Bruce Donald writes: "Dear Jack, There are three or four simple questions which will confirm whether you are indeed yourself!! 1. Did you wear rather thick spectacles at school, carry an airways bag and prefer desert boots!. 2. Did you live at that time at West Lindfield/Bradfield. 3. Were you born in the Mother country. 4. Were you in the English class in the prefab in the Eastern Quad in 1958, Class 2C I think it was, teacher Culbertson or some such name and much more importantly, 5. Do you admit to exploding fireworks in a large cardboard box on your desk and demolishing the verandah wall??????????? If not, then you are entirely innocent of being Jack Moffett and regrettably you must be someone else!!" To which Jack Moffett replied: Hello Bruce, Yes to almost all of your questions however as a lawyer you should know that I cannot admit to the explosion even after 40 odd years.(is there a statute of limitations or something?) By the way, with respect to another e-mail that you circulated I unfortunately have not been a wheeler dealer in a bank and fortunately I did not end up in gaol. When I left school I worked in the building industry until the late sixties but then switched to a career in sales. For the last 20 years I have been working for my present company,Nilfisk-Advance, as National Sales Manager. I hope that I will be able to attend the reunion later in the year when we may be able to catch up on some more tales. Regards Jack "Whereupon someone (even I have lost track of the e-mails by now) wrote: "From which we can all conclude JACK MOFFETT LIVES! but refuses to own up. Perhaps his inevitable speech on the night as the star turn will remedy this! Presumeably he will read from Arthur Grimble and toss a few coins against the wall before blowing up the joint! OOPS continuing the heinous defamation Well done Rod" John Butterworth writes: "The teacher in question was (I seem to remember) one Mr Culverhouse (?) ; I vaguely remember one of us looked up the meaning of "culverhouse" in the dictionary and discovered it originally meant " a pigeon house" or similiar... I , along with all , await with bated breath the "..shy and somewhat retiring" Jack's confession to being one and the same... And, reminded by the allusion to blowing holes in things, how could any of us ever forget the immortal "Shack" in the SE corner of the eastern quad with its gaping hole in the floor (who dunnit??) and varous other bits missing /hanging off...plus I think it was also partly off its footings. This fondly-remembered structure was , no doubt, what gave rise by landmark decision to The Building Code of Australia and modern Occup. Health & Safety practice...And then there was the woodworking room next door where we learned to make straight pieces of wood crooked.. Ah, nostalgia! And the derelict metho.(ie methylated spirits) drinkers up around North Sydney Oval No.2 who used to approach us for a light of a morning when we were having a smoke to fortify ourselves. We would stand at arm's length offering the light - not because of the stench of their breath, but because we feared their exhaled breath becoming a human blowtorch... Memories,too, of Latin Honours classes with dark-spectacled Frank Hutchens with our small band (Hugh Storey, Loch Blackett,Raoul Mortley, David Levine J.,Rob Connell etc) where Hugh and Loch occasionally invented new words and inserted them in their translations being read out aloud (I think one was "febrile"?? Storey/Blackett: please correct me)- to see if they could call Frank's academic bluff.. He never did challenge them - but was he really listening anyway...? That'll do for now..time to go home! May the weather be blue skied for Tues 10th golf at Pymble! John Butterworth Rod Wise writes: "To jack kenniwell: yes indeed i remember ray whitehouse (or shitehouse, as a few of us used to call him). his confidant was glyndwr hubbard - now get your mouth around that one. Brian hendy and i had much to do with whitehouse in later years. His story is as follows: he and hubbard (and another of our colleagues who is among the emails) used to torment the hell out of a poor bastard called charlie troutman. Charlie was a yank, i think, and one year of raimondo and hubby seemed to be enough for him, as i recall he left at the end of first year. he should have stuck around, because so did hubby, returning with his family to the UK. Shitehouse followed soon after, being withdrawn from the school by his father, who was a pretty tough police superintendent, and was sent to Newington. incidentally, it was through dave ransom, an ex-newingtonian whom some of you will remember playing in those great Lane Cove rugby sides of 62, 63, and 64 that this, er. fruitful relationship with Shitehouse was resumed. he was a colourful fellow, who once made the famous statement that he intended "to build his life on sex" - his exact words. whether he did not or not is really a matter between himself, the judge and some of Dr pettigrew's clients. A digression! The last time I saw Shitehouse was in january 1966 when i spent time drinking with him on his way to a job interview with the old TAA. I saw him receding down the entrance steps towards a large sign reading "Toilets" - My last incredulous words which echoed along Philip street were: "You're being interviewed in there? how bloody appropriate." Subsequenlty ray's exploits