YANDANII (TONY) LISTON

Original Student from 1954, Class of 1961

It seems like only last year I attended, with my father, the exciting, significant functions marking the genesis of St. Edmund’s College. There were ceremonies such as laying the foundation stone, turning the first sod, first enrolment day etc. I am Number 19 on day one enrolments.

I guess parents were kept informed by announcements at Sunday Mass and pupils such as I were instructed to go as usual to our old school on Day One, 2nd February 1954. I had attended St. Patrick’s Braddon, and there we were met by the first Christian Brother I had ever seen, then herded onto a bus proudly wearing the new uniform, including the “donkey’s breakfast” hat, and driven to Eddies. Being in 4th Class I stood in the front row for the Day One photographs. It’s funny the things one remembers, I can clearly recall hearing for the first time a new song being played on the radio while I dressed for that day. What was a surprise to me was the fact other boys from St. Christopher’s and St. Gregory’s Queanbeyan also turned up, a whole lot of new faces. Two of those I met that morning are in regular contact to this day.

What comes to mind when comparing the school as it is today with the early years are the current magnificent sports fields, as we had a quadrangle and a lot of paddocks with thistles, lizards and jackjumpers.

It is a fact I didn’t enjoy school at all and thus didn’t achieve much. At that time I didn’t realise the importance of education and so had to study Mathematics and Physics, along with other subjects, by correspondence many years later to advance in my career as a hydrographer.

I did enjoy the football though, right from the start Rugby was the main code. This leads me to relate the only scam I will admit to. It is to do with the free milk issue to Primary pupils. In my final year I was selected to play Number 7 in the First 15 and cold milk after training, or any day after class for a hungry teenager, was very attractive but we weren’t entitled to any as Secondary pupils. Thus a rotating roster was drawn up amongst the team and as soon we heard the rattling metal milk crates being delivered daily outside the tuck-shop, two of us from separate classes would ask to be excused, meet on the stairs, grab one end each of a whole crate and transfer it into the basement locker room. On the way out we took the crate of empties from the previous day and put it beside the new ones, so when the Junior School recess bell sounded and they descended on the milk like a plague of locusts, nobody noticed that there was already one crate finished. I should explain that the milk was in returnable 1/3rd pint glass bottles, not homogenised so there was cream on top. We were never busted and the scheme worked so well we kept it going after football season until final days.

No tale of early “Eddies” would be complete without a mention of the famous strap, plied for the least reason. The long, black habit worn by the Brothers had a narrow, special pocket sewn in like a holster and the dreaded leather was never far away. No names given but a strap was once stolen in my class and next day small segments were for sale in the playground as souvenirs for half the price of a meat pie from the tuck-shop. Two of us ate meat pies for lunch for a week and ill-gotten gains taste better, saying Grace before eating made it O.K. During the dissection of the booty, it was discovered that a hack-saw blade formed the core to make the thing more rigid.

Events at end of year for Year 12 students in recent times remind me of our final instructions from “The Shark” which were to do absolutely nothing, don’t even think about it because he said nobody would matriculate without his signature. On the last day we went home, changed out of uniform for the last time and that was it.

At one time I had four grandsons attending St. Edmund’s, that is now down to two. My greatgrandchildren go to school in another city so a continuation is not likely.

Probably my greatest regret is that I didn’t work hard enough at school, perhaps I wasn’t mature enough then because in later years I found study to be easy. I have been a student now for the last eight years and enrolled at Charles Sturt University at age seventy-six to deepen my knowledge of my First Nation Wiradjuri Language and Culture.