Remembrance Day 1975 really was one to remember for Year 11 general studies students at Manly Boys High School.

It was unforgettable not only because of the momentous goings-on involving the leading Australian political figures who won and lost on this historic date.

It was also memorable due to the unusual way the news of the prime ministerial sacking was conveyed to us in our examination room – while the exam clock was still ticking!

That hot spring afternoon was the time set for the practice Higher School Certificate exam for general studies students at Manly Boys High School – now the co-educational Manly Selective Campus of the Northern Beaches Secondary College.

The exam was to test out our ability to write four essays, which we chose from topics covering current affairs, politics, humanities and the arts.

Our exam paper was set by the dynamic, outspoken and overtly Aussie-style English and general studies teacher, Harvey Rose.

Mr Rose was an irrepressible advocate for the merits of a wide-ranging education – and a man known for openly sharing his personal political views.

For him, the Australian Labor Party’s Gough Whitlam was a courageously embattled hero struggling to get the finance his government needed approved by the opposition-controlled Senate, which had been repeatedly deferring the matter.

Amid this political crisis, Mr Rose was throwing himself into the challenge of immersing his students in the rigours of their first three-hour-long general studies test.

Mr Rose was an ultra-Australian renaissance man who knew much about many topics. He had an ability to informally but dramatically bring to life fascinating elements of his knowledge with his penetrating, broad and profoundly nasal Australian accent.

He was a stand-out teacher physically – in large part due to his distinctive crop of curly reddish-brown facial hair.

This growth was so exuberant that it reminded you of those early Australian explorers photographed or sketched after finishing their long, shaving-free treks through the outback.

Harvey Rose’s facial hair was particularly unusual because it did not constitute a conventional full beard. Instead, he had two enormous self-contained sideburns which didn’t quite meet at the chin.

We students speculated that his super-minimalist shave may well have been achieved with a single stroke of the razor to ensure that a 2-centimetre clean-shaven strip separated the independent jungle of each side burn.

In the school playgrounds, students would affectionately refer to Mr Rose (though not to his face) as “Firebreak Rose”. This was based on the premise that if one side of his immense crop of facial hair ever caught fire, at least the other half could be saved.

Mr Rose was an ardent news-follower. He convinced his keenest students to do likewise so we could achieve impressive general studies grades. His lively classroom perspectives on political events always entranced. He was an enthusiastic member of the NSW Teachers Federation who made no secret of his personal preference for the union side of Australian politics.

As a film buff, Mr Rose spent many of our general studies lessons telling us about critically acclaimed Australian movies. He was deeply impressed by Sunday Too Far Away, starring Jack Thompson, which came out in 1975 and dramatised the Australian shearers’ strike of the 1950s. No prizes for guessing where Mr Rose’s sympathies lay in the struggle between the unionised shearers, the non-union shearers and the sheep station owners.

However, by the time it came to November 1975, Mr Rose – like so many Australians – was deeply pre-occupied by the deadlock in federal politics. He was engrossed by every step of the political combat between Gough Whitlam; the Liberal Party opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser; and their warring MPs and supporters.

Where Mr Rose led, his more dedicated students followed – becoming young political obsessives fuelled by constant news updates. In the lead-up to November 11, I remember being on “study leave” and lying on our green backyard trampoline listening to live ABC Radio broadcasts of the ever-more-heated parliamentary debates from Canberra.

This really was legitimate academic study because it was distinctly possible there would be an essay option in our exam about the crisis. And, indeed, this came to pass on Remembrance Day.

As we sifted through the exam questions Mr Rose handed out on the big day, sure enough the topic was there – inviting us to write about the latest political machinations in Canberra and to predict the outcome.

In theory, this was a question right up my street. But it triggered internal alarm bells. I’d already learnt enough about politics to know that it could be highly unpredictable.

I remember thinking that as the political contest had become so fierce and so complex, the outcome could go in either party’s favour. As there were other options on the exam paper which appealed, I decided it was safer to concentrate on these. Alas, some of my classmates took a different approach.

