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kitzatberneray Profile Page
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| Website: | www.briesburrow.com.au |
| Location: | 145º 20’ 00.00” East , 37º 53’ 42.00” South |
| Occupation: | sort of a clever dogsbody... |
| Interests: | Just about anything but especially to do with the sea and sailing, reading. |
| Company: | Swinburne University - sometimes.... |
| City: | Upwey |
| State: | Vic |
| Country: | Australia |
| Status: | Married |
| About Me: | Ian Watkins at Berneray: (A potted or perhaps ‘potty’ history) The Watkins family: Ian, Kate, Tristan and Zoë as well as Kate’s seeing eye dog Qiana, horse Miska and the Cats, Socks, Schpongle and Ash live at Berneray in Upwey in the Dandenong ranges, about 40km east of the Melbourne CBD. We have lived here for the past six years having previously lived in Mooroolbark [3 Years] Tecoma [20 Years], Ormond [3 Years]. Ian is originally from Islington, London England. He is descended from the Tullochs from North Ronaldsay Island in the Orkneys, the Buntings from Country Antrim, Northern Ireland and the Bowdens and Watkins from Islington, North London. He migrated with his parents to Australia in 1950 and moved from his great Uncle and Aunt’s property in Avonsleigh, Victoria then via moves to Boronia and Morwell eventually to Traralgon in the Latrobe valley, Gippsland, Victoria where he grew up with his two younger sisters Heather and Beryl. He attended three Primary Schools [he was constantly being ‘re-zoned’ hence the school changes] and Traralgon High School where he went as far as Matriculation [Year 12] but bombed out on that year miserably. Ian gained employment at the State Electricity Commission [SEC] Victoria as a trainee Surveyors Assistant and started night school at Yallourn Technical College starting a Diploma of Civil Engineering. Ian completed his trainee ship in 1970 and, as he had been called up for National Service, was conscripted in April 1970. He applied for and was selected for Officer training and posted to Scheyville in New South Wales where he graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant Royal Australian Infantry Corps in October of that year. He was posted to 2nd recruit Training battalion where he was to take over a training platoon comprising 60 recruits and 5 NCO staff. During this period he was also Company ‘Character Guidance’ office and Battalion Fire Officer. He also developed a new method of recruit assessment for which he was given an ‘Ex gratia’ payment in recognition of the work undertaken. At the time of completing National Service, to the surprise of his fellow officers, he was also noted as being the most ’punished’ [having been given the most number of extra duty officer assignments] of his intake. In his own words’ I did nothing dramatically wrong – but I was consistent!’ Ian had a number of exciting ‘Orderly Officer Duties’ including; a break in at the Armory, approximately 300 man riot, Suicides, 21 Construction Squadron up in flames, etc. In 1971 he conducted the interservice Queen’s Medal rifle shooting competition. Ian was demobbed in December 1970 due to the cutback in the Vietnam commitment. He returned to the SEC and in the next year he left to become a sales manager for Temperance and General Life Insurance Company in Melbourne. He shared a flat in Tooronga with a school friend Doug Esler and, a co-worker of Doug’s, Dennis Nield. Doug and Dennis went their own ways and, for a time, Ian shared the house with two of his friends, Gillian and Norm Morcom who had just returned from a trip around Australia. In 1975 Ian threw in the job with Temperance and General and having saved up some money tried to become a professional artist and writer painting a number of oil paintings and writing a play. This also was not to be a success and as the money grew short Ian left Tooronga to move in with friends in Greensborough. He got a ‘temporary job’ back in the land surveying game whilst he looked for work in the tertiary education sector. He noted, ’I liked being a training officer in the Army so I looked for a like environment where I could use my management skills. After 250 job applications to most Universities and colleges and on my sixth interview at Prahran College of Advanced Education [PCAE] I got the job of Deputy Student Administration Officer, On the day I started, sitting on a chair in a corner of a room with a clip board, they didn’t have a desk ready for me, the Student Administration Officer resigned and within a month I had to take over the department’. Over the next three years Ian was to take over the department on two other occasions, become the College Statistics Office in addition to this other duties, write his first computer program, invent a cardboard ‘work hours calculator’ for calculating ‘Flexi Time’ after being on the committee that enabled flexible working hours to be introduced into PCAE. He also moved from Greensborough to South Yarra to share an apartment with David Harkin and his son Benjamin who had been neighbours in Tooronga. Rob Pederick, a housemate from Greensborough, came also to live in a studio apartment over the Garage. During his time at PCAE Ian realized that he needed tertiary qualifications to advance in this sector. He applied to both Latrobe and Monash University but was rejected as not having matriculation and, strangely enough, the fact that he had undertaken matriculation subjects since his ceasing of formal education [Ian had done English towards the Diploma of Civil Engineering, Australian History whilst in the Army and English Literature when working back at the SEC – this study prevented him from enrolling under the ‘mature age ‘provisions!]