No Longer a Rapscallion
I could make a start in the world and not sit the scholarship exam at the end of grade seven. It wasn’t compulsory. My parents hadn’t sat it. I supposed it would prove I had a brain. I passed the exam easily making no effort to study beforehand. I achieved a 72.4% pass with an excellent mathematics grade yet a mediocre English one. Language skills, other than the ability to launch a verbal volley of expletives, weren’t important in my family. My academic rival, Ronnie, sat with equal success. We gleefully discovered in the newspaper the teacher’s daughter barely passed though.
My parents paid little heed to my achievement. They instead were keen for me to find a proper job to contribute money to the household. Dad had seen jobs at Evans Deakin Shipbuilders and Heavy Engineering advertised in the newspaper. Its workshops were located at Rocklea, Brisbane’s industrial hub, next to the train line we often travelled. So, Mother dragged me there in my Sunday best. We found our way to a cheerless grey office and met a grizzled man wearing a short sleeve collared shirt complemented with a sad taste tie. Mother sat and I stood nervously. I kept my mouth shut least I raised Mother’s ire. The man asked for my scholarship results. He leaned back in his creaky chair and sized me up.
He spoke, ‘Mrs, I am sorry; I cannot in good conscience give your boy a job. He is too bright to sweep the floor in this factory. With a scholarship pass as good as this, he should go to high school. You should be proud of him.’
Unfortunately, Mother only heard the man’s first sentence. Her demeanour was like ice all the way home. She had counted on my prospective wages.
Soon after, my parents made me an offer. They’d feed me whilst I went to high school. However, I’d need to fund my uniforms, text books and anything else from my money. The uniforms were expensive yet compulsory. They comprised of long trousers, school shirts, a tie, a felt hat, socks, leather shoes and a school blazer. No longer was I a ragamuffin in whatever shirt and shorts I grabbed to wear. I was a well dressed young man. To give Mother credit, she’d always ensure my uniform was clean and ironed. Perhaps, she was secretly chuffed in front of our neighbours that her son was going to high school.
I had no idea what people learnt at high school. My older mate, Reggie, couldn’t tell me. He finished primary school then went to work at the Railway. I couldn’t discuss it with Ronnie either. He was being sent to boarding school. My parents knew nothing about it nor did any of my relatives. I was the first of both family lines to go. To begin with, I had an interview with Beenleigh High’s headmaster. Whilst waiting for this, I spoke with another boy. He told me he wanted to become an engineer. I didn’t know anything about engineers. The headmaster asked me into his office. Again, I trembled with nervousness. This man was about to determine my future. He scanned my scholarship results then enquired what job would I like. I simply told him I enjoyed woodwork and technical drawing. He winked and wrote industrial on my enrolment form.
Initially, I felt like a nobody after I had finally grown into a somebody. I sat learning subjects, I had little clue about, taught by different teachers. In my previous grade, I had heard the same lessons for the six years before and wasn’t bothered to do any homework. Now, I didn’t feel very smart. Some of my classmates were though. I kept a low profile. Still, I had a face to save and had invested my precious savings. Thus, I did my homework and studied hard for the seemingly endless exams. Besides, I strove to win at whatever activity I attempted. I wished with my whole soul for my name to be added to the school’s leader board at the end of junior. My peers’ fierce competition drove me harder. I even scaled back my bird enterprise to accommodate my efforts.
Whilst I was acquainting myself with my new lowly status as a sub-junior, the sports house captain elections for the school’s two sports houses occurred. I had been assigned to Lavarack House. When the nominations were announced at school parade, I expected these to be juniors. To my utter surprise, my name was called. More surprisingly still, the students elected me. So, I wasn’t a nobody after all! My reputation on the sports field had preceded me. I was thrust into a position of leadership, a scary proposition for an introverted lad.
I then needed to prove I was the sports star everybody thought I was. I undertook to win the year’s cross country race. I had been running from trouble for years! I had grown into a tall lad too. I trained surreptitiously after dark and ran up to six kilometres a night. Somehow, I could keep pace without tiring. In later life, I’d learn I had a slow heart rate, good for a long distance runner. Sure enough, no other lads kept pace in that race with me. I won that year and the next to inscribe my name in the school’s record book. I was unbeatable in the mile races on the school’s sports days too. The same happened with the high jump, which I really wanted to win. My long legs ensured I cleared those bars effortlessly. I was everybody’s sports star! The following year, the students re-elected me as captain and elected me a school prefect too. I had earnt respect and learnt this meant more than to win.
In junior year, the school chose me to role play Captain Logan alongside eight other students as convicts and four as soldiers in Beenleigh’s Centennial celebration to commemorate the State of Queensland’s first century in 1959. I felt honoured! This event was important to the community and reflected the struggles of local families, including mine, to build new lives in a foreign country. I was given a replica Belltop Shako hat, a blue military style blazer with tails, white trousers and long black boots to wear. The best part of my attire was the musket. It was empty though! I stood proudly on a whale boat whilst the ‘convicts’ rowed it up the Logan River. A flotilla of small ships followed us and we all set anchor at Logan River Bridge. Quite a spectacle!
As busy as these years were, I loved them. I earnt my name on the school’s leader board and achieved six ‘A’s, two ‘B’s and a ‘C’ in English in my junior exams. My teachers thought I should go on to senior at Salisbury High School. I knew my luck was up however. I realised my sport star days were finished too. I accepted my fate without complaint.
Despite my family’s poverty and Mother’s dire foresight into my future, I had grown from a scruffy, unwanted boy into a self assured, polite young man.