Marilyn Neilson (Class of 1962) and Peta Latimer (Hay, Class of 1962) Friends for 60 Years
Posted on February 11, 2025
When Marilyn Neilson (Class of 1962) first came to Friends’ in 1954, teachers “buddied” the new girl from New Zealand with a Year 4 classmate. Peta Latimer (Hay) was herself fairly new to Friends’– her father had discovered a previous school was trying to undo her left-handedness – and the two students became best friends. Until Marilyn’s death on January 23, 2025, the women maintained their friendship for 70 years.
“We used to play under the chestnut tree in the Argyle Street campus,” recalls Peta, an aged care nurse now retired and living in Sydney. “We’d play conkers, where you’d tie a chestnut to a piece of string and knock the other’s around. I remember there was a lot of hopscotch.”
Marilyn who, like Peta, trained in Hobart and worked in Melbourne hospitals after leaving Friends’, recounted how “we’d sleep over at each other’s houses and have midnight feasts. Our friendship was a very special one.”
Peta remembers lining up in their school uniforms to see Queen Elizabeth pass in 1954. (“She commented on our red berets, and that made the papers.”) She tells of how she, her sister Jill Geeves (1964) and her “chatterbox” best friend would often travel to school together in her dad’s pale blue Chevrolet, and how she would visit the Neilson house and play with Marilyn’s younger siblings: John (1966), Michael (1968), and Jan (1969).
“I remember Peta as very warm and kind,” said Marilyn, who lived in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, to be close to her daughter and granddaughter. The retired palliative care nurse and her friend remained in communication over seven decades, despite the oceans between them. “My memories of Marilyn are of a happy childhood,” says Peta, a mother of three and grandmother of six. “She was just a lovely, lovely friend.”
