Grade 1 - The Hill Extension Primary School, Johannesburg - South Africa

 I was over the moon recently when someone from the same school that I went to, said they had a school magazine from the year I was there in Grade 1.

He kindly scanned in the photo for me and here it is:

The amazing thing is that after all these years I still remember "most" of the children's names, but not only that I am also in contact with a few of them! 

I am not telling you which one is ME, maybe later when I add all the names to this post!  

The sad part about this photo is that at least 4 people I knew have all passed away, one at the very young age of 16 and another as recent as last year. 

Looking back on School Rules!

The other day I was driving Emily to School, we drive the same way all the time, we see a few particular boys on our route.   These boys must be approaching their final year at Roan Boys school, which is a very good school in our area.

The taller of the 2 boys, have beautiful curly hair that is now almost down to his waist and the other boy has straight hair that is past his shoulders, it is always clean and blowing in the wind.  Now they do wear school uniforms, grey flannels, white shirt and tie, just like the boys at Hill High, however there are no rules about "HAIR".

So I started telling Emily about when I was in high school and the Rules we had, maybe you can add to them but this is what I remember.

1.  Boys hair MUST be 2 fingers about the collar, neat and short

2.  Boys who were at shaving age, must be clean shaved.

3. Boys were not allowed to shave their heads

I remember that a group of boys in my class Colin, Warren, Alex and a few other, got caned because their hair was not at the stipulated 2 fingers above the collar, so the next day they went out and shaved their heads, came to school and were caned for shaving their heads!  You couldn't win. 

Girls Rule:

1. Your dress could not be higher than 3 fingers off the knee

2. You had to wear regulation panties (Green granny pants or the summer ones which were the same pattern and material as the uniform uggh)

3. No Mascara, eyeliner or any make up whatsoever. 

4. Hair below the collar had to be tied back 

5.  Regulation tights in winter and white socks in summer

6.  Only Brown School shoes

7.  No Nail varnish

If you broke any of these rules you would get a 2 hour detention and write out lines or an essay!  So you couldn't even do your homework.  The prefects were mean they would give you essays with the title "The inside of a ping pong ball" and you had to write a 1000 words (non repetitive). 

In primary school I just remember being hit on the hands with a ruler or a wooden spoon if you spoke in class or did something else wrong!  There was no detention. 

In Ireland:

The girls have uniforms however they can wear as much make up as they like, false eyelashes to boot! Any shoes they like and as long as they are not too high!  No one cares how short or long your school dress / skirt is.  You can wear false nails or varnish.  No one really cares about your socks either. 

And of course there is no corporal punishment and you only get detention if you are continually late.   How time have changed. 

I found these that I think are also quite ridiculous:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sophiegadd/the-most-ridiculous-rules-peoples-schools-had 

The Hill High School (1977 - 1981)

I haven't blogged for a while, but I was just reading over some of my comments and thought, I really should post some more of my nostalgic memories here! 

So where better to start then the place we got some of our Grounding ... or did we!?

Coming from a really strict Junior School (Highveld Primary) which had about 720 - 800 pupils, we were fairly disciplined, although if you compared it to the Afrikaans schools you would have said that we had no discipline at all. 

In Highveld we had three classes in each standard with approximately 30 students in each class.   Our first year in High School 1977 and we were practically bursting at the seams classes 6A - 6K or was it L, some with almost 40 students in a class, almost 12 classes of standard 6's.

So put a bunch of teenagers together from all walks of life, including a lot of new foreigners who were not used to the staunch Afrikaans government and ways of life in South Africa and what do you get .... Chaos!

When attending a Government School in Jo'burg you had to live in a certain radius of the school to attend it, with Primary Schools the radius was of course smaller as the schools were smaller, with High School this opened up to a wider radius.  So whereas in Primary School most of the kids came from Linmeyer, The Hill, Oakdene and the closer areas of Rosettenville - in High School because there were so few English speaking High Schools, this extended as far as South Hills, Regents Park, Rosettenville proper, all of The Hill and other areas too.  So lets say kids from about 6 different Primary Schools Highveld, Rewlatch, Regents Park, Rosettenville Primary, Townsview Primary, South Hills Primary attending 1 High School - of course not everyone would have gone to Hill, there were those fortunate enough to be sent to Private schools, but either way it was a lot of kids.

