An interesting exercise going over your life and identifying your friends, then musing over the context.

Economic – I never had rich friends but nor did I have very poor ones.

Politics – rarely discussed.

Cultural – mostly Aussie except in Indonesia.

Social – ‘Best friends’ all from the church I was attending at the time!

Later close friendships always seemed to involve a family who went to our church, lived on a farm and had children. We often visited them on Sunday afternoons.

But to get back to earlier friendships. We moved to Belmont when I was 14.  Lorraine Dunn lived over the road. She answered to Larry. I was in year 10, she was in year 9 and together we rode the hilly two or three miles to Geelong High school and back again each day. We were the youngest members of the church choir. We put on skits during youth group concerts. We played tennis and netball, although Larry was always a grade higher then I was. We both had boyfriends from church. Don and I were the second couple to get married in the new church and Larry and Cliff were the third. Larry went off to Teachers’ College, I went to University but still we are in contact with each other.

Bet and Jess were actually friends of my mother. We lived in Hobart – three little girls and a mountain of steps to the front door. Jess came from Queensland and was visiting her sister where my father met her. Within days she was living with us and helping my mother with her girls and her housework. Jess studied at night, got a job, but still lived with us until we moved to Launceston. We loved her.

Betty came from Penguin and was a trainee teacher in Grade 1 at Elizabeth Street State School. I was very unsure of myself, so much so that I regularly bit the corners off my collars! The teacher didn’t have time to show me any special attention but Betty encouraged me and gave me the confidence. Meanwhile the Penguin Methodist minister got in touch with my Dad to ask him to look out for Betty. She became best friends with Jess and was at our place more often than not.

‘Auntie Elsie’ lived with us in Launceston and when a new baby was due, Auntie Elsie said, “I’ll look after Dorothy and Thais but I won’t have Carmyl!” Bet took me up to Penguin for a fortnight with her family.

We moved to a small town near Beaconsfield while Dad was in the army. Bet came to visit and needed to see a doctor. Dr. Suerth was an Austrian Jew, who had escaped to Italy, converted to Catholicism and ended up in Beaconsfield. The long and the short of it was that Betty ended up as Mrs. Suerth. They married at the Ulverstone Catholic church, with broad steps to the front door. Some Penguin Methodists stood on the steps as Bet entered the church calling out, “It’s not too late to change your mind!”

The Suerths later moved to Hobart and Jess and Bet were reunited. Both visited us on occasions. Jess wrote up our wedding for the Geelong Advertiser. We visited them in Hobart. Both these wonderful people died only recently, both inm their 90s.

Carmyl Winkler
April 2023

I mentioned this title to my son, who wisely commented, “Well it all depends where you set the bar.’

By most people’s bar, my athletic career would be a complete failure – in the seconds for the school hockey team, playing in D Grade in the church tennis team, last by a third of the pool in the year 9 swimming sports.

But I once won a race at the Sunday School picnic. I was about 18 and we were running on the sand at Torquay and somehow I managed to beat Joycie Ford, well-known as the best runner in the race. My athletic husband-to-be couldn’t have been prouder!

But if the bar was low in that field of endeavour, it was right up there in the academic arena – second wasn’t good enough. I did once get PL, pass at a lower standard, in Year 9 Art but any other subject was grist to the mill.

I was fortunate enough to live in the era of Commonwealth Scholarships. They weren’t too hard to get and the associated living allowance was dependant on your family income so I did well in this regard.

However university was in Melbourne and we lived in Geelong so money had to be stretched to cover living expenses. I enrolled at University Women’s College and sat for a College Scholarship and was successful. With both scholarships I had just enough to live on. Students working at paid jobs during the term was not even considered in that era as learning was a full time task, especially for science students who had 3 hours of practical work each week for each subject as well as lectures.

First year science – and a pretty raw recruit. Notes were taken during lectures and, in Physics, a weekly problem sheet was handed out. The first one was headed with a Bible quotation:

‘But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves’

I diligently did the problems but didn’t think to further check over or rewrite each lecture.

