Developing Belshaw's bucket list 1 - introduction

This photograph might be called Belshaw or an archaeologist up a tree! In fact, I was just seeing how hard it might be to shimmy up, something not helped by the boots I was wearing!

Sometimes I feel the need for a break from real, serious stuff. This is one of those times. For that reason, over the next few days I plan to run a series of posts loosely linked around the concept of a bucket list. I'm not quite sure how many posts there will be. That depends on my mood. I haven't a clear structure in my mind, nor a defined end. I just want to wander. 

Let me explain why I'm doing this.

On Thursday, I had an interesting discussion this morning with researcher Michael Bennett (@nthistorian)  from NTSCorp about our shared interests in Aboriginal history. 

NTSCORP Limited is the Native Title Service Provider for Aboriginal Traditional Owners in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The company deals with claims under national land title legislation. Michael's particular role as a researcher is to investigate the often fragmentary early records to try to establish and test connections between people and place.

The discussion re-inspired me in the value of my own work in trying to trace the Aboriginal history of Northern NSW across the last 30,000 years. I am reasonably sure that I have the basic framework right I am also convinced of the value of integrating multiple sources including the archaeological record to try to tell a story. However, it can be quite difficult maintaining enthusiasm focus when working so much alone.   

In our discussion, I referred to the work of my friend Caroline Chapman (@CarolynChapman1) in painstakingly collecting names and details of individual Aboriginal people from a variety of records. 

I greatly admire Caroline and her work This is a photo of Caroline (left) with our blogging companion AC at the Uralla Food and Wine Fair. They are, of course, drinking New England beer! The relevance of all this will become clear in a moment.   

Pioneered in Australia at the University of New England by researchers including Alan Atkinson and Norma Townsend, family reconstruction involves the detailed creation and analysis of family trees to inform details of past life that would not otherwise have been clear. The work is genealogical, but this is then used to inform historical analysis. Alan Atkinson's Camden is an example of the genre.     

This is very important in Aboriginal history in general and in the resolution of land rights issues because it often provides the only vehicle by which the past can be reconstructed. I came home from my meeting with Michael to find a Facebook message from Caroline that she added more names to her New England Aboriginal data base, bringing the total number of people mentioned to 562. She was also now working through the pastoral property records. In Northern NSW, these properties employed many Aboriginal people in the very early days.

I congratulated her and said that we must get together. She responded that she would provide the smoked trout! 

This is the link to the photo at the Uralla Food and Wine Fair because we all bought wine, honey and smoked trout. We would have bought more, but the Fair had been a considerable success, with many things sold out by the time we arrived. Still, I did come back with smoked trout!

This afternoon in what must seem a total segue, I went to see TAS play Newington. in the rugby. In the thirds competition, TAS Firsts beat Newington Thirds 24-0. 

I have written a little bit about my return to watching my old school play rugby, including my sense of shock at just how big the boys were. When I played, I was both heavier and faster than average, giving me an advantage, especially in my favourite role as break-away. Now I would be a smallish forward, even at schoolboy level.

When I began, it seemed all very strange for I knew no-one. Then I started writing for the Green and Gold Rugby Forum on the Thirds competition. 

This photo shows today's match between TAS and Newington. TAS in the Blue and White. Again, the relevance will be clear in a moment.

Initially, Green and Gold was simply an on-line forum on a topic of interest, something that kept me involved. It was still strange going to matches on my own at at which I knew no-one and then coming home to post. 

Slowly a momentum gathered. In my own small way, I became a name connected with my old school. Last year, I wrote the first ever Green and Gold report on the thirds competition. Today in its own small way was a new advance, for I watched the game with Newington parents, Sam and Andrew. Sam is a poster on Green and Gold. When I commented about my solitary habits, she suggested I watch with them. That was good. 

I said that this was a rambling post. These various events have crystallized a sense of dissatisfaction based on my own inability to take advantage of the so many opportunities open to me. Very specifically, I worry about and sometimes cannot do anything about the big things when the smaller things offer so many possibilities.

Caroline's smoked trout is a case in point. There is absolutely no reason why I can't schedule a trip to Armidale to visit the archives, to see Caroline to catch up on our work while eating smoked trout and drinking New England beer or wine. It's just a focus thing!  

I will continue the story in my next ramble.        .     

Down with school - Latin lost or, in my case, never found!

In my post on on Denis Wright (Denis Wright's ten life rules) I mentioned the Latin phrase Carpe Diem. This led to a response from a friend, JC, that I brought up as a postscript and now quote again in full:

A friend advised me that the phrase comes from Horace Odes Bk 1;No. 11 -The Latin reads: dum loquimur fugerit invida aetas/ carpe diem quam minimum credula postero. Now for those like me who have either done no Latin or forgotten whatever they learned, she also supplied an English translation:  "While we speak, envious time will have fled. Suck everything out of today, don't waste your belief in the time to come."

There you have it, adult education care of JC. I must tell you about my final failed attempt at Elementary Latin some time.

This led Evan to comment that he did one term of Latin in high school. The one phrase that
he could remember from from the period was "the elephant doesn't catch the mouse".

Now I note that Evan did not provide the Latin, just the English. Mmmm, as another friend might say, but I'm in no position to talk. The Latin that I failed to learn far exceeds the Latin that I have forgotten! Mind you, I do remember if only one set of sentences that I had to translate into Latin while doing Elementary Latin. "The sailors landed on the shore. The sailors followed the girls into the caves. The farmers chased the sailors from the cave." In those more chaste days, we were never asked to translate what might have happened in the middle.

kvd took a different track:

Well, to be sure, I had thought that JC spoke Aramaic - if not Hebrew - but if you say Latin, then who am I, etc.

My Latin was learned over four years whilst drearily trudging around Britain, in company with JC (the other one); as he subjugated, I conjugated. And I continue my interest via Blackadder's lackey, as he digs up various bits of olde England with shovel and 'geo-phys'.

But the end result was good, or at least ok: I scored an A as one of six in the SC, but was left wondering to this day why a word such as posterity (something about the future) can in any way be associated with one's bottom (posterior). Can your personal JC ellucidate?

All of which is to ignore the main point of your post about a fellow whose continuing sang-froid I much admire. Except I think that's actually french, so I guess you'd better consult another JC - Jacques Cousteau.

(There's an awful lot of these JC's floating around - no?)

I had no choice but to study Latin, It was compulsory for the first three years of secondary school. Oh dear, conjugation. Do I still remember what it means? Not sure. By the third year, or 5A as it was called in the nomenclature of the time, I was meant to be able to translate Latin. Unlike kvd who trudged around Britain with that other JC, I was at least in warmer climes. But I fear that my attempts to make sense of Caesar's The Alexandrian Wars were, at best, imperfect. Sad but true and to the frustration of my teachers, Messrs Mattingly, Rupp and Kitley.

Now one of the phrases from the period that had a certain resonance was "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres". All right, I take mercy. It means "All Gaul is divided into three parts" and comes from Caesar's Gallic Wars.  In this case I'm being a bit naughty in giving you a link to the original. Busy man, that Caesar.

Why should this have a certain resonance. Well, one of my favourite books from the period was Ronald Searle's Down with Skool!, a book that sometimes had a striking resemblance to an institution with which I was familiar. The book includes a series of cartoons showing an increasingly battered pair - a Roman and a Gaul - trudging past each other in, I think, the Alps.

