Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 407
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[Page 407]
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Saxby usually borrowed Thompson's top-coat to go to his card parties with the Aides at Government House.
Early in December, our final degree examinations began: two papers a day, morning and afternoon, for a full three weeks. It became like a routine occupation, that we got quite used to. When the pass results were published, just before Christmas, I found that I had got through in all subjects, and when the Honours Lists appeared in the "Sydney Morning Herald" shortly after Easter of 1927, I learnt that I had been awarded First Class Honours and placed top of the Year. In the subsequent capping ceremony in the Great Hall, I had the privilege of being the first of all the engineers, in all Branches, to be called to go up to the dais and have the maroon-edged hood of a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) dropped over my shoulders by the Chancellor, Sir Bickerton Blackburn. It was a proud moment for me, but unfortunately circumstances were against my parents being present. At the time I was already in employment, since the end of the examinations, as an engineering draftsman, on Dr Bradfield's staff, and was designing the concrete arch bridge spanning a hundred and twenty feet across Lavender St for the northern approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the main span of which was not yet under construction.
I had also attended another Easter camp of the Army Engineers at Liverpool, and in fact had put the finishing touches to my graduation thesis - on original research - there in the evenings.
So now, instead of going by bus and tram from Bondi Beach to the University every working day, I went to the old Public Works building in Phillip St, where Dr Bradfield and his staff occupied most of the third floor. However, after a few months I transferred to the newly constituted Main Roads Board as an Assistant Engineer, at a much higher salary ( 500 a year). Still living at "Cloyne Court", I spent three months in the Head Office in lower Castlereach St as an aide to the Chief Engineer, and my main task was examining and recommending tenders for batches of heavy motor trucks, of steam and diesel rollers, of huge concrete mixers and paveres and quite a variety of other road-