Margaret Jenkins (née Donnell)

In the years 1937 to 1939 Nailsworth Girls Central School was part of a complete educational complex – infant school, girls’ primary, girls’ secondary, boys’ primary and boys’ secondary. Although in the one area, there were imaginary lines drawn to keep each section completely apart from the others. The girls’ school was probably the newest, a solid brick building, while the boys’ primary was in very old buildings, and the boys’ secondary in transportables.

I had previously been a student at Nailsworth Infant and Primary until during fourth grade the family, of necessity, moved to Bridgewater to a small holiday cottage, as my parents tried to cope with the depression.

As my primary days came to a close (I was the eldest in the family), my parents decided to return to our home at Broadview which had been rented out during our absence. The only other option was for me to travel by train to Mitcham. There was still not much money around, so we really had no choice of the type of education – it was the nearest school, which was Nailsworth.

The Nailsworth Girls Central School was situated on the first floor of the building above the primary girls. I am not sure just how many girls were in grade 8, but there were at least two, possibly three classes. My class photograph shows that there were 46 in my class!

The school leaving age at the time was 14 years, so most girls either left to find jobs or to begin apprenticeships such as dressmaking or hair dressing. Grade 9 numbers would have gradually dwindled because of this, and by grade 10 there was only one class with 19 girls. By the end of 1939 this number was reduced to 12. Despite financial strain I can see now that my parents wished us to have as good an education as possible, so I stayed at school until after I was 15, even going back for a few months after to keep up my typing skills until I was able to find a job. Grade 10 was as far as the school took the students.

In grade 8 our teachers were Miss Whiting and Miss Miller. Besides the general subjects of English, geography, arithmetic, we had dressmaking, millinery, art, domestic arts (both cooking and laundry). Our introduction to dressmaking, with Miss Duncan, in Grade 8 was rather daunting – our first assignment was to make our serge uniform for the winter. For a person who had never touched a sewing machine before, this was horrendous. As serge was an expensive material, I knew I had to succeed somehow. We learned drafting, but I cannot recall anything else that I made.

Millinery was the same – trying to stitch a series of straight lines around the brim of a summer hat, which I can’t ever remember wearing. Art, with Miss Spencer, – for me – was a waste of time, as I certainly had no talent for it, and still haven’t.

I think we all enjoyed domestic arts, particularly the cooking, but my main memory of that is having to take the ingredients from home – a little of this, a pinch of that, buying one chop from the butcher, one carrot or one onion from the greengrocer. My mother’s comment on our cooking classes was, ‘If I had to do my cooking that way I’d never get anything done!’

In grade 9 our domestic arts classes were assessed at Intermediate standard, and we all passed, most with credits and one with a distinction. In grade 9 we kept on with the general subjects, plus dressmaking, domestic arts. Our geography was limited to two books – Australian geography from the book written by Charles Fenner, and the rest of the world in Symons. Commercial subjects – shorthand, typing and bookkeeping – were added in that year.

My memory is a little hazy regarding the type of reading we had to study, but can remember, in grade 9, studying The Merchant of Venice and reciting it aloud at home in my room, as I loved acting. We were also taken to see a live theatre production of the play which must have impressed me as, many years later, while in England I made a point of seeing several Shakespearean plays and thoroughly enjoyed them.

In all classes discipline was very strict, with very little interaction between student and teacher.

In grade 10 we dropped the technical subjects and concentrated on commercial subjects which, of course, included English and arithmetic. Our ‘room’ in grade 10 consisted of an area partitioned off on the balcony, with no heating and no proper protection from the elements. We all sat for our Intermediate that year in the School of Mines on North Terrace. I wonder now if that third year had been a recent addition to the curriculum.

Although the entire school was on the one property, there was complete separation of students. The boys’ and girls’ schools were separated by a line of gum trees, with a row of seats each side – one for the boys and one for the girls. At lunch times we were supposed to sit there as though we were ignorant of the fact that the boys were sitting only a few feet away. After all, we were normal teenagers, and two of the girls I still see can recall being regularly called into Miss Cooper’s office, to be reprimanded for talking to the boys. Our domestic arts classes were held in an old house on part of the boys’ primary school grounds, and I am sure there was some lingering between the girls’ school and the domestic arts room.

There was no canteen in those days, so most students brought lunch from home. The local corner deli did a very good trade but, money still being scarce, I rarely had the chance to visit it. A few had the luxury of bicycles, but the majority walked to and from school – we lived about a mile away but that was not considered far, even for the little tots in infant school.

My memories of sport are vague, although I was very enthusiastic. We played basketball (now netball) and vigoro. Basketball practice after school was in our uniform, rolling stockings down to prevent holes in the knees if we fell.

There was not a wide range of occupations for girls – we became nurses, typistes, hairdressers, shop assistants or worked in factories. My commercial education has stood me in good stead as I have used it ever since in various ways, including running my own business (a yoga studio) at one stage.

Ten years down the track I would probably have asked to go to high school so that I could continue my education and become a physiotherapist, just then emerging as a profession. However, parents in those days made all the decisions regarding education. I did eventually train as a yoga teacher, and worked for many years in that capacity – a field very similar in many ways to physiotherapy.

My skills in dressmaking and cooking have stayed with me, enhanced in later life with further adult classes in both subjects. In Grade 10 much bonding occurred, and a few of us still meet nearly 60 years later, together with Mrs Andrews (then Miss Little) our grade 10 English teacher and Miss Muriel Paterson, our commercial teacher.

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