In October 2019, as a parting gesture to his much-loved Parade, the late 1951 College Captain Noel Purcell made his way to the Bundoora Campus to donate his old school blazer to the Heritage Centre.

This week, a little over a fortnight after Noel's passing at the age of 87, son Simon, himself an Old Paradian of the Class of 1978, paid the Centre a visit to graciously donate more of Noel’s Parade possessions.

Simon, the founding Director and Principal of Purcell Partners law firm, handed three trophies to the College Archivist Matthew Roberts – one earned by Noel some seventy years ago as College Captain and two for his triumphs in College tennis in 1950 and ’51; together with a pennant earned as the 100-yard and 220-yard A Grade Open Athletics Championships winner in the ’50 season.

Simon also donated a magnificent black and white photograph of his father chesting the tape in his Lynch singlet, quite possibly in that 100-yard event.

“The trophies were sitting in the pool room for a period of time and my father liked to reminisce about them whenever he visited,” Simon said.

“On one occasion I can remember him repositioning them after he found them stuck behind something else.

“It just struck me when he passed away that all these things belonged in the Heritage Centre. Like the blazer, they belonged somewhere long-term.”

Simon talked of Noel as “a great bloke and fantastic father”.

“Dad never put any pressure on me,” Simon said. “We had a fantastic relationship, particularly as we got older, and when I started my own business at 35 he even came and worked for me for a while.”