The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Fay Berry 2013 © – Chapter 19 – 19550731

Towards the end of my second term at UHS, Dad’s business was going through one of its lean periods and so Dad went to Sydney to try to drum up some orders and when he arrived back home he was very happy because he had about 700 pound of new business and offers of further work.I was very disappointed because I had found that our school holidays didn’t coincide with the Royal Show dates and so this year when the Wurfel’s came down I would only be able to go to the show to spend time with them on three full days of the show.

My brother Graham was still theoretically going with Barbara Etherington from Sydney and at the same time he was spending time with my school friend, Colleen Robjohns, and making her miserable because he still liked Barbara.

Geography lessons were still a trial for me and I was not progressing at all in that subject. One lesson I took down in shorthand what happened in a whole Geography class to demonstrate how hopeless a teacher Pederick was and how impossible it was  to learn anything in his class.

 

We had the Literary and Debating night to choose Mr &Miss Unley High School and Dennis Brown and I were partnered in that competition and we won!  I was amazed and absolutely delighted that my talk was so well received. The boys  put on a skit about a gangster and his “moll”and also entertained us with a chorus of the “Can Can” and John Russell and Alan Lane sang  an altered version of “I’m in the mood for love.”

(What has been great in 2014 , almost 60 years on from the debate, is that I have caught up with Alan Lane, (who was in the skit I spoke of above), on Facebook. When he left UHS he became a very talented tennis player and played matches at Wimbleton and today is a tennis coach living up in Qld. Even more interesting is that Dennis Brown, my partner in the debate and a member of my bookkeeping class, later became a Christadelphian and his daughter Janine is now my daughter’ Deborah’s best friend. It really is wonderful when you have the ability to look back over 70+ years of your life and observe the twists and turns of time and chance).

Boys preoccupied my mind a great deal in my 1955 year and I wrote a list of all my requirements for my “Ideal boy” but decided that my ideals were so improbable and unattainable that I probably wouldn’t get married at all.

The dreaded exams came and went and when finally, they were over, my sense of relief and relaxation was immense. Now what lay ahead for me were the fun things; the geography excursion where the only subject that was NOT in the minds of all the diligent students of IVB was “Geography.” The Opera “the Black Tulip” was next on my agenda and then a trip to Pinnaroo to visit the Wurfels was in the offing.

DIARY NOTES

19550731 Sunday -This morning dad came home from Sydney and was thrilled to bits because he had managed to get orders for about 700 pound while he was in Sydney. Nancy King and I played a sort of improvised tennis game practically all morning. We stretched the tape measure from the piano to the lounge where we secured it with a dart. Then we hung some papers over that and that was our net. At about half past twelve, we remembered we had to finish preparing dinner and have our baths so we rushed around and got it done

19550801 Monday – I have just found that our school holidays don’t coincide with the show and that there are only three days in which we can go to the show instead of about ten. That means that I won’t see much of the Wurfel’s when they come down. Oh well, what does it really matter. I had a row with Graham this evening. Graham didn’t like Nancy and me teasing him, and then as usual Colleen came into the conversation and then there was a whole lot of argument about her. Poor Barbara in Sydney, she has my sympathy.

19550802 Tuesday – I’ve just been looking through my Arithmetic book and found shorthand notes I took during a Geography lesson at the start of the term, it goes like this.

Pederick: comes in and gives back tests. General hub bub.

Ped. Keep quiet will you. Nester. I won’t speak again, keep quiet. I’m waiting for you Chapman. West sit down. The majority of you haven’t learned for your tests. Will you stop talking West!! 1st question – About Shore Platforms. Person there talking, will you cut it out. Now, about a wave platform. The cliff is gradually worn away.

Caire. I had all that and you marked it wrong!

Ped.. But you had tidal waves

Everybody. Tidal Waves!! Ha Ha Ha

Ped. Keep Quite

Fish Face – How can you write a short question in ten lines?

Wendy.”You’ve got “how” written by one of my answers what do you mean?

