Memories - Linda Spooner / Earl Gorman

LINDA MAY SPOONER (nee MOBBS) was born on 13th May, 1890. Linda started at Carlingford School at the age of 5 and she left about 1909. Linda worked as a kitchen maid with Burns Philp for a short period before working on Mr. and Mrs. Briley's dairy 'half way up Mobbs Hill'. After this, Linda worked with Mr. and Mrs. Brown in Carlingford Post Office before going onto housework at the school residence under Mrs. Thacker. She stayed with the Thackers until the day of her marriage in December 1911 at St. Paul's Church to John Edward Spooner.

Linda and her 12 brothers and sisters walked from their Adderton Road home to school. She remembers many fellow pupils including Earl Gorman, Alma Gorman, Lucy Martin, Eric Mobbs, Bella Hockley, Linda Catt, Merce Franks, Gert Duffield, the Bellamys, Tunks, Sonters and Bowermans.

Some of the teachers Linda particularly remembers are Miss Elsie Mobbs, Mr. Willoughby, Miss Edwards, Mr. Main and Headmasters Kennedy, Henry and Thacker. While working for the Thackers, Linda recalls Mrs. Thacker teaching sewing in the school.

Linda has memories of the long desks with ink - wells at which the children used to work.

The toilet facilities at the school were simple. The toilet was essentially a pit in the ground above which a long seat was mounted. The holes in the seat were separated by board divisions for privacy.

During one of Mr. Willoughby's (or Mr. Main's) history lessons, Linda fell asleep. "One of the boys said, 'Sir! She's asleep!' and the teacher said, 'Well let her sleep, she is all right', and he let me sleep. But the noise of the class soon woke me." "Oh, I must have been tired or something. No! I'll tell you what it was, it was history and 1 wasn't interested. He was reading out of a book and I wasn't interested."

Linda was probably tired due to the amount of housework she had to help with before school. On some days it was necessary to stay home. Her people would be up at 5.00 a.m. in order to prepare for work and the 12 children had to help as much as possible. 'We used to get up in the morning and mother used to say 'go and get the bits to make the fire'. The water had to be heated in the boiler. We hadn't any boots on and we used to go up through Mr. Cox's orchard and right down into the creek and the damn ice ... it was thick on the ground ... our feet used to be frozen!"

Apparently the fireplace at school was used, as a punishment 'corner'. Linda remembers being placed in it by the teacher, " ... we had to stand in there, look at the wall and we weren't to turn around ... I suppose it was done for talking.

There wasn't a school uniform when Linda attended Carlingford, ', ... we would wear anything, anything we could get". Linda would take her lunch to school and remembers some of these, " ... bread and treacle, bread and syrup ... sometimes we would even have dripping ... whatever we could get to put on it (bread). We weren't allowed any meat or anything like that on the bread. It's funny, with all the fruit in Cox's orchard, my father never brought any home, so the only fruit we would have came from our couple of orange trees".

'We didn't have any school trips in those days", reflects Linda, but she does remember the annual family Boxing Day trips to Mr. Fred Cox's land at Rydalmere on the Parramatta River. "Father used to take us down on a big table top lorry. We would sit on fruit cases on the lorry and the draught horses would pull us along. That was the only time we would go on a picnic. Some of the men would prawn in the river." At Christmas time, " ... father used to go into the markets at Parramatta and get a sucking pig. He would bring it home and he'd kill it himself. He would do that every Christmas".

There was a maypole in the playground at Carlingford School. The children would dance around this holding onto coloured ribbons. There were exercise drills with wooden clubs and dumbells. Linda says she was somewhat of a loner at school and remembers watching the others play games such as hopscotch and skipping.

'We had a competition at school one day, when I picked a lovely big doll from the basket of prizes.' There was a concrete slab covering a well just inside the school gate. Cotton threads were tied to the ring in the centre of the slab and, " ... we had to wind the cotton up. The first one that wound the cotton won, but if you broke the cotton, you had to stop and tie it. I think there were six of us winding, but I was the first one. I had the pick of the basket".

During the Boer War, Linda mentions that her father attended to the horses at the Liverpool army base. She remembers Brigadier General Charles Cox and his younger brother who used to race past Linda's house on his horse, sword drawn ready to slice fruit from the trees.

Linda concludes by saying, they (present pupils) might find it better now than when I was going to school. There wasn't much in those days. I wish the pupils all the best and to have a happy time at school. I reckon they can be some of the best days of your life, school days, when you come to think of it, ... don't you"?

EARLAND 'Joe' WENTWORTH GORMAN was born on 5th September 1892 in Paddington N.S.W. He moved to Carlingford with his parents at the age of 4 and started school in 1898. It was about 1908 when Earl left school.

Earl remembers that Headmaster William Kennedy was very fond of cricket and he recalls Headmaster Thacker and teacher John Main who was killed in the 1914 - 1918 war. The old Dundas Town Hall is remembered by Earl as a place where school concerts were held and remembers with joy the hill nearby, down which he and other children slid on pieces of tin.

Earl liked his sport, playing it at every opportunity on schooldays. He liked football (soccer) and cricket. (He stopped playing cricket at 60 years of age). He recalls one school morning, just before school started, Headmaster Kennedy coming out of the school residence " ... in top hat, long tall coat, striped trousers. He said, 'I believe it is supposed to be a holiday today and so I am going to walk over to Epping to find out.' So he walked over to Epping, got in touch with the Post Office there and such was the case. He came back and we just carried on playing sport".

Earl remembers the double deck horse drawn buses which travelled along the Parramatta - Carlingford route. Apparently the single deck buses were closed in and could be hired for group picnic outings. However, walking was the main means of moving about. Earl distinctly remembers his parents, walking to Parramatta, dancing all night and walking home afterwards".

Another memory Earl has of the Carlingford area as a boy was the morning and afternoon horseback postal delivery service. He also mentions that Eric Mobbs (a future Mayor of Dundas and later Parramatta and a former pupil of the school) was a post delivery boy at one early stage.

"At home, when we wanted hot water we would put a kerosene tin over a fire. We would get our water out of a well by bucket or from our galvanised tank. Once the tank overfilled from the roof run - off, the water overflowed into the well."

"When the additions were put onto the end of the school (1902), they found a number of canes which had been shoved down a gap between the wall and the floor." Earl also recalls the long desks at which the students sat. In his latter school days, Earl went to Granville Technical College for woodwork lessons and bears a scar on his wrist where a gouge went astray.

I was too good a boy to have any outstanding experiences at school", he assures us. He does remember a day when all the teachers went on 'strike'. Apparently the students had not been taught the prerequisites of some piece of work and the teachers refused to teach them, probably out of obstinacy. Earl remains unclear as to the circumstances involved.

Earl will be keeping his eyes peeled for Linda and Ida in July and sends, "general good wishes to the school and I hope the kiddies enjoy themselves as much as I did".

Carlingford Public School Football Club, 1905.

Back row:

Mr. John Main, Bert Franks, Eric Mobbs, (?) Franks, Stan Thacker, Wal Duffield, Mr. Charles Thacker.

Front row:

Bruce Smith, Len Watts, Arthur Franks, Earl Gorman, Victor Kells, Roland Eyies. Note the medals the boys are wearing: CFC - Carlingford Football Club, later known as C.M.F.F.C. - Carlingford Merry Farmers Football Club.

(Courtesy of Earl Gorman).