24 July 2019
I had to start a new school for Grade 3, down-river and on the daily (only) bus run. It had just two teachers, one in each of its two solid cut-stone buildings that were joined by an all weather porch-lunchroom, where the older boys did woodwork once a week and Mr C administered his cane whenever he considered it'd be of some benefit.
Mrs C (lovely woman) took the Years 1-3 kids, then handed us on to Mr C who, amid the usual array of History's monarchs and battle dates and where South America was on the map, carried on with the Three R's, which still included Reading - boring shite mostly - but didn't teach us what to actually do with it. It was up to us to find a useful application. All pretty normal for the educational times.
I had an active enough imagination, and the latent appetite I'm sure, but had never really had much access to the wide world of stories. Bearing in mind that this was about 1948-9, well before Aus realised parts of the civilised world up there in the North had discovered “tele-vision”, and living miles out of the city as we were, there was no access to movies, and also we weren't a family that kept a library or even had a story-telling way about it. So it was steam radio or nothing.
The only bright light came at 6pm on week nights. That's when a far off interstate station broadcast - dah darrr! - SUPERMAN. A whole quarter hour of it. But it only got as far as us if the atmospherics were just right. Me and elder brother, heads crammed in the speaker, shushing everyone, straining to catch "...faster than a speeding..." and all that. It was hard to keep track of where the storyline was up to. (Hang on! - I remember now, we used to also listen to "The Search For The Golden Boomerang" when the alignment of the planets was right. Ah, it wasn't entirely a cultural desert!)
But then came - BOOKS.
The best thing about the 4-5 years I spent in this new school was that it provided a cultural crossroads. Crossroads in the form of Pete. Pete was the same age, same class, had the same sense of adventure, also lived up the river a way, and we caught the same bus down and back daily, along with a handful of other kids who lived up in those hills. Pete and me hit it off pretty much from the get-go, the first real mate I ever had. Partners in crime. Shared a desk.
Mr C had a reward system. For positive scholarliness. He had one for constantly negative results as well, but me and Pete managed to keep well away from it. Every kid had a small note book and Mr C would whack "Excellent" and "Very Good" stamps in it to express his attitude to our efforts (I can't remember what came below these two levels, if anything) and at the end of each week he'd shuffle us all around on the basis of these stamps, brightest stars at the back through to strugglers at the front. I think there was a bit of an undeclared competition between me and Pete, for top marks, but somehow through a mix of brainpower, luck, and engineering, we always managed to finish up together right at the back of the row.
All of this camaraderie was consolidated by us also having to wait the best part of two hours together after school each night till the bus home came through from the city. It was a sure recipe for boredom-driven activities, for the getting into and out of trouble together, (for the pursuit of Dorothy and Joy together), and for the inventing (as touched on last week) of a whole new way of smoking - dried horse turds, very old and crumbly of course, scrunched up into a tobacco-like consistency and rolled in newspaper. I guess we looked pretty cool, but geez, they'd tear your bloody head off if you did "the drawback"! Which led us to - real cigarettes.
We buried a tin in the side of a creek bank, in the scrub up behind the school, and for weeks we'd stash in it any loose change we could legally lay hands on, until we had enough for a packet of 10 Turf - the cheapest. Finally, walked miles to a petrol station with our hard-won collection of ha'pennies, pennies, and thruppences - no way we could buy them from the shop opposite the school – but still got the third degree from the bloke for some reason.
"Who ya buyin' these for fellas?"
"Ahhh...", (I cracked first) "...my stepdad."
"Yeah?" (sceptical)
"Yeah, for his... his... birthday."
"Oh, I see. His birthday. When's that then?"
"Ahhh... (sweating) "...next week."
"Okay then. I'll make sure I say happy birthday to him then, when he comes in for petrol."
We never did get to smoke them. We just weren't game. I convinced Pete I had to wrap them up and actually give them to my stepdad or we were both dead meat. Pete wasn't convinced. He reckoned we could still pull it off. Bluff it out. Stepdad had a silly grin on his face when I handed them over. Four months late for his birthday. I don't think I ever did pay Pete back his half.
But one of the best things about Pete was that somewhere about Year 5 he got me onto books. I mean, REAL books. Reading for the fun of it, the adventure. Stretching the old memory here, but I think he infected me by making recreational reading sound like I was missing out on something great. And as I remember it he leant me one of his "William" books, all the rage at the time.
They were all very twee English middle-class Boy's Own stuff set between the wars but there wasn't a lot to pick from for kids, boys especially. I was hooked. Hooked on books. Still am. From then on I could never seem to get enough. Can't think where they came from back then, but Xmas presents helped, and swaps between us, plus some scrounging from relatives, and I think even from the school "library".
They were all very twee English middle-class Boy's Own stuff set between the wars but there wasn't a lot to pick from for kids, boys especially. I was hooked. Hooked on books. Still am. From then on I could never seem to get enough. Can't think where they came from back then, but Xmas presents helped, and swaps between us, plus some scrounging from relatives, and I think even from the school "library".
In time I managed to progress through the world of Biggles, Zane Grey, and eventually Ion Idriess, the prolific Aussie writer who specialised in dramatizing Australian history, and I still have some "William" (Richmal Crompton), "Biggles" (Capt W.E. Johns) and Idriess books up on my shelves. I've tried to re-read them over the years, looking for that elusive door into the world of STORY that I discovered - what? - 70 years ago? Yep, best part of 70 years ago – back when I dived through that doorway for the first time and never really came back. But what can I say - sad, but the time and the taste has passed!
I never saw Pete again after Year 6 when my family left for our new life in the city, as the shape of kid-lives are dictated by what their parents do, and we were moving on. So Pete - I owe you a big one mate, and I will always owe you a big one. Books have become one of the supporting pillars of my life. Sorry about the cigarettes. And sorry about that stupid fight we had over Dorothy!
Cheers.....
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>