Chapman: How now Brown cow

Ped. Keep quiet!!

Ped. ..and Truncated Spurs, you get the mountains running back truncated

Fish face – throws paper across the room

Ped.Ignores him. Plutonic rocks are nothing to do with volacanoes.

Nester. Starts whislting

Ped. Next Question?

Fay. Starts tapping pencil.

Ped. Stop that please.

Fish Face. Next question is something about on shore drifts.

Ped. Off shore drifts.

Altogether. Long shore drifts!!

Ped. Person whistling please stop. Wendy. Does that mean waves are going at right angles to the coast?

Fish Face. Don’t be mad, they go at 180 degres.

Nester. Whisles – what do you have to say to get full marks.

Ped. Anybody who says any more silly things will go to the office, one or two of you. No silly noises either.

Nester. Loud sigh.

Everybody giggles

Nester. You wouldn’t have to say all that, sir.

West. Sir!

Nester. Sir!

Fish Face. Sir!!

West. Jabs Fay in the ribs.

Fay. Hits the ceiling

Ped Glares.

And so it goes on and on and on….

I could have typed back more, but you get the idea.

19550803 Wednesday

All today I have been preparing for Lit and Deb Thursday and I am feeling very stressed. In Geography I sat down the front next to Beth so that I could discuss ideas with Dennis Brown but he had few ideas and I had less. At Opera practice tonight I spent practically all the time preparing my debate in Mr Peter’s room. I went in once and asked Bob Oertel to lend me his watch and it ended up that he came out with me to help me with it but he wasn’t much help either.

After Opera, I went home with Ray Keatley and Bill Boundy. I asked Mr Boundy to help me with my speech but he wasn’t much help either because all he could say was that “My candidate is a person. She is as Mr so and so in Pickwick Papers would say, a female,” and so on. He’s mad! How he got to be a teacher I’ll never know. He suggested I speak on the boy‘s part of it instead of Dennis Brown, “because Colleen has plenty of Boys, and for that matter, so do you.” I said, “Give it a rest, Mr Boundy” and he said, “Well I noticed that you and Oertel the Turtle went out alone last night.” I was amazed because I had been sure he hadn’t seen us go out. He must have eyes like a hawk. Then I said, “Now I know where the school grape vine starts” and he laughed and said,”You know where it ends too.”

19550804 Thursday – Dennis Brown didn’t like what I had prepared for the debate tonight so I scrapped it and wrote it all again. I’m so nervous. There was a real rumpus after Geography lesson today. Colleen left her diary on my desk and Teddy Bear had the cheek to read it. I was absolutely furious. I got her diary and hit him over the head with it. He got out quick and then I told Colleen and she was just as furious. Poor Colleen, her diary was terribly private and I certainly would have hated to have anybody read my diary if it had been as private as hers. That is why I always keep mine so that I wouldn’t mind too much if people reading it, well pretty much, anyway.

Just you wait Teddy, you’re going to get a lovely reception in Geography lesson tomorrow.

Lit and Deb was simply terrific and I had a wonderful time. Jill Black spoke first on “Strawb” MdGrowan and hers was so good that I began to get horribly nervous because what I had prepared sounded silly alongside hers. There were six more speakers for Mr Unley High and Dennis Brown (my partner) was one of them and he gave a great talk. Then it was the girls’ turn. Meg Buring and her partner got up and began to talk on the boy they had chosen and for a while nobody guessed who it was. They said he was a Prefect and had got five credits in the Intermediate, but that didn’t help us much. How would we know (or care) how many credits he had got? But then she said that he spends Wednesdays at Opera practices doing a certain young lady’s Math’s homework for her! I almost fell through the floor. Everybody looked at me and simply roared with laughter. Now the whole school knows that he does my homework for me!

