Born in Fitzroy, in Melbourne, on 17 August, 1912, the eldest child was named after the famous English geologist, Charles Lyell (1797–1875), and always went by his second name. Like the rest of the children, he received his early education at Rose Park Primary School. For secondary education, he went to Adelaide High School, where he progressed as far as Leaving (Fourth Year), which was the matriculation year at the time. He then went to the Teachers College and the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts, and, after training, he waited for a teaching post to become available. In 1933 he made an overseas trip to England and several European countries with the Australian Scout contingent, attending the World Jamboree at Gödöllö in Hungary in August. After his return he was appointed to a number of small, one-teacher country schools.

On 10 September, 1938, he married Theodosia (Thea) Kleinig, who he had met while teaching at Dutton. They went to live at Watchman, north of Balaklava, and the eldest of their three children, Theodore (Ted) was born in Balaklava Hospital in July 1939. When the Area School system was being planned, Lyell decided to apply for a position as a Manual Training Instructor in ‘Boys Craft’—or, in more recent parlance, a Technical Studies teacher. This involved a year of training in the performance and teaching of woodwork, sheet metalwork, saddlery and boot repairing. The woodwork and metalwork courses were conducted at various Boys Technical High Schools, chiefly Goodwood and Thebarton, but the only place for saddlery and boot repair training was the Magill Reformatory. The last named institution was a grim and forbidding place, and the conditions that prevailed there made a long lasting impression on Lyell. Goodwood Boys Technical High School was a much more convivial place, especially since one of the young art teachers there was Jeff Smart, now the famous artist Jeffrey Smart, who used to hone his skills by drawing ‘heads’ of staff and students. An early Jeffrey Smart, in the form of a pencil ‘head’ of Lyell, made in 1942, serves as a reminder of the training period.

After gaining the requisite certificates, Lyell was appointed as a Boys Craft teacher at Maitland Area School in 1943. Two further sons, Max and Christopher, were born in Maitland in 1945 and 1948 respectively. Lyell taught there until May 1951, when he was transferred to the Wudinna Area School, in Central Eyre Peninsula (usually known as the ‘West Coast’). This was one of the most enjoyable periods of Lyell’s teaching career. As well as having many talented craft pupils, there was new scenery to draw and paint, and he could indulge his love of natural science to the full in the Nature Study courses, with a huge surrounding area of diverse and frequently ill-researched source material. It was the time of booming agricultural prices, and much land was cleared for cropping, with the consequent destruction of wildlife habitat, a practice that brought forth relatively little comment in those days. Fortunately the Nature Study lessons had some impact upon the community, so farmers and their children kept an eye out for all sorts of animals and plants that ‘the Boys Craft chalkie and his missus might be interested in’. As a result, the family acquired a considerable variety of native animal pets, including a tawny frogmouth, numerous finches of several different species, ‘mountain devils’ (small, spiky lizards), ‘sleepy lizards’ (stump-tailed skinks), honey possums, a brush-tailed possum, fat-tailed marsupial mice and a family of Mitchell’s hopping mice, along with transient wombats and echidnas. In addition, several boxes of insect and plant specimens, together with maps and collection data, were sent to the Entomology and Botany Departments of Adelaide University, or delivered personally by Lyell during school holiday visits. The resultant enumeration of new species and revelations of unexpected distributions prompted a number of visits by research staff from those Departments and also some zoologists, who were equally surprised.

In December 1957, Lyell was transferred to Adelaide, where he returned to primary school teaching at Challa Gardens and Campbelltown schools, becoming the librarian at the latter for the last few years before retirement in 1977. He also prepared and presented several nature science broadcasts for the ABC. After retirement, he spent much time with the Retired Teachers Association, Art Gallery and Museum visits, reading and, to a more limited extent, travelling. He fulfilled part of a lifelong ambition when he took one of the first Antarctic flights offered by the airlines and finally saw Antarctica, even though no landings were possible. His wife, Thea, died on 15 August, 1993, in her 80th year, and Lyell died on 25 May, 1997, aged 84.

