Carl
Tinsley
1973-1975 4 5/6
1978-1980 Years 9.1,
10.1
Email: carlAbreakingground.com.au
Hi all,
I'm embarassed to say now that some of you (probably most) may remember me as a sports mad and over confident sort of guy - well that was me.
I guess like most people reading these pages for the first time I'm getting a huge rush of nostalgia - which is a great tonic. The thing I miss most about the glory days in Penang is the friendships we had. Some of the people you got to know so well - through probably, a lack of TV, computers and games consoles - have stuck solidly in the good side of my memory since leaving. OK, I also miss real satays, Char Kaoy Teow, ice balls, the rock pools and the hillside makan carts on a Friday night after Mens Basketball, Hamediyas restraurant and heaps of other things.
I left Penang in Jan 1980, we got posted to Melbourne - not Laverton, lived in Heidelberg for 1 year. That was slightly different to Penang!! Kids at school taking drugs during class and other savoury stuff like that. We then got posted back to Edinburgh, S.A. which was our home town, in 1981. I was going back to my old school. The only problem was that due to the different education systems, I ended up finishing high school with kids a year younger than me. Not the best thing to help reunite friendships.
I managed to finish school and attended Uni - after working at the Holdens factory for a year. The Holdens factory turned out to be great motivation to go to Uni!. "Bolt on - push buttons, bolt off - bolt on...". I majored in Biology and Geography - why? I hear you ask, don't worry I ask myself that all the time. I mainly studied tavernology though and was very good at it I have to say. I specialised in the form, style and different brews delivered in the uni tavern. This tavernology study got more intense as my parents divorced and especially after I returned home from uni one day to find an empty house. I really threw myself into it after this but somehow managed to graduate and actually joined the SA Police Force for a while hoping to get in to forensics. These plans were foiled by the Azaria Chamberlain Royal Commission - and I left the Police Force in Dec 88 (long story there!! lol).
I was still playing volleyball, which I started in Penang, and met my future "love of my life, wife" at the Uni Volleyball club. We moved in together, got married and eventually moved away from Adelaide and have been working in the mining industry ever since. We've lived in Mt Isa, Darwin, the Hunter Valley and we now live in Newcastle but may be moving again soon. Am I the only one with itchy feet, gaps needing filling - I hope it's not just me!!! We have one 3 yr old girl and one on the way.
I work for myself now as an HR/Training consultant (the biology and geography come in very handy!). I still have my hair, thank god, and I'm still very similar to when I was in Penang (just wider!). I have two shot knees though, due I think to one too many basketball, volleyball, badminton or tennis games at the Hostie. Or was it one too many sprints away from a severe pasting from the local "boys" at Hillside or Tanjong Bungah Rock Pools! Mind you with guys like Chip, Donald (Duck) Bennett, the Poh Bros (Gary, Tony and Mapo), Anthony and Peter Dacey, Hoffa's, Sid, Conrad, Anxious Mal, Butch, Bert and a few others - I fail to see how we could have upset anybody - NOT. Actually I think I still owe Duck one myself - Hi Donald :)
Does anyone remember our first school Rugby game against Science school, the previous years premiers. We flogged them, much to the angst of the large, stick and stone wielding crowd. They rushed the pitch at the end of the game and gave the umpire a pasting then turned their attention on us. I remember big ol' Mr Birss, the art teacher, herding us back into the white RAAF bus, telling us to leave the windows down so the broken glass didn't fall in our faces. It was ok for him, he was about 5 foot taller and 10 stone heavier than the rest of us!!
I don't think its fair that so many of us have gone (RIP to the many) and sometimes I think the RAAF should have paid more attention to the affect all the moving had on us as kids. But then again, without my old Man being in the RAAF I wouldn't have these memories to recall - and I wouldn't have the instant smile they bring to my face when I do - who could ask for more!
I'd really like to get in contact with Guy Fothergill, his hotmail address isn't known, Pug Wilkinson and any of the guys above and also any of the "girls" Tanya L, Diane F, Zandra, Sarah N, Sharon D (Big Ma's) and so many others that I can't recall the names of but haven't forgotten. Hope to see ya's in 2005. Ciao.
Update, now n Roxby Downs SA,