Memories by JOHN DAVIDSON

These are John Davidson's memories and photos of 1959/60 at Kempsey High School. They are sure to bring back some thoughts of days gone by.

Raised on a dairy farm on Plummers Lane Clybucca, about 2 km in from the then Pacific Highway. I, along with others caught Hartleys Stuarts Point Bus Service at "Humpty Back” Bridge at the junction of Plummers Lane with the Pacific Highway after walking from home. The bus trip to KHS took about 40 minutes, a few minutes longer for the trip home as the bus stopped briefly at a shop in Frederickton where those that wished to could buy an ice cream or an icy pole.

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One of the feature activities 60 years ago was the Annual KHS Athletics Carnival. This one-day event was held for the last time at the Eden Street Oval downtown, since the new KHS oval was then not yet quite complete. The weather was great on Wednesday 12 August, 1959. The Carnival was an inter-house event as well as awarding individual boys’ and girls' results for Senior, Intermediate, Junior and Juvenile divisions. Girls, sports were 75, 100 and 220 yds flat races, skipping, high jump, and orange race. Girls’ Tunnel Ball, Captain Ball and Relay were contested by House teams. Boys’ sports were 100, 220, 440, 880 yds and mile flat races, high jump, long jump and the House team events were the relay and tug-o-war. Kipling House easily retained the Athletics Shield on the day.

Captain Ball with Mr & Mrs Gray in the foreground

Tunnel Ball

Boy's flat race.

Group at the Athletics Carnival in 1959. Includes Don Brown, Lenore Debenham, Janette Nixon, Rodney Coleman, Judy Knauer and if others can be identified, please let us know.

In 1960 the Athletics Carnival moved to the new KHS Memorial Oval. In the background on the left are two tennis courts, on the right cricket practise wickets, the grey building was the Home Science building completed in 1956, on the right is part of the line up of pairs of “portable/temporary” classrooms (some six buildings in a row in all) which were there when I started and long outlasted my time at KHS. The original two-storey building with chimneys is over at the back. (Each classroom in that building had an open fire place that was never used, even in winter!)

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In 1959 - 60 in addition to the more formal school socials we organised a number of private dance parties that were held in church halls or at private homes with minimal parental supervision. Here is a selection of photographs from those times.

Janette Nixon & Barry Blight

Laurel Younger & Barry Blight

Heather Greenstreet & Harry Carter

Jan Saul, Gerry Beatty, Peter Cooke, Avril Greenstreet, Pam Donald, Peter McKellar, Rosemary Dash & Bob Jackson.

Leslie Campbell, Roger Waters & Ian McDonald

Barry Saul, Bob Barnett, Ian McDonald, Pam Robinson, Leslie Campbell, Barry Smith, Laurel Younger, Lenore Debenham and in front, Janette Nixon.

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KHS held annual swimming carnivals at the McElhone Memorial Pool downtown. All students each had to bring a penny to pass through the pool turnstiles.

The carnivals were held in February and were both for individual achievement and for inter-house competition. The photographs are from a sunny 25 February 1959. Almost every student in the school participated in some 250 events that day no matter what their skill level was in getting into the water (as shown in some of the photographs)! Coloured cloth caps were introduced that year to identify participants according to Houses (Blue for Barrie, White for Kipling, Green for Lawson and Yellow for Masefield) and therefore encourage barracking for the swimmers from the sidelines. The House Champion on the day was Lawson, followed by Kipling, Barrie and Masefield.

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For some unknown reason I was appointed School Timekeeper and Bell Ringer for 1960. It may have been because I was one of the few pupils who wore an accurate wrist watch and at the same time was tall enough to reach the switch for the electric bell that was located high on the internal wall of the west entrance vestibule to the original two-storey building. My watch was manually wound (well before button batteries) and I checked it was on correct time each morning before I left home against the 7.00 AM hourly time signal beeps that used to be broadcast by radio stations.

The school back then nominally ran on eight 40-minute periods per day, three in the morning before Recess, two between Recess and Lunch and three after Lunch. The normal morning start was three bells one minute apart: First bell 0903 AM, students go and line up outside classrooms (or outside at the bottom of the stairs of the two-storey building). Second bell 0904 AM, students file into classrooms (or file upstairs in the two storey building). Third bell 0905 AM first period starts. 0945 AM single longish bell for changeover to second period (time was lost by some classes between periods if they had to change rooms, no allowance was made for this). 10.25 AM a longish bell signals change from period two to period three. 11.05 AM longish bell signals break for Morning Recess.

On most days Morning Recess was followed by a School Assembly which I signalled with three quick successive bells at 11.18 AM. This Assembly was run by Mr Berriman (my Maths teacher for all five years), conducted from a small raised dais in front of the Gas/Boiler Shed with classes drawn up in lines on the brick paved courtyard between the tuckshop block and the main building, first years at the front, fifth years at the back. Mr Berriman, military style, called the students to “attention" then stood them “at ease”. At the end of Assembly students were “dismissed” to proceed directly to class. On the rare occasions when there was no Assembly required, Mr Berriman previously let me know, and I would ring a normal three bell sequence at 11.18, 11.19 and 11.20 AM to start fourth period. (There were always some students not paying attention who proceeded to line up for Assembly until prompted by their fellows that they should be elsewhere!)

12.00 noon was the changeover bell for fourth to fifth period. The lunch bell was rung at 12.40 PM. A single long bell was rung in the middle of the lunch break at 1.05 PM, this started a period of lunchtime detention for those students caught up in that disciplinary measure, as well, on Wednesdays, it signalled permission to move to sporting locations, many off the school grounds, for the Wednesday weekly sports afternoon.

