Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 29
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[Page 29]
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formed up and with admirable precision, marched past His Excellency to the rousing martial music of their massed bands in the centre of the parade area, and then turned into one very long double line facing the official dias [dais]. Then with their rifles pointing upwards from their shoulders, fired a "feu de joie" which crackled from one end of the line to the other. Finally, all present, led by the Governor General, removed their helmets or hats, waved them above their heads, and gave three "hearty British cheers for His Majesty the King". It was a great afternoon's outing, if it didn't rain.
A few months after our family arrived in Sydney, I was again started at kindergarten, a small private one run by Miss Aard at the lower end of our Queen St. At first I did not take kindly to this curtailment of my liberty, and every day for a long time, I regularly asked my Mother "Do I have to go to school today?" But in the end I realised that I had entered on a new phase of my life, and accepted the situation with good grace.
At the beginning of the next year, I entered the infant's classes at Woollahra Public School, two streets farther away. Education of children had not yet become free and compulsory, and all pupils had to pay the Headmaster sixpence every Monday morning, which payment he duly ticked off in a large attendance roll. The greatest worry of most youngsters was the fear of losing this precious sixpence: its purchasing power was equal to that of about three shillings in 1960. However, in 1903 this fee was abolished ,and primary education became free and also compulsory.
The Headmaster at Woollahra was a dapper Mr. Farr, slim, grey, and neatly bearded. In school he wore a whistle on a cord around his neck. On his class inspections he would enter a room suddenly and blow the whistle: immediate silence and attention was expected as he greeted the teacher formally and glanced sternly around. The teacher of my class was a dear old grandmother (or so she seemed to us) dressed to the feet in a long black skirt, and out of doors, a "poke" bonnet.
Healthy schoolboys were just as unruly and boisterous then,