When Donald's ex-wife Barbara (Barbara Stevens) arrives to take a teaching post at the school, he is surprised and when their son Alan (Simon Kay) arrives to repeat Year 12, Donald becomes stressed as his relationship with Alan has deteriorated in the four years since they last saw each other. Alan begins acting up at school but Donald softens when he finds out Alan has a brain tumour, but lashes out when Alan provokes him one day. Just when it seems father and son have patched things up, Alan dies of an aneurysm.