Last photos for a while - very special for me

[Shaun Hately]

These will be the last photos I post about for a while as I start my 'Ready to Teach' rounds 
next week, and should be very busy.

But these are photos of a very special place for me, indeed.

I'm going to paste in the commentary here - not the photos obviously.

They can be seen at:

http://drednort.livejournal.com/59231.html

My photographic odyssey continues. Yesterday I went for a walk from my university to my 
most significant school - the one that has had the biggest impact on my life. Xavier College, 
Kew.

Xavier is one of Australia's best known schools - especially one of it's best know Catholic 
Schools. It's been a member of the Associated Public School of Victoria for over 100 years 
(Public School in this sense, being used in the British tradition) which marks it as one of the 
most elite schools in the state. It was a founding school of the Headmasters Conference of 
Australia, and is one of what are sometimes referred to as the Six Great Schools of Victoria. 
It's generally regarded as the best Catholic school in the state, and along with its brother 
school, Riverview in Sydney, one of the two best in the country. It's a highly traditional, highly 
academic school, and it was what I needed when I went there aged 14 in 1989. So these 
photos are special for my memories.

I spent 1988, when I was at 13, at Koskta Hall. This is one of Xavier's two preparatory 
schools and is a part of the school in general. Kostka was the happiest year and happiest 
place of my childhood. The senior school wasn't almost as good, but not quite. I liked it a lot.

I should say, first of all, something about the location of Xavier. It's a suburb of Melbourne 
called Kew, and when I was at Xavier, we were told that Kew has the highest concentration of 
educational institutions in the western world. I don't know if that is actually true or not, but it 
certainly does have an awful lot of schools - and a lot of them are elite independent schools. 
It's not a big suburb - three or four square miles, and in that area, there are apparently thirty 
four separate educational institutions. And it does effect the area in a lot of ways - every 
morning and afternoon, the place is flooded with private school kids, and they interact - it's 
odd to be honest, and hard to describe, but it means you're not just at your school, you are 
part of a big community.

Why are there so many schools there? The first two photos I took may help to illustrate this.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

This is part of Studley Park, and really very near central Melbourne. How near?

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

That gives you some idea - as the crow flies, I would guess it's about two miles.

Studley Park was originally a squatters run - a farm - established in 1840, five years after the 
then village of Melbourne was established. John Hodgson, the man who started this farm 
became extremely wealthy and built a mansion - Studley House - in the 1850s, and the effect 
of his farm was to mean that this area, east of Melbourne remained quite undeveloped, even 
though it was close to the city - the Yarra River marked a natural boundary which the farm 
reinforced.

In the second half of the 19th Century, Melbourne - Marvellous Melbourne - was an extremely 
rich city - the second richest city, after London, in the entire British Empire. And because it 
was a part of that empire, the wealthy people of Melbourne worked to set up institutions to 
copy those at home in Britain - including copying the 'best' British schools. The area east of 
the Yarra, being reasonably nearby, but undeveloped, associated with wealthy landowners - 
became a perfect place to build these schools, and quite a few settled in this area. Even 
today, while these are fairly crowded, fairly inner city suburbs, there are still significant 
pockets of parkland, and Studley Park is one of these.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Hodgson's home, Studley House is still on the edges of Studley Park. But today it has a 
different name - Burke Hall. My route took me past Burke Hall - which is Xavier's other junior 
school, it's older prep school, and while I didn't attend it, many of my best friends did and it's 
part of the whole. So for completeness sake, I took some photos of it. It's part of the whole - 
three schools that make up one.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Most definitely a part of Xavier.

And when I was at the senior school, I did have cause to visit it a few times for various 
reasons.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

I taught junior boys how to debate in this building.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The Xavier Crest on the wall of Burke Hall - I have a problem not photographing the crest if I 
see it.

