joomla visitors

This website is for those who attended Daramalan in 1969 and who are interested in finding out about former classmates and teachers.  The site also contains links to other places of interest and reunion events for former staff and students of Daramalan.

 
 
 

20Feb2017

Toeing the line

Written by: Michael Russell 160 hits

As we near the fiftieth anniversary of the time when we left Daramalan, it’s wonderful to hear from former classmates who remember the time and the times of our youth.  This morning I received a letter from Michael Backhouse who asked if I could help him locate a letter written by his father after the famous ‘gang of four’ item appeared in The Canberra Times.  As an aside to the subject of original letter that caused a furore within the Canberra community, that raised important questions of discipline within the Catholic clergy in particular, all but one of the letter’s authors are now deceased.

05Oct2015

A funny thing happened on the road to eternal life

Written by: Michael Russell 1012 hits

I realise it has been nearly six years since I created this website and, although there have been a few messages posted in the forum, I haven't written anything very substantial in that time.

When I started this website idea in 2009, not long after the fortieth anniversary of finishing my schooling and attending a reunion of my former classmates, I hadn't had a vast experience in website design and construction.  I suspect that the original site had most of the essential features I was looking for—a place to download old yearbooks and photographic memories, to read and discuss our recollections of our days at school and to keep people informed of events in the lives of our school mates—essentially a keepsake of memorabilia.  I am generally pleased that the site has attacted a couple of thousand visits; the "hits" on the articles attest to that fact.  Daramalan Class of ’69 features nicely at Google.  But, as I wrote in my earlier article Field of Dreams, it's one thing to build something and hope people will come, it's another thing to invest time and energy into promoting, marketing and maintaining that which one has constructed.

13Nov2009

The gang of four

Written by: Michael Russell 1136 hits

The Sixties was a time of political and social upheaval in Australia.  Young people challenged the traditional values of their parents' generation and actively opposed the decisions of the government.  Women demanded equal rights and others called for racial equality and a new consideration for the environment.  Many more demonstrated against the Vietnam War, conscription and the nuclear industry.

Although many of these protests were part of wider social movements taking place in other Western countries the advances in communications technology meant that revolutionary ideas and voices of dissent could rapidly be transmitted and received around the world.  We were taught to question the role of the “mass media” in shaping the new global village - our English classes were devoted much to the philosophy of Marshall McLuhan – but the fuss our teachers made was lost on me!  I wonder what today's students would think of this?