adrian boddy
Class Photo 1955
In Praise of the School Photograph.
Chadstone Park Primary School’s Class of 1955:
Behind the smiling faces.
Jon Hore, Michael Devlin, Alan Ekstrom, John Amos, John Stokes, Ian Lummis, Tony Wright, John Scholes
Althea Peddle, Maureen?, Sandra Bishop, Shirley Veale, Wendy Bailey, Janet Page, Janice Armstrong, Margaret Simpson, Beverley Pryde,
Brenda Allen, Faye Coles, Georgina Hyslop, Diane Davies, Mr Bennett, ??, Helen Barlow, Jillian Anderson, Carol Pope,Faye?.
Peter Fisher, Paul Vaughn, ?? , Tommy Doughton, Michael Talbot, Adrian Boddy
School Photographs: students participate with reluctance, parents feel they ‘must have’ them, at least for grandparents and posterity. Love ‘em or hate ‘em — they have been around for a very long time — and probably will continue to be part of family memorabilia into the foreseeable future.
No doubt our 1955 class photograph is deeply resonant to those depicted — even more so in retrospect. It’s 57 years since the photographer gathered the young Year Four students of Chadstone Park Primary School before his tripod and camera. Despite this lapse in time, the appeal of his work remains quite intense — evoking humour, wonder and even a sense of mortality. Looking carefully at photographs can be quite revealing. Here are some thoughts:
Contemporary viewers might be quite shocked about our teacher : student ratio — 1 : 32 and there are a few absentees. Teachers’ ‘assistants’ were unheard of apart from religious instruction — which wasn’t a ‘formal’ part of the academic curriculum. Hardship in the workplace is relative. In the late 40s ratios of 1 : 60 in the Victorian public school system were quite common!
Even in the 50s, the teacher’s personality and demeanor seemed deeply significant. For example: Miss Maguire (in the previous year 3) is remembered as a severe old-maid (read: ‘crabby’) who would send the boys to the Headmaster for what she saw the slightest misconduct; Mr Hatter, on the other hand, was kindly-smiling gent, interested in mental arithmetic and art; Mr Bennett, depicted, was a ‘sports nut’, a celebrity amongst many, and just about nothing to the rest of us. I guess it has ever been thus — no teacher can be everything to everyone; to find a teacher who inspires learning and respects the children (over and above the system) remains one of those precious encounters with good fortune.
Despite the large numbers of children, classes seemed well-structured and generally happy places. Learning was the main purpose and this was never in doubt. Spelling, grammar, arithmetic, art and reading were all the responsibility of the one teacher. Homework was a dreaded ‘extra’. All facets were ‘corrected’ in red pencil and each week the class was re-ranked from top to bottom. The ‘good’ pupils sat in rows to the left and the ‘bad’ ones to the right — as the teacher looked out onto the sea of faces from his/her raised platform. Thus, hierarchy was ever emphasized: the teacher’s table was located above the student’s desks, and the distinction of ‘good’ from ‘dumb’ students was never in doubt.
Perhaps Primary School ‘order’ at this time was influenced by the most recent global event: the cessation of WW2 in 1945. Each week classes were lined up in chronological order from ‘bubs’ to year six with teachers grumbling that lines weren’t sufficiently straight. We all sang ‘God Save the Queen’ and uttered an oath to country; the Headmaster made strategic announcements like: the school fete would be held next weekend, or the playground looked disgraceful with papers blowing about… Then we would all march into class to the beat of a base drum and several kettle drummers. To be a school drummer was another of those pinnacles of achievement for boys. Girls were never drummers — they played the recorder in class concerts.
Class discipline wasn’t generally a problem. The shadow of punishment for misbehaving was ever-present and took numerous forms: standing in the corner or worse, the corridor; picking up papers in the playground; personal humiliation before the group: for example, ‘stand up Adrian and explain to everyone why you have those pencils stuck in your ears and nose’; boys were leather-strapped on the hands, arms or legs in full view of classmates (to cry was the ultimate humiliation and there were those who were thrashed into submission); being detained to write repetitive lines of “I must not ever speak etc etc) while the rest of the class was enjoying Friday afternoon sport and, again for boys — to be squeezed into a desk next to the fat/dumb girl was probably the ultimate ‘sentence’. This list is far from exhaustive — it was a lot easier to behave as required.
Why are all the students names Anglo-Celtic?
