The Deacon at Trinity College gave me some grief with my application to be admitted to the resident community (Trinity) where students were known to drink heavily and skip lectures. I'm still not sure what it was on my application that gave him pause, but I (he) will always remember him, later that year, walking into the chapel in the middle of the night to see who was playing the Toccata and Fugue with two fingers in the organ loft, which I had to scale the wall to get into, and to make it all look worse, I had a beer and a guest with me.
I had a key to the chapel because somehow my audition for the choir had been successful. Something different, but that's where I met the girl who encouraged me the following year to run for the head of the Music Society which would give me control over champagne budget for our concert receptions.
From my room I could have thrown an economics textbook out the window and hit the pub. That's why I was there all the time..... Beer was a dollar-something and you wanna go where everybody knows your name, (Bucky, like both my sisters).
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| 'Savage night' in response to new rules for formal dinners |
Violin lessons at the Melbourne Conservatory (part of Melb Uni) with Carl Pini came and went without much technical improvement. He assigned me some concerto rep that provided a new challenge, and I must have practiced a bit because I can still play it by memory. I don't remember how those lessons were curtailed, as I was so busy doing other things.
I was recruited for a piano trio with two talented girls. We started on the big repertoire: Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn. We won the audience prize in the Melbourne Chamber Strings competition playing Smetana. After the ceremony a nice cellist girl was bawling tears about not doing well, and can still I remember the thought I had:
"Wow, people really take this seriously."
I kept playing in both my youth chamber orchestras, and after the official Trinity pub crawl, I recall showing up to the local symphony orchestra for a Mahler rehearsal stinking of alcohol and probably quite drunk still. My colleagues would remember it.
I auditioned for the college musical (Grease) and was given the role of Eugene. I had a few lines and some funny scenes and thankfully, no songs. We gave quite a few performances. Good fun, and exciting to be on stage. Playing the role of a geeky, cheeky, lovable young fellow planted the seed for the character I adopted a year later in the Como Quartet. This time his name was Irving, like the grasshopper (who walked into a bar)...
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| Irving on the left of Glen and Hung |
The end of the '86 academic year arrived quickly, bringing with it failing grades in Accounting and Economics and possibly another class too. The 'Senior Student' astutely pointed out:
"Bucky, you're just not a Commerce man."
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| At a 21st birthday party |
Despite best intentions to do better this academic year, 1987 began with a quickly planned, two month long ski trip to Canada with three friends. On a budget of $45 a day, having bought an enormous 5.3 liter Plymouth Stationwagon ($300) which could fit all our skis, with just the tips reaching over the back seat, including the 203cm Atomics I bought in Vancouver. Real Skis.
We were young for such a big trip, I was only 19, but that was the legal drinking age in Canada.
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| Australia Day |
We were on a tight budget so we had to cut corners and pull some scams that invariably involved hiding. There was a lot of splitting the double bed and flipping a coin to see which two got the mattress and who got the bed base. I don't remember it being uncomfortable. I suppose your body doesn't hurt at that age.. not like now.
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| Peter Bucknell: Heli ski |
Heli-skiing in 1987 cost CAN$249 per day, so we found one day to do that out of Panorama. The rest of the 8 weeks we spent skiing 22 different mountains in Alberta and British Columbia.
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| Peter skiing Banff, Lake Louise Photo by Mathew Lansell |
March 1987:
The Academic Board was waiting for me back in Melbourne. I was assigned some adult supervision at Trinity. I see in my diary that I was meeting with a lady in the library every week. I don't remember a thing about it, but I do remember taking up black and white photography, joining the swim team, continuing my early morning trips to the river to row with Tony Smith, all the while maintaining all of my previous musical activities and touring in May to China with the Melbourne Chamber Strings. At one point I made a public speech on stage in Mandarin, having been taken some brush-up private lessons from a local immigrant living around the corner.
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| Mao Suits still |
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| Chinese Hotel Lobby - impromptu before a concert |
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| Shanghai Conservatory of Music |
June:
There were always so many Trinity 21st birthday parties going on that sometimes one even had to leave early from one party to be late to the next one. And they were all black tie with speeches and presents. I had at that stage been elected the head of Trinity's Music Society, which meant organizing and playing in concerts, and technically I was also supposed to produce Trinity's musical: "Chicago."
Thankfully there was a naive but well planned coup in the committee of geeky actor types and I was relieved of that burden, which my family agreed would surely have spelt the end of me, as it nearly did for the silly sucker who took on the role.
At some point Hung Le and I were talked into playing in the "Halls of Residence Symphonic Ensemble" (HORSE). First rehearsal, both drunk and laughing hard. The young conductor, Warrick Stengards was quite unhappy with us. Beethoven's fifth symphony, I think.
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| Hung & Pete and friends from China Tour |
Despite my continued academic supervision, I enrolled in a barman course. Never used it, at least not until I got married 15 years later to Rini, who loves drinking cocktails.
College life continued like that until dreaded exam week which in my diary was tightly intermingled with gigs and big parties.
Before my second disastrous academic year was over, the Como Quartet passed by Trinity and left a filthy letter under my door inviting me to join the group, perfectly timed for the Christmas season of busking and parties. The next week I broke my hand in a good old fashioned backyard Irish punch up with an arch enemy from school at an 18th birthday party, but I walked it off... and for the first month or so I managed to play through the pain - as it was just my bow hand. Two broken metacarpals.
The secret to our success was that we enjoyed every second of what we were doing. It was contagious. My mum was watching us in the street one day with a huge crowd, and she saw Steffi Graf tussling with her father who was trying to pull her away from us.
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| Little Burke street busking |
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| Office Christmas Party Gig |
Dad said to me after I flunked almost as many Commerce subjects as I'd flunked in 1986:
"Pete, a university degree is not a prerequisite for success."
I appreciated his understanding greatly, and chose to defer university and take a year out to do what I felt that I was born to do, before maybe (just maybe), coming back to finish that commerce degree. For now I was headed for a captivating year.