Our Nation on Parade

Sunday 6^th May 2001

Bairnsdale Primary School participated in Our Nation On Parade, which was the highlight of the official Centenary of Federation celebrations in Victoria.

The Parade was staged on Sunday, 6^th May, 2001, commencing at Latrobe Street in the City of Melbourne and travelled south down Swanston Street, finishing at Southbank Boulevard.

Our entry was closely linked with our participation in RACV Energy Breakthrough Challenge which is held in Maryborough each year. We displayed the development of our HPV(human powered vehicles) over a period of time with 5 or 6 machines being revived for the occasion.

We also showed the last 3 pushcarts to represent our school.

The entry entitled, Energy-Our World Our Future, involved students riding scooters and trick bikes whilst others were on roller blades. A group of dancers depicted the sun, water and wind as alternatives to our fossil fuels.

The Parade was a major community event involving over 100 groups and 7500 participants.

Our Nation on Parade

The corridors of the Queensberry Hill Youth Hostel are a buzz with excitement. There are people rushing around wearing their fluro green t-shirts and black basketball shorts looking for Emika's lost white shoes. The green socks' dye are already beginning to run with the sweat of running up and down the stairs. Finally the HPV vehicles, the push carts, the scooters, the roller bladers, the bikes and their riders et off for Swanston Street.

The dancers were close behind them except what with last-minute hair design and ironing on silver winds, waters and suns that are falling off our black tabards and fixing our wrist bands that we have to wave in due course to represent rays of the sun, we are half an hour late.

At last everybody is at the starting point - number 79. Mrs. F, Mrs. W and Miss P are handing out brown paper bands that everyone in the Parade are wearing. They say everyone's name and the mobile phone number of a teacher who is in charge, in case they get lost.

We should have arrived an hour later. Honestly, we sat there for about two hours because the dozen bullocks who are in one of the first couple of entries have taken fright because it is so loud. It wasn't until they got the bullocks off Swanston Street and into a side street that the Parade could continue. Mrs. H is in charge of the sound buggy, which is simply a bag carrier from the airport painted with BIG speakers attached. Mrs. F and Mrs. W are holding the banner which says "Energy Our World Our Future" Ms. K, Mr. H, Mrs. N and Miss P are going to walk alongside us.

Just a couple of dilemmas to worry about. On the way down Melanie's scooter lost a bolt concerning the adjustment of the handlebars and the HPV Shannon is in also lost a bolt. Mrs. H comes to the rescue with some shoe laces and black tape.

Our "Our Nation On Parade" attendant, Susie, has just announced that we are allowed to start moving. There are last minute checks that our uniforms are straight and that we have all the helmets, knee pads and elbow pads needed. And we're off! We are only walking until the false start at Little Latrobe Street and then our routines begin!

Mr. H runs to switch on our music, which is part of "My Console" by Eiffel 65.

The crowds are amazing! Everyone is cheering, clapping and even beating in time to the music! We pass a lot of familiar faces. There's Nicole's sister, Emily, Patrick's folks, Lachlan's Mum and brother, Cory's parents and there's Rhiann's and Izak's Mums.

We're approaching the end, which is just as well because my legs are about to drop off and I'm sweating like a sausage.

Now we are passing Federation Square, which is ten months behind in building and we're now going under Federation Arch. It looks like a bridge with pick-up sticks poking through it.

We are almost at the end except we keep going for all the people who couldn't find a place on Swanston Street.

We collapse on the grass in the Gardens. It turned out we didn't see half the people we knew because Poppy's parents, Lincoln's Mum and brother and Emika's parents turned up. We know that others were in the crowd too. Later that day we were told that we weren't broadcast on the television. All the people in Bairnsdale were very annoyed as six months of preparation went into organising our entry.

There are a couple of thank you's I need to say. Thank you to:

First of all to Ms. Kenny and Mr. Hathaway for six months of HARD work. Mrs. Fitzclarence, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Nicholls, Mrs. Watkins, Miss Purnell, Mrs. Appleton, Mrs. Sing, Mrs. Bradsworth, Bob Thorneycroft who choreographed the whole thing, the support of the parents and teachers of our school, Photo Gold, the Our Nation On Parade attendants, the public and to the people we don't even know who did little things like making the music or finding the right (and left) shoes.

Believe me, it's appreciated.

Claire de Steiger

Grade 6

2001

REMINISCENCE OF MY SCHOOL DAYS AT 754

by Mrs Eleanor (Conway) Hatswell

MY very earliest recollection is of air-raid shelters down in the right hand corner of the school oval, and a vegetable patch around the 'big side'. The older students tended the vegetable garden and I recall being puzzled, why are they growing vegetables at school? It appeared most strange to me.

I was six when I started school in 1941 and I was in Miss Mosele's class. At sometime through the year Miss Mosele was ill and in the old private hospital, (now demolished). A fellow class member and I were chosen to take flowers to our sick teacher on behalf of our grade. I remember giving the flowers to Miss Mosele but mostly I remember what appeared to me to be a very long walk to and from the hospital, and thinking we were never going to get back to the school. Folding concertina doors separated the grades 1 and 2, sometimes these doors would be folded back and we would sit on the chalk-dust laden cotton mats and have sing-songs. If you shook the mats dust would fly everywhere, so, of course you shook the mats!