Where are the European migrants’ children who were so encouraged (unlike today) to settle and contribute to our economic development? In the late 40’s Chadstone was a remote south-eastern suburb of Melbourne. The primary school’s site was surrounded by paddocks that quickly became quarter acre lots and detached houses — suburbia. But the area had little or no public transport and certainly no commerce. It was an hour from Melbourne’s CBD on the red-rattling rail system. This was no place for German, Polish, Greek or Italian émigrés who needed some sense of urbanity. Chadstone was home to young Australians, many of whom had returned from war service with modest savings to settle and raise their families. Fresh air and quiet security was what they craved after the sleepless nights of war.
I recall the Paxinos girls, Evy and Mimi, and I had Elena Jakimoff in my class
Look closely at the class photograph: why are none of the children overweight? At Chadstone Park P.S. there was no Tuck Shop — and to be caught at the local general store resulted in dire consequences too horrid to contemplate. Mothers packed sandwiches and fruit in brown paper bags— and every school had a row of water bubblers. Every now and again a ‘treat’ of cheese or a biscuit might appear inside the tight parcel. Cool-kids had peanut butter sandwiches —others opened thick brown bread slices only to find the previous night’s leftovers. Sugar was in short supply in most school lunches. We didn’t realize how sensible our mothers were!
To ensure nutritious diets (and the farmer’s vote) Australian government(s) made bottled milk freely available to all young students. The local dairy would supply crates of milk early in the morning. Selected ‘milk monitors’ carried the crates to classrooms and returned the empty containers to a central point. Milk monitors were in a certain position of power: there was generally an over-supply of product and many competitions were held to see how many bottles could be drunk at a single time. Now there was a down-side to this privilege: refrigeration for the milk was unavailable. In the warmer months milk turned to cream, and then cream became close-to-butter without any quality control. As a result, many of us cannot cope with even the smell of the white stuff to this very day!
Perhaps the highlight of the children’s day was being outdoors — away from the heat and confinement of the classroom. Unrestrained freedom took two forms: Aussie-rules football and cricket were the only playground games for boys! The girls played ‘rounders’ which was a form of softball. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t a clue what else they did for fun.
Chadstone Park School was fortuitously located adjacent to a generous public open-space that included a football ground and pavilion, a separate cricket field , approximately six tennis courts and some acres of grass and well-established Australian native trees. ‘The Park’ was the epicenter of organized physical activities — mostly loved at the time but not always fondly remembered! How humiliating to be given out more than twenty times during a single lunch-break — the target of the school’s best bowlers; to be ‘lapped’ in long distance runs around the park’s perimeter after school; to be marked over at kick-to-kick; to be beaten more often than not at tennis. Such sporting activities established a new physical ‘order’ among the pupils. One learned (at least in my case) that ‘winning’ was a rare event and ‘defeat’ had to be assimilated as part of growing up.
Returning to the class photograph: Jon and I can remember over 90% of our class names. Nobody asked us to undertake this memory — like the twelve times tables or how to spell ‘receive’ (‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ etc). Since the names and faces are etched in our psyches it must be meaningful?
At this youthful age of ten, our minds are open to learning concepts and retaining data. Memory is, however, selective and somewhat unreliable.
Kindergarten and Primary School are the first opportunities for children to socialize — puppy school for humans if you like. We remember the class bully (if there was one); the children who somehow seemed not-so-well-off — wearing old or unwashed clothes, sour-smelling bodies and uncombed hair were occasional signs; personalities were already forming: Helen Barlow never stopped talking or giggling, Peter Fisher was always the butt of jokes, Tommy Doughton was our ‘Ginger Meggs’ (happy and indestructible), Jillian Anderson was quietly confident — and one can verify that in her relaxed body-language in the picture... It’s tempting to suggest that much of one’s individual character is already in place at this stage — in fact, I shall. Humans are herd-animals, however, and Primary School is the first of several, more sophisticated learning encounters.
Our primary school years: four, five and six, passed in rapid succession. This same period of formative bliss was intersected by the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and the advent of black and white television. Mums, dads and children huddled round the windows of ‘electrical shops’ to see Shirley Strickland race to victory in the 80 metres hurdles. We also lined Dandenong Road to cheer on all the exhausted marathon runners. I have a vivid memory of a delirious Hungarian participant — was he running for his homeland or from the revolution, or both? Embarrassingly I don’t remember anything of our participants
The isolation of white Australia was nearly over — and so was our primary education. Jon headed off to Caulfield Grammar School where he later became school captain; I set a different course: Lloyd Street Central and Melbourne High School. University education and lives in Academe followed for both of us. Although we enjoyed different education systems and disciplines we have remained firm friends all these years.
“Chaddy Park” must have been a good start in life — well it was for the two of us!
