By our second term together, I’d come to know the children well. Changes in their behaviour still often surprised me, but each child was distinguished by strong characteristics that allowed me to recognise their individuality. Because I took my instructional cues from the children, I had to pay each of them the closest attention.
Tom, now fourteen, was a born leader. Every other student adored him; if he chose to suggest any game or pastime, all the kids readily followed. He was considerate and didn’t, in any sense, abuse the position granted him by the younger ones—and they followed him all the more eagerly for that. He’d always been a source of soundness and stability within our group, and he provided a model of sensible behaviour. He chose to support any suggestion of mine and was a reliable back-up if I called on him. He volunteered to assist the younger children by listening to them read, running flashcard activities and reading aloud favourite stories. I had no doubt much of the calm, purposeful and happy air in our school was directly attributable to him. Although he didn’t take part in many class activities as a fellow pupil, he was an integral part of the student body. And he loved all of our singing, reciting and acting, so he happily joined in when he chose.
Each week Tom received a bundle of work to be completed and mailed back to his correspondence school in Sydney. Every Monday he settled in quickly and worked consistently, with concentration, at all tasks. They were designed to be self-explanatory, and our teenager was able, with very little assistance from me, to address and complete them. Usually by late Wednesday afternoon Tom would finish all the work set for the week and seek out other activities. His faraway teachers always gave him top marks.
I would have been happy for Tom to have missed school altogether some days. At home he was also successful at all the tasks asked of him and many more he volunteered to do. Modelling himself on his many older brothers, all men with the multiple skills needed in farming, he was already capable in most tasks required in the running of a sheep station. He was valuable at home, and I would have been supportive of him remaining there at times to keep learning farm work and to help his family. He, however, wanted to be at school for the entire week. He loved art, particularly drawing. Some days, having completed his set lessons, he chose to sketch elaborate farm scenes. At a staffed town high school with specialist art teachers, he may well have been able to develop this skill. All I could do was encourage him with art books I’d found in Sydney.
I also gave Tom access to plenty of current rural newspapers, which I brought back from Tamworth. He was avidly interested in reading about all things agricultural, and he discussed articles and viewpoints with me when we had the chance. Lunchtimes might be spent with the two of us on the school veranda, watching the kids at play while Tom nutted out some concepts and used me as a sounding-board.
When Tom mentioned his future, he usually said he’d be a shearer, although he had a major, longer-term ambition to be an independent landowner. Some of his older brothers were in shearing teams that travelled to properties in the west of the state and were away for long stretches. Tom said he was happy to join in that life as it would give him a good income and a chance to save for a deposit on a property of his own.
I could see Tom as a shearing contractor, running big teams of shearers and attracting solid support from graziers. Or perhaps, I thought, he could be a wool classer or surveyor, with some professional qualifications but fulfilling his plan to work outdoors. I couldn’t see him, though, having the advantage of further formal education. He wanted to be employed and to leave school when he completed his Intermediate Certificate, after turning fifteen. No doubt he would have been successful proceeding to his Leaving Certificate in a high school, then on to tertiary study at an agricultural college. But his ambitions were formed by his life experiences, and to say those were limiting his vision is just to acknowledge the realities for a boy growing up in an isolated rural area. Additionally, his father would only support him to stay at school until he was fifteen.
The eldest primary children were our four Grade Fives, a gang of three girls and a boy.
Debbie, Tom’s little sister, was an aunt to Mike, Phil and Charlie O’Callaghan. She was similar to her brother in many ways: she had the same stocky shape, and was just as quiet and calm. Also like Tom, she carried herself with an upright posture and gave the appearance of strength, even though she was only eleven.
Debbie had instinctive motherly qualities and gave wonderful support to the younger kids, in whose progress she was interested. With her two female classmates, Vickie and Lindie, she had strong friendships and spent a lot of time chatting. She was a joiner, not a leader.
Academically, Debbie performed all tasks in a reasonable manner, and I had no concerns for her development. She was an able reader but might just as easily choose to do craft work. She told me she saw herself in later life as a mother, caring for a home and family. I’d no doubt she would be a very successful mum, but I also thought she would have made a fine nurse or paramedic or any of such health occupations open to women.
Vickie and Lindie were opposites. Vickie was tall, very fair and willowy, while Lindie was shorter, darker and chubby. Vickie was an introvert, quiet and reserved, while Lindie was the most extroverted of all the kids, noisy and quick in all she did. Vickie needed considerable input from me to maintain academic progress, while Lindie mastered most goals with relative ease. Vickie I never heard laugh aloud—although, on occasion, the most appealing subdued titter would break through her natural reserve. Lindie, though, was quite capable of a real guffaw, giggled a lot and almost always presented a lively countenance to her mates.