. Ian noted that his ‘Alma Mata’ Yallourn Technical college had become Gippsland College of Advanced Education in the interim and now offered an Arts Diploma so he transferred his Civil Engineering course to the Arts Diploma by correspondence and subsequently to an Arts degree. He later transferred the course to PCAE. In 1978 after an altercation with the registrar he resigned from PCAE and gained employment at Swinburne University of Technology as Admissions Officer on a temporary year long contract. Swinburne then found out that he could do the required Government Statistical returns and so became the College Statistics Officer and held this position until 1980. He married Catherine [Kate] Hannah in 1979 whom he had met working at PCAE. ‘I thought I had broken two of my rules for going out with girls when I first went out with Kate. The first rule was- don’t go out with anyone you work with as this can cause problems if you break up. In Kate’s case I did not just work with her but was also her boss. The other rule was: do not go out with anyone younger than his youngest sister Beryl - thinking that 8 years difference in age was enough. I thought I had also broken this rule until Kate pointed out to me that her birthday was in June and Beryl’s was in November, So she squeaked in on this rule’ The lived in a house that Kate had bought in Ormond. Kate is a many generation Australian, originally from Sydney, having moved to Melbourne with her father, her sister and two brothers in the 1970’s. Ian completed his Degree in Arts majoring in Psychology and then went on to do a Graduate Diploma in Applied Science in Population Statistics. Tristan was born in 1982. The family moved to Tecoma in the Dandenong after noting that Ormond was not the best place to bring up children. Zoë was born in 1984. In 1986 Ian took long service leave from Swinburne where he was still working and the family went to England for three months. Ian’s Mother had decided to take her husband’s, Bert Watkins, ashes and inter them in her father’s grave in Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. After and eventful trip starting with having to avoid the fallout from Chernobyl from the north, US bombing Libya from the south and having the internment service, the family, including Ian’s mother Mary toured Britain in a campervan. Mary stayed at B&Bs whilst the family camped. The trip started in Northern Ireland, then Scotland, the western Isles including Lewis where Mary was born, the Highlands of Scotland, the lakes district central England and Norfolk. They dropped Mary off at London as they passed by and returned to Northern Ireland via Southern England, Wales and Eire only to have a tree fall on the camper van on the third last day of the trip [whilst the family were in it!!!]. Kate obtained a scalded forearm from the accident and although no-one else was hurt the van was effectively a write-off. On returning to Australia Ian had found that he had been re-organized into the University’s Computer Center. He spent the next two years learning computer systems and advising on student systems then again took over the statistics until 1990. In this year Ian wrote a specification that resulted in a new planning department for the university. Ian continued with the computer center and was involved in the design and building of the ASCOL Student administration system that he eventually administered. In 1998 Ian took over the management of Business Support Services, a management team looking after the core systems of the University. In 2003 in further restructuring Ian became, ‘in title if not in actuality’ the system Integration Data Architect for the University and retired from this position in 2005. Currently. Ian is learning to live in ‘retirement mode’, catching up with old friends and family, tracing the family tree, getting fit and renovating their ‘Architecturally significant’ house ‘Berneray’ with occasional temporary contract work back at the University. Ian and Kate headed off on a Pacific Island Cruise in November 2005 and during 2006 Ian became a trainee Deckhand on the Enterprize, an 1800’s replica topsail schooner. In 2008 he has the Risk management portfolio for the vessel. Kate has kept working trying to keep Ian in a manner to which he would like to become accustomed. He is also catching up with old army mates and occasionally working on his family tree. He is an avid reader, likes designing and building things, playing on the internet as well as loving his sailing about once a week. |
| Who would I like to meet?: | Charlize Theron, HRH Queen Elizabeth, Steven Hawking, all my Watkins, Bunting, Bowden, etc. relatives, Jim Goodnight and anyone else who is either beautiful or interesting ;-) |
| Hits | 1949 |
| Online Status | OFFLINE |
| Member Since | 10/04/2006 08:38:08 |
| Last Online | 06/16/2009 04:33:44 |
| Last Updated | 04/16/2008 04:12:44 |
| Connections | 1 |
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| Birthday: | 08/01/1947 |
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