Primary School Confidential

by Woog

  The sun was starting to pop its head up to say hello, so we bade farewell to all our new mates and headed back to the hotel. Many of us lost our guts on the way back, and by the time our heads hit the pillows, sleep came very easy to us all.

  About an hour later, our teacher banged on the door, reminding us to get our shit sorted because we had to be on the bus in twenty minutes. When no one replied, she opened the door, to be greeted with a great big pongy waft of tequila.

  You could tell by her face that she knew what we had been up to, and that she was aware that if anyone found out we’d wandered the streets of Melbourne hideously drunk while on her watch, she was screwed.

  So she did what any teacher would do in this situation. She said nothing. And up until now, none of us ever divulged the truth of that evening. If there were such a thing as a risk management plan back then, it would be worth no more than the paper it was printed on.

  32

  ARE WE THERE YET?

  No more pencils, no more books . . .

  No more teacher’s dirty looks.

  Let’s face it, when you’re a kid, the best part of the school year is the holidays. When I was growing up, our school year was divided up into three terms. When you consider how stuffed, emotional and cranky kids can be at the end of nine weeks, can you begin to imagine what they’d be like if they were schooled for fourteen weeks without a break? The situation would be DIRE. And those poor teachers . . . No wonder the four-term model was welcomed with open arms.

  For me, school holidays were heaven. My siblings and I were mainly left to our own devices, but the best thing—the best thing ever—was going to our grandparents’ farm in the country. We would all squish into Mum’s Mazda RZ7 and take the Putty Road through the Yengo National Park, stopping at Mellong for a wee (and, more often than not, an enormous spew) before continuing on the windy road to Singleton. From there it it was on to Aberdeen and then Scone. Once you reached Scone you had a sniff of hope that you might actually one day reach your destination. It was also the point at which we would begin the time-honoured chant: ‘Are we there yet?’

  After what seemed like eleven years, the farms would start to thin out and big signs would appear, alerting us to the fact that we were about to reach the Country Music Capital of our fair nation. The atmosphere in the car underwent a shift from frustration to anticipation.

  Tamworth: the city of my conception and birth. A town not unlike Paris in that it, too, is divided by a mighty river (in this case the Peel) and was known at one time as the City of Lights, by virtue of the fact that it was the first place in Australia to have electric streetlights installed.

  We would often drive down Callala Lane to look at the house where I spent the first few years of my life. Every year, it seemed smaller than it had the year before. And then we’d be leaving Tamworth behind, and farming land once again took over the landscape. We were headed for the tiny hamlet of Kootingal. Kootingal was everything a small country town should be: it had a smattering of houses, a school, a pub, a town hall, the cop shop and, of course, the bowling club.

  Nanna and Poppa lived on a couple of acres. As we cruised up the driveway, they’d appear on the front verandah. After hugs and kisses, we’d always rush straight to the kitchen to be measured. The back of the kitchen door told the story of our growth. There would be minor celebrations over how much we had shot up since our last visit. And with that formality over, the rest of our stay would be devoted purely to pleasure.

  Poppa was famous for breeding the most slow and docile racehorses in the district, so we had access to transport. One particular day, we packed up some sandwiches and decided to go further than we had ever been before—that is, to the far corner of the farm, where there was allegedly an abandoned piggery. My sister and I were double dinking on a big horse called Bull (his real name was Bullshit, but Poppa called him Bull in front of us), and our brother walked alongside, accompanied by Poppa’s Australian Silky Terriers, Bacardi and Coke.

  Up and over the hills we went, avoiding the rabbit holes and keeping an eye out for friends of the slithering type. The sun beat down and turned our shoulders and noses red, but we were determined to reach this mythical piggery. At long last, we crested a hill and there it sat behind a barbed-wire fence.

  We slid off Bull’s back and tethered him to a tree before slowly and carefully climbing through the barbed wire. The place was an absolute dive, so naturally we loved it. We ate our picnic on a fallen tree before exploring the old buildings. And in one of these buildings we discovered a stack of pig carcasses and bones.

  We stood, horrified, staring at this grisly scene. Then my sister shouted: ‘Quick! Run! This place is HAUNTED!’

  Now, my sister is a champion over-reactor, so usually I took her warnings with a grain of salt, but she was so convincing on this occasion that I made a mad dash for the barbed-wire fence.

  Of course, the one thing every kid learns about successfully negotiating barbed wire is that it takes time and patience. But when the ghosts of a dozen zombie skeleton pigs are chasing you, time is not your friend! We shredded ourselves stupid in our haste to escape their evil trotters.

  Adrenalin pumping, my sister and I leapt onto Bull and bolted up the hill, leaving our brother and Bacardi and Coke to scurry along behind us. When we arrived back at the house, we breathlessly recounted our adventure to Nanna as she bathed our punctured skin with red Mercurochrome.

