Professor Don Campbell A Trinity Scholarship Story
Don Campbell with his wife, Lisa Newton
We asked Professor Don Campbell (OTG 1972): What does it mean to get a scholarship to go to Trinity? I got one, but I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t got one, so I can’t tell you what difference it made. I am reasonably certain I wouldn’t have been able to stay at Trinity.
20 | THE TRINIT Y GRAMMARIAN
At the time, I was eleven years old, and it was the beginning of Form 1 for me, now called Year 7. I had started at the school the previous year. My father was a believer in education and was convinced that Trinity was the right school for his two boys. He never expressed an opinion about the right school for his daughter, and as he is no longer around, it will be hard to ask him now. My brother started in the St Paul’s Cathedral Choir the following year. In
those days a Choir Scholarship was a full scholarship while you were singing and a half scholarship when you finished. You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out that our family income would not support two boys on full fees attending Trinity, so I thought: what can I do about it? I had a morning paper round in Grade 5 and 6, which I was allowed to do, so long as my income went into my education fund. From the one pound thirteen shillings ($3.30) I earned, I was allowed to keep one and six (15 cents) each week. This