A Science degree required two terms learning Science French or Science German. I decided to do this in my first year and, while no oral work was required but simply the ability to translate  scientific articles from these languages into English, my love of languages inveigled me into spending too much  time on this subject.

By exam time I had a large amount of material to revise and ,yes, my results were an utter disappointment – one third class honour and three passes. I lost my college scholarship and felt utterly miserable.

I spent the three month Christmas holidays as a pseudo-nurse at the Geelong Hospital. I saved every penny and made it financially to the end of my second year when my results were good enough to have my scholarship restored. By the end of my third year I was offered a position as Physics tutor at the college.
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Sometimes we have to fail first time round to learn about what life asks of us.

We had Nasi Goreng for dinner and then added an extra blanket or two to her bed.

The next day we were off to our Op. Shop to purchase several warm jumpers. That night we taught Cut to play Rummy which she really enjoyed – no obligation to continually get her English right and a chance to show her competitive spirit. It wasn’t the last game of Rummy that we had.

It was the second last day of the school holidays so we visited a couple of friends with daughters who would be in Cut’s class to introduce her and ask them to keep a lookout for her. School returned and I walked over with Cut and we found her classroom. The school had been very flexible and were happy to have her when she wasn’t elsewhere. She came home excited and reported that she’d had lunch with Bethany.

Don and I were teaching weekly Indonesian classes at a couple of primary schools and we took Cut along once or twice, much to the joy of the students. I was also teaching at the army barracks and enjoyed taking her there on one occasion.

We visited the Guides who met over the road, the Indonesian who taught language at the high school and other families who were keen to make friends. We visited the bush and Ettamogah Sanctuary with emus and kangaroos. We went to the snow at Falls Creek and made a snowman and threw snowballs. 

“This is Sharon Wilson speaking. We’re about an hour away from Benalla. Would you be home if we called?”

Sharon Wilson! That won’t be her name now. Michael had been part of a Writers’ Festival in Mildura recently and Sharon had come along, so that was how she knew my phone number.

Sharon was 1 ½ years old when we left Merbein. She’s now 54. I know that because she was born two days before our son, Stephen.

Don had made the trip up from Horsham in December to check out the school and accommodation. The real estate firm had nothing and the trip up was effectively sandy desert and Mallee scrub. What were we thinking of when we put it at the top of our list?

The footie coach was putting the finishing touches to a house near the school and was willing to rent it. We moved in with 3 year-old Bronwyn, on January 17th 1966. Then we found the house next door had just come up for sale. We had no money. The price was £1800. We borrowed  £800 from the bank and a long-term loan of £1000 from Don’s dad and moved in on 26th. February. Kevin obligingly found someone else to rent his house and we packed up everything we’d unpacked a month previously and passed it over the fence or along the back lane.

This house was a ‘miner’s cottage’. Two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen on the back, a bath with a wood heater and a toilet with a can, way down the back. Every afternoon after school, often in 104° heat, saw Don valiantly digging a large hole to house a septic tank and, unbelievably, in less than 3 weeks we had a new septic tank and the back porch covered in with a new toilet coming off it. How about that for tradesmen!

Six weeks after we moved in, our first son, Michael, was born. Incidentally, our second and third sons were also born in our four years at Merbein with Tim just three weeks old when we moved.

The school went up to year 11 with Year 12 students going into Mildura. The parents were basically ‘blockies’ or growers of citrus. Seconds oranges were sold at the packing sheds for $1/bucket. (Yes, decimal currency had come in in the midst of our house negotiations.)

Our best friends were the Wilsons. They were ‘blockies’ and we learned much about dried fruit growing from them. You picked the grapes into a ‘dip tin’, like a large rectangular colander. The sultana and currant grapes were tipped out onto the drying racks- four or five long layers of wire netting with a roof over the top. The raisins had to be dipped into a syrup before they went on the rack. After the required drying time – maybe two or three weeks – the racks had a mat spread out below the bottom layer and the rack was shaken by a machine. The dried fruit dropped through onto the mat and was ready to send off to be packaged.

