Starting School

This is my contribution to the unofficial challenge running at the moment where we post photos of ourselves as children and tag them OldFashionSP.

As my granddaughter started school last week I decided to post one of my first day at school, just before I turned 5. That's me on the right with Jeanette H on the left who also started. The only other new student was Peter S.

It was a small country school called Fiddlers Creek (local wags liked to change the F to a P on the sign) 20 miles south of Narromine in NSW (which I have used as the location here). We had between 14 and 20 pupils and one teacher for Kindergarten to 6th class. It was a rare occasion that families received a phone call to say "Sir" was sick and of course that meant a day off for us. Only once in 7 years was a relief teacher called in.

One of my most vivid memories was the day the girls' toilet blew down in a storm. That caused great excitement and we had to use the "boys" until the dads put it back up again.

Each day when we got to school we took our shoes and socks off and lined them up along the bike rack. Sir made us put them on again to go home. They were about the only times we wore shoes, except when we "went to town".

I was very envious of the children who travelled each day by horse and sulky. The horse happily grazed in the playground till the kids harnessed him up to go home again, by themselves of course. Most rode bicycles and we were thought a bit spoilt as we were driven the 3 miles each day.

In all it was a happy time and I think we received a pretty good education.