Aaron Butler never smoked. He has left us, aged only 52, after a private battle with lung cancer. His name will be familiar to many young and not so young Old Boys who benefited from his HSC study books. Aaron arrived at Riverview in 1975 as a country boarder from Albury. For us, his new classmates, Aaron’s most obvious feature was his head of dense dark brown hair. As we grew to know him, so did our awareness, of Aaron’s quietly determined but modest gentlemanly nature. In 1976 his family moved to Avalon on Sydney’s northern beaches and Aaron became a day student. He was disciplined, attentive and purposeful in class: Runner up to Dux in Years 9, 10 and 12; Dux in Year 11; winner of 1st Prize for French for 5 straight years; and for good measure, occasional top of our school year in subjects as diverse as Latin (twice), English (twice), Science and Mathematics. Aaron played cricket in the 13A/14A cricket teams and 13A/14B rugby teams. In Year 9 he opted for basketball over cricket. Unfazed by cultural school norms, he also made the (then) audacious request, for an exemption from winter sports (rugby or its only known escape route, winter tennis) to enable him to play Australian Rules Football in a club age competition developing in Sydney’s north. Our amazement at the school’s agreement to Aaron’s request, perhaps overlooked the Melbourne origin and private AFL sympathies, of certain key Jesuits at the time. When I asked Aaron why he was forgoing a chance to play 1st XV rugby, he told me sport was for enjoyment, and he’d had more fun and excitement playing Aussie Rules in primary school in Albury, than as a rugby winger at Riverview. Despite Aaron’s late start in basketball, his natural athletic agility and speed of eye to hand co-ordination (plus capacity to listen to his teachers) led to him playing for three consecutive years in our First Basketball Team. This included playing in Riverview’s first GPS Premiership winning basketball team with his cousin Justin Allen (OR 78) and selection for the GPS combined basketball team in his final school year. Aaron remained active in basketball through adult life, participating as a player or coach (including with his old Riverview team mates) and as a fan of Sydney Kings. On leaving school Aaron commenced studies in medicine at Sydney University. At this time and for many years to come we’d catch up playing tennis. Whilst like many first year university students, I earned spare cash dispensing petrol and collecting beer glasses, Aaron progressed his entrepreneurial plan to publish a study guide for HSC students in physics and chemistry, setting out past HSC papers, together with model solutions. The idea was not new, but expanded on a text we had used at school the previous year by mathematician Jim Coroneous. In his first year out of school Aaron negotiated permission from the New South Wales Board of Studies and the Science Teachers Association to publish model answers to prior year HSC physics and chemistry papers which appeared in the Association’s journals. The first users of Aaron’s HSC Q & A study books were 1982 school leavers including my brother Justin (OR 82), who also managed to work off excess HSC stress, in our tennis hits with the publisher. Over time, Aaron Butler Publishing (later re-brand- ed The Success One HSC Series) added biology, 2 unit maths, and computer science books, all on the proverbial smell of an oily rag, but not without a continuous and zealous attention by Aaron to business issues. What makes Aaron a unique Old Boy, might arguably be his contracting out, of a core of the then St Ignatius Riverview teaching staff (for over a decade beginning in 1987 - during a hiatus in his arrangements with the Teachers Associations) to develop solutions for his HSC Q & A publications: Bruce McKay in physics, Keith Saines in Maths, Roy Sinclair in Chemistry and Chris Gillett in Biology. All four teachers arrived at Riverview the same year, or a year either side, of our own arrival in 1975. AARON BUTLER (OR 80) Died on 2 April 2015 Husband to Antonia; Father to Lulu (11) and Eden (6)
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Aaron Butler never smoked. He has left us, aged only 52, after a private battle with lung cancer. His name will be familiar to many young and not so young Old Boys who benefited from his HSC study books.Aaron arrived at Riverview in 1975 as a country boarder from Albury. For us, his new classmates, Aaron’s most obvious feature was his head of dense dark brown hair. As we grew to know him, so did our awareness, of Aaron’s quietly determined but modest gentlemanly nature. In 1976 his family moved to Avalon on Sydney’s northern beaches and Aaron became a day student. He was disciplined, attentive and purposeful in class: Runner up to Dux in Years 9, 10 and 12; Dux in Year 11; winner of 1st Prize for French for 5 straight years; and for good measure, occasional top of our school year in subjects as diverse as Latin (twice), English (twice), Science and Mathematics.
Aaron played cricket in the 13A/14A cricket teams and 13A/14B rugby teams. In Year 9 he opted for basketball over cricket. Unfazed by cultural school norms, he also made the (then) audacious request, for an exemption from winter sports (rugby or its only known escape route, winter tennis) to enable him to play Australian Rules Football in a club age competition developing in Sydney’s north. Our amazement at the school’s agreement to Aaron’s request, perhaps overlooked the Melbourne origin and private AFL sympathies, of certain key Jesuits at the time. When I asked Aaron why he was forgoing a chance to play 1st XV rugby, he told me sport was for enjoyment, and he’d had more fun and excitement playing Aussie Rules in primary school in Albury, than as a rugby winger at Riverview.Despite Aaron’s late start in basketball, his natural athletic
agility and speed of eye to hand co-ordination (plus capacity to listen to his teachers) led to him playing for three consecutive years in our First Basketball Team. This included playing in Riverview’s first GPS Premiership winning basketball team with his cousin Justin Allen (OR 78) and selection for the GPS combined basketball team in his final school year. Aaron remained active in basketball through adult life, participating as a player or coach (including with his old Riverview team mates) and as a fan of Sydney Kings.
