The following was submitted for the jubilee publication of the 75th anniversary of Homebush Boys High School:

Two events will be celebrated this year. Through the course of history those two events have became intertwined in the rich tapestry of our nation’s history.

A great scholastic institution, Homebush Boys’ High School, will celebrate 75 years of academic, sporting and cultural excellence. For our family, this year will mark 25 years since we all set foot on Australian soil. We arrived on Boxing Day 1986, and our story, like many stories at Homebush Boys, is a tale of access to opportunity.

For ten of the last seventy-five years, this generation of the Shanmugan Family have been students at Homebush Boys High. From 1994 to 2004, all three of us completed our schooling at Homebush, and all three of us had the honour of being the School Captain during our respective years.

And it is one of the great hallmarks of both Australia and of Homebush Boys, is that we were not required to deny our origin in order to avail ourselves of the best that this nation and the school had to offer.

Homebush Boys provided us with many, many opportunities and we took advantage of them all. From the academic and sporting to the extra-curricular. We joined sporting teams, took part in debating and public speaking competitions and volunteered for various charities and community causes.

Writing in the inaugural School Magazine in 1936, the first headmaster, Mr W. Roberts, examined the place of the High School in the community. He wrote, “The aim of the School is to develop a healthy mind in a healthy body.” Homebush Boys High not only produces scholars, but also gentlemen. And it is important to be a gentleman first.

During the decade we were at Homebush Boys, we have witnessed many changes. From new principals and teachers and to changes in the social and physical environment. But the underlying essence and spirit of Homebush Boys remained constant.

During our time, many teachers were inspirational role models who helped us greatly, and encouraged us to take advantage of those available opportunities. From Mrs J. Horiatopoulos who encouraged us to take up public speaking and who drove us to various competitions and eisteddfods, to Mr W. Hilliard who always was a source of strength, stability, and sanity for us Shanmugans.

We learnt many valuable lessons during our time at Homebush: the importance of commitment, that rights must be balanced with responsibility, the value of mateship and loyalty, and that diversity should not be at the expense of unity.

But above all the valuable lesson from Homebush Boys is immortalised in its motto: recte et fortiter. The Latin loosely translated means ‘with courage & integrity.’ Homebush Boys has taught us to have integrity in all our professional and personal pursuits, and to approach those goals with the courage that it requires.

Today, as we celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of our school, we hope that we have lived up to its ideals and perused our endeavours with both integrity and courage. Today, twenty-five years after our arrival in Australia, each one of us, in our own way, are contributing to advancing our nation’s interest and also in advancing the human condition.

We are proud to have been students at Homebush Boys High School.

Recte et Fortiter!

P. Shanmugan, Esq. School Captain 1999
L. Shanmugan, Esq. School Captain 2002
R. Shanmugan, Esq. School Captain 2004