Simon Bryant

Where are they now? John Dunn (SJOC 1947)

My journey to board at St Joseph’s began a long, long time ago. It was 1945. World War II was still raging across Europe and the Pacific. Allied bombers were blasting Berlin, General MacArthur was about to capture Manila and Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were meeting at Yalta to plan for the future. Almost three-quarters of a century ago but memories remain fresh.

As a shy and timid 12-year-old from a tiny one-teacher, one-room, eight-pupil school in the wilds of Wonwondah East deep in the back blocks of the Wimmera, I was totally intimidated by all that confronted me at the top of the Aphrasia Street hill. The buildings were big and forbidding and there was a crush of more than a hundred boys--all older, bolder and stronger than me. The group of no-nonsense Brothers led by Oswald Adams were demanding and belonged to an education genre that seemed to bear no resemblance to my former teacher-the gentle Honor Koenig who had run State School 2472 with such kindness and care.

For a start, there was the humiliation of a nick-name bestowed by “the big boys”. First it was Dunny with its embarrassing toiletry connotations. That gave way to something only marginally better--Sardy (“because you look like a sardine”). Finally, both were superseded by Bro “Tiger” Maloney who, in an early class, couldn’t remember my name and shouted “Hey, you, Fred”. It stuck. Somewhat better than before!

My mother had remained in Geelong for the first week to assist if needed. But my cries for help went unheeded. I was no celebrity but “Get Me Out of Here” was the plea in a note sent every afternoon with a day-boy who lived near where my mother was staying. Her reply was straight forward: “If you want to be a journalist you need an education you can’t get at home”.

I stayed because that’s what I desperately wanted to be. And life at SJC improved so that when I left, at the end of 1949, I looked back on those five years with not only pleasure but also with great gratitude because they set me firmly on the road towards a 70-year writing career which I follow still. Much credit lies with Br Maurice Howard who was the English teacher. He was a personal Roget’s Thesaurus, someone who taught me how to use words and how to put them together. As well, he kept secret the identity of Richard the Roving Reporter (me) who published the underground school newspaper that often raised the ire of many.

After leaving Geelong, it was back to the bush to take a cadetship with the Horsham Times in the days when country newspapers insisted you do just about everything. We published twice a week. The night before when you finished writing there were proofs to be read and metal ingots to be carried from the storeroom to the linotype operators. Home at midnight, back at 4am to take the papers off the press, bundle them, do a town delivery round then grab a quick breakfast before starting the cycle all over again at 9am.

After a couple of years a general reporting opportunity opened at the Melbourne Herald. Some time later a different chance—European Correspondent for Australian Associated Press. So the next four years were spent in London with assignments in Britain and across the Continent. Many involved sport with perhaps the most interesting being Richie Benaud’s 1961 tour of England which lasted six months. It was the last of the traditional tours in which Australia played every 18 counties as well as matches in Scotland and Ireland and festival games and, of course, the Tests. There were also the major tennis tournaments such as Wimbledon and the French Open, the British Open Golf and Olympic Games in Rome and Tokyo.

Back in Australia I transferred, as Southern States Editor, to The Australian which had just been founded by Rupert Murdoch. This was just before Murdoch went to London to start his international empire which meant he was on the spot to demand at midnight or dawn why you had done this or hadn’t done that—a demanding, impatient and hard-to-please character.

During my six years at The Australian I had the opportunity to do some consulting for Time Magazine and that led, in 1973, to an offer to become their South Pacific Correspondent. For the next 25 years I worked for what was then the world’s largest media organization writing not only for Time itself but also its many other publications which included Life, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Time-Life Books.

The canvas was indeed as broad as the territory which covered Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the nations big and small from Fiji and New Caledonia to the many island countries as far east as Tahiti and Samoa. Occasionally there were forays into Asia including a visit to North Korea which then would not accept any of Time’s American reporters, a Papal tour and a journey with Charles and Di. Essentially the magazine was interested in political and economic happenings, and there were plenty of those usually conducted at the highest level.

There were many memorable occasions, several involving Prime Ministers--the sacking of Gough Whitlam which produced an unprecedented three Australian cover stories in five weeks; a visit to China and Japan with Bob Hawke including a seat at his banquet table in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing; and many conversations with the contrasting PMs from New Zealand—the pugnacious “Piggy” Muldoon--and the disarmingly informal David Lange who often provided pizzas at his humble Auckland home.

Disasters both natural (Cyclone Tracy’s demolition of Darwin) and unnatural (the Antarctic crash of the Air New Zealand jet) were covered along with mini-coups in Suva and Port Vila. There were compulsory biennial visits to the towering Time-Life building at Rockefeller Centre in New York where out-of-town correspondents had to swap roles with high-flying Editors so they would not lose sight of the urgency and accuracy that attended their copy when it came in each week from the many farflung bureaux around the world.

It was an extraordinary journalistic experience but when retirement came it was not the end of the writing road. Waiting was that iconic Australian, R.M.Williams, who was about to launch “Outback”, a magazine publishing the stories of the rural people and the faraway places he loved so much. Ahead lay meetings with the likes Gina Hancock and the Kidmans, visits to the Birdsville Track and the great cattle stations and mining operations of the centre, west and north.

It offered a new and different career which has, at the end of 2018, provided 20 entertaining years with hopefully more to come. Fitness fanatic Br O’Brien, who conducted an intense physical exercise class, would feel vindicated. As I continually flunked the parallel bar, the roman rings and just about everything else, he often remarked: “You’ll never make a gymnast, son, try something else”