Scotch College

What they're doing now ...

Scotty Macleish ('46), pictured right, was in Thailand during July, where he holds a Knight Commander of the order of the White Elephant! Congratulations to Scotty for winning the 150 tie Competition.

Justin Butterworth ('91) Rent-A-Home Managing Director, is currently getting back to business after September 11, and after many of the Information Technology businesses collapsed.

Rent-A-Home is currently Sydney's biggest local Executive Leasing Property Management, and suffered a slow period due to September 11.

Corporate rentals are improving, as the finance sector is leasing properties in Fingerwharf and Woolloomooloo and can reach $3000 per week. Fully furnished Chatswood and North Sydney were popular among the IT sector, and paid between $800 and $1100 per week.

Many Corporations use this service, including some of the top 100 companies around the country. There is a strong Internet base with 60% local renters using the Internet, and there are constant enquiries regarding relocating their families or renovating their homes. Justin is a great example of Old Scotch Boys utilizing their IT skills in the broader community.

Bruce Thomas ('55) recently retired after 38 years with the CSIRO. He attended Scotch from 1950 to 1955, when he commenced an electrical engineering degree at Melbourne University.

During the course, Bruce was awarded the John Monash Exhibition. He then studied for a PhD degree, specialising in antenna technology. Following the award of the degree in 1964, he joined CSIRO Division of Radio Physics in Sydney as a Research Scientist to undertake antenna developments for the recently completed Parkes 64m radio telescope.

In 1978, Bruce became responsible for interacting with industry by providing both research and project management skills, principally for earth-station antenna developments for satellite communications.

In 1987 he was awarded a Doctor of Engineering from the University of Melbourne for his contributions to antenna technology, and in 1995, was awarded the Sir Ian McLennan Achievement Award, and Clunies Ross National Science and Technology Award for contributions to industry.

Before his retirement, Bruce was responsible for interacting with the Western Australian Government in the search for a radio-quiet site for the next-generation international radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.

Bruce is looking forward to catching up on reading, particularly history, and to undertake some travel.

Rob Auer ('85) It is not difficult to imagine that Rob, with his part-Austrian heritage, was born with skis on his feet. By the age of 13 he was competing internationally firstly in America and then in Europe. At 14 he won a New York State Giant Slalom competition at Lake Placid. Soon after he was competing against world champions on the European circuit. One of the youngest members of the Australian team, he was also amongst the top ranked.

After a stellar sporting career, separated from the ground by snow and moving very fast, he adopted a more serene status at University reading Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies followed by postgraduate studies in Film and Multimedia, which surprisingly became the prelude to a career as a consultant in business systems analysis.

Throughout Rob has embraced his passions; travelling and skiing, mainly in Europe; film and music. Now he is studying a Masters degree in Diplomacy and International Trade at Monash University and perhaps will then bring a variable to the theme 'that diplomats skate on thin ice'!

Frank Stuckey, Alec Lyne and Bernard Mendel (pictured right) are Scotch College's three Senior former members of staff.

Bernard Mendel, Frank Stuckey and Alex Lyne

Frank is aged 96, Alec is aged 92 and Bernard recently celebrated his 90th birthday. The photo was taken at Frank Paton's funeral. Frank was on the staff from 1947 until 1971. He was also an Old Boy of the School from 1919 to 1924 and died at the amazing age of 95.

Frank Stuckey (1959-1971) was also an Old Boy from 1918 to 1924. He taught a variety of subjects including Economics and Commercial Principles and Practice. He was a tennis coach and had previous teaching and business experience in Hong Kong.

Alec Lyne (1942-1974) was also an Old Boy from 1924-1928. He was Senior Geography Master and an English teacher.

He produced the school play for 20 years. Prior to teaching at Scotch he taught at Brighton Grammar for 9 years.

Bernard Mendel (1941-1978) taught German and French and was ultimately made the Master in Charge of Languages. Prior to teaching at Scotch, Bernard taught at Launceston Grammar School and Geelong Grammar School.

Adrian WR Edgerton ('97), is currently back packing around the Middle East. He has just visited Gallipoli and soon will be heading to Egypt. Then he hopes to be working in Innsbruck during the northern winter.

John Rothfield ('71) , better known as Dr Turf, is a regular on ABC TV's The Fat on Monday evenings, as well as appearing on 3AW's weeknight sportshow.

Simon Hosking ('97) is living in London and has a contract with Morgan Stanley Investment Banking. He shares a house with Tom Withers, also from the class of 1997.

James Goold ('81) You may have heard in the public press recently about the racing yacht, Excalibur that was miraculously found 280 nautical miles off the coast of NSW in September this year.

