From the Archives – THE MUSIC TRADITION BEGINS

It’s not often we get an insight of the past like this. Here is recollection of the memories of a 1950s Fortian of one of his favourite teachers. There was also a presentation to our principal, Juliette McMurray, of the digitized music from an old record produced of the boys’ choir singing.

“Until the 1950’s, as a selective, boys’ high school, Fort St was not a school in which Music was generally seen as a significant or particularly popular subject or interest area. Far more popular were cricket, rugby, the school Army Cadets Unit, and traditional subjects such as Mathematics, English and foreign languages.

Then there arrived on the staff a dynamic young Music teacher named David Tunley, who was destined to raise the profile and standard of Music within the school, with an impact enduring far beyond his own service on the staff, to the point where successive Music teachers at Fort St have maintained and enhanced his dedication, through to the present day.

The introduction of the school choir in 1953 evoked widespread scepticism with only 35 attending but the next year saw an influx of senior boys to strengthen the tenors and basses as well as the formation of the First Year Choir. Presentations were common at Play Nights, Musicales, the Town Hall and the recording of the choir on 78rpm in AWA studios. By 1956 programs were being recorded on ABC radio relayed through Radio Australia. The school Principal, Mr Shaw, personally designed a “magnificent microgroove gramophone” (that’s a stereo and turntable) and a donation of classical records from EMI meant the Music Department was established. Within 4 years the choir had grown to 200 – over a third of the school.

I don’t think we had any informed idea of just how young and inexperienced David was when he first arrived. In later years, when I began my own teaching career at Sydney Boys High, trying to teach French & German to adolescents whose interests mainly lay elsewhere, I realised that David Tunley was that rare and precious phenomenon…a truly gifted and inspirational teacher. It came as no surprise that David’s career reached the highest levels, as Professor of Music at the University of Western Australia.

It seems fitting, with a sense of serendipity, that, almost as an aside, I mentioned at an informal ‘Old Fortians’ catch up, that I still had my precious copy of the 78 rpm record we had made all those years ago. Nor should we be surprised that the ever logical Bill Thomas seized on this as an opportunity to make a CD from this ancient piece of vinyl, and present it to the school, and, significantly, to David Tunley himself. It then followed as surely as the night, the day, that Robie Porter (aka Rob E.G.) used his skills to transmogrify the venerable record into a CD, for all those who wish to hear it.

As someone who spent over 40 years in Education, listening to my copy of this CD transports me so evocatively back to those magic days at Fort St, where a young teacher, through the dynamism of his own personality, aroused in me a love of music which has never left me. Thank you, David Tunley.”

Written by Graham Sims (Fortian 1954-58)