Monthly Archives: August 2024

Wear It Purple Day, Sydney High and elsewhere

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But first a touch of blog stats

Tomorrow I will look more closely at how August has gone here. but the year is shaping up well. Do keep it in perspective though. This blog is a minnow compared with what is out there.

So with 16,708 views so far this year we have already gone past 2020’s total of 16.701. More tomorrow.

Wear It Purple

Our local Wollongong News featured events yesterday at Keira High School.

Schools, workplaces and community organisations across the Illawarra have donned purple outfits in support and solidarity with the LGBT+ Community.

The comment thread burst into life/wrath:

If this happens at my kids school I’ll keep them home… what the hell is happening to this world 😕

These people need to keep to themselves instead of pushing this rubbish on to everyone else let alone kids. Go away and be what ever you want instead of always wanting to be recognised from others.

had a great time! hope others can learn to be better people

This is not what school is for.

Meanwhile at Sydney Boys High School

2020

Wear it Purple Assembly 28 August 2024

Victoria and Vesper participated in a lengthy Q and A about their journeys through life, answering thoughtful questions put to them by the student representatives. My speech to the Assembly was as follows:

“Special guests Victoria Ho and Vesper Lawrence, Equality mentor Ms Stephens, students. Way back on June 28, 1969, New York police raided a gathering place for LGBTQIA+ people, the Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village. During the raid employees were arrested and quite a few of the patrons were roughed up. Instead of the passive compliance expected, police were surprised by the resistance of the patrons and onlookers. Five days of ‘riots’ ensued, before order was restored. Veterans of the raid call the event a ‘rebellion.’ Previously, between 1955 and 1967, there were six major protest uprisings in three states. Police raids and harassment were commonplace during the 1960s in Australia, as well as in the USA. Internationally, the month of June now includes a celebration of gay pride, in recognition of the pioneering protesters of the 1960s.

“We have progressed as a society in the fifty-five years since these events. Equality is defended in law and by most organisations in policy structures. We have moved away from fear and shame and can courageously affirm our identities in our homes and workplaces and social gatherings and expect common courtesy and respect from our contemporaries.

“Wear it Purple is a homegrown celebration of diversity from a youth perspective. I wrote about this day in last week’s High Notes. High has been involved in this event since its inception in 2010, at Burwood Girls High. As a school, we have tried to organise an annual assembly of affirmation of our corporate commitment to respecting diversity in ourselves and others. Akif Kazi (SHS 2019) at the Wear it Purple Assembly on August 30 claimed that High’s celebration of Wear it Purple Day “brought with it a greater acceptance of diversity, and tolerance”. He commended Nelson Tang (SHS 2015) for his initiative in organising a basketball game between SBHS and SGHS. This became a tradition and came to include police officers from Surry Hills.

“Notwithstanding our strides forward together, it is apparent that work still needs to be done, given the discrimination still faced today by the queer community on some occasions and by some social groups. Our hope is that young people will live their lives in high school free from discrimination due to their sexual orientation or identity. We can all be simultaneously strong and kind. We can all live the values that we agreed upon together – showing each other respect in our relationships and compassion in our words and deeds. We are a very diverse society at High – culturally, linguistically, spiritually, socially and socio-economically. We share a common desire to maximise our potential in the academic, physical and emotional domains. Wear it Purple Day provides us with an opportunity to display our understanding and acceptance of difference.

“At High we are fortunate to have an Equality Committee. For well more than a decade, its office bearers and members have been striving to promote and support the notion of difference with dignity in our school community. Our Equality Committee reminds us of our better selves, acting as our collective social conscience, so that all in our school may work and play in peace and harmony. It works to nurture a culture of respectful relationships among our students. I commend the work of the Equality Committee in building respect for each other’s rights to live and work without stress, harassment, bullying or vilification. I wish the newly appointed Leaders of the Committee good fortune in their service and hope that we celebrate equality on August 30 as a peaceful, inclusive learning community.”

Dr K A Jaggar

Principal

Well said!

Back at SBHS when I worked there

My Sydney Boys High English/ESL site 2000-2005

17 years ago — Fabulous and poignant … again, it brought tears to my eyes. It’s so shameful that the human race has regressed rather than progressed in its acceptance and tolerance of others. I’m so happy to see so many young people standing up for their rights! Be true to yourself always!

A Friday poem — Robert Graves, “The Cool Web”

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The Cool Web
Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky,
How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by.
But we have speech, to chill the angry day,
And speech, to dull the rose’s cruel scent.
We spell away the overhanging night,
We spell away the soldiers and the fright.
There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.
But if we let our tongues lose self-possession,
Throwing off language and its watery clasp
Before our death, instead of when death comes,
Facing the wide glare of the children’s day,
Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums,
We shall go mad no doubt and die that way.

And yes, the grandson of the poet Robert Graves was a student at Cronulla High School when I taught there: That amazing Class of 1968.

Robert Graves in his study

Thanks to those who have made yesterday’s post the most viewed of my August 2024 posts.

A song for dark places

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“Your sending this video has been timely.” 🙏

Those are the words of a friend sent late last night via Facebook Messenger. And this is the singer who just happens to be live on YouTube right now! (Subscribers only.)

And this is the song:

Depression is a monster that takes your heart as prey/ while it leaves you drowning/ and takes your breath away/ now it’s too late to save the day
It could be your mother’s son/ It could be your father’s daughter (anyone)/ the funny guy at school/ the girl you thought was the one

Depression Is A Monster is ~Written by: Ky Baldwin ~Audio Production by: Ky Baldwin ~Mixed by: Ky Baldwin Video ~Directed by: Ky Baldwin ~Produced by: Pacifica Films ~Cinematographer: Miles Dahl

My friend writes (in part):

“I ran short of time before listening to the last one & in a way it was perhaps the way it was meant to be, such was its impact. As impressive as the video & the vocals are it is the insights,images and potent messages in the lyrics that moved me to tears & touched me on the deepest level….”