Years later in second year university. friend Brian persuaded me to enrol in Elementary Latin as an extra. Although I got my marks up to (from memory) the low thirties, this was not one of my academic successes. It remains the only university course that I ever failed. By contrast, it proved a considerable vocational success for Brian, needless to say he passed well, for years later he would go on to become a Roman Catholic priest.

Still, it wasn't all wasted from my viewpoint. There were only two of us in the class. the classes were quite fun, and our tutor (Peter T) proved to be a pretty good cook.

Postscript.

Neil drew my attention to this post, 1957 or MCMLVII. It starts with Caesar's Gallic Wars. Apparently, Latin was Neil's third teaching subject.

Sunday Essay - first kisses and missed opportunities

Sydney has continued wet, I fear. Again woke early thinking about my various deadlines. Sigh. Instead I settled down in front of my computer to browse through the offerings of some of my fellow bloggers. I didn't get as far as I should, I got sidetracked, but I want to share one memory with you.

Ramana wrote of his memory of his first kiss (Story 2. My First Kiss. and Story 2. My First Kiss – Sequel.) Now as it happened, I had been talking to a female friend immediately before this. I told her a story from my professional life. She laughed, and said that she had been just eleven at the time. Oh dear!

My first kiss was a peck stolen from MW on the front verandah when I was at primary school. I knew about kissing in an abstract sense, it was hard to ignore given books and media coverage, but I didn't actually know what kissing was. So that first kiss, how shall I put this, was sudden, chaste and not followed up!

However, this wasn't what came to my mind when I read the story. In Saturday Morning Musings - Goat and rhododendron & other nostalgia, I spoke of that girl I met on the boarding school train. This was to be a serious crush.

After train trip, I next met her at the school athletics carnival. This is an actual shot from that carnival,' the one hundred yards. I, am I think, in this photo but no where near Rick Howe (first) or Rollo Manning (second).

We wandered along the bank. Plucking up my courage, I said may I write to you? The two schools are only a few k from each other, but that was a different world. She said yes. So, and innocently, I wrote to her every week. I say innocently because I wrote on school letterhead and put the letter in a school envelope. Now that made the letter totally identifiable in the intense environment of a girl's boarding school. Everyone knew that she had a boyfriend at TAS!

That year finished. She returned to Sydney and I started university in Armidale. I wrote her for me what was a fairly passionate letter. A month later, she and her parents called in at home on their way though. She and I were standing in the kitchen. I got your letter, she said. I gulped. Our parents were in the next room.

What would you do? I wanted to kiss her, but my inhibitions got the better of me. That wasn't quite the end of the story. but it was a missed opportunity. And, to this day, I still feel a bit silly. Ah well.      

3 May 1917 - remembering a family death at Bullecourt

The Second Battle of Bullecourt began early on the morning of Thursday 3 May 1917[1]. The offensive had originally been intended to support a failed attack to the south.. The French attacked on 15 April 1917 but failed. However, both British and French leaders agreed to continue operations, one of which was a combined British and Australian attack on the Hindenburg Line around Bullecourt where the previous attempt to capture and hold sections of the German line had failed so disastrously on 11 April 1917. The objective was to capture the railway embankment at Reincourt, thus damaging German transport while opening an immediate front beyond German fortifications.

The battle was a confused one. Two hours after it started, the centre of the 2nd Australian Division had reached its second objective, but with troops barely able to hold it, let alone to push onto Reincourt at the scheduled time of 6am. Around 7am Colonel Murray and some of his men from the Australian 18th were pinned down in shell-holes facing O.G. 1, the first of the defensive lines. CEW Bean, the official Australian War historian, described the following events in this way:

A little later, Lieutenant M. C. Drummond (Petersham and Leichardt) N.S.W), the intelligence officer of the 18th Battalion, succeeded in reaching from the rear the shell-holes in which Colonel Murphy and a number of men were lying in front of O.G.1. On learning of the situation Murphy decided to attempt the rushing of the trench. On rising to make the charge, however, the gallant Drummond, a sergeant, and two men were instantly killed. Seeing others also fall, Murphy gave the order to dig in and hold on.[2]

This view of Morris (photo) was shared by others. On 6 May 1917, three days after Morris’s death, a fellow officer (Lt. Jim Harrison) wrote to brother Will: “Maurice was ... the most fearless officer in the Battalion, he was exceeding his duty at the time, very typical of him.”

The story that ended here began in 1914. On 4 August, Britain declared war on Germany. The Australian Prime Minister declared Australia’s support the following day, offering an expeditionary force of 20,000 men to serve in any destination as required by the Home Government. On 6 August, London cabled its acceptance.

There was a rush of patriotic support for the war. On 25 August 1914, Will, the oldest of the Drummond boys, enlisted[3]. It had been an agonizing decision. His Christian beliefs would not allow him to take life, but he also felt that he must do his duty. His solution was to join as a stretcher bearer: 'I have tried to play the game and to live up to the ideas Jesus has set before me', he wrote to Morris on the day of the Gallipoli landing (25 April 1915).

Morris and David Drummond did not enlist immediately. The three brothers had agreed that David, as the only married one, should stay to be in a position to look after their sister Ellie should that prove necessary. Later, when David did try to enlist, he would be rejected twice, probably on the grounds of his deafness. He couldn’t have heard orders in the battlefield din.

For Morris's part, he followed events closely, finally deciding in August 1915 that he too must enlist. “Perhaps you will not be altogether surprised”, he wrote to David in August 1915, but I have felt it coming on - like a bad cold... while I have the conviction that men are really required I cannot hang back and let someone else carry my bundle... I've taken the step and hope it won't be labour in vain, but at any rate I've no delusions about the fun and glory of it.”

Morris was offered an immediate commission, but declined it.. His sister recalled later that officer training would have delayed his passage, and he also wanted first to know something about the men he would command[4].

I wondered about this, for family stories are always uncertain things and especially long after the event. However, the official Australian War Memorial form required for inclusion in the Roll of Honour includes this reference: “Refused to accept any promotion in camp & again in France until he had served in a battle.”[5] The information was supplied much earlier by Brother William, but is consistent with his sister’s recollection.

Based on this and other records, Morris was clearly a remarkable man.

The death came as a huge blow. The three brothers had always been very close, with Morris and Will forming a close knit team providing support to both David and Bid (the brothers' pet name for sister Ellie). Throughout the war Morris had written regularly to David; cheery letters full of details, such as descriptions of French farming methods, intended to interest the younger brother. However, they also gave a clear picture of the hardships and dangers associated with the war.

Brother William survived the war. He was repatriated home and had to spend some time in convalescence. The photo shows him during that period. For his part, Morris’ memory as a remarkable man was carried down through the generations to this day. 

---

[1] C.E.W. Bean, 'The Australian Imperial Force In France 1917', Volume IV, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1933 p412f

[2] Op cit, Note 88, p456

[3] The Australian Army's Central Records Office (CARO) provided original enlistments details for Will and Morris Drummond. (CARO to author, 5 February 1982.)

[4] Interview with Mrs Morris, 1 October 1982

[5] Australian War Memorial Records, http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/records/awm131/awm131-15-0676.pdf, accessed online 3 May 2017.

Reflections on the death of Peter Brownie

Tomorrow is Peter Brownie's funeral in Newcastle, Sadly, I will not be able to attend; it's just too difficult getting there.