Wilsons had three daughters and a son who were wonderful friends to our children. Then Dot and I found out we were both pregnant with babies due at the same time. Sharon was born on the 17th. March 1968 and Stephen on the 19th. They were baptised on the same day and shared their first birthday celebrations.

So many more memories – Don’s dad putting on an extra little room on the side of the house, almost daily swims in the river during the summer, going over the road to the principal’s house to watch the moon landing because we didn’t have a TV.

Don looked back on his years at Merbein as the happiest in his teaching career.
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And yes, we did catch up briefly with the Wilsons a few times in the years just after we left if they were coming east for holidays but, basically, it was 52 years since I’d had the pleasure of again sharing lunch with Sharon neeʹ Wilson.


Carmyl Winkler

I sat on my favourite chair churning through Geraldine Brooks’ new book, ‘Horse’.
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I’d fixed up the emails, made the soup and seized the book. There were still a number of things on my Wednesday list but I should be able to fit in a couple of chapters before lunch called.

Tempted to start just one more chapter, I said out loud, ‘That’s enough Carmyl. Do something!’ and suddenly I knew what my memoir topic would be.

When I was at primary school, I didn’t have a deadline to get out of bed. But I did have an inverted deadline. No reading before 7 o’clock. We had no clock in our bedroom so I’d call out, ‘Is it 7 o’clock yet?’ My mother would reply from the next bedroom, ‘Not yet’. Eventually the magic hour would come and out came the latest library book. I always seemed to get to school on time so I guess I did fly around after I’d whipped through a few chapters, but there’s a very special place in my memory for, ‘Is it 7 o’clock yet?’

When I was about eight, my mother produced a book which she suggested I read. I couldn’t remember any other book that had been thrust upon me but I was quite open to anything with a cover and pages to turn. Its name was The Cradle Ship and I found out some time later that it was supposed to cover any sex education needs. It started with plants and moved on to insects and animals with a small closing chapter on humans and I found it quite uninteresting and certainly didn’t get any message it was intended to convey.
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On to High School. I can hardly believe it as I was always a very obedient student except on the odd occasion I took it upon myself to correct the teacher, but one day, in year 8, I was reading a book under the desk when the teacher came along and confiscated it. It was all the more embarrassing as its title was ‘Always Love’. The fact that it was a Sunday School prize and far from a hot romance didn’t seem quite appropriate to explain at the time.

I delayed joining the CAE book group at Tallangatta because of the yearly fee at a time of our lives when money wasn’t plentiful, but after a year I decided it was a priority. I realised that the group forced me into reading books I wouldn’t normally choose.

My favourite authors include Barbara Kingsolver, Tracey Chevalier and especially Geraldine Brooks. A few of these books are non-fiction but many of the others are historical fiction, based on real events or people and discovering which parts are true is a bonus.

The brilliant Benalla library and its ability to order virtually any book you ask for has sufficed my appetite for now and I have resisted rejoining a book group.

I am so grateful for books and the learning, the comfort and the joy they have brought to my life.


Carmyl Winkler
October 2022

When I pondered September’s topic, 'Bucket List', I learned all sorts of things about myself. And the first was, basically, I’ve never had a bucket list.

The nearest thing to such a concept was one Sunday afternoon when Don and I sat out on a sunny verandah and decided we’d like to go to Northern Queensland, Central Australia and Western Australia sometime. In the following three years we accomplished all three and thoroughly enjoyed each one.

Other than that, I can only think that, for me, I lived the life that came along. Sometimes opportunities landed in your lap, other times you saw the need for something to be done. Certainly we  travelled abroad three or four times and this entailed planning ahead but I couldn’t say we had thought about it for years and eventually made it happen.

I was very deliberate in the selection of my first paid work but after a very happy and productive four years there, life took me to other amazingly satisfying places. I never again worked a 9 – 5 job.

