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A series of chance encounters led to an unlikely reunion of Gulgong school mates who hadn’t seen each other for half a century.
The mates, who all attended Gulgong Public School met up at Sanctuary Point in NSW. Dennis Talbot, John Symons, Michael McTegg, Barry O'Keefe and their school bus driver Les Symons.
The boys all knew each other from kindergarten through to fourth year in 1970.
The Mudgee Guardian spoke with Barry O’Keefe about the reunion and how it all came together.
“Yeah well we just got together, the guys wanted to meet each other, we were all in the same class together. I’d met all of them once but they hadn’t met or seen other since 1970 so it was fitting to just go down there [Sanctuary Point] on the weekend and reminisce on a few of our old stories,” Barry said.
“We were all pretty close. We were all in the football team and whenever anyone went down the street [in Gulgong] or whatever there was always one of us around.”
“Denis Talbot was probably the funniest young fella in our group that used to stir people up all the time,
“He left about 1969 and went to Mudgee and lived there.”
Denis Talbot started a boxing career during his time in Mudgee and went on to represent Australia at the Olympics and travel around the world as lightweight boxer.
“It was only about five years ago that I got back in touch with Denis. We met down in the south coast one weekend, I knew he was down there and we continued on the friendship,” Barry said.
“Les Symons was our bus driver. He was a really friendly and really good bus driver and he sort of looked after us on the bus and things like that.”
“The good thing about it was he offered to take us down to Sydney for one game of football and then take us into town for a drive.”
Barry said the old mates were thrilled to see each other and it was as if they had never parted.
“We walked into the pub and I’d seen them all and then they hadn’t seen each other for 48 years and it was just surreal how they looked at each other and said ‘oh my god’.
“They got such a buzz out of being there with each other.”
As for the old boys, they’re not stopping at just one reunion, with the next one set to be closer to their old stomping grounds.
“I’ve started talking to the others on the phone a bit and we’ve organised to hold the next one in 2020 and we’re hoping to make the meet up in Gulgong.”