Great Scot December 2019 Great Scot 158_December_ONLINE | Page 79

WHAT THEY'RE DOING NOW – compiled by David Ashton ('65) LEFT TO RIGHT: GRAEME DODSON (’47), DENIS PICKWELL (’50), JOHN GIFFORD (’51), KIM KIRSNER (’58), JOHN WILLIAMSON (’63) 1940s 1950s GRAEME DODSON (‘47 ) has been the organist at his local Presbyterian church in Cardinia, 48km south-east of Melbourne, for an amazing 66 years, and he is proud of his lifelong involvement with the church. Graeme says he is fit and well: ‘At 88 I can still run up a flight of stairs’. He is still farming at Officer, on part of a dairying property established by his father in the 1930s. With creeping suburbia, the property is destined to become the nearest farm to the city in Melbourne’s east. ‘I was an adopted infant – one of three,’ he told Great Scot. ‘We were sent to the best schools in Victoria. In the late 1970s we were involved in establishing Berwick Buslines, and I retired from driving buses in my 74th year.’ Graeme has a loving wife of 62 years, Audrey, five children, 13 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. ‘Who could ask for more?’ he says. DON GUNN (’49) j oined the Royal Australian Navy immediately after leaving Scotch, and served for 10 years in the Fleet Air Arm. Don enjoyed the navy life, but after 10 years he was invalided out of the service because by then he required glasses. ‘In those days that meant my navy career was over – but I don’t think it would have the same outcome now,’ Don told Great Scot. After leaving the navy he worked for an oil company. Don has spent most of his post-navy life living in NSW, apart from two years back in Melbourne. He and his wife, Atholene, now live at Cremorne on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. DENIS PICKWELL left Scotch at the end of 1950 after boarding in School House. He says he is now 87 years old and still ‘keeping reasonably active’. He told Great Scot: ‘My work took me from Melbourne to Sydney in 1959, and 40 years later my wife Margaret and I went touring in a motor home for three years before settling down in Ormiston on Moreton Bay, Brisbane, not far from our two children, who also lived there.’ Denis and Margaret sold their house at the beginning of this year and moved into a comfortable, much smaller, retirement villa in Renaissance at Victoria Point, a coastal locality 33km south of Brisbane. ‘Should have moved five years earlier,’ Denis said. ‘The drama of having to get rid of all the “stuff” that wouldn’t fit into the new premises was quite daunting! Good move, great place and I don’t have to look after the swimming pool.’ On a sad note, Denis and Margaret’s son, Sean, husband of Brisbane TV personality, Robin Bailey, died in September of liver cancer. JOHN GIFFORD (’51) and his wife Beth have lived at Port Macquarie, NSW, since 1998. John retired from the footwear business in 1989. From 1958 he worked in his father’s shoe manufacturing business, becoming Managing Director of the firm after his father retired. Facing severe competition from cheaply-produced imported shoes, the firm closed in 1968. John joined Clark’s Shoes, and became State Manager of the well-known Hush Puppies brand, retiring on 31 October 1989. Thirty years later, John and Beth are enjoying the warmth of the NSW north coast, and he has successfully come through three bouts of open heart surgery. John and Beth love travel, and since John retired they have enjoyed more than 30 ocean cruises, visiting every continent except Antarctica. The couple still owns a beach house at Mount Martha, but visit the house infrequently. More frequent visitors are John’s son, MICHAEL (’83) , daughter Anne, and their families. Congratulations to PAUL (KIM) KIRSNER (’58) , who has been awarded the University of Western Australia academic staff association’s Philippa Maddern Award. The award recognises the positive influence exceptional academics have had on individuals, the university itself, and the wider community. Now semi-retired, Paul, who is a great- nephew of Sir John Monash, continues to publish and support his many PhD graduates. In the citation for Paul’s award, Professor Craig Speelman said Paul’s work as a scientist ‘has had a significant effect on both the community and his field of research’, and this had inspired Professor Speelman himself to follow a career in science. ‘Several of his papers are considered classics in the area of implicit memory, and his status in the field of psychology in Australia was recognised by him being elected as a Fellow in the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia,’ Professor Speelman said. ‘Kim was also instrumental, with another of his previous students, in locating the wreck of the World War II warship, HMAS Sydney.’ 1960s Country music singer/songwriter JOHN WILLIAMSON (’63) was one of the headline acts during pre-match entertainment before www.scotch.vic.edu.au Great Scot 79