In Grade 2 we were sometimes taken in crocodile fashion down to the Temperance Hall where I remember making daisy chains and pasted pictures. Once, on the way back to 754 I picked up a large, brown envelope lying in the gutter. This was duly handed to the Headmaster Mr Kettels, it was found to contain valuable Post petrol coupons. Later on I was praised for finding them and given a monetary reward, though I don't remember what became of that, most likely it came in very handy for my Mum.

At about this time there was a raffle at the Annual School Fete, name the lovely doll. I called her Heather after my baby sister, someone else also named the doll Heather, so our names went into a hat for a lucky draw. My mother was more upset than me that my name did not come out first. Being one of lots of children Mum probably thought it a great opportunity for one of her large brood to have a beautiful doll.

While we lived in Day Street we always took our lunch to school, being too far to walk home. Invariably it was either vegemite or peanut butter sandwiches, both dried out by lunchtime. Sometimes I was lucky enough to swap them for soggy tomato sandwiches which I loved and still do.

We shifted to Rupert Street, when I was about 8 years old. On my first day, of school from there, and going home for lunch, I became lost. Mrs Joe Varney was out the front of her house and asked who I was, she was very pleased and so was I when she said "That's your house over my back fence, come, and I will lift you over." Suddenly my happy little world was intact once more.

Doing quite well at school I skipped Grade 3, but after a few months I contracted a serious illness and I missed school for the rest of that year. Returning the following year (and back to the quiet bosom of dear Miss Cross) meant there I was in Grade 3 once again. At the end of the year at prize giving I received a book for being "the quietest and best behaved in the class."

School was mostly a pleasure for me except once every few years. This was when the travelling dentist came to the school. You were taken to him in alphabetical order and I dreaded my turn coming closer and closer, too soon my turn would come and I would walk with leaden feet to my `doom'. Years later my younger brother Terry showed more initiative, he took off for home! His great effort was to no avail though because the dental nurse went around home and picked him up, but I admired his effort and ingenuity just the same.

In Mr Bowley's class it was his task to teach us to tell the time, I took ages to learn this skill and remember finding it most frustrating especially when Jenny and Claire and EVERYONE said it was easy. Only I knew it was not.

Nothing very memorable happened during my year under Mr Crooke's tuition, except he was a lovely teacher and the entire class adored him.

REMINISCENCE OF MY SCHOOL DAYS AT 754

by Mrs Myrtle (Smith) MacPherson

I was born in Bairnsdale on 6th May, 1906. I started school at 754 in February of 1912 at the age of

5 years and 9 months. My first teacher was Miss Robinson, a bit elderly and I was really scared of

her, she was very grim and never ever smiled, but I soon got used to the school routine. I learned

quite quickly under her tuition and soon got to liking my school days. I had one great advantage, my older sister was going to the same school, so I was never really alone.

I progressed through my school years in an ordinary way. We never did anything unusual to interfere with our schooling, it always came first. We played sport, basketball, hockey, hopscotch, marbles and ,skipping. That was a sore point with our mothers, we wore our boots too soon.

As I got into the higher grades I had some very good teachers including Ruth Dyer, Annie y

Hargreaves, Miss Shankly, Kath Mosely, Olive Turner and the only male teacher I had was Dan

Treagus. We respected our teachers very much and always had a very close relationship with them.

The headmasters came and went but I never had much to do with them except the last. one. He was a

fine man. He gave me a class to teach for the last month of my primary school days. The infants, for

which I received the princely sum of S5. I can remember two of our school inspectors, Mr Akeroya and Mr Osborne.

To touch lightly on my actual schooling our teachers were dedicated people with one thought in

mind to equip us with the basic learnings to enable us to fit into our place in society. The last Friday

of each month we had what was called a "Monthly Test", 10 arithmetic sums, 12 mental arithmetic

sums and questions, long lines of figures to add, an essay to write and a 100 word spelling test. We all

had to say our tables and repeat the alphabet. Should we get a good pass we were let out 10 minutes

before the bell. We had one half day of hand sewing no machines in those days!

The strap was always kept in the drawer and there was always the odd one that defied the rules of

the class.

When I got to 6th grade we used to have one day a week at a cooking class at the High School, it was

our red letter day. We were each given a card and on it was the dish we had to prepare for lunch, for

which we were paid one shilling. Our cooking teacher was Miss Newly. We loved our cooking day. At

the end of each term we had a penny concert. We never went on a picnic or excursion anywhere.

Everyone walked to school. My sister and I walked 3'/2 miles. There were no cars, if a spring cart

came along we would sometimes get a ride. We never missed a day or were late for school.

I received my Qualifying and Merit Certificate, and won a Radford prize in my last year at dear old

754.