The Playground

It was pleasant to find such a large playground attached to the school, as it was one of the most important parts of the school. The training of the mind went on almost exclusively in the school-room, but the training of the character of the pupils went on almost quite as much in the playground. [Dr Pearson] hoped that the children could carry into the playground the same feeling of loyalty to one another, and the same morals, as they exhibited in the classroom.¹

’ One wonders what the assembled audience listening to Dr Pearson on 2 September 1889 thought of his speech. Some must have chuckled cynically at his descriptions of the schoolyard and its role in the moral education of youngsters. The ‘large playground attached to the school’ diminished with every addition to the building. In 1889, it lacked asphalt and was littered with rocks and building rubble. Children remained without protection from the elements. In 1890, concerned parents kept their children at home when the scorching rays of the January sun took the temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade.² In time, two shelter sheds were provided and a gum tree, planted in the quadrangle, reached serviceable proportions.

The shelter sheds also provided cover on wet days, but they were inadequate for the number of children, and they were smelly, sticky and uncomfortable.³ In conformity with the morality of the time, a low fence divided the playground into separate sectors for boys and girls. Seen on a rough outline plan of the school dating to 1908, the fence divided the school between the corner of the building and the wash-house along the rear boundary. Although the fence was dismantled in the early 1920s, an imaginary line still separated the sexes. Children caught on the wrong side of the fence or imaginary line were punished, although talking across the border was permitted.’ ⁴ Fortunately, children are enterprising creatures. The students ingeniously manipulated, shared and enjoyed the ‘pocket-handkerchief sized playground’. Interweaving, dodging bodies, exasperated abuse, victorious war cries, frustration, anger, joy, quiet solace, abraded knees, broken bones and bruised egos filled the cramped asphalt quadrangle as groups vied for space, consciously and unconsciously pushing neighbours aside, and games cut across each other. The discipline, duty, loyalty and moral behaviour extolled by Pearson were unwitting nurtured on the tiny Arnold Street playing fields. The recreation hours were filled with basketball, hoppy, skippy, diabolo, gymnastics on the Princes Park fence rail, ‘what’s the time, Mr Wolf’, marbles, jacks, hopscotch, chasings, hide and seek, tunnel ball, rounders, marbles, keeping-off, British bulldogs, tag, crack the whip, fly, saddle the nag, cherry bobs, card flicking, hand cricket, ‘three goals in’ (with rolled newspaper or rag-stuffed socks). Some of the teachers on yard duty, such as Miss Walker or Miss Miller, would occasionally turn the skipping rope, and even skip with the girls. Bullies and gangs prowled darker corners seeking victims to intimidate. ‘Adult’ high school students had other distractions. Some attached themselves to teachers such as Emile Hamer, who impressed and inspired them with his enthusiasm and wide learning. Others sought the satisfaction of sport; others supplemented their pocket-money by gambling, or amused themselves in dimly lit, acrid, tobacco-smelling pool halls. Others became embroiled in romances - students with students, students with teachers; some of these attachments turned into long-term relationships, but most provided an ephemeral chance for social interaction and, occasionally, sexual adventure.

