General News
22 June, 2024
When school days meant students on cleaning duty
After celebrating her 100th birthday on March 5, Dorothy Gosling gave us permission to reproduce parts of her memoir My Memories of Bygone Days, which she published in 2003. As you will read in this piece, and other snippets we share in the Rainbow Argus, life back then was different from life as we know it now. From the education system and basic necessities to entertainment - everything was a lot harder, and many of today's norms were luxuries unheard of.
I was born at Rainbow on March 5, 1924 to Paul and Hedwig (née Wenzlau) Roll.
I grew up on the farm three miles south of Yaapeet with my mother and four brothers: Eric, Norm, Cecil and Bert.
I was the youngest of the family.
My father was excited with a daughter after having four sons and to celebrate he went out and bought a new Dodge car - a big step up from the horse and buggy.
Sadly, my father died of cancer when I was only 18 months old, so my mother was left to run the farm and bring up a family on her own.
I attended Galanungah State School, which was about three miles from home.
The youngest of my brothers, Bert, and I either walked, rode a horse or went by horse and buggy.
Going to school in a gig or buggy was very cold on frosty mornings.
To beat the cold we would get out, hang onto the back of the gig and run until we warmed up, taking it in turns while the other drove the horse.
Sometimes when the trip got a bit boring we would break down a big tree branch, tie it to the back, sit on it and be dragged along - a bit rough on the clothes and on our bottoms.
We all went to Galanungah but my three oldest brothers had left school by the time I started.
In those days the students had to help with cleaning the school.
Two of the girls swept the floor after school and came to school early enough the next morning to do the dusting.
The boys were responsible for cleaning out the toilet pans.
They would dig a hole, dispose of the contents of the pan and bury it.
Ink wells had to be filled every Monday morning.
These jobs were assigned on a roster system.
Country schools has eight grades and only one teacher who taught all grades in one room.
At school our main games were rounders, hopscotch, tennis, kick the tin, crows and cranes, “What’s The Time, Mr Wolf?”, and colours.
Sometimes during the dinner hour (as we called it) we would get our horses from the stables and have races around the footy oval until the teacher came out and put a stop to it.
Most of the teachers had a strap and would not hesitate to use it if they thought a misbehaving student deserved it.
I can remember a time when the boys got it out of the teacher’s desk, cut it up with their pocket knives and threw the bits up into the school sprouting.
- DOROTHY GOSLING.