John Kilborn & Patricia Weston

Our UNE experience

For childhood sweethearts and teachers Patricia Weston and John Kilborn, UNE life consolidated a bond that endured for 67 years, until Pat's death in November 2020. Both taught right up until 2013 in Tamworth, by which time John had been awarded the Australian Sports Medal and an OAM for service to cricket in NSW. Now 82, he squeezed in a chat between rounds of golf to reflect on their remarkable romance and university days.

When did you start playing golf?

When I was a kid, growing up at Trundle. My father worked in the Rural Bank and he was a golfer, but he wouldn't let us use his sticks, because we might break them. Instead, we (John and his twin brother Tony) used pick handles as golf clubs and would belt a ball in the paddock behind our house.

In 1955, I took up golf seriously. I started going out with this girl from school and her mother was a keen golfer and I thought that if I was going to get in good with the family, I had better take an interest in golf. It was the best decision I ever made.

When had you first met Pat?

Not that I can remember until 1953, at high school in Gunnedah. My father was in the bank and Pat's father owned a garage and service station. It was third year and my brother and I walked into class. Pat was sitting down the back with her best friend and my brother and I sat in two vacant seats up the front. Pat later said that once she worked out who was who - we are identical twins - she decided that John was the one she was going to marry. And she chased me until I caught her!

We had been born in the same little private hospital in Gunnedah six weeks apart. Given the size of the hospital, I would guess that our mothers had probably occupied the same room. I don't know whether that's right or not, but it's a good story.

Were you inseparable after meeting at school?

It took me a while to wake up to the fact that she was a gorgeous girl. We were in the same class from then on. It was Easter 1955 and I had been playing in a tennis tournament at Gunnedah when I made a move. I walked her home, about two blocks, and came inside and met her mother. Pat's mother always said that Pat asked her later: 'He followed me home, can we keep him?' That's where it all started.

What happened after you left school, at the end of 1955?

Pat went off to UNE to study economics. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I joined the National Bank as a junior and Tony joined the Commonwealth Bank. But Pat and I had decided that we were made for each other by that stage. The only trouble was she was in Armidale and I was in Gunnedah, and we were miserable. She talked me into applying for a teacher's college scholarship. The principal at my school said that I was forsaking a brilliant career in banking for a teenage romance.

What do you recall of your time at UNE together?

It was fabulous. Pat lived in what were called the 'bottom huts' on the lower part of the campus, behind the External Studies Department. Then they built the 'top huts', which eventually became Duval College, and Pat moved up there. I think she was the first secretary of the Junior Common Room when Duval opened.

I arrived in 1957 and started out living in a uni residence in Jessie Street and then in a house called Bellview in Queen Elizabeth Drive. Once Wright College was built, I moved in there and that's where I lived until I graduated.

The social life was great. We liked going to the pictures. We enjoyed dances and college balls. I played a lot of sport, tennis and intervarsity golf mainly, and cricket.

Pat and I saw each other every day. We had lunch and dinner together and after the evening meal we would work together in the library, then I would take her home to college and we'd have a bit of a kiss and a cuddle and I would take the bus home. We wanted to get engaged when we were 18, but my parents wouldn't let us. They said we had to wait until we were 21. We knew we wanted to get married anyway, so it wasn't a great hardship, so long as we were together.

What happened next?

Pat finished her honours year in 1959 and the Professor of Economics at UNE offered the four honours students jobs as tutors, as well as some lecturing. Pat had two years doing that while I finished my honours year in Geography, and then did a Diploma of Education. We got married in December 1961 and Pat wanted to have a family, so that's what we did.

My first appointment was at Fairfield Boys High School, but I only did one term before joining the geography faculty of the Sydney Teacher's College. In the two years I worked there we had a little boy, Michael. Then I got a job teaching at Gunnedah High School, in 1964. Not long after we had our daughter Lyndy. Pat had no intentions of being a teacher, but the convent school was looking for an economics teacher and she took on the job. She taught there for two years and in 1970 I was promoted to subject head teacher at Queanbeyan High School and Pat taught at Canberra TAFE for four years.

I wanted to come back to the north-west of NSW and transferred to Farrer Agricultural High School, where I worked for 20 years. Pat taught at the McCarthy Catholic Senior High School (later McCarthy Catholic College) from 1976-2013. I retired from full-time teaching in 1996 but stayed on as a casual at Farrer and coached the First XI cricket team from 1976 until 2013.

When I went to Canberra I was still playing cricket and the NSW Cricket Association had just started organising coaches in country centres. I've done a lot of coaching and put others through coaching courses over the years.

[In fact, John coached and managed Bradman Cup teams, was the regional director of coaching for the North West Cricket Council for 10 years, held numerous roles with Tamworth cricket clubs and associations, umpired cricket and ran a number of competitions for many years.]

What did you most love about Pat?

She was honest and had a knack of making you feel as if you were worthwhile. There's a file about four inches thick of affirmations that former students and colleagues wrote about her. Everybody she had any contact with said she was such a down-to-earth and beautiful person.