From time to time on this blog I have written of the importance of good teachers, of teachers who have an undying influence and who remain etched in our memories. I am sure that if I asked you, you would remember a teacher or two who had a major impact on your development. Peter was one such teacher.

Peter came to TAS (The Armidale School) in 1952, staying there until 1969 when he left to become Head of Wolaroi College, Orange. Peter was active in all parts of school life from theatre performance to coaching the school First Fifteen in Rugby. The following photo shows Peter in pretty characteristic pose during a 1962 First Fifteen match.  

In Rugby, I watched Peter from afar. I was a long standing (several years) member of the Seconds as a front rower, second rower, lock and break-away; the last was my favourite position. Peter did try me at one training as hooker, but it wasn't a success. He wanted me for my comparative size and speed, but I really had no idea and kept pulling the props down.   

My increasing contact with Peter came via the academic sphere. I was a bookish child, an omnivorous reader, but also one whose school results were poor. There were reasons for that, but the end result was that I got five Bs in the Intermediate Certificate, then just four Bs including geography in the School Certificate the following year. Not deterred, Peter asked me to do geography honours and enrolled me the small geography honours class. Then he did something far more cunning, although I only came to realise this later.  

The honours course focused on Asian geography. He gave me books to read. Not school geography texts, but the leading scholarly publications on Asian geography. Have a look at this, you might find it interesting. I didn't have to write essays or anything like that. He would just ask me later what I thought. He asked me to help form a school geography society. He told me that I should use diagrams to explain relationships, to write to the diagram. Those are my words now, I am sure that he put them more simply.

The Trial Leaving Certificate came some eight months into this process. My B in the School Certificate was replaced by a high level A. I have been waiting for this moment, he wrote in my report. A few months later I scored first Class Honours. I can't remember where I came, whether it was ninth or eleventh in NSW.

My parents felt that at sixteen I was too young to go to University even though I had a Commonwealth Scholarship. I was to repeat the Leaving. Peter, knowing me rather well, said you are going to be bored. Why don't you pick up economics and economics honours? You should be able to complete the two year course in twelve months. I did, and again gained first Class honours. I didn't do quite as well, coming in somewhere around thirty second in the state.

I lost contact with with him after that. I had gone to Canberra, while he left TAS in 1969. We finally met again in 2006 at Alex Buzo's funeral. We talked. Peter said that when he first came to TAS the salary was low, but the head (Gordon Fisher) told him that his sons would be able to attend the school for free. Several daughters later, Peter appeared in a review wearing a tap, explaining that despite all his efforts he still had no-one to put him put it it on!I also learned for the first time that when Peter began teaching economics he knew nothing about the subject and in fact relied on Dad who was Professor of Economics at New England for subject knowledge to keep him just in front of his students.

We did exchange a few emails after the funeral, but I was tied up with family matters and things drifted. Now, of course, it's too late. I regret that. But I can at least record my admiration and affection for a man who did so much for me.  

Katy Waldman and the sometimes influence of our twenties

Today I had intended to write about politics or economics or, perhaps, a combination of the two! Instead, I got sidetracked.

The long weekend edition of the Australian Financial Review combined the normal Friday and weekend editions. I often buy the Friday edition just to read the Review section  for its collection of longer pieces from around the world. This time, the Review reprinted a Slate article by Katy Waldman, The Mysteriously Memorable 20s. The subtitle gives the theme: "Why do we remember more from young adulthood than from any other time of our lives?" It's a well written piece, but it got me thinking. I don't think that she is quite right. At least, that's not been my experience. But then, the evidence may be drawn from what we think of as "normal people" as classified at points in time.

In saying this, I am drawing from my own experience, but also from the people that I have spoken to or even interviewed. My experience has been that people remember most vividly those periods of their life that have an emotional intensity both high or low that in some ways marks an important period of passage. Often, we do block out the bad. We don't forget about it, we just don't want to talk about it. But in many people's lives, the subsequent good is valued more highly because it contrasts with the dark night. We carry the scars always, we try to put those aside, talking about things highlighted by the black unseen light of the dark past.

As both a reader and writer, I am fascinated by biography. The thing that stands out to me, the fascination, is simply the complexity of it all. In many western societies, we have forgotten how unstable life is. What we think of as normality is not normal at all.

Just take Australia in the twentieth century. At Federation, many parts of the country had just emerged from a great depression. Drought was raging, affecting people in ways outside modern ken because so many were directly or independently dependent on the land. The Great War began thirteen years later, with Australia suffering some of the highest casualties relative to population of any of the belligerents. The Great Depression followed twenty eight years after Federation, then ten years later came the Second World War.

The new Australian migrants and especially the million plus displaced people, what we would now call refugees, who came to this country were focused on survival, on recreating life in a new land. In conversation or interview, they did talk about the past prior to the war, ut did so because that more peaceful time was a relief from what was to come. And, even then, it was not clear-cut. They didn't say that their values or scripts were formed in childhood or in their twenties, but in the meld of their earlier memories with the horrors that followed.

By contrast, those born locally during the war or afterwards were the lucky generation, the first to experience a really long period of relative piece and prosperity. The nearest previous equivalent was the long period between the depression of the late 1840s and that of the crash of the late eighties, also a period of relative peace.

So I'm not sure about the validity of Katy's writing or the research on which it is based. I think that it's validity is time dependent and depends upon circumstance.

As a final aside, the nearest equivalent period to me in terms of her model is not the age twenties at all, It is the time from which I entered what is now called grade ten until I graduated from university and started work in Canberra. I was then twenty one. That early working experience and the life of a young relatively well paid single in Canberra in a share house far from home was another right of passage. But it was different.

My own life has been a series of chapters marked by sudden book-ends, abrupt shifts. If I was to apply some of Katy's questions, I would say that the period with the greatest long term impact on my values and attitudes was my school period. My views have changed considerably over my life, but I think that the statement is still true. And I left school at seventeen after repeating final year because my parents thought that I was too young to go to university.

When I look at my daughters, I think that the same thing is probably true. I have no idea how they will remember their twenties, I will ask if I survive long enough, but at twenty three and twenty five, they are closer to Katy's generation. They also come from a very different generation to mine. And that, I think, should be my end point, for our views are formed by our times.  

Old school photos & modern electronic clutter

Old photographs are dangerous things. This photo of my second Leaving Certificate class, I repeated the LC even though I had a university scholarship because  my parents thought me to young to go to University  was emailed to me today and really took me back into a now distant past.We are having a reunion this year and I hope to go to Armidale for it next week. I am second on the left in the second back row.

Tonight I had dinner with Clare at her place, a share house. As I looked around the place I was struck by the contrast between the world of that school photo and the modern life style. And no, this is not an exercise in nostalgia although this particular trip down memory lane was triggered in part by initial nostalgia.

Some things remain the same; books, clutter, if not the art works in progress. Others are very different. Perhaps the biggest single change, the one with the greatest behavioural implications, is simply the volume of electronic clutter. I tried to count the pieces of electronic kit in the house, but lost count at about eighteen items.

One behavioural effect lies in the way that the devices affect household dynamics.

After coming to Canberra, I lived in a share house for the first four years and then again a little later. Shared houses, especially mixed sex share houses, were less common then. My mother in particular was fascinated with stories of shared lives. We used to congregate in the lounge room where the TV was. Now people are much more likely to be in their own rooms playing on or with their electronic kit. And then, even when in company, they do the same!

