Marilyn Neilson (Class of 1962) and Peta Latimer (nee 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 3 classmate. Peta Latimer (nee Hay) was herself fairly new to Friends’ (after her father discovered her previous school was trying to fix her left-handedness). The women, now close to 80, have been friends ever since.
“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 the chestnut to a piece of string and knock the other around – the chestnuts, not each other! I remember a lot of hopscotch.”
“We’d sleep over at each other’s houses and have midnight feasts,” says Marilyn who, like Peta, trained in Hobart and worked in Melbourne hospitals after leaving Friends’. “Our friendship was a very special one.”
Peta, whose sister (Jill Jeeves, 1964) also attended Friends’, 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 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,” says Marilyn, who lives in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, to be close to her daughter and granddaughter. The retired palliative care nurse remains in communication with her friend of 70 years, 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.”
