The 'Gold Pass' controversy

Playtime smoko  —   School where boys smoke
School boys can smoke at lunch  —   Now smoking is allowed at high school

These were the headlines in our daily newspapers when it became known that sixth formers were issued with a ‘gold pass’ which allowed them to leave school at lunch time. Manuka and Kingston Shops, the Manuka Squash Courts and the Lachlan Court Café were easy walking distances from school and a visit to any of these places gave the boys who smoked an opportunity to light up.

The ‘gold pass’ described incorrectly as a ‘one and a half inch square piece of gold cardboard’ by one newspaper and ‘a gilt paper’ by another was issued by the Principal, Mr McPherson, as an honour pass system. The pass was issued after the school received the written authority of the parents of students. Conditions of use applied and these included no driving of vehicles at lunchtime and a ban on visiting the nearby Hotel Wellington or Hotel Kingston. The girls had to sign a departure book to indicate where they were going if they left the school grounds. Accepting that students smoked cigarettes, the school indicated that that they would not police the practice as long as it did not occur in the streets.

Apart from the sensationalistic and often misleading headlines most newspaper articles got the facts correct. There was general agreement that the matter was blown out of proportion evidenced by the fact that the story disappeared as quickly as it had risen. A picture of Rick Burns and John Owens lighting up appeared in two publications with their faces masked. A larger photo of Martin Brady having a ‘drag’ made no effort to hide his identity.

Unfortunately, producing quality scanned images of the newspaper cartoons that this event inspired was not possible. Paul Rigby, in the Sydney Daily Mirror, captioned his take as ‘Smoke-O’ with the message, ‘It’s kidstuff after you’ve been gobbling LSD since play lunch’. (I’ve searched his illustration for the small boy and dog that appear in all his work, with no success.) Frank Benier, in the Sydney Sun, shows tough looking boys smoking while waiting for the school bus — the Smokers Special — in the presence of a horrified minister with the caption ‘Permission to smoke’. And Bill ‘Weg’ Green from Melbourne has a lad explaining to his cane wielding teacher, ‘I’m chewing gum, sir — trying to break myself of the smoking habit...’.   (Images of two of these cartoons have been added at the bootom of the page.)

One lunchtime, a number of us were approached by a TV reporter for an interview. As he set up his camera, Michael Wright, Graham Moore and Tom Stankovich jostled for frontal position while the rest of us combed our hair. Just as the camera began to roll ‘the boss’, Mr McPherson, sped up in his Volkswagen and ordered us back to school. Graham and Tom appeared in front of TV cameras later in their careers as actors but for the rest of us our moment as celebrities was over. I shudder what to think ‘A Current Affair’ or ‘Today Tonight’ or even ‘Sixty Minutes’ would have made of the story. I can imagine the late Richard Carlton smirking his way through another Canberra bashing story!

Many years later I visited a local College and the students were openly smoking in the quadrangle. I have to admit to being surprised perhaps even shocked. Forty years ago, at a guess, fifty per cent of the boys smoked. It would be interesting to know how many still do.

Jim Gillespie

Thanks to Lindsay Plumb who was able to make good scans of two of the cartoons. Left is Weg's Day and below Benier's Comment.