Reminiscences: Alan Watt (Pupil, 1914-1918)

At the Croydon and Burwood State Primary Schools I was at or near the top of my class and won a scholarship to Sydney Boys' High School. There my rating dropped rapidly, and my matriculation results in 1918 were quite undistinguished. There were, I think, a number of reasons for this. I had still not acquired the habit of orderly and sustained mental work. Five of my brothers volunteered for overseas service during the First World War, of the effects of which I was old enough to be conscious. Discipline and morale at Sydney High deteriorated markedly after retirement of an outstanding headmaster and his replacement by another who trusted no one.

There are few aspects of my time at secondary school worth recalling. My best subjects were English and History, my interest in which was stimulated by two excellent masters, one of whom discovered in me some gift for versification. Before leaving, I became editor of the school journal. During those years I was reading voraciously books chosen at random from the shelves of various brothers whose interests differed widely. At the same time I was reading the works of Henrik Ibsen, Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling.

Secondly, I studied German instead of French. My choice was determined by the simple fact that on a wall of our living room there hung a print of Turner's painting of Heidelberg, showing the old bridge crossing the Neckar and the ruined castle on the hillside beyond.

Thirdly, I became a keen tennis player. I had no coaching, and learned to play against the wall of a house at Chatswood to which we had moved when father gave up commercial travelling and became a manufacturers' agent in Sydney. At tennis my grip was instinctive and wrong. As a result, although my forehand was excellent and my capacity for low volleys on either hand good, my backhand was defensive and my serve and smash poor. However, keenness, a good eye, and a capacity to analyse the weaknesses of an opponent took me into the school first team. In my last year I won the Schoolboys' Singles Championship of New South Wales.

At the matriculation examination held at the end of 1918 I qualified for courses in either Arts or Law or both, but the decision to attend the university was far from inevitable. I had no specific profession in mind, and my results were scarcely encouraging.