East Brisbane - High School Years - Grade 8

What a difference, going from the top of the primary school to the bottom of a very new high school (it had only been open a few years)!  The uniforms were disgusting ... what were they thinking!

• We had to wear white gloves - OK in winter but in a hot, humid summer?
• We had to wear a wide-brimmed panama hat, with a rounded crown, in summer and a dark blue, beret in winter.
• Thick, ugly, flesh-coloured stocking held up by a suspender belt.
• Sky blue short-sleeved dress, buttoned down the front with a full skirt, belted at the waist.  It had small, blue and white checks on the collar, lapel and sleeves.  The hemline had to be no more than 3 inches above the knees, when kneeling!
• We weren't good enough for lockers, not until grade 9, so we had to cart every book we owned, backward and forward every day ... the reason for my scoliosis!

We dragged ourselves to school the first day, horrified that someone would see us in these hideous ensembles, only to discover that everyone else had bashed their hats into quite a cool shape and they had pressed pleats into their skirts.  They looked like they were straight out of a St. Trinian's movie.  Awesome!  We couldn't wait to get home!

For some reason when choosing subjects, my sister chose German and I French ... we were separated into different classes at last!

The Head Mistress would regularly pop in and make all the girls kneel on the concrete so she could walk past us with her ruler.  This amused all the boys no end!  If she found some hapless miscreant, she was dragged away for a lecture.  My sister and I had observed how to get around this minor annoyance by simply hitching our skirts up under our belts and tucking the overlap flat.  Consequently, we wore mini-skirts whenever the Head Monster wasn't around and simply yanked them down at her approach!

OK, so we had a bit of attitude and one of the Prefects was drunk with power and hated us on sight.  My sister and I were caught by her and made to kneel in public.  When we didn't satisfy her 3 inch test, she ordered us to immediately pull out all the stitching to bring our hems down.  Naturally we refused, so she ordered us to go to the girls' toilets where she intended to take our hems down herself.  Again we refused, so she told us we better not come back to school like that tomorrow or nothing would stop her.

After we told Mum everything that had gone on, she wrote a blistering note to the Principal accusing the Prefect of overstepping her authority and threatened that if she touched us, she would be charged with assault.  We received a formal apology and the Prefect was told to keep away from us. ☺

There was a boy in my class who had a certain fondness for hitting girls with his ruler.  He would aim for arms, legs, the back of the head ... anywhere he could get a reaction.  In our classroom one morning before school, he made the mistake of hitting me.  I picked up my ruler and clipped him straight back, over his ear.  Unfortunately I had forgotten that my ruler had a metal strip running down one side, until the side of his head started bleeding freely.  He started screaming like a girl when he noticed the blood and his two friends carted him out to find the school nurse.

I knew I was in big trouble, but to be called up to the office while we were all standing on parade on the quadrangle ... total humiliation!  The Principal's words over the loud speaker were, "Would the girl who hit (Bully Boy) over the head with a ruler, come to my office immediately!".  I had to step out of my class line and do the walk of shame in front of the entire population of teachers and students.  I walked with my head high and my back straight, determined to not show any fear.  The Principal was spluttering with rage and looked more like Adolph Hitler than usual.  He told me they had called an ambulance and he was going to call the police to have me arrested.  He told me to go home and bring my mother back immediately.  Naturally, I strolled home and explained the situation to Mum.  We caught a taxi back and I was made to wait outside the Principal's office while he spoke to Bully Boy's mother and mine.

I heard Mum tell him it was my time of the month (she knew it wasn't) and it was a bad time for the boy to hit me.  His mother said it was only a small scratch on his head, nothing to worry about.  She also said he had always had a problem hitting girls and as she left, thanked me for hitting him because she hoped it would break his habit.  It did too ... I never heard of him hitting another girl.

Toward the end of year 8 everyone had to be tested for TB.  We were lined up and given a Mantoux test.  My sister had no reaction and had to be immunised but my strong, positive reaction meant I had to have a chest X-ray (which was clear) and I skipped the injection.  I remember when I was quite small, having some sort of large sticking plaster placed on my back between my shoulder blades.  I had come in contact with someone with TB and was showing symptoms, so Mum had to wash me carefully for days to avoid getting the plaster wet.  It never amounted to anything more than a temporary annoyance.

Also around this time, all grade 8 students had to sit an aptitude test to decide which classes we would take next year.  It was easy to work out the leading questions, so I engineered my results toward the Commercial course.  I would have loved to move into Science but that would mean dissecting frogs and things, too much of an Ick factor for me.  Ever since I was small, I had a problem with fainting spells, especially at the sight of blood.  My first episode was sitting on the classroom floor in grade 1.  While we were singing, I trailed my hand over the floor and picked up a splinter in my finger.  The next thing I knew, I woke up on a couch in the Teachers' lounge.  Getting immunised at school was a nightmare ... you can't imagine how many times I would race back to my desk to sit and put my head on the desk before I passed out.  I had fainted so often, I could recognise the warning signs.  The sight of blood would quickly make me keel over and, this is embarrassing to admit, even the sight of someone bleeding on black and white TV would do the trick - pathetic!  So Science was definitely out, even though it was the only course that would allow a student to progress to grades 11 and 12, then on to University!

I would have liked to do Manual Arts (woodwork and metalwork), but girls were not allowed and the Domestic course (sewing and cooking) bored me to death.  We only had those four pigeon-holes to be crammed into, so I really had no alternative but to learn Shorthand, Typing, History, Bookkeeping, Maths A, Maths B, French and English.

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