Suntan and a crisp white coat

I moved into Ormond in 1978 and stayed there until 1983.  Having scraped into Medicine by the skin of my teeth and with bursary assistance from the Master Dr Davis McCaughey, I was the first in my family to go to University let alone Medicine.

I owed a lot to my parents who had worked hard to put me through Haileybury. My parents had lived through the Great Depression and World War II. My father joined the Army at 16 in 1941 because there was nothing better to do! He had slept on verandas in Collingwood as a child, being passed from relative to relative because his mother had died when he was five and his father wasn’t able to look after him. I was unaccustomed to privilege. We were working class and proud of it. 

When it came to the University and College, I was overwhelmed with the splendour of it all and the excitement of becoming an Ormondian. I couldn’t believe the rarefied air I was breathing. I was only 17 and knew nothing of the ways of the world. I was, as they say, a space cadet.

At that time College was a halfway house to adulthood and we were all testing our boundaries. There was plenty of equity and diversity. All of us behaved badly at times and we found many different ways to do it. Some things I remember still make me cringe.

Masters Dr Davis McCaughey and David Parker were not highly visible but kindly father figures. They kept their distance from the students thereby maintaining their authority and avoiding any misunderstandings. We were expected to find our own way, but it was always made clear when we overstepped the mark. The reverence with which we held Davis McCaughey cannot be underestimated and there was deep sadness when he decided to leave. He will always be the greatest Master of Ormond in my lifetime.

Nancy and George ruled the Dining Hall with George keeping fires stoked in winter and Nancy managing the servery and the kitchen. Two-hour service for me was washing cooking pots, for others serving food. As a medical student I was often expected to carve the roast which we had every Sunday. When food service was moved to a central kitchen supplier for all colleges the meat came pre-carved, and a great tradition died.

Despite much revelry at College, Ormond medical students did well. Most of us got honours and an old friend Marcus Thorne took out the Ryan Prize in Surgery at RMH. Surprising everyone, including myself, I took out the Ryan Prize in Medicine at RMH. 

The problem with prizes was that you had to stay back after term and exams had ended for the short-case clinical exam. The College had emptied, and the weather was warm and sunny, so I unleashed my secret strategy to take the prize. I decided to sit on Wyselaskie lawn and get a suntan. I figured if I looked good the examiners might think I was good.

Humming ‘Suntan and a crisp white coat’ to Cold Chisel’s ‘Cheap Wine and a three-day growth’ I went on to dazzle the examiners and win the prize. It did help that I had examined several of the short cases beforehand, so I had prepared, but I was also lucky. An old Ormondian and surgeon was once asked if he would rather be a good surgeon, or lucky. He answered lucky.

My enduring memory from Ormond is a moment daydreaming, gazing out across Wyeslaskie lawn on a sunny Saturday afternoon with the smell of freshly cut grass from Room 2.52, accompanied in the distance by the roar of the crowd at Princes Park as Carlton played.

We played hard then worked hard, in that order. Yet despite our hedonistic ways we have done well. In my time we had two Rhodes Scholars, a famous opera singer, composer, board member of the Future Fund, Professors of Medicine and Officers of the Order of Australia. The band ‘Hunters and Collectors’ was started by residents of Ormond just before the Ormond Choir was formed in the early 80s. Now that’s what I call musically diverse! I know of others working on the ‘Bionic Eye’ or in high government office. 

People often say that their College years were the best years of their life. For me that’s not the case. College was good, indeed bloody good, but compared to marriage, children, career success and occasionally saving lives, College becomes a waypoint on the pathway to adulthood. In fact, I never really appreciated College until I left.

I want to avoid saying ‘in my day things were better.’ Culture builds over time and also changes over time. Our respective ‘new and old’ cultures are simply reflections of the society we lived in. Far better to understand the culture of the day and accept it for what it was.

The 70s and 80s were known for hedonism. The boomers were growing up and things were good. Sure, there was the risk of nuclear war, Vietnam and acid rain, but there was not the constant intensity of media, Facebook, Instagram, and social media in general. The increased connectivity of the modern world and fear of missing out (FOMO) doesn’t allow us to just switch off and be ourselves. We can become self-conscious about what everyone else thinks.

I have no idea about Ormond today apart from what I read in New and Old and see on Facebook. I can’t say whether things were better in my day or better now; they’re just different. Ormond College is like one of Her Majesty’s Australian ships. Many crews pass through bringing their own individual contributions, but a ship carries on almost regardless of any individual.