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Lloyd had done very well on his own account - unable to fit in with the way things were run in
Ayr, with Len and then John in charge.
After going to Ayr High School when he was 12, he went on, in 1958, to board at Townsville
Grammar School for the next four years. The school was mainly a day-school (it had about 100
boarders) and the headmaster was Mr Blank.
'Basically I had the choice of boarding-school or reform school', said Lloyd. The boys I knew in
Ayr were a fairly tough lot, as country boys are. We used to get into a bit of trouble with the
police... Up until I went to Townsville GS I concentrated more on sport than on my studies. But
once at boarding-school I did reasonably well academically, picked up a few As and Bs,
although I still played sports. I got Colours for swimming, football, cross-country, rugby. I was
Captain of the rugby team and became Head Prefect in my final year.' He was also Cadet
Under-Officer and won a special prize in mathematics.
395
Barry Finerty, who was a year younger than Lloyd, remembered him as being 'extrovert, fit and
athletic', with 'a very tough image - as a prefect he wouldn't think twice about giving you a clip
on the ear or whacking one of the kids with a sandshoe on the bum... He was a leader, not a
follower; he commanded respect.'
Towards the end of 1961 and of his fourth year at the Grammar School, Lloyd, along with
some of his mates, applied for entry to the Military Academy at Duntroon. He was selected, but
he didn't go.
He said later: 'Len talked me out of it. He said: "Anyone can be a soldier. Why don't you be an
engineer and come back to the family business? We need an engineer." John was not so good at
the mechanical side of things... Dad was in Townsville then. He and Len spoke to me, and it
was all set up that I was going to work for International Harvester in the daytime and study
engineering at night. So Dad gave me £25 and Len gave me £25 and an airline ticket, and I
went off to Victoria in January 1962... IH had booked me into a hotel where the cost was more
than I was earning, about £7 a week. I enrolled in a Technical School and found it would take
me 13 years to get a diploma, not three. So I wrote off to Len, and Dad, and I said: "Look, this
is not on. I'll be here for a lifetime. I don't think it's what you intended or what I planned to do
anyway. Is it possible for you to pay my board and I'll go to Tech School fulltime?" They
agreed... I applied for and got a Ford scholarship, which gave me £150 per annum. My
education was free. In three years I picked up a diploma - it normally took four years - and
became president of the student's council among other things. And I came second in the State in
mechanical engineering... Then I went to IH, worked therefor all of 65 and half of 66. Most of
the time I worked on a project developing a cane harvester with another engineer and four
fitters. We designed, built and tested it. I was in Geelong for six months, then another six in
North Queensland testing the machinery, then back to Geelong.1
Lloyd was unaware of the importance of Geelong in the early history of the Honeycombes (and
the Mountjoys) in Australia. But it also had an influence on his life. For at the Institute of
Technology in Geelong he became friendly with an electrical engineer, Terry Flowers; they used
to go down to the Flowers' shack at Cape Otway at weekends, fishing, and shooting rabbits.
The Flowers, who came from Castlemaine, were now living in Colac west of Geelong; the
father was a cabinetmaker. Terry had a younger sister, Chris, who was a nurse in Colac. She
and Lloyd became engaged in January 1966.
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