State Library of NSW
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79
was? How children in one-sex schools were deprived? DId I know that Douglas Darby had declared that mixed sex high schools were immoral?
I assured them that I did not share Mr Darby's philosophy and that I would support the implementation of co-education in all state high schools. But I would need their help. They promised to keep in touch.
A few days later the Manly Daily reported that the same teachers were threatening to strike in protest at the education policies of the Wran Government.
Tickets had been ordered by many people who had organised groups to sit together. Some had asked me to keep a certain number of tickets at the door for them- -and I hoped that no mistakes had been made.
I had been particularly worried by the largest order. There had been a phone call from a man with a brusque manner and a foreign name - - Maren Alagich. He said that he was a close friend of Neville Wran and that he wanted 14 tickets held for his party. I had no idea who he was. This seemed a lot of money (at $10 per ticket) to have outstanding and the catering required a strict accounting in advance. We could be the target of a hoax. It was easy to claim to be a friend of the Premier but we had no way of checking.
I was therefore relieved to learn that the tickets had been paid for, and a little embarrassed later in the night when Wran introduced me to his friend "mick" Alagich, a prominent member of the Yugoslav community.
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