A big change

A big change came about for us in life style after that Parramatta interlude and strangely enough my recollection of life from then on are mych clearer. With the retirement of my grandfather  from Parramatta gaol, they bought a house at Eastwood, ( 5 Wentworth Road Eastwood) and so we could no longer live with them. My mother was able then to rent a house, also at Eastwood, No 2 Campbell Street, for the princely sum of 10 shillings and six’pence per week. I’m sure that that rental amount was correct and the house was owned by a M. Frericks. The rental sum being correct, it left my mother with seventeen shillings and sixpence with which to raise five children and buy food etc. It was five children again because once we left my mothers parents brother Jack came back to live with us. It was also probably at about this time that my father was bought out from Gladstone dairy and he went to Moss Vale to start his own dairy farm. When my parents separated the Parramatta Court decided that my father was to pay  1.7.6 Pounds ( one pound seven shillings and sixpence) per week to my mother to support her and her five children. My mother was required to collect this maintenance money each fortnight from the Parramatta Courthouse and for the next few years she would travel across to Parramatta by bus each fortnight to collect this pitiful amount of money that my father was required to pay in regularly. As far as I know my mothers parents were unable to assist her financially or did not want to, but they were buying their (10) house on mortgage and I don’t expect that my grandfathers pension was all that much in those days. I do know that years later after the death of my grandmother and when that house was sold, there was still money owing on the mortgage. My mother had never had to work in her life and consequently hand never had any work training and so at this time of her life she was unable to go out and find herself a job. Very few middle aged women worked in those days also. My grandfather  Collett had died just after we left our father and went to live at Bathurst. No doubt mother would have received assistance from Gladstone dairy, financial assistance that is, but I believe that pride or whatever, would have stopped her from doing that. In years to come she would not even ask her own parents for assistance. So we did not have much money. However it must have been about this time that jean started working*( Timbrol chemical Co.) and if she did or did not help with the finances she would have been able to support herself. Jack was still going to school and must have attended Eastwood Boys Super Primary school for about two years. He would then have left school and I recall that he got a job serving behind the counter in a hard ware store in Rowe St Eastwood. Jean worked in the office of a chemical factory at Rhodes. Later on she was to work in a solicitors office in Sydney. It would have been late 1935 or early 1936 that we went to Eastwood to live. whatever the date, I took myself to Eastwood Primary School and enrolled myself at the Principals (11) office. His name was Wilson. Because I was on my own and answered his questions in an intelligent manner, he placed me in class 3A. I don’t recall what time of the year it was and so I don’t know if I spent a full year or how much of the year in 3A . I had a few woman teacher for that class, Miss Fraser she was the only female teacher in the boys only primary school. The girls primary school was separated from the boys as was the infants school. Separated again from them was the boys only super Primary school. This section was the equivalent of first and second years of High school but reserved mainly for boys who were nor really bright enough to go straight on to High School after completing Primary School. They did two years there at Eastwood and if they showed signs of improving intelligence they went on to third year High School to do their Intermediate Certificate. Most boys who went on from there went either to Homebush Boys High School or Hornsby Boys High School. Co-ed schools were unheard of in those days. Odd boys from Eastwood did make it to Fort Street Boys High in Sydney and if you made it to there you were really intelligent (?). My sister Doreen went from Eastwood Girls Primary to Hornsby girls high school. She travelled Eastwood to Hornsby and back each day by train . The Super Primary school for boys at Eastwood, did not have the equivalent for girls. When Daphne went on to high school, she went to Ashfield Girls High. This was a school for girls of higher intelligence. Hornsby girls High was (12) more a girls school that concentrated on Domestic Home Science skills in those days. It was really a dreadful education system by to-days standards, that existed for children in the public school system. If you displayed intelligence you went to a higher standard of school than those students who were unable to display the same qualities. From Miss Frazer’s 3A class I went on to 4A and the teacher there was Mr Slaght ( don’t know the spelling but pronounced SLART.) I seemed to do well enough in 4A coming third in the class at the end of year examination. So I went onto 5A. Here I struck a bad teacher, bad for me, and no doubt bad for many other boys. He was a bit of a sadist who had the habit of grabbing a boys nose between a couple of fingers and pressing with his thumb. Manys the time that he brought tears to my eyes from a twisted nose. Unable to recall his name which is probably significant, but he disliked me and once that was obvious my attention level must have dropped because I didn’t do so well in 5A. Not having much money and still at Primary School I was probably the child that went without the most. Quite frequently I would be allowed to go to school without shoes, and in those days that was a sign of poverty. I’m sure that the teachers did not appreciate my appearance and tended to disregard my presence maybe, I don’t know. It was always and embarrassment when the teacher would go though the class and ask each boy in turn “and what does your father do?” I would always have to say “that my father doesn’t live at home with us”.