>From Burke Hall, I walked to the senior school.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

And I came in via the gates... and this is what I saw. And this is a real memory. This was the 
first view I ever had of Xavier College. At the time, I knew my parents had more or less 
decided I was going to go to Xavier, and I was being brought in for a final interview. I was 
nervous, I'd had a year of hell at the school I was at, and I wondered if this school would be 
different. We came in through the gates and I looked up and I saw this, and knew instantly 
that this was a different type of school. The feeling got even stronger when we stopped, and 
my father was directed to the office by an impeccably dressed, impossibly polite prefect, who 
looked at me and gave me the most sincere smile I had ever seen on the face of another kid.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The crest again, on the main gates we passed through that day - although I didn't use those 
gates very often while at the school.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The original Xavier building, the South Wing, which is where we went that day. Administration 
on the ground floor, and the library up above it. Good and bad memories of this building - the 
library was great. Being in the administration area normally meant I was in some sort of 
trouble.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

This balcony, outside the library overlooks the chapel and it use to be one of my favourite 
places to stand and think and relax - my tutor's office was quite nearby and I often needed to 
relax before I went into see him.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The Chapel itself - to me this building is probably the building I love most in the world for its 
looks. It just seems so... right to me in line and proportion and style.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The Great Hall - the focal point of the school, used for assemblies, as a main thoroughfare, 
to shelter in on wet days, covered in noticeboards for every club and sporting event. Hanging 
from above, you can see the banners for the school houses.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

That's the banner for my old House - Claver, magenta in colour. Not the best photo in the 
world, but below it you can see the Sportsmasters Office. The only time I ever went in there, I 
was in trouble as well - I wasn't really in trouble as often as these photos indicate - but I was 
innocent on that occasion.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

As you enter the Great Hall from the south, you pass the schools honour boards - honouring 
the Captains of the School, the Dux of the School, Captains of major sporting teams, etc -
and this one. The most sacred.

The Roll of Honour. The list of Xavier boys who given their lives in the defence of their 
country. Sacred, and special.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Ah, yes - a very special photo.

This is where I became 'The Dreadnought'. This patch of ground is the scene of my one 
great moment of sporting glory, and the source of my nickname.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

I said it was a traditional school - well, this one of the weirder traditions. This hotel - it was the 
California Motor Inn when I was at Xavier is out the south gates of the school. Periodically for 
sports training they uses to make us jog around the school boundaries, and a tradition 
developed because of this building. We had to sing Hotel California as we ran along the 
south boundary, then as we turned up the east side, we began singing House of the Rising 
Sun, and as we came down the north side and through the north gates back into the school, 
we sang the Pub With No Beer. For some reason, this was fun.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The Rigg Wing (the north and part of the east wing of the school). This was where I had most 
of my classes in Form III and IV, and where I really got my life back on track.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The gates by which I came into the school most often - not the best view of the school, but 
one I especially wanted a photo of, because it's when I knew I was home, when I came 
through here. The small bridge - just to the left of that were some lockers some people 
locked me into to see if I was claustrophobic. I was, actually.

A teacher came along and had a really hard time getting me out because I was in such a 
panic, I kept kicking the door, she was trying to get open and almost toppling the locker over 
on top of her. When they finally got me out - the guys who'd locked me in there, were as pale 
as ghosts. They'd intended it as a joke - not a good joke, obviously, but it wasn't malicious. 
But they'd been told what would happen to anyone who picked on me, and they were terrified.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The back door of the infirmary - I used to come in here to pester Matron.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Side wall and entrance of the Montague Theatre, where I did most of my acting while at the 
school.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The senior boarding house.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

And across this bridge was the dining hall. I streaked across here naked once - terrifying 
time!

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

This was the Doctor's surgery we were taken to if the Matron decided we needed medical 
attention. A choice of the male doctor in his sixties with rough hands and a rough manner, or 
the female doctor in her sixties with absolutely no respect for the modesty of an adolescent 
male.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Dobsons - the place where you purchases school uniform from. Staffed largely by middle 
aged ladies with, again, no respect for a boys modesty. Being sent down then to buy a shirt 
was fine. Being sent down there to buy shorts or trousers - horrible. I really wonder why we 
just accepted that.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The door to the classroom where I got into the biggest trouble I was ever in in my life. The 
only time I ever feared expulsion.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Through this window, was the room we had for our chess club and where a friend and I tried 
to program games on a TRS-80 with 1 KB of memory, or something like that.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The basement where the prefects had their domain. "How do you confuse a prefect?" "You 
turn on the lights."

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

And the boiler room - the room with large high pressure gas pipes running through it - where I 
caught some of my really intelligent friends smoking: "Because nobody would be insane 
enough to smoke in here, so nobody would look."

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia