Mark: Grad of 1975

The School

Mount Doug circa 1975 was a fun and relatively free learning environment (as I suspect it is today). Back then the school was primarily grades 11 and 12, with a class of super keen grade 10’s tossed in (mostly to give us Seniors more ‘victims’). At the time there were no school boundaries so the students came from all over Victoria. I actually lived within about a 10-minute walk from Vic High, but chose to go to ‘The Best School in Victoria’.

The Teachers

At Mount Doug I kept a fairly low profile, although there were probably more than a few teachers who would have preferred I keep a non-existent profile. My favorite teachers were Mr. Dulmage, then a septuagenarian with the fire and drive of teachers half his age. It was Mr. D. who opened my eyes to the relevance of the English language and even more important helped many of us build the fire of self-confidence. It was the inspiration of people like Mr. D. that found me on a jet to Egypt not many years after leaving Mount Doug. Other teachers that impressed me were Mr. Barker (Physics) who was one of the few teachers I could look down on… *grin* and Ms. Simpson (English) who once expelled me from English 12 for playing Frisbee in class only to give me an ‘A’ for the semester courtesy of a make-up essay.