Old Photos – Peter
Given how thin I turned out, I was surprisingly fat as a baby. Seen here fighting a piece of paper. Not clear if I'm winning.
Basil was my maternal grandfather but he died when I was only six or seven while we were living in America so I barely remember him. I think this picture was taken in my grandparents back garden in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia).
This is almost as cute and realistic as Lan's photo wrestling the crocodile. I think this picture was taken in America so I was 5 to 7 years old but I don't know where MarineLand is, or perhaps was.
I lived at 4610 Reno Rd. Washington DC in 1969 and 1970 when I was 5 and 6. Here I am shovelling snow on Christmas Day 1969. It appears that my younger sister wants to join in but I am not willing to share the shovel.
The house had rear-lane access and here I am on stilts outside the garage. The shadow on the garage door doesn't appear to be me. Whenever it is that I get back to the city, I intend knocking on the door to see if I can have a look around again. One day.
I was brought up to eat whatever was put on the plate, regardless of whether I liked it or not. If eggplant was involved, I might sit at the table for what seemed like hours hoping it would go away. Despite the best efforts of my parents to get me to like eggplant, I still find it repulsive.
It is iinteresting how times have changed, presumably with increasing affluence. My experience appears to have been quite common with people my age and older but none of my friends and acquaintances who have children have said they would now apply such rules to their children. It seems inhumane now. Actually, it did at the time too though I would not have expressed it that way.
In my Sabot (pronounced with a silent "t") class boat called Aquarius. Judging by the appearance of the Australian National Gallery in the background at the left, this photo was taken in Canberra on Lake Burley Griffen. I must therefore have been 11, 12 or 13. Sailing on the lake was easy compared with the area around Greenwich where we lived in Sydney since the surrounding area is largely flat making for more predictable winds, there were no concerns about sharks and rocks on the shore were smooth rather than being covered by shellfish that might cut you.
Though a Sabot is just 2.4m/8 ft long and thus intended for children, this was not my first boat. My father built an even smaller boat out of discarded (liberated?) pieces of 1/2" plywood from a construction site next door. It was shaped like a barge with a sloped front and a centerboard box. A 3m/10 ft aluminium tube was procured to hold a home-made sail and later a spinnaker. My father used to follow me around in his motor boat which was his commuter vehicle during the week. It met a sad end though when a wild storm blew a tree over and crushed it.
In fact it is just a single sheet of heavy paper folded over with our names on the inside and those of the teachers on the back. After 30+ years it is nearly impossible to read though I don't know if that is because it has faded or the “Gestetner” machines in the days before photocopiers.
Looking at it now by the standards of modern technology, it is a laughable effort. The names aren't in any discernible order and the red border around the photo (pasted to the paper) is drawn with a marker pen.
I scanned it and on the second page, I've added what I believe to be the names listed to the right. In some cases, I can it make it out. There is one left which by a process of elimination must be Leigh Spencer but the aggregation of dots doesn't appear to be that. Also, I remember a girl called Erica Anderson yet she is not on the list.
See the Greenwich Primary 1975 farewell keepsake 
(5.3MB)
From the bow, Alan (?), John Burtram, me, John Burns and the coxswain whose name I've now completely forgotten.