My oldest grandchild is doing her HSC trial examinations. She should do well.
I have encouraged my grandchildren to study hard, sharing with them my own story.
I was brought up in a fibro house with an outside toilet in southwest Sydney. I was the middle of three children. My father was a company accountant, and my mother worked as casual saleswoman in a department store. My bedroom was the converted closed in verandah at the back of the house. The width of the room was the length of child’s bed, which I slept in until I married. The length of the room was the width my bed, then a small desk, the depth of a small cabinet. There was a sliding door into my room as there was not enough space for swinging door. There was a window with curtain between my room and the dining room. My wardrobe was in my older brother’s bedroom.
I went to the local public school. I was fortunate to be able to go to a selective state high school because of the ‘grandfather clause’. While I lived out of the school catchment area my father had attended this school when it was located near the city.
I gravitated to a small group of very studious boys at school. This association encouraged me to be very studious. 
I worked hard at doing the best I could do academically at high school. I was always in the top class, though I never topped any subject I studied. At home I would put many hours into studying, sitting at my small desk in my small bedroom.
Back then there were simply the trial HSC exams and then the HSC exams. When doing the HSC exams, I had no idea what I wanted to do after I finished school.
I did very well in the HSC examinations. My result was such that I could enrol in any course in any university. I chose Syndey University, as it sounded to me to be the best university option. I chose medicine because it was what I considered ‘recession proof’. At the time there was recession in Australia, and I thought I would always be able to make an income as a doctor, as people would always need a doctor, including in a recession.
MY advice to my grandchildren has been to study as hard as you can at school, associate with other studious students, get the best HSC result you can. You want to be in a position where you decide what your career path will be, rather than the career options being limited because your HSC result prevented you being able to do what you want to do.