All proceeded quietly for most of the three-hour test, in accordance with normal exam rules. The only unusual aspect was that Mr Rose frequently left the classroom – trusting us not to share information between ourselves.

The reason was related to his need to listen to Canberra-dominated radio news bulletins. This was underlined towards the end of the exam – just before the time allowed to finish had completely expired.

Suddenly, Mr Rose burst through the door. Rushing to finish my final essay in time, I confess that as a future journalist, I failed to record exactly what words were uttered amidst this “Firebreak” eruption. But even without written proof, 50 years later my memory is clear. Sweeping exam decorum aside, Mr Rose declared something like: “He’s been sacked!”

“Whitlam’s been sacked!

“That bastard Kerr has sacked him!”

In science lessons we had learnt that all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. Such a reaction took place. There was a foul-mouthed and shocked response from a multitude of students around the room. The language cannot be repeated precisely in a respectable family newspaper – even 50 years later.

These furiously expressed sentiments seemed to come exclusively from the students who had tackled the question on the Australian political crisis. Were they personally offended by what had happened in our Australian democracy? Er, not exactly.

They were aghast that their individual assessments had been sabotaged by what we’d just been told about the shock move by an unexpected player in the Canberra political war zone.

No one had suspected the governor-general would or could do such a thing. And those students who were writing their essay on what had seemed to be a political deadlock did not have enough time to properly re-work whatever they had just concluded about its likely outcome. They were unrestrained in signalling their distress.

I cannot tell you how Mr Rose subsequently handled the marking of those essays whose authors had been wrong-footed by Sir John Kerr’s actions – and by his own classroom announcement about them.

If Mr Rose had been a less passionate and less impatient soul, I suppose he might have managed to keep his knowledge of what had just happened in Canberra to himself – at least until the exam was declared over. But he was not that kind of character.

Mr Rose’s outrage about what he saw as an ambush of Australian democracy was his gut reaction to his concern for his country.

Notwithstanding all the shouting and swearing, the exam papers were collected at the deadline. But Mr Rose’s dissatisfaction with the governor-general’s actions rumbled long after the exam. Some of us stayed around to listen to his re-telling of all the details he’d picked up from the radio – mixed in with his own expressions of disgust.

On that historic day, Gough Whitlam had called upon Australians to “maintain your rage” over his dismissal. But Mr Rose needed no such encouragement.

It was some years later that I had the chance to hear face-to-face the opposite view from that which Mr Whitlam and Mr Rose were putting forward with equal force during an interview I conducted with Sir Garfield Barwick after he had retired from his position as chief justice of the High Court.

While still presiding over the High Court, Sir Garfield had advised Sir John Kerr about his legal position in relation to the 1975 political crisis. Later Sir Garfield wrote a book called Sir John Did His Duty.

Just before it was publicly released in 1983, a review copy was sent to the ABC. I was instructed to interview and cross-examine its author. In Sir Garfield’s home in Avalon, where I recorded his views, the former chief justice was adamant that Sir John – in following his (Sir Garfield’s) own personal legal advice to him on the 1975 crisis – had done precisely the right thing.

If Mr Rose – who also lived in Avalon – had strolled along the street at the time and had overheard the views Sir Garfield was expressing, you might have expected him to explode again.

Today, Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Sir John Kerr and Sir Garfield Barwick are no longer with us. Sadly, neither is Harvey Rose who, after leaving teaching, went on to become the much-loved independent mayor of Pittwater.

On his pathway to political office, Rose transformed those giant sideburns into a more rigorously trimmed conventional beard.

Fifty years on from the most contentious single political act committed within Australia’s democratic system, I suspect that public views on Sir John Kerr’s actions – and Sir Garfield Barwick’s advice to him – will continue to split the nation. This split is probably destined to remain as divided as those two gigantic but separated “firebreak” sideburns were in their prime.

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