Scotch College

‘When we look back ....’

This speech won John de Ravin (’74) the NSW semi-final of a Rostrum public speaking competition. John then came third in the final – with a different speech! John also convened the national final of the 2008 Rostrum ‘Voice of Youth’, an event won in 2003 by Scotch’s Jeonghyun Kim (’03).

WORDS: Mr JOHN DE RAVIN (’74)

At 6.30 pm on Tuesday 29 July this year, I got off a tram, crossed Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, entered the Main Gates of the Senior School of Scotch College Melbourne, and started walking down the beautiful, tree-lined Sir John Monash Drive that led to the main school buildings. For me, this was a strange, even eerie experience.

But perhaps I need to start by giving you some background. I was born and bred in Melbourne, and there, between 1962 and 1974, I was a student for some 13 years at Scotch College, one of the country’s most fortunate private schools. In my last year there I was School Captain, the last School Captain of the School’s sixth principal, Colin Healey.

I loved my schooldays. I enjoyed the lessons – you’re going to think I was one sick puppy, but I even loved learning mathematics! But even more importantly the cheerful companionship of my many close school friends over the years was a huge source of fun in my life.

Music was strong at the School, and there were about half a dozen School songs, which 1500 schoolboy voices regularly belted out with great gusto and enthusiasm. I had a particular favourite. It had a stirring melody and was called ‘Forty Years On’. I could sing it to you – but that would be a cruel and unusual punishment, and what have YOU done to deserve a cruel and unusual punishment – but I think I am at liberty to recite the opening four lines, which were:

‘Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today,
When you look back and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play’

So maybe now you can appreciate the reason for my strange feelings that evening in July. You see, it was 1968 – 40 years ago – that I first entered the Senior School at Scotch. So now I was the person I had sung about all those years ago. It was my turn to look back, and forgetfully wonder what my life had been like, all those years ago.

It was a still, quiet evening; no one else was around, as the current boys and masters had gone home. In the half-light of the gathering dusk, as I looked around, I could see the old familiar sights.

Looking down to my left, I saw the wooded area we had called The Copse, where the naughty kids used to gather at lunchtime to flout the school rules by wickedly smoking cigarettes. Above me and to the right were the Boarding Houses and I remembered conversations and experiences with people who were important in my life, four decades before. Ahead of me was the Meares Oval, around which I had wandered many years before with an intellectual mate of mine called Rob McDougall, passionately debating the arguments for and against the existence of God.

I remembered some of the things that had happened to me during my school years. For example, when I was made a School Prefect in 1973, I was awarded the special School Prefect’s tie in morning assembly; after which, noticing that the tie was somewhat creased, I decided to iron out the crease. Knowing little about ironing and even less about the polyester material of which the tie was made, the first time I applied the iron to the tie I burnt a monstrous black triangle into my newest, proudest possession!

I remembered my warm relationship with the Principal, Colin Healey. He was a kindly, caring and extremely witty man, with a wry English sense of humour that wasn’t always appreciated. One time he was telling the General House Committee, a council comprised half of students and half of teachers, that a school principal was expected to be in command of every facet of school operations – financial matters, industrial relations, marketing, and even plumbing! He said that only recently a member of the school’s administrative staff had told him that the ladies’ lavatory wasn’t working properly, and could he please look into it!

I remembered, too, the 1974 Foundation Day Concert, when it fell to me as School Captain to make a speech in honour of the retiring Principal. It was only three or four short sentences, but I will never forget the atmosphere at the end of my speech, when 2500 people in the Melbourne Town Hall rose as one to give a resounding three-minute standing ovation to the retiring Principal.

Of course, my reminiscences on 29 July were very personal to me, but when I reflect on them, I think it is possible to derive a more general message that applies to all of us. Time and forgetfulness rob us of part of our personal histories, part of who we are, but we can regain that part when we look back and remember.

And so I wish that we will have an opportunity from time to time to return to the stomping grounds of our childhood and school days. I hope that those joyful experiences and happy memories that meant a lot to us, but which we had long forgotten, come flooding back.

When we look back, and recall to mind past loves, past laughter, and past achievements, we are reminded of all that we have been. By remembering our past, we are reunited with our younger selves, and we become more fully self-aware. When we recapture that self-awareness, we can live today and into the future with greater wholeness and confidence, and BE more fully alive. GS