This is not a critical comment, merely a social observation. I accept that I have odd tastes. Only someone with odd tastes would spend time on public transport counting the number of people doing what out of the total carriage! And yes, at least in Sydney, hand held mobile devices dominate. I don't quite know what people do with those devices, although I know eldest window shops! You can't really learn over and ask.

Aymever Days 2 - getting started

Continuing the story from Aymever Days 1 - genesis, Denise came up to Armidale first, while I sorted out a few things in Canberra.

Based on my policy experience, I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted to achieve.

One of my complaints in Canberra lay in the impact of fragmentation, what we would now call siloing. There were two common approaches then adopted.

The first focused on small individual sectors, so that we had things with names like the room air conditioner industry. It was quite impossible to have sensible policies at this level of disaggregation because  there were so few real policy instruments available.

The second approach was the deal with big lumps such as manufacturing as a whole. I found this approach inadequate for two reasons.

The first lay in the variety across such a huge slab. Policy always has differential on-ground effects because people and firms respond to Government actions depending on their circumstances. The greater the variety in circumstance, the greater the divergence in actual outcomes. If you base policy on averages without taking variety into account, you will always get perverse results. 

The second reason was convergence. The old models then (and now) deeply entrenched in thinking go back to the industrial revolution and a now ancient industrial past. We have primary, secondary and tertiary. We have people who make or grow things, those who provide services to them.

Dealing with the electronics, aerospace and information industries, it was already clear that  convergence meant that the old models and the policies and statistical constructs based on those models were becoming increasingly irrelevant. A new approach was required that would allow for better integration.

The following diagram taken from the Aymever brochure shows our industry structure model. Further comments follow the diagram.

If you look at the diagram, you can see how we tried to integrate sectors around common relationships. Remember, the brochure was published around August 1989 and incorporated earlier thinking. If you look at the block containing broadcasting and television, you can see how we are already integrating that sector with information and communications services.

We began operating out of the family home at 202 Marsh Street, using one bedroom, the study and front verandah as space.

That immediate period is wrapped in nostalgia in my mind. I remember taking Denise to the hospital to have Helen and then coming back when it was clear that the birth would be delayed. I had a sleep in our bedroom just off the study while our people worked away.

Soon after Helen's birth, Denise and I went out to dinner. Coming back, the fax was spitting out pages. We were working on a large space bid in conjunction with a UK firm and had sent them material during the day. Now the responses were coming back. There was something wonderfully exciting about this, and I settled down to do a quick response.

It's one thing to have an industry model in mind, but how do you make money out of it?

The next graphic shows our services diagram.

We centred our services around the sector as defined with a sufficiently wide range of services to give us a chance of commercial viability. I believed in research and depth of knowledge, so we needed a basic research function. If we were to have that, then we might be able to sell research and contract information services. Information services as such were just coming into vogue. Later, we would add training services.

In growing a new business like this, you have to define who to recruit. I chose a mixed model.

Because there were few people in Australia with the generic skills we needed, we would recruit core staff young and train them up. We would then combine them with experienced associates who had the very specific skill sets we needed to complete particular tasks. 

We started with part time research and industry analysts, with the initial training sessions around the dining room table. Because we were industry specialists, the initial training focused on the electronics, aerospace and information industries. I then added product knowledge. All training had to be done from scratch.

Every staff member whether administrative of professional had to have a core knowledge. This included a detailed understanding of the workings of government.

I remember talking to Kathy Hall's dad at her wedding.

The wedding stands out in my mind not just because it was Kathy's wedding, but because of the links with then young Helen. To let Denise sleep, baby Helen and I used to watch Rage together. By the time of Kathy's wedding, I knew every one of the current songs. Most were played at the wedding!

At the wedding, Kathy's dad commented about her growth in knowledge, about the way she could talk about things that he struggled to understand. What did we actually do?    

The company grew like topsy. In 1987-1988 we generated over $250,000 in fees. By the time the brochure was printed in August 1989, monthly fees had passed $75,000 and were growing steadily.

The next photo shows part of the team at work in our new board/conference room. The caption reads:

The Company's approach to undertaking any assignment is to assemble from its Staff and Associates a team of specialised personnel with the mix of expertise and experience most appropriate to the client's needs. Here a group is working on the Australian Industry Involvement Package of a major defence project bid.    

Further comments follow the photo.     Pretty obviously, there is a degree of puff in the caption. But it's also true.

One of our big projects was the development of the industry component of Telecom Defence Systems bid for JORN, the Jindalee Operational Radar Network. This is an over the horizon radar system still central to Australia's defence.

This was pre-email days. Our Armidale team was working with teams in Adelaide and Melbourne. Material came in by fax and went out by fax. We prepared material and faxed it. It then had to be re-keyed at the other end.

The bid was successful. One side effect was that a key staff member included in the above photo, Andrew Davis, left us to join Telecom as the JORN industry program manager. We had trained Andrew from scratch, and it was a loss. Mind you, that's not a criticism of Andrew, just a reflection on the standard of our training!

Everything seemed great, but problems were about to emerge.    

Musings on photos past 5 - Leaving Lancashire

It is, I suspect, something of a curse to be blessed with an interest even obsession in family history. It is more of a curse to find that one's own agendas have in fact been set by a family past, agendas reinforced by the very act of discovery.

To set a context for what follows, a modern shot taken in September 2011 showing me beside the big Maori war canoe in the Auckland Museum.

I am probably one of the few people who have sat in this canoe, at least in modern time.

I mentioned Uncle Vic Fisher in my last post, Musings on photos past 4 - Puhoi & Tahekeroa. He was curator of ethnography at the Auckland Museum and took my brother and I in one Sunday when the museum was closed and allowed us to sit in the canoe. I must have been around eight at the time. 

In an earlier post on family history I said that the Belshaws were an Imperial and Commonwealth family. Doesn't that sound grand?  Well, it's not quite like that. We weren't an imperial family like, say, the Murrays. Rather, we were a family to whom the Imperial and Commonwealth connection opened up opportunities, a small family that spread across the dominions.

This photo was taken in, I think, 1935 or 36. The inscription on the back reads "You are quite welcome to two cups of tea at 103. when you come over ER." I think that it was sent to Dad just before he left for England on scholarship.

Walthew Lane is one of the Belshaw streets, Platt Bridge along with Ince and Abram are places where the Belshaws lived. All are suburbs of Wigan.

This is the gritty world of industrial England. The card was sent just before or around the time writer George Orwell stayed in Wigan in February 1936, researching the book that would become The Road to Wigan Pier.

By now, my part of the Belshaw family had broken out of the industrial poverty trap. Emigration and education were central to that. The next photo taken in Auckland (New Zealand) in 1943 shows three generations of Belshaws. In front is grandfather James Belshaw, behind him Uncle Horace Belshaw, then Horace's son, cousin Cyril. By now, my father was living in Armidale.

James Belshaw was born on 6 February 1867. He started work at the pit head and went below ground at eighteen. He was the third generation of Belshaws to do so. He remained working there until sometime after his marriage at the age 30. His wife, Mary Pilkington, was a weaver in the mills at the time of her marriage.

