The persuasion of Pitman shorthand (C8) lives on, Shirley Rider: “I learnt it at business college in 1965 and used it for decades,” says Pam Linnett of Twin Waters (Qld). “It’s still useful for shopping lists, phone messages etc. For any users still around, I suggest the excellent blog Long Live Pitman’s Shorthand! A host of entertaining information for Pitman fans.”
“Yes Shirley, I topped Miss Suthies’ Secretarial College in Wellington (NZ) in Pitman shorthand more than 60 years ago,” says Heather Harman of Tuncurry. “Like you, I still take notes which only I can transpose!”
“Like N. Andrew McPherson, when we recently moved, I discovered letters in a shoebox from a French penfriend [C8],” writes Stephanie Francis of McLeans Ridges. “We corresponded for a year in 1967 while at high school. My husband encouraged me to try to contact her and I tracked her down through a French phone book which had a link to her business, a crêpe catering business. The only way to contact her initially was through an online form. I had to pretend I wanted her to cater for a party, but in one section I was able to convey the real reason for contact. She emailed me immediately. Since then, we’ve exchanged photos of ourselves and families. She has invited me to stay with her in France, and I’m making plans to do that next year.”
“We were correspondence school students in 1957,” recalls Elizabeth Green of Bulga. “Gloria in sub-Arctic Canada with a pet cougar; me in the New England wilderness area near Hernani with a pet wallaby. We’ve kept writing, though sadly no word from her since Christmas. Ever hopeful ...”
Sandra Doughty of Yerong Creek writes with sad news on one of our favourites: “C8 contributor Bill Wilkinson has passed away. Bill was my teacher at Rosewood Primary School in the ’70s and retired back to Tumbarumba at the end of a long career. As a teacher, he opened my eyes to the world. Vale ‘Mr Wilkinson’ and the Agapanthus hiding in the stationery store.”
That firing range query (C8) was definitely worth a shot: “There was a pistol range under the southern end of the Harbour Bridge,” confirms today’s token male, Robert McLeod of Chatswood: “It was in a disused railway tunnel that led to Wynyard Station and was under the Cahill Expressway. I used to shoot there once a week.”
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