When talking quietly with me, Vickie spoke of her happiness in spending time just with her mum as they carried out household tasks. Vickie knitted and sewed, crocheted and cooked, practising all the usual feminine skills of the time. She and her mother, Molly, also did some more unusual craft activities, such as soap-, quilt- and rug-making. Their home was almost buried in the bush and quite separate from the others. I gathered the family spent a lot of time in each other’s company, seldom venturing out. They never attended the tennis parties, and I can recall seeing Molly on only one occasion apart from the times she attended school functions with her husband. I seldom saw Vickie’s father, Dan, in the village and never in conversation with the other men.
The more outgoing Lindie came from a sheep property, but she wasn’t isolated. Her father, Vic, was a lay preacher ministering to a circle of rural churches, so she often spoke of Sunday trips away from home where she met people outside the Weabonga community. Lindie enjoyed these outings and would include them in her stories during written composition periods. She was eager for new challenges and would react positively to suggestions made by me or her classmates.
These three Grade Five girls spent time together at recess and lunch, although they often joined in games with the others. They were happy together but never exclusive, and their male classmate, Jack, was always totally accepted as part of their group in the schoolroom. They supported each other in lessons, and seldom gave me cause to suggest they might get back to work and keep the chitchat for a later time.
Jack still chose to sit slightly away from the three girls with his desk alongside theirs. My initial concern that he might become isolated was never realised, as he was always chatting with the others about lessons and schoolwork. When I spent time instructing their grade, Jack would sit alongside one of the girls so that I could speak to them quietly and avoid distracting the others, but he would return quickly to his own desk.
Jack seemed significantly more mature than the Grade Four boys, who were only a year younger. He was more composed, more focused at times, more likely to think before acting and less spontaneous, all qualities that assisted him with academic activities.
Jack had struck up a good friendship with Tom, and they often spent time together at recess and lunch. Sometimes on weekends they’d go camping, just the two of them; they’d ride out into the wilderness, as they described for us a few times. But at school Jack was just as likely to kick a ball around with the younger group as he was to talk to the teenager.
However, although Jack socialised well, there was a slight air of disconnection about him that had contributed to my first apprehension that he might become isolated. I continued to carry a small concern, my mind quietly insisting that as a teacher I should be especially attentive to Jack and mindful of his needs.
One afternoon when I called in to the post office to make a phone call, I was surprised to find an older man serving: it had always before been Sue, Jack and Steve’s mum, who’d attended at the counter.
I’d met the older chap only once previously and then just briefly after the one Sunday mass I’d attended at the little Catholic chapel, so he reminded me of his name. ‘I’m Tim Bourke,’ he coached, ‘but call me Tim—always just Tim.’
To have come across a village resident just twice in six months was illustrative, I thought, of the lack of contact between the locals. If folk didn’t attend the Sunday tennis, I was unlikely to have seen them. How disconcerting to be isolated from fellow residents in an already isolated village.
I judged Tim to be in his early seventies. We got to talking, and he explained he’d been the postmaster since the 1940s but his daughter, Sue, now managed the PO, as he was retired.
Weeks later, when I came across Tim at the PO once again and we got to chatting companionably, he told me more about his family. ‘Jack and Steve’s father, David, has separated from Sue. He lives somewhere around the north of the state but he’s not in contact with the boys. They haven’t seen or spent any time with their dad for more than a year. I opened up my house for my daughter and grandkids. They’ve made their home with me, and I love having them. I was quite lonely on my own.’ The boys, from what I observed, had a close and comfortable relationship with their grandad.
Tim and I got along well, and sometimes we’d sit together on the PO veranda in the late afternoon, sharing a warm bottle of beer while we spoke. I got used to unchilled beer but never developed a liking for it, although the retired postmaster said he preferred it.
During one conversation, he divulged that, ‘Dave, the boys’ father, is an Aborigine.’
Both boys were fair and resembled their mother, and it hadn’t been at all obvious to me they had Aboriginal heritage. I silently reflected that most white people found something a bit shocking about a white woman having kids with an Aboriginal man, and I remembered efforts I’d seen people make to downplay the Aboriginal antecedents of a child. I was familiar with chatter about ‘half-castes’ and ‘quarter-castes’, and such children were often pejoratively dubbed ‘tar babies’ or said to have ‘a touch of the tar’.
Sue never spoke to me about the boys’ father, so I learnt nothing further.
