OSA CONNECTIONS NEWSLETTER

Dear Old Scholars

Welcome to our July edition of the OSA Connections newsletter.

As part of the St Hilda’s 130th Anniversary celebrations, we are looking forward to the Perth Symphony Orchestra performing Fiona Stanley, WA Stories Chapter III, Story 7 at the Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre, Thursday 30 July, 7.30pm.  

We are also looking forward to seeing many Old Scholars at the annual OSA 70+ Morning Tea to be held at the School Hall, Wednesday 12 August, 10am.

An addition to our calendar this year is a financial literacy seminar, OSA Money Matters, to be held at St George’s College, Thursday 27 August, 6.30pm.

See more details of these events below.

Enjoy this edition of the newsletter, which includes Old Scholar news, events, and OSA Heritage in Photos – The Refugee Dutch Boarders during WWII.

As always, we would love to hear from you. Please send us your news to the above address, and if you need to update your contact details, you can do so at the following link:

Click Here to Update Your Contact Details

Best wishes,

Dr Amanda Burt (Coad, 1989)
President of the GHS & St Hilda’s Old Scholars Association

It is time for our largest Old Scholar event of the year when 150 Old Scholars, over the age of 70, return to the School Hall to enjoy catching up with their peer group, raffles, sandwiches and slices made by the current Food & Technology students.  This year, the Class of 1973 and older are invited to attend.

Date: Wednesday 12 August
Time: 10.00am – Midday
Venue: School Hall, St Hilda’s

RSVP:  By 6 August for catering purposes.

Parking:  Mosman Park Bowling Club North Carpark, with shuttle bus provided.

Please register by clicking on the link below and add the name of each person you are registering.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Or email oldscholars@sthildas.wa.edu.au or call Lizzie Warburton on 9285 4228.

There are now only a few seats left at this special evening honouring Professor Fiona Stanley as part of St Hilda’s 130th anniversary celebrations.

Through live performance, evocative visuals and moving narration by renowned paediatrician and longtime friend Professor Desiree Silva, Co Director of ORIGINS, Fiona’s extraordinary journey will unfold through a powerful score featuring choral music, string orchestra and piano, with works by Philip Glass, Felix Mendelssohn, Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludovico Einaudi.

The performance will take centre stage on Thursday 30 July, at 7.30pm in the Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre, with drinks on offer beforehand at the Bay Café.

To purchase your tickets, click on the link below:

Megatix – Fiona Stanley | WA Stories Chapter III

We hope you will join us for what promises to be a moving and memorable evening.

Aimed to support our younger Old Scholars, the Old Scholars Association invites you to attend a new event in the Old Scholar calendar; a Financial Literacy STARTWELL(TM) workshop presented by TheWealthDesigners, with Senior Wealth Advisor Dawn Thomas.

This workshop is designed for young women (including non-Old Scholars) who want practical money knowledge which makes a difference for their futures. It is also an opportunity to enjoy a social drink and to network in the beautiful surroundings of St George’s College.

If you are an Old Scholar parent, please highlight this event to your daughter to help her to create early habits that will positively shape her financial wellbeing for years to come.  And she can invite her friends!

Do you know how to navigate your pay, superannuation, investing and building wealth early?

Financial literacy is more than just understanding dollars and cents. It’s about developing a mindset that values saving, investing, and making informed financial decisions. Early habits, whether good or bad, can shape financial wellbeing for years to come.

TheWealthDesigners’ workshop will cover:

• How career choices affect future wealth.
• Superannuation, investing and builiding wealth early.
• What is super, what do I need to know when I get my first super fund, why investing is powerful?
• Money mindset, money confidence, and goal setting.
• Receive free resources to help you stay on track.

Whether you’re studying, working, building your career or figuring out your next step, you’ll leave with some practical tools, fresh perspectives and resources to inform your financial decisions.

Date:    Thursday 27 August
Time:    6.30pm
Venue:  The Ruth Rogers Room, St George’s College, Crawley

Cost:  $20 Old Scholars, and $25 Non Old Scholars. 

Buy Your Ticket Here

The session will be followed by drinks and refreshments (included in your ticket price).

We look forward to welcoming you to these upcoming events. Links to these events will be provided as the dates approach.

