We have come a long way in the last thirty years.

Growing up in the 1930s . . . Loyalty to Empire was still the un-challengeable emphasis of school and society. History was English and Imperial History, a little European; Australia (and America) were only mentioned as part of the imperial story. English was entirely English literature, of course. (And at home we read Pooh Bear, Peter Pan and Alice, Kipling, Rider Haggard and G. A. Henty, Chums, the Boys’ Own Paper, Champion and Magnet.) The newspapers were still chock-full of English and European news. On Anzac Day fire-eating generals would indeed tell us that Australia became a nation at Gallipoli, but went on to dwell on the glories of the Empire of which Australia was only a subordinate part and the inherent superiority of the Britisher over any other ‘race’. (At the famous Presbyterian Scottish academy which I attended, the high-spot of the Anzac Day ceremony—can I be remembering correctly?—was the song ‘For England’ written in 1914—’England, Oh England’, and how could I stay?). The blurred double loyalty characterized the great majority of Australians: at the State schools it was laid down that the flag to be saluted on Monday mornings could be either the Australian or the Union Jack. But while many Australians, especially those of working-class or Irish origin, had developed a limited sense of Australianness, ruling orthodoxy between the wars—partly in reaction to recognition of incipient subversive nationalism—put all the stress on Empire; there may have been more coherent and systematic indoctrination in the schools in this period than at any other time in Australian history. Certainly most of us left school with our hearts and minds centred on England and unbelievably ignorant, apart from a little geography, of the country in which we expected to spend our lives.