tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post5492744961159614335..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Sunday Essay - Armidale: avoiding submergence in the localJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-78485587460222995402020-11-26T12:39:58.457+11:002020-11-26T12:39:58.457+11:00Hi JCW. I knew that you liked Armidale! More serio...Hi JCW. I knew that you liked Armidale! More seriously, this post morphed while I was writing it. When I began, I was thinking more of my own need to preserve a degree of objectivity, of broader vision including in my history writing, now that I was back immersed in a very local environment. It was also, I thought, a narrower environment than it had been. Then, and this is a reflection of local drag-in, it moved towards the need for Armidale residents to look more broadly.<br />I am well aware of your experiences and views on Armidale. Mine have been different, although I can understand your points! Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-73400755007379775472020-11-22T19:12:39.707+11:002020-11-22T19:12:39.707+11:00Oh JDB! So sorry, but I have to say that the 4 yea...Oh JDB! So sorry, but I have to say that the 4 years we spent in Armidale (immediately xtened Armihole by the boys) are probably the worst 4 years of my life. Intolerant, parochial, sexist (esp @ TAS, and esp by the old boys who went from TAS to UNE then back to TAS), and totally and completely unfriendly and unwelcoming. Armidale High was a pig's breakfast. Tim was bullied, humiliated and victimised, and repeatedly told (as were we) that he did not 'belong'. There were no facilities for special needs kids, or even just unwell ones. The only real bright spot was the couple of years I spent studying with, and working for, AK - possibly because he was also an 'outsider' who had taken a job that a couple of totally useless and unqualified nincompoops regarded as 'theirs'; their only claims to fame being that they had warmed chairs @ UNE for some time. Neither of them (and I think you know to whom I refer) had any ability, scholarship or performance skill, and certainly never published anything. Their little acolytes who gravitated to ANU showed the same lack of anything; legends in their own lunchboxes, but at least they didn't araldite the lock on the HOD's office out of vindictive spite. It's a reactive, closed minded dump -does everything still close at midday on Saturday -to protect the country town holiness of sport on Saturday and church on Sunday? I think it says much about the mindset that Barney Beetrooter is the Federal member.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com