Trained as a primary school teacher, Marj didn't always work, although in the Shepparton years I remember her taking me with her to school on her bicycle and sitting me up the back of her class with paper and pencils. I think she was doing relief teaching, but she went full time after they started me in school a year early— I didn't mind, I already knew what school was all about.
It seems that in each town there was a different arrangement. I don't remember Marj working in Seymour (where she gave birth to and looked after my sister - no such thing as maternity leave or child care in those days). In St Arnaud and Rochester she didn't work either, but in Alexandra, the town they finally settled down in, Principal Chassa-boy, now at the top of the promotion ladder, managed to appoint Marj as the high school librarian. She had no special training - except her love of books. Her back room office was a muddle of various piles earmarked for different teachers: things she thought they would or should be interested in, as well as new books waiting to be entered into the Dewey system, bought with donations from the Mothers Club (soon to change their name to the Parents Committee). Each class would be rostered at least one lesson in the library for reading and research per week and while Marj was hopeless at controlling the unruly year nine boys, she would go out of her way to pass on to each child her enthusiasm for the written word.
In this town we lived in the smallest house of all, right next door to the school, which was handy for me. All I had to do was roll out of bed, hop the fence and I was there. I was in my final two years of high school, my brother having already escaped the family fold. He was at teachers college in Melbourne — the path Chassa-boy mapped for all three of his offspring, persuading us so cleverly that any other option seemed impossible; job security, short hours, long holidays, what more could we want?
In my Matric year I managed to talk Chassa-boy into letting me move into the bungalow which sat on one side of the house. Normally used as the spare room, I argued that it would give me the solitude I needed for studying. Chassa-boy resisted and only gave in after I laid out my argument in a series of hand written letters. His reply to me was cruelly sarcastic. Any evidence of fatherly love and understanding had long gone missing. I don't know what he thought I would be getting up to in there, but he obviously knew more than I did about the birds and the bees. I didn't get up to much, mainly daydreaming and doing all I could to resist Chassa-boy's decree that I should study three hours per night or else I'd end up as a shopgirl, and I didn't want that did I? Actually I thought it wouldn't be so bad as all the shop girls I knew seemed very happy, and at least I wouldn't have to be stuck in that room for an eternity.
Sometimes I think I am still in the room my father sentenced me to, trying to prove to him that I do have discipline, that I can produce words on the page that are meaningful, intelligent, clever, that I can come through with flying colours. For halfway through that year, I just gave up. Rather than face the shame of not reaching his high expectations, I fullfilled his prophecy - 'you'll fail if you don't do your three hours a night.' I didn't fail, but scraped through with enough marks to get me into teachers college so in his eyes at least all was redeemed.
It can't have been a good year for Marj. She would often take to her bed after school and not get up til dinner time. When Chassa-boy ended up in hospital with a heart attack, I didn't visit him, didn't feel any sympathy. Marj took to her bed even more. My teenage self didn't really want to understand why and would never in a million years let them know that now I needed them more than ever.
It seems that in each town there was a different arrangement. I don't remember Marj working in Seymour (where she gave birth to and looked after my sister - no such thing as maternity leave or child care in those days). In St Arnaud and Rochester she didn't work either, but in Alexandra, the town they finally settled down in, Principal Chassa-boy, now at the top of the promotion ladder, managed to appoint Marj as the high school librarian. She had no special training - except her love of books. Her back room office was a muddle of various piles earmarked for different teachers: things she thought they would or should be interested in, as well as new books waiting to be entered into the Dewey system, bought with donations from the Mothers Club (soon to change their name to the Parents Committee). Each class would be rostered at least one lesson in the library for reading and research per week and while Marj was hopeless at controlling the unruly year nine boys, she would go out of her way to pass on to each child her enthusiasm for the written word.
In this town we lived in the smallest house of all, right next door to the school, which was handy for me. All I had to do was roll out of bed, hop the fence and I was there. I was in my final two years of high school, my brother having already escaped the family fold. He was at teachers college in Melbourne — the path Chassa-boy mapped for all three of his offspring, persuading us so cleverly that any other option seemed impossible; job security, short hours, long holidays, what more could we want?
In my Matric year I managed to talk Chassa-boy into letting me move into the bungalow which sat on one side of the house. Normally used as the spare room, I argued that it would give me the solitude I needed for studying. Chassa-boy resisted and only gave in after I laid out my argument in a series of hand written letters. His reply to me was cruelly sarcastic. Any evidence of fatherly love and understanding had long gone missing. I don't know what he thought I would be getting up to in there, but he obviously knew more than I did about the birds and the bees. I didn't get up to much, mainly daydreaming and doing all I could to resist Chassa-boy's decree that I should study three hours per night or else I'd end up as a shopgirl, and I didn't want that did I? Actually I thought it wouldn't be so bad as all the shop girls I knew seemed very happy, and at least I wouldn't have to be stuck in that room for an eternity.
Sometimes I think I am still in the room my father sentenced me to, trying to prove to him that I do have discipline, that I can produce words on the page that are meaningful, intelligent, clever, that I can come through with flying colours. For halfway through that year, I just gave up. Rather than face the shame of not reaching his high expectations, I fullfilled his prophecy - 'you'll fail if you don't do your three hours a night.' I didn't fail, but scraped through with enough marks to get me into teachers college so in his eyes at least all was redeemed.
It can't have been a good year for Marj. She would often take to her bed after school and not get up til dinner time. When Chassa-boy ended up in hospital with a heart attack, I didn't visit him, didn't feel any sympathy. Marj took to her bed even more. My teenage self didn't really want to understand why and would never in a million years let them know that now I needed them more than ever.
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