Well, soon it was my turn to speak. I got up there and it was strange, but I was no longer nervous. I had my notes in my hand but I just scrapped them and said just whatever came into my head. I can’t remember what I said, but it must have been all right because everybody just roared with laughter and my three minutes went very quickly because of the laughing. When I had finished everybody clapped like mad. I reckon they even clapped more then they had for Jill Black. It gave me a shock because I thought mine was going to be a horrible flop. To amaze me even more, Dennis Brown’s and my talks won the debate!!!!  Wow! wonders will never cease.

The boys did a sketch afterward and it was terrific. Roger Uffendale and Peter Leak were dressed as girls and they were made up as well so that they really looked like girls. The sketch was supposed (note supposed) to illustrate the power of “good over evil.” It was about these two young couples who were going to a night club for the first time and excited because it was their first “spree.” Most of the lights in the Physics Lab were switched off and the scene depicted a night club. There was a bar across one side with a man who was serving drinks to an artist behind it. The artist was Des Lugg and he looked terrific. Then in came the two couples. (Peter Leak (girl) and Peter Lawrey, Roger Uffendale (girl) and Peter Schodde (our Head Prefect). Peter is my first year’s class teacher’s son.

The waiter (Andrew McIntosh) took them to two tables and then went to get them some champagne. Then in walks Mark Schaffer (girl) and another boy and they sat down at another table. Peter Schodde started making eyes at Mark (girl) and then goes over and asks her for a dance and only succeeds in getting his face slapped. Then the waitress tells them that the newcomers were a famous gangster and his girl and the couples look at the two with awe.

Then in comes another fellow with a gun and he yells out the lines, “You stole my girl!” which the gangster doesn’t like so that there is a terrific round of shooting (cap guns) and the whole bang lot of them fall down dead. The shocked couples make a hurried exit. It was crazy, but was it fun.

Oh, I forgot, there was also a floor show. A girls Can Can and John Russell (girl) and Alan Lane sang “I’m in the mood for love” with additions and alterations to the words of the song. After Lit and Deb, Bill Boundy was taking Colleen and me home so we had to wait for him. All the teachers were helping to clean up the room, when suddenly, the taps over the sink burst and there was a terrific fountain of water spurting up. Poor Bill was trying to stop it but only succeeded in getting himself soaked. By the time they got the water turned off, the Physics Lab was flooded, so Bill sang a sea shanty while everyone else swept the water out of the door.

When eventually everything was ready Colleen and I got onto Bill’s motor bike and started our perilous journey home. Naturally the Motor Bike played up and we only just got home. Phew! Was it fun though. What a Lit and Deb night it had been.

19550805 Friday – Teddy Bear certainly did get a nice reception today. He came in and sat down in my desk and then all the girls in the whole class descended on Teddy. We dragged him out of the desk and sent him flying over the far side of the room. Then Pedro came in and the lesson started. All the boys were teasing Teddy for being pushed around by a bunch of girls so he came and sat back in my desk again. I was sitting in the front so I didn’t see him at first but then Wendy told me and I was furious. I got up and walked around to my desk and then told him to get out. He couldn’t get out without being ridiculed by all the boys so he stayed there.

Mr Pederick saw me standing there and yelled at me to get back to my seat. I told Pedrick that I wouldn’t sit down until Teddy removed himself from my seat. Teddy had enough by this time and without another word he got up and sat at another desk. I don’t think he’ll be low enough to read anyone’s diary again and if I were him, I wouldn’t try it again because if he did he wouldn’t come off with jut a sore head.

19550806 Saturday – I didn’t go to music practice today because of the exams. Oh dear, I’m sure I’ll fail because I don’t know a thing. This time next term I’m going to be in a horrible fix if I don’t settle down to work. The trouble is there’s so much else I have to do. There’s softball. As team captain I never seem to get a moment’s peace. Boys asking when matches are, girls asking how much it will cost to go to somewhere or other, etc. etc. etc. Still, I like doing it. At table tennis this afternoon we tried to get the younger kids organized a bit better so that they would enjoy themselves more, so I started off a game of “donkey” and that kept them going for ages. Colleen seems to be getting on all right now, with all the young people thank goodness.