On leaving school Aaron commenced studies in medicine at Sydney University. At this time and for many years to come we’d catch up playing tennis. Whilst like many first year university students, I earned spare cash dispensing petrol and collecting beer glasses, Aaron progressed his entrepreneurial plan to publish a study guide for HSC students in physics and chemistry, setting out past HSC papers, together with model solutions. The idea was not new, but expanded on a text we had used
at school the previous year by mathematician Jim Coroneous.In his first year out of school Aaron negotiated permission from the New South Wales Board of Studies and the Science Teachers Association to publish model answers to prior year HSC physics and chemistry papers which appeared in the Association’s journals. The first users of Aaron’s HSC Q & A study books were 1982 school leavers including my brother Justin (OR 82), who also managed to work off excess HSC stress, in our tennis hits with the publisher. Over time, Aaron Butler Publishing (later re-brand-ed The Success One HSC Series) added biology, 2 unit maths, and computer science books, all on the proverbial smell of an oily rag, but not without a continuous and zealous attention by Aaron to business issues. What makes Aaron a unique Old Boy, might arguably be his contracting out, of a core of the then St Ignatius Riverview teaching staff (for over a decade beginning in 1987 - during a hiatus in his arrangements with the Teachers Associations) to develop solutions for his HSC Q & A publications: Bruce McKay in physics, Keith Saines in Maths, Roy Sinclair in Chemistry and Chris Gillett in Biology. All four teachers arrived at Riverview the same year, or a year either side, of our own arrival in 1975.
AARON BUTLER
(OR 80)Died on 2 April 2015 Husband to Antonia;
Father to Lulu (11) and Eden (6)
Or was that unique factor, that Aaron was the first Riverview boy (before the Swans moved to Sydney) to obtain the Jesuits’ permission to play Aussie Rules instead of rugby? Or it might be his admirable gumption and courage in late 1981, in dropping out of security and prestige of medical studies at Sydney Uni, to apply himself full time to an opportunity he perceived in publishing. This was a decade before we had heard of email, or internet, or search engines (or business ‘start ups’).
What I believe, is a truly unique and remarkable testament to Aaron’s wisdom, self-reliance, resourcefulness, courage and humanity (all contributing to his business entrepreneurship), is that over the course of his life, he made a very honourable and successful living, without once needing to rely on a wage, income, education, apprenticeship or training from any employer, or endowment or other benefactor. This was of course, apart from the nurturing, and generous education including at Riverview, which was gifted to him by his loved and respected parents, Patricia and Rex Butler. Though I was close enough to Aaron to be aware of his
imperfections, he is without question, one of the most universally respected and loved people I have known. I was fortunate to share his friendship and interests in tennis, sailboard-ing at Pittwater, skiing in the Snowy Mountains and one memorable trip, finding our way slowly from Paris through the Alsace, a snowy Black Forest and then via the Alps into Munich. Aaron never sought to cultivate a wide social circle, but during his life, touched those he met with his respect for others, genuine modesty and peaceful conduct. As a person he was never one of the crowd, yet he was both interested in, and a wise observer of, his fellow man. Aaron was a disciplined person. If he chose to do things differently, it certainly wasn’t out of a sense of rebellion. He had a confidence and quiet determination, in what was best for him. Aaron had an ear for music, and an eye for design and other contemporary culture. I never experienced Aaron’s interests to be motivated by a desire to be a follower of fashion, rather a genuine interest by him, in learning about our world. He remained a man alwaysinterested in education, choosing later in life to complete a degree in economics, and then later again in laws.
I had less regular contact with Aaron after AB Publishing relocated from inner Sydney to Burradoo in the southern highlands. In 2010, Aaron emailed me with the news that he had successfully sold the enduring publishing business which he began 30 years earlier. He had no plans other than spending time with his young family, saying ‘I guess you could call it long service leave for the self employed’. Two years later Aaron was diagnosed with lung cancer. He confided this in surprisingly few, one being our classmate Dr Tom Hugh (OR 80). Tom told me that Aaron fought his battle with cancer ferociously, substantially outliving the best expectations of Tom’s fellow specialists at North Shore.
Aaron was an extremely happy and proud family man with Antonia, his companion of 25 years (married 17), and their children Lulu and Eden. He will be especially missed by them, his parents and their families.
Aaron was a man of faith. He remained so in illness. He would have made a fine Jesuit, had he been so called. Aaron Butler was a man with whom his Jesuit educators can be very justly, well satisfied.
Peter Robinson
For the Class of 1980
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