John and Viv Parker 1963-1965

Munglinup? Where is Munglinup? This was my initial thought upon receipt of my notice of transfer from Tingledale Primary School to Munglinup in December 1962.

In those days the Munglinup district was very new and I was soon to find out that not many people knew where it was! My first recourse was to the Post Office in Albany. "Sorry Mr Parker, we've never heard of the place" was their response. Undaunted, I decided to try the Albany office of the Mains Roads Department. They couldn't help me either! By now the alarm bells were ringing loud and clear. Just where was the Education Department sending us? As a last resort I contacted Mr Chapple, my District Superintendent. Mr Chapple laughed and laughed when he heard my request. Sure enough he knew where Munglinup was. At Tingledale I was perched on the extreme Western edge of Mr Chapple's School District and Munglinup, of course, was on the extreme Eastern edge!

Two years earlier, when I had been driving my Mother back to Perth from Esperance, I noticed the little bush school on the side of the road and expressed my sympathy for the teacher appointed "way out here". Little did I know that just a short time later that teacher would be me.

Viv, the dog and I arrived on one of the hottest days I can remember, to find that the removalists had placed all of our furniture together in the lounge room of the quarters. As noted above we had come from Tingledale where the horizon was about twenty metres away, at the base of the nearest Karri tree, and now here we were at Munglinup where standing on the front verandah we could see forever! The combination of the pile of furniture, the heat and the vastness of the surroundings was at the time very deflating.

As it turned out we had arrived with a little more time to spare before the start of the school year than we had anticipated. In those days the Education Department considered Munglinup School to be in the Eastern Goldfields. These schools started a week later than the others after the Christmas holidays! We put the extra few days to good use and by the time school started the house was sorted out, we'd been in to Esperance shopping and got to know the Compagnoni's who could not do enough to make us feel welcome.

In the beginning the nearest souls living to us at the school were the Compagnoni's at "Newleigh" five miles away.The Segedin's had not yet moved into their shed and we were really worried about where the school children would be coming from. Sure enough on that first day the Giles "school bus" (their family car) arrived, bringing the children from the South and West and cars arrived from "Newleigh" and "Torradup". Three very happy and rewarding years had begun for Viv and me!

Teaching at Munglinup in those days was quite a challenge.The district was very new with families moving in from every state of Australia. I think at the time apart from us there was only one other West Australian family in the district! Each state's education system was just a little different from the others and the first job was to find where individual children fitted in to our Western Australian system. I'm sure mistakes where made and things did not always work out as well as I'd have wished, but on the whole the children did very well and enjoyed their time at school.

We enjoyed many highlights during our time. A selection of them were :-

- Viv, a trained Nursing Sister became the local Silver Chain Nurse and a Flying Doctor Radio was installed to give us communication with the outside world. What a wonderful service the RFDS radio was. Suddenly would could access medical advice as well as being able to communicate by telegram with anyone we liked!

- Inter School sporting visits to Ravensthorpe, Lake King and others.

- Visits for Religous Instruction by Rev Denis Bryant, Esperance's Anglican Rector, who always had a supply of sweets for the children.

- The installation of a power plant supplying electricity to the school and the house.

- Film evenings at the school greatly appreciated by everyone as TV had not arrived in the area at that stage.

- Weekend tennis and hospitality at "Newleigh".

- The arrival of the weekly truck from Esperance carrying supplies, mail, newspapers and fresh bread!

- The arrival of the Murison family, closely followed by the telephone service!

- The arrival of our first child - David John - a very special event in our lives!

- The P&C's woolshed balls at "Torradup".

School numbers continued to grow apace as more and more families moved in to the district. By midway through my third year I was struggling with approximately 35 children in seven grades. Accordingly I called upon the Department to provide me with an assistant. Unfortunatley as accommodation for an extra teacher was difficult to find due to the fact that almost all families were living in temporary, make-do accommodation, I was asked if I would be prepared to swap positions with a husband and wife teaching team before being given another one teacher school the following year. This I agreed to, so we moved out at the end of second term 1965, to be replaced by Doug Fong and his wife.

If our arrival at Munglinup had been tinged with uncertainty and apprehension, our departure for us was a very sad and emotional time. We were leaving behind many good friends and an area we genuinely loved. On the other hand we took with us many happy memories which have stayed with us ever since.

Written by John and Viv Parker. Thanks to Viv Parker.