School at Ettalong - smaller and simpler

Ettalong Beach Public School was quite a bit smaller in those days.

We had one class for each year.

Mind you there were a lot more pupils per class than these days.

Forty-five to 50 students in each class was the norm.

No wonder teachers had to be strict with so many pupils to control.

Now I must search my memory to remember the teachers' names!

I recall a Miss or Mrs Hopkins had kindergarten.

Mrs Ballentine was also an infant teacher, a lovely motherly lady, while Mrs Davies was a very strict, serious lady as a teacher but I recall chatting to her once I had left primary school and she was quite nice!

There was Mr Hogan who scared us all and Mr Cole who was charming to all.

Mr Davies was the headmaster and after his death Mr Plumb arrived.

Mr Plumb always wore a grey dustcoat and licked his lips continuously.

In those days, with that size school, the principal had a full time class to teach as well as his headmaster duties so I imagine he must have been fairly busy.

My memory tells me he was a very good teacher our Mr Plumb.

We also had Mr Wigg who was a very good-humoured man.

There was no school canteen so all students took their lunch to school except on Mondays when we could place an order with the local pie shop.

There were no freezers back then and bread was baked Monday to Friday so was rather stale by Monday.

For most of us our sandwich was wrapped in greaseproof paper and then in a brown paper bag along with a couple of pieces of fruit.

I remember my sandwiches often contained meat or cheese and we had no ice packs to keep the food from spoiling but surprisingly it never seemed to and I doubt that we thought much about it.

If we were thirsty, we had water from the bubbler. There were no plastic containers to carry a drink to school.

At recess, we were obliged to drink the small bottles of warm milk that had been delivered to the school earlier and left to heat in the sun.

This was supplied by the government for our nutrition so we were made to drink it whether we wanted to or not.

This was before the days of homogenised milk so when you lifted the silver foil cap there was blobs of hot cream on top. It makes me shudder at the thought even today.

We didn't have junk food available to take to school. Some children may have had biscuits or a slice of homemade cake but potato crisps hadn't appeared yet.

Simple times, simple healthy food.

We had no school uniform in those days, not until we got to high school.

Every Friday afternoon was sport, usually ball games, tunnel ball and similar games. Schools had fairly basic sporting equipment.

I remember being taught lots about British history, kings and queens and the like but sadly (I feel) we were taught nothing of Australia's involvement in the first and second world wars. Obviously subjects like Australians at Gallipolli and the incredible bravery of our troops in France and other places in World War I, and the misery of prisoners of war, walking the Kokoda track and all the other stories of suffering and gallantry from World War II had not yet reached the curriculum of the Australian education system and so my generation grew up with little knowledge of these things.

It seems that we were still very much under the British system and perhaps hadn't yet learned to have pride in our own country.

We all knew who had come first, second and third in the class and we knew who had come last too.

This was fine for those who were doing well but must have been dreadful for the children who were struggling with the work.

There wasn't a lot of tact around that sort of thing and to my knowledge there wasn't extra assistance available for the strugglers.

As politically incorrect as it sounds today, it was a time of "bright kids" and "dumb kids". Thankfully we have learned to be kinder and more helpful over the years.

There was no school at Umina, or Ocean Beach as it was called then, so students travelled from there, Pearl Beach and Patonga to Ettalong school, we called them the "bus kids". Students who lived at Ettalong, Booker Bay or the surrounds mostly came to school on bikes or walked.

Mothers didn't drive back then, or in fact, most families didn't have a car!

If you forgot your lunch, Mum didn't drive to the school to bring it to you. You went without. (Not many of us forgot our lunch very often.)

If it began raining and you hadn't taken your raincoat, you got wet.

Simple times, simple principles.

Very few of us had new bikes. We mostly inherited the next size bike from an older sibling who had outgrown it and, if we were lucky, our Dad would sand it back, re-paint it and stick some new transfers on it.

No child could have ever been more excited with a new bike as I was with my re-vamped 26" red Malvern Star.

I strongly suspect that there weren't a whole lot of discarded bikes at the tip either.

I believe it's called recycling today.

As Christmas approached, we would make our own classroom decorations, almost everything was made from crepe paper and glue.

We would wash and save the silver foil tops from the milk bottles, curl them and join a few together with cotton to hang up. Very attractive they were.

The excitement we felt as children as Christmas approached hasn't changed at all, just the things that Santa delivered.

We looked forward to a new set of coloured pencils, a pair of play shorts and a top, perhaps a book and a small toy.

Maybe this is not the forum for me to list some of the things Santa delivers today.

Simple times, not so simple times, probably says it all.

Email, 2 Apr 2010 Gay Binder (nee Solomon), Ettalong