(13) I’m not sure but I think that my year in 5A was 1939. Of course that was the year that World War 2 started and it must have been about the time that Daphne died. That was a bad time for us. It seems as if Daphne was sick for some time and she was in Parramatta Hospital I think when she died. For some reason I was never to visit Daphne in hospital and I’m sure that it was my grandmothers influence that prevented me from even attending her funeral. Daphne was buried at Rookwood Cemetery. She was a lovely girl and I understand from a letter of condolence from the Ashfield girls high school principal that she was popular at school. Also during the early parts of 1939 brother jack was getting to be a bit wild. Had left School, was working and had some money and I think was starting to mix with some wrong (?) sorts of boys. Just before the outbreak of war he enlisted in the navy, mainly at the behest and direction of his father. So that was two children gone from 2 Campbell ST by the end of 1939. AT my age then Daphne’s death and absence did not seem to influence my life. But it must have been having a bad effect on my mother. She was obviously not a “fighter” and various events must have had a bad effect on her. We still didn’t have much money and frequently when I came home from school at lunch time there was nothing in the house to eat or very little. My mother would give me six pence and tell me to go to the butchers for six ? of dripping so that we would have something to put on our bread, there being no butter. (14) There was no sewerage to the houses in that part of Eastwood in those days. The toilet was outside the house and each week the night cart would come around and change over the metal fan that served each house hold. It was always a problem also if the pan filled before it was due or time for change over. Sixth class at Eastwood always consisted of three grades A B and C for the boys. Those in the A class usually went on to High School as did perhaps half of the B class. The other half of B class and generally all of C class, went to the Super Primary school. They did first and second years there at Eastwood. From 5A  I went  into 6B and it was here that I came up against a teacher who really turned me off school and learning for the rest of my school days. George Wallace was a strict disciplinary and I expect that by to-days standards was not a good teacher. I always felt that he resented me from the first day that I entered his class. I cannot recall a single day passing at school that year that I was not caned on the hands by him. Sometimes two or three times a day. The song went “Georgy Wallace Common noun parse him up and parse him down, neuter gender, common case, governed by his ugly face.” I was not the only boy on whom he took out his frustrations. There were several of us and I expect that we all had something in common that didn’t meet with his approval. At the end of sixth class we were required to sit for our QC exam. The results of this exam took the student (15) on to a good high school or else he floundered. For some reason I don’t know but I was not permitted to do the QC exam. I remember being told by Wallace to go stand out in the corridor whilst the other boys did the exam. From memory there may have been one other boy out in the corridor. But at the time I expect that I thought that this was good because I got out of doing the exam. But by not doing the QC I was guaranteed entry into the Super Primary grade there at Eastwood. By the end of that year the sewerage was going on to houses about Campbell ST and near by streets and so that meant the end of our residence at No 2 Campbell ST. It cost the landlord or house holder money to have the sewer connected and therefore the rents were increased. So at that time we had to shift and we moved to a place, I think it was No 23 in Clanwilliam St. just a couple of blocks up from where we were. It was a semi detached house that is two houses in one with a common divider wall but with separate entrances and yards. Don’t know who the landlord was. But it was only a two bedroom residence with a dining room and kitchen with the laundry cum bath room out the back. The toilet was under the back veranda. The back of the house was elevated. Of course there was only four of us then and Doreen shared Mothers bed and I shared the other bedroom with Jean. Of course Jean was a teenager growing up then and I’m sure that she resented having to share the bedroom with me. Those conditions lasted (16) for the next few years. A Mr. Clout became the next principle of Eastwood Boys School. The girls school had their own woman principle of the Super Primary School. Here we  were to undertake the higher education subjects such as algebra geometry science music wood work business principles and short hand  for one subject a week in 2nd form. Also maths 1, English, Geography and History. The same two teachers took us for all subjects except science and woodwork and shorthand. These two male teachers were Mr Arthur Knight and Mr Mc Zuirter. We had received no preparation for any of these new subjects prior to 1st form therefore much of it was like starting to learn all over again. Without the students realising it I expect, no doubt the 2nd World War was starting to have an  affect on education generally.