Born at the Right Time Read online

  Teaching is a real craft, and it took me a little time to master it. I well remember my first class in Common Law 1, in early July 1974. During the second semester, I had to teach the students tort law. I planned to set the ball rolling by introducing them to the history of tort law and especially to the evolution of the tort of negligence. I bounced down the steps of the lecture theatre and introduced myself.

  To be sure I got through all the material I had prepared, I spoke far too rapidly and so, after thirty minutes of the one-hour class, I had gone through all of it. I didn’t quite know what to do next, but one of the more enterprising students suggested that for the remainder of the class I should pick out the key points of the history lesson I had just given.

  Preparing lectures was a laborious process that required many hours of reading by Lois and my other readers. Once I had digested all of the material through listening to the tapes, it was time to prepare the reading guide and then the lectures. I was able to type out a draft of the reading guide on an ordinary typewriter, and then one of the Law School secretaries would type it up properly for me. I had to keep everything in my memory and be able to recall it instantaneously.

  I did braille out lecture notes, which I was able to take into the classroom. I now had a Perkins Braille Writer, which had six keys representing the six dots of the braille cell. Thus I no longer had to press each dot separately with a stylus, but could press combinations of dots at once using the six braille keys.

  If I was going to discuss section 38 of an Act of Parliament in class, I had to do the following. The Act of Parliament would have been read onto tape. So, I had to go to the tape, find the Act and then find section 38. By pausing the tape recorder, I was slowly able to braille out the section. This meant that in class the students would have the standard, printed copy of the Act before them, and I would have my braille copy of section 38 of that Act on the lectern before me. Similarly, if I wished to discuss what a judge had said in a case, I would have to find the tape on which the case had been read, then re-read it and pick out the parts of the judge’s decision I wished to braille out. Once all this brailling was complete, I could staple my lecture notes together and get ready for class.

  All of this took hours and hours; I am sure my preparations took far longer than that of my colleagues. People asked why did I work fourteen hours a day ‘reading’ material on my tape recorder? However, at that time there was no alternative. If I desired to become and to remain employed as a legal academic, then I simply had to use the tools available to me—tape recorders and braille—in order to get the job done.

  During those years, teaching was of central importance to me. I played cricket until my first year at university. Regretfully, my studies took over somewhat after that time. I didn’t have a girlfriend; I didn’t have much time or energy for activities beyond the Law School, so teaching really was my reason for being. I think I sublimated everything else to focus on my students and to assist them in becoming outstanding lawyers and fine human beings. The students were young, very intelligent and many of those in my classes were highly motivated.

  I don’t believe that one can be a good teacher if one doesn’t like students; I think that I really loved my students in a broad, collective way. I have always found it fulfilling to assist the minds of my students to grow and to develop in the relevant sub-disciplines of law. My classes were partly exposition by me of the law and partly discussion, where I sought to draw out the threads of the law and to test their capacities to assist in real-life legal situations.

  I used to spend countless hours worrying about how I could best present the legal issues to my classes. I worked hard with my memory and even rehearsed each morning in the shower how I would open and close each lecture. For me, the first and final paragraphs of a lecture are of crucial importance because they encapsulate that day’s learning. I don’t know how else to describe this experience other than to say that I really felt a type of electricity in the classroom. While I have tried to be a very good teacher throughout my life, I don’t think that I have ever been able to recapture the essence of those first teaching years.

  Of course I had to mark student essays, assignments and exams, which naturally involved readers to read them onto audio tape. Both Lois Doery and Elizabeth Dodson, who in early 1976 commenced work with me as a secretary, reader and very importantly as a helper, became pretty good at reading students’ handwriting. This was no small feat. Once the exam answers or essays were on tape, I could mark them and type out comments, which could be stapled to the originals.

  The now late Professor Christie Weeramantry was scholarly, thoughtful and extremely patient and kind with me. Later on, he became a distinguished judge of the International Court of Justice. Whenever I think of Christie, one memory stands out for me. At the end of each year, one of my tasks was to add up marks for exam papers. I must confess that one year I did this job somewhat hurriedly and made a mistake adding up the marks of one student. Christie called me in to see him, sat me down and explained my error.

  I was young and tried to make light of it, saying that it was only a tiny mistake and of course it had been picked up. Christie explained that one of the most important things we academic teachers do is to certify that our students have gained the requisite knowledge in the subject under examination. We were dealing with young people’s lives, and we should be ever-vigilant to perform every element of the assessment task with care and with diligence. Ever since, over more than forty years, I have tried to follow his edict.

  I never had any disciplinary problems with students, but of course I mainly taught third and fourth years. They were sensitive to the difficulties resulting from my blindness and treated me with gentleness and humour. One afternoon, wearing a skivvy with my Canadian soapstone carving round my neck, I jumped down the steps of the lecture theatre as I prepared to teach administrative law. I went slightly off course with my jumping and couldn’t find the lectern. Then one of my dear students, Jack Hammond, simply said, ‘Getting warm, Ron’, and we all laughed. I found the lectern, put down my braille notes and the class began.

