b'F R O M T H E B E G I N N I N Gwonderfulplaymates.TheywouldallgodownintotheGlebeGully behind the house and play for hours, discovering caves andhideouts and springs and playing with possums and blue tonguelizards. And later, at Carrington Road, in the evenings Sheila wouldteach some of the boys to do the fox-trot.4The HeadmasterB ill Nimmo stood five feet three inches in his shoes. No doubtthis increased the self-esteem of many of his towering lads,who were thirteen years and more; but his authority, andtheir respect for him, was undiminished. His eyes were an intensebluea trait which the family call the Nimmo blue. He alwayswore a suit and, even if teaching in shirt-sleeves and braces in thesummer, out of doors he would don his felt hat and suit coat the pockets white with chalk and sagging with bunches of keys. Heenjoyed smoking, although he did not inhale, and would dispatcha boy to the tobacconist to buy some Country Life cigarettes in theflat, round tin. Whenever he peeled an apple for a child with thepen-knife he always carried, it tasted of nicotine.Nimmo hated the telephone and and would not have it put onat the school, where it could interrupt his teaching. Instead, therewas a sign beside the school door giving his home number whichparents could ring if they wished to speak with him. He was alwaysin a hurry to leave the school in the afternoon as he wanted to gethometotacklethedailycrosswordpuzzle.Hewaskeenoncanaries, which he bred at homeending up with white ones. Hewrote poetry and had some of his work published under a nom deplume. He was an avid reader: he knew the classics, but enjoyedrelaxing with westerns and detective paperbacks. Sometimes hewould play a round of golf with friends at Moore Park and often hereturned to the Blue Mountains for a holiday.2 8'