Ivanhoe Primary School Memories 1920s and 1930s

Extracts from the Supplement to Slab Hut to Red Brick: the history of Ivanhoe Primary School (2004) compiled by Theresa Casteltevetere, Dianne Fox and Louise Ryan, including recollections of former students & staff.

These articles concentrate on the time frame 1920s and 1930s.

1 Three generations: 1923-2004
2 Jean Brownridge (nee Wallis): 1922-1930
3 Jack Ellis: 1920s And 1930s
4 Dot Newton: 1920s & 1930s
5 Jean Harmon and Gwen Kruger (both nee Ramsey): 1920s And 1930s
6 Dot Horton
7 Linda Dennis (nee Webb): 1926-1931
8 Lindsay Newnham 1926-1932
9 Ray Johnson: 1927-1937
10 Frank Bebbington: 1930-?
11 Frank Lees: My Longest Day, 1932-?
12 Norma Hughes: 1934-1941
13 Bruce Osborn: 1935-1941
14 Marie Stringer: 1937-?
15 I remember…

[edit] Three generations: 1923-2004

My name is Daniel Nolan. I am in Grade Five at Ivanhoe Primary School and my family has a long association with the school.

My grandfather, Frederick Foley (born 1915 - died 2003) was the youngest of a large family residing in Ivanhoe in 1923 - in fact he lived in Ivanhoe from that time until his death in March this year (2003).

He had an older brother Bert, a lad of about 15, who worked as a bricklayer on our school as it was being built.

Grandpa was a student when the new school opened in 1923, along with the second youngest child in his family, Frank. Frank is still alive. He is now a frail elderly man of 90 years of age. He was a soldier during the start of the Second World War and was captured at the "fall of Singapore", and survived Changi Prison. He lives down on the Mornington Peninsula.

Grandpa loved Ivanhoe Primary School, and always spoke well of his days there. He was very proud that his children followed him to the school. There was an unbroken attendance of Foleys at the school from 1948 until 1970. My Uncle Mel was the eldest, followed by Jeff, Neil, Daryl, Paul and my mum, Dianne.

When my family moved back to Ivanhoe in 1995, Mum enrolled my sister Breanna at Ivanhoe Primary. Grandpa, Mum and Breanna were featured in an article in the "Heidelberger" where Grandpa spoke of his years at the school.

When I leave Ivanhoe as a grade six student at the end of 2004, I will be the 10th person in my family to have completed their primary education here -maybe I won't be the last!

[edit] Jean Brownridge (nee Wallis): 1922-1930

Interviewed on 22 July 2003 by Louise Ryan.

Ivanhoe started to grow after the First World War. My parents were country people who came to Ivanhoe in 1915 and had a house built in Ford Street. We were very proud because Ford Street was a made road. I knew old Mr Ford. He had a big two storey house up the creek end of Ford Street and he used to drive a buggy.

I started school in the old school building on the post office site in 1922. I remember that the Infant Mistress was Miss Carew. She was short with dark hair and glasses. We did everything on the blackboard - we had our own blackboard and chalk and copied from the class blackboard. I don’t ever remember having all the gadgets and things that Preps have today. We went straight onto drawing and learning that A was for apple and learning the sound for that letter. There was nothing to play with and put together, but I remember lots of little picture books.

At playtime we would run to the end of the grounds, which went practically down to the railway line. Waterdale Road in that section was just a dirt track that went under the railway bridge, through the paddocks. We could see the trains run over the bridge. We loved that. When I first started it was a steam train, only one an hour. Soon after I remember the electric trains starting and we thought that was wonderful.

I don’t remember the old school being very crowded at all. It was about the width of the current post office in its Upper Heidelberg Road frontage. Then it sloped down with trees and a little shelter shed on the side where we had our lunch. There were lots of trees, it was all very natural. Many of the trees had seats around them. It was steep and there was a big cyclone fence at the back. We would run down the hill to see the trains. I don’t remember play equipment at the post office site. I think there may have been a wooden climbing frame, but I wasn’t a climber. What I was keen on was playing hopscotch on the bitumen area outside in the playground.

We walked past the site of the new school on the way to the old and I watched it being built. There were paddocks there before the school. There were paddocks everywhere in the old days. Lowe Street and Ailsa Grove were there, but they weren’t made. Ailsa Grove had quite a few vacant blocks. Behind the houses in Tate Street1 there was a little creek. It flowed right along and there was a bridge at Ford Street. We would walk along it to get to the new school when I went there.

One day, in 1924, when we were playing, we were told that we were going to have a new school. We had to pack our little suitcases and, grade by grade, we marched from the post office site. In those days Upper Heidelberg Road was not bitumen but crushed metal. On the corner at Waterdale Road there was a corn and hay store, where the Commonwealth Bank is now. We used to love it there because of the lovely smell of the hay; and they had chickens at the back. Then we walked past the doctor’s house – Dr Littlejohn. Then we walked along Waterdale Road until we came to the new school. There were only a couple of houses along there. The Baptist Church wasn’t there. I remember going in the front door and walking down the end to our room. We were told we could sit down and there were little desks – two children to a desk. In the old school there were long desks at which four or five children sat. I remember the smell of concrete - that was new to me. It was all lovely and fresh. The floors were concrete. We were used to wood. The room was big and freshly coated with the concrete, unpainted. I went home and told my father, “I love the new school, but it smells funny!” I used to come out of the preps’ classroom and watch the big children going upstairs, looking forward to the time I would be big enough to go up there. Downstairs was preps, grades 1 and 2, with the grades 3 out the back (where the office is now). The office was on the right near the front door. Upstairs were grades 4 to 6; and then up at the very top were grades 7 and 8. I remember an old house with a lot of trees in the garden on the corner of Lowe St. & Waterdale Rd. It got pulled down pretty quickly. When they built the new classrooms on the builders seemed to open up the back wall and put two new rooms on and they brought the steps further over. Then they opened up a door to outside. There were cyclone fences all around the school except for the smart one out the front.

Tate Street was known as Gordon Street in 1923. There was a lane between the houses from Waterdale Road up towards Ivanhoe Parade. It was all open there. There were only two shops and the hall. The Hoyt’s Theatre was very new. I can remember that being built. There was a school concert there. We all had to do something on the stage. I can remember going up and in the back door at Ivanhoe Parade.

I remember Mr Schilling. He was a shortish man with a moustache. He was a bit gruff but he was nice. I always likely him. He was probably in his 50s when I started. He was very keen on gardening. He was always asking the men to help on working bees. They planted trees right down the fence, right down the side of Ailsa Grove.

We had the one teacher for everything. There were no specialists. When we had singing time we would go into the prep classrooms because that was where the piano was. When we were older, we went to the Collingwood Swimming Pool on the train for our lessons. In grades 7 & 8 we went to the Dennis Central School (Westgarth St.) for our sewing, where we had Miss Coxain. I remember making an organdie apron. The boys went somewhere else for Sloyd (woodwork and metal work). They made things like metal firescreens with beaten patterns.

The parents were involved in the school lots. The men had lots of jobs. The Mothers Club had fetes every year. They had them out in the playground. All the mothers had old prams – there were no cars in those days. They would make things for the fete (mum used to make cushions and that sort of thing) and load them into these old prams to take to school. All the women used to come to the fete and they had stalls in the playground. They also had cake stalls at other times. Mother was always working for the school. My mother was president of the Mothers’ Club. The secretary was Mrs Whincup.

I went to Ivanhoe State School right through to grade 8 and attained my Merit Certificate. In grade 6 we were awarded our Qualifying Certificate and in Grade 8 our Merit Certificate.

After Grade 8 most of the pupils left to go to Secondary Schools or High School; some had apprenticeships to go to or worked in manufactory. Some of the girls went into sewing or office work. One of the girls, who was Dux of the School, went to University High, others went to Melbourne High or Domestic Arts Girls School.

Some of the teachers I remember were Miss Durham, Mr McDonald, Miss Costello and Miss McCormick.

[edit] Jack Ellis: 1920s And 1930s

My memories of Ivanhoe State School centred around two families. My sister Madge Ellis, then well known for her bright red hair (Auburn if you please she says) and I and the Beaumont lot with Bill Edward and Margaret. It was in 1928 (I think, my memory gets a bit loose these days) when Edward Miles Beaumont, known to his family as Ev. was declared DUX of the school and at the annual Speech night held at the Ivanhoe Cinema. I think it was better known as the Picture Theatre in those days, and where they had [speech] nights, was presented with a very impressive medal to mark the achievement. Ev was a quiet but purposeful lad and with his brother went on to Ivanhoe Grammar. Sadly as a pilot in World War two he was killed and we all lost a marvellous young man.

But to go back to the School.

When the new year started Ev's young sister Margaret (she was two years younger) was asked by her teacher to come out front of the class. Margaret was a shy girl but noticeable because her mother tied a ribbon in her hair in a most unusual manner. Once out front the teacher said, "Now class, I want you all to take a good look at this girl, she may go places, her brother was DUX of this school last year” Although appreciating the compliment especially for her brother Margaret was embarrassed and after thanking her Teacher, returned shyly to her seat.

Looking back, I suppose we can say that although Margaret didn't go places in the way the teacher had meant, she did make her mark and still does. She's still gorgeous. She subsequently did go to many places around the world, living in Burma, Arabia and Europe with her husband and two children. Her husband was also in the same class at Ivanhoe State School Jack Ellis known as curl.