  Surprisingly at first, at least to me, a number of students actually came up to my office and volunteered to read cases and articles onto tape for me. A student who went on to become the Victorian ombudsman read to me. Ex-students who are now judges read to me. It was really good for the students to come into my room and help me to ‘read’ cases for class. This reading assisted my research immeasurably; by the end of 1974, I had sufficient readers and was gradually building up a tape-recorded library of material.

  Of course, the internet was decades away and I had no real concept of how computers and iPhones would work. I wrote my first book on a typewriter; it was a case book, but there were pages and pages of commentary. In those days, if you came to see me as a student, I would have said, ‘Do you mind reading me the last sentence I typed?’ Then I would keep that in my head and could continue on.

  I am proud of all of my former students, whatever they end up doing in their later lives. For example, I remember Peter Costello, who was very gifted and went on to become our nation’s longest-serving federal treasurer. Though we disagree on many political issues, I am very proud of what he has done for our country.

  Soon after I arrived home from Canada, I wanted to continue my passage to adulthood by moving out of my family home and finding a place of my own. In about October 1974, I started looking at apartments near Monash University. Hoong Phun Lee, who is always known as HP Lee and is now a distinguished Emeritus Professor, helped me visit a few places. HP and I were two relatively new appointees and we became firm friends.

  The Monash University Housing Office informed me that the university owned a house that was vacant and I could rent it. It was no more than a five-minute walk across grass to the Law School. It was a curious house and I think it has long since been pulled down. It was sort of roundish in shape and the drain pipe from its roof was in the centre of the house as a pipe or
tube going from the ceiling right through the floor to drain out. On a Friday evening in late January 1975, I moved in and began to live in this little house, and it became my abode for a couple of years, until mid-1977.

  In those days I had very few possessions. I moved my single bed in. Later I purchased a small double bed, which allowed me to move, to stretch and to dream. Mum came with me to a second-hand store to buy a table with four chairs; I must have also obtained a small wardrobe, but I don’t quite remember. Like many young people, I borrowed some furniture from Mum. In particular, her lovely round glass-topped table, which still sits in our living room in Sydney to this day.

  My brother Max found me a small bar fridge. There was an old electric stove, but I also bought an electric frying pan and an electric kettle. Mum helped me purchase a second-hand washing machine.

  My cooking was rather rudimentary. For breakfast there was cereal, toast and tea, and I usually bought sandwiches for lunch at the university. My evening meals consisted of meat, usually lamb chops, a potato or two, and a vegetable. I found beans, spinach and broccoli the easiest vegetables to cook. Those were the days of cask wine, and I would often have a glass of cask white while cooking and listening to the ABC’s PM current affairs program. Later I graduated to cooking pasta, roast lamb with potatoes, scrambled eggs and bacon, and roast or fried chicken.

  Each week or so, Lois would take me to a supermarket. With my list in hand, we would wander up and down the aisles. Lois tried to convince me to eat more greens, and she did partially succeed.

  It became my custom on many a Saturday evening to cook a small roast dinner. I would put on a collared shirt, set the table nicely, put on some soft music and serve up a portion of roast lamb with potato and greens, accompanied by a glass of nice wine. On occasion I remember wondering if I would ever routinely share this type of good meal with another person.

  I did have a social life. There were many youngish members of staff at the Law School, and often on a Friday or Saturday evening we would socialise together. I was on my own, while most of my colleagues were partnered; but that didn’t prevent me from having fun. Nonetheless, I spent almost every evening on my own. The following is a poem that I wrote at the time that captures something of my mood.

  ‘Alone’

  Some close friends as I do live lives on their own

  And in lingering conversations they say the evenings are unkind;

  Coming home and cooking, being alone in the night,

  Long television filled evenings without the sound or sight

  Of other persons; and of course endless nights I have known,

  But the shimmering silent dawn is the loneliest time I find.

  I feel alert and awake and so wish to share

  Floating thoughts and bubbling ideas

  Which have surfaced as I wake alone,

  But instead I’m answered by loud handless radio voices,

  DJ commercialised tones shouting their choices

  Of music, through mass-circulated throats, as they make me aware

  Of the weather and news in a sterile electric warmth tone.

  Though these voices reach a hundred thousand breakfasting ears,

  I’d be lost without this mass-magnetised verbal background;

  Yet without this technology and the information that it’s giving

  We could not have this epidemic of single living;

  For as our urban world separates our daily lives, it appears

  In return technology comforts us in a communal blanket of sound.

  But I wait for the shawl of a cooing comforting voice

  Joined to lips and hands with flavoured words only for me;

  And in time the babbling of streamlets and rocky squeals,

  With the magic of togetherness living and the tenderness it reveals

  In us all, and then one morning I’ll rejoice

  With a silent prayer

  For the plastic-coated voices of my former foster-family.

  It now seems a little strange, but I did get used to this solitary existence. There was the radio of, course, and I also received audio books from the Braille and Talking Book Library. Lois helped cultivate my interests in classical music. I joined the World Record Club and purchased a small stereophonic record player. I think I played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony so often that the scratches I must have made with the record needle occasionally sounded as though there was a bushfire blazing in the background.

