In 1963 I started high school. At the end of the previous year all students received a letter informing them of their future high school. Cremorne Girls' High was a government school with a good reputation and most of the girls in my class were going there so I was pretty pleased.
Some girls went to Mosman High which was a vocational school where girls learnt typing and other subjects which readied them for the workforce.
The school sent out information brochures including the strict school rules as well as a long list of uniform items that needed to be bought. We were all to turn up on the first day wearing full uniform or there would be trouble!
In the Christmas school holidays my mother took me to buy the required uniforms. I can't quite remember the name of the department store, 'Gowings' or 'McDowell's', in the city in Sydney, which was the uniform specialist. Neither store exists anymore as far as I know.
As we were really quite poor this was a huge expenditure for my parents so my mother had saved up and had a wad of pound notes in her purse to pay for it all. I didn't really appreciate the financial sacrifice this must have been for my parents and was just really excited to be going into town for a 'shop till you drop' day.
Whatever the store, it was chock-a-block with uniforms and students being fitted out. Shop assistants rushed about carrying armfuls of uniform items with mothers and their children milling about. If I remember correctly it was all fairly frantic.
We announced that I was going to Cremorne Girls' and the assistant brought out the uniform items I would need. I had to try everything on first of course. Two blue summer uniforms - these frocks were supposed to suit everyone and therefore suited nobody. Shapeless and with buttons all the way down the front, a Peter Pan collar and a buttoned belt of the same fabric. The buttons were removable with a key ring type of gadget at the back that held them in place. Over time people lost the buttons or the ring for the back so that dresses were held shut with safety pins ( this would earn you a detention). Also as boobs grew the dresses would gape at the bust. They really were very unflattering.
Continuing the unflattering, the PE tunic was ghastly and disliked by just about everyone. It was blue also. Sleeveless with a v neck it had to be, according to the instructions in the information booklet, '4 inches from the ground'. The instruction booklet neglected to add 'when kneeling' and we used to laugh and speculate what a teacher would say if we turned up in a long dress. The highlight of the PE uniform was the bloomers that were worn under the tunic. Big and boofy we hated them but we had to wear them for decorum.
Next came a navy blue blazer which had to be worn to school whatever the weather. A smooth cream straw school hat, which under the brim, was navy with a fine pale blue stripe, several pairs of white ankle socks and navy gloves were the final items we bought at that store. My mother's supply of pounds was fast diminishing but we still needed new shoes which we bought at David Jones.
We also had to purchase a special outfit for 'home economics'. This consisted of a white wrap-around garment which covered our uniforms completely, and a white cap which covered our hair. Although we only had home economics for six months we were expected to buy the outfit. Luckily Joan, one of our neighbours was a Cremorne girl also, a few years older than me, was able to sell us her whites at a much discounted price. I in turn, gave Pamela, another neighbour, the same outfit when she started at Cremorne several years later.
We would have had lunch somewhere as a treat before travelling home by bus to Circular Quay and then by ferry to Mosman Wharf followed by the walk to the flats.
When my father came home from work I modelled my new uniform and of course he made all the appropriate complimentary noises.
On the first day of school we all turned up in our new uniforms. It was easy to tell the newbies because we didn't have hatbands on our smooth cream hats, which looked like pudding basins with brims, or crests on our blazers. These items could be bought at school and were eagerly sewn on hats and blazers that night. As soon as we knew which house we were in we could also buy the appropriately coloured cord for our PE uniforms. I was in Ashton house and had a green cord.
We were put in our various class groups hoping madly that a friend was in the same class and then shown around the school. I thought it was all very exciting. We didn't have to move between classrooms very much in that first year as the teachers came to us. We did have to stand whenever a teacher came into the room, but we were used to doing that from primary school. All our new teachers gave us long lists of exercise books which we needed to buy and handed out text books which all had to be recorded and then covered at home.
At recess and lunch we found our friends and found a place to sit where we weren't encroaching on a more senior's space and discussed who our 'home' teachers were and if they seemed nice or not.
Finally the first day ended and appropriately hatted and gloved I trudged home weighed down by my stack of text books and the confusing new information about timetables, teachers' names and things I had to buy. I was looking forward to telling my parents all about my latest educational adventure.
