I was walking along the Warburton Trail the other day and I passed through a grove of pine trees. There was a breeze and the pine needles soughed in the wind. For an instant, I was ten years old again at my grandparent’s house and I could glance around in 1967. I tried to grab at the memory… It's a blustery, overcast day. My brother and I are in the top paddock and there's a windbreak of pine trees rustling in the wind.

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My dad, Edgar (Ted) Slinger, found these photos and thought they would be of interest to anyone who attended Merlynston State School in the 1940s. This is from 1942 when he was in Grade 5. … and this is 1943 in Grade 6: Grade 6, 1943 Here are some of the names he was able to dig out of his prodigious memory: Boys Girls David Barr Eve Madden Terry Collins Shirley Griffiths Jim Hewes Barbara Phillips John Ocolwitz Olive Oliver George Powell Mafanny Crisp Ron Muir Joy King Owen Lawson Betty Yarwood Gordon Anderson Jim Whittle Kevin Stubbs ?

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Yes, that’s us. Sometimes it feels like I’m still living in the seventies. Well... a bit. My adult life has roots in that glowing decade in my mid-to-late teens. The world was opening up to friends, music, politics, science, learning a trade and, by the end of the decade, starting a family. Time went slowly because everything was new and novel. It’s still the most vivid period of my life.

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It’s Autumn and it’s a Friday. In Melbourne that can mean a dreary end to the week, but sometimes it’s a surprise; cool but sunny. Being a Friday, grandchild #1.4 is over for the day. She’s two, so if I suggest a walk she’s up for it, because everything is an adventure when you’re two. We head out the door and we’re dazzled by sunshine and blue sky.  I really have to grasp at these moments; they’re lost if you look away for a second.

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My Dad asked me to scan some photos taken when he was working as a maintenance carpenter at Mount Buffalo Chalet in 1952. He was employed by the Victorian Railway and in those days they owned and ran the Chalet. I guess that explains the holiday posters I used to see on the Red Rattlers. He was 21 and had just hooked up with a hot waitress who also worked there.

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