Born in Ballarat on 26 August, 1916, Winn took primary education at Rose Park Primary School and then went to a private school, Wilderness School, located in Medindie, for her secondary education from 1930 to 1933. She then learnt ‘retouching’—i.e., removing blemishes from negatives using a very sharp pencil—and then practised this in photography studios as a career. Then came the war, and she contemplated joining the Women's Australian Air Force (WAAF), but the Education Department was crying out for teachers, since so many young men were joining the armed forces. So she entered the Adelaide Teachers College in 1941, and, after one year's training, went to a one-teacher school near Lock on the West Coast. After a year there she returned to Adelaide and did an ‘Area School’ course and then went to Area Schools at Loxton, on the River Murray, for 1944–45 and then to Penola, in the South East, in 1946. Father resigned from the Education Department later that year and Winn moved to Walford Girls School, a large private school in Hyde Park. She stayed there from 1947 to 1976, always cycling to work. She was Sports Mistress and taught art and design. After retiring, she continued to go to Walford as a volunteer, doing calligraphy and helping in other ways until 2001. From 1951, she lived with a somewhat older friend, Phyllis (PM) Stoward, initially at Colonel Light Gardens, and then at her current residence in Myrtle Bank. PM died in 1967. Since then, Winn has always had a dog and, at the age of 89, still plays tennis twice a week.

Born in Adelaide on 18 June, 1918, Thomas (Thos) was named after his uncle, who died (from ‘friendly fire’) while fighting on the Western Front in 1916. After completing his primary education at Rose Park Primary School, he went to Thebarton Technical High School for one year and then to Unley High School, to study subjects required for entry to the Naval College. At the age of 14, on 1 September, 1932, he was admitted as a Cadet Midshipman to the Royal Australian Naval College, then located on Westernport Bay in Victoria. He graduated as a midshipman on 1 May, 1936, was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant on 16 November, 1938, and was seconded to the Royal Navy in Britain from 30 January, 1937, until 27 January, 1939. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 16 March, 1940, and Lieutenant-Commander on 16 March, 1948. When Mother and Father were in London in 1937, they met with him while he was working as a lieutenant with the Royal Navy. He served with the Royal Australian Navy right through World War II, being discharged on 26 January, 1950, with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.

He married Beverley Slaney on 12 February, 1942, while on leave. They had one daughter, Vicki, born on 1 March, 1943. A few months later, because of a fire in the house, Beverley died of burns, but Vicki survived. Some years later, Thos married Margaret Legge. They had two children by the second marriage. Later, when Vicki was about seven years old, my wife Bobbie and I were advised by a friend and paediatrician, Dr Stanley Williams, that Vicki was so badly treated by Margaret that we should adopt her, which we did, with Tom's approval.

After discharge from the Navy, Tom served for a few years with the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, but he did not enjoy that and got a managerial job with the firm that was involved with the construction of the Tullamarine airport. Early in 1964, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, which progressed rapidly in spite of treatment. He died on 21 September, 1964, aged 46.

Bill was born on 11 March, 1922. His second name, Greenock, is the name of the volcano behind Dunach, where Father was born. Like the rest of the children, Bill had his primary education at Rose Park Primary School. In 1935, he went to Thebarton Technical High School. However, in 1937, when Father and Mother went overseas, he was sent to St Peters College as a boarder for one year. He stayed there as a day boy until 1939, when he matriculated, enrolling in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Adelaide in 1940 and graduating BSc(Eng) in 1943. He went back in 1945 to do some extra subjects so that he graduated BE at the end of that year. From 1947 to 1950, he worked in the South Australian Department of Mines, as a geophysicist, then from 1951 with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). This involved a number of different jobs and included his first trip abroad, to Europe in 1958. In 1946, he was married to Monica Lewis, and while still in Adelaide they had three children, Murray (b. 1947), Peter (b. 1949) and Patricia (b. 1955). In 1961, Bill decided to leave ICI and got a job with Comalco (part of Conzinc Riotinto Australia (CRA)), which meant moving to Melbourne. Over the next 14 years, he had a leading role in four major projects: bauxite mining at Weipa (north Queensland), a salt field at Dampier (Western Australia), an alumina plant at Gladstone (Queensland) and an aluminium smelter in New Zealand. These projects took Bill all over Australia and the world, especially to Japan. Then came a major change, a senior management position in Victoria Railways. While in this last job he had become very interested in Total Quality Management (TQM) and, after retirement in 1985, this, together with a hobby farm at Heathcote, became his major activity, involving him in lectures, conferences, much overseas travel and the production of a massive 588-page book, Quality and Productivity for the 21st Century.