Two years in Indonesia and found some teaching work. After that, I moved every few years with a school teacher husband, I lived in whatever house was available and I met the locals.

In Merbein, I learned how to be a mother. The Brownie pack in Cobram had a waiting list of three years and our daughter was already eight, so I became a Brownie leader.

Tallangatta – a children’s music group and Hello group for Thursday coffee. Then a Youth Worker position was advertised. With absolutely no qualifications I went for the job and scored an interview. On reflection, I decided I wasn’t the right candidate but they offered me the job and asked me to do three months trial.  I stayed six years.

Looking to put the fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance at the bottom, I did a Tafe parenting course and spent many happy times travelling around leading parenting groups.

In the meantime, we went for family holidays mostly taking the cheapest option of a beach holiday and taking a tent over the mountains to Pambula.

Language teaching came into primary schools and here was another gift opportunity. Again, no teaching qualifications but allowed to teach as long as the classroom teacher was present – suited me fine. Twenty five years over eight or nine schools for six-week courses or weekly lessons through the year.

And  now, here is Benalla with new opportunities on the doorstep.

Have I decided what I want to do while I am still able? Of course not! I’ll do what I have always done and wait to see what comes along. I don’t seem to have needed a bucket list.
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A favourite quote from George Bernard Shaw;

‘Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.’


Carmyl Winkler

I guess it all started with nursery rhymes followed closely by Methodist hymns.
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In Grade 5, Mrs. W. H. Keith Young (did she have another name?) came to Pleasant Street State School to train a group to compete in the South Street competitions. Each member sang a line or two and if you could keep in tune, you were an alto! I’ve been an alto ever since!

Ballarat High music teacher, Miss Landt, gave us great songs to sing, our house choir won and I sang in a quartet at Speech Night. I was hooked.

Over the next years, moving around as a student, I always found somewhere to sing.

Married and moving to Maryborough, I joined CWA just so I could sing in their choir. Uniform – a black dress with a pink artificial flower pinned on the shoulder. I didn’t wear black but if to sing demanded it, so it would be.

Moving to Merbein, with toddlers in the house, it was back to the nursery rhymes but, nearing Christmas, a group joined with Mildura singers to learn and perform Handel’s ‘Messiah’ – a brand new experience.

By the time we moved to Tallangatta the children were all at school – but there was no music there. A friend and I, with four children each, started an after-school Music group, singing and playing the recorder. For fourteen years we sang – anything from the latest musical to Paddy McGinty’s Goat. We had a waiting list to get in. We had concerts and parents applauded. We made a booklet of songs and sang in the car.

A carload of us joined a singing group at Wodonga and after this finished, we decided to establish our own singing group in Tallangatta. The numbers varied from 5 to 25 but we sang, however many turned up. Our repertoire ranged from folk songs, aboriginal songs, religious songs, protest songs, to rounds. It was all unaccompanied and all for our own enjoyment. Sometimes we had a Sunday afternoon concert. At Christmas we sang at the town Carol night, occasionally at Anzac day services, but basically we just sang.

I started teaching Indonesian. The best way to teach children a language is to teach them a song but where to find the songs? We made a tape – singers from  Tallangatta Primary grades 1, 2 and 3 with son Stephen, guest accompanist. We sold hundreds. We changed the tape into a CD and sold hundreds more.

​Then I came to Benalla and found the wonderful U3A program. I haven’t missed a Thursday singing group since I joined.

Some members of that group and others from the Uniting Church made a CD of songs called ‘Peace Be With You’ for palliative care patients or people feeling lonely or depressed. We gave them away. I was part of that project and so glad to be so.

Singing for me is not an accomplishment but a joy. I didn’t realise how important it has been to me until I wrote this down.


Carmyl Winkler
August 2022

I was in Grade 3 at Invermay Primary School in Launceston. The girls learned sewing once a week and our first task was to make a small bag out of pink material with blue cotton so our tiny hemming and backstitches could be checked. Initials were proudly chain-stitched on the front.

