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
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