is still there after all these years!
There have been additions. We did not have the roof over the steps, nor the handrails, nor the paving stones or garden seats nor that planter at the right, nor the bell, nor the covered in piece to the left.
Look at the neat lawn and the path way to what I reckon is weather sheds. Yes we did have one of those, it was built about two years after I started school at five years old. The weather shed then had open fronts with seats all around the walls and it was here we ate our packed lunch which our mothers prepared for us. Where the neat lawns and paving areas are here, we had just gravel.
And today the school and shed are kept painted. I remember the weather boards on the school with paint peeling. It looks quite smart now.
The school was founded in the 1800s - Can't remember exactly, 1876 comes to mind, but not absolutely sure. I thought it was printed under the apex of the roof, but that looks more like a window now.
When I started school at five years old , I could actually stand under the school - you see that space at the front beyond the flower bed? Thats how small I was, the floor above was at least 1" from my head. The school was on the side of a small slope so it was only this space that I could stand.
In those days we had about 26 in the school, but only one teacher. Each class (7 rows) was given some work to get on with whilst the teacher taught one class at a time. How he managed to give a one lesson to everyone in a day I shall never know.
There was Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th class and the 7th was one person who was secondary school but was doing a correspondence course at our school.
We had a brilliant teacher. Two actually, one left soon after I started. The second made such an impression on my life, that I will never forget. He made learning such fun. He was so artistic - his creations littered the walls and floors and all to do with learning.
Our teacher even took us all on nature walks - we walked for miles gathering leaves, twigs and insects in jars to bring back to the school to look at. He taught and joined in with rounders and tennis too.
His wife taught us to embroider and to sew simple garments. Can't remember what the boys did whilst we were busy with sewing. I remember we also did weaving and cane basket making too.
You see the steps at the front - we had plants in painted tin cans on either side on alternative steps. We used to call them the "poisoned steps" and to rush out the school door and down the steps you had to take two at a time to avoid the poisoned ones.
In those days there was no flush toilets. There was three buildings up the side of the hill, a little walk from the school. The first one was for the boys, the second one was for the teacher and the third was for the girls.
The toilet consisted of a "screen" which led to a shed with concrete floor and a boxed in piece with three holes (three could use it together) which was built over a dark pit. No windows, no door. As children we were scared of red back spiders lurking on the underside of the wood when you sat your bottom onto the holes. Absolutely terrified we were, still had to use the toilet properly otherwise if you didn't, we were punished. It was the cane then.
I don't think there is many pupils at the school now, but it is still thriving none the less. The small rural town is bypassed by a highway, and many of the places are no longer there.
Those were great days never to be forgotten.
a 1935 Chevolet lorry! I was 10 years old. I shared this with my brother who was around 8 years old. Somebody owed my Dad £2.10.0d and he paid Dad with this lorry. Dad gave it to us. Our very own car - (lorry)!
We had already learnt to drive properly. My lesson was in a large Chevolet car where I could barely touch the pedals and just about saw where I was going above the dashboard (through the steering wheel).
We lived on a large sheep station of several thousand acres which was privately owned and had plenty of roads (gravel). We weren't the only kids that owned a vehicle, I remember one other family of young lads had one too., and some of the older guys did too.
Every week (well I think it was every week, it could have been every month), the boss made us drive our vehicles into the garage (on the sheep station), and he would inspect each vehicle and tell us what needed to be fixed.
I remember this lorry had rotting wood panels at the sides, and the boss made us replace these and other things that needed to be done before we could even drive it.
We kept the lorry for many years, driving every weekend we could. When I was around 13 years old, I did cause some extensive damage by hitting a water gully in the middle of a road and knocked the radiator clean out of its fixings. My brother and I were some miles from home in the middle of nowhere, and I can't remember how we managed to get our lorry home. I know my brother was real mad with me, because it meant our lorry was off the road until we fixed that radiator securely.
We sold our lorry to someone else on the sheep station when we moved in the mid 1960s. We could not take it with us to town. With the money we bought ourselves a bicycle each.
My second car was a fiat estate - which I bought soon after moving into the town. Unfortunately I had not a driving licence then, and so the car was permanently parked on the front lawn of our family home. I sold it before I had the chance to drive it.
Two of my ten year smoke alarms are on the blink. Keep beeping every day - shouldn't be run out yet as they have only been installed five years! But I have a great fear of fires, so want to be safe in the home, especially when I am asleep.
My fear stems back to my teenage years. My father had bought a small holding - a weekend hobby! There was around 300 acres of shrub, gullies, rocks, hard bare clay. He had fenced off and cleared about ten acres where the "house" stood. If you could call it a house. The previous owner had used it to shear his sheep in. Well this was to be our "home" at weekends, so Mum made it comfy as possible for us.
Over the next few years, Dad spent time improving the ten acres. He raised some sheep, he planted seed, built a chicken run and a shearing shed and made this "house" into a more habitable weekender. We had two dogs to help to round up the sheep from the rough terrains and creek beds.
This property was situated about a mile from the main road (gravel in those days and not far from Bungonia Gorge, it was reached down a small track winding through the bush. The track was almost inaccessible in those days, with great gullies several inches deep where the water had eroded the track over the years. There was no electricity until about a year later.
In front of this house was the perimeter fence to the ten acres and beyond this fence was "the bush". Lots and lots of trees, dead wood, dried leaves, dried grass, gullies and rocks. One day, something in that bush triggered a fire - it could have been a piece of glass and the hot sun, nobody knows. It was not of the human kind, as there was only our family around.
First we noticed flames in amongst the brush - and by the time we dipped anything we could find into the water tank and ran about hundred yards and through the fence, the fire was taking hold. We had no hoses, nor did we have telephones to call for help, just buckets of water and something to whip the flames. We spent ages trying to put out the fire. Our clothes were black with soot, and our hair was singed.
Luckily it did not spread too far and after a long time was under control. That evening my brother and I were off to a dance in the local hall - the first thing our friends commented on was the state of our hair. We certainly had something to talk about that evening.
It was very frightening and from that day onwards I have been terrified of fire. Even the smallest fire in the garden I get the shakes. I am ready to throw a bucket of water on it, before it is even started!