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Boys with bulging egos boasted of their ‘conquests’. The objects of their attentions, flirtatious girls with short dresses and bulging bosoms, were cruelly labelled ‘moll’, ‘slut’, ‘screw’. Most students, however, only nurtured private dreams. School heroes were idolised and befriended. The lonely remained outsiders, yearning to be noticed. One thousand children confined to an acre of asphalt was insufferable. But the efforts of parents, head teachers, school committee members and politicians could not persuade the Education Department to acquire more land. In 1904, the Education Department recommended that girls use the privately owned vacant land opposite the school as an extension of the playground, while boys could use Princes Park.⁵ When the sites were developed, the students returned to the street." ⁶ In the 1960s, there were promises that land around the school would be purchased as it became available, but these also came to naught. In this context, the acquisition of the Pigdon Street site in 1924 was heaven-sent. No other inner-suburban school had five acres of playground. During the summer months, children would lose themselves in the vast, tall-grassed, adventure-land fields behind the school. Questions were raised in Parliament about fire hazards in the 1940s, and the grass was soon cut. A new adventure playground was built by parents in 1972. . There was no relief, however, at Arnold Street. The use of Princes Park was one escape. In the 1920s, the park was surrounded by a fence, and Tommy Warne, the caretaker of Carlton Football Club, grazed cows on the grass outside the football ground. The tall picket fences protecting the trees gave boys something to climb on, and were the means for more than one vagrant’s suicide. In the early 1960s, Arnold Street was blocked off to traffic during recesses so that students could use it as ‘a playground. In the late 1960s, when enrolments were exceeding 1000, students returned to the park. The fire and the period of rebuilding again closed off the streets around the school for the exclusive use of Princes Hill, and students reoccupied Princes Park. Attempts to restrict the movement of high school students about Princes Hill have had mixed results. Rules forbidding students to wander outside set parameters were regularly broken. The submarine-sized and amply stuffed salad rolls were cheaper at the Wilson Street shop than at Con’s in Arnold Street; also, the shop was far less crowded, and entry was not governed by prefects. The fire negated all the school administration’s efforts to control students’ movements. Of necessity, students roamed about North Carlton and Princes Hill to attend classes at the different centres. Princes Park and the streets of Princes Hill remain the domain of wandering students - much to the chagrin of local residents, who are unprotected by any buffer zone. Children pour out of the high school entrance onto Arnold Street. The half-street closure of Arnold Street, planned and designed by John Stirling, has helped ease the problem of space and has imposed some kind of buffer zone between the school and street. But it is far from enough.

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In the wake of the Victorian Health Department’s ‘Don’t be a Norm’ campaigns and a growing appreciation of general health care, health consciousness has become one of the community’s highest priorities in the past decades. In keeping with this trend, Princes Hill High School organised a ‘Health Week’ in 1979 with lectures and demonstrations, culminating in a Fun Run.’ ⁷ Health and hygiene have been a long concern of the Education Department. Although it allowed young children to clean their small writing boards with spittle and rag, the Department has always emphasised fresh air, light, cleanliness and dust-free conditions in the classrooms, to the point that walls and mantles were left bare to avoid dust collecting.⁸ Over the years, the Education Department and state health organisations have co-operated in fighting health problems in the schools. Courses in health and physical education were incorporated into the syllabus. There were regular tuberculosis tests, and medical examinations of children’s sight, hearing and teeth are a regular feature of primary school education. Not all examinations were appreciated by the students. Anne recollects quick medicals in the 1940s - ‘The doctors checked throat, hair, and a fleeting glimpse of private parts’ - the point of which still eludes her. In the 1920s and 1930s, malnutrition among large numbers of primary students became a serious concern in the community. An early experiment in 1926 with providing daily free milk to needy children produced a rapid improvement in the health of children at SS Auburn. In eight months, a correspondent to the Argus wrote, the children had gained a considerable amount of weight, and were much brighter. The cost was covered by private individuals.⁹ In 1933, the Metropolitan Milk Council began supplying milk during winter at very cheap rates to undernourished children at fifty schools."’ ¹⁰ It was not until the mid to late 1940s that every child in the metropolitan area and the larger Victorian towns received free milk automatiCallyautomatically.” ¹¹ Since some ex-students remember being provided with free milk in the 1930s, it would seem Princes Hill was one of those under-nourished schools.

