Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 405
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[Page 405]
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conducive to intensive study in the evenings, I moved, for the final term, to other diggings, in the upper floor of a block of three flats, "Cloyne Court" at Bondi Beach. I found my old friend Saxby already installed there and another final-year medical student, George Thompson, who also became a lifelong friend. Our landlady was a wizened little Scot who had a part-time job as a follow-up "girl" at a well known correspondence school in the city. I doubt whether she made much of an income out of the 2 a week we paid her for full board and lodgings. Other boarders were Saxby's young cousin, a bank clerk, and a much older young man who had a good position with one of the city wool firms: he had a good salary, was able to pay more and consequently had much the best bedroom to himself.
Saxby was still the popular President of the Undergraduates Association, and was always very welcome at State Government House where he often participated in afternoon tennis parties given by the Governor's - Sir Dudley de Chair - charming young daughter Elaine: sometimes he joined the Vice Regal staff in late-night card parties, leaving serious study for his final examinations until amost the last week of the "stew vac", as the usual three weeks between the ending of lectures and the beginning of examinations was known.
George Thompson eked out a little extra income by acting as a totalisator clerk at the Randwick and the other principal racecourses on Saturday afternoons.
We were a very money-starved bunch of young fellows; to receive a windfall of only ten shillings would produce a cry of "Good-bye poverty", from the others. But we had a lot of real good fun among ourselves, and with equally hard-up Sunday afternoon visitors. For evening functions we borrowed portions of each other's dress clothes. Saxby had a full dress-suit, I had a dinner jacket and trousers and Thompson had a dressy black top-coat: fortunately we were all about the same size and build in those days. Later on I borrowed the coat of Saxby's dress-suit to be best man at my eldest sister's - Rose - wedding to Max Gavel, one evening at St Stephens Church in Macquarie St.