Chapter 6. The Sixties

AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF
MR NORMAN J. AUSTEN.
HEADMASTER (1962 - 1967)

IN THE BEGINNING

My first encounter with Beverly Hills School was in 1945 as we were motoring along King Georges Road on our way for me to take up an appointment at Warrawong, and when, in response to a query from my wife I replied, "If I am ever offered the Headmastership of that school we were passing, Beverly Hills, I will most certainly accept it with open arms!"

This dream became a reality when in early 1962 I accepted the position of my friend, Mr William McKee who after many years of outstanding service with the Department of Education, retired from the Principalship.

Behind my ready willingness to accept that position was the fact that the pupils of the headmaster's schools were always recognised as high achievers in the academic field and as well Beverly Hills was the proud possessor of a fine school assembly hall, still a rarity among Primary schools of those years and a luxury, in fact a necessity ,if the school was to fulfil its true vocation of training our children for full citizenship.

May I bring back into the memories of my readers be they pupils, teachers, parents or citizens of the 1960's, memories of many school activities of this period, doings and events that were all an integral part of the education of the pupils and the teachers and parents and in reality were just as important as the so called "Three R's:-reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic."

ON THE SPORTING FIELD

Do you remember our school's first excursion into the sporting fields of the N.S.W.P.S.A.A.A., now the N.S.W. Primary Schools Sports Association? Soon our school was competing in a wide range of sporting activities under the supervision of our sportsmaster, Mr John Simmons and Miss Rita Kennedy -participating in both athletics and swimming as well as in team sports, cricket, rugby league, basketball and vigoro.

OBERON SCHOOL "EXCHANGE"

This involvement in physical education served in other necessary aspects of education for it brought unlimited contact with pupils of other schools and districts and a broadening of an ever-enlarging horizon. Many of my readers will remember the days when our school, parents and children acted as hosts of the children from the Western Districts of N.S.W., down to compete in the annual athletics carnival.

The western children were met at Central railway and transported through the city to Beverly Hills where they were introduced to their respective hosts. Also the children were taken on a city bus tour before being deposited into the care of their teachers and on the second day of the carnival those who had not reached semi-finals were taken on a wider city tour.

And how great was the excitement when the district, through the teachers and pupils of Oberon Public school, brought to a bus load of Beverly Hills pupils an enlarged horizon with a reciprocal invitation to spend the weekend with the children and parents of that area! It would have been difficult to pen the thoughts and excitement of us all as the bus load of senior Beverly Hills pupils, teachers and some parents set out on the Friday morning to be welcomed at Oberon with an official dinner, to be then billetted in the various homes and during the weekend to engage in athletics and team games.

But far greater delights were to be discovered in the visit to a shearing shed to see some sheep shorn and to enjoy also the beauty of the Jenolan Caves. For some it was also to experience the delights of a horse back ride though for our champion girl sprinter it was more than a sore experience for her as she confided to me just before her race that she did not think that she could run her best .In response to my query she replied, "I rode a horse bare-back for some time yesterday and my legs are all blistered." So later, on the Sunday evening at Beverly Hills School assembly hall, one witnessed the arrival of a bus load of happy but weary children greet their welcoming family.

MUSIC & THE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS

Again in the field of Music, Beverly Hills participated for the first time in the Combined Schools' Choir at the Sydney Town Hall and later at the Opera House. During these years the school was fortunate enough to have four highly skilled teachers, each capable of being the choirmaster. The final school choir was selected after exhausting rehearsals and with Mr Howard Ayr in charge, acquitted themselves well.

May I remind our readers of the night we took our choir to Roselands to entertain hundreds of shoppers as our choir rendered several brackets of songs. Again, both school choirs were always given a special place at the district's Christmas Carols, always acquitting themselves well at these celebrations and as well at Speech Days and Commemoration Days in the school hall. In addition we also had our Junior choir, while our recorder band must not be overlooked.

My readers, do you recall our exciting "School's Festival of the Arts", held each year, and when the school achieved the aim of every pupil being a participant? If not actually one of the players on the stage, pupils then acted as stage hands and even as couriers made essential for the smooth handling and timing of the different items as there were no dressing rooms beside the stage and all immediate stage costuming perforce had to be carried out in the classrooms.

Fortunately on no occasion did weather changes bring embarrassment to us all. Here it would be most appropriate to express the school's appreciation of the outstanding work performed by so many mothers and friends who prepared the costuming for these festivals and here it would be most appropriate to mention the costuming for the most lavish of all ours plays, "Betty and the Birds."

THE DIVERSITY OF THE SCHOOL HALL

Do our pupils of the 1960's recall the inauguration of our first Beverly Hills school library which we housed in one of the assembly hall's rooms converted to a library room with its adjoining Librarian's room beside the library for our newly appointed and first school librarian? All this possible by the fullest use of the assembly hall as it took on its rightful role as a valuable adjunct to the classroom.

The assembly hall became the focal point of not only class to class relationships but teacher to teacher relationships, school to parents and citizens relationships and hence to community relationships. Readers of these lines will most certainly recall the celebration of special days throughout the year;- Bird Day, Arbor Day and many others. Possibly the most exciting of all functions were the annual speech days with many prominent citizens and parents in attendance for the presentation of scholastic achievement and citizenship awards, as well as sporting awards, the Headmaster's report and the presentation of badges for the following years school captain and prefects. These, together with speeches from the retiring school captain, musical items, choir or the recorder band added colour to these proceedings.

