Jenny and Barry Buffier

There remains some contention as to when Jenny Johns met Barry Buffier at UNE.

Jenny says they were introduced during orientation week in 1966, the first year of Jenny’s Bachelor of Arts degree and during Barry’s second year of Rural Science. However, Barry says it took him a full year to get Jenny’s attention and the first time they went out was during end of year exams.

It’s all a little academic now that the couple have been married for nearly 55 years. But fond memories of those “formative” UNE days linger.

“It was a fairly unique situation for the women at that time, because males outnumbered females nearly three to one,” recalls Barry, a former resident of Wright College. “It was very competitive trying to find someone to go with you to the College Ball.”

For Jenny, a resident of Duval College, 1966 was something of a whirlwind. “There were always balls to go to, but the problem I had was that I was brought up to accept the invitation of the first person that asked me,” she says. “Sometimes that meant you had half a dozen other invitations that you had to turn down. We girls would borrow each other’s clothes. I was lucky that my mother sewed, so I had quite a good wardrobe.”

College life in those days was highly social. “Your academic work was the least of it,” Jenny says. “A high number of freshettes failed their first year.”

The size of the male cohort was such that, even by year’s end, Jenny was having trouble distinguishing Barry from a myriad of suitors.

“To dispel any confusion, I thought it would be a good strategy to hitch-hike to visit Jenny on the Mid North Coast during the Christmas holidays,” says Barry, who hailed from the Hunter Valley. “Fortunately, Jenny’s family were very hospitable and allowed me to stay perhaps longer than I should, which I used to my advantage”.

Although Jenny enjoyed “copious cups of coffee” socialising in the Union Building during her studies, Barry’s heavy lecture and practical schedule left him little time to see her mid-week, except at the Wright dining hall, which Duval residents shared. On weekends, they frequented college and rugby parties or dinner at the Cotswold restaurant. Despite all the socialising, Jenny excelled academically and was awarded the Bishop Doody Gold medal for her results in Latin.

“Male visitors were only allowed in the common room until 10pm,” Jenny says. “It was the ‘60s and, in an attempt to look after our morals, we had ‘moral tutors’, who were supposed to keep an eye on us. There was also the college principal, who got to know all residents intimately. Ours, Stella Swinney, had been a colonel in the Army.”

The couple graduated in 1969 and were married later that year, with Jenny going on to complete a Diploma of Education and Barry a Masters of Economics. They moved to Tamworth after finishing at UNE, where Barry was with the Department of Agriculture.  Jenny taught at Tamworth High School, distinguishing her first year of teaching when her Ancient History class achieved the best HSC results of the whole school.

15 years and three children later they, moved to Sydney, where Jenny taught at Loreto College, Normanhurst for 25 years and Barry consolidated his career in the private and public sector as well as maintaining his rural property interests around Gloucester.

They both credit UNE with more than introducing them to each other.

“We made lifelong friends,” Barry says. “We are still in close contact with about ten couples who were all at UNE at the same time. We dispersed around the world, but have maintained good contact and over the last 20 years have regular trips and weekends away and dinners together, which has been tremendous.”

“We still talk about UNE and the great times we had and how we should have worked more,” Jenny says. “The feminist movement was just starting and we were old-fashioned country girls, most on Teaching Scholarships. Still, it was one of the best experiences I could have had.”

Although the size of UNE back then fostered familiarity, students were not insulated from wider societal forces.

“One of our best friends, Bert Mowbray protested against the Vietnam War, refused to register for National Service and ended up spending a week in the local lock-up,” Barry says.

“But we weren’t the real flower people that people associate with the 60’s,” Jenny says. “It was a very innocent, interesting and formative time of emerging adulthood and making adult choices.”

Jenny went on to enjoy a successful career teaching Latin and Ancient History and Barry, the recipient of a 2022 UNE Distinguished Alumni Award, headed up three Government Departments including the last six years of his full-time career as Chair and CEO of the NSW Environment Protection Authority.