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No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt VIII)

Chapter V – 1970 – 4th Year (Leaving – First Attempt)

Wow. My lack of popularity must have been very obvious by this stage. When I returned to school after the holidays, for the new school year, I found that I had been separated from the girls in my year and put in with those of the year below. This did not upset me at all – it was a relief and I felt that I might actually have a chance of enjoying the year. I was back in the second wing of the new boarding house.

I was in the second dormitory along the corridor with three new girls, one from the country known as the south east as it was south east of Adelaide. One of the other girls came from Alice Springs and she was a very quiet girl. No-one knew a lot about her. The third one came from the city but for some reason she had to board for the year. All three of these girls only started at the school that year.

This was the year that I actually met one of the couple of boarders that I did befriend and has stayed my friend throughout life, although we have very little contact with each other. She lived on a farm not far from our station. She also did come up to stay on the station at one stage but after we all left school. She is also one of the Godmothers to one of my daughters.

Of the three girls in my dorm that year one invited me to her parents’ farm for a long weekend. That was exciting, at least, I thought it was until she also told me that she had entered us into the local tennis tournament which was also on that weekend. Me? Play tennis? Seriously? I don’t think so. However, I have always felt very proud of myself in that I didn’t ask to be pulled out. I wanted to, but didn’t. So on Friday afternoon, off we trotted. The tournament was scheduled for Saturday afternoon so we decided to practise in the morning. There were actually three of us. The girl who had invited us and another girl from school. This latter girl was in it for fun, as was I, but I also had a touch of true seriousness about it. For some very weird reason I wanted to prove myself. Tennis was a sport and I wanted to show that I could play. Even if I couldn’t. I think I did quite well, too, sort of. I got the ball over the net at least twice – now, that’s great for me. The first ball cleared the net comfortably and my opponent returned it, just as comfortably. We even had a bit of a rally. The second ball that I got over was a tad high – and I did hit it hard. It cleared not only the net, but also the wire fence surrounding the court, along with a couple of houses and then disappeared from sight. We never did find it. And we lost the tournament. Never mind – it was fun. Our opponents were very serious and I think were a bit frustrated because we weren’t quite up to their standard.

Somewhere earlier in this book, I mentioned that there were two times when I became ill and one of those times could have been life threatening. I have described that one, when I was very nearly given penicillin.

The second time occurred during this year – 4th Year. It occurred over several days – about a week all told. It was an earache. A rotten earache that gradually deteriorated as the week progressed. Trouble was, it really only manifested itself at night. During the day, I was fine – no pain, nothing. These were also the days when we did our prep in the new library, which was right at the top of the school. This meant, as mentioned earlier, that we had to walk up in a group escorted by a house mistress.

The earache began very mildly. Hardly noticeable. I think I was even able to continue with my homework as though nothing was wrong. That was the first night. The second night – Tuesday – it was worse. It was certainly making itself known and I was starting to have trouble coping with it, while still trying to concentrate on my homework. In fact, that night it did reduce me to tears and I was sent back to the boarding house, with another girl (who must have been a sort of friend – the mistress was very careful who she chose to accompany me, since I could not go alone) and we were both allowed to do our homework in one of the common rooms in the boarding house, with the two junior boarders.

As usual, the ache disappeared completely the next day, which was Wednesday. And that night it returned and was getting increasingly painful. Once again, I tried to do my prep but by this stage, the pain was too much and I couldn’t concentrate at all. And again I was sent back to the boarding house, but this time I was sent alone. This went against all the rules of the boarding house but that particular mistress got away with it. Instead I got into trouble. I ran for dear life down through the school grounds, between all the buildings, as fast as I could, to reach safety in the boarding house. To be honest, I don’t know what I was more frightened of, the increasing pain of the earache, running down through the school by myself or what sort of reception I would get upon reaching the boarding house, although I think I was starting to become beyond worry as I was in too much pain. I was sent straight to the head of the boarding house, who was absolutely furious with me. Again I was told to sit and do my homework with the junior boarders.

Next day, the school doctor was called to see me. It must have been arranged for him to come after school as I was in enough trouble anyway, without having time off. I am really surprised that he was called to see me and not the other way around. Anyway, he did come and he did look in my ear. Surprise! Surprise! Absolutely nothing. My ear looked perfectly fine so apparently I was imagining it all.

But I wasn’t imagining it. Not one bit of it. I was becoming increasingly scared about what was going to happen, both to my ear (I knew it couldn’t last forever – something had to happen – but what…) and with the school regarding whatever punishment I was in for if my earache continued. And it did. That night – yet again, at prep. It started and was unbearable. And again I was sent down to the boarding house alone. No-one believed me at all. Although I guess that was fair enough, given that I didn’t have any pain during the day. I recall reaching the boarding house and it did seem that I was expected; again I was taken to the common room and told to finish my homework there. I was crying. I was in just so much pain. And I was scared – very scared. I must have been carrying on more than the other nights as I was warned not to even think about going to bed.

But the pain was just too much – and I was completely beyond caring. Although going to bed did not seem to help much – it was still extremely painful for most of the nights and by the end of the week, I was exhausted.

So off I trotted, in too much pain to be able to concentrated. I couldn’t function. Both of the junior boarders were concerned when I left, not because of the pain and my crying but because of whatever punishment I would have waiting for me. I didn’t care. I just went to bed.

And then it happened.

Suddenly – a mighty explosion – that’s the only way I can describe it. Inside my head. It didn’t worry me. Normally it would have scared the living daylights out of me – but not that night.

The pain had stopped.

I just lay there, waiting for it to start again. But it didn’t. I cannot remember ever being so comforable. It really was pure bliss.

I could not take the smile from my face. The other girls returned to the boarding house and I walked into the bathroom, beaming from ear to ear.

What happened next did not scare me but has always, to this day, made me wonder. While I was hopping around, dancing and just so happy, I began to realize that the girls weren’t really sharing my happiness. They were trying to, but just couldn’t. Instead they were just staring at me. Finally one of them told me to look at the left side of my head, in the mirror. I did. And again, I never fully understood what happened, mainly because it has never been explained to me, nor have I ever received any apologies.

The left side of my hair was absolutely caked in blood.

The house mistress was called in and cleaned the blood off. I still find it hard to believe that nothing was ever really said about it all. Either I was sent to the GP or he came back to see me, but still nothing was really explained. The only thing I was told was that my ear drum had burst. But why? Why had it burst? I must have had an infection of some sort but why hadn’t it been picked up? And why did it only manifest itself at night and not during the day at all? So many questions. So few answers.

And not an apology to be heard.

The other thing that I have often wondered about – if my ear drum had really burst, could that not have been fatal? I would have thought so. So I guess I was very lucky.

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.