We both remember well the cold mornings when the little fire in the corner of the room seemed to do little to warm the room, when our chilblains drove us frantic but how well we remember too wonderful Miss Duff and other Teachers with affection and even today we stay in touch with Marj Hawke, Jean Churcher and we remember Lorna Moore, whom I Jack, was made to sit next to because someone talked too much. I say it was Lorna, she says it was me, Enid Davies, the Webb sisters, the Seddon sisters

I Remember…

…a school student banking system, with the State Bank. Friday afternoon was sports time for inter-school competitions. Ivanhoe was noted for its sports teams. At the old school Miss Carew was the infant teacher. The school motto was ‘Aim at success’. The school colours were light blue and navy blue.

[edit] Dot Newton: 1920s & 1930s

What I remember when I first started there was the end of year speech night at the local Hoyts Theatre. The first half of the evening was a live performance of past students, the second half was a film. attended with my father.

In those days there was E & F forms that later became 7th & 8th grades.

Another special day was Empire Day. I still have a photo of us girls dressed in costumes representing all of the countries of the British Empire then, we were all very patriotic.

During the 30s depression I can remember some children coming to school without shoes.

Monday mornings we assembled for the anthems and marching to the beat of the drum, my cousin Laurie Miles was the drummer and when he left school his younger brother Jack Miles became the drummer.

[On] Thursdays boys went to sloyd at the Collingwood Tech. For the girls we had a visiting sewing teacher and a Mothercraft nurse (can’t remember her name but she was well known during the 2nd World War.)

My favourite teacher was Miss Beater in the fourth grade. She taught us the melody lines to sing “Do Ra Me” and she also taught us singing in the round. We became very good at that.

For the centenary celebrations at the Melbourne Cricket Ground some of our class were chosen to sing “Land of Hope & Glory”, me included. We were in the cricket stand. Other schools performed on the oval.

Another special day [was] when Heidelberg was declared a city. We all went to the Heidelberg Park oval. The guest speaker was Lord Huntingfield. He told us that day that Heidelberg was the biggest city in the world in area.

When our beautiful Heidelberg Town Hall was finished, we were invited to see how local government procedures took place. That was very impressive.

[On] Friday mornings was religious instruction. That was 7th & 8th grades. I can’t remember the teacher’s name but his niece is still in Ivanhoe. In those two classes we had the large double room with forty three students and one teacher.

Some of the students of our class remain[ed] friends for years: Jean Wilkinson always topped the class, a very bright girl. My friends were Merle Sherry, Joan Dilworth, Wilma Kent, Dulcey Henry, Joyce Moose (who is still in Ivanhoe). Others I remember in the 7th and 8th were: Roy Knorr, Keith Young and Ron Plowman. Some children left school in the 6th grade in those depression years. Some went to High School, others had to go to work.

Teachers I remember include: Mr Johnson (we all feared him). Miss Story (she had the early classes). Mr St.Ellen, Miss Fleming, Miss Durham, Miss Beater, Miss Costello (6th grade), Mr Walton, Mr Walters (7th & 8th grade), Mr Humphries (a junior teacher) and Miss Drummond (sports mistress).

[edit] Jean Harmon and Gwen Kruger (both nee Ramsey): 1920s And 1930s

Interviewed on Friday 13th June 2003 by Louise Ryan

In May 1923 the Ramsey family moved to Fairy Hills. There was 8 year old Jean and her younger brother Vern. At that time there were few other houses in the area. They could watch their father get off the train at Darebin station and walk across the paddocks towards home after work. Soon after the family’s arrival, baby Gwen was born.

Jean began school at Ivanhoe State School in grade 3, in the Rechabite Hall2 across the road from the school. She thinks it was just several classes of grade 3s who used the hall.

After school, the Rechabite Hall was leased to people who offered elocution lessons and dancing classes. Jean returned for these. Even in the 1920s there were after-school activities to keep children busy!

Jean can recall the excitement of moving to the new school building in Waterdale Road. Soon after the move the children performed a concert (held in a hall near the school, possibly the Hoyt’s Picture Theatre or the Public Hall in Ivanhoe Parade). Jean and her classmates performed a song called “Alice Bluegown” and wore blue dresses with large white collars.

In later years there were other concerts and gymnastic displays. On the 26th April 1927 Jean and a large number of her classmates took part in a children’s display of physical education in front of the Duke and Duchess of York at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. She was dressed as a Spanish dancer.

Teachers that Jean can recall from her school days include: Mr Punshon, Mr Shallard (he was young and Jean remembers fancying herself in love with him), Miss Costello, Miss Garland [possibly Harland] who taught grade 6, Miss Lindsey and Miss Durham.

In the late 1920s, at the age of 14, Jean left school with her Merit Certificate (with very good marks, including 96% for Mothercraft), as did most of her contemporaries. This was the beginning of the depression, but she was lucky enough to obtain a job as a factory hand in Collingwood. It was not really what Jean wanted, but in those days you could not afford to be choosey. Later she managed to obtain a better job.

When the depression of the 1930s set in some of the local unemployed men would organise competitions for the children after school in the lane behind the picture theatre. Children would pay a penny to enter and the winner would receive a small prize. They competed to see who could bounce a ball the most times, or skip for the longest. It was a way of the men making a few pennies to take home.

Another feature of after-school life was the antagonism that existed between the State School students and the Catholic School students: “They fought. You wouldn’t walk past the Catholic school on your own. They would lay in wait for us behind the thick cypress hedge between their school and the church.” (Gwen)

Gwen began her school days in the late 1920s at the new Fairy Hills School.3 She later moved to Ivanhoe State School, and finally to East Ivanhoe Central School, to complete forms 1 and 2. After that she went to business college in the city and obtained her first job at Preston Technical School. This had its interesting moments as a number of boys from her school days had gone on to be students at Preston.

Note by Louise Ryan : Gwen’s recollections of Ivanhoe State School include the oval being made. “It was just a paddock going down to Tate Street before that”. The oval was out of bounds to the girls – the boys played there and the girls were confined to the asphalt. The school had a picket fence and cypress trees on the Ailsa Grove side and wire fence on other boundaries. The girls’ shelter shed (which was a weatherboard construction) was up near the school building and the boys’ shelter shed was at the bottom of the asphalt, behind a toilet block. The south-west end of the school was never finished. There was a fireplace on the external wall in preparation for another room to be added, but it never happened. 2.The Rechabite Hall has since been demolished. The site is next to the Roman Catholic Church in Upper Heidelberg Road and is now occupied by a veterinary clinic. 3 Vison and realisation, L.J.Blake, general editor. Melbourne : Education Dept. of Victoria, 1973. Vol.3 p.147. Fairy Hills State School was opened as an adjunct to Alphington School in August 1928 with 60 grade 1 and 2 pupils. The school never taught above grade 4, and from the beginning of 1933 until its final closure in May 1935 only went as far as grade 2. children always thought it was a funny place to have a fireplace. The office was near the front entrance, on the right. The school in those days had no electric lights and a small fireplace in the corner of each room provided very limited heating. Opposite the school, in Lowe Street, next to the lane, were tennis courts. At the end of the street was the school caretakers’ cottage. There was no play equipment in the school ground. Children skipped, raced and ran, and played hide and seek.

Both women were taught sewing and knitting in a room on the Ailsa Grove side of the school (where the principal’s office now is) while the boys went to Sloyd classes (woodwork, metal work etc.). Gwen can recall having to knit a piece, then cut a hole in it, so that she could then darn it. Girls were also taught Mothercraft in the last year.

Children generally bought their lunches from home but Gwen can recall being sent up to Kirwin’s Milk Bar in Ivanhoe Parade (where Open House now is) to buy a lunch for a teacher.

Gwen can remember Miss Lombard as one of the teachers, and one friend, whom she still sees, was Mary Rojo (nee Smith).

[edit] Dot Horton

School days at Ivanhoe Primary (Ivanhoe State School as we knew it) bring back memories of marching in intricate patterns into school to the beat of the “big boys” on drums, & Miss Duff at the steps keeping us in step clapping her hands saying “Left, left, left, right, left”. In school after saying “Good morning” in chorus we had “observations” of what we had seen on the way to school. Then we chanted our alphabet and multiplication tables before the first lesson. “Hands on heads” order then to keep our attention. Growing rice on the windowsills. In the playground skipping ropes, whipping ropes, balls, marbles, making “houses” out of anything we found. Going home for lunch. Looking out the window at heavy rain & hoping for floods so as to come to school in a boat. Friendships made then & still there today & fond memories shared at our annual reunion lunch each year. I am proud to say 3 generations of our family attended this school & now my grandson Leighton Pearce is a teacher there.

[edit] Linda Dennis (nee Webb): 1926-1931

(Interviewed by Teresa Castelvetere over a lovely morning tea, prepared by Linda. Len Dennis, Linda’s husband, also took part.) Teachers remembered: Miss Van, Miss Story, Miss Duff, Mr Ford, Miss Durham, Miss Lombard, Mr Beggley/Biggley(?), Mr Drayton.

Linda: ‘I can remember the oval not being there. I think the oval was there when I was about in the sixth grade.'

Question: ‘What was there before? Linda: ‘Just grass, just nothing - no one went down there.’ …’I can remember very distinctly in the seventh grade, we were playing down there. I wasn’t actually a naughty girl but I can remember Mr Biggley saying “Right Linda Webb, up to the classroom and stay there until I come up!” And when he walked in he said, “Right-o, put your hand out!” And then he just put the strap down and laughed at me. He said, “Go on, home you go."

