These are some notes on Roger’s life from his brother Peter Eyland.
Roger was born in Moreton in Marsh Hospital, England, on the 18th May 1939. There was great excitement at his birth as he was the first Eyland boy of his generation.
During the late winter of 1947, he and his two brothers were taken ill with measles, they all developed pneumonia. He struggle through, but his younger brother Julian died on March 9th.
In 1949 he left England, by ship with his parents and surviving brother. On the Bay of Biscay, Roger was in the bunk above his father and when the sea became rough. Roger fell out of the upper bunk, but his father managed to grab him and broke his fall just before he hit the steel deck. He was quite shaken but not badly hurt.
Roger said he arrived in Australia on his tenth birthday. The family immediately moved to Kulnura NSW, to join his Great Uncle George, who owned a citrus orchard.
At first, Roger stayed with his mother and brother at Kulnura, but they found the weather very cold and conditions rather trying. They moved then to a cottage on the coast at Wamberal, where they all picked up in health. As his father had a job in Sydney and was away during the week, it was decided to move to Cronulla to get the family together. The house there was built over the water at the end of Burraneer Bay. It was very convenient to the local school where Roger started attending Cronulla Public School.
Roger came home one day with a note from the headmaster saying that he thought that Roger should have his eyes tested as he was having difficulty in reading the blackboard.
This could have been the origin of a classic comic skit.
Teacher: Roger, read what is on the blackboard.
Roger: What blackboard?
Teacher: The one on the wall in front of you!
Roger: What wall?
He went to an optometrist, named Dr. Merory in Macquarie Street and he was duly prescribed spectacles. After he collected them, next evening he looked up into the sky and said “Oh look, I can see the stars”. At ten years old, this was the first time that he had seen them. It was a bit surprising that the condition of his eyesight wasn’t picked up before this.
In 1951, his parents bought a block of land at Engadine, about twenty miles south of Sydney and at this time a very rural locality. While at Cronulla Public he competed and won a place at Sydney Boys High.
The Engadine land was cleared, with Roger joining in on this hard labouring work. During this time the family lived in a tent and then in a temporary dwelling which later became a garage. His father drew up plans and specifications for a house.
His father said that Roger helped with the design and construction of the house. His father also wrote “Roger kept an eye on things and saved me from making a mistake on several occasions”. This was a serious praise from his father, who was not given to expressing approval.
Roger adopted a walk during High School where he would not swing his arms. He firmly held his school case on one side and grasped his jacket on the other. He had a great knowledge of English grammar and so would enlighten the family and correct them when necessary.
He hand built a superb radiogram, which was a combination of radio and gramophone. He soldered the single components of resistors, capacitors and transformers onto a motherboard. The speakers were enormous and very heavy. Then with the aid of Readers’ Digest Classic LPs he introduced the family to an appreciation of Classical music.
He had a number of friends at High School and Uni, but as Engadine seemed the distance equivalence of Bathurst today, they did not end up coming to the house.
His father also wrote: “In his Leaving Certificate Examinations he was in the top bracket in the state of New South Wales and had his photograph on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. He attended Sydney University and gained his B.Sc. with first class honours in Pure Mathematics. He studied for and was awarded his M.Sc with first class honours. On the excellence of his thesis he was awarded a special scholarship for him to attend Cambridge University to study for and gain his Ph.D. his main subject, again Pure Mathematics.”
Roger left by ship for England in the early 1960s and returned, now married, to Australia in the late 1960s. Roger and Ann sent home an LP of their wedding.
He became a Lecturer at Sydney University until his retirement. It may have been due to a back injury at the time, but this is an alleged story about a University lecture he gave. He arrived and lay down horizontally on the desk at the front of the lecture theatre. He pulled a piece of paper out of one pocket and read it. When finished, it was crumpled up and thrown neatly into a nearby bin. Another piece of paper would then be pulled out of a pocket and so this continued until the lecture ended, when he walked off. The person who told this was much impressed.
Peter Eyland
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