Reader - please note the update at the end of the chapter. What I have written here is erroneous.
A.T. E ‘Doc’ Walsh was the drama teacher at Whitefriars at the time of our arrival. He had the air of an old thespian (which was augmented by a cravat and a seedy sports-coat). His earlier life remained nebulous – Whitefriars was his last gig. Doc must have died during the 1980s (and I do not remember him being at the school after 1981. Doc was a sports-fan – indeed, he hosted me and other students at the Melbourne Cricket Club (and the outing included lunch in the Long Room – no mean gesture in itself); the Swans and Melbourne commanded his affiliations. From what I understand, there was no family to speak of. The Arts, as we shall call them, received desultory attention from Whitefriars at the time. Drama was offered in Year 7 and 8 and there was little of note beyond that (with apologies to Barbara Grollmus and her 3-D drawing classes!).
Rumours aplenty have been associated with Doc. Earlier Yearbooks contained photographs where boys sit on his lap; they instigate unease, particularly when viewed nowadays. I remember many a class where insults were hurled at Doc from the other side of the wall as students walked past – to this day, I vividly recall Doc’s face draining of blood at such times as if a lynch-mob was at hand. One of our number had managed to obtain his phone-number and harassed him on the weekends; nor was he Robinson Caruso.
Having participated in three of his plays – Mystery at Gabo Island (1978), Mail Mislaid (1979) and the Olympian (1980) - I will speak of what I know.
First and foremost, I spent considerable amounts of time with Doc, both at the College and in his flat in Kireep Road in Balwyn as we rehearsed for plays and debates. Many a time we were alone together. With me at least, he never crossed the line. If he had, I can assure you, I would not have a mortgage. I always found him to be a gentleman.
His notoriety, as we will call it, was twofold: as actors need to shed their inhibitions – or so he claimed - one by one we were ordered to strip down to our jocks and improvise an advertisement for underpants in front of the class. As these were being performed, Doc would sit at the back of the class, broodingly. Oblivious to darker currents – if indeed they were present - we revelled in the fun. None of us were wearing Calvin Klein underwear, so standing gawkily in front of one’s classmates was the equivalent of going over the top on the Western Front: one had to weather a hailstorm of abuse and mockery (I remember, sadly, Andy Pickett coping it so severely that he was barely able to mumble his way through the exercise). Secondly, Doc would ask us to mimic being in the shower, again, by standing up in front of the class in our jocks. Some of us hammed it up (Steff Andrews took great pleasure in scrubbing his backside with a big invisible brush to the acclaim of all). It's fair to say that neither of these practices would be countenanced nowadays – and rightly so. They were controversial even in 1978. As Captain Willard says in Apocalypse Now: I cannot see any method, only madness.
Doc dispensed money to those who had acquitted themselves well in his classes. On other occasions, he threw money up in the air. While these practices were well-intentioned, they did little to dispel the air of strangeness. A key feature of the Sunday rehearsals at "Doc's Den" was the complete smorgasbord provided at the end of each session: roasted chickens, pies, cakes, buns were all on offer and few of them survived the carnage.
Doc organised a series of debates with other schools in the area. I was a participant as were the likes of Tom Sabatino (Sabba), Maggot and Mark Healy. Topics included ‘Is Daylight Savings Desirable in Australia?’ and ‘That the Modern Generation is not more Permissive than those of their Grandparents’ era’ (I still have the notes for these events). These were the only debates I have participated in, but to my mind, they were odd. Good debaters are quick thinkers – not only can they speak authoritatively on the topic at hand, they quickly refute the opposition as the debate unfolds. Doc, on the other hand, in way of preparation, would laboriously type out an argument for each of the three speakers to read out, rote-style, as if there was no need to worry about what our opponents were saying concurrently (one would have thought that bullet points were in order). In the latter debate above, Doc fulminated against those youth of the 1970s who “are attracted to those places (pin ball parlours) because of the food, excitement and entertainment. At these parlours are found unsavoury predators connected with pornography, homosexuality, drugs and prostitution. When stress occurs at home or school, they often win the young person’s confidence and they become introduced to these permissive vices. Once these young people are hooked by these predators, there is no escape with the pressure on them. For (these)teenagers, life now has no meaning and they often take on crimes of violence, such as robbing chemist shops for drugs, as well as bank robberies.” To paraphrase Gough Whitlam: so now you know.
To raise funds for his productions, various events were held at the College in the Religion Room. Often they featured an array of guest-speakers or debates. One night, a key attendee failed to show up, so Doc turned to the older student who was his production-manager – Paul Roberts – to fill the gap. Thereafter he was known as ‘Ear-basher’ as he spent the next ninety minutes explaining the intricacies of stage-lighting in a monotonous drone. To this day, it ranks among the most boring nights of my life.