‘I can’t remember whether I didn’t do the right thing at sports or not. I don’t know what happened.’ Question: ‘Did the girls often get the strap? Linda: ‘No, no, no, they didn’t. The boys got the strap though and they got it pretty hard too. The teachers were rather good to the girls, I think, considering. They don’t strap these days, do they? ’ Teresa: ‘No, they’re not allowed to. ’ Question: ‘Did you bring your own balls to school or did the school provide balls for rounders? ’ Linda: ‘No, we used to use our own. I think the basketball was provided. (Unclear on tape) Question: ‘And, did you have hoops or were they before your time? Linda: ‘No, we didn’t have hoops.

Linda produced a photograph at this point.

‘That’s Dorothy Seddon. Teresa: ‘Oh yes, Seddon’s quite a big name at the school.

Linda: ‘They had a grocer’s shop in Ivanhoe for many years. Question: ‘There was no uniform at this time?

Linda: ‘No, there wasn’t a uniform really. You didn’t have to have it but some children wore a uniform. In those depression days, of course, a lot of girls didn’t have socks. I was made to wear them right up to the knees and I wasn’t allowed to go without them. My dad was a bacteriologist so perhaps he had a bit more than some had.

‘There was one girl at school called Kitty (unclear). I was having lunch one day and she didn’t have any lunch. I said Kitty why haven’t you got lunch and she said, “Oh, Auntie couldn’t give it to me, she didn’t have enough money.” So I gave her my lunch and went home. I did that twice. I often wonder about her, you know. …

‘One of the girls at school called Jean (unclear), used to have fits and no one would play with her, no one would be near her. And I always used to say to her, “Jean, if you get a bit lonely, I’ll play with you.” I used to feel sorry for her. ….The only thing I didn’t like was when we had our photographs taken, I didn’t like to sit near her in case she took a fit on me and I wouldn’t get my photo taken.’

Linda: ‘We didn’t have a tuck shop or anything like that.

Question: ‘What did you do for lunch?

Linda: ‘If we bought our lunch, and I was allowed to on Monday as a special treat, you wouldn’t believe the rubbish I bought. Question: ‘Where did you buy it?

Linda: ‘Martins Cake Shop up the road. Of course there weren’t the cars in those days. We were allowed to go out lunchtime - we could have gone anywhere. The teachers didn’t know where we were.’

Question: ‘So you went off to Martin’s Cake Shop, did you?’

Linda: ‘Yes, to buy a penny pie, a bird’s nest and then I’d go to the grocer’s to get a penny worth of broken biscuits. Isn’t that disgusting! … And I always took my fruit.’

Linda and Len refer back to Kitty and to Linda giving her lunch to Kitty.

Question: ‘Did your mum know that you were giving away your lunch? Linda: ‘Oh yes. When I got home, I had to go home to have lunch see and, mum said, “What have you come home for?” and I said “Oh Mum, Kitty didn’t have any lunch so I gave it to her.” And she said,

“You were very kind to give it to her.” And she gave me a lunch and off I went to school. But at least mum said I was kind. I thought she might have growled at me. But she didn’t. Teresa: ‘These days we’d be beside ourselves if we saw our children arriving home. Linda: ‘And not only that. In the depression days no one had money so they couldn’t afford to be giving you two lunches.

Len: ‘I lived in Ascot Vale, which was a poorer area than this area even in those days. And at my school in the shelter sheds, everyday, they’d bring in big [tins?] of soup. Linda: ‘We didn’t ever have that.

Len: ‘We had to take a cup and they’d hand you a cup of soup. Teresa: ‘And they would have done that at quite a few schools, do you think? Len: ‘Well, I think they would - the poorer class areas. Linda had never seen but I remember going to school and the boys had old car tyres cut up to put on their shoes to make their shoes last.’ Linda: ‘I didn’t see any of that.’ Len: ‘In my street all the unemployed people, they used to clean the gutters out with a little trowel sort of thing. (Discussion of water freezing in gutters and boys breaking ice with a stick on the way to school.)

Linda: ‘I’ll tell you another thing too that they might be interested in. Our first school was where the Ivanhoe Post Office is today. My brother went to that school – he was two and a half years older than me - but I went to the school fairly new.’

Teresa: ‘1924 it opened at its present site.

Linda: ‘Did it? Oh well see, it was earlier than that. I must have been in the first few years but my brother went to the one where the post office is but then he moved up to ours, you know. It was ’24? Now I would never have thought that. Teresa: ‘And did you know that before the post office site, that the school was at another site?

Linda: ‘No I don’t know that.’ (Brief discussion of Davey Buildings location of early school.) ‘I don’t remember the school at the post office -I was too young. But I think I must have started in ’26 Teresa: ‘And were you in the big room with the folding doors when you started? Linda: ‘Yes. Teresa: ‘They’re still prep classrooms Linda: ‘Have they still got the same folding doors? …My sister’s bank book went down there once, she lost it. Teresa: ‘Did everyone have bank books at school? Linda: ‘Yes we used to have bankbooks. All through my schooling we had bankbooks. We always put a little in every week. I think when I finished the school I had three pounds fifteen. Well in those days I suppose that was a fortune. Gosh, Three pounds fifteen! It wouldn’t buy you hardly an ice cream now.’

Len: ‘I don’t remember us having it at our school in Ascot Vale -bankbooks. We were poor, you know.

(Len talks about his school shutting during the Show because the animals kicked up a lot of dust on the dirt arena. When I suggested that the school was closed because of health concerns regarding the dust, Linda commented on the different level of concern about health then.)

Linda: ‘They didn’t worry about health like they do today… I’m not saying my father never went to the doctor’s – I don’t ever remember him going to the doctor’s - and he had a massive stroke at seventy and died. But maybe if he had been going to the doctor’s he might have lived a little longer. …(Discussion of health problems.)

Question: ‘Did you walk to school – were you close enough?’

Linda: ‘Yes [we lived] right down near The Boulevard in Ivanhoe, Locksley Road. I used to walk there and quite often go home for lunch. We walked in those days. No one walks these days.

(Opinions re people driving children a few blocks to school!)

Len: ‘When I started going with Linda, I called at her place and there was only my car…

Linda: ‘And as a matter of fact I was home because it was my brother’s twenty-first and my aunt was coming down from the country and mum asked me whether I’d stay home this Sunday. And I just looked out the lounge and I said, “There’s a car!” because we didn’t see cars. This rich fellow had a car. … Twenty and had a car! None of my friends ever had cars. And he told me he was poor.

Question: ‘But you were already working as a butcher?’

Len: ‘No, the story is really I had a (motorbike) and I used to travel to Prahran – from Ascot Vale to Prahran. I had a few spills on my motorbike and my mother hated it. Anyway, she said to my father – my father was a coach painter and he used to paint butchers’ cars with bullocks’ heads on them and bakers’ cars with sheaths of wheat on them, this is going back in those days. Anyway, there were a few cars about of course and he used to paint cars as well. My mother said to my father, “You’ve got to get him a car from somewhere. See if you can get him a cheap car.” Anyway, dad used to look after some car dealers, you know they used to bring them up to be painted up and that, and he said to one of them

– just up close to where he had his shop – he said to him, “You wouldn’t have a cheap car here, would you?” He said, “Oh yes, fairly cheap.” He said, “You got one to suit my son?” He said, “Yeah” It was called a Rugby, they were made in Marryatville, they were - an American car. But anyway he said, “There’s that Rugby over there.” My father had an earlier Rugby than this one and he said, “Oh, that will do him.” And he said, “How much is it?” and he said, “Paint three cars and you can have it.” So he painted three cars. It needed a new hood on it and that but my father put a new grey hood on it and the side …needed fixing and he put new … on it … Linda: ‘Yes but I thought I might have married a rich man because the following week he came out to take me out and he came out in a dirty great black Dodge. That was his father’s! It wasn’t his it was his father’s. No, I knew he wasn’t rich. I’m only kidding.’

Len: ‘Poor as a church mouse.’

Linda: ‘We didn’t have much in those days, you know. Now here was I eighteen and he was twenty. I was lucky if I had five pound in the bank. That’s not much money.

Question: ‘But then, you probably didn’t have as many things that you wanted as young people then to buy.’

Linda: ‘You just didn’t have the money. I started work at seven and six a week. Seven and six a week! From Ivanhoe to the city … my ticket from Ivanhoe, started in the middle of the week, and was six and nine. Mum gave me two shillings pocket money. There was eight and nine – I only got seven and six. Mum was out of pocket by me going to work.

Question: ‘What did you do?’

Linda: ‘Dressmaking at Ball and Wellsley (?). You wouldn’t know Ball and Wellsley (?) it’s gone now.

Question: ‘And did you do dress making at school and sewing?’

Linda: ‘I started but I gave it up.’

Question: ‘And that was taught in primary school in those days, was it?’

Linda: ‘Yes. Miss Lombard gave me a special prize. I was going to say, this Miss Lombard in the sixth grade, I don’t ever think she liked me and yet she gave me a special prize. She bought it herself, for me. I could not believe that it was her gave me the special prize and I walked up on that stage, as [though] I was dux of the school, I thought I was the best of the whole school. It was only for sewing!

Teresa: ‘Oh well, especially from a teacher who you thought didn’t like you, it was quite a compliment.’

Question: ‘A very hard teacher too. But at school in our day, none of us were naughty. Oh, the boys were a bit.’

Len: ‘I think in our day if you were dull you stopped dull. The teachers didn’t worry about you, they’d just go on to another one. I was dull - they didn’t look after me at all.’

Len: ‘That was the trouble in my day – if you were a little bit behind, they’d just walk right past you. They were big classrooms in those days - forty in one room.

Linda: ‘We had over forty.’

Len: ‘It was the same in my school – they were very big classes. But we were a poor school, you know, and the teacher couldn’t handle them all. If you were dull you just stopped dull. The ones that were bright got all the encouragement.’

