Reporters: Jasmine Boog, Derek Byrne, Lauren Fewster, Hannah Flynn, Ella Kusnierz, Merel Lesterhuis, Omkar Mone

On the 17th of May 2017 the “Old School” newspaper group was visited by two former Graylands students Kath and Robin Hayter. They came from a large family, all of whose children went to Graylands Primary School in the second quarter of our school’s 100 year history. Kath and Robin kindly answered our questions with information from when they were children. They were there in the late 1950’s early 1960’s and answered questions like “What factions were there?” (you will have to keep reading for the

answer!) and many more. We did forget some questions like “Were there tokens?” and “What did some people do when they were in trouble?” but it was good overall. They told us they got milk and if they were lucky they got straws that had flavouring inside and the flavours were strawberry and chocolate YUM! They even showed us one of their old report cards and the report was really good. It was really interesting to ask all the questions and hear the answers to them.

Third edition, 28th of June 2017, for Mount Claremont Primary School’s 100th Birthday

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!THE HAYTER SISTERS OPEN UP TO THE REPORTERS

OF CENTENARY NEWS

The sisters started by expressing their amazement at how different the school looks now compared to the olden days.That was the start of some of these questions:

What looked different? “Gumtrees were everywhere – especially out the front where the basketball field is now- so there was a lot of shade. Up on the oval there were sprinklers and the kids ran under them when it was hot because there were no air conditioners.”

Was the school bigger or smaller?“It was a lot bigger because there were two classes for each year and every class had about forty kids in it.” (Note from reporter: You may see year two written twice on the school map- it is not a mistake).

Which buildings left and came? “On the Alfred Road side of the basketball court, there were 2 demountable classrooms. They are obviously gone now. The garden shed was a year 2 classroom. Where the years 1-3 and PEAC are now, there were 8 prefabricated classrooms. There was an “English as Second language” building where the garden with banana trees is now, and of course there were 2 toilet blocks of 10 toilets each up on the Jacaranda Ave side of the - now blue- netball court. The undercover area was not there, and where we are sitting (in the new library) was a long row of classrooms as well.”

Which buildings were different but still in the same place? “There were a lot of changes; what is now the admin used to be the principal’s office, the principal’s (Mrs Oakes) office was the staff room. The current staffroom was a classroom. As we said before the garden shed was a classroom.”

What was different inside the buildings? “There were many more children in them! We had up to 40 children per classroom. Also, when it was cold the old classrooms had wood fires (You can still see the hearth in Ms Crozier’s classroom).Also the bell was different. We had an old style school bell that stood outside the principals’ office, which actually went: “DING DONG”, unlike your current siren.”

Did you have a canteen at school?“Yes. At recess, which was 15 minutes long, they served fruit and vegetables. Sometimes on a rare occasion they would serve baked sweets. During lunch, which was 45 minutes long, hot food would be served fresh out of the oven. Our favourite food was the meat pie and cream buns. Not together of course! The food was provided from the bakery down the street.”

Did you get milk provided at school?“Every morning the milk man would deliver milk to the children in a glass bottle. If you were lucky you would a get a flavoured straw. If you put the straw in your milk you would get either chocolate or strawberry flavoured milk.”

Where did you get your lollies?“Every now and again there would be a ‘tuck shop’ (candy store) where we bought all our candy. When Australia changed its currency from pounds (with 12 pence in a shilling and 24 shillings to a pound) to cents and dollars we felt very ripped off. You used to be able to buy 6 lollipops for 1 pence and then when

they changed the currency the price for 6 lollipops was suddenly a lot higher.”

Who was your least favourite teacher?“Mr Lawrence. He was very unfair. I remember one time we got a project about Japan to do over the weekend. We had to show it to Mr Lawrence on the Monday after the weekend by bringing it up to his desk. Each student brought theirs up to him and on each one he wrote the word poor. Until he came to his daughter’s... on her work he wrote nothing but his name.”

Did you have afternoon tea?

Above: plan of Graylands Primary School, by Jasmine BoogBelow: Plan of MCPS, courtesy of the front office at MCPS

“No but we did have a five minute toilet break in the afternoon. You would have five minutes after lunch to go get a drink and to go to the toilet.”Did you get vaccinations?“There was a family at our school that got Diphtheria. (Diphtheria is a disease that makes your throat swell up causing it to block your air pipe, which makes it very hard to breathe). One of the kids in that family died because of it. Doctors used to go to schools and give the kids vaccinations. The kids were actually happy when the vaccination vans came to their school because that meant that they had a lot less chance of dying from this disease.”

Did you have interschool carnivals in your years at Graylands? “Yes the year sevens had one every Friday. There were girls’ teams and boys’ teams and when there was a big interschool event we would all go to Subiaco Oval. The junior years also had an interschool carnival on a school oval.”

Did you have factions, if you did what colours did you have?“We had Red, Yellow (Golden), Blue and Green.”

Did you have uniforms?“No, not for school but we had a blue shirt with yellow lines for sports carnivals.”

What happened if someone hurt themselves?

“Well, all injuries were treated by the headmistress Mrs Williams- she was not the principal; that was Mr Duneen and every wound, scratch and scrape was treated with red liquid called mercurochrome! It would stain the skin red for days.A long time ago I (Robin) did the high jump during recess and broke my arm.”

Did you have excursions?“Yes, in year 1 we went to the Perth Museum and in year 7 we went to the zoo. We told you about the big gumtrees… every autumn hordes of caterpillars (aka sawflies) invaded the trees! We called them spitfires and when you got too close they would spit at you.” (Look at that picture they are disgusting! )

Were there physical punishments?“Yes. There were physical punishments when the teachers used the cane against the students. Once a teacher hit a boy with his own ruler so hard that the ruler snapped.”

Who got the cane the most?“The boys usually got the cane for doing something naughty.”

Who was the naughtiest boy?“The naughtiest boy stole things from other student’s desks and denied it when he got caught. He was a kleptomaniac.” (compulsive petty thief)

What were the punishments?

The next- 4produced in term 3. When the Hayter sisters went to school there were three semesters, so only two term breaks.Enjoy your break!

“The punishments were mostly rulers, detention and writing lines.”

Did the girls get in trouble?“We don’t remember so we guess they didn’t.”

Did you have specialist teachers?“No, we did not. The class teachers taught music. The girls also had sewing class and the boys had woodwork. There was a choir but it only sang ‘God save the Queen’ and the ‘Lords Prayer’ once a week during assembly, and performed a standard repertoire on ANZAC day. We had dance lessons during which we learned folk dancing. We did have a percussion band that entered in a competition in 1962.”

The Hayter sisters told us during the interview that coming to the school brought back many memories- mostly happy ones. Thank you both very much for taking time to come out and talk to us!