CHAPTER 1 – 1966 – GRADE 7
There really is no looking back.
Not really.
But I do.
Whether I like it or not, those memories keep coming back to annoy me. They represent six years of pure hell and depressions and, yes, they do torment me – consistently. I wish they wouldn’t but they do and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it. And if I had my time again, there would be absolutely nothing I could about my life back then.
The happiest memory I do have of my secondary years at boarding school is the very last day ever. Oh and the last day of each term and each year were pretty good too.
I left the school in 1972, after repeating what was then known as ‘Leaving’ (these days, it is Year 11) but still managed to fail everything despite have two goes at it. In fact, in all those years I didn’t manage to pass anything much except English. I was always good at English. Looking back, there was not a lot I excelled in at all, including the piano which I did try to learn at one stage, but was never able to sight-read, so that stopped pretty quickly. Then I was given a guitar in my mid-teens. I loved playing it and singing along. I did not have any guitar lessons and was never in the school choir or anything like that. Reckon I’d have been kicked out had I tried. I just enjoyed playing with and singing along to my guitar.
However, I did try for a couple of sports teams, the main one being hockey. Again – not good. I attended one practise and managed to get hit around a lot by the other players and decided pretty quickly that that wasn’t for me either. So I pulled out before landing in hospital. I did enjoy tennis and used to use the old hits board just above the then new boarding house. I did that a lot, but never had a game with anyone. The other sport I did try for was running – silly, silly me. This was when they were ‘trying out’ for the sports day teams – and for one insane minute, I signed up for one of the races. I was put out the first time we practised. I think I was still at the starting point – or not far in – when the first – well, all the other runners, finished.
But I am getting well ahead of myself. Let me turn the clock back to my very first day ever at that school. I was extremely excited – but I also had a strange feeling of foreboding. And that feeling was to stay with me on and off for the next six years. I was about to join my older brothers and cousins in attending boarding school. We went to different schools – all the boys went to one and our female cousins went to another one. I went to a different one again.
And I was alone.
It was February 1966 when I started at that school. As mentioned, I was very excited – and for the life of me, I don’t know why. I think it was because I was going down to ‘big school’, but why that fact excited me as it did, is beyond me. I was leaving home, after all. But at the time it probably did seem exciting. That excitement lasted for about two weeks, then homesickness, reality and a few other negative things crept in and began to overpower everything. And that sense of foreboding was slowly but surely increasing. It might also have had something to do with the fact that I was one of the first junior boarders at that school, so while I was in a class with other girls of my age, there were no other boarders of that age, they were all older. Only by a year but that was bad enough to egg those feelings of loneliness and isolation on. Most of those girls were very nice but the age difference, even by one tiny year, did seem to make a difference.
At this stage, I think I do need to step backwards in time to explain something. There was a reason – a very sad one – why I started as a junior boarder and was not able to wait for that one last year before heading to boarding school at the ‘accepted’ age.
The reason I was being sent to boarding school in the first place is because I grew up, along with my three older brothers and our cousins, on our family sheep station in the north eastern pastoral district of that state. This is covered earlier in this book. What wasn’t mentioned is that I did have governesses for part of my primary education but they had all gone by the time I reached Grade 6 – my last year out there. However, by the time my youngest brother was sent off to boarding school, a couple of years before I should have been, we must have been having problems hiring and keeping governesses as my mother finished up teaching me for that last year. I cannot remember a lot about that year except that as it progressed, my mother must have found teaching me, on top of the rest of her daily chores, just a bit too much. The obvious answers was to send me down to boarding school – just a year earlier than normal.
Through my research for ‘Red Dust Dreams’, I did learn that, while there are still some governesses out there, a lot of station students are now being taught by their mothers, or some other relative. It can be a very lonely and isolated existence, particularly to these young girls – many of them are (or used to be) attracted to the romance and ‘difference’ of outback life. But sadly for many of them, once they actually start their lives out there they realize how isolated and lonely it can be with the bright lights of the cities or large towns, a long, long way away. They find the stations are so isolated that unless they have their own transport or can get a lift they are too far away to visit the cities or nearest towns on the weekends. Instead, they usually find they are ‘stuck’ on the stations and after a while, reality really does get to many of them and they resign to head back to the city. While conducting the above research, I also discovered that there are now quite a few organizations that will support these young people and the world of the internet, FaceBook particularly, is a God send for them. Although even the internet can be a problem as it does not necessarily work throughout some of the more remote areas of Australia. These girls (and boys nowadays) also find, to their frustration, that their mobiles are completely out of range as well. The above mentioned organizations are generally online and I believe they do help to keep these young people in contact with others. While it isn’t physical, it is at least something for them.
Anyway, it was decided that Mum would finish teaching me at the end of Grade 6 and that I would go down to town too. Initially, rather than trying to get me into a boarding school that didn’t actually take junior boarders, it was arranged that I would stay with my aunt and uncle instead and attend the school as a day bug. And this was settled until tragedy struck. Sadly, my late cousin suddenly became seriously ill with a terminal disease during that year. Alternative arrangements had to be made – and quickly. My parents must have contacted the school and explained the situation – suddenly I was being accepted as a junior boarder. I must have been taken to the city to buy uniforms, hat, gloves, books and all other necessities. In those days we had to go to one of the department stores in the city to buy all this. These days, I think it can all be purchased at the schools.
For the six years of my boarding at that school, I think slept in all of the boarding houses – except one. And that one was attached to one of the then-new boarding houses, so I feel that I did sleep in all of them. I also think we were the last boarders to sleep in the very first boarding house – which is now being used as classrooms and probably has since we slept there. There were mainly first years (now Year 8) and a few older girls when we were there. Our access was via a very old and rickety set of wooden stairs which were attached to the outside of the kitchen and these led up to an old screen door which in turn led into the first dormitory. There were only screen doors and windows, none of which was insect proof. It was a very old building, housing the administrative offices on the ground floor as well as that of the Principal.
We did our homework in one of the classrooms before having evening supper in our own little kitchen. That was also where I remember seeing the youngest surviving member of the family that began the school. She was often in there, too. Not sure what she was doing, but as she was elderly then I am thinking she might have been having warm milk before bed or something like that. I think she must have passed on not long after that as I cannot remember her at all after that year.
Having always had that passion for writing, I lived for mail from home and indeed from anyone. We had a green mail board, with white ribbons which were pinned in a criss-cross fashion across the board. That was one of my favourite places in that school. Actually, it was my only favourite place.
Our teacher from Grade 6 was a very great friend of the mistress of our boarding house, so warned me: ‘You had better watch out’. Nothing like scaring the living daylights out of an already very unhappy girl. And this warning was only compounded a bit later, when, for some reason, I found myself standing at the head of the main inside staircase. We weren’t allowed to use those stairs beyond going into the dormitory which was directly over the principal’s office. So, by rights, I should not have been there. But there I was, looking down at the then principal, standing at the bottom of the stairs and issuing yet another warning to me – in that I needed to improve my marks. Well, OK, I knew that but sort of didn’t feel it was going to happen in a hurry and I didn’t like having that said to me. Let me tell you that I was one very scared, very unhappy and very small little girl.
A very lost little girl.
I did make a couple of friends among the day bugs in my class, which was lovely, but overall, I was not popular. And sadly, this lack of popularity only worsened as my days at that school progressed. I also befriended, to an extent – another country girl who was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Attending the school but not as a boarder, she was living with relations or friends or someone.
CHAPTER TWO – NEXT BLOG.
Yes, it is very dry out there.
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