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Ever since leaving the Hall last Thursday to accept the Kildare Ministries Staff Award, I have thought about the fact that I had a chance to speak and didn’t. It was remiss of me not to have thanked people more effusively than I did. I think the reason was that I prefer to speak about others and not myself. But, if I had my chance again, and was invited, as I was, to tell a story, I’d tell this one. A few years ago at the Year 7 Welcome Mass at OLA, I was approached by a mother and daughter. “Do you remember me, Mr Smith?” “Yes, I do - Judy Perera, Year 7 1990” She continued , “I asked my daughter if any of my teachers were still there: Mr Smith, for example” Her daughter replied, “We do have a Mr Smith in Year 7, but he’s much too young to have taught you!”

Despite having had more reasons than most to have gone prematurely grey, I haven’t. I think the students keep me young. I will never tire of hearing their stories, and, as long as they’re willing to listen to mine, I’ll keep telling them! If I had to give advice to younger teachers, I would say that a good teacher meets students at the students’ level, and then quietly brings them to their own, without the students even knowing. 

What I should have said last Thursday was that it was a great honour to receive such an award and I am truly grateful to those who saw fit to nominate me. I do love to tell Kilbreda’s story and, after 32 years, I still love walking around these halls and discovering new things about the place. I feel I have unfinished business here and that it might be a while yet until you are rid of me.

It was my great pleasure last Wednesday, to show my Year 10 French teacher, Mrs Trish Collins and her husband Bill around her old school. Trish and Bill are the parents of staff member Mrs Simone Ryan. Trish was College Dux in 1959. Their family, like mine, has an interesting connection to Kilbreda, in that, Trish’s granddaughter Jess Collins (Year 12 2006), is a fourth generation Kilbredian, as are my own daughters, Julia (2014) and Lily (2016). Coincidentally, I taught Jess French when she was in Year 10.

Trish recalled paying her respects in the old Chapel (now the Front Office) to an older nun who had died. I imagine it was probably Sr Gonzaga McCurran in 1950. Gonzaga was a kitchen nun, who had provided my grandmother with a cup of hot chocolate and some toast on cold mornings after she had arrived from near the Heatherton Football ground on foot, which she did each day. A contemporary of hers was Trish’s mother, Nell Carr, whose family had the Mentone picture theatre which was about opposite where the Fire Station is now. Nell is pictured in about 1926, third from the right in the second back row. Incidentally, at the other end of that row, is my dear former colleague, Madge Brown, known to some older staff as Sr Mercedes. In front of her is my Aunty Rosie. 

Damian Smith 

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