Linda: ‘I think our teachers were all right but, as Len says, they didn’t really help the ones that were dull. Of course, my favourite subjects were no good to me. I mean I loved spelling. I did well at spelling and I did well at reading. Arithmetic – I never grasped arithmetic! Still don’t grasp it.’

Len: “Oh you weren’t dull, were you? You were like me I wasn’t bright but, I mean, I was bright (unclear) with my hands, you see? I wanted to be a motor mechanic, that’s all I wanted to be… I went to work for a racer (unclear) near Footscray and this man – we knew him well, he was a racing driver and he’d been in a lot of accidents – he started this garage in Footscray so he offered me a job as he knew I was interested in cars. So I went there – I was happy as a lark there. I went out in my lunch hour and I saw men working on (unclear) the garage, putting up this sign. He was putting the business through insolvency. He had to close up – he went broke and of course I was out of work. My father was not doing any work painting, people weren’t spending any money so my father looked like losing his house and everything. He said to the State Bank, “If you want to put me through insolvency, I own nothing. You won’t get anything. It’s all my wife’s name so,” he said, “you won’t get anything. But,” he said, “if you let me carry on and I’ll pay all I can when I get it and I’ll pay the bill right off.” It took till he was sixty to pay it all. He paid every penny back to the bank and it took him till that time.’

Linda: ‘See Ivanhoe seemed to be a different class. I never saw anyone what I call poor. Although there’s a girl up the street here that went to my school and she says her father was out of work for years, you know, in the Depression days. Well I didn’t hear of anyone out of work but of course how would I hear? I mean, knew my father was in work and we didn’t go without anything. We didn’t have toys and bikes and things but we always had our fruit and our lunch and always in a paper bag whereas most of them had them in newspaper. My mother would no more dream of wrapping mine up in newspaper as fly in the air.’

Teresa: ‘But when you do look at the school photographs from the 1930s you do see a number of children without any shoes on.’

Len: ‘Yes that’s right. My area’s totally different to Linda’s. I lived in a little single-fronted house in Rosemary (?) Street. I think they paid four hundred pounds for it and every one of those houses, everyone living in them at that time, you’d go home at night and they’d be there and in the morning when you’d go past and it would be empty. The doors would be open and they’d be gone. They’d do the moonlight flit. See they’d owe that much rent on their houses and they used to bust their gas meters open to take the pennies out.’

Linda: ‘Terrible isn’t it?’

Len: ‘That used to happen quite frequently.’

Linda: ‘And you know I’m not just saying it, I didn’t ever – in Ivanhoe – see a drunk man or anything like that. We never saw anything bad. And I used to go up to the Ivanhoe Park to play on a Saturday afternoon – didn’t see anything that I shouldn’t have seen. See, you were allowed to do that in those days. You used to be swinging and on the see-saw – that’s all they had a see-saw and swing. Spend the whole afternoon, that’s all we did.’

Len: ‘Play with the dandelions.’

Linda: ‘Yes, I used to do dandelion chains and all that thing but, I mean, we were very ordinary. We didn’t do anything exciting but we used to love it, we had lovely times.’

Question: ‘And what did you do in the schoolyard? You played basketball and rounders but did you play hopscotch or skipping games?’

Linda: ‘Yes, that sort of thing and skippy, yes, and French. You know when you jump in the skipping rope? Well for French, it was backwards. We did all that. And we used to pastel our tops and that sort of thing – put pastel on our spinning tops. That was all the rage in those days.’

Len: ‘Boys used to play cherry bobs, you know? You’d just have a hole, you know, and you’d throw them into the hole and you might pay back with the twolumbucks (unclear) they used to call them. They were a piece of cardboard we used to cut out, round on a dinner plate, and we nailed it on top of an old cotton reel and then you put a pin through the stick. You’d put a string around that, pull it and it would have horses names all around it, you know because I lived in a “horsey” area, around Flemington. All the schools used to do it in those days and they’d coordinate the amount that you owed, you might have to give them six cherry bobs or something.’

Linda: ‘Do they these days, you know, certain times you have skipping ropes and then you might have tops – what do they do these days?’

Teresa: ‘There’s something called Beyblades and I laugh when I see it because we parents pay fifteen dollars for this plastic that has a rip cord and when you let it go it spins but it’s like the old tops that were made of wood with string, I imagine, which were painted on top and these Beyblades are just plastic versions of that… They are a big craze at the moment.’

Len: ‘See the best ones in my day were turned up out of red gum and …the thing was that a boy would put his top down to spin, you’d try and hit that to split it with your own top and they’d try to split yours. If you had a red gum one you were pretty safe because they were hard. The lucky ones had those.’

Linda: ‘But I can say I had a very happy childhood but I did nothing, you may as well say. We didn’t do anything.’

Teresa: ‘Do you think that bothered you at the time?’

Linda: ‘Oh no! No, I was as happy as a lark and I wasn’t the brightest in the class by any means but I always wanted to go to school, loved school. I never wished I could stay home.

Len: ‘Linda had two sisters and one of them used to play school with beans.

Linda: Dad had beans, she’d be the schoolteacher. “Get in line there! You in the third back, you’re out of line!” Whereas my young sister…and me, I was the eldest, the young one and I used to play mothers all day and our husbands were always at work and we at the beach and having a lovely time. I don’t think we ever did any work….I think that’s probably why we were mothers – we thought we were going to have a really good time.

Question: ‘And what about books in those days? Did you have to buy your own books for school?’

Linda: ‘Yes. We used to have a reader that we had to buy – eight pence in those days.’

Teresa: ‘That would have been a lot of money for some families.’… ‘And was it one book from which you did all your lessons or was it a reader, a maths book?’

Linda: ‘Oh no, I had a reader. We didn’t have many, did we Len?’

Len: ‘Not many. Exercise and plain lines, we had pastel books.’

Teresa: ‘Did you get stationery from the school or did you have to provide your own?’

Linda: ‘We had to buy our own. I know Mr Beaumont sold the books in my day.’

Linda: ‘What’s the paper? What do you call it? You know, we used to go buy one every week.

Teresa: ‘Was it called the School Paper? A few sheets?

Len: ‘Yes, two or three sheets.

Teresa: ‘Do you remember how much it cost?

Len: ‘No I can’t remember that but I know it wasn’t very dear because I wouldn’t have had one. Never had much toys or anything like that. See I had to make a truck out of a grocer’s box.

Teresa: ‘But you probably had a lot of fun with it. Children still do that today.

Linda: ‘See, we didn’t have a lot of toys. Although my father had a good job, in the Depression days he had his wages cut. Well with four children, with your wages cut… He still owned his home, he was lucky he didn’t lose his home but he must have found it hard. We don’t know. We didn’t go without anything as far as fruit and everything like that. Some used to have frankfurts for tea and all that sort of thing. We never had that. Meat and veggies –we were well provided for but I don’t think dad had a lot of money. He probably struggled.

Teresa: ‘There was someone else who was talking about the Depression days, a former student, and he referred to a paper ball. Were footballs made out of paper? Linda: ‘Oh yes. See, we didn’t get many toys in those days.

Len: ‘If a boy owned a football he was very rich, you know.

(Discussion of what’s gone wrong with parents’ attitudes to toys and their willingness to spend so much on them.)

Linda: ‘I don’t ever remember either one of them saying, “I want a bike or I want this or I want that. I said to [my daughter’s husband] not so long, “Margaret wasn’t asking for things all the time” and Margaret said, “I know I wasn’t because I knew I wouldn’t get them.”’

(Discussion of teachers being clever people.) Teresa: ‘What sort of report cards did you get in those days? Linda: ‘I used to get quite a good report card. Like, “Linda’s doing well”

Len: ‘There’s always one teacher in a school that excels herself. I remember an old teacher – of course in those days they were very old … they looked like old to me and I still remember them as old – and her name was Miss Smith. She was single and by Jove she tried to get me on. She pushed as hard as she could but I was that far behind that she couldn’t make much headway with me.

Linda: ‘Our daughter got a report once, “If your daughter does not talk in her sleep it must be the only time she doesn’t talk!” Now isn’t that disgusting?

Linda: ‘Do you know I can see my teachers’ faces today?

Teresa: ‘Do you think there is something special about primary school days?

Linda: ‘I loved primary school. I never ever wished I was home. I loved my friends and I just loved school and I never had a fear of any teacher. I’m not saying I didn’t have my favourites but they were all lovely teachers, as far as I was concerned.

Teresa: ‘Did you stop after primary school or did you go on? ’ Linda: ‘No, I gave up. My father, being a bacteriologist, of course thought I’d go way up but I grizzled and grizzled to leave school and eventually dad let me because he said to mum, “They’ll get married, they won’t even be interested.” So, he let me leave. But I’m sorry in a way that I did leave. I’m sorry I didn’t go on a little bit further but I didn’t and a lot didn’t in those days.’ Len: ‘I did as I was told. At fourteen your father says you’ve got to get a job. I went out and got a job.

[edit] Lindsay Newnham 1926-1932

From an unpublished account of his life.

I Began my education

The year l924 marked another change in the circumstances of my life. As I stood on the verandah of ‘Overdale’, I could no longer hear the playtime voices of the children of State School 2436 drifting across the railway cutting opposite. For by then the old timber school, that had served Ivanhoe’s children since l88l, had gone, moved holus-bolus to Altona Street, West Heidelberg.

