Recent email from Steve Jones:

I Recently I hosted Norm Goldspink (95 years old) and Colin Fischer (91 years old) to watch the video of the 2022 RMC Graduation Parade. I had lined Norm up to attend the parade but he decided that he was not up to it a couple of days beforehand, which was disappointing but understandable. So I decided to get him to my house to watch it. I also invited Colin Fischer (my father-in-law) who was the Bandmaster at our Graduation but was not at RMC at the same time as Norm. Colin was posted there in June 1972 and of course Norm left at the end of 1971.

They enjoyed the parade. They commented on the fact that the graduates all carried swords. Colin commented that he thought the tempo was too high, which he said made it hard to march to the music. Norm is not impressed with dressing – now done by marching as against “shuffling” in our day. They both commented that it was a very good spectacle, which is what it was all about really. We all recognised that the cadets on parade had nowhere near the amount of drill practice that we had, given the short course by comparison and the emphasis now on more general military training in all classes.

While Colin and Norm didn’t work together in our time, they did know each other from earlier days when Colin, as a Warrant Officer Bandmaster at the then Southern Command Band, had provided musicians to the RMC Band and he had stayed in the Sergeants Mess at Duntroon. Of course they also dealt with each other when Norm returned to Duntroon and Colin was still the Bandmaster.

All in all it was a good two hour experience enjoyed by the three of us.

Royal Military College – Duntroon, Australian Army | Canberra ACT | Facebook     posts, RMC Graduation Parade  vimeo

Above is the link to the parade video.”

As an aside, Norm was at at Jim Molan’s funeral. He came into the Protestant side and sat down. It was great to see that a couple from the class of 1971 came and got him and presumably took him to the Catholic side where the Service was conducted as a mark of respect.