Docco's Diary: Some Memories of 1984

Many of us had read George Orwell’s challenging book “1984” when we were young and we wondered what 1984 could bring.

But 1984 turned out to be an excellent 138th year in the life of St Peter’s College!

1984 was a time of optimism and confidence as the Australian economy recovered from recession. The economy recorded major gains in 1984, with gross national product up nearly 6 percent and the unemployment rate down more than 1 percent over the year. Between 1979 and 1983 many parts of South Australia had been affected by a major drought. In 1984 the agricultural sector had become stronger as the drought broke. Many farmers had a bumper crop in 1984. We had plenty of boarders in 1984.

Advance Australia Fair was proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold were formally proclaimed the national colours. In shops, goods were electronically scanned for the first time!

Our outstanding old scholar John Bannon (FLL 1961), State Premier in 1984, was the Guest of Honour at the 1984 Speech Day. He was the eighth South Australian State Premier to have been educated at St Peter’s College. When at School, John Bannon had been Vice-Captain of the School, Captain of Farrell House and Captain of Athletics. He had won the Tennyson Medal for English. His father Charles Bannon had been an Art teacher here. Our School has had a long tradition of producing leaders in all fields of life.

Photo of old scholar John Bannon 2007 Via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bannon

1984 was the first year of Mr RJ Stanley’s nine-year term as Deputy Headmaster. On several occasions he was to become Acting Headmaster. He was an exceptional schoolmaster.

It was also the first of the two years Mr Paul Sheahan was with us as Second Master. He had played 31 Tests for Australia in cricket and, after two years here (1984 and 1985), he went on to be Headmaster of Geelong College and, later, Headmaster of Melbourne Grammar School.

Mr Peter Fairs, who taught in both Senior and Junior Schools, retired at the end of 1984 after 32 years’ service. For most of these 32 years he was a Boarding Housemaster in the Junior or Senior School. He was a man of great kindness and compassion.

Image: Peter Fairs, 1984 Magazine

Old scholar Prof George Murrell (MAC 1977) became the 1984 Rhodes Scholar for South Australia.

Image: Bruce Frayne via: https://www.olympedia.org

At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games Bruce Frayne (WDK 1976) finished fourth with the Australian team in the 4 X 400 metres. The team, consisting of Bruce Frayne, Darren Clark, Gary Minihan and Rick Mitchell, ran in a new Australian record time of 2 minutes 59.70 seconds. As of mid-2024, the record still stands. He also reached the semi-final of the 400m. In 1984 Bruce was the Australian 400m Champion. His best time for the 400m was 45.21.

Timothy John Willoughby (HWD 1971) won a bronze medal in the Australian Men’s VIII at the 1984 Olympic Games. This was his second Olympics. The Australian VIII finished third in the final winning bronze behind Canada and the USA.

Image: Front cover of 1884 magazine

1984 was a significant year because it was a hundred years since the first St Peter’s College Magazine was published. The first number appeared in June 1884 under the title “The St. Peter’s School Magazine. Conducted by Members of St. Peter’s Collegiate School, Adelaide”.

Enrolments were strong in 1984. There were 1,054 boys in the School. At the time this was the highest figure we had ever had. There were 732 boys in the Senior School of which 129 were boarders. There were 322 boys in the “Prep” (now Junior) School of which 16 were boarders. In the Senior School we had eight dayboy Houses and two boarding houses – School, and Wyatt and Allen. There were about 65 boys in each boarding house.

The 1984 Year 12 academic results were outstanding. Large numbers of boys received a Merit in the Year 12 public examinations. Dinesh Selva-Nayagam won the Tennyson Medal for the top English student in the State. He also achieved a Merit in Chemistry. Three Merits were obtained by Stephen McDonald. Two Merits were achieved by Simon Phipps.

In his 1984 Speech Day address, Dr AJ Shinkfield talked about the community service done by boys who, under the direction of the St. Peter’s College Mission, gave considerable help to the St. Mary’s Day Care Centre, the Norwood Creche and the Norwood and Payneham Meals on Wheels. He said: “These activities were a direct result of the relocation of our Mission activities from Elizabeth to communities close to the School where boys are able to experience first-hand the deprivation of others and to do something about it. Boys have become very much more aware of the extent of need in their immediate community and their fundraising efforts have been given a much sharper edge knowing the specific uses to which monies are to be placed. One of the rather marvellous things that has happened is the close relationships the boys have developed with children in the day care centres and also with elderly citizens through the Meals on Wheels ventures. The Secretary of the St. Peter’s College Mission, Mr. A.P. Sheahan, and others associated with the Mission, have no doubt that the scheme will grow in stature and will be acclaimed as an excellent contribution from the School to the Community. Already, because of one boy’s observations and comments at the end of his work, the Mission has allocated $1,000 to the Norwood Meals on Wheels operation to purchase new equipment. As the scheme has gained so much momentum it has been found necessary to reinstitute the position of Missioner to co-ordinate the boys’ activities and liaise with local bodies to discover more avenues through which our boys could be making contributions to the community.”

In 1984 we were only beginning to start to use computers and Marty Gauvin, while a boy in Year 12 at St Peter’s College, instructed the Council of Governors and staff in basic Computer awareness courses!

Keys awards were made in 1984 to Tim Barbour (Athletics), Marty Gauvin (Computer Society) and David Reynolds (Cricket).

