Scotch College

The 1951 Centenary Foundation Day Concert

Recollections of the late Ken Luke

The following is an extract from a letter written by the late Ken Luke to the Old Boys celebrating their fifty year reunion, which he was unable to attend.

‘Early in 1951 I found myself in the lounge room of Dr. Archie Anderson’s home. Excitement had been in the air at Scotch for some time, because Scotch was one hundred years old and certain members of Scotch or of Old Scotch were preparing to mark the occasion in ways they thought most appropriate. I shan’t mention any of them specifically because I don’t want to risk leaving somebody or something out, and that would be against the spirit of that Great Year.The Centenary was for everybody.

‘I looked around that room in Dr Anderson’s home. There were not very many there, but there they were - Senior and very important members of Scotch College, past and present. I was about the youngest non-schoolboy present and, of course, not important.

‘Dr Anderson made a short introduction to the business of the evening. He told us that Scotch would celebrate the centenary in a way, which was to be admired by everybody and impossible to imitate for any who tried.

‘There were to be meetings, seminars, reunions and ‘Mr Luke will tell us what the plans are for the Foundation Day Concert.’
‘I had been wondering who was going to organise the Concert and had not heard anything except that it was to be in the Exhibition Building, and that the accompanying music was to be supplied by the 3DB Orchestra - about 50 musicians.

The music, led by Claude Monteith is for our musicians to write about.
Who better than Dick Shireffs?

‘There and then, I found I was responsible for everything else.

‘The Exhibition Building had been used in the proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia. I knew it had later been a public examination centre (I plucked up courage to speak to the young lady beside me after the exams and later married her. The marriage was 55 years ago and is still going strong). But nobody seemed to know how to cater for a concert audience of 7 or 8 thousand in that building. And anyway, where were you going to get seats, and how to arrange them and how would one find one’s booked seat in such a place?

‘The Scotch maintenance staff measured out for me the area available for seating. Even those furthest from the dais must be able to see. The acoustics were... reasonable!

‘There were Jonahs about. You’ll never find enough seats in Melbourne at that time of the year! They described that time as ‘The Season’ (culminating in the Melbourne Cup, a month or so later). However, there was nobody to ask, so it was a matter of one’s own judgement!

‘The scheme that seemed mathematically feasible was to have groups of seats with wide passage ways between one group of seats and the group’s north, south, east and west of it. So there were in each group 20 seats in each of 20 rows. Three of these groups could be fitted in across the hall facing the dais. Our maintenance staff gave most reliable and cheerful assistance marking out the areas where chairs were to start and where to end. Yes, I said ‘chairs’. I scoured Melbourne and collected quite a few!

‘Each group of seats contained 400 chairs. For an audience of 8000 there had to be 8000 divided by 400 - 20 groups arranged in ‘threes’ across the hall. That meant nearly seven rows of groups of three (1200 in each such row of groups of three, each group containing 400 seats).

‘It worked out. Imagine the excitement when the chairs began to arrive! Of course the senior boys (you people) quickly put the chairs in order. How I valued your help!

‘Each 400 chair group had a boy whose duty it was to stand as a marker. He had a letter of the alphabet on a sheet of drawing paper (courtesy of the art department). This sheet of drawing paper was on the end of a piece of 2x1 timber (courtesy of the maintenance staff), and was held up high enough to be seen above the heads of the thousands who hours later on were trying to find their seats. So the standard bearers (you people) had work to do, even though you only had to stand and wait. In the evening you went to those same places and held the standards aloft until the concert was ready to start

‘After the interval the standards were resurrected from where they had been hurriedly pushed under the seats, and they were temporarily held aloft again. Many wise people had ‘stayed put’, and so avoided having to re-find their seats! There was an amazingly short delay. That was the box plan as devised for the Centenary Foundation Day Concert. To make matters simpler we had printed a copy of the seating plan on the back of each ticket.

‘To each of the groups of 400 seats, a boy leader was appointed. He was given some boy assistants who had to learn their seats and where the seats were. This learning was essential and was very well done.

‘There were other things that had to be looked after. Perhaps you’d like to hear of one or two of them.

‘His Excellency, the Governor of Victoria, the popular Sir Dallas Brooks, had accepted our invitation to be present at this very important occasion concerning the very important Melbourne school. On the morning of the concert the Governor’s ADC and an assistant armed with clipboards put me through the third degree. Everything had to be just so. The plans were inspected, the route in and the route out were approved: some special sea-grass armchairs for the vice-regal party were approved; our Headmaster, Colin Gilray, was in the vice-regal party that night!

‘Who was to keep order? It was not part of your duty that night, gentlemen. Your chief duty was to lead the school and show, on this unique occasion, how thousands of Scotch Collegians can behave in public, away from campus. I still hear expressions of approval and pleasure about that - 40 years on!

‘There is a body of men known as the Corps of Commissionaires. There they were, in the phone book. The result was a force of braided, stern looking men positioned at strategic places throughout the hall. No worries!

‘Parking of cars was controlled and very efficient and good natured. The Fire Brigade was notified and officers posted in suitable places. Rumour had it that the Exhibition Building was Melbourne’s greatest fire hazard - the walls were insulated with sawdust!

‘Each year for the Melbourne Town Hall Foundation Day Concert, I notified the special Hall Police when our concert was due. I was told by the hall-keeper that only a few times a year was the Town Hall filled as we filled it. This time, I decided to tell Russell Street about our super concert. They took the details and said they would pass the information on.

‘When the concert was over, and my car was the only one left, my family and I stood outside the Exhibition Building looking up at the dome and at the moon - a scene of peace and quiet and a sense of satisfaction.
A police car came up. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Our School, Scotch College has just had its 100th anniversary concert. I told you about it. Rang Russell Street this morning. It’s all over now. No worries.’

‘We didn’t know about it. Russell Street didn’t tell us. You should have rung Carlton Police. That’s where we’re from.’

‘No comment!

‘My phone didn’t stop ringing for days.

One call was from Mrs Green, sister of Sir Robert Menzies and trustee of the Exhibition Building. I was to receive a call from somebody charged with putting on a conference in the Exhibition Building.

Would I help him? I did my best and told him what I had done. The callers were warm in their praise of the Scotch College Centennial Foundation Day Concert. The school had covered itself with glory, and the stated aims of the school had been translated into behaviour which most gratifying to well wishers of the school. That was what the phone calls told me.

‘The assistance and cooperation of my friends and colleagues on the Staff together with a measure of leg pulling and much warmth and kindness happily remain in my memory.

The pleasure you gentlemen gave us all fifty years ago will never die. Tennyson, speaking of bugle notes echoing around the hills, says the echoes eventually die away: but the poet makes the point that

‘Our echoes roll from soul to soul
And grow for ever and for ever.’

‘May I suggest that that is one way of describing those voices, of those Scotch College boys on that night!
Three Cheers for Scotch! Thanks for the memory.

A.K. Luke