PSO WA STORIES CONCERT
Date: Thursday 30 July
Time:  7.30pm
Venue:  Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre

OSA 70+ MORNING TEA
Date: Wednesday 12 August
Time: 10.00am – Midday
Venue: School Hall

OSA MONEY MATTERS: FINANCIAL LITERACY SEMINAR & NETWORKING
Date: Thursday 27 August
Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Venue: The Ruth Rogers Room, St George’s College, Crawley

OSA PIN PRESENTATION ASSEMBLY / LUNCH
Date: Monday 14 September
Time: 12.20pm – 2.00pm
Venue: Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre & Heritage Centre, Hope Nicholas House.

If you wish to check your daughter’s family connections to the School, please contact the Alumni Coordinator, Lizzie Warburton

OSA ART EXHIBITION OPENING NIGHT 
Date: Thursday 17 September
Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Venue: JSPAC Foyer

OSA ART EXHIBITION 
Date: Friday 18 September
Time: 3.00pm – 6.00pm

Date: Saturday 19 September
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm

Date: Sunday 20 September
Time: 10.00am – 3.00pm

Venue: JSPAC Foyer

OLD GIRLS’ GOLF DAY
Date:  TBA

OSA AGM & THANK YOU EVENING FOR OSA YEAR REPRESENTATIVES 
Date: Tuesday 13 October
Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Venue: Gallery, Heritage Centre, Hope Nicholas House.

OSA SOCIAL GOLF DAY & LUNCH
Date: Friday 6 November
Time: 8.30am – 2.00pm
Venue: TBA

OSA CHRISTMAS CHAPEL SERVICE & REFRESHMENTS
Date:  Wednesday 2 December
Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Venue: Whitby Chapel & Gallery, Heritage Centre, Hope Nicholas House.

Date:  Saturday 19 December
Time & Venue: 4.30 – 6.00pm  Heritage Centre & Tour of School
Next Venue: From 6.00pm Mosman Park Bowling Club
Details: TBA

Organiser: Sarah Wallace 

SAVE THE DATE

Date:  Saturday 31 October
Venue:  4.00pm Heritage Centre & Tour of School
Next Venue: 6.00pm Claremont Yacht Club
Details:  Booking link to be circulated shortly.

Organisers: Kate Buffham (Thompson), Cindy Kempton and Jane Barker

SAVE THE DATE

Date: Saturday 21 November
Time & Venue: 4.00 – 5.00pm – Heritage Centre & Tour of School
Next Venue:  From 5.00pm – The Albion Pub, Private Room, Cottesloe
Details: TBA

Organisers: Pia Rigby Marazzi, Sue Ransom (Clarke) and Jane Henderson (Dadour).

Date: Sunday 25 October 2026
Time & Venue: 3pm Heritage Centre
Next Venue: 4pm Reunion at 45 Keane Street, Peppermint Grove, WA 6011
Cost: $75

RSVP: Sue Gillett on sue.whms@iinet.net.au

Organisers: Sue Gillett (Wisbey) & Ann Treadgold (Cariss)

Date:  Friday 11 September
Time & Venue: 

RSVP:  oldscholars@sthildas.wa.edu.au

Organisers: Deanne Newman (Benney) & Robin Creswell (Cummins)

Some of the most remarkable St Hilda’s boarding house stories belong to the girls from overseas who found themselves a long way from home when World War II broke out.

1944 Ilse Tacoma and Mia Poortman.

One of them was Ilse Tacoma (1942-46). Ilse was born in Holland but moved to Indonesia (also known as the Dutch East Indies) as an infant. She was 13 years old when her parents decided that the threat of a Japanese invasion made Indonesia too dangerous and they arranged for her to become a boarder at St Hilda’s.

There was another Dutch girl in the same position, Lily Bruinsma, but Ilsa spoke no English and she was desperately homesick for the first few months.  Her initial experience of Australia, on a ship stopover in Carnarvon, was hardly encouraging when copious flies made her wonder what her new life would be like.

L-R: V Sinclair, R Kott, Enny de Ruyter de Wildt.

Another Dutch girl called Emmy Ruyter de Wilte started boarding at St Hilda’s in 1939, at the start of the war. She also spoke no English “but after a few months I could make myself understood”, she said many years later.