19550807 Sunday – I’ve been studying like mad but I still don’t know any more than I did when I started, except in English. That’s the one subject I really love. I’m beginning to feel dead. The thought of exams is getting me down. I’d love to go for a six month’s holiday somewhere, some beautiful spot where I can be completely on my own. It’s strange how hard it is to be alone these days. It’s no good me trying to go for a ride anywhere to get peace and quiet. Everywhere I go when I’m riding these days there are always some idiot wolves of boys who have to whistle at me and follow me up if they can.

It’s really dreadful in the summer. I can’t go to a beach on my own anymore because at every beach a crowd of boys start to whistle and ogle and it simply sickens me. It’s all the new Australians, the Italian and Greek boys, the children of those men you see working in the road gangs. They are all short and dark and squat and they lean on their shovels and whistle at anything in a skirt (or shorts). I used to be able to go anywhere on my own and nobody would notice me, but I certainly can’t do that now. None of the Australian boys whistle at girls, it’s just the Italians and Greeks. In fact, I hadn’t even heard a “wolf whistle” until Immigration started happening. They don’t stand up for women in trams and trains either. I liked it in Australia when there was just “Us” and none of “Them.”

We had the very last lesson for the year at Sunday School today and that means another exam I have to study for. Exams! Exams! And more exams. How I hate exams.

19550808 Monday – Oh dear, Robert Oertel  still likes me and I wish he didn’t because it makes me feel so guilty. When I was going with him for that short fortnight he used to say that I was the only girl he’d ever loved and all that sort of thing. I never believed him, because I think he was too young to really love any one that much anyway. I reckon that you only find people expressing undying love in books. It sounds so theatrical and not very believable. Evidently I was wrong, because when he started going with that other girl instead of professing his love to her, he just told her it would be useless for her to be jealous of me because he loved me and couldn’t help it??

I simply don’t know what to think. As soon as I found that he wasn’t going to come to Sunday School, that was when I decided to drop him. It just didn’t seem worth the effort if he wasn’t going to be in my world. I’m sorry I hurt him because he is such a nice boy, but I just didn’t like him enough to keep on going with him. It’s strange how little things can irritate a person. Bob’s main fault in my view was his boasting, though he tried to stop himself when I told him how much I hated it.

I don’t know, I don’t think I’ll ever be married. Because I’ll never find a boy to live up to my ideals.

He’d have to be practically an angel to suit me I think. I know I am very hard to please. Let me see. How would I have Mr Perfect to be?

My Ideal (the only boy I would marry).

1. He must be a Christadelphian

2. He must not drink or smoke.

3. He must have a clean mind

4. He must not boast (this is important).

5. He must be strong (stronger than my brother Graham and preferably good at sports)

6. He must be reasonably good looking, though I don’t suppose that is so terribly important.

7. He must share my love for the country.

8. He must be fairly quiet and sensible although I don’t want a person who would shut himself inside a shell and lock me out.

9. He must be dependable, a person I could trust

10. He must be able to put up with my many faults (haven’t got enough room to list them here.)

11 He must really love me (aussi tres importante).

These are the only things that I can think of at the moment but honestly, where in this wide world would I meet such a person as described above. Either I am satisfied with someone who is not an angel or I do not get married.

19550809 Tuesday – I stayed home from school yesterday to study. Study! Study! That’s all I do and I hate the sound and thought of it. Geography! English! Economics!! Oh how the sound of those words ring in my brain like bells jangling out of tune until I could scream. I’m so tired, my mind is all fuddled and all I want to do is sleep, but all I must do is study, study, study. I don’t understand why I want to go back to school, I really don’t. Oh well. I’ll just have to grin and bear it.

