Paul Barnard - after Balwyn High (1954 - 1958)
Paul Barnard 2012
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Paul Barnard 1957
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Paul Barnard 1958
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I wrote this originally for the 50th jubilee of BHS and have merely made a few additions to bring it up to date and to make it a bit more understandable.
I had worked out that by leaving school with my Leaving Certificate (Form 5) and going to night school while working for a Chartered Accountant, as well as earning money immediately, I could become a qualified CA (and earn big money) when I was only 22 years old. Going to University would only delay being qualified by 4 or 5 years and wouldn’t bring more money after qualifying as a CA. As well as that, my parents would have to support me through Uni (or I would have to work part-time or in the holidays) as well as my younger brother and two sisters (who all also went to Balwyn High).
So I left school at the end of Form 5 and worked for a small firm of CA getting my ‘articles’ until I qualified as a CA in 1964 as planned. I was in the last group that were allowed to qualify without a uni degree. I then moved to a bigger CA firm to gain more and more varied experience.
During this time I passed my Matriculation, studying at night school (just in case I wanted to go to Uni later).
Then I saw a job advertised by Price Waterhouse CA in Malaysia/Singapore. I went with the idea of working there for two years and then moving on, with money in my pocket to tour Europe (just like lots of other Australians). I ended up staying four years, including being manager of their Penang office. Unfortunately I never learned more than rudimentary Malay as I was always among English-speaking people. I was then ‘head-hunted‘ by Esso to work as a travelling internal auditor and I worked for them for over 3 years in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and finally in the USA.
I then quit and took some long holidays touring the US for six months and then scuba-diving in the Caribbean. Then Europe finally called and I went skiing there for a whole winter, ticking off most of the famous ski resorts.
While skiing I met a woman who lived in Hamburg, and as I had nothing better to do I went there and found work as a computer programmer for Unilever. Working for a CA firm and skiing are incompatible when the year-end is Dec 31, which is why I didn’t look for work with a CA-firm as I was keen to go skiing whenever possible. Before the EU Germany had interesting visa rules: you needed a resident permit to get a work permit, but you couldn’t get a work permit if you didn’t have a resident permit!
After 3 years with Unilever I quit and have worked in free-lance in programming and computer consulting ever since.
I took three years of German at Balwyn High but didn’t know a thing of the language when I arrived in Hamburg. I am fluent in German nowadays but I admit I still haven’t properly learnt the genders of the nouns.
A while after I had been in Hamburg I married the woman I had met skiing. We have one son who still lives in Hamburg working as a doctor in the coroner’s office. My wife was originally from Austria and was an excellent skier so we would spend each Xmas with her family and go skiing on the local slopes and then go for skiing holidays in February as well. That of course left no money for trips to Australia. Unfortunately my wife died of cancer in 1982 at the early age of 35. I have since re-married and have two children from this second marriage.
I had a de-compression accident while scuba-diving in 1976 which messed up the nerves controlling the legs. I was actually paralysed from the waist down for a short while. That didn’t stop me continuing to ski or play squash for quite a long time after that.
I have played quite a mixture of sports over the years. After I left school I played Australian Rules with Balwyn seconds. Other sports I have played regularly at some stage are: rowing, rugby, field hockey, soccer, badminton, tennis, squash, judo, skiing, scuba-diving. When I was in Malaysia/Singapore I ran regularly with the Hash House Harriers (I am even mentioned in their 50th Anniversary publication).
I was a member of an English-speaking amateur theatre group in Hamburg and have done backstage work, had a few small roles and even directed one play with them. I actually met my second wife through them.
As well as German I also could speak French fluently, having learnt it in Vietnam, which was a French colony at one time, and then practised in the French skiing resorts. My French is very rusty now though through lack of practice.
Since the mid-80s we have visited Melbourne a number of times, one of those was for the 50th Anniversary celebrations of BHS in 2004. When I retired in 2007 we decided to move to Melbourne. My wife had lived here with relatives in the 1980s and so it was no culture shock for her and she already spoke excellent English. Our older son finished his Abitur (VCE equivalent) in Hamburg and has now finished a B.Biomed. degree at Melbourne Uni. The younger son did his VCE here and is finishing a B.Sc. degree also at Melbourne Uni.