Today we are used to mass education. We forget that this is quite new. My great grandfather James Belshaw's likely wedding certificate (27 June 1850) has only marks, no signatures. When my father visited his Aunt Ellen in 1936, his father's elder sister explained that her inability to write meant that she had lost touch with her family.

Grandfather James Belshaw could write and seems to have been ambitious, as well as strongly religious. He left the mines and became a greengrocer.     

On Monday 3 April 1905 he stood for the Abram Council as a candidate for the new Labour Party . A leaflet produced by him stated:

Reasons why you ought to vote for Belshaw.

1. Because he is a life long resident among you.
2 Because he himself is a working man.
3. Because he goes in for Direct Labour Representation.
4. Because he is the choice of workers.
5. Because he Disbelieves in Cliqueism.
6. Because his Principles and interests are identical with yours.

In July 1905, a bit over thirty years before Orwell visited Wigan, James Belshaw sailed for New Zealand. This family photo was taken in 1905 before his departure. In front is Uncle Horace (b1898), with Mary holding Aunt May. (b1904).

The family followed a little over twelve months later. My father was born in New Zealand in 1908.

I have always wondered a little if the family would have broken out of the poverty trap had they stayed in industrial England. I suspect they would have, but I doubt that they would have had the opportunities that opened up in New Zealand.

Given their backgrounds, my Belshaw grandparents had a strong belief in education. They also focused on security. All three children initially became teachers, a secure job. When Horace as eldest wanted to give up a secure teaching position to become a WEA (Workers Educational Association) tutor, his parents were distressed. Later, they opposed my father's desire to become a journalist.

I can understand my grandparents' concerns. They knew industrial England, whereas the children had grown up in the more open environment of early New Zealand. They had a different perspective, although my own father's concerns about job security were deeply entrenched.

I am out of time today. I will continue this post tomorrow.

Dreams past: Collective Wisdom, education & the NBN

This post today is a personal historical piece, However, it is also one that has a certain relevance today in the context of the NBN and other discussions on the application of new technology in education.

The following photo dates from February 1996. The scene is the Armidale Town Hall. The event, a Collective Wisdom Project Demonstration. This was the last major thing I did in Armidale before joining the family in Sydney. The photo shows kids and teachers, set against the backdrop of old and new technology. The bearded chap in the background is Martin Levins, head of IT at The Armidale School. He was the brains behind the exercise. Further comments follow the photo.

Background

In the middle of 1987 I left the Commonwealth Public Service to establish with my wife a new information, training and consulting business in Armidale servicing the electronics, aerospace and information industries. I had been arguing that Australia had a future in these new industry areas, so was putting my personal money where my policy mouth had been.

I met Martin Levins soon after my arrival in Armidale. He was then head of IT at TAS and was driving the school in the direction of new technology. Under Martin's influence, TAS was a very early adapter of new communications and computing technology.

One of the things that we were trying to do was to grow the Armidale base in the new technologies, drawing from University of New England staff and graduates. This meant a big education role, for we had to train our people and popularise the opportunities. As part of this, Aymever combined with Martin and his then business partner Tom Pollock in 1987 to mount in a local pub the first ever display in Armidale of multimedia, the English Doomsday project, itself one of the first global demonstrations of the potential applications that we now take for granted.

Aymever grew rapidly. By the end of 1989, we had seventeen staff, a monthly fees base of over $80,000, clearing $8,000 after operating and start up expenses. We were then hit by the pilots' strike (we had to travel all the time to get business) and by the sharp downturn of 1990. While the Australian economy itself actually bottomed in mid 1991, the business services marketplace collapsed much earlier. Over the first months of 1990, national fees dropped by a third. Our own fees fell from $80,000 in December 1989 to a bottom of $29,000 in March 1990. We bled money, loosing $190,000 over calendar 1990.

We clawed our way back. By mid 1991, revenues had reached record levels, but we were now carrying heavy debts. We then hit a very large bad debt that forced retrenchment and finally led to us appointing administrators in 1994. Even though we had work in place and good prospects of further work, the administrators closed the business a week after appointment.

I mention this history for several reasons. It sets a context for what follows. Further, the rise and then fall of Armidale's nascent high technology and associated services sectors is of itself indicative of a broader Australian collapse. by the end of 1989 there were more than a dozen Armidale start-ups employing several hundred people. All this vanished over the next few years.

Genesis of the Collective Wisdom Project

As a strong exponent of the new computing and communications technologies, Martin developed the idea of a communications network linking Armidale schools - private and public - that would assist sharing of resources and promote new approaches to learning. He had already tried many of the ideas at TAS and had been helping train people in other schools and especially Drummond Memorial Primary School. He began negotiations with Telstra on one side, the University of New England on the other, for UNE had its own ideas and was also negotiating with Telstra.

The next photo is another shot from the Collective Wisdom Project Demonstration contrasting the old and the new.

For my part, I had reestablished as an independent consultant still trying to follow the same dream. As part of this, I was project managing the bid for funding for an Armidale based cooperative multimedia centre under the Commonwealth Government's Multimedia Program.

This was proving a frustrating experience. Beyond a small grant given to all the NSW contenders, we could get no State Government support. UNE who should have played a lead role was in a state of turmoil that came very close to forcing the university's closure. Martin himself was experiencing similar problems in gaining UNE support. The University wanted to do its own thing, but just couldn't deliver anything.

In frustration and knowing that in the absence of something radical we were doomed by metro myopia and the NSW disease, I decided to take the New England CMC concept alive to try to provide proof of concept. However, we needed something dramatic to show that what we had was not just hot air. For that reason, Paul Holland (my then industry analyst) and I joined with Martin to try to support the creation of the Collective Wisdom network.

The Collective Wisdom Demonstration Project 

It was clear to all of us that we needed something to showcase just what was possible. Locally, we needed full involvement of the schools and university. More broadly, I wanted something that might break through indifference in Sydney and Canberra, that we could invite people too and gather support.

In retrospect, the demonstration project we came up with was remarkably ambitious. Remember, this is 1995. It involved:

• An exhibition in the town hall in which hundreds of primary and secondary school kids would combine to create web pages from material sent in via phone from groups at their schools
• To attract interest from locals, an exhibition of education past to contrast
• With the whole thing watched live from a NSW Government Centre in Sydney.

The next photo shows some of the participating kids, these ones from the New England Girls School.

We had very limited resources to do all this.

Telstra was one sponsor, and undertook the required network connections. Because of its own problems, UNE could not help in any real way. Paul and I effectively worked full time on the project for several months, while TAS provided considerable support. This included making the IT lab available for training purposes,  kids were trained at night in the week before to ensure that they had the required skills, as well as the supply of kit.  

The next photo shows some of the TAS boys at work on the day.

The demonstration was a considerable success, although we hit very real technical problems.

One that we did not make public at the time is that Telstra could not get the dial-up network to actually work. Instead of doing it all on-line, we actually had to courier material from the schools to the town hall! 

The Aftermath

Before outlining the results of all this, another photo, this time of the PLC girls at work.

In a way, the results for all this effort were not good.

We did not get Commonwealth CMC funding. Attempts to create cooperation among Armidale schools foundered on a simple practical reality that, with UNE cutbacks and the consequent decline in Armidale's population, all the schools were competing for a diminished student base. Without a strong support base and some cash, the establishment of a network at that time was just too hard.

