Forty-year reunion for Course 94

Twenty-one retired police, who graduated from Course 94 in 1963, gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion dinner at the Police Club last month.

Also present were two of the original instructors from the course.

The get-together began with an old-fashioned roll-call, after which the former classmates spent an entertaining evening reliving some of the adventures and mishaps they experienced, both during training and on the job.

One such episode involved Bob Wohlenberg while he was a student in Course 94. During a class at Thebarton barracks, conducted by the course’s chief instructor, the late Norm Dawes, Wohlenberg circulated a note secretly – or so he thought – which read, “Smile if you had sex last night”, causing smirks among students who read it.

The note was returned to Wohlenberg just as another note was dropped over his shoulder from fellow-student Wayne Yelland. Just then, instructor Dawes angrily called for Wohlenberg to show him the note he was distributing.

Wohlenberg now had two notes. He knew what he had written, but did not know what Yelland had written. He handed up Yelland’s note to Dawes, and the note read: “Norm Dawes is a good bloke”.

Norm Dawes, expecting a more mischievous note, then allowed Wohlenberg to resume his seat without further embarrassment – which, of course, greatly indebted Wohlenberg to Yelland.

Another Course 94 veteran, Ken Bradley, recalled how, not long after graduation, he had begun having misgivings about choosing a police career. He was attending an emotion-charged disturbance at Salisbury when a man pointed a gun at him and said a few words in Italian. A bystander obligingly translated, telling Bradley: “He is saying to you: If you don’t leave, he’s going to shoot you.”

Maurice Caldwell will never forget being a passenger in a patrol car driven by Brian Smith when they were called out to an incident at a service station. The high speed at which they entered the service station, and the wet surface on which they were travelling, caused their vehicle to spin several times out of control, just missing petrol pumps – and people – before safely coming to a stop.

The driver, Smith, promptly sprang out of the car as if nothing had happened, and asked, “What’s the trouble here?”, leaving his colleague Caldwell, still in the car with his heart pumping wildly, amazed at not having hit everything in sight.

Carl Connor told of an embarrassing incident when Merv Porter and a colleague were on a two-man patrol travelling at speed to attend to a brawl. In their haste, they forgot that the button of their radio was still pressed down. This meant that both of them were on the radio waves for some 20 minutes, while they discussed in very colourful language how they would handle the incident and the offenders.

The idea of holding a 40th anniversary reunion dinner was first suggested last year by the Course 94 captain, Nolan McGree.

Merv Porter was the driving force behind organizing the event. He succeeded in tracking down all but a few of the 27 course graduates – all of whom have since retired from the SA Police.

Porter also did some research into some of the memorable events of 1963 – the assassination of American President John F Kennedy, and Britain’s Great Train Robbery and John Profumo Affair. On the home front, Sir Robert Menzies was still Prime Minister, and Margaret Smith became the first Australian woman to win the Women’s Singles tennis championship at Wimbledon.

Flying in specially from interstate for the course reunion were Nolan McGree, now living in Queensland, and Brian Smith and Maurice Caldwell from Western Australia.

Of the 27 course members who graduated in 1963, many achieved significant milestones. Brian Smith and Ken Symons each completed 37 years’ service; Fay Leditschke and Don Hay rose to commissioned ranks; and a good number of course members became sergeants and senior sergeants.