Minor Truamas and Sliced Bread
I stumbled
across your website having seen a TV show about straps used as punishment in
schools. I attended ECS in 1960/1 or 1961/2. Remembering (in my view) Mr.
Hunter's brutality with his strap (he lovingly called it Dr. Black). I Goggled
ECS/Hunter/strap and found your website. I remembered all the teachers
mentioned by John Watson in his post of July 4 2015. I have many memories of
people, incidents, events of my years there.
I cringe with remorseful embarrassment when I
think of the deplorable treatment we students dished out to poor Mr. S. He was
completely unable to control his class and suffered dreadfully at the hands of
his tormentors. I was belted with "Dr.Black" on at least 3 occasions,
in my view, for Hunter's personal pleasure and little else.
I am not a nostalgic person but enjoyed a trip
down memory lane recently with a fellow past student, CF, from ECS and
Elwood High, who I sat next to on a plane trip. We were good mates in school
and filled the two-hour trip with reminiscences. We met later for lunch and
still had plenty left to remember. He was one of a group of four along with me,
Peter Nixon and Kenny Dempster who were belted in front of a Monday assembly
and again later in Hunter's office for some imagined crime we were accused of
by Mr Clerecy(?) The extra cuts in his office I believe were for Hunter's
pleasure alone.
Poor Mr. S was
treated very poorly by students he was trying to educate. He was a bit grubby
in his personal habits. Picking his nose and putting his boogers in his ear was
one of his nasty habits. Kids notice such things. Having his prepared work
erased from the blackboard before class, being bombarded with elastic bands
when he turned his back, being slapped with paint on his jacket must have been
deeply humiliating for him. I believe his car was a Fiat Topolino. A bunch of
us got together one day and lifted it up and put it down with its bumper bars
touching trees front and rear, unable to move. I seem to remember he had a
nervous breakdown of some sort, which is quite understandable. I hope he found
some happiness later on in his life.
Harvey Brooks was a surprise package who could
amaze with his talents. He was a member of the Australian Boys Choir and
astonished everyone one day by giving an impromptu concert. I remember one of
the school's lightweight bullies thought he would have some fun at Harvey's
expense. Amongst Harvey's many talents, was the ability to defend himself
pugilistically. By the time the prefect Vlasios Agathos stopped the fight the
poor bully’s face was a mess.
I believe Mr Evans was a maths teacher. He was
our form teacher in my second year if I have the correct person. For some
reason we called him ‘Turkey Tom’. He was usually a mild mannered person, but
one day he dragged us all across the road to the sports ground to berate us
about something. I believe it was about our collective attitude to teachers,
possibly to Mr. S. He was red-faced and seething with anger, so it was
difficult to understand the cause of it all. I remember he thought PA was not taking it seriously enough, so he slapped him across the face breaking
his (PA's) spectacles.
Mrs.Farber was a science teacher I think.
(Unusual in those days). I remember walking up the stairs one day and there was
a strong smell of cigarette smoke around. As I was closest to her when she
smelled it, she assumed I was the source. I don't think she accepted my denials
and I was in her bad books from then on.
Donald Smith could be a bit strange at times. I
thought he was too old for credibility. He tried to tell us one day, with a
demonstration, that we should land on the ball of the foot first when walking
as opposed to the heel. He had us all walking around like brolgas for a while.
I have been
thinking at length about the ECS years. The thought has occurred to me that it
seems only the negative experiences stay in the memory. I find myself at a loss
to recall any joyous occasions of any consequence at all. It's a truism, I
think, that minor trauma is imprinted on the brain easier than major pleasure.
I am a cynical person, I confess, when it comes to human nature and can't help
thinking the seeds of this attitude are planted early in life.
Remember the tuck shop over the road? I recall
Mr. and Mrs.T. What mayhem in that place at lunch or morning teatime!
There was a window at the side where the pies were dispensed. One day after
waiting in the queue for hours I ordered a pie and sauce from Mr.T, gave him my
two shillings and was left standing while he was called to the other part of
the shop. When he returned he asked for my order and when I said I gave him my
money for my pie before he left, he gave me an open-handed "What do you
mean?" gesture and a kid had no lunch that day. While I don't suggest he
did this deliberately he did not believe he could have been absent-minded and
taken my money with him. Mr's lack of trust that day had a significant
effect on me. Kids notice these things and remember.
With Hunter's cruelty, Clerecy's(?) narcissism,
T's lack of trust, kids get the idea they are justified in their nasty
treatment of adults, such as Mr. S, because adults are not exactly saintly
themselves. “You treat me badly, I treat you badly.” How important it is to
treat the child's fragile mind with understanding!
To nostalgically digress, one fine memory I have
is the arrival of sliced bread at that time. I have asked many people whether
they can recall this momentous occasion but it seems I am the sole repository
of this clichéd occurrence. It was called Gawith's bread and was inedible 24
hours after manufacture. It must have been made by some strange process,
because the texture was perfectly even, with the air bubbles in the bread being
exactly the same size throughout the entire loaf. It gave the impression of not
actually being real bread made out of flour, but some other artificial
substance. It did not last long and sliced bread quickly improved.
That's it for now.
Maybe I'll write again if memories surface and the urge takes me.
Cheers.
RM
In : 1960s
Tags: elwood "elwood central school" punishment strap trauma bully past-students 1961 1962 "gawiths sliced bread"