Satima's Blogspot: A ‘Dear John’ Letter

Thursday, 10 May 2018

A ‘Dear John’ Letter

Thursday, May 10, 2018 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

‘Dear John -- Oh how I hate to write…’ We all know that old song, about a girl who is jilting her beau in favour of his brother.

This ‘Dear John’ is not one of those. It is a post to try to tell you about a beautiful friend who passed away earlier this week.

(Photo by Nigel Dowling Smith)

Dr John Rouse Terry was a scion of an old NSW family: ‘pure merinos’ they were (the early C19 slang among the convicts deported to NSW for the free gentlemen who took up land to breed fine-wool merino sheep). But my friend was not a farmer — he was a musician, and a fine one. We were fellow students at Sydney’s Conservatorium High School back in our halcyon days. The ‘Con High’ was then, and possibly still is, the most ‘selective school’ in Australia. All the pupils had to be promising music students, enrolled with one or more of the fine teachers ensconced there.

John fulfilled the requirements perfectly. Not so yours truly – I was a barely adequate piano and singing student. John was made of sterner stuff. He could play all the classic composers by ear or by sight, and when I knew him, he was already composing his own music. Unlike me, he was a dedicated student.

But let us loose and boy, did we have fun! Sticky chewing gum on a teacher’s chair. Playing hide and seek underground in the forbidden regions of the Conservatorium’s cellars, hiring a practice studio and creating a ruckus that brought complaints from people genuinely trying to teach or practice nearby — and once, to celebrate the end of studies for the year of 1959, wagging school completely to go to the beach. That earned me the only bout of genuine sunstroke that I ever had. My parents and I were travelling by car to Melbourne the next day and my father had to stop several times so I could throw up by the roadside. Sic transit gloria mundi. (Well, yes, it really was a 'Sick Transit’.)

I never did ask John if he got sunburned too, but as he was fair-skinned, like me, it’s very likely he did. He and I did a bit of kissing and canoodling on the beach that day – the only time that I recall our relationship becoming physical. A few years later, along with a few other former classmates, he was to attend my first marriage. After that we almost lost touch – I travelled widely and seldom lived in the same place for more than a year or two. However, we ran into each other occasionally, and in more recent years, John’s sister, a fellow Shakespeare lover and former president of the Shakespeare Club of Western Australia, mentioned John from time to time. The last time John and I met, sadly, was at the funeral of his brother-in-law.

Ave et vale, beloved friend. I’ll bet you’re giving those heavenly choristers a good workout!

1 comments:

Satima Flavell said...: I should have added that condolences are due to all who knew and loved John, especially his family and his beloved long-term partner, Nigel.; Sunday, May 13, 2018

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A ‘Dear John’ Letter

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