To house the growing number of pupils in Ivanhoe the Education Department had erected in Waterdale Road a new, two-storey brick school. Or, rather, had half-erected it. For on its south side in Lowe Street there was still a vacant but treed block of land; the new building had a fretted edge of bricks waiting to lock in with other bricks and there were recesses in the wall that faced out into the schoolyard for fireplaces yet to come (they are still there seventy years later). Within three years of its opening the school was extended south into the Lowe Street block and became the school as it stands today. At its peak it held over eight hundred children. To this school in September l926 my mother took me to be enrolled as pupil 3207. Now close to six years old, I was starting late because of my illness earlier in the year. I entered the beginners’ grade, the only one starting at that time, as far as I know.

I can sense my mother’s feelings. For the last year and a half I had been the one constant in her widowed life, more precious to her now than I had ever been. To part from me at the school door and to know that, from now on, I had a life of my own to lead that she could never fully enter must have caused her pain. Moreover, she feared for me. I was not robust; I was not used to being much with other children. Would this break from the routine of home cause me pain, too?

She saw me taken to a classroom full of experienced infant scholars. As she turned away and walked down the corridor to the exit, she cast one last look back at the chid she was offering up on the altar of education - and he had his hand waving excitedly in the air, all agog to answer teacher’s question. She need not have worried.

So stimulated was I by the experiences of this first day that I decided to take my teacher an example of what I could do even though a novice. So, instructed as I had been by the games in bed about apples and oranges, I drafted a few samples of my expertise in mathematics. These I proudly presented to my teacher the next day. Immediately I was promoted to Grade I.

My mother was aghast. Next day she fronted the headmaster, Mr Julius Schilling, and requested that I be returned to the beginners’ grade.

‘He’s only a baby,’ she said.

Mr Schilling snorted. ‘That child has been to school before.’

When my mother denied this, Mr Schilling wanted to know how I was so knowledgeable.

‘Why,’ said my mother in some puzzlement, ‘I just taught him as any mother would.’

‘Any mother des not teach her child like that,’ said Mr Schilling with chilling authority. Nevertheless, he granted my mother’s request and I went back to the beginners, staying with them for the nest of the year.

The following year I spent the first half in Grade I and the second half in Grade II along with a small group of other children; evidently we were children needing to do some catching up. After that my progress was normal, though I did tend to be allotted to the B stream because it was assumed that my hurried progress in the first two years may have made me unprepared for the more academic stream. In l93l I gained my Qualifying Certificate and was top of my class, as I was in From F in the next year. At the end of l932 I left State School 2436.

My memories of my six years at the Ivanhoe State School are patchy. I do not remember the names of all my teachers. From Grade III onwards, however, I do recall their names: in order, Mrs Eldridge, Miss Durham, Miss Lombard, the policeman’s daughter, Miss Mary Costolle and Mr Ernest Maclean. To the last two I owe a great debt.

From my first two years I carry the memories of certain injustices I suffered. The first was connected with my histrionic abilities. During one morning I had been performing in an enactment of the story of Red Riding Hood. I was the wolf and naturally it was my job to be fierce and biting. Fired by my success in this role, I continued my wolfish activities in the playground during recess, biting a few unwary pupils. Some of the big girls, noting this dangerous behaviour, told on me and I was summoned to the office of the headmaster to explain my conduct. My explanation not mollifying the righteous heart of Mr Schilling, I was given one cut on the hand, with his strap. I would have been six or seven at the time and a very mild child, too, so I find the reaction of the headmaster totally lacking in understanding of children. A gentle caution was all I needed.

The other two examples of injustice are caught up with wider history. In April l927 Rev. W. G. Pope became the minister of the Ivanhoe Baptist Church; within three months his wife died. He had two sons still living at home, Lockhart and Jim; one or other of his two daughters, Olive (Mrs Iliffe) or Daisy (Mrs Morcom) came to live in the house to help him domestically, Olive, with her husband and son staying for some years. It must have been towards the end of l927 when my mother one morning received a worried telephone call from Mr Pope. A bishop’s daughter - apparently a lady of some distinction - was coming to lunch, but the lunch arrangements appeared not to be going too smoothly. Could Mrs Newnham give some urgent help? So my mother set off for the manse, evidently leaving a message at the school as she passed that I would have to come to the manse for lunch (in all my time at the school I returned home every day for lunch). When she reached the manse, she found that it had been decided by the incumbent daughter Mrs Morcom, I think, to feed the bishop’s daughter on Sheep’s head pie. To this end a sheep’s head had been placed in a pot to boil and, when my mother entered the kitchen, she found this head peering at her from the pot while Lockhart, seized with the lust to know, was examining the animal’s teeth to determine how old it was. From this unpromising start my mother created a meal, but it took some time, so that, by the meal’s end, I was very late for afternoon school. But my mother gave me a note to explain my late arrival. A reasonable infant mistress would have accepted this without fuss. This one whacked me.

She was just as unpleasant when I lost my schoolbag. By the end of l927 building operations were in hand to extend the school and our class, for a time, met in a corridor. In the course of this upheaval, I lost my bag. This so upset me that at recess I ran home all the way to The Ridgeway, where we now lived. I returned to school after lunch with another note, of course. By now my bag had been found. The infant mistress showed her displeasure at my boobyish behaviour by throwing my bag at me.

Miss Lombard sticks in my memory for an unpleasant form of punishment that she devised. I believe that I was generally well behaved, but I was inclined to talk too much. Miss Lombard determined to muzzle me: as a punishment she sat me beside a fat girl whom nobody liked. How much this curbed me I do not know, but I doubt if I could think of a more insensitive and cruel thing to do to any child, fat and unliked or not, than to use her unfortunate characteristics as a punishment. Another method of punishment esteemed by Miss Lombard was to line up the unruly boys on the edge of the classroom platform, faces to the blackboard, and then strap them around the bare legs.

Generally, however, my primary schooling was happy. I remember little of the methodology employed. How was I taught to read? I do not remember. One day I could not read and then the next, so it seemed, I was reading. Some of my first reading books I still have. I began with First Steps at School (price eight pence), based on methods developed by Froebel. Its preface sets out what it is aiming to do:

‘In this primer we have an attempt at beginning Reading in a natural way; that is, in accordance with the likes and interests of the child. The alphabet and lists of spelling are wanting. With familiar objects and well-known ideas the children are led to associate words, then sentences. As they read, they write. Drawing and handwork are called in to aid the work of association. Not till they have mastered many words are they taught to concern themselves with letters and their sounds. When they come to the alphabet, it is learned with ease and with pleasure.’

Then followed The Primer (price three pence) with its Old-fashioned drawings and its dull series of sentences, starting with ‘I pat the hat’ on page 3, to little stories like ‘Tom’s Dog Dash’ (‘Tom has a dog, which is very fond of him. He calls it Dash.’) and ‘Jane and her parrot’ (‘Jane is Tom’s sister; she has a tame parrot. Its name is Polly’). The book ends with two pages of poetry, the first poem being ‘The Golden Rule’:

To do to others as I would That they should do to me Will make me honest, kind, and good, As children ought to be.

A battered First Book, now minus its finest and last pages, seems to have been the next. It eventually got to stories like ‘Who shall bell the cat?’ and ‘The boy who cried wolf’. It also found room for the prayer that begins ‘Father, we thank Thee for the night, And the pleasant morning light.’ What is notable, even in these elementary books, is the serious moral tone of the contents. This would be apparent also in later reading books.

But at last I got on to real books Dick Whittington and his Cat, over which I shed tears for I was so sorry for Dick, and Strongheart of the Prairie romantic stuff about Pawnees and shooting the rapids and buffalo hunts. From these I soon graduated to more substantial books, many coming from the library of the Sunday School I attended.

By the time I reached Grade III I was a subscriber to the School Paper (price one penny), purchased monthly and kept in a cardboard folder with a number of strings running from top to bottom in the centre around which the issues were severally hitched. There was an edition for each of Grades III/IV, V/VI, and VII/VIII; the latter had supplements entitled ‘Made in Australia’, an such topics as ‘Dried Fruits’, ‘Felt Hats’ and ‘Iron and Steel’; I never remember reading any of these.

This periodical had a range of material: there were numerous illustrations, many of them with a local theme, stories and dramatizations of stories, poems, information articles and always a song. The content had an Australian bias though much of the material came from well-known English authors like Dickens and R. L. Stevenson. As in the little primers, the tone was moral and often there were short improving snippets.

Its companions were the Victorian Readers, the sixth, seventh and eighth books of which I used both at Ivanhoe and, for the last, at Carey.

This was a notable set of readers, eventually numbering eight, and there are many Victorians who will still have bits from them embedded in their memories, just as I have - like ‘Mr Winkle on Skates’, ‘Drake’s Drum’, ‘The Old Whim Horse’ and, of course, ‘My Country’. The Eighth Book was the first to be published. Its preface explains the object of the series:

‘The main aim was to obtain such [selections] as possessed literary merit, were informative, were likely to arouse interest, and were suitable as regards the average standard of attainment of the grade or form for which the book was intended. The young readers were to begin at home, to be taken in imagination to various parts of the Empire, to Europe, and to the United States of America, and thus gain a knowledge of their rich heritage and acquire a well-founded pride of race. The inculcation of sound morality was always to be kept in view , and support given to the creation of a feeling against international strife and to the implanting of a desire for world-wide toleration.’

The frontispiece and the initial selection in each of the books I used are indicative of the tone of the books –

Sixth Book: the painting, ‘Shearing the Rams’, by Tom Roberts; the poem, ‘My Country’, by Dorothea McKellar;

Seventh Book: the painting, ‘Breaking the News’, by John Longstaff; the poem, ‘An Australian Anthem’, by James Brunton Stephens;

Eighth Book: the triptych, ‘The Pioneers’, by Fred McCubbin; the poem, ‘An Australian Sunrise’, by J.

