Cultural, sporting and social life flowered. - Memories abound of the annual parties
given by the Fourth form for the departing Fifth; of speech days with white dresses
and long black stockings, of the school orchestra playing "Marche Militaire";
of the debating society with travel as far afield as Newcastle and of school
plays with "Ken Robilliard dressed up as a vamp in a school play".
Miss Mackaness remembers vividly the re-enactment of the opening of the
Harbour Bridge (starring Lacey's old horse
as de Groot's steed - Lacey used the horse to cart sports equipment to the oval) and
"sixteen chaps, all extremely tall" as they solemnly danced around
the maypole.
In the early part of the thirties Circlos (imagine tennis played with a quoit on a volleyball court) was one sport at which Parra excelled. Hockey and vigoro were the main sports for girls in winter:
"Remember the thrill of getting into one of the school teams and the matches with Sydney, North Sydney, Fort Street, Hornsby and St George" while basketball was the summer sport. The girls appeared to enjoy more success on the sporting arena than the boys - "Parramatta was smaller than most and suffered from the disadvantage... of being the only mixed school". There is a report of the school first XV being beaten by Hurlstone 75 to nil (when the referee gave up scoring) - "victory and silver cups were not our primary aims, they were indeed very remote possibilities".
The last word on sport is left to Evelyn Brown whose strongest memory of sport is of the sports uniform - "oh girls, those black sateen bloomers worn with white blouses".
The prefects of the 1930's had quite clearly defined
roles and responsibilities.
As Evelyn Brown asked in her reminiscences "Do they still stand in position on
stairways and corridors as the classes go in ? Do they still give lines to children
who drop orange peel?"
The proud Parramatta High tradition of nicknames continued among the students and teachers, "Batey", "Molly", "Gink" and "Stud" were all student personalities of the 1930s. Gunner Hodge and Latin teacher Duncan St Clair "Bugs" Maclardy were still there although "Bugs" was to be replaced by Mr Scoulberg (a maker of violins) - "he had a special block for 'failures' in his classroom - the timid, the careless, those with 'voices like penny squeakers' ". Mr Kenny Neale, the Maths teacher, became known as "Convict 99".
Finally mention must be made of the retirement of W.L.Atkins in December 1933, headmaster of Parramatta High School for its first twenty years - only to pass away scarcely a year later. "Tommy" Atkins was sadly missed. As W.W.Freame wrote "thousands can vouch for his qualities as a man".
His successors in the 1930's had barely the same impact. J.A. Hedberg (1934-38) is best remembered for his introduction of the house system and Mr Murray (1939-42), a firm disciplinarian but also a "kindly father figure", who is said to have "carried on the school in difficult circumstances of World War II with great dignity".