Casual racism and xenophobia were common and all around me. All my life, outside of my home, I’d heard derogatory and dismissive terms being freely used. New migrants, for example, were called ‘reffos’ or ‘wogs’, and mocked for behaviour such as carrying lunch in a briefcase to a labouring job.
Racism was blatantly directed against Aboriginal people, whom whites often referred to as ‘blacks’, ‘abos’ or ‘boongs’. Aborigines weren’t even counted in any census of Australian citizens: officially they weren’t considered people fit to be registered by the government. In such circumstances it didn’t surprise me that my fellow white Australians frequently exhibited racism with an easy-going, off-hand, flippant attitude. For many of them, Indigenous people weren’t quite human but lesser beings.
A lesson I learnt at the age of eleven has stayed with me always. When I commenced high school, I travelled each day from my Kensington home to the Marist Brothers college in Darlinghurst, by tram along Anzac Parade. My stop was on the lines that ran to Maroubra and La Perouse, and sometimes Aboriginal people from the La Perouse community were passengers.
One afternoon, at Taylor Square in Darlinghurst, I began to board a La Perouse tram to travel home. It was an older-style ‘toast rack’ carriage, with many doors. Adults in front of me were stepping into a compartment—and then, suddenly, they backed out and scurried to another entry. I continued to board. In that compartment, the truth struck me: Aboriginal people were seated there, and the white adults had chosen, very deliberately, not to sit with them.
I can still remember the shock and distress that overcame me as an eleven-year-old. For the first time, I realised that adults couldn’t always be trusted to act in the best interests of others. Suddenly and powerfully I knew that adults could be dangerous. Nothing in my home or my schooling had prepared me for this lesson in racism. It was a turning point in my life and, perhaps, the beginning of my growth towards mature understanding. But even at that young age, I knew what I’d seen was wrong and could never be accepted. Racism was inexplicable and abhorrent to my eleven-year-old conscience and has remained despicable to me always.
On some quiet Sundays my mother would take my brother, sister and me on an excursion by tram to La Perouse. There, the Aboriginal snake pit man would be in action, revealing and handling a variety of black, brown and tiger snakes as well as many death adders. Other Aboriginal people would be selling arts and crafts: everything from shell Harbour Bridges and slippers to finely engraved boomerangs. Sometimes we would walk along the foreshore. Above Yarra Bay, the next cove along, was an impressive large house; my mum said it was Yarra Bay House, a home for orphaned Aboriginal children. I was saddened for those kids—I couldn’t think how awful it would be to lose one’s parents. But when I said I wanted to offer them comfort, my mother told me we couldn’t visit them.
When Tim told me of his grandsons, Jack and Steve, and their Aboriginal heritage, all my sensibilities were alerted—especially as ‘Weabonga’ is an Aboriginal word, and I presumed this meant the place had an extensive Aboriginal history. I hoped the two boys could be proud of their patrimony and comfortable with their identities. If I could assist them as their teacher, I was determined to do so.
After that chat with Tim I spent even more time with Jack, ensuring he felt included in everything, and that he had many chances to talk about himself and his ideas and wishes. My own wish was for him to have the best possible opportunities that schooling could offer. In my interactions with him, I wasn’t trying to be a counsellor, psychologist or social worker, as that wasn’t my role; I did what I thought was appropriate, as a teacher, to facilitate his development and happiness. I figured that success in schoolwork would help him open up to other experiences and possibilities in life.
All four of the Grade Fives were amenable and willing in their interactions with me and with their school tasks. They quickly learnt that they were free to make decisions about several matters, such as the order in which to do a morning’s activities, and their selection of materials for craft work, subjects for written narratives, books to read for pleasure and so on. As we progressed through the first year together, I came to leave a growing number of decisions open to them; never once did they betray my confidence.
In Grade Five there are challenging skills to learn in language and maths. Imagine trying to bring long division of pounds, shillings and pence under control; just try to solve a long division of 320 pounds, five shillings and five pence by thirty-five. Imagine having to form perfect paragraphs, each with a topic sentence, in a story or description.
Our Grade Five group always did their best. I could challenge them to include in their stories a sentence commencing with a past or present participle and another beginning with an adverbial phrase, and all could do so. I could ask them to construct a circle with a radius of three inches, showing segmentation with four right-angled triangles, and all could do so. And I could ask that they conduct the Grade Twos in a flashcard-reading exercise; they could all do so, and enjoyed the opportunity to be in charge and of assistance. They took to their role as the senior students with pride and responsibility.