There have been more critical health problems in the past. Outbreaks of typhoid, measles, diphtheria, bubonic influenza and poliomyelitis severely affected -the community and students of Princes Hill. The influenza epidemic in 1891 killed 1035 people in Victoria, and another 963 fell victim in 1899. The young and elderly were particularly vulnerable.¹² In 1891, some 100 Carlton pupils fell ill on a single day. At Princes Hill, Head Teacher Russell, First Assistant McShane and a number of teachers were all absent simultaneously, and the average attendance at the school dropped from 473 to 36O360.’3 ¹³ The close proximity of bodies stuffed into overcrowded, cold classrooms did not help. Nor did the Reilly Street drain, which contributed to Carlton’s reputation as a ‘sewer pit’, or the filthy right-of way that ran behind Princes Hill School. The school was touched by outbreaks of typhoid in 1890 and 1895, and measles in 1893, 1898 and 1925. The three waves of diphtheria which afflicted Melbourne in 1910 claimed 3530 lives; the schools were closed, classrooms sealed and disinfected. One girl who contracted the disease had her hair shaved and was interned at Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. The poliomyelitis outbreak in 1938 closed the school for six months and claimed victims among the school’s population.” ¹⁴ Books were sent to students at home and parents were asked to supervise their study - usually to little avail.’5 ¹⁵ Tess’s parents bought a radio so that she and her sister could listen to school programmes. Her European mother insisted she wear a small bag of camphor around her neck to ward off the disease. The students attempting high-school entry were brought back briefly to sit the examinations. In 1949, the nursery school was closed for one week because of another outbreak of poliomyelitis.¹⁶ By comparison, the nits and lice infestations that occasionally afflict inner suburban schools today seem quite minor if irritating complaints.

‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’

Sport and physical education have always occupied an important place in education. Participation provides physical, social and moral benefits to students, and successes enrich the school’s reputation and spirit.

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While Australian Rules football enjoys the longer fame at Princes Hill, in the early 1960s, Princes Hill High had an outstanding soccer team. Victories became commonplace, and a number of team members played with professional clubs such as Hellas, St Kilda, St George’s Cross and Juventus. Attila Abonyi, the dazzling star of the team, was a member of the Australian National team while still a schoolboy. Rocco Santangelo also enjoyed international success with the Australian Under-18 Soccer team, which toured Europe and Asia in 1976. None, however, has surpassed Bryan Dennis’s brief moments of glory. In 1965, he was considered the world’s fastest backstroke swimmer in the under-l2 age group, swimming 110 yards in 1 minute 12.4 seconds, and Australia’s fastest swimmer in his age group for the 100 yards freestyle, 100 yards butterfly and 220 yards medley.

Extra-Curricular Activities

School life is not confined to the classroom. Many extracurricular activities capture and stimulate the imagination and enthusiasm of students, broaden social awareness and responsibility, and teach group participation. Over the century, these have included cadets, the school band and choir, the school newspaper, excursions, clubs and fundraising activities. The Cadet Corps was one of Head Teacher Russell’s first innovations at Princes Hill."" ³⁰ Militaristic patriotism, uniform and firearms captured the imagination of many young boys, and the corps flourished."’ ³¹ It also survived Head Teacher Robinson’ attempts to limit its intrusion into school hours"? ³² Little is heard of the cadets after this initial exposure, and the corps seems to have been disbanded in the late l910s.3" ³³ Then there were the school dances - junior ‘Deb’ Balls, Annual Balls and innumerable term socials, each an occasion of great excitement. Considerable pomp and ceremony accompanied the Balls at the Melbourne and Brunswick Town Halls. Everyone went along. Ballroom dancing rehearsals were held under the direction of an instructor with the manner of a sergeant-major, dresses were hired or sewn, and sketches were prepared by small groups to enliven the atmosphere?" Organised by the Mothers’ Club as a money raising event, the biennial Queen’s Carnival became a major event on the school’s social calendar. Full regalia was worn at the pageant to crown the king and queen who had raised the most money. One year, Miss Miller’s class won the title because the queen’s father donated £10 to ensure their victory. In 1934, Mr Clifford was the bandmaster. As the final event of the evening, his boys were to dance the Minuet with the Ladies in Waiting. The shambles at the dress-rehearsal brought the man to tears; but the performance on the evening was perfectly executed. Lillian Shanklin and Colin Shanley were the royals that year.35 Balls never gained favour at the high school. Adults preferred socials, organised by the prefects or Students Representative Council. Ball gowns gave way to the latest fashions. Live bands performed, and students rocked, and twisted and ‘submarined’, swigged illicit drinks and pursued romances. Who present will forget the performances of our own Bertie, or of Doug Parkinson, The Zoot or The Masters Apprentices, before they were famous? Who will forget the brawls, or the violence inflicted on David Bucknall when he tried to stop a fight?

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