Memory Lane: Golden reflections

The image above is the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department second year in 1971 (I think). Some of those appear in the second image below which is the group of students at Mt Isa Mines, Queensland, Australia, a trip under the auspices of the English Speaking Union (I wonder if that still exists?). The Electrical Engineering students are Dave Boyce (3rd from rt), Ken Beaumont (4th from rt), me (2nd from left), and John Pickles (3rd from left). The others were there for the deep mining (copper, lead tin and zinc) aspects.

We were with Dr David Rhodes to do a study project on the mine's electrical power system. I suspect that the head of Power and Water told David what he wanted the report to say...

That was two months in Mt Isa, a long way from anywhere but with a trip to the Rodeo, free by serving chips on the Rotoract catering stand, a bush weekend trip sleeping under the stars (no snakes it was winter), playing international football for the Anglos on Sunday afternoons and a couple of weeks down the east coast, Cairns through to Sydney, Canberra and the Blue mountains. Chance of a lifetime.

Pages from the 'rag mag' supplied by Graham - you can see other covers on this blog

The image below is a poor picture of Lincoln Hall Karnival float (1971) and associated money extortion from passing traffic on the road outside Lincoln. Nigel Beverley holding the sign. Lots of flour and water expended in the battle between the floats as we went, belated apologies to the wet occupants of a passing Morris Minor convertible on Beeston Lane. I just couldn't resist it.

Riding the floats through crowds could be hazardous - pennies at that time were sizeable and thrown with intent came quite sharply. The policeman controlling traffic in Beeston I squirted with a water pistol took it good part - just mouthed 'bastard' at me with a smile :).

On the tour of the campus at the reunion I was pleasantly surprised that the organisers and tour guides, as well as the few current students I encountered were fascinated by some of the differences in what's provided in hall for instance and how Karnival was a big event not only raising a lot of money for charities - around £10k in 1970 - but also a lot of fun.

There is no doubt a lot of work went into the organisation by the Karnival Committee of the Union, which I guess might explain why it's disappeared somewhere along the way. Perhaps some younger alumni can enlighten us on that?