19550810 Wednesday – I went to school today and thank goodness the hockey match has been postponed. Am I glad. After school today, Colleen Robjohns came to our place and we studied like mad. We were supposed to go to Opera practice but we didn’t. I decided that I’d like Colleen to stay the night at our place, so we rang up and fixed it with her mother. We were so nervous and excited about the exams that we couldn’t sleep for ages. Oh I’m scared. I beat Wendy’s term marks in English by 0.3. She got 84% and I got 84.3% What a terrific difference I must say.

19550811 Thursday -EXAMS – The first exam was the 1 hour English exam and believe it or not one of the subjects was “a place I like to visit.” Second Term last year they had it in the paper and in Intermediate they had the same subject in different words and this time they have it again and I know the subject backwards. Each time I write the thing from a different angle but it always is about the same subject. Mr Jenkins told Wendy and me this afternoon that he couldn’t take the responsibility of marking our papers because he knows how closely we are matched so he has given them to another teacher to mark. Hooray, now if I beat Wendy she won’t be able to say its favoritism.

The Geography exam was terrible. I didn’t know a thing. I sat for the last 10 minutes and didn’t write a thing so it’s one subject I have failed for sure. Woe!!

19550812 Friday – Hooray, I beat Wendy by one mark and I’ve come top in that exam. I’m so glad that makes me a whole 1.3 ahead of her. This morning I was looking so run down and tired and perfectly dispirited that Dad took pity on me and asked me if I’d like to go to Pinnaroo for the holidays. Of course I wanted to go and before he had time to say anything else I spent 4/ – of my pay on getting Mum to ring up the Wurfels to see if I could go. Mrs Wurfel said,”Yes,” just so long as there is fine weather from now on because the shearers would still be there otherwise and then I couldn’t go. I hope it is fine.

19550813 Saturday – This morning Colleen Robjohns arrived at about half past eleven and dinner was almost ready so we had our’s as soon as we could and then I got ready for sports. We went down to the Parklands and played tennis, football, baseball, basketball etc. We had a great afternoon. When we got back home I was dog tired and I felt just too tired for anything so I stayed home for the evening and didn’t go to Young Folks. Mum went to Dossy Luke’s today and Dossy said that Jim Luke would like me to go to his place some time or other to play table tennis with him. He came in later to remind his Mum to ask me. He’s an extra lad and I‘d love to go.

19550814 Sunday – Nancy came to dinner today. Fancy, I hadn’t seen her to talk to properly for two weeks. How I love that girl, she’s the nicest girl I’ve ever known. I do wish she could come with me to the Wurfel’s it would be more fun with her. Colleen got here at about 20 past two and we went in the car to Sunday School. Colleen came back to our place after Sunday School and went home on her bike but Nancy stayed to dinner. We had a great time. Dad and Nan and I played scrabble and it’s a great game.

19550815 Monday – I rang up Colleen this morning and asked her if she was going to school and she said, ”No” so I told her I’d stay home too, but then I remembered that I didn’t have all the books I needed at home so I had to go to school. Wendy beat my by 0.6 in the English exam, darn her, but she deserved it, although I did try pretty hard. We had a proper Opera practice in the Town Hall today which was beaut fun. Roger Griggs still likes me. I do wish I could really like him because he is such a nice lad.

Every opportunity he got he’d put his hand on my shoulder and wherever I was, there was he. ”Where the bee sucks there suck I” is what it is like. Graham likes Roger too. So do I, but not as a boyfriend. At one time I went down below under the stage and some of the boys followed me and when we came up again the girl who likes Bob Oertel asked me if “the bang she had heard while we were down there might have been “two lips meeting.” I wish people wouldn’t judge other people by themselves. That sort of thing makes me so annoyed.

19550816 Tuesday – Colleen and I both had to go to school in the morning because we had to see about clogs for the Opera. We saw Miss Ray but she wasn’t much help so we decided to go home again. We left school in a mad mood and we mucked around all the way home. I donkeyed Colleen part of the way and we walked home the rest. It was a simply perfect spring day, absolutely gorgeous but I bet it won’t last worst luck. We arrived home just in time to have a second breakfast which lasted practically until dinner time. We sat out in the sun and Colleen learned some history and I tried to learn some Arithmetic. At dinner time I couldn’t eat a thing but Colleen had some dinner while I went out and sat in the mulberry tree on the property next to ours near Macklin Lane, and just thought and thought.

