Welcome to the June edition of Lion.
We’ve always had an outgoing spirit at Wesley and OWs have always taken that shared spirit with them beyond the school gates and out into the world. In our lead feature in this edition, we turn our focus to that Wesley diaspora, tracking the different paths that a sample of our OWs have taken around the globe: where they’re living, what they’re doing and how they’re making a mark on the world. We also share a map showing the impact of OWs all around the globe.
In this edition, we also celebrate a remarkable OW who made his own significant mark on the world, but whose achievements have remained largely unknown.
In the 1960s, John Büsst (OW1927) played a pivotal role in protecting the Great Barrier Reef, not to mention huge sections of Queensland rainforest, from exploitation by agriculture, mining, oil drilling and the military. Büsst was a fascinating character in many ways. Independently wealthy, artistic and fond of a party, he could easily have spent life indulging himself in a sub-tropical paradise, but he chose to become a formidable warrior for the natural world. Historian Patricia Clare described him as ‘at once a man of emotion and a wickedly cool organiser.’
It’s 80 years since the end of World War II and in our feature, we examine the far-reaching involvements of our OWs during that tumultuous time in history. We have Philip Powell (OW1973) to thank for the three years of research he undertook to document the 1,844 OWs who, as members of the ‘Greatest Generation’, played their part in the war effort. From generals to storemen, ‘in nearly every action involving the Australian army or air force or navy, invariably an OW was there,’ says Philip.
One of the fascinating tales we share concerns the reunion of legendary Wesley teacher Jack Kroger and Werner Wildermuth (OW1936), a Wesley boy from his own class in 1935, who was languishing in a PoW camp in Egypt after having reluctantly fought for the Germans. Of their meeting, Jack reflected, ‘Never has a British officer and a German soldier danced such a happy jig when they met one another.’
The postscript to this story is that Werner stayed a week with Jack and his family, and visited his old school, when he came back to Australia for a trip in 1964. From a shared Wesley College Commerce class in 1935, to a North African PoW camp reunion in 1944, to family dinners around the table in 1964, the bond between the two endured.
It says something about the outgoing Wesley spirit, doesn’t it?
Paul Munn, Lion Editor and Features Writer
