Photo of the Month: 1929 Malvern Grammar Fancy Dress Ball.
This remarkable photograph dates from 1929. An advertisement in the Morning Post newspaper highlights that the 1929 Plain and Fancy-Dress juvenile Ball was held in the Malvern Town Hall on Saturday, July 6 to aid the funds of the Malvern Church of England Grammar School, Willoby Avenue.
NOT A CLOSED WORLD: A FORUM FOR POLITICAL OPINION.
In the past month, the Federal election has been in the forefront of our lives. And it reminded me of the efforts made by Caulfield students in the 1960s and 1970s to bring guest political speakers onto the campus for lunchtime forums to encourage student opinion and expression.
In 1966 for the first time, an extra-curricular activity of a political nature was established by Caulfield students, “The Political Forum”. Students with the assistance of staff, Bill Callander, invited guest speakers from three major political parties. Mr. Brian Dixon, MLA, gave the inaugural address on ‘The Dangers of Apathy;’ an address with almost no political content but encouragement for young people to become more involved in the democratic process of government. The 1966 inaugural student organizers were John Rowley, Ian Swart and Roger Frankel.
In its second year, the Forum invited guest speakers including John Foley of Young Democratic Labour, Andrew Peacock, Liberal MHR for Kooyong, J G Dickenson, State Organizer for Republican Party, Frank Crean, the ALP Member for Melbourne Ports and D Davies of the Australian Communist Party.
Also, Frank McManus of the DLP spoke on Trade Unions and Peter Frankel (Defend Australia Committee) and The Minister of Immigration, Billy Snedden.
Political Forum Secretary, Neil Edwards reflected in the 1967 magazine, that despite some ‘extremely meagre audiences’, the forum hasn’t failed in its objectives and ‘CGS is now a more politically conscious community than it ever was before.
In 1968, the Political Forum published a magazine, Incite, and offered speakers and a student survey and the address by Dr Jim Cairns, on ‘The Tet Offensive Prospects of a Settlement in Vietnam’, attracted much interest with attendance by both Caulfield and Shelford senior students. Limited space here precludes further analysis of the Political Forum, but its influence as an activity and voice for student expression was groundbreaking.
Archives Office and Services:
Homework: The Judo Club, 1957.
Many thanks to the past student Lindsay Yeates for suggesting names in last month’s online image of The Judo Club 1957. Of the eleven in the picture, from the left: (1) Kent Bacon, (2) possibly Peter Boston, (3) —, (4) —, (5) —, (6) —, (7) Don Napier, (8) Don Turner, (9) Jason Lea, (10) —, (11) Neil Bechervaise.
The photo was captioned in the 1957 magazine as , ‘Palmer and Holthouse practise a throw while the Judo Club look on’. See the April archives report here.
As always If you have any memories to share, questions, reference enquiries or offers of donations of memorabilia, phone (03) 9524 6249 and leave a message or email, archives@caulfieldgs.vic.edu.
Judith Gibson
CGS Archivist