Headmaster Dr AJ Shinkfield talked about leadership. He said “One of the most important contributions which any school can make to society is the training of future leaders……” He went on to congratulate the 1984 leaders “for their conviction and for the mutual respect that they have developed between themselves and those who are to follow their example. There has been no better exemplar than the Captain of the School, Tim Barbour. At the Year 12 Dinner Tim expressed his gratitude to Jonathan Beaumont, the Vice Captain of the School, for his devotion, loyalty and hard work to make certain that the offices of Prefect and School Senior were maintained at a high standard. James Roberts, as Secretary of Prefects, and Mark Miller, as Secretary of School Seniors, together with other Prefects and School Seniors have accomplished their tasks well. May society benefit from the leadership experiences that these boys have had.”

One of the main events of 1984 was the production of the Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, a huge undertaking involving over 90 students from St Peter’s College and St Peter’s Girls School. The Chorus consisted of 59 people! Some old scholars may remember the enjoyment of taking part in the Mikado.

The Exploration Society had a busy year with a range of activities. These included: a training hike on the Western end of Kangaroo Island, in the Flinders Chase area, a Ski trip, a Scuba-diving Trip, held on Kangaroo Island, Rock climbing on some Sunday afternoons, a Caving venture, a Canoeing venture and some Orienteering.

Old scholars here in 1984 may also remember:
the brilliant piano playing of Clemens Leske (HWD) in a Beethoven/Chopin programme;
the musicianship of Jonathan Beaumont’s (FLL) recorder playing in his lunch-time recital;
the strength and assurance of Stephen McDonald’s (YNG) recital on the organ in the Chapel;
the humorous skills of Henry Silvester’s (HWK) madcap KoKo in “The Mikado’’.

Dr Shinkfield talked about the high level of participation of nearly all boys in sport. “Over 90% of our boys have participated in 39 winter teams and 53 summer teams this year”. He suggested that perhaps the best performance for the year, however, came from our Athletics team which won The Achilles Cup by a margin of over 300 points against all major non-government schools in the Adelaide metropolitan area.

He referred to boys who have represented their State at the highest schoolboy level or who have achieved national honours.
These included:

Athletics:               Tim Barbour (MAC), National Under 18 silver medallist in the Decathlon, State record holder in this event Under 18 100 and 400 metre record holder.
                            Boys selected to represent the State in the All Schools Track and Field Championships in Brisbane:
                            Michael Byrne (MAC), David Gluyas (HWD), Tim Barbour (MAC), Todd Packer (WDK).

Cricket:                David Maidment (HWK), all Australian Under 16 wicketkeeper.

Football:               David Reynolds (YNG) Teal Cup.

Orienteering:         Jamie Lloyd (WDK).

Rugby:                 Angus Giles (WDK) and Jamie Hamilton (HWD).

Soccer:                Russell Smith (HWD).

Squash:               John Goodchild (HWK).

Water Polo:          Zachary Kalogeras (HWD).

1984 was a successful year for sport.

In cricket there was a good tour to Sri Lanka in January 1984 during the summer holidays.

We won the Intercollegiate match by two wickets in a tight game. David Reynolds made 140 in the first innings. Ian Harslett took 9 for 70 in the second innings.

On the final day, we only needed 78 runs with eight wickets in hand. This seemed an easy target. Matthias (58) and Giles (21) batted confidently and ran well between wickets, and only 29 runs were required when their third wicket partnership ended.

Then occurred a dramatic collapse by Saints. Six wickets fell for 28. The final overs continued to be full of incident: Hetherington came from his sick bed to hit a straight drive to the boundary; Bell was run out while attempting a third run, but two runs counted and the scores were level; then lunch was taken. In the second over afterwards, Ian Harslett hit a single and Saints had won by two wickets.

Our 17 Tennis teams had a good season winning 80% of the matches but PAC were too strong for our First VI in the Intercollegiate Match.


Our First VIII Rowing crew gained second place in the Head of the River Regatta.

In Soccer, there were more boys than ever choosing to play and six sides were fielded. We won the First XI Intercollegiate Match for the fourth time in four years.

In Rugby, The First XV had a successful season, winning most of their games, before going down in the grand final to a stronger Rostrevor side.

In Squash, P Gupta was awarded his Colours.

We had a good First XVIII Football season losing only to Rostrevor and PAC. On the visit to Melbourne we defeated Melbourne Grammar School and Wesley College.

We hope a large number of those who left in 1984 will return to St Peter’s College for their 40 year reunion on Saturday November 2 2024. They will find a School experiencing record enrolments. They will see the grounds looking more beautiful than ever. They will see some amazing new buildings including a 1997 Science, Art and Technology building into which the Florey Building was absorbed, a 2003 Sports Centre to the South of the Main Oval, and a 2021-2022 redevelopment of the Big Quad and Big School Room, all of which will impress them.

The Class of 1984 are warmly invited to attend their 40 Year Milestone Reunion on Saturday 2 November at St Peter's College. Please click here to learn more.

Researched and written by David Docwra
David Docwra retired from St Peter’s College in December 2015 after 37 years’ service and is fondly remembered by many as a dedicated teacher, a committed coach of squash, cricket and soccer, and most especially as a passionate Head of Hawkes House for 21 years. David remains connected to St Peter’s College and regularly provides historical articles for the St Peter’s Old Collegians’ newsletters. In 2023 David was made an Honorary Member of the St Peter’s Old Collegians’ Association.