At a purely personal level it cost me an arm and a leg, for I went well beyond the point that could be justified by any personally rational payback. And yet, and even though it all appears as a few words on my current CV under community, I cannot regret it.

You see, we actually showed what might be possible with the proper application of technology. Fifteen years later as the NBN is discussed in abstract, as a set of theoretical possibilities, I remember the Armidale Town Hall on that day in 1996.   

CSIRO & industrial development

This photo was taken some three years after that in A PhD student, 1983. It is on a CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation) lab visit looking, I think, at a new piece of semiconductor equipment. The photo was taken by a CSIRO photographer.

I have lost both the beard and a fair bit of hair! The beard had gone for female, not career reasons. At this stage I was having too much fun to worry about career issues!  The hair loss was involuntary.

It's quite a high powered group. I am sorry that I cannot remember the name of our guide, but from left to right.

At back left, Dennis Cooper. He was then 2IC in CSIRO Radio Physics, and was appointed head in 1988. To his right is Tommy Thomas who ha been appointed Foundation Chief at the new CSIRO  Division of Information Technology in 1985. In front is Dr Bob Frater who was then Chief of the Division of Radiophysics and also Director of the Australia Telescope Project. The Australia Telescope opened in 1988 and is the premier instrument of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Bob Frater maintains that it was the Mills Cross experience that:

• provided him with the insight to marry up astronomical instrument development and related industry development that proved so important later in obtaining funding and building the Australia Telescope
• gave him an appreciation of the huge spinout benefits that come from meeting the demanding needs of new instruments.

In 1988 Bob became head of the newly created CSIRO Institute of Information Science and Engineering (a group of CSIRO Divisions) and then Deputy Chief Executive, CSIRO in 1999. Further comments follow the photo.

    

We had a close working relationship with CSIRO for we regarded it as a critical player in our attempts to build Australia's place in the global electronics, aerospace and information industries. However, our approach was not quite the same as that holding today.

One of the things that used to (and still does) frustrate me about some of official colleagues and especially those in Treasury is the generalised application of universal models.  

I was concerned with a practical question.

The electronics, aerospace and information industries  - all those industries based on electronics and systems and including services as well as manufacturing - were clearly going to be global growth drivers over the next two decades. Australia's performance in these areas had been very poor. What could we do to turn this around?

The four most pernicious universals that we were trying to deal with were:

• Australia's comparative advantage lay in agricultural and mining. We should not be trying to create new industries outside those areas. They would fail. Australia did have comparative advantage in those traditional areas. However, that of itself need not rule out other options. Our analysis showed that Australia as a whole performed badly on key indicators (trade intensity, trade diversity) as compared with countries with comparable resource endowments. Comparative advantage as such could not explain that performance. Other factors must be involved.
• Let the market decide. This combined comparative advantage with neoclassical nostrums. Our analysis showed that in an imperfect world, competitive as compared to comparative advantage was often created through state action. There was no evidence that simplistic application of free market nostrums in a globalising world could of itself guarantee any form of optimum outcome.
• Horizontal is good, vertical bad. Policy measures must be universally applicable, not tailored to varying needs. We tried to point out that diversity meant that a universal measure was in fact vertical because its on-ground application created differential and often persevere results. By contrast, vertical measures could be better tailored. As a current example, look at the continuing failures in policy towards Australia's indigenous people. 
• Results for individual policies must be measurable in advance. We were trying do new things, to create a climate for growth. We could not be certain that individual things would work in advance. Our focus was on totality with constant adjustment through experience. A measure of failure was inevitable.

There are always questions of balance in these things.

I mentioned in my last post my reaction to existing industry assistance measures, that crazy patchwork quilt of tariffs and other assistance measures that, to our mind, had had such a devastating effect on Australia. We considered that we were dealing with a globalising world, that Australia's best chances lay in a world of reduced trade barriers, that free markets and competition gave the best results. We focused on the best adjustment processes.       

In looking at CSIRO, there were two very different world views.

In the old view, CSIRO was practical, existing to provide the benefits of scientific research to Australian development. The new world view accepted this, but added to it a generalised overlay focused on narrower commercialisation. The question now asked what not whether or not CSIRO research would or had benefited Australia in a general sense, but whether the best direct commercial returns on individual discoveries had been achieved.

We were concerned with general questions, but our focus was on our industries. Just as CSIRO research had so benefited Australian agriculture, we now wanted that research to benefit the electronics, aerospace and information industries. The question of the direct return on specific research activities was related, but different.

The true pioneers, and I would include Messrs Cooper, Thomas and Frater in this, are those who pursue dreams and are driven by passion, by curiosity. They may play the game, but this is a means to an end.

Another such was Ken McCracken. He had a vision of Australia in space, of the benefits that might be offered by things such as remote sensing. I quote:            

As Professor of Physics at Adelaide University between 1966 and 1969, Dr McCracken led a team that pioneered X-ray astronomy of the southern sky with instruments launched on Skylark rockets from the Woomera Rocket Range.

In 1970, Dr McCracken was founding chief of the CSIRO's new Division of Mineral Physics in Sydney. His first official task was to attend a research meeting in Canberra which was preparing Australia's response to a NASA invitation to make use of satellite images of Australia obtained by its recently launched Earth Resources Technology Satellite (later renamed LANDSAT).

"I knew nothing about remote sensing, but I had been building satellites for 15 years and knew of the enormous revolution satellites had brought to communications," he said. "It was clear to me that if somebody could put an eye into a satellite orbiting 800 kilometres above the earth, it would be another sea change in technology. "I was also attracted by the physics involved in satellite images - it seemed to me that it could overcome some of the limitations of conventional aerial photography."

From 1970, Ken pursued his vision. In the early 1980's he became concerned that Australia's space industry was fragmented and lacking direction, and had already missed out on commercial opportunities that had been seized by other Western nations.

In, I think, 1984, Ken persuaded CSIRO to investigate the establishment of a special office of space science and applications. A working party was established. I was invited to join because CSIRO had just been transferred to the industry portfolio. One outcome was the CSIRO Office of Space Science and Applications.

I am not making any claim as to responsibility. Ken selected me because of my official connections, because he knew that I would be sympathetic as indeed I was.

In 1995, Ken won the Australia Prize for his work on remote sensing. And yet, and I am sure that Ken would agree with this, the sense of lost opportunity remains. Perhaps I should let Ken have the last word in his remarks on the prize:

Dr McCracken said the CSIRO administration of the 1970s must take some of the credit for the award of the Australia Prize to his team. "They set the broad research goals and stipulated that I and my colleagues should develop the techniques and instruments the industry would need 10 years into the future," he said.

"At first, much of what we did was against the industry wisdom of the day, yet after half a decade, the industry was using virtually all our research results and making a major financial contribution to the research program".

"Because Australia was among the first countries to develop these new techniques, the minerals exploration industry gained an enormous competitive advantage over the rest of the world".

"It would not have done so if it had been forced to import the technology, or if research had started three years later - in practical research, the early bird really does get the one and only worm".

"Anticipating the technologies of the future is a very tricky business and very few people have the ability to do so. I was lucky to answer to a very small, stable group of scientific managers - leaders, really - who possessed that rare skill and who had the confidence to back young Turks like me".

"I believe Australia has scientists today who are just as good and who are thinking about what their client industries may be doing in the future. Some will be right, others will be wrong, but Australia has to accept this as a cost of progress. Industries must also be prepared to take a chance and invest in their own future".