Class of 1944: Mary Maude Colebatch, Zoe Kelly, Paula Brisbane, Rosemary Cullen, Ilse Tacoma, Jacqueline Kott, Delphine Parker, Charmian Candy and Shirley Offer

Like other overseas students in Perth at the time, she returned home by ship each year for the Christmas holidays. However, in December 1941 all that changed: “We were sitting on the deck at about 11am and we saw someone running to the Captain’s quarters. It gave us a funny feeling”. The Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbour and the ship had been ordered to turn back to Onslow, WA.

Ilsa, Emmy and Lily were all placed under the guardianship of Headmistress Catherine Small. It was five years before Emmy saw her mother and siblings again and she then learned that her father had died in a prisoner-of-war camp. It was more than two years before Ilse saw her family again.

1944 Prefects including Ilse.

Miss Small arranged for the girls to spend those Christmas holidays with school families. Ilse joined the McKenna family who lived in Bunbury: “They more or less adopted me and they became my Australian parents and I spent many holidays there,” Ilse said.

The Japanese invaded Indonesia in early 1942 and Ilse knew via the Red Cross that her parents and brother were interned, separated into different camps. Her brother, aged nine at the time of the invasion, stayed with Ilsa’s mother until he was 12, he was then sent to another camp. Her father was interned in a camp where he had no contact with her mother and brother for the duration of the war.

“I wrote to them via the Red Cross but they never received my letters”, Ilse said. “My mother was in a camp in the middle of Java and my father and brother were each in different camps. My mother knew where my father was, but she had been moved so many times, he didn’t know where she was.”

Many European and Asian boarders who had lost parents in the war stayed at the school during the holidays.

Initially, she found boarding difficult. She was “very, very, very homesick” for the first year and she found everything was structured.

“I wrote to my mother and I said that this is just like a prison. I was not used to this. I had had a very free life. Of course I got used to it but I couldn’t speak a word of English, not a word.”

“The girls would talk to me and I would say ‘yes’ twice and the third time I would say no, and, of course, it would never jive.”

Another difficulty arose from her vegetarianism. The school meals at that time had few options for her with most meals based on meat and vegetables. Eventually, after intervention from her mother soon after she arrived, she was given a “fairly large piece of cheese and an egg cup of peanut butter” in addition to the breakfast egg that had previously provided her protein.

Emmy remembered that while the return to school (instead of holidaying at home), was disappointing, she received many invitations from school friends. “I shall never forget their kindness.”

1942 Mia Poortman outside the Bencubbin Hotel

In their second year, the Dutch girls were among the boarders who were evacuated to the wheatbelt town of Bencubbin for a year in 1942. It seemed to Emmy “like never-never land”. The experience, Ilse said, made her year group a very friendly one.

After leaving St Hilda’s and when the war was over, still apart from her parents and with no real knowledge of their fate, Ilse took up nursing at the Royal Perth Hospital. One day, out of the blue, she received a phone call while at work, from a port worker who told her that her parents had arrived in Fremantle and wanted to see their daughter. She was horrified by what she saw. ”My father was just skin over bone. He was all bent over. He was usually a very, erect, tall person, very well built. My mother looked plump but that was due to vitamin deficiency.”

The family spent several months together in Perth and, after a series of delays, was eventually repatriated to Holland, on a very crowded ship.

Ilse’s brother had also arrived in Australia after the War, and was sent to Fairbridge, to try to recover the education he had missed. Although he didn’t much like Fairbridge, which he thought not unlike the prison camps he’d been in, he valued the education he received and stayed in Australia.

Ilse returned to Holland for three years before moving to Paris as a nanny.  She finally settled in Canada.

Financial constraints meant Emmy left St Hilda’s to undertake a secretarial course, and then she moved to Melbourne where she joined the Dutch Women’s Army Corps. Other members of the Corps were former St Hilda’s girls Lily and Molly Jansen.  Emmy was working for the Red Cross in Java after the War, helping to reunite families torn apart, when her mother found her and, after five years apart, barely recognized one another.  Emmy eventually married and lived for many years in the United State of America.

Old Scholar and engineering Professor Carolyn Oldham (1979), who has committed decades of research to conserving the environment and breaking the glass ceiling for women in STEM courses, has been recognised with a King’s Birthday honour.  We congratulate her on this recognition of her achievements.

Emeritus Professor Carolyn Oldham began working in the University of Western Australia’s School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering 30 years ago, leading sustainability projects and water pollution research while teaching a range of engineering courses.

