Carol’s a blast from the past
I WAS delighted to hear from former Dandenong Girls School student Carol Pratt last week after an old school friend recognised her in a photograph the Journal published on 5 May.
It’s remarkable she identified a young Carol more than 56 years after the image was captured!
It was a still from a rare 16mm film shot in Dandenong in 1957, shortly after the school opened, which Dandenong High School and the school’s ex-students association recently made available on DVD.
Carol was among the school’s founding students after completing her primary schooling at Dandenong West.
She recalled the weekly checks to ensure students’ nails were clipped short, as depicted in the image, that their skirts touched the ground when they kneeled, that their hair was tied back and not touching their collars, and that they had grey knickers on.
Such strict uniform requirements must be a strange concept for most of today’s students, but it was very much expected during my school days.
Carol also told me she used to avoid sport because the uniforms were so uncomfortable.
It’s hard to imagine how the girls played hockey and other games wearing long skirts with divided shorts underneath, a shirt and a double-breasted tunic.
“It was horrible. I used to leave my uniform at home. I did maths instead, and I liked maths,” Carol said.
She spoke very highly of principal Miss Bond, who Carol said named all the school houses after the 1956 Olympic stars – Cuthbert, Landy, Strickland and Marshall.
Miss Bond even arranged for track athletes Betty Cuthbert, John Landy and Shirley Strickland and swimmer John Marshall’s wife to visit the school.
John was killed in a car accident early in 1957.
Carol recalled taking lots of craft subjects, and classes in home management.
“I learnt how to wash the dishes and iron clothes,” she said.
“It was a good school, I enjoyed it.”
Science in a nutshell
KEYSBOROUGH students Mehmet Akif Canbolat and Mustafa Tanriverdi very successfully represented their community and their country at the 2nd International Science Project Olympiad (ISPRO) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Deputy Minister of Education and Culture Professor Wiendu Nuryanti presented the boys with bronze medals for their chemistry project, Waste to Health.
It was an intriguing project about using the groundnut shell as a low cost absorbent for heavy metal.
These students can return home with pride, having competed against 135 students from 24 countries in the event, organised by the Indonesia Department of Education and Culture and Pacific Countries Social and Economic Solidarity Association (PASIAD).
