(What influences you to study at William Angliss?) I heard about William Angliss, I was working in Hospitality Industry and one of my bosses left the industry to come here as a teacher started in 72 (1972) and he said to me ‘Jim, working in industry and learning by experience is good, but you should also come to William Angliss and study and get a qualification, and you learn more and you build more solid foundation’. So I took his advice, I came in and I enrolled here at William Angliss in 72

(What course were you doing?) The course that I started was fairly new at the time and it was (went for many years) called Certificate of Catering. And Certificate of Catering in those days was designed for people who worked full time in the industry and came here to study part time. It would normally takes perhaps four years to do part time…..(Did you do the four years part time?) I actually did some extra subjects and I worked a little harder and I got it done in three (three years).

(What was the class like?) The Class was really good that…there were few mature aged students who might be in late 20’s and 30’s. But majority were early 20’s and working in the industry full time and coming here part time. So they were verily in strong motivated because…time pressures, they were working…they had their own commitments. When they came here, they came here to learn and…the attendance was really strong. Most of them worked in Hotels and Pubs. I worked in Hotels as in…I worked in Park Royal and I worked for a whole at the airport in a catering company. Most of them worked in Pub Groups. Pub Groups in those days were very good support William Angliss training. They used to send the young trainees to do this course here. The course I was doing was purely William Angliss Course, but there were quite a lot of full-time students here who were doing a course that was shared between William Angliss and Footscray Institute (what is now VU, it used to be Footscray Institute). And… I mentioned before some students I met here, people like Sarah Martia, she was doing Diploma Course, which was … the way I understand it in those days… she did most of theory components at Footscray and most of practical components here. Because William Angliss had kitchens and restaurants. So it was shared program.

(When you got Certificate, is the certificate under the title of Footscray College?) I don’t think so. In fact, my certificate from here doesn’t even have William Angliss on it, it has Education Department of Victoria. Because in those days, William Angliss felt under the Education Department, because there was no TAFE system. So it was called in those days William Angliss Food Trades School.

(After you graduated from WAI, did you get a relevant job?) I was working before I came in. I worked full time whole time, I was in training here. But my major objective was I want to go to the business. I want to start a business and coming here was about learning how to run a business, learning the business aspect of Hospitality Business. So I could develop more confidence and more skills and knowledge when I came to run a business. So while I was here, I continued to work. As I was finishing, Hilton Hotel was opening in Melbourne, and I went over there and worked in the opening team. Within few months, through William Angliss, through my contacts here, my former teachers here, I was shown an opportunity to become a contact caterer in a golf club. I applied for that and got that. I worked for three years and that sort of gave me a bridge into buying a restaurant business. I went to restaurant business for 25 years after that.

(You owned a restaurant business, how was it like?) It was great, was terrific. I think it was great time to be in the restaurant business. I really don’t envy people who are in the business now. It’s much tougher, highly competitive; there is a lot pressure on price. It was a lot easier to make good living in the restaurant business in 70’s and 80’s. But the restaurant business now is I believe is more open to everybody…nearly all of us going out very week whereas in those days, dining in restaurant was a special occasion was a bit expensive.

(Did you find the skills you learned from William Angliss that applied to your business very well?) Is very much so. As I said when I came here I already worked in the kitchen, I worked in the restaurant, worked in the bar and I had good working knowledge and I had settle skills but coming here was about building on the skills. So instead of being operative I can become a manager. I developed the skills and knowledge here to equip me better to run a successful business.

(Later you came back to William Angliss and became a teacher, could you tell me more about it?) Actually, when I decided I want to start teaching about 15 years later in the 80’s, I applied William Angliss and at the same time, there was a job advertised at Box Hill College, and I applied there. TAFE was just being formed and there was a little bit of ambiguity about employment. And the job, Box Hill came first, and I applied for both, and I got that job and I started there. So I worked there for many years, I worked there for 27 years. And then, about three and half years ago I came here. And one of the main reasons I came here was this is Hospitality, Tourism and Foods which is what I means to, and the other colleges including Box Hill TAFE seem to me to be doubling down because of the government funding cuts and they were getting out of it. So this is where I want to be.

(What do you like about the Institute? What inspires you?) What I really like about the Institute was the people. All of those people are now gone, many of them passed on but the others are retired. But they were inspired me. The chefs that were working here then just like the chefs working here now. They loved their trade, they were very passion about their trade, they’re very proud and they really…it’s just so obvious they enjoyed what they did. So when you went into one of the cookery classes, you had a chef instructor there, who just inspires you. I never ever missed a class, and I can say quite clearly and my memory is very strong of this, I don’t remember many students missing classes, absentees was very very low because people were motivated to come here, because every time you came into a class, you just get into something, doing something or learning something, developing new skills, new knowledge and in an atmosphere of hard work but also a bit of fun. You know, the chef at the front of people always had great sense of humour, great personality which is important for the hospitality industry. It was the people who worked here inspired me. The facilities were good nothing like they are today because it was much smaller college. It was just the red brick building, and the cunning wing at the back with Angliss Restaurant, those two and that was it. Other building where bakery and patisserie is they came up much later, and of course, Building A, Building B, Building C wasn’t even built. It was much smaller place, but the facilities were good, much smaller than now but it was the people, they had very strong background in industry and really strong knowledge of the trade. You can ask them questions just about anything anywhere in the world, they knew.

(Do you still have contacts with some of them?) Yes. The head of Food (department) was John Miller and of course there’s a John Miller Kitchen these days. He was here for the Cookery Group meetings. He was an inspiration. I once many years later travelled to Egypt and I was at Hilton, the Nile Hilton Hotel and I said to the staff there: ‘I’m from Melbourne and my teacher was John Miller’. And they said ‘Oh, John Miller, John Miller…’. This was so many years earlier, they remember him, because he was the executive Chef there. He made a lot of people like him that worked here just had the knowledge of the world.