L. Cuthbertson. One is left in no doubt that the books are Australian and for Australians. Yet they are not parochial. The passages chosen come from a wide range of authors from Homer and Cicero to locals like R H. Croll - and from a range of languages -Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, Hindu. Most of the big names from l9th century English literature are there - Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin, Keats, Wordsworth. Australian authors are prominent - Lawson, Kendall, Paterson, Mary Grant Bruce, O’Dowd, C. E. W. Bean.

The fillers are interesting. Take these random ones from the Sixth Book:

‘Beneath our scarlet fields Thermopylae’s secret ran, The speech of Freedom is one, and one is the Soul of man. ’

‘’Tis not in mortals to command success, But we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it. ’ (Addison)

‘Poverty sits by the cradle of all our great men, and rocks them up to manhood.’ (Heine)

CHARITY ‘Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three - Himself, his suffering neighbour, and Me. ’

The morality illustrated in these fliers was the morality that the books as a whole conveyed. Whether we absorbed it might be questioned. What is not questionable is that such fliers would not appear in readers, if there were any, at the end of the 20th century.

These books were more than readers, for they contained plays which we performed. Moreover, they provided us with words to learn for our spelling and, as my annotations seem to indicate, sentences to be analysed.

In Form F I had two other books for English: A Treasury of Verse for Primary Schools (edited by M.G. Edgar) and, The Pupils’ Class-book of English Composition: Book IV by E. J. S. Lay. The former contained many of the safe and standard poems thought suitable for the young - for example, two lots of ‘Home Thoughts’, ‘About Ben Adam’, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, ‘How They Brought the Good News’, ‘The Psalm of Life’. The last of these appealed to me and, when I had to make up a poetry book, this was one of the poems I transcribed into it, accompanied by a vague looking angel copied from my illustrated Bible. The other book was full of ideas, information and exercises. There have been many worse books on English composition than Mr Lay’s book, first published in l920.

We were given so me opportunity to practise public speaking. The first speech I can remember giving was about the development of flying, the material being drawn from a book I had been given. For this I made some notes, but, as I delivered my speech, I did not hold the notes before me, but behind my back, taking a contorted glance at them every now and then. My teacher suggested that this was not the usual practice of public speakers. About other subjects my recollections are hazy. Up to Form F the subjects were predictable English, History, Geography, Arithmetic, Drawing or other artistic activities, but Form F introduced me to French (not much more than vocabulary), Algebra and Science (this was the only Science I ever studied at school and of that all I remember is something about thermos flasks). Much of the drawing was on dark, grainy paper with pastels – Reeves Greyhound Pastels with their peculiar oily smell, tucked in their little flat cardboard box - and was uninspiring. I drew patterns, sometimes a flower, nothing original. Later we made things from plasticine, say, a leaf, around which we placed a little fence, also of plasticine. Into this corral we poured liquid plaster of Paris; when it dried, we removed the plasticine, greased the resulting mould and, having made another corral, poured in more liquid Plaster of Paris, not forgetting to insert a piece of bent wire to serve as a hanger. When this plaster, too, had set, we prised the two solids apart and, lo, there appeared in durable form our leaf or whatever, which we could now colour appropriately and hang up as a decoration. I never felt my fat leaves were all that decorative. My most notable construction was a relief map of the Holy Land. Mental Arithmetic made my generation rather better at adding up the bill for shopping than today’s educational products, who seem to need a pocket calculator to do the simplest computations. First thing in the morning and it was ‘Hands on heads! One dozen pens at l/7 each. Write!’ Ten of those a day sharpened the mathematical reflexes. There was naturally homework to be done. I still possess a homework book from Grade VIB in l93l, containing work in the main subjects, apparently set three times a week. The book is interesting for two reasons. The first is the cover: it carries the photographs of the captains of the twelve League football teams - names famous in the history of the League, like Sid Coventry, Ivo Warne-Smith and Herb Matthews. The other reason is personal: at the head of most homeworks was a pen and ink sketch as a decoration, drawn either from the book of sketches done by my Lower Road neighbour, John White …, or from the two tatty bound volumes of The Boys’ Own Paper (l892/3 and l899/l900) handed down by my father. I heard that the B.O.P. sketches caused amusement in the staffroom. I liked drawing and might have become proficient at it if more enlightened methods had been in vogue.

On Wednesday, 27 January l932, so my childish first diary records, I began Sloyd with Click (I think his name was Callicky. This is the only subject I have ever hated. Sloyd was a Swedish word for a form of manual training, in my case, woodwork. For this we spent each Wednesday morning at the Fairfield State School under Click. First we copied out notes from former pupils’ books about timber and related subjects; these notes we never read again nor were we ever tested on their contents. We then drew plans for the things we were to make - an apron label, a plant label, a garden peg, a teapot stand and other dreary things, all the way up to a toothbrush rack, which I messed up. The drawing I could do well. But the actual woodwork found me wanting. Click was a bully, generally disliked, who threw lumps of wood or other missiles at boys who displeased him; he had no patience for the bumblers like me. By the beginning of March I was begging my mother to have me excused from Sloyd. I even offered to do a morning of Arithmetic instead. But the headmaster, though sympathetic, said that he had no power to exempt me, so back I went to Click. Early in July Click fell ill and was eventually replaced by a Mr Flint. ‘The new teacher is great,’ I wrote on l3 July. And he was. When I bored in my tooth-brush rack a hole for hanging it, not in the top where anyone with sense would have put it, but in the middle, this new teacher merely said, ‘You’re a bit of a duffer, aren’t you?’ and helped me plug the hole. Unfortunately Click was back by late September, but the end of the year was not far off and I could suffer him. I suppose I learnt something about tools and woodwork, but I could have learnt a lot more with more intelligent teaching.

Mary Costolloe was my favourite teacher. I suppose she was a woman about thirty-five, slight, dark- haired and a faithful Catholic. Though there must have been about forty children in the class (that was the number in Form F the next year), I never remember her having any disciplinary troubles. Out of her own pocket, so I believe, she had bought for her class a set of encyclopedias and, when we had finished to her satisfaction any work she had set, we were allowed to go to the cupboard and take out a volume. I do not know that the reading of these books increased greatly my stock of information, but the reading thus encouraged helped me to develop the habit of research. Nature Study was a branch of learning in the syllabus and she sparked off my interest in the subject. One day our neighbour in Donaldson Street (we had moved again) showed me on her swan plant two strange caterpillars, hooped with coloured rings. I took these to school, but Miss Costolle did not know what they were. So I took them home and waited; soon they had created pale green, translucent cocoons about an inch long, and after some time I noticed signs of movement. One Saturday a butterfly emerged and I was so excited that I took it to Miss Costolle’s house in Cam Street to show it to her. Of course, she was interested in the excitement of her young pupil, Saturday morning or not. The butterfly proved to be a Wanderer. Apparently I wrote to her once or twice after I left her class, for I have two affectionate (I am her ‘little pal’) and lengthy letters from her. In a letter written when I was at Carey she wrote: ‘I hope you will make a place for yourself in the world, Lindsay, and still be proud to say, “Ivanhoe State School gave me a good foundation”.’ That I am still happy to say. So Miss Costolle continued to take an interest in me, checking on my progress whenever she met me in the Ivanhoe shopping centre, right up to the time that I graduated and became a teacher myself.

The following year I was in Ernest Maclean’s class. Again I find it hard to judge age; probably he was under forty. He was a solid man with a round, closely cropped head. He, too, knew how to handle a big class. At times, however, when something displeased him, he would shoot out of the classroom and go to his cupboard just outside the room. We knew what that meant: he had gone for his strap. I suppose I felt it more than once, but I cannot remember. It was not the thing you would bother to remember of Ernest Maclean. Rather do I remember what he did when I fell ill with the measles and lost the last couple of weeks in Term 2. Once I was feeling better he sent home to me in his small neat writing notes and exercises on the work I had missed. When I became a teacher myself and had to do the same kind of thing for pupils absent through illness, I realized how inconvenient this could be on top of the usual day’s work. His final and greatest service to me was the report he wrote as I prepared to leave Ivanhoe State School for Carey:

‘A boy with personality and ability. He is able to grasp a point at once and to visualize possibilities arising from that. He will go far if he des not permit early success to lull him into a sense of security.’

That last sentence annoyed my mother. It was, she felt, a criticism that her son did not deserve. But what it did to me was to make me determined that I would prove Ernest Maclean wrong. I did.

It should not be thought that schoolwork was all that interested me. I enjoyed sport though I was never outstanding. I showed promise as a bowler-fast in cricket and was once picked for the school team even though I was only in Form F, but the match was cancelled and I was never picked again. Later in the year in the interschool sports I was in the Under l5 tunnel-ball team and in a relay. Because I went home for my lunch, I did not participate as much as I might have in those informal games of the school-yard - marbles or Hoppo-Bumpo or Saddle My Nag. It was strange how seasonal some of the games were. Mysteriously one day we would find that marbles were in, or tops or cherry-bobs, the news being spread on that invisible network that binds children together.

One quaint sporting custom deserves a mention. Towards the middle of the first term the Public Schools held the Head of the River, a rowing race either on the Yarra or on the Barwon at Geelong. Strangely, we State School children would support one or other of the crews, even going so far as to sport the favoured school’s colours. Jack Osborn, a good Methodist, naturally barracked for Wesley, whither he later went as a student. One year, at least, for some perverse reason I decided to support Xavier. Jack Osborn objected to my disloyal partisanship and fought me - well, he sat heavily on my chest in an unfriendly manner. I was not one given to fighting, for I was too timid.

