Chapter 2

Covering events that occurred between 1925 and 1930 should be relatively simple. I can recall little of this period and what I can recall is difficult to place in time. Family photographs taken during this period give some indication of age and location, but only a few exist.

As previously mentioned, the family was living in the house in Bauer Street, Southport next door to Dad’s workplace. Few fathers had a shorter distance to go to work than Dad did. In those days he was an “operator”, one of several, whose job it was to maintain the equipment and supervise the constant stream of “traffic” that is cablegrams in Morse code passing through the relay station. The cable itself linked us with Sydney and Norfolk Island as part of a system that circumnavigated the world. It mostly passed through countries controlled or allied to Great Britain as shown on a map at that time in red and called the “all red route”. Some cables originated at Southport, being sent through the Post Office usually from Brisbane, but most messages were “through” traffic.

There were 3 other houses in the Cable Station complex of 5 acres bounded by Bauer Street, Chester Terrace and Lenneberg Street. The houses were built in or around 1901 of hardwood weatherboards, had large verandahs on several sides, corrugated iron roofs, 12 foot high ceilings and solid cedar doors. The manager’s house of about 40 squares i.e. 4000 square feet had 9 rooms including 4 bedrooms and two toilets. The houses were built on brick piers that raised the floor level some 4 to 5 feet off the ground, depending on the slope. The inside walls were of V-jointed tongue and grooved vertical boards about 4inches wide. The floor also was of 4-inch timber. On the site from which three of the houses were moved the Catholic Church built a retirement complex and ‘our old street” now had a reputation for being an exclusive location. Of course we always thought it was anyway!

Dad’s job played a significant role in our lives, especially in the location of our home. From Southport, probably in 1927, Dad was transferred to Sydney and we took up residence in Mosman, but I do not remember the house, as I was quite young. We were moved back to Southport after a year or two in Sydney and lived in the Cable house in Lenneberg Street, for about two years. During this time, on April 7, 1930 or 1931 I started school at the Southport State School that then fronted on to Scarborough Street.

Some of the equipment used in those days may be of interest. The infant’s school had large teaching charts (about 1200mm X 900mm) on easels. On these in large lettering and with appropriate pictures were such words as “The cat sat on the mat” and other exciting events. Some dealt with a couple of children called Jack and Jill who were a bit clumsy when it came to climbing a hill.
The Reverend, later Canon Whitehouse used a similar cluster of posters depicting biblical scenes during his weekly visit to give what we knew as “ligious struction”. When one scene had been discussed fully we awaited eagerly the next. With a majestic flourish he would roll the old sheet over the top behind the others, revealing the next colorful scene.

This was the era of slates! Rectangular slabs of slate, held a 1” wooden frame were standard for writing. The school supplied the slates free of charge’ but pupils could buy their own at a stationery store
Characters were inscribed on the slate using a pencil probably also made of slate. Writing in this way was very economical, but produced the most ghastly grinding squeaks, which some children seemed to consider an achievement, and something to repeat as often as possible. When increased by the 30 or so slate pencils in action, this became the noise pollution of the time. Some slates had horizontal lines scored across them to guide the pupil in writing the correct sizes of capital and small letters. Those children raised in hygienic households carried a small wet rubber sponge in a tin and this was used to erase the written material at the end of the lesson. This no doubt was the action implied in the expression “keeping the slate clean” or the one that referred to “starting with a clean slate”. The less hygienically disposed children applied saliva to the slate and wiped the letters off on any convenient piece of cloth, including a shirtsleeve or tail or simply with the hand. The smell of stale saliva permeated the rooms and was one of the smells of childhood that was unforgettable.

In higher Grades pads and pencils, and later still pen and ink replaced slates. The school supplied ink and from time to time the inkwells in the desks needed to be refilled. Ink monitors were rostered, and had to collect the wells, remove the inevitable blob of inky screwed up paper and other debris that found its way into the open hole, then wash the wells out with water. Then they made up fresh ink by dissolving ink powder in water and refilled the wells. The mess that this whole operation made was visible on the hands for days despite days of hard scrubbing. Another chore was the sharpening of the slate pencils by rubbing them to a point ion the concrete floor downstairs at the school (at this school all the classrooms were raised up from ground level).

With the introduction of ink we started writing in “copy books”. These were guides that sowed examples of excellent or “copperplate” writing at the top of the page and a series of vacant lines followed on which the pupil had to try to emulate the example above. The wording that appeared at the top of each page was usually a proverb so that we were introduced to these old saws early in life.

The classes were co-educational, although at playtime usually boys played games with boys and girls with girls, and the games were different. Girls usually skipped and played beam ball, while boys chased one another or wrestled or played “red rover”. At the moment nothing else springs to mind about these early days at school.

When the pupils could read, the teacher introduced us to the Queensland Reader. This was a landmark—our own reading book. It contained poetry and short stories with positive values such a courage, compassion, unselfishness as well as dramatic themes from life, especially in the Australian bush. I still remember some of the topics and lines of the poems, so they must have made a strong impression at the time. The book weighed about 450 grams. Small children found it too heavy to hold up over long periods. I suspect the teachers were trying to introduce some discipline, because I remember the constant injunction to “hold your book up”.