Robyn and Heather, class picnic during a swimming carnival. Decorum required that we "dress" for lunch - no costumes allowed on the lawns. We had to change back into our swimmers when we returned to the poolside. Paul Hogan was a pool attendant at that time. Granville Pool, March 1958.
	A more formal occasion. c.1959

---

The original charcoal drawings were executed by my special girlfriend, Robin Elias, in March, 1956, our first year at Parramatta.
They show a remarkable perception of the teachers with whom we had had contact in those first short weeks. I count them amongst my "treasures."
Unfortunately, I have long ago lost contact with Robin but I hope she would not mind my presenting these copies of the sketches to the school archive.

THE CHS CARNIVAL DAY
Parramatta High School was the only coeducational high school in the Metropolitan Area of Sydney, until the opening of Sutherland High School in 1956.
Hence, sporting fixtures were not arranged to suit schools with both boys and girls in attendance.
As Easter approached, the boys' annual Combined High Schools' Swimming Carnival was held at North Sydney Olympic Pool.
There was a strange custom, whereby the boys of the school attended the carnival, while the girls were expected to attend school as usual, although there were no classes.
We were to bring "something to occupy us", but had to work quietly, without talking, during normal class times. I seem to remember reading Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea on one such occasion, and a lot of knitting was accomplished.
Robin chose to bring drawing materials on that very first CHS carnival day, and these sketches are the result.

LOOKING BACK
The School Song, as we sang it in the late 1950s, has the lines:

In the golden noon-time, and when the sun is low,
We call to mind our school days of long, long ago;
From the mists of memory will rise old griefs and joys,
And down the years will ring again the songs of girls and boys.

Forty-something years have passed, and I have done my best to search the mists of memory, and base my comments on the impressions gained in those first few weeks of my five years at Parramatta.
The Box Brownie photos, while of very poor quality, are interesting for their background subjects - The School, Cumberland Oval, Granville Pool and Rydalmere Hospital - and for the memories of a navy school uniform which included black stockings, in both summer and winter.

---

Back to previous page.

On to next page.

---

Return to the history menu.