Times Have Changed (Cont’d)
Now, the rest of the grounds at the school. As mentioned, way back up there somewhere, I have been back a couple of times since 1972 when I left. One visit was to the administration block, to pay for the school magazine that they had sent to me. My mum came along with me and as that was my first visit to the admin block since leaving, I could not resist having a quick look. The office itself has been changed considerably – it is only very small and I would not have thought there would be room to change – but they have done it and it looks good. They even had a couch in there. I asked Mum if she would mind if I had a quick look – she didn’t join me but instead the staff gave her a cup of tea and she was left quite comfortably on the couch. The staff were also only too happy for me to have a look, so off I went.
Apart from a reception desk right outside the Principal’s office and the change in the admin office itself, it all looked pretty much unchanged downstairs since I had boarded there. I walked down to the old kitchen – strangely enough, my main memories of that kitchen included the elderly woman who used to be there in my very early days at the school. Looking around that room didn’t actually mean a lot to me. Some of the school staff were working in the hallway so I made myself known – introduced and explained myself to them. I really wanted to climb those stairs and go into the old dormitories but felt I possibly should not do this.
However, as I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, I saw a very young, very small and extremely scared and unhappy little girl.
It was me.
It felt like a thousand years ago.
It was then that I decided that I was not harming anyone or anything by climbing those stairs and having a look, so up I went. The little girl had gone and I was free to look around. Again, apart from the fact that these were now classrooms with the dormitory that I had been in, now a bathroom – nothing had changed. The memories rushed back (well, some of them did – others I have obviously locked away so securely they refuse to budge now) and the main thing I wondered was: where are all those girls now? What has become of them? I will never know.
With that and satisfied that I had had a good look, I turned around and went back to the office where I collected my mother and went home, back to her room in the aged care residence.
I must have been back to school one other time as I was given a tour of the grounds, including new buildings and old – and the boarding house again, by one of the staff members. The grounds really have changed hugely. The one aspect that did strike me was the lack of parking. The school has never had a lot of parking space, which was probably a negative for the parents of the boarders, but was space it did have seems to have gone now.
There have been a lot of other changes over the years too. Some that I have been aware of, others that I haven’t. In our day, we only had three terms and that middle one was a nightmare, particularly for those of us who were not happy at boarding school, being away from home for so long. Our holidays were in May and September. We had Easter off too and would have been able to go home but it wasn’t actually part of the school holidays as it didn’t fall at the end of the term. I do not know when the school years was changed but the four terms were in effect by the time my two daughters started school. There are also pupil free days and all sorts of other things now – they certainly weren’t there back in my day. Another one is ‘Schoolies’ Week’ – when I understand that the Year 12s are allowed to go away, usually to designated places in each state, for a week or two to ‘let their hair down’ after their final exams and before the school year finishes. Again, something that we didn’t have.
School Holidays – YES!
The last days of term were some of the best for me. For all boarders actually, but moreso for those less popular. While many of the boarders had formed good friendships amongst themselves and had been invited to others’ country homes for the holidays, or at least part of them, I generally went home. Which I loved. Once in secondary school I know I started to invite one or two of the day bugs to spent the holidays on our station. In the first couple of years at the school, as mentioned earlier, I did form a few friendships with the day bugs. There were two in particular at that early stage who used to come up to the station regularly.
My brothers, too, used to invite one of two of their friends up. So our homestead used to be very full suddenly, overnight. We would usually travel up by train in those days and after disembarking we would be met by our parents in either one or two cars, depending on our numbers. These school holidays are among the best memories I have. They were a huge amount of fun. And I can well remember both Mum and Dad commenting on the ‘horrible’ silence in the now empty house when they returned home, after dropping us off when the holidays were over.
I missed our pets hugely when I was at school. One little dog, which belonged to my brother but which seemed to stick to me and I to him, sadly died during my first years at school.
One day at the end of term I was walking down through the school, carrying my sewing basket – when I suddenly dropped everything. I saw my parents’ car parked in the carpark that was. What a wonderful sight. The girls I had been walking with either felt sorry for me or felt they should pick up all that I had dropped and carried it down to me. Which was very good of them – they must have liked me a bit more than most! Meanwhile, I must have already packed and been ready to leave as Mum and Dad had all my bags in the car and all I had to do was go get in and go. I went to sit in the back and I noticed my youngest brother also sitting there, on the other side. As I sat and closed the door, he passed what looked like a picnic basket to me, covered in his own school jacket, which he then asked me to pass to him. I did – and then looked into the basket – and there was a puppy! I was ecstatic. It was a little Australian Terrier. I fell in love with it, there and then – and those feelings never diminished.
The first mornings at home in the holidays were wonderful, hearing this little dog belting up the hallway as fast as his tiny legs would take him and then jumping up on my bed. If I did happen to still be sleeping, he would lick me to try to wake me up and if no success, would curl up and settle on the end of my bed until I did wake up. I loved that so much. School holidays included riding motor bikes (only ever on the station, never off), horses and lots of walking. We also had our own ‘swimming pool’ – in the form of a concrete tank which was just across the creek from the homestead. Easy walking distance. So we had that in the summer too.
And just lots of fun and laughter.
