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About Me

Born in 1944, I attended St Laurence's College (SLC) from 1953 to 1961, which was the full nine years offered by the school, from Year 4 to Year 12. Called in those days Grade 4 and Senior respectively.
Other years had special names as well. Year 7 was Sub-Scholarship and Year 8 was Scholarship. So called because if you passed, the State Government contributed towards your school fees for the next four years.
Several kids left school and entered the work force after Scholarship. This included my best friend at the time. He would have been thirteen. We didn't remain in contact. Without a telephone, it was too difficult.
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Year 9 was called Sub-Junior and Year 10 was Junior. Similarly, Year 11 was Sub-Senior and Year 12 was Senior. If you did well enough in Senior, you would be invited to study at Queensland University. If you did better than well enough, you might be awarded a Commonwealth scholarship, which paid for all your university fees plus a small allowance. Increased if you were living away from home. And if you were right there in the upper echelon, you could get a State scholarship, which basically meant more money to live on.
St Laurence's was an all boys' Catholic school, run by the Irish Christian Brothers. Our teachers were mostly decent young guys labouring under difficult conditions to impart academic excellence, sporting prowess, a strong moral code and the nonsensical theology that was prevalent in the Catholic church at the time. And to a certain extent, remains so.
This site is named slc61 from the school initials and our graduating year of 1961.
Many from that graduating class meet for lunch twice a year and more attend class reunions. We remain good friends. I've included photographs from some of these events.
The intention of this site is to be a repository of reminisces from that time. Much of it is reflective of the times we grew up in, the Australia of the 1950s and 60s. A lot of it is unique to the Catholic environment and our particular slice of it. Inevitably, much of it is simply us as individuals.
Despite (or perhaps because of?) my upbringing, I am a confirmed atheist.