[edit] Ray Johnson: 1927-1937

Dear Brodie, You asked me if I could remember my days at Ivanhoe Primary School No 2436, well here you are –

The school was called Ivanhoe State School. My first day at school in February 1927 and I was not five until March. The Prep Grade was called ‘the Bubs’ and we had morning play-time, but I mistook this for lunch time and smartly ran home to Ford Street only to be sent back by Mum.

Every morning all the classes formed up on the Parade Ground like soldiers and marched in to school to the beat of a kettle drum. Some years later I became the drummer and I can still play the same beats. This experience came in handy when I joined 1st Ivanhoe Sea Scouts and played drums and bugles at the Anzac Day March to the Soldiers Memorial in Studley Road.

Our teachers were very strict and a whack on the knuckles with a ruler was the ‘reward’ for ‘playing up’ in class. Any serious misdemeanour and you were sent to the Head Master's office where you most likely had to hold your hand out for the strap. ouch!!! We called this the ‘cuts’.

We went to Fairfield State School to learn how to use woodworking tools.

We played football and cricket on the oval and the girls played rounders and skipping. Marbles were popular and I remember winning quite a large bag full. We also played a game called cherry bobs with the pips from cherries.

There was no canteen like you have now so if you lived not far away you had time to go home for lunch. The main building was very cold in the winter and we had to keep the fires going in all the fireplaces, but of course Teacher always stood with back to the fire.

Ink wells needed to be filled each day - no ball point pens then. We all sat at desks - two to a desk.

Grades were from Babies to the Eighth grade.

I completed Eighth grade and received the Merit Certificate but then had to attend another year as I was not yet 14. These were depression years and the boys in our family had to go to work.

End of the year was celebrated with a beaut concert on the stage of the Ivanhoe Picture Theatre.

Well Brodie you can see things were a little different in my days at Ivanhoe and I hope you find it interesting.

From your Grandfather -Ray Johnson.

[edit] Frank Bebbington: 1930-?

First day at school, 1930.

‘Twas mid 1930 thereabouts. That magical time had arrived when my mother might have a little relief for her second son was four and a half years old after May 24th. There was a tendency towards a smile on my mother’s face as she opened Ivanhoe State School front gate, other hand holding intended new pupil. Smile went as the intended new pupil went, escaping homeward, fast. Wasn’t caught till half way home. Back to school - second try successful. Reluctant lad installed in “The Bulbs”, teachers Miss Bridges and Miss Parker.

1931 Grade 1 Teacher, Miss Storey.

There is good reason to remember Miss Storey. Such a nice smiling friendly lady, but Miss Storey barred me from class, put out of the room, made to stand in the corridor until I would permit her to wash my tongue with soap and water.

Ostracism is a heavy burden at any age and is particularly hard for nippers to take.

Eventually Miss Storey won.

Tongue washed with soap and water is bad enough, but I’ve had to live all the years since with awareness of giving in. Oh! the pain!

Time marches on.

Miss Duff for grade 2, Miss Tait, daughter of Vice Director of Education for grade 3, Mr Fraser with sometimes Mr Ford or Mr Blackey for grade 4, Mr O’Brien for grade 5, Mr Begley for grade 6.

There’s memory in there of horseplay and bullying, hot tempers and blood noses, contests of who could go highest on the slate lined walls of the smaller red brick building, the one lower down the schoolyard near the incinerator. Of marching into school to the beat of George Lurie’s drum.

Of Mr Courtney coming to school to have serious words with Mr O’Brien for the kicking of son Jim. Of Head Master Johnston having the Mothers’ Club return raffle ticket money to ticket buyers because of his anti-gambling beliefs. Of school visit to Yallourn via steam train and the annoyance and humiliation of the homeward trip of being grabbed and forced to sit between teachers O’Brien and Begley – all the way home. Pest control.

An important event of that decade, “The Thirties”, was the construction of ‘The Oval’ at the south west section of the school ground. Was it 1934 or was it 1935 when Mr Townsend with horse drawn plough scoop and grader and assistant with pick and shovel produced that excellent result.

Mention of that part of the schoolyard reminds that at about that time, say 1935, in the fairly overgrown laneway bordering school at that corner a car stayed abandoned there several days. Belatedly identified as the getaway car involved in the hold up at the Collingwood [Sherri?] Shoe factory where the payroll was stolen and [Mr Sherri?] was murdered. Mr Thomas of Waterdale Rd, corner of Ford St., [Sherri?] Co. accountant and paymaster, was harassed in the same sorry episode. Mr Thomas was grandfather and guardian of classmate Gladys Thomas.

Back to lighter thoughts. There’s memory of visits to Yarra at Alphington for swimming contests between Ivanhoe and Alphington State Schools. Colin Turner recently reminded that we acquired our Junior Swimming Certificates at Heidelberg State School. They had a swimming pool in their schoolyard.

The Pool

Talk of swimming reminds that a very important part of those primary school days was summertime; long summer days running free at the old stamping ground known as ‘The Pool’. ‘The Pool’ was that special piece of River Yarra where Yarra meets Darebin, south part of Ivanhoe.

Am remembering swimming and diving, running jumps off high banks, swinging off ropes from high trees, drownings and near drownings.

In those early days of learning to swim, Bill Pratt saved my brother George. Bill was keeping George up and gradually getting him back to Scouts landing when luckily two boys of mid teenage saw the plight and rushed over to complete the rescue. One of the teenagers was George Foletta. Another time, I came to grief by the pontoon when first trying to swim, age 7. Of the many who were about, luckily, one up on the high bank saw the drama. ‘Twas Max Kirwan’s teenage brother Andrew. Thanks Andy. The extra 71 [years] have been interesting. And there’s some to go yet.

Sad to say, Victor Bell and George Charlton were drowned. Summer of 1934 about.

Back to happier thoughts. Colin Turner remembers Jack Johnston, son of a deep sea diver, trying a little deep sea diving by Sea Scouts landing. Jack had a home made primitive apparatus over his head, this made from a kerosene tin, air supplied via rubber tube with helper pumping air with bike pump. This nonsense was sighted by Skipper Wilson who quickly ceased proceedings.4 Skipper also ordered Colin Turner to get dressed. Skipper didn’t approve of Col’s swimming togs. Col’s togs were his singlet with a safety pin suitably placed.

Happy thoughts include being with Col Turner and Stan Nye paddling in a lagoon on nearby Ivanhoe Golf Course searching for sunken golf balls. We were disturbed in our concentration and searching by the approach of Constable Knoft. Our response to his, ‘Come out here’ was to dash to the sanctuary of the River.

There’s memory of paddling in another lagoon, with Tom Kaiser, dragging a cut open sack with edges stiffened by fencing wire sewn through, caught a few small Perch. Also acquired a large cut in a foot. Am remembering being with Keith Collins gathering fresh water mussels in the backwash at the bend downstream from swimming area.

Over the years, I have occasionally revisited that place of pleasant memories, the River Yarra at Ivanhoe. A November 1985 visit resulted in a poem, a long rambling piece that told of above items and more, including the fee of one penny for use of dressing sheds and of Victor Berry smashing his face on a submerged floating-by log when diving off the board by dressing sheds. And of Ivanhoe Chemist C.C.Bailey, earlier “greeny”, who had much to do with protection of Yarra Valley. One piece of the rambling ode said:

“I think of faces, quite a few, Here at “Pool” and maybe you Remember Wilson, Skipper, “The” Great name in Sea Scout History, And Basil Serres, Rover Class, Immortalised on plaque of brass By “River’s” side at Sea Scout Place, Can see him now, the freckled face”

That long rambling piece is now condensed to the poem that closes this reminiscence.

It might be useful to say here that in the summer time, long ago, in Ivanhoe, often would be heard “Ya goin’ down the River”, with the reply, “Yair, see ya down the Pool”

4 “Jack Johnston eventually became a deep sea diver as was his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Jack age 81 drove over from Perth, W.A. to attend the Ivanhoe S.S. Sept. 13 2003 Reunion”

RIVER

The river walk is special joy, This visit here, where, as a boy, I swam and played with friends from school, Down the river, - down the Pool

In minds eye I see again The suntanned youth at this domain, Swimming, Diving, - running free, Pursuing pleasure, - ecstasy!

Can hear them calling, laughing, - loud; A lively section of the crowd That trod this bank, so long ago Drawn to enticing Yarra’s flow.

Alluring ‘River’ tempts today, Beguiling Yarra bend by brae; Greens, golds – hushed tones, - tranquillity, Palette of pleasant memory.

Of sunlit walks thro’ bush, upstream, To sit a while, to laze and dream, Or sunbake at a bend of sand, To contemplate, - Yes life was grand.

Sweet summer days, - sweet summer nights, Here, - with innocent delights, Here with the willows, - peaceful – cool, Down the river, - down the pool.

(Frank Bebbington Nov, 1985)

[edit] Frank Lees: My Longest Day, 1932-?

A warm February day in 1932 was the longest day in my life: neither had the clock's hour hand stopped, nor had the minute hand turned backwards. This was my first day at Ivanhoe State School 2436 in Waterdale Road. We lived at 9 Langs Road, a pleasant half mile walk to school.

My Mother walked me to the side entrance of the school and said goodbye at the wire gate. I noticed nearby on the dusty ground a log about eight feet long and ten inches diameter completely worn and denuded of bark. Already a lonely six year old, I left my Mother who watched me as I walked across the bitumen playground, carrying a small brown case in which was my play lunch and lunch.