Depending on what additional subjects you chose going into High School, depended on what class you would end up in.  I chose "Art" and "Accountancy" as additional subjects and was put in "6G" with Ms Harvey as my main teacher. 

There weren't many Highveld Students in my Standard 6 class in High School, but then again there were so many students, I don't really remember who was in my class.  I do remember it was a very unruly bunch and if you couldn't beat them you had to join them.   There were a number of students who were repeating the year that were in our class.

"What I remember from Standard 6 in 1977"

Spending a lot of time in Detention, sometimes with the whole class and sometimes just me, the prefects seem to pick on the Std 6's and you were then sent to the library for an hours detention, and instead of being allowed to do your homework you had to either write out lines, or write stupid essays about "the inside of a ping pong ball" which had to be no less than 1000 words.

Joanne Botha and Luis San Emeterio - Joanne and Luis were dating and I only found that out because I fancied Luis and used to annoy him to try and get his attention.  I soon became good friends with both of them.  Luis was so talented, he played the Guitar and the drums and could sing like an Angel.  I remember staying after school one day while he played and sang "Charlie" which was a hit by Rabbitt  at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D77djVZdUHc - Sadly Joanne and Luis were killed in 1979 in a car accident, but that is a whole other story.

Our class teacher was very brave teaching us about contraception when very few of us even knew about the facts of life at that stage.

Being sent to the principals office for dropping a "stink bomb" on the corridor and remembering how Fino took the blame for me. 

Going on my first chaperoned date with Malcolm Messias, we went to a restaurant in Hilbrow, he was also my first real kiss - after leaving school and starting to work he took me out for lunch to tell me he was Gay!  Was a bit shocked but I was never into him so never really mattered.  God rest his soul.

Going down to the rugby field after school to watch a fight between C and Ingrid, but by the time we arrived, fight was over and C was washing out blood from under her nails.  And all over a BOY!!!  Ingrid came out worse with a dislocated back and scratches, and it was the last day of school! *Cat Fight* - C is so embarrassed about it would not tell anyone and pretends her past did not exist, hates being reminded of anything - hey get over it, it's part of your character if you can look back and laugh about it!

That story reminded me of my other BFF Morag, we knew each other from the age of 3, lived in the same street and saw each other at least 6 days of the week.  What a wonderful soul she was, I though my parents were strict until I met hers.  I do miss Morag so much, sadly she passed away in 1991.

Teachers - Oh wow, Mr Liversage what a hunk!  (Sadly he too has passed on) - he was the industrial Arts teacher, most of us girls wished we could do Industrial Arts but alas it was not to be.  Although I do remember one period that the teacher was off sick and when that happened you had to go to a substitute class, the girls were sent to one place and the boys to another, but I went with the boys!  I was not very popular with the girls after that, but it was because Nemo and I were working on something.

To be continued ...

The early years

As far back as I can remember, I spent my pre-primary school at home with the maid, while my mother and father went off to work, my two older sisters were at school and I remember being very bored and getting up to loads of mischief. 

I started going to Sunday school creche at the age of 3 and we learnt all the bible stories, the Sunday we did moses in the bull rushes and made a basket out of some kind of play dough and moses was a jelly baby, well moses got eaten very quickly, even though he was covered in play dough.  Our Sunday school teacher was Heloise Louw, her husband was the local vetenarian and I think they only had one son Franscious, they may have had a daughter two.  There was another lady who used to help out and her name was Sheila.  In the cradle section of the Sunday school, I remember there being two other girls in the class with me - Morag Todd and Jill Hanekom, the weird thing is they have both passed away and both at a young age.  Jill was about 16 when her horse threw her off and Morag was 27 when she passed away.

I eventually started school at the age of 5 of couldn't wait to start, but I must admit I hated school, I loved the social aspect of school but that was about it. 

Grade 1 (1970) - My teachers name was Mrs Van Vuuren, she had been my eldest sisters Sisters standard 4 teacher so she knew me when I started.  I was late for my first day at school and wasn't dropped off by my mother as most of the grade 1 kids were, my eldest sister took me to my class.  The teacher asked me if I recognised anyone in the class and I recognised Jill from Sunday school, so she sat me next to Jill.  Our first day we were given thick wax crayons and we spent most of the day drawing, my mother had given me 5c to buy something from the tuck shop, in those days a packet of Simba Crisps cost 5c, but when I went to get my money it was gone.  It turned out Jill had taken my money and the teacher soon got it back, from that day on we were seperated and I think I sat next to Russell for the rest of the year.  Mr Higgs was the principal at the school.  This is the only year I received a school prize, I think I was either first or second in class.

Grade 2  (1971) - Mrs Buys, a red haired Afrikaner lady with a very bad temper and very very strict.  I only remember I hated her with a passion.  I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time one break time and was accused of spitting on Sharon Steyn's head this tall girl who was in another class, as it happened the Standard 1 boys were throwing orange juice cartons into the dustbin, and some of the juice happened to go on her head. I ended up being told to go to the headmasters office, but in the end the prefect felt sorry for me and let me go back to class.  This is the only year I remember doing a school concert, we were butterflys in "Teddy Bears Picnic".

Standard 1 (1972) - Miss Ciglar - she was really nice, my first English teacher, she made learning fun.  However I did get into trouble in her class one day when I had an altecation with Morag, Morag was teasing me and grabbed a letter away from me that I had written and I ended up scratching her and she cried.  The first boy I spoke to socially was in my class Chris Larsen and he was leaving to move to Durban.  Miss Ciglar was not too strict, but if we were naughty she would hit us with a ruler.

Standard 2 (1973) - Miss Da Silva - Miss Da Silva was by far the most beautiful teacher I had had, she was Spanish and all the guys in I class loved her and so did the girls.  She was very strict though and used to hit the girls with a wooden spoon on their hands, so hard that it stung like hell and in winter it would hurt even more so because I hands were so cold.  Standard 2 was the last standard that we remained in the same class for all our subjects, this was also the year that the swimming pool was built and we got to learn how to swim.  Our swimming teacher was Mrs Prout Jones. 

Standard 3 (1974) - Ah, now who was the teacher was it Miss Fourie, I think so she was a lovely ditzy blonde lady who used to hit the guys and the girls on the backsides with a T bar ruler if they were naughty.  She was our main teacher and also took us for Afrikaans.  This is the year we used to move classes for different subjects and Mr Naude took us for Music, I was chosed to sing in the choir and we sang in an eistedford at the civic centre and also put on a play called the H.M.S. Pinafore.  Most of the standard 5 boys had the main parts in the show, Gavin, David etc. and the boys in our year were the sailors and the girls were the ladies in waiting.

Standard 4 (1975) - Was it Mrs Callaghan or O'Callaghan I remember she was an Afrikaans lady married to an Irishman.  Can't say I remember too much about this year.  My eldest sister matriculated this year and was Head Librarian at Hill High.

Standard 5 (1976) - Last year in Primary school, school was a jol, I was also a girl guide and we went on some awesome camps, one in particular was to Louis Trichardt in the middle of winter with 500 other girl guides from around South Africa, we had the Lazy Daze camp in Magaliesburg, I remember Cheryl & Elaine and Shirly all being on this camp, the girls and boys had seperate dorms and our Vice principal Mr. Walsh came with, we played volley ball by the pool and I ended up breaking my arm.   We had veld school and we went off to some god forsaken place called Delmas where an army major made us act like soldiers and camp out under the stars, there were 2 or 3 different schools on the camp.

I was in a fabulous class, the girls were all becoming really beautiful and the guys so good looking, I had the biggest crush on Marc who lived down the road from me, but he was not one bit interested in me.  I remember at our Standard 5 farewell party at the school, I was just dying to dance with him and I think I did.  The biggest song that year was "I hate the music" by John Paul Young.