"Research is the key to the competitive industries of the future. The key to our future is that the very best of our research minds should be harnessed to deliver what our industries will need ten years hence. The challenge for our research managers is to know what to back when everyone seems to disagree with them."

A PhD student, 1983

Once again, Denis Wright managed to bring a smile to my face with his two post story. The Melbourne Cup and Mr Gudekunst 1, The Melbourne Cup and Mr Gudekunst 2. It was just so Australian.

I needed a smile.

In an earlier post I mentioned shifting boxes associated with a move to a smaller storage shed. Further sorting, including photos, continues. It is all part of my attempt to clear out elements of my past life, to consolidate, to try to move forward.

The process gave me a bad back. As I said, I simply can't lift heavy book boxes with the gay abandon I once could. Gay abandon is the wrong phrase, of course. There is nothing gay about shifting more than one hundred boxes! Still, at least those who do it for a living don't have to worry about the subsequent sorting!

Sorting in this way brings back elements of my past. I guess that you can expect to get a bit of that past as the process continues. 

This photo is from mid 1983. Comments follow the photo.

I spent 1981 and 1982 in Armidale on leave working on my PhD thesis. I met Denis there; we saw each other daily in the staff room that History shared with English and Drama.

At the start of 1983 I resumed work in Canberra as an SES (Senior Executive Service) officer in the Department of Industry and Commerce.

Initially I worked with Noel Benjamin on a special project for the Bureau of Industry Economics on the economic feasibility of a Pacific Free Trade area, an idea being pushed by Doug Anthony, then Minister for Trade and Deputy PM. Somewhat to my surprise, we concluded that the idea would benefit Australia, although the barriers to implementation were enormous.

After a brief period back as head of my old Economic Analysis Branch, I took over the Electrical and Metal Products Branch. This was my first full exposure too the crazy patchwork quilt of assistance measures protecting Australian industry and I did not like it.

I had already developed ideas as to what I thought was wrong with industry policy. Now I firmed them up through exposure to the minutiae of industry assistance. My new role was to be short lived, for I had been appointed to create a new branch focused on Australia's high technology industries, the Electronics, Aerospace and Information Industries Branch.  This reflected the Department's view that too many resources were tied up in smokestack industries.  

I spun off the main branch, and started building a new branch focused on one section concerned with computer hardware. In doing this all this, I essentially had to build from scratch.    

While working, I still had to complete the PhD. To do this, I worked from the back room at home (Ross Road) supported by Sue Rosly, my housemate, and her friend David.They were great. They proof read, vetted my arguments and focused on consistency, a major task in a large document.

This photo taken by Jim Somerville, someone who has appeared in various posts, shows me at work on the thesis. The books behind are some of those I used.

Armidale vs Canada in Rugby 1960

I became completely distracted this morning. I had intended to write a short post on a completely different matter, boxing in fact. I went searching for a photo to illustrate and found the following. Comments follow after the photo.

The year is, I think, 1960. A Canadian school was visiting Armidale and, unusually, played a combined Armidale schools team in Rugby. This is the only time I can remember a combined Armidale team.

As I remember it, the TAS (The Armidale School) First XV was away. This gave us lesser minions a chance to play. It was quite fun. Playing for combined Armidale Schools was good in itself, but so was the chance to play in a big match.

I think that we won, but I can't remember the score. I do remember the long grid iron passes the Canadian back line used. It's a bit like the kids from Aussie Rules playing areas who ended up playing Rugby at school or university in Armidale. Their kicking was very good because they carried skills across.

Last year I went in search of the Canadian school plus any record of the visit. It was just one of those sidetracks that we are all prone too. After hours, I could find nothing. Now, by accident, I find a single photo posted to the TAS photo archive. 

Postscript

I said that I was distracted. A related nostalgia (history) piece - Armidale school life, 1890s.

A bearded Belshaw

Cousin Jamie has been posting some new photos from Aunt Kay's collection.

Oh dear. I showed this one to eldest, who rudely remarked at the way my hair was swept to conceal my bald spot!

That's true, but I focused more on the beard and hair length. Oh for so much hair, and it's black!

I can't spot where the photo was taken, I just don't recognise the furniture.

We all go through phases in our life. I miss my bearded phase. It was a time when I was breaking out.

I was confident enough not to worry what others thought about the beard. That was when I started buying Australian old books and paintings, when I wanted to write, started keeping a writer's diary.

Memories.

UNE passings - death of Alan Treloar

Jack Arnold advised in an email:

It is my melancholy duty to advise that Mr Alan Treloar, former UNE Reader in Classics, passed away on 220711.

Dick Passey advises that the notices was in the SMH on Saturday 230711.

Funeral arrangements are by Piddingtons Armidale telephone +61 2 6772 2288.

A grave side service will be held in the Anglican section of Armidale Cemetry at 1000 hours 29 July 2011.

Would you circulate to all relevant persons in your network.

I know that many Wright College men and the University community more broadly will have fond memories of Alan. It is another passing from  what many think of as UNE's golden age. I am sure that there will be full obituaries in due course. I will link to these in a post on my New England blog.

Postscript

I am getting a fair number of hits on this post, and still haven't seen am obituary for Alan. In the meantime, I have found this career summary on the Carey Grammar web site. 

Alan Treloar, T. D., M. A. (Oxon & Melb.), D. Litt. (U.N.E.)

Dr Alan Treloar is one of Australia's greatest living philologists and classical scholars. He has established an enviable universal reputation as an academic who combines the qualities of meticulous and exhaustive research with a profound understanding of the formal principles of language. He is in international demand for expert advice on a vast number of ancient languages - Hittite, Sanskrit, Akkadian, Sumerian, Ugaritic, Eblaite and many others - and his interests extend to modern languages as well. He is too modest to put an exact figure on the languages with which he is familiar, but he admits to a 'nodding acquaintance' with approximately eighty. He has published and lectured in many countries and is regarded with esteem and respect by scholars world-wide.

Alan Treloar attended Carey from February, 1929 until December, 1936. He was Dux of School in both 1935 and 1936. He then studied classics at the University of Melbourne and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to New College, Oxford, in 1940. The outbreak of World War II prevented his taking up the scholarship immediately. He saw distinguished service in the Middle East and was awarded the Territorial Distinction in 1957, subsequently confirmed by two clasps, in 1963 and 1969.

Alan had a distinguished career at Oxford and returned to Australia to lecture in classics in the University of Melbourne, in which position he remained from 1945 until 1948. Then followed Assistant Lecturer in Ancient History in the University of Nottingham (1949-50), Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Humanity, University of Glasgow (1950-59), Warden of Hytten Hall and Reader in Classics, University of Tasmania (1959-60), Master of Wright College (1960-66), Reader in Comparative Philology, University of New England (1966-84). Though officially 'retired', Alan still takes students and advises on a host of academic matters as well as maintaining his reading and research.

The catholicity of his cultural tastes can be gauged from his major publications: Horace the minstrel (1969), The importance of music (1967), An Anzac diary (1993), Electronic antiquity (1993) and Lyra (1994). He married Bronnie (dec. 1991), herself a distinguished academic, in 1945, and they had three daughters, Ann, Megan (dec.) and Jean.

Alan Treloar has made an outstanding contribution to the academic and military life of our country.