Doc’s plays were his own. Of the three that I participated in, I have manuscripts of the first two to varying degrees. He was no Sophocles. It is unlikely that any of his plays – and there were legion – will be revived. Their idiom was Coward-esque without profundity or wit. As I read them today, they're gauche. Many of them contained female roles and the actresses were sourced from the ranks (from memory, Craig Trenfield and Greg Santamaria were conscripted thus). Again, this practice did little to embellish his reputation in the College. Peter Nanscawen, appropriately enough, was the 'trendy young man’ Luke Lazarus in Mail Mislaid – in actual fact, he was an ASIO agent and his finest moment came at the end of the play when he nabbed the nefarious drug-runners ‘Grubb and Davidson’ at Kongwak Station. Maggot participated in Mystery at Gabo Island and was going to take the lead-role in Mail Mislaid (“Graeme O’Brien’) when his extra-curricular musical activities compelled him to relinquish the role (hence my promotion). Stephen Boysen played the troubled son in MM, Justin O’Brien who – shockingly - had refused to be confirmed. Here are some publicity shots for Mail Mislaid, taken at Doc's Den:
The plays themselves, for the all energy they consumed, had short-runs. Mystery at Gabo Island only ran for three nights in October 1978 (it was also performed twice in two different nursing homes). Mail Mislaid was performed but once. The Olympian received one performance in Melbourne, and a repeat run up in Bendigo (the cast and crew travelled up by tain and were billeted out for the night) Participants included: Brendan McKenna, Craig Trenfield, Russell Lane, Jon Magill, Dominic & Nick Cracknell, Greg Santamaria, Stephen Boysen, Greg Healy, John Blakey and Peter Nanscawen.
The opening night of Mystery at Gabo Island was a debacle, even by the lowly standards of college theatre. There was one scene where Maggot and I were to watch a video and respond accordingly. Much to our horror, it failed to work. For the better part of five minutes, as Ear Basher worked on the problem - and his hairy hands were all too evident to the audience - Jon and I ad-libbed away. Watching on, the audience revelled in our discomfort and throw-away lines. From memory, we discussed football, cricket and the weather – in fact, whatever nonsense that came to mind. Adding to our confusion, Doc was madly hissing out instructions from behind the stage. Eventually the VCR spluttered back into life and the play went on. Later that same night, the glue on my moustache began to fail. In an attempt to keep it in place, I held my hand to my upper lip as if lost in thought. It was no good; gravity was king. Eventually, I span around on my heels, ripped it off and turned to face the audience who did not fail to notice the transformation. At the end of the night, Claire Healy came backstage and congratulated us: she had rarely laughed so much at the theatre.
Mail Misland had fewer disasters. For whatever technical reason, Ear Basher's tape player failed at the precise second when the ghost train was meant to thunder through Kongwak Station - EB was almost reduced to making 'chu-chu' noises himself. Simultaneously, backstage-hand Tim Magill released a flare (unbeknown to Doc) that was supposed to emulate the smoke from the train. The flare was more powerful than estimated. Seconds later, the theatre resembled a soccer stadium where much of the audience was coughing from smoke inhalation . . . .
The Olympian was produced in 1980. It was customary that Year 7s and 8s provided the cast of the plays, whereas the Year 9s assisted backstage. Our main task that year was to create the backdrop itself, which was no mean task. Tim Magill, from the year above us, was the supervisor. From memory, Maggot, Nanny, Craig Trenfield and I formed the workforce (though as Trenny can testify, my lack of handyman skills was so apparent). To provide us with a suitably large easel, we were directed to use one side of the sheds up at the monastery. This was good in theory but the paint seeped through the canvas onto the wall itself, leaving the monastery with a ‘Shroud of Turin’ like reminder of our efforts in the decades that followed. Peter Nanscawen, for whatever reason, also decorated the shed with flamboyant portraits of Adolf Hitler – they provided a reminder of the existence of evil to any visitor who was monastery-bound.
Whether by insight or injury or an amalgam of the two, we all gain in wisdom. Even so, as I write I do not know what to make of Doc: no final word comes to mind. Perhaps we're all so many icebergs in the sea and who knows what lurks under the surface with any one of us? Whitefriars in our time was homophobic and suspicious of any interest that deviated from football, meat-pies and Holden cars – the proletariat norm. Doc was – perhaps - his own worst enemy, and the enemy lay within. With me at least, he stayed on the right side of the line; hopefully the same can be said of other students.
UPDATE DECEMBER 2016
Reader, recently I learnt of an occasion where Doc Walsh sexually abused a Whitefriars student. Another incident has become known to me where he fully exposed himself to a student at his house. This information comes from credible sources. I was shocked to hear of these incidents - given how much time I spent at his house, there by the grace of God go I!!! I've decided not to alter the narrative above to demonstrate just how crafty these paedophiles can be where twilight and ambiguity are the norm. Additionally, I've heard two horrendous stories re Father Peter Slattery O' Carm over the past year or so (again from different sources). I urge anyone who has suffered sexual abuse to contact the relevant authorities. For what I am worth - nothing, I would also be interested to hear your story under whatever provisos (Bernard.ohanlon@gmail.com).
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