Loris Bulger (née Allen)

In 1927 I began my education at Brighton Primary School. I never had any ambition to have a career but I finished up being a comptometrist. Ultimately I saw myself getting married and having children as I really loved children. I was the eldest grandchild and when I was staying with my grandparents at Terowie, I looked after the other children who were mainly my sisters and cousins. The Great Depression made life hard for our family but I still had to go to school until I was 14.

In 1935 the only ‘secondary’ school was Goodwood Central School for Girls which was part of what was called the Super Primary Department. I went to the school in Lily Street by steam train. I was excited about the whole thing, excited because I was going by train, and more importantly, by myself. It was a new world.

There were several eighth year classes and our teacher was Miss Heath, a very gentle lady who spoke very nicely. She took us for all our general subjects; arithmetic, spelling, geography, history and English. There was no nature study. I remember for English we studied Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice.

Miss Green was our art teacher. She was fun and used to joke and laugh with us. She was a bright, happy person. For art we would take along fruit or berries, for example cotoneaster, to make a design from them to emboss the leather purse or bag that we made. I remember that I took spider orchids from the hills and a creeper from our back yard. Once I made a multi-symmetrical design based on a poppy. I enjoyed everything about art, and still have the work I did, but I didn’t think I was very good. (Much later, when Mawson High School had adult education classes, I studied art with Trevor Clare who taught there.) Now one of my pleasures is to go to art group and paint with my sister. I have a photograph of Miss Green with Miss Sellars, our headmistress. She was a very approachable person and I was never frightened of her.

For cooking, with Miss Maschmedt, we went to the old school on Goodwood Road – we went there for all our technical subjects. It was a beautiful old building made of lovely stone, probably from Basket Range. Miss Maschmedt was a big, tall woman with a loud voice. She was a good teacher as she explained everything. She told us how to make scones using a knife to mix the dough to handle it as little as possible to make it light. She gave us theory as well as ‘prac’. We learned to cream butter and sugar by creaming the wedding cakes she made. We’d pass the basins along the row creaming butter and sugar as she talked about the day’s lesson.

The room we used was very long with narrow, high windows. There were long benches because we had to make our own patterns and needed the space. In my dressmaking book you can see it was really quite a complicated job. I made a flannel blazer and from that was eventually able to make three blazers for my children when they went to school. I made all the boys’ trousers. I took my husband’s trousers apart to find out how to do the fly and side pockets for the boys’ trousers for high school. Their winter pants were lined.

Our dressmaking teacher was a bit strict. In millinery we had to make our own hat with a stitched brim. One outfit I was very proud of, I wore it to the trots at Wayville. It was a maroon dress and hat. The bodice of the dress had cross-lacing with gold cord. My father told me to walk like a queen.

In 1936, year 9, Miss Chilman was our class teacher. She taught us arithmetic which I didn’t enjoy at all. She was an older person and very strict. She also taught us geography and made us memorise it. We had to learn a paragraph of notes on a certain subject that day and repeat it parrot fashion before we could get out of class to catch the train home. I don’t remember any of it.

That year we had a picnic in the Belair National Park. It was also the centenary year for South Australia. May Cleggett taught us sword dancing for the Empire pageant. We had rehearsals which I don’t remember but we did a dance at the Adelaide Oval. I made a pink rose costume for England out of crepe paper. We learned to curl the end of the ‘petals’ and stretch them with a pencil. My youngest sister was a snow flake and my other sister was an autumn leaf for Canada. I loved English history and used to marvel at the great rooms in the castles. With my father at home, I pored over the photographs in his collection of Beautiful Britain, My trip to England in 1994, enabling me to see castles for myself, was a realisation of a life- long dream stemming from my English history lessons at school.

I also remember my father trying to help me with my home work. I’d be sitting at the dining room table while my father patiently tried to explain and get ideas into my muddled brain.

In November 1936 I turned 14 and I had an opportunity to go, for the first time on my own, to Terowie to help my grandmother prepare Christmas. The family followed later. I saw no reason to finish the year at school when I had this chance to be treated as an adult.

My first job in the next year was doing housework for people who had a bakery in Somerton and I’d watch the baker baking ‘kisses’. With that job I was able to buy a bike to go to work.

I fulfilled my childhood hopes to marry and have children and I have lived in the Brighton area all my life. My two years at Goodwood Central gave me the confidence to go on and make all the family clothes and to take up painting as a hobby when the time was right.

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