Balwyn High School 1957 to 1962 Reunion
  • Welcome
  • About our 50 year reunion
  • FEEDBACK on Get-together 27 October 2012
  • Photos from 2012 Reunion Dinner
  • Lost and Found
  • Vale
  • Students' Stories: What have you been doing for the past 50 years?"
    • Andy Blunden
    • Anne Hawker (Jubb)
    • Brian Stagoll
    • Diane Kerr (Davidson)
    • David Slater and Dorothy Fergusson
    • Carol Poon
    • Dorothy Vietz (Gibson)
    • Gerd Kratzer
    • Gisela Olbrich
    • Greer Larsson (Allica)
    • Ian Priestly
    • Ian Stavely
    • John Sinclair
    • John Willis
    • Kath Semmel (McKay)
    • Lindsay Cook
    • Michael Alston
    • Otto Rehak
    • Pam Heath
    • Paul Barnard
    • Peter Barter
    • Peter Thomas
    • Peter Winford
    • Phyl Coath
    • Ray Walker
    • Robyn Dalziel
    • Roger Schnagl
    • Sue Foster (Jones)
    • Sylvia Garnham (Geddes)
    • Tim Green
    • Val Brooks (Bennett)
    • Warren Pill
  • A 1962 Teacher's Story
  • Photos and Memories of our time at BHS 1957 to 1962
    • Personal reminiscences >
      • Brian Stagoll Memories
      • Gerd Kratzer
      • Kath Semmel (McKay)
      • Lindsay Cook Memories
      • Michael Alston
      • Paul Barnard
      • Peter Barter - Nostalgic Memories
      • Peter Thomas reflections on BHS
      • Sylvia Garnham (Geddes)
      • Val Brooks (Bennett)
    • 1957 Group photos
    • 1958 Group Photos
    • 1959 Group photos
    • 1960 Group Photos
    • 1961 Group Photos
    • 1962 Group photos
    • 1963 Group Photo
    • 'Feeder' Primary Schools
    • Biology Field Trip
    • Broken Hill and Canberra Excursions 1961 and 1962
    • School Social May 1962
    • 1962 teachers
    • The Voice of the Three Per Cent
    • A student debate
    • Speech Night 1962 program
  • 1962 School Statistics
  • 'Organising mob' Contacts
  • Share your thoughts and comments Blog
  • Forum
  • 14 July 2013 gathering
  • 16 August 2014 Gathering
  • 11 November 2017 Gathering
  • 10 November 2018 Gathering

Brian Stagoll Memories:


When I came to Balwyn High School (BHS) in 1958 the school was four years old.  It was one of several suburban high schools hastily built in 1954  as the baby boom emerged. The school never had an official opening, and there were always building works going on.  In 1960 Dick Hamer came to open the new Menzies Science block at the back of the school.  There was more mud than a First World War battlefield, and the dignitaries never made it across.

Conditions were, if not primitive, then rough. The prefabs were cold and leaky in winter, sweltering in summer. There had been an old garbage dump down the hill and some days the wind would fan a rotten stench. There was no Assembly Hall, nowhere to go when it rained, no sports fields, no fence.

Post- War North Balwyn was a rising suburb and many of the immediate locals went to private schools. BHS students often came from outlying areas, including rural Doncaster.  There were Legacy boys from the Burke Rd. hostel, Colombo Plan boys from S.E.Asia (the first Chinese I ever met ), Jewish students from East Kew whose mothers had tattoos on their arms.  The strongest networks were centred around the youth groups connected to local protestant churches.  They always seemed to have the best social life.

The teachers were a mixed lot (as you would expect). Some, coming into teaching after the war, were wise, experienced and dedicated. But there was a general shortage of teachers and often not enough people who were really qualified had positions.  There were also a few thugs, gropers and incompetents.  There didn’t seem to be any kind of appraisal process or complaints mechanisms.  You mustn’t complain, just be satisfied with what you got.

The House system generated loyalties and contacts across the school, but mainly the years and sexes were segregated. No going into the girls areas! There was little room for deviance. One senior teacher would rail at the Boy’s Assembly about the “3 percent”and their bad influence.  When one creative student produced an underground broadsheet  “The Voice of the 3 Percent” it was seen as seditious and an Inquisition followed.  It was an innocent time: no drugs, banal pop music and no sex.

Phillip Larkin wrote in a poem

            “Sexual intercourse began in 1963 
            Which was rather late for me
            Between the end of the ‘Chatterley’ ban
            And the Beatles first LP”

That was still to come

The curriculum was basic, with limited subject choices,  I was streamed into Science after fourth form never to formally study History or Literature again.  I studied French for 5 years but could never find a word when I eventually got to Paris.  There was no music education, and only the girls had the chance to acquire keyboard skills. Sporting prowess was held in the highest regard, but organised programs were sparse.

I still feel regrets about all of this and can’t say I had a first class education

But neither was I deprived of the skills necessary to go further. The school had not yet developed a sense of identity or a tradition of excellence. It was neither elite nor disadvantaged, neither particularly tough nor repressive. It was a middle range school in middle Australia, embodying bland Eastern Suburbs conformism, genteel philistinism and White Australia.

But as we have contacted classmates about the reunion I have discovered that many of us contributed to the changes in Australia in the post Vietnam era. So something must have been there.

My mother worked as Secretary to the Principal for many years until the late 1970’s and I’ve always been pleased to follow the progress of the school.. Nowadays when I mention I went to Balwyn High School approving eyebrows are raised.  I can’t say I’m not happy to grab onto the coat tails of what Balwyn High School has become. 

Brian Stagoll (click on this link to see what Brian then did after he left Balwyn High School)

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