Memories of other mornings remind me that I would have marched to the school drum beat, stood at attention while a monitor raised the flag which we saluted. Then with our Headmaster Mr Johnson directing us we sang God Save The King and marched to our class rooms.

My retained memory of the morning was a loneliness that I did not know any of the other boys and girls. Unbeknown to me there was a big boy in Grade 3, Ron Stott, who would become my best friend and mentor. In World War 2 we would serve in the RAAF together, including the landing against the Japanese at Balikpapan in 1945. After the War we would go to St Kilda Town Hall dancing where I met my future wife. Now at 77 and 80 our families holiday together but all this is seven decades later.

I cannot recall my first school day except for two memories. At lunch time with my small case I went and sat on the log near the gate where my Mother had left me. Secondly the loneliness of that lunch hour was accentuated by the unreasonable expectation that my Mother would be at the gate. As much as she must have longed to see me, she knew I had to endure that hour alone.

In her nineties, a wonderful writer and teller of her tales, she told me of that morning she walked home in tears. Her next door neighbour, a Scot, Mrs McBride, sensing my Mother's feelings invited her in for a cup of tea.

Six years later when we had moved to Fairy Hills I would walk home along Merton Street. Most afternoons I passed my ex Headmaster's home. Mr Johnson would be standing at his front gate, dressed in his ‘badge of office’, a shiny black jacket. All I ever said was ‘Hallo’. My loneliness of yesteryear was now his loneliness and it is with regret not once did I stop and pause to tell him about ‘our school’.

Mr Johnson, the dedicated teachers and School 2436 would set me on a path of learning that one day would take me to Government House in Melbourne and Buckingham Palace.

It is impossible for the average boy to grow up and use the remarkable capacities that are in every boy, unless the world is for him and makes sense. And a society makes sense when it understands that its chief wealth is these capacities Paul Goodman

Frank A Lees AM MBE May 2003

[edit] Norma Hughes: 1934-1941

I commenced school when I was 5 years old, in the “Babies” class, about 1934. My teachers’ names were – Miss Nixon (Babies’ class), Miss Twyford (one of my favourites), Miss Williams, Miss Gilmour. Miss Lombard taught me for several years (I didn’t like her – too many favourites), Mr Doake in 6th grade.

It was unheard of to call our teachers by their first names. The Head Master was Mr Johnson (affectionately known as ‘John-O-Pop’ by the students). Mr Horton was the Caretaker and lived with his family in the house near the oval.

One of the students in my class from 1934, Marjorie Lees (now Marjorie Macpherson of Camberwell) lived over the road from me. We have remained very best friends over 70 years and keep in touch by meeting for a birthday lunch on our respective birthdays, ringing / seeing each other during the year. Later on, Gloria Firth (now Mrs Gloria Patterson of Surrey Hills) became a mutual good friend and who I see on our birthdays, etc.

Each week a monitor would be selected from a grade of nearly 40 boys and girls, some of the duties being to fill the ink wells in the desks; bring some flowers which were put in vases on the ledge above the blackboard; in the winter time. We would bring wood for the lovely fire in the fireplaces where the present gas/electric fires are now. Two boys had to ‘pick up’ any rubbish in the school grounds. When a pupil misbehaved, he/she would receive ‘the strap’ or a hard rap on the knuckles with the ruler.

On Friday morning (I think) we had R.I. by Rev. Thomas Cole from St.James’ Church of England.

Every Monday morning when we assembled at the top part of the school ground, facing the flag flying on the flag mast, place our hand over our heart and recite, ‘I love God and my country’ etc. then we would sing the then national Anthem ‘God Save the King’. We marched into school to the sounds of drums beating or the recorders playing.

The upper outside playground was vastly different to the present day. There were two shelter sheds with iron roofs and when it was raining, the noise was terrific from the beating of the rain on the roof. Between one of the sheds where the toilets are now and joining the outside wall of the main building was a brick fireplace. I had often wondered if it had ever been used. The toilets were down the yard and later on the canteen was built behind.

The lower oval was the part where the boys played and strictly ‘out of bounds’ for the girls. Some of the trees were planted around the yard, also some small seats erected.

In 1937, the Infantile Paralysis epidemic occurred, school was closed and students were strictly confined to their homes. I remember 2 students… having the paralysis and being on the trolley bed. … A representative from the school would bring our school work to our homes and we would listen in to the ‘School of the Air’ on the radio which linked up with the set work that had been delivered to our homes.

The year after 6th grade was when the East Ivanhoe Central School was ‘brought over’ to the Ivanhoe School and Forms 1A and 2A were called ‘Ivanhoe Central School’, which I attended for one year. Our uniform was a navy blue check dress or tunic. On Monday mornings Form 1A girls were sent to the Fitzroy school for our sewing lessons.

Empire Day (24th May) was always celebrated when we had a play /pageant and the students would dress up in the various national dresses of the British Empire with Britannia in the centre.

After my brother’s school days he (Tom) was trained at AWA to be a radio technician. Prior to the 2nd World War he joined the Merchant Navy as ‘sparks’ – radio officer, where he remained a year or so after the war. He married, had 2 children, Martin and Lesley Hughes, and died in 1977. Martin and Lesley (now known as Ms Sumitra Phoenix) were past students in the 1950s/1960s. Martin is a geologist… Sumitra was a school captain and after her school years, became a school teacher at various schools…

After my school days I went to Zercho’s Business College for 2 years, was employed at an estate agent, then for 35 years until my retirement I worked for the Town Clerk of Melbourne and often relieved the assistant to the secretary of the Lord Mayor when she was absent on annual leave or sick leave. I also assisted the Honorary Organiser in sending city children, from schools in the City of Melbourne, to the lord Mayor’s Camp at Portsea.

[edit] Bruce Osborn: 1935-1941

I started school in the middle of 1935 - there was a mid-year intake in those days. I have very few recollections of that year. I enjoyed Grade 2 with a Miss Storey as the kindly teacher. This was the year when the school was closed for several weeks near the end of the year because of the polio epidemic.

Our Grade 3 teacher was Miss Lombard who ruled with an iron hand (or rather a leather strap). At the end of that year my family moved from our home in Marshall Street to Eaglemont. I continued to attend Ivanhoe PS, catching the Eltharn Yellow Bus which used to run through Heidelberg along Mount Street - Ormond Road - Maltravers Road to the Ivanhoe shopping centre. The fare from the corner of Mount Street and The Eyrie was one penny.

Grade 4 started with all the boys in one class and the girls in another. Unfortunately at the end of the first week six boys (of whom I was one) were removed from the boys class and placed in with the girls. Miss Lombard was again the teacher and I don't recall the official explanation, but the commonly accepted one amongst the children was that Miss L. wanted some boys in her class so that she could use her strap. (It was not the done thing to use a strap on girls. I seem to remember it happening a few times, but with the strap rolled up and a tap given with the last 6 inches.) The school assembled outside on the asphalt behind the school buildings and after any announcements were made we marched to our classrooms to the beat of a couple of kettle drums played by two boys (a high status role). The toilets and drinking fountains were well down the yard and the boys' shelter sheds beyond another stretch of asphalt. I don't think there was any mingling of the sexes. The girls used the area between the toilets and the school buildings and the boys had the smaller asphalt section and the use of the oval.

Mr Houghton, the school cleaner and caretaker, had a house at the end of Lowe Street.

In 1939 and 1940 I attended East Ivanhoe PS and then returned to Ivanhoe, which had been made the Central School, in 1941. Here, in lA, we were introduced to geometry (the beginning of my realisation that mathematics was not going to be one of my strengths) and given a choice of Latin or French as a compulsory language to be studied. I chose Latin.

The chant at the end of each term was:

‘No more Latin, no more French,

No more sitting on a hard board bench!’ The teachers of Forms 1 & 2 were Mr Bergen, Mr Blair, Miss Rivers and Miss (Katie) Honan.

In 1942 I moved to Wesley College. My wife, Gwen (Lord), moved from East Ivanhoe PS to the Central School in 1942 and 1943 and then to East Camberwell Girls' School. The above teachers also taught Gwen.

I am afraid that is about all I can tell you. I was a member of the Ivanhoe Methodist Church, Third Ivanhoe Methodist Scout Troop and the Ivanhoe Harriers for a number of years until we moved away from the area.

Both my brothers also attended Ivanhoe PS. Jack (dec.) from 1926-1931 and Eric 1928-1933. Jack later gained a Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Eric, a Uniting Church minister, is a Professor at both La Trobe and Melbourne Universities. He holds the Degree of Doctor of Divinity from Cambridge University the only Australian to have achieved this distinction.

[edit] Marie Stringer: 1937-?

I remember going to and from West Heidelberg by bus. I think the fare was 4d.

Half way though grade 2 about 7 children were shifted from grade 2 to grade 3 because of student numbers. I was one of these students. We were brought up to date by Mr Johnson, principal, who gave lessons in his office in mostly maths. This stood me in good stead for my future education.

I loved the school routine, but we were dismissed about half way through school year by a severe epidemic of infantile paralysis, later identified as polio. One of the girls in my grade (now about grade 3) spent about 3 years on her back at the Austin Hospital, with no physio at all!! She arrived back at school (grade 4) lying in a long pram. The following year she was in a wheelchair, and the next year on the basketball court.

[edit] I remember…

…open fireplaces for warmth. Mavis Brentnall (1928)

…Mr Schilling was the headmaster, with a son George. Mavis White (1920)

…when we first shifted from the old school to this school and we had an Arbour Day and planted trees around the school grounds. I was one of the basketballers and rounders players. Marjorie Anderson (nee Daniel) (1920-1927)

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