She began her academic appointment as the only woman among 84 male engineers, and has since then been an advocate for better female representation and university support ever since.

Her efforts and achievements were recognised with her appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia in the General Division for her significant service to tertiary education, and environmental and water science.

Old Scholar Isabella Watling is now an established portrait artist based in London and her portrait of Sahara is currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, London, as part of the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026.

From the age of 18 Isabella trained at the Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence where she returns periodically to teach portrait and figure painting. Isabella’s portraits are painted to the scale of life, under natural light and always directly from the sitter. Isabella now lives and works in London.

To see more of Isabella’s work and her list of exhibitions www.isabellawatling.com.

Finding Her Own Flight Path

Captain Vernoica Binns

Captain Veronica Binns’ aviation career spans decades of change, challenge, and steady progression through the many layers of the industry. What began as a curiosity alongside university studies evolved into a long-standing career in commercial aviation, shaped as much by persistence as by opportunity.

Her interest in flight developed early, influenced by a childhood fascination with space and aviation. She recalls building models of the Space Shuttle and even writing to NASA when in primary school. A response from them with a letter of encouragement made her wonder if her dreams may become the start of something.

Veronica started at St Hildas in Year 8 and graduated in 1989. It was in that year that she visited Jandakot Airport and was given the opportunity to go on a trial flight. That experience was the start of a lifetime passion for flying.

Photo taken by Sue Stafford.

Veronica attended UWA studying a science degree in Archaeology, and when she could, headed out to Jandakot Airport to take flying lessons. The idea of becoming a professional pilot emerged gradually rather than by design. Financial constraints, combined with the demands of university and part-time work, meant that flying progress was often grounded.  It took five years to obtain her commercial pilot’s licence, with periods when flying was not possible at all.

In the mid 1990s, having gained her commercial licence, she began instructing at Jandakot, a common entry point into the industry. To build on her experience Veronica moved to Karratha and flew for mining operations in Barons and Navajo/Chieftains aeroplanes while also taking on the role of Chief Flying Instructor at a small flying school. These early roles required a broad skill set combining operational flying with instruction and management responsibilities.

It was during these early years in the north that she met her husband, Jason, also a pilot. Like many in aviation, their careers required flexibility and movement. Balancing two flying careers while maintaining a relationship was not always straightforward, and required compromise, patience, and long periods of living apart.

Veronica’s career continued to progress through regional and charter operations across Australia; she flew King Air aircraft in Darwin, spent time operating Metroliners out of Alice Springs, and gradually accumulated the experience required to transition into airline operations. Her first airline role was with Sunstate Airlines (Qantaslink) on a Dash-8, where she was based in Cairns and later Brisbane.

In 2003 Veronica joined Virgin Australia (then Virgin Blue), at a time when the airline was still in its infancy with a relatively small fleet and pilot group.  Her career with Virgin Australia has now spanned multiple bases and aircraft types, but she was initially based in Brisbane flying the Boeing 737 and later moved to Sydney upon becoming a Captain. When the airline established a base in Perth in 2009, she returned to WA, transitioning to the Embraer fleet before eventually retraining on the Boeing 737 as the base expanded.

While Veronica and her husband both worked full-time they also navigated the challenge of raising a family. They have two children; a daughter studying at UWA and a son in high school, with aspirations to follow in their footsteps. Like many working families, particularly in industries with irregular hours and travel requirements, balancing family life with professional responsibilities has required planning and, at times, compromise. It has not always been easy (sometimes bordering on chaotic!), but it has proven to be both manageable and rewarding. Veronica remembers from a young age, being told women can do it all, but real life is more complicated than that and somehow, with her husband they have made the important stuff work.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Virgin Australia entered administration, and both she and her husband found themselves on Job Keeper, facing the very real possibility of losing the careers they had spent decades building. The period brought uncertainty globally in a way that had never been encountered. A silver lining was the time they were able to spend together as a family and were able to make the most of their time at home. As the industry stabilised and Virgin Australia emerged from administration, both were able to return to flying.

It’s a common saying now – You can’t aspire to something if you’ve never seen it as a possibility.  For Veronica it was seeing Sally Ride (the first US female astronaut) aboard the Space Shuttle blasting into space. It was reading about Debbie Lawrie (Australia’s First Airline Pilot) who took on a groundbreaking discrimination case against Ansett to allow females to become airline pilots at a time when it was considered only a man’s role.