Oh – and on the first Saturday in the holidays – we would all make ourselves scarce for some hours. As mentioned earlier, it was mail day and when our school reports were due to arrive. I am thinking that my brothers didn’t exactly receive glowing reports and I sure as heck know that I didn’t. My progress at school, or lack therein, in absolutely everything, almost went backwards and my teachers were not backward in reporting it. When those reports arrived I figured I needed to give my parents time to read mine and calm down before I showed up.
In the evenings, of course we were too far away from the nearest town to be able to meet friends for films, or do any of the things that our city counterparts were able to do. But I loved our own fun. I loved what we did. We were (and still are) incredibly fortunate in that we have a billiards/pool table on the station and that was used a lot in the evenings during school holidays. Another pastime was shooting – the boys would drive the ute and the girls would jump into the tray on the back and off we’d go. All sorts of places, some very rough, others not. But all on the station. We never left the station. The boys would do all the shooting and they mainly went for rabbits, foxes and the odd kangaroo. We do not have a problem with dingoes or wild dogs in our area, otherwise they would have been hunted down too. We didn’t eat any of it. The domestic animals got the lot.
Meals on the station were always a lot of fun. We were fortunate enough to have a full time cook and what a wonderful lady she was. She used to bake heaps of biscuits for ‘my boys and little Lannah’ before the holidays – they were not for Mum and Dad at all and pity help them if either of them tried to have one! Our meals were huge and always good, healthy food, but then we were also getting a huge lot of physical exercise. And we all ate together. Even morning and afternoon tea (or smoko as it is usually called, especially in the outback): a cup of tea for Mum and Dad and for morning tea, I used to get a chocolate milkshake. Fresh orange juice for afternoon tea. And freshly made cup cakes and assorted biscuits, with one of Mum’s recipes, very much an old family favourite, burnt butter biscuits. Yum. Full breakfasts, lunches and dinners too. The latter had two courses, main, which was huge and then sweets (as in puddings/desserts) for anyone who could fit it in.
Our power was provided by a 32V generator at first and then we upgraded to a 240V generator. We even had a special ‘engine room’ that housed these generators – and which is still there, although these days we are connected to the ‘mains’. Dad taught me how to start all these engines. I don’t know whether the boys were taught, but for some reason, I was. While still on the 32V, I well remember a cousin (second cousin? Several times removed? I lose track after first cousins…) let his curiosity get the better of him when he found this big button on the wall just outside our back door. So he pressed it – thus sending the entire homestead and surrounds into complete darkness! It didn’t take much to figure out who the culprit was! Anyway, rather than starting the engine again, we all went to bed.
And good old ‘Donald Duck’ comics! Bought at our then local newsagent in our nearest town whenever anyone went in there, everyone devoured them. I don’t think anyone bothered with bringing a book when they came to stay with us, we all loved our Donald Duck comics. We weren’t so fond of Mickey Mouse and some of the others – they were all too serious. Donald Duck and his family were just good, healthy, down to earth fun. Some evenings the lounge floor between Mum’s and Dad’s armchairs and the TV was a sea full of bodies. All of us lying down there, reading comics.
A certain thought has carried me through life to date and probably always will. When the school holidays were coming to an end, particularly on the last day, I used to get a tad depressed at the thought of going back to the city and that school. But then I would think of the evening ahead and dinner and that would be enough to brighten me up. Once that was over, back down I’d go, but then think of going to sleep in my beautiful bed and just listening to the wind in the trees in our driveway – no traffic or city noises out there. When I woke the next morning, on the day we were due back at school, I would be a bit down again, but then think of breakfast and I was OK. Once that was over, I still had the long drive to the city ahead and again, that kept me going. However, once the city came into view on our journey, then I would sink and stayed down. Nothing more to look forward to. And as mentioned above this way of thinking has stuck with me all though the years and probably will for life.
So, yes, the school holidays were always something to really look forward to. I can remember most of the day bugs who I used to invite along. And these girls did change, as happens, as the years progressed. I think at one stage I invited three people but usually it was two. And a few times, only one would come up.
There were only three boarders I ever invited up and two have remained friends to this day. One of these was also unpopular but had a wonderful personality and came from a farm not far from where we lived. She is a lovely girl and I have no idea why she was so unpopular. No rhyme nor reason sometimes. She was also in the year below me so we were not allocated beds near each other, except for one year and that is mentioned in the relevant chapter. The second girl was was one of those who was only at the school for a couple of years and was reasonably popular but we did form a friendship during the time she was there. The last one, we certainly were not friends at the start but finally became friends – sort of – in the latter years at the school. She was actually one of the ones who told me how much she hated me in those first years. We were never really that close as mentioned but did become close enough for a while and I did invite her up one holiday and we had quite a good time. I was also invited to spend a few days at her family farm, which was fun.
********
The next blog will see us move into Chapter 1, which is the first of the six chapters detailing my life as a boarder at the school. Some of the details are pleasant but more are not. They do details my bullying nightmare as well as some of the awful – and unusual – experiences I had with various illnesses during my school life.
BUT PLEASE REMEMBER THAT AT NO STAGE WAS THE SCHOOL IN QUESTION RESPONSIBLE NOR AT FAULT FOR ANY OF MY EXPERIENCES WHATSOEVER.
To Be Continued…