Postscript

Trevor Evan's obit of Alan has now appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Atlas Shrugged the Movie

I see that part one of Atlas Shrugged, the Movie, is due out soon. I am looking forward to it. The trailer follows.



I read Atlas Shrugged first at secondary school. I knew nothing about it, it was just on the shelf, so I read it as a novel. I found it a but turgid in spots, but got involved in the story. I then read it again a number of times while at school and at university because I had become interested in the ideas.

I suspect that many of the book's later proponents and indeed Ayn Rand herself might be surprised at the conclusions I drew from her ideas. I read the book in complete isolation from any US threads of thought. I also read it in the context of my Christian beliefs, family traditions and the political and intellectual tradition that I came from. It remains one of the most influential books that I have read, influencing everything from my political views to my approach to public policy and to management.

I have deliberately not looked at any of the arguments around the film, although again I can guess, nor have I sought to read the book again. I internalised it a long time ago, and I don't want current arguments or even my current thought to distort my perceptions before I can put them down 

A personal memoir on Mel Ward

Dear memory is an imperfect beast. I saw from the Sydney Morning Herald that Mel Ward had died and wanted to write a short companion piece to the obituary by David Jellie with Les Kilmartin. To do this I really wanted some dates to provide a framework, but could not remember them properly. A web search provided some information, but not the critical dates I needed. Very frustrating.

I won't repeat the whole obituary, but I do need to give you a few facts from it to set a context.

Melvyn Keith Ward was born on December 12, 1941, in Mackay, Queensland. A very bright man,he graduated from the University of Queensland in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in engineering with first-class honours and the University Medal in engineering.

In 1965 he joined the Telecom Research Labs, rising through the ranks to become Telecom's chief general manager In 1984 and then managing director. He left Telecom towards the end of 1991 to pursue board and community interests. This included board membership and then chair of the Australian ballet.

Mel's later period with Telecom was a period of fundamental change in the Australian telecommunications sector. I want to focus on this period.

My relationship with Mel was a professional one. I did not know him well in a personal sense, although I saw him quite often for a time. Balding, he was a very tall man with a slight stoop and a habit of leaning down slightly to listen. I found him very likeable, although he sometimes displayed impatience with views that he thought were silly. In my roles he was just pleasant to work with, very unlike some of the CEO bully types.

I first met Mel when I was Assistant Secretary, Electronics, Aerospace and Information Industries in the Commonwealth Department of Industry and Commerce, later Industry, Technology and Commerce. From memory, I think that he had just become Telecom's GM.

In my role, I was responsible for advising on industry policy towards a very broad sector that included telecommunications equipment. We also had a focus on integrating equipment and services. To our mind, the old and rigid division between manufacturing and services had been invalidated by technological and structural change.

As part of our industry development approach, we had sent a series of references to the Industries Assistance Commission on the broader electronics industry, including telecommunications equipment. This brought me in contact with Mel, for the local telecommunications equipment industry was critical to Telecom in its delivery of services.

Operating in a remote country with a small domestic marketplace and a population distributed across a vast continent, first the old Post Master General's Department and then Telecom had effectively developed their own industry policy. They needed a local industry that would meet their needs.

As the sole purchaser, their approach determined the structure of the local telecommunications manufacturing sector. There were good and bad aspects to this.

On the good side, PMG/Telecom had an industry totally focused on meeting their needs, that could support them. On the bad side, Australia had a largely overseas owned industry whose total focus was on meeting the needs of a single domestic customer.

From my perspective, this had to change. If we were to grow the electronics, aerospace and information industries, then we had to have global focus and global growth.

The strategic importance of the telecommunications manufacturing sector to Telecom meant that our activities as policy advisers were of considerable interest to the organisation, leading to a steady stream of Telecom visitors, including Mel.

Two things quickly became clear.

The first was the engineering and technical competence of Mel and, more broadly, Telecom as a whole. As a simple example,  the work Mel did led  in part to the world's first computer-controlled digital telephone exchange, built in Melbourne in 1974.

One day I would like to see a proper history of the Telecom Research Labs. In a small population country, the work done by the big labs - CSIRO, DSTO, Telecom Research Laboratories, the AWA Labs - was critical. Telecom's technical competence was important not just in local service delivery, but in the disproportionate contribution Australia made to global technological advance and to action in areas such as standards and standardisation within telecommunications. 

The second was Mel's and Telecom's commitment to local industry. It wasn't just a matter of organisation need, but an emotional bond. Herein lay a problem from our perspective.

By global standards, Telecom was a leading edge customer. However, the Australian industry was dominated by foreign owned firms. Telecom supported local industry, but was focused on its own immediate needs. This meant that the technological advances flowing from Telecom's work did not lead to a growing local sector servicing international markets. Instead, they facilitated global multinational growth. L M Ericsson's global success in digital exchanges rested heavily on Australia, but did not benefit Australia beyond the gains coming from the equipment installed here.

What we tried to do in response, and failed, is beyond the scope of this memoir, although I will return to it in another post. For the moment, I just note that Mel was prepared to discuss issue rationally, to listen to alternative views. Further, Telecom itself was prepared to do things, to make changes. This became an important element in our plans.

The strategic position that Mel faced as Chief General Manager and then as Managing Director was complicated in the extreme.

He knew that Telecom as an organisation had to make changes - from his appointment to his departure Telecom reduced staff from 93,000 to 69,000. He had to deal with staff and unions in making those changes. He knew that Telstra was facing fundamental global change. He also had to deal with politicians and public servants in Canberra, many of whom knew nothing about telecoms, but applied generalised economic nostrums independent of market and industry realities. It wasn't an easy job!

In the middle of 1987, I moved to Armidale to set up a business providing consulting, training and information services to the electronics, aerospace and information industries. In essence, I was putting my money where my policy mouth had been. I had said that these industries had a future in Australia. If so, I should be able to grow a business supporting them.

Once we started, Telecom quickly became one of our two biggest customers. For the record, I should note that I did not leave the Commonwealth Public Service with Telstra as a base customer. It took some time and a lot of investment in industry research before we gained our first contract with Telecom.

At our peak, we were doing work for five different units within Telecom, supporting a team of six full time staff equivalents, probably the largest telecommunications research group in Australia at the time. Our first and lead customer was Terry Cutler, then head of Telecom Corporate Strategy.

While we did a range of projects for Terry, our biggest one was the development of a qualitative model of the global communications environment. This involved an analysis of the strategic focus and investment patterns of the top fifty global Telcos, looking for common elements and key trends, then matching this with our general industry and economic analysis. Our focus was on the implications of convergence.

We got some things wrong, but we did accurately predict key trends within telecoms over the following fifteen years.

I didn't have a lot of direct contact with Mel over this period. However, I certainly understood the challenges that he was facing.

My last direct formal meeting with Mel came a little before his resignation.

Because of the work that I had been doing, a number of units asked me to be key note speaker at unit meetings. Here in discussion I found common and constant concerns among staff about Telecom's direction. I knew that some of this was inevitable, but there were also common threads that could be addressed.

While I was not now in direct contact with Mel, I rang him and arranged to see him in Melbourne for a briefing.

It actually wasn't  a very good meeting because I was focused on providing information, whereas Mel was thinking of responses. Further, he was operating under constraints. However he was, as he had been at the beginning, unfailingly polite.