1956 - 50 Year Reunion

A toast to absent friends

by Clive Tadgell

Made at Trinity College on October 7 2006

-------------

Mr Acting Warden, Ladies and Gentlemen ―

The Greek poet Pindar made a sage observation some twenty-five centuries ago of which I am sure you will wish to be reminded:

Water is best, and gold which flames like fire, but the next best thing is to win a race at the Olympic games.

I would alter that slightly, and say that the next best thing is to go up to Trinity College as an undergraduate, to go down without undue incident, to be invited half-a-century later to return and to be able to accept the invitation.

Acceptance of the invitation carries with it the agreeable privilege of revolving many memories ― some remaining fresh, others dimmed virtually to the point of extinction but almost miraculously stimulated or re-kindled today by mere propinquity or affiliation.

Very many of these memorials consist of recollections of things or events; and it is a fair comment that 1956 (a leap year, to boot) was astonishingly crowded both for us here, locally, and upon the universal stage.

A few events of that year were truly and actually earth-shattering, in the ancient and proper sense of that term ―

• Egypt seized the Suez Canal from British and French control
• Britain and France invaded Egypt in an attempt to retake the canal
• Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary to crush an anti-Communist revolt

I mention at random a few other 1956 events, ranging from the life-changing to the merely titillating ―

• At Wimbledon Lew Hoad defeated Ken Rosewall for the men’s singles title
• Jim Laker set an extraordinary record by taking nineteen wickets in the fourth Test Match at Old Trafford
• Television broadcasting began in Australia, with Channel 9 followed by the ABC
• Elvis Presley emerged as one of the world's first rock stars
• IBM introduced something called the “hard disk” for the storage of data
• Quadrant magazine first saw the light of day
• And in November Melbourne played host to the world for the 16th Olympiad of the modern era

We will each dredge for our favourite memories of College events ― aided, no doubt, by the dim promptings of instinct. One of mine belongs not to 1956 but to the next year, of standing with a crowd by the Bulpadock one night after Chapel (involuntarily attended, I suppose) to watch Sputnik II wink its way overhead and fade into the south-eastern sky, bearing (as we were told and believed) a small dog. One felt justly entitled to ask: “What next?”

Although many of our cherished memories of College days relate to things and events, the reality ― what one may call “the bald chat of real life” ― derives from our memories of people: surely, in an environment like this, human beings give a context to events, not the other way around. I come thus to my essential point. Those of us who have managed to attend this function ― this jolly jubilee ― will have derived immense benefit from our own and each other’s attendance. It is right, however, to recognise that the benefit we received from this place, beginning fifty years ago, derived not only from those who share this happy occasion today, but from all who began their College life with us, including those who, for their various reasons, are not here present. Five of them have passed on. I therefore invite you, ladies and gentlemen, in order to mark our obligation to them, and to do them honour, to rise and assist me to drink a toast ― to absent friends.