I wish this sort of weather would last all the summer, not too hot and not too cold, with blue sky and a lazy atmosphere. And, note, no school work or anything. I wouldn’t want much would I? In the afternoon Colleen and I sat in the car and studied but soon we were just talking and talking. She still likes Graham but knows it’s hopeless mooning over him so she has decided to go with Peter Leak because he likes her now. Hang, it was only last year that he liked me and wasn’t too happy when I didn’t go to the school picture evening with him. Fickle!

19550817 Wednesday – This morning I didn’t have an exam but a few were doing history so the first year boys were still sitting beside us. I tried to study bookkeeping but it began to get me down so I played noughts and crosses with boy next to me. The bookkeeping was rotten and I hated it. I loathe exams and the thought of the Leaving Examination is really getting me down. This evening Colleen, Graham and I went to Opera practice and it was a fun evening. Some of the music is really nice. I love the “Birds of a Feather” chorus, and “Nil Desperandum” has a great rhythm. Ron Smith had us in fits again. In the scene where he is behind the wall and Rosa and Cornelius are singing about the Black Tulip, he was so good. He missed a few of his cues and he was so funny and had us in fits. He’s a great actor. Colleen and I came home with Ray Keatley and Bill Boundy as usual and this time we sat in the back of the Utility and sang all the way home. Graham got a ride home with Warren Edwards, so we didn’t need our car.

19550818 Thursday – In the morning we had the Arithmetic Exam and in the afternoon we had Economics but I won’t dwell on them, because they were too awful for words. Next term I will have to work like a slave.I’ll just have to. When the exams were over, I felt stunned. It was hard to believe that the worry was over at last, at least until we get the results back. Colleen reckons she did terribly, but I’ll believe that when I see the results. We played a hockey match against Brighton this afternoon and we beat them 3-2. It wasn’t a marvellous match, but I didn’t mind because I was so dog tired, I could hardly see the ball. I feel utterly and completely and thoroughly exhausted and I’m longing for the holidays. I had dinner and then went to school again and when I got there I found that some of our results were back. I’ve failed three subjects so far. Mr Braunsthall was after my blood. He says I’ve gone to pieces and I have. Next term, Fay, you will work and work until you can get a credit in every subject!

I was horribly tired by the time school was over and I was pleased when Al Kalnins rode home with me because he carried the case I had my costumes in and saved me lugging it home myself. Boys do have their uses. He’s a good lad and he hasn’t tried to kiss me again thank goodness, so I can still say that I have never been kissed.

When I got home I had hardly got inside the door when Mum came dashing out and told me that Mr Wurfel had come today and I will be going up to Pinnaroo. Oh. Hooray!!! Three cheers!! Mr Wurfel is in town to see about his new Mercedes Benz. He’s coming down on the 1st September I think, so I’ll be going up to Pinnaroo in the latest model Mercedes (God Willing). Mum reckons I’ve only been pretending to be tired because as soon as she told me about Pinnaroo I brightened up immediately and looked quite well.

19550819 Friday – Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without Roger Griggs. He’s always there when I want him and if ever I’m feeling gloomy or down in the dumps, he’s always there to cheer me up. He’s a beaut lad. The girls tease him and call him “little Roger” when he follows me around, but I’m glad he does, because it’s comforting to know he’ll be there if I want him. I don’t suppose it is fair to him really but then I can’t help not liking him except as a friend, and a very good friend at that.