On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at the end of Lunch, three spaced bells at 1.28, 1.29 and 1.30 PM started off sixth period. Sixth to seventh period changeover was at 2.10 PM and seventh to eighth at 2.50 PM. I ended the school day with a longish bell at 3.30 PM.

Just after the 1.05 PM bell at lunch time on a Wednesday. Students in the girls' half of the playground begin to disperse to their sports venues for the afternoon. On the left is the girls’ (Western) end of the building housing the tuckshop, weathershed, drinking water bubblers and washbasins. In the rear is the brick replacement girls’ ablution and toilet block completed in 1956 (The boys’ toilet block was not updated during the time I was at KHS and remained a rather dark, dirty and unpleasant place). Over the back are three of the portable/temporary classroom buildings. Note there is not a backpack in sight! Belongings back then were carried either in leather briefcases or in brown Globite “ports” of various sizes (the size usually increased from first year to fifth year!).

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KHS TUCKSHOP

M J Duke’s Newsagency and Shop across from the School on the south-west corner of the Broughton Street and Sea Street intersection had the franchise to operate the tuckshop on the School grounds. This was located in the middle of the sheltershed building and as it sat on the dividing line between the boys’ and girls’ playgrounds served over two separate counters to both sides.

Hot meat pies were the main fare, freshly delivered at lunch time. Apple pies, cream buns, packets of peanuts and potato crisps, icecreams, icy poles and lollies were sold. There were no restrictions on what was sold, the tuckshop was a complete extension of what was sold in the Duke’s main store.

There was line up for service and often items like the hot meat pies ran out before those at the back of the line who wanted them could get to the counter. I often missed out early on since our A Class was frequently released well after the bell. I adopted the strategy of arriving in the morning at Hartley’s bus stop at the side entrance to the school on Sea Street then rushing over to Dukes store and place a sandwich order for lunch. On the same form one could also order pies, cream buns etc and pre-pay for the lot. Then I retraced my steps to enter into the school grounds.

At lunch time the named packets of sandwiches would be laid out on the left side of the tuckshop counter and just before opening the extras such as the hot meat pies would be added from the general stock, so one could not miss out. In addition, a prefect was rostered to call out names for the sandwiches, or if one was late, just roll up to claim one's lunch without having to wait in the general line.

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KHS RIFLE SHOOTING TEAM

The School had a 50yd rifle range in the gully just south of the portable buildings, a facility that would not be countenanced these days. A School rifle shooting team was drawn from the School Army Cadet Core who regularly practised on the range. The rifles used were army issue Lee-Enfield 0.303 in calibre that had a calibre conversion sleeve fitted in the barrel so that 0.22 in calibre ammunition could be chambered and fired as single shots.

Rifle shooting was one of the sports included in the Coleman Shield competition between Kempsey and Taree High Schools. In Winter 1960 we were on our home range and narrowly defeated the Taree team 353 points to 352, helping to return the Coleman Shield to Kempsey in 1960 for the first time in four years.

KHS Rifle Shooting Team 1960. From left J Davidson, J Smith and C Brenton. We represented the School in our Cadet uniforms, but instead of a khaki tie wore our red and blue KHS ties.

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LEAVING CERTIFICATE 1960

John (on the left) and classmates read telegrams of best wishes received at the School and posted on a notice board. This photograph taken a few minutes before filing in at 9.00 AM to sit for the first English Paper of the 1960 Leaving Certificate. (Photograph: The Macleay Argus)

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5A/5B LAST DAY AT SCHOOL BREAKUP PARTY 1960

Peter Chadwick

Mr Mulheron & Mr Hilton.

Those of us that were left to join the breakup party on the day (plus me behind the camera). Many final year students had already left the School prior to this, there was really not much to be gained by staying on for after they had sat their final Leaving Certificate paper.

Don Brown & Cam Abood - The after-party cleanup!

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MY LIFE AFTER KHS

1961: "Gap year", spent working on the farm at Clybucca; applied for and awarded a 5-year Australian Department of Territories Cadetship in Forestry that would lead to a post of Forest Officer in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

1962 - 1964: On the Cadetship at the University of New England, Armidale; awarded BSc Degree with a major in Botany.

1965 - early 1967: On the Cadetship at the Australian Forestry School and the Department of Forestry Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, graduated BSc (Forestry) (Honours). (Meanwhile had married Gloria from Armidale in December 1965)

1967 - 1969: Forest Officer (Research), Keravat, near Rabaul, New Britain, PNG.

1969 - 1972: PhD studies, ANU, working on a PNG forest tree species.

1972 - 1975: Forest Research Officer, Bulolo, PNG; rising through the ranks to OIC Silviculture, then OIC Forest Research Station, Bulolo.

1976 - 1978: Foundation Professor and Chairman of the Department of Forestry, Papua New Guinea University of Technology (PNGUT), Lae, PNG.

1979 - early 1980: Pro Vice Chancellor, PNGUT

Early 1980: left PNG to live in Armidale, NSW.

1982 - 1984: Senior Forest Officer, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

1985 - 2005: Principal and Consultant in two forestry and environment consultancy businesses operating out of Armidale with projects in Australia and in over 20 other countries, including Bangladesh, Bhutan and Ethiopia.

2005 - 2009: Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra, advising Australian Government on land, forestry and environmental matters.

August 2009 onwards: “Semi-retirement” in Armidale.

2011: Gloria and I moved from Armidale to Berwick, an eastern suburb of Melbourne. (Our son and daughter and two grandchildren are nearby.)

2011 - present: Retired, editing and writing for forestry publications, writing up experiences, digitising thousands of photographs and 100s of feet of 8mm movie film. Still making model aircraft as a hobby that I have pursued since the early 1950s.

John has since found a program for the 5th Year Farewell of 1959: