Ivy Dowling (née Basford)

I attended for one full year and up to my birthday (April 1st) of the following year when, reaching the age of 14 years, I ceased my education. It was customary in that era for females to cease schooling at the age of 14. The generally held belief being that females did not need an education as their role in life was to marry and raise a family. In all honesty I was glad to leave. I did not like school. However, had the leaving age been older I would have accepted it and continued with my education.

Around October of 1940 I was offered and commenced a part-time job as a cashier. As a result of this, I was absent for the final examinations in two of my subjects. I didn’t mind, as I loved my job, and was looking forward to full-time work and further promotion. My new found working life came to an abrupt halt when, one Friday morning, I looked up to greet my next customer and came face to face with my teacher. The following Monday I was a school girl again. My parents applied for an exemption for me but it was refused and so I had to surrender my job, which was very disappointing.

On my fourteenth birthday, when I finally did finish school, my mother was taken ill and I was required to stay at home and help out until her health improved. During her lengthy recovery I managed to work part-time in a cafeteria, which I did for the next four years. Once my mother’s health improved, I was able to take up full-time work as a shop assistant. In retrospect I feel that being the last of seven children had its effect on my life.

Croydon Girls was an all girls’ school with Croydon Boys Junior Tech situated next door. The two schools shared a playing area which was a huge bitumen quadrangle that had a water drain down the centre. This drain was the dividing line or boundary between the two schools. The girls were required to keep to their side of the drain-line and the boys to theirs – the idea being, of course, that ‘never the twain should meet.’ Needless to say many a basketball or football found itself ‘accidentally’ on the wrong side of the drain, but neither side dared put a foot over it! After school was no different. We were not permitted to walk home with the boys. We were completely segregated.

1940, the second year of World War II, brought a highlight to my time at school. I was chosen to submit an embroidery piece I was working on for the Royal Adelaide Show. I was so excited about this, so you can imagine my disappointment when it was announced shortly afterwards that the Royal Show would cease for the duration of the war.

My sister had attended Croydon Central School before me in 1936. She was a very bright student who only attended for one year, attaining Dux of the school in that year. It was a terrific effort, and I admired her for it. Despite the fact that she would have enjoyed continuing her education and, despite the school’s attempts at trying to persuade our parents she should return, she still had to leave. She began work with a dressmaking establishment, where she did very well. She later began teaching dressmaking at night classes.

In those days finding a job was easier. The choices were numerous and it was simply a case of choosing the one you liked best. If, after a while, you found that job didn’t suit you went on to another.

Unfortunately for me I attended Croydon Girls after my sister and was often compared to her. Comments from teachers such as ‘Oh! You’re not as brilliant as your sister,’ I found disheartening. Fourth in a class of 42 was the best I could manage, that being in my second term at school. I guess she was a hard act to follow.

Discipline at the school was very strict. We did exactly as we were told and never answered back to any of the teachers. I cannot recall any ‘trouble makers’ in the class.

Sport, or any physical exercise was not encouraged. Perhaps this changed in the school’s later years. However, I would have liked to continue with sport while at secondary school, as I had played basketball at primary school from fifth to seventh grade and longed to continue with it. During my primary school years, I was chosen for a representative team to go to Melbourne but a sprained ankle stopped me from going. In my after-school years, I played for Brompton Primary Old Scholars on Saturday afternoons, filled in for my sister’s work team at night basketball on occasions and later played night basketball for Myers, where I was then working as a shop assistant.

The subjects I did were English, arithmetic, geography and current events, history and civics, hygiene, drawing, needlework, dressmaking, cookery and manual dictation. In first year all girls took general. The next year they had the choice of general or commercial. Most of the girls who did it for more than one year and then left did from three to six months at a business college before starting work.

I received a Domestic Arts Certificate Grade II – after a course of three years, one year at Croydon the other years at Brompton Primary – that stated I ‘attended the Croydon Domestics Arts Centre, and [has] satisfactorily completed a course of instruction in Cookery, Food Values, Laundry and Household Management, as required for the Second Grade Certificate – December 1940. This certificate was signed by Elsie Campbell, Inspector of Domestic Arts, as well as Charles Fenner, Director of Education.

I was one of seven children, six girls and a boy. The eldest girl worked in a family-owned dry cleaning shop and was followed, after the eldest sister left and married, by the next daughter. The second eldest became a tailoress as did the fourth daughter. My brother worked in a brick-yard, maintaining and operating machinery. The fifth daughter became a dressmaker at an establishment and I became a shop assistant.

It is interesting to note that, as was common for the era, all girls ceased employment when they married. Of the six females, only two (myself and my third oldest sister) returned to work in later years, and only when the children of the marriages were grown up. I had two children and was widowed at 40. Then I worked as an heraldic researcher.

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