At Opera practice we all wore our costumes and some of them were pretty terrific. We had great fun but it was very tiring. But then, that can’t be helped. I suppose we’ll all be wrecks by the time it is all over. Just think, an Opera practice tomorrow and Monday, then a performance to the school and then, three nights performance and the banquet after the last one. What a wreck I’ll be by the holidays. Oh I forgot, there’ll be the social, then the picture evening, then there will be the Kitchen Evening for Rob Cheek and Rhonda Wallace who are getting married soon. I’m not just going to be a wreck, I’m going to be dead. On the way home from Opera practice, I had a strange feeling that we were going to hear from the Wurfels but it soon passed.

19550820 Saturday – This morning I lazed the time away in bed and do I need a rest. I’m dog tired. I had a bath and washed my hair, and then had dinner and got ready for Opera practice. Graham has bought himself a new car. Did I say new? Sorry, what a terrible mistake! New! If the thing didn’t come out with the ark it must have been made from its ruins. What a wreck. I think it was meant to be an Austin at one stage or another, but I can’t be sure. He took me for a drive in it just around the block, and honestly, I think the thing must have rheumatics. The engine clatters and sends clouds of smoke and fumes into the front seat, the springs are terrible and the car slants at an angle. When we turn a corner, Graham is sitting high in the air and I am practically on the road. Somehow or other the car wheezed its way to opera practice without mishap. That is, nothing to speak of, the doors just fly open at every corner and the wheels feel as though they are coming up through the seats but the fact still remains, Graham’s “baby” took us to Opera Practice.

When we arrived there I staggered out of the door and tottered into the hall and collapsed into a seat. Colleen came running up and asked me if I was ill, but I managed to explain in between gasps that it was just that Graham had bought himself a car. That started a general exit and soon all the boys were surrounding the old bomb as Graham proudly showed it off to them, but me, I had enough. I stayed inside. Eventually they all dribbled back inside and the Opera Practice began again. Well we were only an hour late, when all’s said and done. The practice was good fun, all the principals were there and they all seemed to know their parts pretty well, at long last. The scenery is not bad either though it isn’t finished yet. Ron Smith was acting well again today. I don’t know what we would do without him. He’s wonderful. We had a good practice even though there weren’t many of us there. I’m looking forward to the performances. When it was time to go, Graham couldn’t get his baby to start, so I went home with Ray Keatley, it was safer.

19550830 Tuesday – What a day! We all arrived at school in skirts and jumpers instead of our school uniforms and all the boys were gawking. At about half past eight, Colleen came and we played tennis for a while and then we went with the others to the bus. In the Geography Bus. We all made a dive for the back seats and it ended up that Carl Wittner sat next to me and then Wendy Swain sat on the other side of me with Al Kalnins and Nester beside her. Dennis Brown and Beth sat in front and the rest of our class spread out in front of them and the a class of Intermediate boys had the very front seats. Of course Jacky Braunsthall and Pedro were in front too. Wendy Swain got up once or twice and each time Al Kalnins came and sat next to me but when Wendy got back she kicked Al out, thank goodness.

When we stopped at St Kilda we all got out and walked along the beach presumably looking at the mangrove swamps but all we succeeded in doing was getting rather wet. We sang most of the way but then we just talked. Wendy was longing to get to Gawler, because her boyfriend Mike Cannell was supposed to be following along behind in Patrick Alderman’s car and they had arranged for her to change into Patrick’s car when we got to Gawler. When we first arrived at Gawler they hadn’t arrived so Beth, Wendy and I went down to eat our lunch by the Gawler River.

Wendy and Beth sat on a bar by the suspension bridge and I went down and sat by the river to eat my lunch. Soon, however, Mike turned up and Dennis Brown and Al Kalnins came with him and they stayed talking there for a while. Then Dennis and Al came down to where I was sitting and Al sat down beside me but Dennis went on. About four of the boys on the other side of the stream were taking photos of me ad Al but then that darned Al put his arm around me and that means there will be about four photos of him with his arm around me floating around the school. That boy! He never lets up either. I got up and walked up to Wendy to get away from Al, and started to talk to her and Mike but Al followed and he was leaning up against the bar and I had my back to him and just when I was least expecting it he caught hold of my belt and pulled me into his arms. He’s really getting on my nerves!!