A SPECIAL KIND OF SCHOOL

During the 1960's as the host school, Beverly Hills was selected to receive into our classrooms, teacher trainees from the Teachers' College for observation of classrooms in action and for themselves to carry out practice teaching. Nor must one overlook the special courses for teachers, particularly in the "New Mathematics" programme when upwards of one hundred teachers from surrounding schools attended special courses held in our assembly hall.

Possibly some of my readers might politely wonder how it would be possible to find time for formal instruction within the classroom;-the English lessons, Mathematics, Social Studies, etc. My answer to this query is an assurance that all classroom and assembly hall activities were closely orientated. As a further answer I offer just one answer as indicative of our teachers' response to this query......One year I recall that 31 of our 4th grade pupils had the opportunity to enrol in the special opportunity classes for bright pupils at Hurstville Primary School for pupils of proven ability and academic attainments, an offer every parent declined, preferring that their children remain at Beverly Hills.

CHERISHED MEMORIES

May I recall to former pupils, teachers, parents and citizens of those years, memories; happy, poignant memories of those days nigh on thirty years ago as we all as a team strove to prepare our children for the future.

This article is how I will recall my years at Beverly Hills. the happenings I remember, love and cherish,(not that I do not so remember in similar terms my former schools going back to the early 1920's as a sole teacher in charge of a small Dorrigo School) but after all Beverly Hills was my school of retirement.

Vale, Beverly Hills Public School and its pupils of the past, the present and the future. Congratulations on achieving your centenary year from Dumbleton to Beverly Hills together with the surety of greater achievements in the future.

Do You Remember?

• Special assemblies for Commonwealth of Nations Day when we would dress up in national costumes and carry flags of the Commonwealth.
• The Gould League of Bird Lovers badges and certificates.
• The school production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".
• Friday morning folk dancing where the entire primary school would assemble in circles in the playground and listen to the music over the loud speaker.
• Friday afternoon sport when we would stay at school and play in the playground or the representative teams would compete against other schools in cricket, softball, rugby league or basketball (now called netball).
• Walking to Penshurst Park or Kingsgrove Park for rep. sport.
• The boys doing craft while the girls had to do needlework.
• Mrs Pritchard's famous corner store.
• Having to drink warm bottles of milk; seeing the milk crates warming in the sun; bringing notes from parents saying you were allergic to milk; the lifesaving device of straws with inbuilt strawberry and chocolate flavouring; bringing notes to say your allergy was cured.
• Easter bonnet parades and singing ,"In My Easter Bonnet."
• Education week; colouring your best page and hoping it was picked; the displays of work and constant practising of items.
• The installation of soap dispensers in the toilets, where you twisted a nob to receive soap shavings.
• The big fancy dress parade during the night time when prizes were given for the best costumes and the best dancer of the "Wellington Stomp."
• Our girls' blue sports tunic with BH on the left shoulder, a gold blouse and tassle.
• The big ANZAC Day ceremony in the assembly hall when we heard stories about the war and sang "The Recessional"
• Progressing to ink wells in third class; the ink blots and the ever ready bottle of Milton; slope cards and the invention of the biro.
• I Honour My God
  I Serve My Queen
  I Salute My Flag.
• Dressing up in nurses uniforms for Red Cross Day
• Cocky Laura 1,2,3, being banned, marbles, hopscotch, hula hoops, elastics, jacks and swaps.
• Mr Hawkin's famous riddle, "Which city has the greatest population? Dublin, because it's always doublin'."
• Morning line ups and marching into classrooms.
• The end of year Christmas party when we were allowed to wear our party dresses and clothes and bring lollies.
• The sixth class graduation; waiting for the letter to say which high school you would be going to:- Narwee Boys, Beverly Hills Girls, Kingsgrove High, Penshurst Girls, Hurstville Boys. Or would we make it to St George Girls High or Sydney Technical High.
• Mr Austen's huge car and the big metallic badge on the bumper bar that we thought meant he was really a doctor.
• Mr Clifford Winning taking over from Mr Austen as principal in 1968.
• Sixth class exams every Friday morning.
• The large mobile book shop from which you could select a book prize for speech day.
• Thursday morning Scripture classes when the lady told us NEVER to think of the Holy Ghost as a ghost with holes in it.
• Thinking of a ghost with holes in it and being terrified that you'd go to hell.
• Mrs Malouf and another of our teachers appearing on the TV show, "Tell the Truth."
• Watching the landing on the moon on TV in 1969.
• Hearing, for the first time, the school song written by a fourth class and their teacher.
• Proudly singing the school song to the tune of "The Lord's My Shepherd."

Play the Game, Play the Game
Proud motto of our school
Wherever we are
At work or at play
Let this be our golden rule.

Our alma mater Beverly Hills

FROM THE SCHOOL RECORDS

YEAR	DUX	CAPTAIN	CAPTAIN
1962	Frank Smith Ellen Brown	Marilyn Symonds	Frank Smith
1963	Leon Kavanagh	Annette Brogden	Basil Wilson
1964	Vivian Minnett	Dagmar Wuttig	Ian Thompson
1965	Jeanette Keevers	Susan McLean	Geoffrey Lowerson
1966	Robyn Lansdowne	Michelle Lapin	Keith Wood
1967	Jamie Fields	Robyn Marchoni	John Wall
1968	Stephen Lansdowne	Christine Leece	Stephen Lansdowne
1969	Gary Kee		Warren Wood

---

Previous Chapter - School Centenary - Next Chapter