Luanshya Primary School Standard 4A 1956

From Great North Road

Luanshya Primary School Standard 4A, 1956

Luanshya Primary School Standard 4A, 1956.

Luanshya Primary School Standard 4A, 1956 class photo - Student ages 11-12
Teacher: Mr. Doherty Left to right by rows

Back row (elevated)
1. Alan Chattaway 2. Paul Salter 3. George Curtis 4. Donald Oxley 5. Gary Harrison 6. Jan Vermuelen 7. David Taylor 8. Peter Haydock 9. Nevin Juretic 10. Neil Lowrey

Second row (standing)
11. N. Hall 12. Deanna Morris 13. Heather Lane 14. Nicoleen van Niekerk 15. Eileen Dobbin 16. Annie Brooks 17. Muriel Tyson 18. Wendy Attersol 19. Norma Burgers 20. Fame Miller 21. Irene Wright 22. Joe Hilstrom

Third row (seated)
23. Gaynor Feather 24. Ursula Wood 25. Coleen Taylor 26. Francis Gemmel 27. Deanna Jeffreys 28. Susan Dickenson 29. Gertrude Botha
Fourth row (on ground)
30. Tony Austin 31. Lester Saunders 32. Barry Price 33. David Smith 34. Peter Wilkinson 35. Stephen Smith 36. Fred de Wit 37. Barry Welsh

Dave Smith and Stephen Smith were not related. David Taylor and Coleen Taylor were likely not related.
Class size 37, distribution 46% girls, 54% boys.
This gender skew is also in other class photos from that era.
The missing girls may have attended the nearby Convent School.
What were those days like? Unlike today, for sure:

• Class sizes were 30 to 40 students.
• Boys spent "break" (recess) playing marbles or piggyback wrestling.
• Every boy carried a "penknife" (folding pocketknife) but nobody ever used them in a fight, because that would not have been a "fair fight" and the whole class would have despised them.
• Partway through the year George Curtis' mother told him the "fact of life". The next day at school he told all the boys, but some who had no sisters and had not lived on farms refused to believe such a "fairy tale"!

Contributed by Alan Chattaway