Adrian Boddy 17th January 2012
Class Photo 1955
In Praise of the School Photograph.
Chadstone Park Primary School’s Class of 1955:
Behind the smiling faces.
Jon Hore, Michael Devlin, Alan Ekstrom, John Amos, John Stokes, Ian Lummis, Tony Wright, John Scholes
Althea Peddle, Maureen?, Sandra Bishop, Shirley Veale, Wendy Bailey, Janet Page, Janice Armstrong, Margaret Simpson, Beverley Pryde,
Brenda Allen, Faye Coles, Georgina Hyslop, Diane Davies, Mr Bennett, ??, Helen Barlow, Jillian Anderson, Carol Pope,Faye?.
Peter Fisher, Paul Vaughn, ?? , Tommy Doughton, Michael Talbot, Adrian Boddy
School Photographs: students participate with reluctance, parents feel they ‘must have’ them, at least for grandparents and posterity. Love ‘em or hate ‘em — they have been around for a very long time — and probably will continue to be part of family memorabilia into the foreseeable future.
No doubt our 1955 class photograph is deeply resonant to those depicted — even more so in retrospect. It’s 57 years since the photographer gathered the young Year Four students of Chadstone Park Primary School before his tripod and camera. Despite this lapse in time, the appeal of his work remains quite intense — evoking humour, wonder and even a sense of mortality. Looking carefully at photographs can be quite revealing. Here are some thoughts:
Contemporary viewers might be quite shocked about our teacher : student ratio — 1 : 32 and there are a few absentees. Teachers’ ‘assistants’ were unheard of apart from religious instruction — which wasn’t a ‘formal’ part of the academic curriculum. Hardship in the workplace is relative. In the late 40s ratios of 1 : 60 in the Victorian public school system were quite common!
Even in the 50s, the teacher’s personality and demeanor seemed deeply significant. For example: Miss Maguire (in the previous year 3) is remembered as a severe old-maid (read: ‘crabby’) who would send the boys to the Headmaster for what she saw the slightest misconduct; Mr Hatter, on the other hand, was kindly-smiling gent, interested in mental arithmetic and art; Mr Bennett, depicted, was a ‘sports nut’, a celebrity amongst many, and just about nothing to the rest of us. I guess it has ever been thus — no teacher can be everything to everyone; to find a teacher who inspires learning and respects the children (over and above the system) remains one of those precious encounters with good fortune.
Despite the large numbers of children, classes seemed well-structured and generally happy places. Learning was the main purpose and this was never in doubt. Spelling, grammar, arithmetic, art and reading were all the responsibility of the one teacher. Homework was a dreaded ‘extra’. All facets were ‘corrected’ in red pencil and each week the class was re-ranked from top to bottom. The ‘good’ pupils sat in rows to the left and the ‘bad’ ones to the right — as the teacher looked out onto the sea of faces from his/her raised platform. Thus, hierarchy was ever emphasized: the teacher’s table was located above the student’s desks, and the distinction of ‘good’ from ‘dumb’ students was never in doubt.
Perhaps Primary School ‘order’ at this time was influenced by the most recent global event: the cessation of WW2 in 1945. Each week classes were lined up in chronological order from ‘bubs’ to year six with teachers grumbling that lines weren’t sufficiently straight. We all sang ‘God Save the Queen’ and uttered an oath to country; the Headmaster made strategic announcements like: the school fete would be held next weekend, or the playground looked disgraceful with papers blowing about… Then we would all march into class to the beat of a base drum and several kettle drummers. To be a school drummer was another of those pinnacles of achievement for boys. Girls were never drummers — they played the recorder in class concerts.
Class discipline wasn’t generally a problem. The shadow of punishment for misbehaving was ever-present and took numerous forms: standing in the corner or worse, the corridor; picking up papers in the playground; personal humiliation before the group: for example, ‘stand up Adrian and explain to everyone why you have those pencils stuck in your ears and nose’; boys were leather-strapped on the hands, arms or legs in full view of classmates (to cry was the ultimate humiliation and there were those who were thrashed into submission); being detained to write repetitive lines of “I must not ever speak etc etc) while the rest of the class was enjoying Friday afternoon sport and, again for boys — to be squeezed into a desk next to the fat/dumb girl was probably the ultimate ‘sentence’. This list is far from exhaustive — it was a lot easier to behave as required.
Why are all the students names Anglo-Celtic?
