La Trobe University book spills beans on Bruce Week namesake

In this extract from the book, Memories and Milestones: Tertiary Education in Bendigo 1873-2023, a former insider reveals a long running La Trobe campus secret.

The conclusion to one tightly-held mystery is out of the bag... who the hell was Bruce? The Bendigo-only tradition of Bruce Week ceased when the Bendigo Student Association merged with the La Trobe Student Association in 2021, ending a decades-old practice of midyear parties and events.

"I'm not sure whether I can tell you," says La Trobe alumnus and former BSA marketing manager Brad Russell with a half-smile. "But I suppose it doesn't matter now that it doesn't happen anymore ... It was named after Bruce Carboon, a former (and very dynamic) events manager who went on to become general manager of the BSA. It was the best-kept secret for a long time because spilling the beans that Bruce was now a middle-aged administrator for the university would not only spoil the mystery, but it would also be a massive anti-climax."

For that reason, the secret was kept in the vault and Bruce Week became legendary at the Bendigo campus. It was the envy of many other student unions/associations across the country and Mr Carboon, senior administrator, was tickled pink whenever Brad sent him the occasional Bruce Week poster.

Brad first came to campus in 1984 as a fine art student, majoring in ceramics but with a strong minor in the social scene. "I can remember going to gigs on campus and you could smoke inside and drink outside ... not that it was a good thing," he hastily adds.

The list of big names, or names to become big, which played for students during the '80s and '90s includes Bob Geldof, Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls, Redgum, and the Hoodoo Gurus. Photo albums of happy snaps from the era show big-haired students in shoestring singlets and flannelette shirts, milling around the Eskies. "There's one picture of a packed student union floor where everyone was totally focussed on whatever was going on," Brad says. "I looked at that photo and thought, what's odd about it? No mobile phones!"

The O-Week events were legendary. Anyone for cow dung lotto? The campus oval would be sectioned into a grid, the bovines brought in, and tickets sold, with the lucky winner holding the number of the square where the cow pat dropped.

The Ironman Event saw students compete to be the last person standing after consuming an all-you-can-eat array of revolting concoctions, interspersed with pints of beer and physical challenges like riding kids' trikes around a circuit. Even watching wasn't for the faint hearted, but it was hugely popular and continued right through to the 1990s.

"My brother was here ten years before me, and he used to talk about the scavenger hunts across Bendigo during Orientation Week," Brad says. "One year, two students hatched a cunning plan to win the event. One dressed as a little old lady waiting at the first stop of a bus route while the other hid nearby. When the bus driver got out to give the 'elderly citizen' a helping hand to enter the back door, the other student whipped through the front door and pinched the bus as their treasure. They won the event easily. You could get away with those sorts of things then, nowadays they'd be arrested!"

It's no secret alcohol played a big part in many people's student days and The Brougham Arms in Williamson Street long reigned as the go-to venue "The Broughie was the uni pub, and you could hardly move there on Friday nights. There was no live entertainment. If you were lucky, someone might have played a cassette through a speaker."

The unofficial uni pub was a regular advertiser in student magazine Third Degree, promoting its mid-1980s prices of $2 mixed drinks, and $2 bar meals.

"Eventually, the Broughie decided students were more trouble than they were worth and changed their focus to counter meals instead," Brad says. "There was much less hassles that way!"

- By Lauren Mitchell, lead writer of Memories and Milestones.