Barbara Smart (née Holthouse)

Helped along by rewards for doing well in the weekly tests of primary school, I was a conscientious student gifted with a good memory. The pre-requisite for entrance to Adelaide Technical High School at that time was a good Qualifying Certificate mark. I qualified by obtaining 623 marks out of 700. My father, an unlettered accountant in a city office, decided I was ‘cut out for office work’ and thus was duly enrolled for the commercial course. Incidentally, I cannot recall being consulted about this; one obeyed one’s parents in those days. College was not affordable and so a ‘select’ high school was the next best thing. To be accepted was a privilege.

In those pre-war days women were not generally employed after marriage and so the commercial course was training for stop-gap employment, for the qualifications required by banks and offices for the better-paid ‘white collar’ job. As a bank employee three years later I was to realise that the ability to do simple arithmetic plus reasonable intelligence was all that was needed to cope with the banking system. But I digress -

I was a student at ATHS for three years, gaining the Intermediate Certificate within the prescribed two years and four subjects of the Leaving Certificate in the following year. However I found the going difficult, struggling for creditable results among the ‘top layer’, as it were, of primary schools.

There was an advantage to this selectivity, however. We were all, as I recall, conscientious students, wanting to do well, doing our best to learn and so there was little distraction in class, certainly no wilful disruption. This too of course made teaching a great deal easier for the staff.

My class in that first year was Commercial A, with I think, a Miss Clark as class teacher. She was an elderly spinster, as also were our other female teachers. The subject I remember most clearly was English – possibly she taught us for two years. She encouraged me in the subject I loved most – had me reading essays in class, and thus was forgiven much, much that would excite derision in today’s students. Her petticoat hung down below her dress (almost always) and there was constant digression to her earlier days, days of travel in other countries – perhaps to add colour to a grey appearance.

Miss Topperwein was our teacher for Leaving geography. She had a most peculiar habit of saying ‘forrit’ in between remarks for no apparent reason. The class was recommended to read Ann Duffield’s romantic novels as background for the various countries studied. I recall searching these out in the crowded shelves of the Adelaide Circulating Library of which my father was a member. It was my first library borrowing, a habit which has lasted a life time. To Mr Sidney Moyle, who took us for Leaving English I also owe much. His enthusiasm for Shakespeare and poetry brought the subject alive; I discovered Wordsworth’s Intimations on Immortality and so much more.

In those days to stay on for the Leaving year was a privilege few families could afford; I will always be grateful to my parents for allowing me to do so. An additional subject in that, my final year, was economic history which broadened my outlook somewhat although, as in geography, little was learnt of our own country, Australia, in relation to other countries. Yet we students accepted this omission without question, so far as I can remember. We were, more importantly, part of the British Empire; our young men were away fighting for England. Aborigines, or our own history for that matter, weren’t mentioned. I was ignorant, insular, concerned only with ‘learning the book’ to pass tests and exams in those years at Adelaide Tech. It was fortunate that most of us liked learning.

More thought was required for maths, my worst subject. The teacher, a Mr Canney,²⁶ made no attempt, as I recall, to help the weaker students; you learned from the blackboard or you perished! And if the chalked-up examples were not clear (light shining on the blackboard) or not understood, you were too timid to complain. It was a huge class with both general and commercial students lumped together in a crowded room, the teacher remote; to me maths was an abstract and boring subject.

A mention for Miss McBride, a plump cheerful person who did her best for us in the commercial subjects. I recall a small group of us being shepherded up a narrow wooden staircase to an attic-like space to learn business practice. Perhaps this was classed as extra-curricular activity, which along with a weekly period for sport and another for singing, was all we had.

The songs we sang under the baton of Mr Sable Grivell were English for the most part, Irish, Italian (Santa Lucia – so romantic!). I cannot remember an Australian song being taught although the Song of Australia may have been learnt for a special occasion. It was such a relief to sing – a diversion from cramming. In 1942 I joined the staff of the Commercial Bank of Australia and was married in 1948. All through my life there has been a desire to learn – to know more – due, I feel sure, to those teachers at ATHS who did their best for us under far from ideal conditions. They were dedicated.

Return to contents Buy A Broader Vision	© Erica Jolly and individual authors