  As had been the case in Canada, I knew that I had to be neat and clean at all times. By this stage I had mastered my laundry. To ensure that my socks matched, when undressing in the evenings I pinned both socks together after taking them off. They could be washed and hung out to dry still pinned together. When I sorted and folded the laundry, I could take the pins out and be sure that all of the socks were neatly paired.

  In the 1970s I dressed very casually indeed. I usually wore a thick fleecy skivvy, casual pants, and a jumper in winter. Nowadays, I can’t imagine lecturing in anything other than a suit and a tie, but I guess that in those days I was rather young. I did have collared shirts, ties and suits; Mum used to come over every ten days to iron my good shirts. To ensure that I would know which were my dark and light shirts, I adopted the practice of putting a small safety pin on the inside of the collar of all of my dark shirts.

  I don’t think my diet was ideal, and I began to put on too much weight. Lois helped me purchase an exercise bicycle, and I set about riding it for fifteen minutes or so most mornings. Through this exercise and some re-arranging of my diet, I kept my weight on a relatively even keel. I still try to ride my exercise bicycle (which is computerised these days) for between ten and fifteen minutes a day. As well as giving me some much-needed exercise, it helps me to maintain my sense of balance.

  I didn’t really expect to find a life partner, and therefore fathering children didn’t seem on the cards. In December 1974, with academic colleagues Peter and Fran Hanks, I attended the Christmas party of the Monash Family Cooperative Crèche, which was just a few doors along from my little round house. At the party, I met Mrs Ingeborg Tsai, who was the kindergarten teacher. Mrs Tsai wanted the children to learn that persons with disabilities were the same as other people. Then and there she asked me when I was going to come along and visit her class. I guess I gave a polite, ‘Well, yes, one of these days.’

  It took until 9 October the following year for me to make that visit. After the first visit, I was so captivated that I kept going every few weeks for the next decade. On my visits I would ‘read’ a story to the class. Lois had helped me purchase books with big pictures. She would read them onto tape, and I would learn them by heart. I would also learn when to turn the page, to show the children the next picture. I still remember The Tiger Who Came to Tea. I think I prepared for those readings as though I were preparing for one of my labour law lectures. This time with the children was very precious to me.

  I enjoyed occasionally picking them up for a brief cuddle but, more importantly, I learned a little patience. The children wanted what I wanted: namely, the undivided attention of another person. I learned to listen to them, and this reinforced and strengthened my deep listening practice, which had begun in the Canadian jail in Kingston working with prisoners.

  I think that, at first, a few of the parents were a little sceptical about my visits to their children. However, they quickly accepted me and even invited me to crèche gatherings. The friendship and openness of so many of the parents built up my confidence beyond the world of the Monash Law School. These days I suspect it would be more difficult for a single man, even one with a disability, to visit a day-care centre with such frequency. While issues of paedophilia and child exploitation were not openly talked about in those days, the crèche was run professionally and the safety of children was always foremost in its practices. On no occasion was I ever alone with any of the children.

  The children also enjoyed helping me. One student asked who was coming to pick me
up, and I simply replied that I was big enough to go back to the Law School by myself. One afternoon, a child named Thomas was sitting next to me at kindergarten lunch. The soup was terrible, so I asked Thomas if he could please pass me a sandwich. He said, ‘Mr McCallum, we are not allowed to eat a sandwich until we’ve finished our soup.’ I swallowed the soup, and when I went back to my little house I had a small scotch to get its taste out of my mouth.

  I’m a little awkward about trying to analyse my motivation for making these visits. Perhaps it was a sublimation of fatherhood unfulfilled, but I think that even more it was a reaching out to strands of life and experiences that then seemed beyond me. The visits to Mrs Tsai’s kindergarten class enabled me to grow beyond my narrow past and to become a more balanced person, with my arms slowly opening up to the world around me.

  To progress, academics must not only teach, they must also research and publish. In January 1975, Lois read to me the latest decision of the House of Lords, which at that time was the highest court for the United Kingdom. The case was called Dockers’ Labour Club and Institute Ltd v Race Relations Board.

  The facts were as follows. Mr Sherrington was a member of a Working Men’s Club that, with 4000 other clubs in Great Britain, was affiliated to the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union Limited. These clubs had some three and a half million members and any member could become an associate of the Union, and so be entitled to use the facilities of any of the affiliated clubs. Mr Sherrington, along with over one million fellow Britons, was an associate.

  In 1970, after being allowed entry to the Dockers’ Club on production of his associate member’s card, Mr Sherrington was refused a drink and asked to leave the club. He was a man of colour, and the Dockers’ Club had a racist committee rule by which coloured people were refused service.

  England had an anti-discrimination Act in force, the Race Relations Act 1968, which stated it was unlawful for any person concerned with the provision of goods and services to the public or a section of the public to refuse someone service because of their race. Mr Sherrington sued the Dockers’ Club. He won and the Dockers’ Club appealed.