When we had finished, we moved on to make a rectangular bag with flap and our full surname included in the chain stitching. This had tapes at the side and was proudly worn around our waists each Wednesday with our sewing materials inside.

In the meantime, at playtime and lunch time, marbles were in fashion. Everyone brought along their marbles in their pockets and showed their prowess. I enjoyed the game but was no expert so didn’t enjoy when we were playing for ‘keeps’ as I had my favourite marbles I didn’t want to hand over. These included a Tom Bowler, an agate and several bottlies, one somewhat misshapen. One boy played so often that his thumb nail was partly missing from flicking his tor into the circle.

“I walk down the street and nobody notices me. They think I’m a tourist. It’s as though I’m invisible.” We were having a cup of coffee at the baker’s with Fumiko. She had lived in Tallangatta for four years and was married to the son of a local plumber.

That was so sad and surely something could be done about it. I talked it over with Lou, the Neighbourhood House co-ordinator, and so the Multi-cultural Program was born.

The plan was for a monthly two-hour cooking class followed by lunch and a talk with a different country featuring each month. Our initial program included Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Bali, Russia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, France and China. As we outlined the course, much interest was shown. “But where are these people coming from?” we were asked. No one could believe it when we said, “Every one of these leaders lives in Tallangatta.”
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The cooking class, including lunch, was $25. Lou talked over the proposed menu with the leader and went off with a list of ingredients to buy. Other than the free use of the room and adjoining kitchen, the course paid for itself.

The limited number of places were snapped up. The leader showed how to prepare the chosen dishes and the class went to work, slicing and dicing, stirring ʹand straining. Everyone was absolutely enjoying themselves and the leader was beaming.

After two hours, lunch was ready. There was always plenty of food and  leftovers were often on offer.

After lunch, Lou put up a map of the country of the month followed by photos of the countryside, the family, wedding photos – anything at all that the leader had been able to find. The leader, often in national dress, would explain the photos and add comments. Some leaders had perfect English, others less so, but that didn’t matter. Finally each guest was given a piece of paper with Hello and Thank you in the language of the day with the leader showing us the correct pronunciation.

Don interviewed the leader before the big day and then wrote it up for the local paper along with photos and comments on the class and lunch.

We found enough leaders for 2018 and 2019. People were clamouring for more but there are only a certain number of nationalities to be found in a town of 1000 people. We had covered Scotland, Austria, India, the Czech Republic, Somalia and more. “Never mind.” they said, “Give them another turn with different food.” I have never known such a popular program.

However Lou went into Albury to work, then Covid came along.

But the real outcomes were local people coming to know these ‘others’, maybe even having a try at saying Hello in their language, and these ‘others’ finding new friends. As far as Fumiko from Japan goes, she is teaching the piano to the son of Ifah from Malaysia, working at the hospital with Sasika from Sri Lanka, teaching the piano at the Secondary College and best friends with Madeʹ from Bali, who lives just around the corner!

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Carmyl Winkler

In March 1979 a meeting was called in Tallangatta with the aim of establishing a cottage industry centre. Unbelievably, less than two weeks later was the grand opening!

Pat Greig had been appointed Community Education Officer, closely associated with the local high school. She was full of enthusiasm as well as expertise and was the wonderful backbone of the project.

I was there at the first meeting and eagerly paid my $10 to join. My membership number was CW12. Over forty years later new members are still joining with their numbers being well over 600.

NW3 was Noreen Wood who was a scout leader and made leather belts. DF4 was retired Dulcie Franks who knitted extraordinary jumpers with self-designed patterns. We knew they wouldn’t sell. Then we had some visitors from Melbourne. They snapped them up!

Pat contacted some of her artistic friends from nearby towns and they happily joined and put their more professional goods up for sale. But while they certainly attracted customers, the members I remember were locals who had been knitting or sewing for years. They tentatively put a baby jacket in the shop and, when it sold, were so surprised and delighted that someone would want their homemade article that they rushed home and got out the needles to begin the next treasure.