Paul Barnard (click on the link to go to Paul's page of memories of his time at Balwyn High 1954 to 1957)
I had worked out that by leaving school with my Leaving Certificate (Form 5) and going to night school while working for a Chartered Accountant, as well as earning money immediately, I could become a qualified CA (and earn big money) when I was only 22 years old. Going to University would only delay being qualified by 4 or 5 years and wouldn’t bring more money after qualifying as a CA. As well as that, my parents would have to support me through Uni (or I would have to work part-time or in the holidays) as well as my younger brother and two sisters (who all also went to Balwyn High).
So I left school at the end of Form 5 and worked for a small firm of CA getting my ‘articles’ until I qualified as a CA in 1964 as planned. I was in the last group that were allowed to qualify without a uni degree. I then moved to a bigger CA firm to gain more and more varied experience.
During this time I passed my Matriculation, studying at night school (just in case I wanted to go to Uni later).
Then I saw a job advertised by Price Waterhouse CA in Malaysia/Singapore. I went with the idea of working there for two years and then moving on, with money in my pocket to tour Europe (just like lots of other Australians). I ended up staying four years, including being manager of their Penang office. Unfortunately I never learned more than rudimentary Malay as I was always among English-speaking people. I was then ‘head-hunted‘ by Esso to work as a travelling internal auditor and I worked for them for over 3 years in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and finally in the USA.
I then quit and took some long holidays touring the US for six months and then scuba-diving in the Caribbean. Then Europe finally called and I went skiing there for a whole winter, ticking off most of the famous ski resorts.
While skiing I met a woman who lived in Hamburg, and as I had nothing better to do I went there and found work as a computer programmer for Unilever. Working for a CA firm and skiing are incompatible when the year-end is Dec 31, which is why I didn’t look for work with a CA-firm as I was keen to go skiing whenever possible. Before the EU Germany had interesting visa rules: you needed a resident permit to get a work permit, but you couldn’t get a work permit if you didn’t have a resident permit!
After 3 years with Unilever I quit and have worked in free-lance in programming and computer consulting ever since.
I took three years of German at Balwyn High but didn’t know a thing of the language when I arrived in Hamburg. I am fluent in German nowadays but I admit I still haven’t properly learnt the genders of the nouns.
A while after I had been in Hamburg I married the woman I had met skiing. We have one son who still lives in Hamburg working as a doctor in the coroner’s office. My wife was originally from Austria and was an excellent skier so we would spend each Xmas with her family and go skiing on the local slopes and then go for skiing holidays in February as well. That of course left no money for trips to Australia. Unfortunately my wife died of cancer in 1982 at the early age of 35. I have since re-married and have two children from this second marriage.
I had a de-compression accident while scuba-diving in 1976 which messed up the nerves controlling the legs. I was actually paralysed from the waist down for a short while. That didn’t stop me continuing to ski or play squash for quite a long time after that.
I have played quite a mixture of sports over the years. After I left school I played Australian Rules with Balwyn seconds. Other sports I have played regularly at some stage are: rowing, rugby, field hockey, soccer, badminton, tennis, squash, judo, skiing, scuba-diving. When I was in Malaysia/Singapore I ran regularly with the Hash House Harriers (I am even mentioned in their 50th Anniversary publication).
I was a member of an English-speaking amateur theatre group in Hamburg and have done backstage work, had a few small roles and even directed one play with them. I actually met my second wife through them.
As well as German I also could speak French fluently, having learnt it in Vietnam, which was a French colony at one time, and then practised in the French skiing resorts. My French is very rusty now though through lack of practice.
Since the mid-80s we have visited Melbourne a number of times, one of those was for the 50th Anniversary celebrations of BHS in 2004. When I retired in 2007 we decided to move to Melbourne. My wife had lived here with relatives in the 1980s and so it was no culture shock for her and she already spoke excellent English. Our older son finished his Abitur (VCE equivalent) in Hamburg and has now finished a B.Biomed. degree at Melbourne Uni. The younger son did his VCE here and is finishing a B.Sc. degree also at Melbourne Uni.
Paul Barnard (click on the link to go to Paul's page of memories of his time at Balwyn High 1954 to 1957)