She then speaks of the ongoing struggle of a loved one, to whom she has now sent the song.

I thought of Rob (1961-1989)

In the following exiract from a story I wrote partly as therapy as the events it describes were actually happening I have disguised the true names but every word is otherwise true.

September 14 1989

— I miss that man so much.

— I know that Luke.

— I don’t know what to do about his birthday. I phoned but there was no answer. He doesn’t want to see me. It makes me so angry.

— Listen, Luke, he told me to tell you he still likes you. Take it from me, when he’s like this you just have to wait.

Luke cries publicly, there in the Unicorn Bar at 10 pm. Not something he would normally do. Later at the Oxford, trying to be wise I say something like breaking up is a bit like a death and you grieve and…

September 19 1989

I am in the Albury with friends, the usual cocktail hour chat after a day’s work. A cry from the other side of the long bar. It is Luke. Wearing his long white coat. When I go over to him I see his face red and swollen, tears streaming.

— Colin, where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you all day. I have something to tell you.

— What’s wrong, Luke. Tell me.

For a while he just cries unable to talk.

— Tell me.

— It’s going to hurt you.

— Tell me.

A dozen possibilities but not this one.

— J is dead.

Frozen.

— Tell me it’s not true Colin. He’s just run away…

I ring J’s father in Wollongong immediately. “Yes, Colin, J has passed away. He rang me on Father’s Day and said he was going to Melbourne. He obviously did not intend to go. He hired a car and…”

Apparently he died on his birthday.

— It’s true.

For over a year after that every time I heard this song I would burst into tears, not least if I heard Sylvana sing it in the Albury Piano Bar.

In that year I had help

See Memory upon memory…

Email from long ago and messaging with Spain

Yesterday I received out of the blue an email from Cedric Bullard! Who? Well, he has appeared several times in this and earlier blogs, on Mothers Day in 2023 for example:

1989 was in many respects a personal annus horribilis encompassing a burn-out that forced me to give up my job at Masada — at one point I was off the radar to such an extent that my mother sent the police to do a welfare check and the Deputy Principal of Masada came to Paddington to see what was going on. Therapy with the amazing Dr Cedric Bullard in Randwick really helped. By the end of the year I was working again at Sydney Boys High. There was also the suicide of a dear friend and the death of my father in 1989. So Tiananmen did not really occupy my thoughts at the time.

In fact what she did was reported me missing! Then the cops did a welfare check. The point being that at one stage I had not been to see Mum over in Glebe for a while and she could not ring me as at that time where I was living in Paddington did not have a phone. I would normally contact people from a public phone. Later in the year I had an arrangement with my friend PK who also lived in Paddington to sit at his place on a workday morning so that Sydney High could contact me if my services were required. Worked well. After if I was not working I would have coffee at the wonderful Oddies which was close to PK’s place. In the missing weeks I could most often be found in Centennial Park contemplating the ducks….

Or recalling 1989 in a 2019 post.

Living not far away was an old Wollongong friend, indeed a decade or more earlier an ex-student. Sadly, on 14 September 1989 he took his own life. I was deeply affected, and even more so were his family in Wollongong and his former partner. Again, homophobia had a role.

In the midst of it all, as therapy really — and indeed at the time I was undergoing therapy with the wonderful Cedric Bullard — I committed the whole thing to writing, as fiction, but not a thing in it didn’t happen pretty much as I told it. You can find the whole thing here. 

Later in 1990-1 when I was no longer Cedric’s client he was the key person in helping Michael Xu out of a sticky situation which threatened Michael’s ability to stay in Australia. That story I cannot make public here. But both Michael and I have good reason to remember Cedric. For several years Cedric indeed sent us Christmas cards every year when M and I were living in Surry Hills. I also taught Cedric’s grandson at Sydney Boys High, and recall meeting Cedric again when said grandson had his Year 12 Farewell Assembly later in the 1990s, but I had not heard of or from Cedric since that day.

Until yesterday.

Using the “Mail me” facility on my blog he emailed me.

Hullo Neil,

It is wonderful to see all the wonderful accomplishments of a master of masters.

Cheers,

Ced Bullard

In the course of the exchange which followed he revealed that “Last Wednesday, my Sweetheart Libby died in my arms.”

When I heard about Nate Byrne’s panic attack on live TV a couple of weeks back I posted:

I know exactly what this is like! In a blog post I wrote: “And yes there was a price to pay for me from those days…. Anxiety attacks, agoraphobia, temporarily stopping teaching…. Thanks to certain friends and to some professionals — Dr Hans Knutzelius of RPA, Cassy Workman, Cedric Bullard — psychologist and counsellor extraordinaire and one of the best people I have ever met…. And James Harker for the time I worked in his bookshop — and Neos which I edited all through this!”

Back in 1983

I was editing Neos, I was spinning out in some ways (mostly anxiety) and entering a career hiatus, and I turmed 40. I could not conceive 2023, the year I would turn 80! But here it is and here I am. Mind you there was no generally available Internet then, and no blogs either…. REPOST: In 1983 I learned more than I knew I was learning…

The breaks in my career are totally explained by these episodes, some of them of many months duration.

I am aware of at least two Facebook friends for whom these issues have been or are live right now. In some cases they say so, in others I can read the signs.

Ky’s song is for you