The Winkler family saw a way of supplementing Dad’s pay packet. What could we contribute? Jam was a good start and we decided to specialise in marmalade. We began with Sweet Orange and Four Fruits but then launched out with Carrot and Lemon, Apple and Lime, Cumquat, Chunky Lemon and Pineapple. Don made some little racks, Michael did some marmalade research and wrote a leaflet (did you know the word comes from the Portuguese ‘marmelo’ which is a quince conserve?) and we put the racks, leaflets and an assortment of marmalades together. They sold well.

That was the beginning. We found a woollen mill in Castlemaine that sold material at a reasonable price and added cushions and kettle holders to our wares.

But one of the most loved projects was making hand-made paper.  We saved boxes of old paper, pulped it, pressed it and packed it. As we became more experienced we imprinted leaves on the corner of the paper.

If you spent a day a month looking after the shop, The Hub took 10% commission. If not, it was 25%. So, of course, one day a month was a pleasant change from the housework. Later with other commitments, I continued to contribute to The Hub with photo cards.

We never made a lot of money but 43 years later, we have made a lot of friends, sold over 1,000 jars of jam and 2,000 cards and had wonderful family fun together.

I’m going to sadly end my membership in June now that I live in Benalla. ‘The Hub’ has been one of the special things in my life. I’m not particularly creative but it’s amazing what you can do when you try.


Carmyl Winkler

I looked around at my fellow students sitting with pens at the ready to tackle the next exam. We were in St. Mary’s hall in Geelong. Of course I knew all the Geelong High Year 12s – we called it Form 6 in those days. The remainder was dozens of private school girls and boys, all strangers to me. In those days, High School students sat external exams in their final year while private schoolers had to sit externally for years 10, 11 and 12. One girl in a Morongo uniform stood out. She was tallish with a long black plait almost to her waist.
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The next March I went to live at University Women’s college to start my science degree. The year went by and, before I knew it, I was back ready to start my second year. When the ‘freshers’ came along, here among them was the same girl from Morongo, still with her long plait. I recognised her straight away even though I had no idea of her name. It turned out to be Olive and Olive and I became quite good friends. I finished my degree a year before her but I was aware that she had become a Presbyterian deaconess after she finished hers.

Twenty years went by which included, for us, several moves. Now, with four children in tow, we were to move to Tallangatta where Don had a position at the local high school. We had sold our Cobram house so drove over in the September holidays to buy something in our new town. Not a house to buy anywhere! ‘They all sell at the funeral,’ the real estate agent told us.

But the Methodists in Tallangatta had recently joined forces with the Presbyterians so the Methodist parsonage just might be available. We found out where the Presbyterian manse was so we could enquire about the situation. We rang the doorbell and the minister’s wife answered – and yes, it was Olive! She had married a minister with a pilot’s licence and they had spent some time in the north of Western Australia when John was a frontier services chaplain. They had four girls, just a little younger than our children.
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We didn’t find a house to buy and rented a school house for ten years before one became available. But we did find a friend to spend two or three years with before they moved on.
Forty years on and I moved to Benalla. One day I was sitting in church and someone a sat down beside me. I knew that face! Olive is hoping to sell her Melbourne home and come to Benalla to live. One of her daughters lives nearby and it turns out that Olive grew up on a farm at Badaginnie. We’re looking forward to resuming our friendship.

 
Carmyl Winkler 
April 2022

We moved to Ballarat when I was nine.

I learned to recognise elm trees by checking the leaves. The two halves of the leaf didn’t quite meet at the same point when they joined the stem – always a handy piece of information to tuck away!

But the trees that really became a part of my life were the plane trees. Huge trees with giant leaves right along both sides of Pleasant Street. It wasn’t so much the trees themselves but the gifts they gave.

