History Notes - school days
History Notes
The society held a ‘well attended’ meeting last week but there is always room for more members to attend. We have also had more visitors than usual which shows interest in our town and its history. This week we may have a visit from a Reading descendant which will be interesting.
To finish the 1937/39 folder the snippets on education are interesting. An earlier note remarked on their being 700 children at the Coronation Celebrations, but this included pupils from the bush schools such as Woodsreef, Cobbadah, Upper Horton to name a few. Also reading through the results we find Ken Randall from Cobbadah won the high jump (4ft 5 inches) for his age group, while Betty Reading, Barraba Public School won the skipping race for 10 years and under. Una Heywood won a foot race for 9 year old girls.
In July 1937 a meeting of the local P. and C. mentions that the very cold weather means that the school supply of fuel was running very low. Miss Eckert, a teacher in Barraba, had been moved to Bingara and without a replacement being made, much re-organisation was necessary.
At the end of the year the headmaster, Mr Fitzhenry, reported that the inspector had completed his visit. Mr D. Clifton wished to give the children a Christmas treat – a free picture show and ice creams. He suggested one day for town children and one for the country.
Barraba school children would be taking part in the 150th Anniversary celebrations in Tamworth on 29th March, 1038.
They were to travel free on the train to take part in the Maypole dancing, flag drill and physical exercises.
The headmaster noted that electrical lights and power points were to be installed at the school.
Several lists of pupils passing end of year exams are also published in the newspaper. Unfortunately, most of the pupils have now passed on but I did note Norman Urquhart in the very young ones.
There is a history of small schools in the making and of course the history of the Barraba School itself has been published some years ago. If you attended School in the Barraba area, you should be mentioned somewhere.
Just to finish there is a snippet on a different subject which I found unusual. On October 11th, 1938, about 80 couples attended a “Night in Cairo” at the Barraba Bowling Club. Dancing on the green was indulged in an excellent buffet supper was served. Music was supplied by C.B. Leard. Hopefully the green was about to be replaced!