What you may not know is how miraculous the find really was. Australian Territorial waters reach only to 200 nautical miles, and the search planes were limited to this distance in their attempts to find the yacht, and hopefully a live crew.

A private plane was chartered to search beyond the 200-mile limit, and a salvage tugboat (navigation officer James Goold) set out from Sydney in the hope of recovering the 3 missing crew, and the million dollar yacht. The plane spotted the yacht 120 nautical miles away from where it was thought to be and reported its position, but could only stay with the drifting vessel for a short time, owing to fuel restrictions.

Excalibur had capsized, the centreboard appeared to have sheered off, and there were no visible signs of life. It was feared that the crew had drowned, but there was a slim hope that they were alive inside the upturned hull. The yacht continued to drift in a meandering 3.5 knot current. Within 24 hours, the tugboat reached the last reported position and the yacht was nowhere to be seen.

James set about plotting the estimated current shifts through the time intervening between the sighting of the vessel, and set course for a new estimated position.

Once reaching the new position the yacht had drifted and could not be sighted, so he set up a search pattern. Eventually, they spotted the upturned vessel approximately 280 nautical miles off the coast, nearly 120 nautical miles from where it was last seen. It was swamped and almost completely submerged, with only a few feet of the white rudder protruding in a sea of white-capped waves and a 3-metre swell.

The accompanying pictures (above) will give you some indication of what a miracle this feat was, simply to spot the yacht in the vast sea. Divers were deployed to look for survivors, but tragically all crew members had disappeared, feared drowned and to this day have not been found.

By early the next morning, the seas had settled to make conditions easier for the divers to work on the boat. The yacht's boom was recovered, but the mast snapped off and vanished into the depths approximately 5,000 metres below. The yacht was secured under tow, and during the first night, righted itself.

A five-minute silence was observed and a special prayer dedicated to all seafarers.

The tow was suspended and airbags were inflated beneath the vessel to raise it out of the water enough to start pumping water out and float it again. Eventually the yacht was emptied of enough water to tow back to Sydney at a snail's pace.

The whole operation took about 7 days, and success was sadly limited to the recovery of the vessel. The crew of the salvage boat and OSCA would like to pass on their deepest sympathy to the families of Excalibur's crew members lost at sea.

Ross Johnston ('63) in the words of the School song faces "forty years on growing older and older" next year.

Always competitive, Ross has never agreed with those sentiments, and at 56, and newly a grandfather (to son Roger, class of 1991), has recently added roller blading to golf, tennis, jogging and swimming, after giving up cricket in his mid forties.

He has adopted a portfolio approach to business since quitting the ANZ bank as boring six years ago, and as well as his Career Mentoring consultancy, and business interests in several companies in valuation and investment areas, he is a licensed antique dealer collecting and selling antique maps and prints, and occasionally a piece of his wife, Lois's, restored furniture. Ross is also chairing the steering committee for the Mentoring Program for OSCAnet.

He is not bored now, and plans to keep up this balanced approach to work and enjoyment, for many years yet.

Class of '92

Interesting to see three members of the class of 1992 making their mark in the competitive Victorian Real Estate Industry. Sam Tresise (Hocking Stewart), Cameron Edgoose (Noel Jones) and Tim Picken (Jellis Craig).

Kel Baxter ('69) has been nominated for the Weekly Times Farmer of the Year competition. Kel has grown the 690 hectare holding started by his father in Berrigan to a business which now involves cropping up to 5,000 hectares, and keeps 12 prime movers and 25 trailers on the road. He runs the operation with his wife, Marilyn, and his son Glenn and employs up to 40 staff during the busier times of the year.

Mark John ('92) made an appearance at the recent class of 1992 10 year reunion. Mark is currently writing and producing music, some of which features on the current Aria's charts. He has had a number one hit with Beautiful. He will be on tour this month with RUMBA, which features major artists such as Jon Bon Jovi. Mark played the trumpet at school with limited success and then was based in Japan for three years. He has DJ'd "all around the world and loves every minute of it".

A biography of Professor Richard (Dick) Downing ('31) was recently written by Nicholas Brown and published by Melbourne University Press.

Dick Downing was an extraordinary Old Scotch Collegian and Australian academic who made a significant contribution to economic and social policy for some 30 years. He was also very much involved with the arts community in Melbourne and he was Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission at the time of his death on 10 November, 1975.

He was stepfather to Colin Norman ('65), and his brothers Phil ('66), Warwick ('69) and Murray ('71), all of whom were at Scotch in the 1960s.

The title of the book is Richard Downing - Economics, Advocacy and Social Reform in Australia.