At the end of summer, little round seed boxes sprinkled the footpath. The naughty boys at school would collect these, crush the powder out of them and, lo and behold, they would end up with a handful of ‘itchy powder’. Put some of these down the back of the shirt of some unsuspecting victim and watch them writhe!

The other gift was so generous – piles and piles of leaves dropping right through autumn. Pleasant Street, and many other Ballarat streets, had wide and deep bluestone gutters and here we had a ready-made fire place. We three girls and Dorothy’s friend, Val McKenzie, who lived just round the corner, spent many a Saturday afternoon raking leaves into great piles and setting a match to them.

At first we just thought it was fun to have a warm fire on a cold Ballarat afternoon but then we extended our entertainment. We threw some potatoes into the fire and then enjoyed adding leaves and stirring them up with sticks. At the end of the afternoon’s fun, we carefully flicked the potatoes out, dashed inside for some butter and the salt shaker and a knife to slice open the blackened skin and then tentatively tried the scorching insides, yelling with joy at the delicious taste, alternating with the paying the necessary price of a burnt tongue.

Our little brother joined in every now and again, to the extent a four-year old could be part of such grownup cooking ventures, but never, as I remember, did our parents feel it necessary to come out and oversee or direct.

If you walked all the way down Pleasant Street, across the tramway running down Sturt Street, you came to Pleasant Street State School. We knew every fence post and puddle as we walked that way not just to school and back each day but also home and back at lunchtime.

The school astonishingly included a very small, high walled, very cold swimming pool among its assets. At the far end of the yard was ‘The Branch’, not in this case a part of a tree, but Form 1of the far-away High School, which had run out of room for all its pupils.

If you kept walking past the school, you came to Lake Wendouree. Here the dominant trees became willows, circling the lake. We went swimming at times, wading in with feet sinking into several inches of mud before we had sufficient depth of water to splash around in.

Great memories!
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In the Dutch East Indies in 1928, a youth congress met and determined to work for one race, one nation and one language for their country. Despite some being punished by the Dutch by exile into swampy country far from their home for many years, they remained determined.

In 1942, the Japanese marched into the Indies, imprisoned the Dutch and after a year or two reopened the schools and proceeded to teach the students in Japanese.

When the Second World War ended on 15th. August, 1945, the Japanese prepared to leave, and the Dutch were still locked up. Two days later, on the 17th August, seizing their chance, some of these original young congress men with other friends, flew a red and white flag and, their leader, Soekarno, proclaimed independence for the new republic of Indonesia. Of course as soon as the Dutch were freed they sent the natives back to their rice, aiming to resume their previous life. However the new Indonesians went to the hills and fought determinedly until, in 1949, under world pressure, the Dutch left the new republic.

Gradually the country that had been left with just ten high schools for a population of over 150 million, trained Indonesians to take over public service jobs, becoming doctors, engineers and teachers.

The new wave of schools and universities started in Java, the most populous although one of the smaller islands, and spread out from there.

By 1961, one of the furthest provinces, Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, acquired a university. There were three faculty buildings and a number of lecturer’s houses all in the middle of rice fields.

By early 1962, Universitas Syiah Kuala was ready to be officially opened and requested no less than the president of the country, President Soekarno, to come from Java to officiate. 

The only slight problem was that, on the whole, the Acehnese did not have a high regard for the president. To a fiercely Muslim population, his lack of dedication to Islam was not popular. While Muslim in name, he had married one too many wives and Javanese in general were thought as fairly wishywashy Muslims.

Orders were issued. Every household had to make a red and white flag of required size and fly it in the front garden. Soldiers were sent to stand guard along the road the presidential car would take, each man with his back to the road while looking steadfastly at the houses to ensure safety.

Most university students wore their traditional Acehnese dress, with smart white suits and hats for university leaders. The president’s car, number plate Indonesia 1, drew up at the door and the president stepped straight into the hall of gathered audience, Indonesians plus two Australians. I couldn’t understand a great deal of what he said but, to this day, I can remember being so impressed by the charismatic way he spoke and the hostility of the crowd gradually melting away.

I was there.