Where are the European migrants’ children who were so encouraged (unlike today) to settle and contribute to our economic development? In the late 40’s Chadstone was a remote south-eastern suburb of Melbourne. The primary school’s site was surrounded by paddocks that quickly became quarter acre lots and detached houses — suburbia. But the area had little or no public transport and certainly no commerce. It was an hour from Melbourne’s CBD on the red-rattling rail system. This was no place for German, Polish, Greek or Italian émigrés who needed some sense of urbanity. Chadstone was home to young Australians, many of whom had returned from war service with modest savings to settle and raise their families. Fresh air and quiet security was what they craved after the sleepless nights of war.
I recall the Paxinos girls, Evy and Mimi, and I had Elena Jakimoff in my class
Look closely at the class photograph: why are none of the children overweight? At Chadstone Park P.S. there was no Tuck Shop — and to be caught at the local general store resulted in dire consequences too horrid to contemplate. Mothers packed sandwiches and fruit in brown paper bags— and every school had a row of water bubblers. Every now and again a ‘treat’ of cheese or a biscuit might appear inside the tight parcel. Cool-kids had peanut butter sandwiches —others opened thick brown bread slices only to find the previous night’s leftovers. Sugar was in short supply in most school lunches. We didn’t realize how sensible our mothers were!
To ensure nutritious diets (and the farmer’s vote) Australian government(s) made bottled milk freely available to all young students. The local dairy would supply crates of milk early in the morning. Selected ‘milk monitors’ carried the crates to classrooms and returned the empty containers to a central point. Milk monitors were in a certain position of power: there was generally an over-supply of product and many competitions were held to see how many bottles could be drunk at a single time. Now there was a down-side to this privilege: refrigeration for the milk was unavailable. In the warmer months milk turned to cream, and then cream became close-to-butter without any quality control. As a result, many of us cannot cope with even the smell of the white stuff to this very day!
Perhaps the highlight of the children’s day was being outdoors — away from the heat and confinement of the classroom. Unrestrained freedom took two forms: Aussie-rules football and cricket were the only playground games for boys! The girls played ‘rounders’ which was a form of softball. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t a clue what else they did for fun.
Chadstone Park School was fortuitously located adjacent to a generous public open-space that included a football ground and pavilion, a separate cricket field , approximately six tennis courts and some acres of grass and well-established Australian native trees. ‘The Park’ was the epicenter of organized physical activities — mostly loved at the time but not always fondly remembered! How humiliating to be given out more than twenty times during a single lunch-break — the target of the school’s best bowlers; to be ‘lapped’ in long distance runs around the park’s perimeter after school; to be marked over at kick-to-kick; to be beaten more often than not at tennis. Such sporting activities established a new physical ‘order’ among the pupils. One learned (at least in my case) that ‘winning’ was a rare event and ‘defeat’ had to be assimilated as part of growing up.
Returning to the class photograph: Jon and I can remember over 90% of our class names. Nobody asked us to undertake this memory — like the twelve times tables or how to spell ‘receive’ (‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ etc). Since the names and faces are etched in our psyches it must be meaningful?
At this youthful age of ten, our minds are open to learning concepts and retaining data. Memory is, however, selective and somewhat unreliable.
Kindergarten and Primary School are the first opportunities for children to socialize — puppy school for humans if you like. We remember the class bully (if there was one); the children who somehow seemed not-so-well-off — wearing old or unwashed clothes, sour-smelling bodies and uncombed hair were occasional signs; personalities were already forming: Helen Barlow never stopped talking or giggling, Peter Fisher was always the butt of jokes, Tommy Doughton was our ‘Ginger Meggs’ (happy and indestructible), Jillian Anderson was quietly confident — and one can verify that in her relaxed body-language in the picture... It’s tempting to suggest that much of one’s individual character is already in place at this stage — in fact, I shall. Humans are herd-animals, however, and Primary School is the first of several, more sophisticated learning encounters.
Our primary school years: four, five and six, passed in rapid succession. This same period of formative bliss was intersected by the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and the advent of black and white television. Mums, dads and children huddled round the windows of ‘electrical shops’ to see Shirley Strickland race to victory in the 80 metres hurdles. We also lined Dandenong Road to cheer on all the exhausted marathon runners. I have a vivid memory of a delirious Hungarian participant — was he running for his homeland or from the revolution, or both? Embarrassingly I don’t remember anything of our participants
The isolation of white Australia was nearly over — and so was our primary education. Jon headed off to Caulfield Grammar School where he later became school captain; I set a different course: Lloyd Street Central and Melbourne High School. University education and lives in Academe followed for both of us. Although we enjoyed different education systems and disciplines we have remained firm friends all these years.
“Chaddy Park” must have been a good start in life — well it was for the two of us!
Adrian Boddy 17th January 2012