyance of the commercial TV stations who had their crews out on the streets all hoping for the big one. Sydney has been cleaned up and everything is back to normal, it’s warm again, the birds are singing and the cricket’s started.  Ah—to be 20 again…..

Over the 3 months since our last issue, we made contact with a lot of blokes, and we’ve added quite a few to our back page which is once again full. We’ll have to go back to overflowing onto page 19 as we can’t compress the lines much further. While trying to contact some blokes, we found quite a few email addresses have changed, or some blokes have dropped off the net altogether. Please have a look at the back page, and if there's no @ against your name, and you’ve got an email address—please send us a “hello” message so we can update our files.

You’ll also notice that the number of names with a (§) is increasing—which is excellent. If we’re going to have a reunion, why not have a good one—the more the merrier, surely! But, we can do with more members, if you know anyone who is ex-RAAF and who was a mate of yours give us his/her details and we’ll send him/her a copy of the newsletter.

While recently reminiscing with Graham Silk, (see story page 15) we learnt that his eldest son is now 30 years old, and we figured that last time we’d met, or had actually spoken to each other, first up he didn’t even have a son, so it must have been more than 30 years ago (where’s the time gone!!), and secondly at the time neither of was as old as his son is now, and that’s unforgivable really. While in the RAAF everyone had a bunch of damn good mates—you borrowed money from each other, you borrowed your mate’s car (though I don’t remember too many people driving the Healey) you borrowed clothes (especially suede coats), you shared a room with, in a lot of cases, three other blokes, you picked apples together, chased girls together, burnt things, and some real good friendships were made.

But when you got out, (some didn’t and decided to make it their life’s work), in a lot of cases, contact was lost. Everyone went their own way, some continued with the trade they’d learnt, others went into completely different games, and we scattered all over the place, some overseas, never to return to Aust. But we can all remember, and that’s why this reunion is so important—to make contact again with blokes and blokettes that you haven’t seen for yonks, but who you knew so well and shared life with all those years ago. Although most people have been out now for a lot of years, the number of good mates we’ve made since then does not compare either in number or durability to those we had in that short period in the service. Funny isn’t it!!

It’s time we caught up again and swapped yarns on the lives we’ve lived since last meeting, and to recall some of the good times we had together. Everyone wants to know what old “what’s his name” has been doing for the past 30 odd years, is he married, is he still married, how many times has he been married, what’s he do, has he got any dough, has he got any hair, has he got his own teeth, has he got old, is he fat, what’s he drive—where’s he been for the past 30 years.

Next March we can have that chance to find out. We can plan and put on a “gooden” but it won’t be any good unless you come. We ask that you give it some serious thought over the next month or so, and we’ll contact everyone with email just after Christmas and see who is coming. If you don’t have email, please fill in the questionnaire on page 13 and send it back to us. And remember, as we said last issue, the most boring thing God ever made is a bloke’s only evening, this reunion will be a social event, so bring your wives, your ex-wives, your mate’s wife, your girlfriend, your boy friend—whatever, but  please don’t plan on making it a “Boy’s Own”.

We’ve been in touch with the RAAF Base at Amberley, re a conducted tour on the Saturday, and they advise that a week-day would be better, preferably a Thursday, but they haven’t ruled out the Saturday all together. The problem with a tour on a week-end is there will be no one available to show us around, and if you remember from your time in, as a fit young bloke with a ton of red blood pounding through your veins, the last thing you would want to do on a week-end would be to show a bunch of old bastards around your base. We’re still working on it though, and will advise next issue. Perhaps we can grab someone on CB—do they still have CB?? More info on events on page 18.

We’ve only got one more edition before March 31, and that is due out on the 28 Feb. We’ll try and get it out a bit earlier so we can let you know how things are going. In the meantime, have a happy, healthy and safe Christmas, and we’ll talk again next year.

This photo was sent to us by Ted McEvoy who now lives in the West. Ted thinks it was taken either in Feb/March 1960 at Frognall, and is a photo of 14 (Appy) Course - the last one to start at Frognall in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell. Ted says:-  “The course after ours (15Appy) started at Laverton following Radio School's move from Ballarat. The beautiful building in the background was officially known as "Frognall" but was better known to us as Bullshit Castle. The base was also the home of MTU (Melb Telecommunication Unit). We appies underwent 6 months of training before being split into two groups - the smart ones who stayed at Frognall and studied to become Sirs (Radio Officers) and us dumbies who went to Laverton to become erks (RadTechs).

Unfortunately, Ted has forgotten a lot of the names—can anyone help!!

Another photo from Tec McEvoy, this one of a bunch of 14 Appy blokes at a reunion held by the RAAF Association in Prahran (Melbourne) in 1990.

Uniforms.

Recent issue of the RAAF News showed the RAAF’s new uniform—which will be progressively supplied to people throughout Australia.  It looks like the bluey/grey present uniform is being replaced by what looks like that terrible old uniform that we used to wear ages ago—yep, it’s back to the blues….belt and all. Now that’s progress...