John and Brian Parker 1962 to 1965
John and Brian Parker who spent three years at St Mary’s before emigrating to South Africa in 1965
By the time brothers John and Brian Parker started at St Mary’s in 1962, they had already had several house moves.
They had been born in Bradford (John in August 1947 and Brian in February 1950), before moving to Brockworth, Gloucestershire and then Cardiff in 1958 before arriving in Sidcup.
John went straight into the fifth form and recalls having Adrian Jarvis for English, Ron Hesketh for Geography, Fr Shorttle for RE and Fr McKeown’s ‘rote learning’ teaching technique for History.
John became good friends with Pat Demwell, one of the rugby-playing pioneers at the school and the brothers witnessed at first hand the transition from football to rugby union in the mid 1960s:
“A lot of my memories are from rugby,” says John, “and one that stands out was playing HMS Worcester, a naval training ship moored in the Thames. We played them three times and got hammered the first two times. After the game, Fr McKeown and some parents got invited for drinks on board the ship and I gather that comments on our performance from the ship’s officers were rather condescending.
“The third time they expected us to be ‘lambs to the slaughter’ again but we showed them up by winning 6-3. I understand that Fr McKeown and the parents really enjoyed the drinks that evening with plenty of pay back!”
Brian says many of his memories concern Fr McKeown and he recalls the famously fierce winter of 1963 when all the boys were standing around in their rugby kit looking out at the snow drifts praying that rugby practice would be called off.
When Fr McKeown reluctantly announced there was simply too much snow to play rugby, a loud cheer went up. The result was that the Irishman ordered all the boys out into the snow to do laps of the school perimeter.”
Brian also recalls the school trip to Sestri Levante on the Italian riviera in summer 1964 - a beach holiday with a day trip to Pisa which involved an adventure with a missing boy which will have to wait for the book.
At the end of the holiday, Brian recalls being picked up by his parents who asked him how he felt about going to live in South Africa.
Six months later, John and Brian and the rest of the family were living in Port Elizabeth.
John joined Ford Motor Company as a trainee and studied for an Engineering degree in that process. After marrying Sandra in 1970, the couple adopted two children, Warren and Amanda. “We were never comfortable with apartheid and fortunately I got a job with Ford Australia in 1979,” says John. “We then spent the next 30 years with Ford mainly in Asia and I retired in 2010 as Executive VP for Asia Pacific and Africa. We retired back to Melbourne and have been here for the last 11 years.”
After finishing his schooling in Port Elizabeth, Brian embarked on a career mostly involving sales and marketing before creating a company which manufactured and supplied Honours Boards throughout South Africa.
In 2012, Brian sold the company and relocated to Cyprus where he now lives with his wife, Liz. They have four children - two daughters in Johannesburg, one son in Hanoi and the other in Melbourne.