  The red Mercurochrome was never far from hand during our visits to the farm. I recall one time Poppa got out the little quad bike to teach us how to ride. The front yard was the size of a football field and in the dead centre sat a huge cactus—into which I promptly steered that bike.

  I still carry a massive scar on my shin from that episode. If Poppa hadn’t been so stuck into his KB, perhaps a trip to emergency might have been more effective than a tousle of my hair and a ‘She’ll be right’.

  It is a very deep scar.

  I loved our holidays at Kootingal. I loved being shown how to load up the slug gun and shoot Nanna’s empty TAB cans off the back gate. I loved visiting the neighbours and swimming in their pool. I loved eating Nanna’s food. One time, as we were leaving for home, she snuck my sister and I each a bottle of our favourite cordial for the trip. My favourite was raspberry and my sister’s was lime. I cannot recall my brother being there, but trust me, if he had been, I wouldn’t have forgotten . . .

  For halfway down the Putty Road, I started vomiting up copious amounts of red liquid. Mum pulled the car over just as my sister started hurling great quantities of green spew all over herself. Had my brother been there, I’m pretty sure he would have added orange to the mix.

  Holidays at home were a different kind of adventure. One treat was to go to the movies at the Regent in Richmond. This was the real deal—none of this megaplex crap. The Regent was a proper cinema with one lady sitting in a tiny booth selling tickets and another lady sitting in a tiny booth selling lollies.

  Once you’d bought your Maltesers you’d choose whether to sit upstairs or downstairs. We always chose upstairs, as there were always rowdy children *shifts eyes* who would take great pleasure in throwing things from the top level down onto the unsuspecting audience below.

  Just before the feature film came on, the manager of the cinema would get up on stage and tell us about the movies that were going to be screened in the coming months. It was a little bit like watching trailers, I suppose. Then the lights would dim and the lion would roar, signalling that it was time for the food fight to commence!

  Another regular holiday activity would be a day spent at the Skatel. The Skatel was a really rundown skating rink next to the railway tracks. Mum would be drop us off there in the morning and pick us up in the early evening. Skate hire was included in the entrance fee. The skates on offer were dog-poo brown with orange laces and I was always jealous of those girls who swanned about in those white leather boots with sparkly red wheels.

  Mainly, though, we spent our ho
lidays mooching around the neighbourhood, playing with other kids.

  School holidays these days look completely different. Somehow we’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that if our kids are not spending every waking second doing something enriching and educational, then we are failing them as parents.

  But this could not be further from the truth. We need to allow our kids to explore. Both anxiety and obesity are on the rise, and I can’t help but believe it is linked to the passive lifestyle a lot of kids live these days, spending hours and hours watching crap on screens accompanied by constant snacking on crap.

  They say knowledge is power and mostly I agree. But I also think that, to a certain degree, knowledge can lead to fear. Our generation is obsessed with the details, the dangers. Is it organic? Is it safe? What are the standards and are they being met?

  We teach our children to be suspicious, to be guarded, to be worried.

  Ask yourself: would you let your three young kids ride big horses bareback over dusty fields, dodging snakes, shredding themselves on wire and getting chased by zombie ghost pigs?

  Would you drop them off for the day at a dodgy skating rink with nothing but three bucks in their pocket for the day? No mobile emergency contact form to fill in. No indemnity to sign. (And there’s a DJ in the music booth who likes to take photos of all the kids.)

  Well?

  School holidays are slow and fast. They are boring and hectic. They are fun and infuriating. As a child you cannot wait for them to start, and as a parent you cannot wait for them to finish.

  School days are also slow and fast and boring and hectic. At the time, when you are a kid, time kind of stands still when you are at school. Lessons are long, distractions are everywhere. When you are a teacher, it is pretty much the same.

  And then you have babies. In the blink of an eye they are starting school. What happened? How did that time go by so fast? But it doesn’t stop, and year in and year out they grow and change and learn and throw immense challenges at you. You navigate the maze that is their educational journey with triumphs, and a few tears.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ is often asked a thousand times on long, hot, uncomfortable car rides and it is also what we, as parents, tend to say at the end of each school holidays. But the truth is that these school years are fleeting and, as evident in these very pages, can leave so many memories that stay with you, well past the final bell.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To the supreme team at Allen & Unwin, my unreserved thanks. Publisher Jane Palfreyman took a punt on a mouthy housewife and made this book happen. Christa Munns, uber editor, helped knock it all together, and big thanks to Ali Lavau for all her great work and encouragement. A group hug goes out to all the primary school teachers out there—you do amazing work.

  Parts of this book contain stories from my community of WoogsWorld readers, and I would like to thank them for not only these anecdotes, but for their wonderful support over the years. And may I mention Shae Reynolds, Kirsten Smith and Emily Toxward, who generously contributed to Primary School Confidential. I thank you.

  And to my beloved Mr Woog: see, I told you I could finish it!