would appear in strange, infrequent articles in the sunday papers - he had become a crocodile shooter based on thursday island - but i learned many years later, that most of articles describing him sitting in the dark with gun and torch at the ready had nothing to do with crocodiles, but were related to the inevitable a posse of enraged husbands in pursuit of his miserable hide. Most of them led by the strangely named sandy simmons. Now - one of those fact stranger than fiction stories - a few years ago, I got talking to one of the compositors at Fairfax would had served in the field artillery in Nam, and it happened that one of his closest freinds in the army had been the bloke court-martialled over the murder of graham birse. he also turned out, inexplicably, to be a mate of whitehouse's. so i met whitehouse for a few at the aussie youth in Glebe ( very close to the fateful briefcase incident referred to in an earlier epistle. Whitehouse, now, is into his second marriage, and was then quietly repairing fridges and washing machines in st mary's or rooty hill (no puns, please!). If he's still there I don't know, but you never know, he may be now living in Warrnambool." and "More on ray whitehouse. he always had a store of maxims on which he would draw whenever the appropriate occasion demanded it. Most were amusing, many were scurrilous, unfit for the ears of middle-aged gentlemen. One which I can repeat owes its origin to his father, he used to say. his father really was a big-time copper, a detective superintendent, no less. ray used to say that his father had told him there were only three principles for a good, clean, successful life: 1. ADMIT NOTHING; 2. DENY EVERYTHING; 3. DEMAND PROOF. Sort of takes the breath away a bit, don't it!" Bruce Hodgen writes: "Dr Ian G Pettigrew is alive and well in Warrnambool. He remembers the incident of being "blown up" in the quadrangle, but apart from that, has not given NSBHS much thought. He is interested in getting in touch and can be contacted: ianpettigrew@standard.net.au 03 5561 1950 (home) 03 5562 2601 (work)" Rod Wise writes: "I was talking to ian millyard in cairns this arvo. unfortunately, he does not have email, but his details are as follows: Ian Millyard, 109 Arlington Esplanade, Clifton Beach, QLD, 4879. (tel) 07.4055.3022; (fax) 07.4055.3560 He hopes to be able to come down for the reunion. Is there any way we can keep him informed with what's been going on without email?" When we fix on a date, there will have to be a mail out a to the brethren who are existing in this world without e-mails... Whether they are lucky or deprived is probably a matter of opinion (especially given how long this e-mail has become...) Tom Roper writes: I noticed Jack's comments. Unfortunately the financial crisis of 1990/2 was not nearly as profitable as Two Up and Pitch and Toss in 1957. With the old Lane Cove tram a number of us were guilty of putting explosives on the line and enjoying the conductors response. Bungers thrown from the moving tram also caused us great merriment but the reverse for passers by. By 1961 I was only visiting NSBH to lead the Hunters Hill debating team against the NSW champions." Rod Watts writes: "Thank you for all the information, reading some of the names from ' 61 brings back many mixed memories. As you are aware I'm living in W.A so geographically restricted in helping much with the reunion activities. A couple of names that spring to mind that don't currently appear on your list are: * Donald Colville - used to live in Castlecrag * Alan Chinner - used to live in Northbridge * Robert Wilson - used to live in Lane Cove, went to U NSW * Warwick Berecry (spelling looks wrong) used to live in Willoughby I'll try to get the grey matter into gear over the next few days." I think the consensus is that anyone who was "with us" between 1957 and 1961 qualifies for inclusion. Anyone who has any clues on the above might want to contact Rod directly: rod.watts@grd.com.au Finally, Marc Tompson writes: "I found http://www.alumni.net/Australia_-_Oceania/Australia/New_South_Wales/Sydney/N orth_Sydney_Boys_High_School using Google searching for North Sydney Boys High School. According to Google there are about 32,800 matches for this search but the alumni.net is on the first page as is the NSBHS website. There may be more interesting stuff but I have not yet looked. There are only 38 students in the group so far with only Rod Watts listed for our year. I guess my entry will be in the next update. (20 of the 38 names look to be asian and only 10 are prior to 1990). The US based service purports to maintain a database of e-mail addresses to help people get in touch with others. It is a free service that requires you to register your details to join. You then gain entry via your e-mail address and a password that you choose. It is tied to a service called jobs.NET which seeks resumes for broadcast and where I think they make their money. You can avoid this part but you cannot avoid being asked to choose from a range of "freebee" offers which I found a pain. You can eventually escape without buying anything or providing your credit card details." That's it, folks... (Do I hear sighs of relief....? By the way, if you send your messages to everyone (by copying the e-mail list into your "To:" field, then I don't have to circulate them.... Regards, Ron