We went into a fellow’s place after who had one of those fancy types of garden. It had a beautiful grotto, a large pool inside caves made of rock with all sorts of gems and veins of minerals in them. Inside the grotto there was a sculptured figure of a girl ready to dive into the pool and in the next cave, a fairy castle built on a rock. It looked lovely even then, but it must look beautiful when it was lit up. When we got back in the bus Dennis and Beth came in the back, so Carl changed places with them but Nester stayed there so I found myself sitting next to Al!! I’m doomed! We were terribly squashed so he took every opportunity to put his arm around me. Halfway home, Wendy wasn’t feeling well, so I told Mr Pederick and said she would be so much better off if she were in Patrick’s car, but at first he wouldn’t let her, and besides the car had trailed behind out of sight. Wendy went and sat in the front however, so that left us more room in the back.

When Patrick’s car did come up behind us, we wrote on a pad and paper in block letters and put it against the window to tell Mike what was up. He answered us and when we stopped again we persuaded Mr Pederick to let Wendy go in his car. When we started off we were watching Wendy through the Window and Wendy was getting horribly red. Then they dropped back for a while and the next thing we saw was Wendy and Mike no longer in the back but in the front and at first we couldn’t see Wendy but then we noticed her all snuggled up with Mike’s arm around her and her head on his shoulder. We made faces at her and gestured for her to get further apart from Mike, but the only result was that they moved even closer.

Then Al decided to show them what they should be doing so he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. He didn’t succeed! and if he ever does that again I’ll slap his face, or maybe not. The trouble with Al is that it is hard to get angry with him somehow, darn him, because I really am serious about reaching “sweet sixteen.”

When we got back to school, the softball match was practically over so I stayed to the end of that and then talked to Roger Griggs for half an house and every now and then, Al would ride past, evidently waiting to ride home with me. I managed to escape him thankfully. It’s the Old Scholar’s debate tonight, but I’m not going.

19550821 Sunday – This morning I finished my Sunday School Questions so at long last they’re out of the way and that’s the last lot, so I should be able to get down to studying for my Sunday School exams now. I hope I can get some learning done at Pinnaroo. I’ll just have to I guess. Rosalie Foster wasn’t at Sunday School today. I wonder why? I hope she’s all right. Mum told me this morning that she was speaking to Nancy and saying that I was hoping to go to school again next year and Nancy seemed really unhappy and said that she wished I wouldn’t because she was terribly lonely without me. She said that I would never be able to go anywhere with her if I am at school and she’s not. I didn’t know Nancy felt that way.

I had a talk with her after Sunday School and told her that I wouldn’t go back to school if she didn’t want me to and she seemed as pleased as any thing. At the night meeting we talked a lot. I would like to go to school again next year but if Nancy doesn’t want me to I suppose I had better not go. Besides if my results are as bad as I expect them to be then Dad probably won’t let me go anyway.

19550822 Monday – Mr Braunsthall was in a horrible mood this morning. He kept on telling me off for various things all through the lesson but then, I bet he’s feeling like a bear with a sore head after marking our exams. At eleven we left for Opera practice at the Town Hall. I got there early and scrambled into my costume and shoved the cold cream on my face so that I could get down to the make up room on time. That makeup is rotten stuff, it feels terrible, like a mud pack, though I don’t know why I should think it feels like that because I’ve never had a mud pack. Graham somehow or other persuaded Dad to let him come to the dress rehearsal and all the time he kept dashing around the stage flashing his camera. I hope he got some decent shots. The practice was terrific fun. Ron Smith and Ray Keitley excelled themselves and Andree’s broken leg was hardly noticeable. George dashed on in the last scene and sang the wrong words. Trust him. I bet he’s nervous because he knows he is likely to forget something at the performances. Tomorrow is going to be quite a day. I wonder how the school will receive the Opera. They’d better like it or else!

Continue Reading . . . Volume 1 – Chapter 20