Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee has seen much celebration and cause for reflection around the world of late. In April 1970 she presented new colours as we paraded for her after much practice and preparation. I thought this memo might be of interest. The copy I have was lying in a pile on the billiard table in the rec room as I recall. See the full size here

You can also see video of the royal visit to Duntroon on the website – go to the Audio/Video menu. If anyone has other bits of memorabilia that they’d like to share, please let me know.

John Elphinston

The Duntroon Society September 2021 Newsletter is available at https://www.dunsoc.com

I have now listened to the podcast and it brought back memories of both RMC and Stew – and just what a nice guy he was.

I had problems getting it to open on my desktop computer – the podcast wanted me to download Spotify, and my computer (iMac) didn’t want to!

I had Spotify on an iPad and had no trouble listening to it on that device. There was also a link in the podcast front page to the ABC Four Corners article from 1970 – I watched that too and even recognised some very young faces.

Vic Gibbons has just alerted me to a podcast of Stew Snell talking about his time at RMC. It is Part One of two podcasts of his life – the second is about his post-Army career.

I haven’t yet listened so can’t offer a comment, but I’ll pass on the link nonetheless: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2USPtDMfPO2pW6X1uAFonn

I’m hoping that all classmates will either follow this website or our Facebook page – preferably at the very least website. But I’d also like to add a plea for you to provide more items for the website.

The aim is to try and have the website as a repository of information from our period at RMC so we are looking for photos, Super 8 movies, memorabilia, documentation etc – anything at all of relevance that can add to the collection. Some of it could end up in the book or whatever evolves – Tony McKenna will deal with that but as a repository, its home should be the website.

If you’ve visited the site lately you’ll have noticed that it has undergone a significant renovation, thanks entirely to John Elphinston who took on the task, and who will continue to update and maintain it. If you have anything at all to contribute can you please send it to Elph and he’ll put it onto the website: send to john.elphinston@gmail.com or to rmcclassof1972@gmail.com – or to both. For example Duncan and Warwick – your fathers’ Super8s would be great to have. Don’t forget that as we age, stuff that you might now have could become lost forever unless your spouse/partner/children/grandchildren/ hang onto it. And even if they do, if they don’t know what they are looking at, the value in keeping it becomes almost negligible and the likelihood is it gets thrown out.

We’re not overly interested in individual post-RMC stuff mostly because as it becomes more contemporary the volume of material increases and the relevance to our time at RMC becomes less.  Obvious exceptions are catch ups and reunions, or events of great significance that can relate back to our time at RMC.

If you haven’t had a look at the revamped site, please do so. Any feedback, good or bad is welcome. 

Some points:

• The website has been significantly revamped
• It’s the primary repository for photos, videos, photos of memorabilia, documents, anecdotes etc for us to share
• It’s primarily a record of our time at college except for events like reunions and catch ups
• Send in whatever you have and share it around the group

And finally, let us know what else you want from the website to improve it.

Peter Martyn organised a zoom catch-up for NSW Classmates – and, hearing of this, the ACT Chapter gatecrashed, followed shortly thereafter by the VIC Chapter! In all, 21 attended – can you name them? A congenial session, with only the occasional technical hitch when several tried to speak at once. Perhaps we need some refreshing on our R/T procedure?

A recording of the session is at this link: not sure how long it stays alive.

I received a long email from Kev Loughrey today which contained some useful thoughts on bowel cancer, prostate cancer and heart conditions. It was too long to replicate here, so I’ve copied into the pdf document hereunder:

Many thanks Kev.

Our NSW classmates connect via a WhatsApp group called KLINK RMC 68-72. More very sad news was posted yesterday that Larry Park has been informed by his doctors of cancer in his liver and other parts of his body. No further treatment is possible.

Larry is being supported by classmates from 1968 and 1969 – mates for ever. All our thoughts are with Larry, Janice and family.

Unit 4062, 21 Ross StreetBenowa Qld 4217