Today, Veronica continues to fly the Boeing 737, an aircraft she describes as reliable and well-established within the industry.  Operating from Perth, her work involves flying across the airline’s network, with rosters that vary month to month. The role continues to require adaptability, balancing operational demands with personal commitments.

For those considering a pathway that feels a little outside the expected, Veronica would encourage you not to dismiss it too quickly. She says you don’t need to have everything mapped out, and you don’t need to fit a particular mould. Sometimes, all it takes is one decision to try something new, to follow your curiosity, or to take that first step (or flight!).

We are very sorry to announce that the following Old Scholars have passed away.

31 May 1949 – 12 June 2026

Old Scholar Rosamond Deborah McKitterick was a British medieval historian. She was an expert on the Frankish kingdoms in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, who used palaeographical and manuscript studies to illuminate aspects of the political, cultural, intellectual, religious and social history of the early Middle Ages.  From 1999 until 2016 she was Professor of Medieval History and director of research at the University of Cambridge, where she was a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Professor Emerita of Medieval History. Rosamond was also a Heineken Prize Laureate, recognised for research that ‘fundamentally changed’ how the Carolingians were understood.

Rosamond was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1949, but from 1951 to 1956 she lived in Cambridge, England, where her father was Chaplain of Magdalene College.  In 1956 Rosamond’s father, Tony, was offered the position of head of a new Theological College being established to train priests in Western Australia. The family was sponsored by the Church in Australia’s Assisted Migrant Scheme and crammed, along with 2,000 others, into the SS Orsova, which set sail for Fremantle at the beginning of September 1956.

Men and women, boys and girls were segregated, families were separated, six to a cabin, and there were strict luggage limits. They arrived in Fremantle on 5 October 1956 after a five-week voyage. Rosamond attended St Hilda’s from 1956 to 1966.

Rosamond went on to UWA to study medieval history and became a resident of St Catherine’s College where she discovered an exhilarating mix of people among both staff and students.

At that time student politics was very active, and both Dr Carmen Lawrence AM and Dr Sue Boyd AM were at St Catherine’s.  Rosamond participated in political action, along with most of the residents of St Catherine’s, and led by Sue Boyd, then President of the Guild of Undergraduates, they stopped the rush-hour traffic with a sit-in at the junction of Stirling Highway and Mounts Bay Road to demand a pedestrian tunnel. It worked. Rosamond was also elected to the Council of the Guild of Undergraduates and served as Secretary when Kim Beazley, later leader of the Australian Labor Party, was President.

In 1971 Rosamond left the UK for Cambridge University.

9 February 1947 – 3 July 2026

1962 Athletic champions: L-R: V Cameron, D Clews, P Price, F Barrett-Lennard and R Hellein.

Vicki died in Perth after a very short illness on 3 July. She attended St Hilda’s for all her schooling and was particularly talented at sport, becoming Prefect, Games Captain, Interschool Athletics Captain and Hockey Captain in her final year. She played tennis, hockey and softball and set records in athletics and was also a talented gymnast. Her petite build and blond hair were a memorable sight on the oval; her sprinting legs became just a blur, as she sped to victory for Blackwood and the School.

Vicki attended Melbourne University, then worked in administration at the University of Western Australia. She and Henry Ladyman married in 1968 and then moved to Memphis, USA, where she worked at St Mary’s School. An annual athletics award, in her name, is still presented there each year. They then returned to Western Australia in the 1980s, to their farm near Katanning, and Vicki worked at Methodist Ladies’ College, Claremont, until 1995.

Vicki leaves behind her partner, a son and daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons and her brother and sister. Her sister, Loralee Sands (Cameron, 1958), also attended St Hilda’s.

Vicki will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

• When and how an executor is appointed
• The probate process
• Record keeping requirements
• Fiduciary duties
• Legal compliance and potential liabilities

The School has indicated that there is a demand for tutors for current students, and we have been asked to extend a list of Old Scholars who can tutor across a wide variety of subjects.

If you are interested in being a tutor, please register via the link below:

Old Scholar Tutoring Database 2026 – Fill out form

Currently, St Hilda’s is not currently advertising any positions: