Penrith characters: Essie Price

September 9, 2020June 13, 2023 John2 Comments

Essie May Price was a noted citizen of Penrith, one who worked tirelessly in its community and political affairs and who, when she died, was mourned by many. She was the widow of Leo Price who had, at various times, part owned the John Price and Son funeral home, and the picture show, as well as being active in the town’s affairs and in other businesses.

Mrs Price was a family friend and, to some extent, she was a substitute grandmother to the children in our family as our real grandparents lived a long way away. Mrs Price was very good to me and I remember her fondly.

John Price and Son

The Price family have a long connection with Penrith. Probably Penrith’s oldest surviving business, this undertaking firm was started by John Price. I only remember the funeral home as being on the corner of Station and Henry Streets but apparently it had different sites over the years.

It began at a site in Henry Street next to the Methodist Church and this, in future years, became the home of Leo and Essie Price. Additional premises were opened in High Street near the site of what was to become the Nepean Theatre. The land that became the Station Street site was purchased from the Priddle family and it was there that the business was conducted for many years.

After John Price died, the business was carried on by his sons, and subsequently by Leo Price, a direct descendant. In the 1920s, Leo sold the business to his cousin Nelson and, in turn, the business was sold to a Mr Smith.

Leo Price

Leo Price was a man of many experiences and many accomplishments. He went to the old Henry Street school and later to a private school in Penrith called the Penrith College. A crack shot who won prizes for marksmanship at State level, he volunteered for the Boer War at the age of 15 but his mother stopped him from going because of his young age. He was also apparently a a talented singer, cricketer and journalist, writing stories for both local and Sydney newspapers..\

At some stage, he also operated an open air picture theatre in Penrith which I am told was the forerunner of the old Nepean Theatre.

He married Essie May Ritchie of Forbes on 26 August 1908 at St Stephens Church of England. The church was packed to capacity with an overflow crowd standing outside. The Prices had three children but Leo’s premature death left Essie a widow.

Essie Price’s wonderful old house

Mrs Price lived in a great old house at what was then 244 Henry Street Penrith. There were two separate buildings on the site. The front building was occupied by a white weatherboard cottage with lots of small and interesting rooms, filled with curios and antiques. A wooden walkway connected this cottage to a separate building that contained the kitchen, laundry and rooms for storage.

It was an original wattle and daub building. For those of you who are not familiar with this term, it describes an early form of construction in this country in which wooden planks called ‘wattle’ were plastered and held together by some wet composite material that could include soil, sand, clay and/or straw. And it is a pity that Mrs Price’s house was demolished and not kept as a heritage building, but such has happened to so many of the town’s historic buildings.

The property had a really big back yard bordered by cork trees and contained an old stage coach which was the perfect setting for kids like us to play Cowboys and Indians. Amongst Mrs Price’s collection of curios were muskets and old .303 rifles which, together with indigenous and New Guinea war weapons, added to the realism of the game.

The contents of the house were amazing. Mrs Price had a collection of infinite variety – antiques, native war tools, pictures, photos and odds and ends. I always understood that the family must have been in the antique business in past years but this was apparently not so. I have read that Leo Price was at one stage an auctioneer and valuer of real estate and furniture and I can only assume that these things came into the possession of the Price family through that business.

My particular favourite was a telescope inscribed to Phillip Gidley King who sailed to Botany Bay with Captain Arthur Phillip as a first lieutenant in 1788, was put in charge of the convict settlement at Norfolk Island, and later the third governor of the colony of New South Wales.

Mrs Price always told me that I was to have this telescope after she died but I somehow missed out on this. All that I have as a memento of her and her collection are a couple of indigenous war weapons from I know not where.

Community activist

Essie Price was a force in the community, not just through her participation in civic affairs, but also through her activism and agitation for causes in which she believed. An inveterate correspondent, there were few issues of the Nepean Times that did not contain a letter penned by Essie on some issue or another.

She served for many years as a councillor on Penrith Council, as a member of the board of the Nepean Hospital being the first woman to be appointed to the board, and on many other community organisations. Mrs Price was a long time president of the Penrith Mothers’ Club, the P and C like group attached to the Penrith Infants School. In association with Mrs Sandy, she raised funds for improvements to Memory Park, and these two ladies tramped the streets every Thursday for many years, raising funds for charities.

She was also the first woman to be appointed a Justice of the Peace in the district. A JP was more than a document witness in those days and could be called upon to preside in an emergency as a temporary magistrate for the purpose of bail and adjournments of proceedings in the Magistrate’s Court.

Essie Price was a dedicated smoker and it was rare to see her without a Craven A cigarette. She also liked a social drink and enjoyed parties. She was very fond of the films, having the privilege of life time free admission to the Nepean Theatre. Her favourite time at the pictures was Saturday afternoon because she really enjoyed the serials and B class movies that were a feature of that session. She would sit in the front stalls in her regular seat on the right hand side, surrounded by young kids whose parents were happy to let them go there unattended because they were confident Mrs Price would both look after them and control any childish over-exuberance.

Essie Price was not only a Penrith character. She also exemplified the character of the town in those days – community service, friendliness, and the affinity and cooperative nature of the residents with each other.

The back section of the house (Arthur Street Collection, Penrith Library)

High Street in the 1950s (10): North side – the Federal to Station Street

August 18, 2020November 28, 2020 John10 Comments

Continuing down High Street on the north side, I recollect that there was another grocer Goodlands, next to the Federal Hotel, Supermarkets were just coming in to replace the old type grocery store where you asked for what you wanted at the counter and the grocer got it for you, either prepackaged or from bulk. After weighing or counting. It was then put in a bag or container supplied by you or the shop.

Elston’s

Elston’s Cake Shop followed at number 463. I don’t remember a Mr Elston and if he was around he was not in the cake shop which was run by Mrs Elston. There were also tables in the shop where you could get a cup of tea and a couple of delightful scones.

elston ad

Mrs Elston was also a tireless worker for the community, being very active in the Country Women’s Association and the local Red Cross. She was made a life member of the CWA in recognition of her many years of service.

H G Palmer

Then came another electrical store owned by Harold Parry at 465 High Street but which was later taken over by the HG Palmer chain of electrical stores. Palmers, supposedly the largest seller of electrical wares in Australia, were one of the first national chains to set up in Penrith.

palmers 1 — A typical PH G Palmer store. The Penrith shop was smaller.

Palmers started in 1925 and built up into a 150 store electrical empire but they they unwisely decided to finance customers through the company rather than send them to hire purchase companies. The owners were smart enough to sell the company in 1963 to the MLC Insurance Company but bad debts and and an economic downturn caused Palmers to go into liquidation two years later.

Here were the emerging signs of the small owner operated businesses being replaced by chain stores.

I cannot recall what came next but Cyril Hamilton had a fruit shop at number 473 and Geoff Upton had a sports, toy and travel goods store at 479. I think before the sports goods, Mr Upton may also have had a boot repair business. He also operated some fine tennis courts in Henry Street which were among the few in the town that had lights to allow play at nights.

Mr Upton had two children, Mark and Gay, and their names carry forward in Gaymark Lane, which is situated at the back of where the Upton Sports Store was. I do not know how this came about.

Max Upton’s Chemist came next, followed by Davies the jeweller who also repaired watches and sold gifts. Mr Meyers, an optometrist, came to the shop every Wednesday to provide eye checks for local residents.

There was another fruit shop run by Mr Clark and then, I think, came another jeweller. Mr Empson. There was a big robbery there in 1948. There might also have been a fish and chips shop next to this.

More chain stores

Next up was F J Palmer, a chain of men’s wear stores that had been in business since the start of the 20th century. It must have been one of the first chain stores in the town because I can not recollect any other store that was there before it. stamina

The store specialised in men’s and boys clothes and was the official store for school uniforms for Penrith schools. They had their own brand – Stamina – as well as stocking garments from other manufacturers ,and it was a proud day when they fitted you out for your first pair of long trousers. This rite of passage generally took place when you turned 12.

You then came to Moran and Cato, a large grocery shop and again part of a national chain. At some stage it changed from an over the counter grocery store to a quasi-supermarket model. The manager for as long as I can remember it was the irrepressible Fred Hinch, a local wag. If comical role playing for town events was needed, Mr Hinch was the go-to man.

moran and cato

Moran and Cato advertised that it followed the ‘golden rule’ in its stores but I never quite understood what this meant in a retail area. They also had a full money back guarantee on any goods sold. They were big enough to produce their own grocery lines which allowed them to sell some products cheaper than the smaller grocers.

Handley’s electrical store was at 493 High Street and like other electrical stores had its golden era when television came to Australia and people started buying what were then expensive appliances.

The electrical stores used to leave a television set switched on at night in their store windows. I remember how local families who could not yet afford a set of their own making a night of it standing or sitting outside the stores watching a program or two, kids in pajamas and dressing gowns amongst them.

Handleys was particularly popular but Roy Handley, the owner, sold the store to Eric Andersons, another chain, sometime in the 60s.

Schubachs

Schubachs at 495 High Street was the principal newsagency in Penrith then, although there were a couple of sub-agencies in other parts of the town.

Australia back then was much more monopolistic than it is today and had many more restrictive trade practices. For example, New South Wales hotels only sold New South Wales beer and, with rare exceptions, were tied to one brand. So in a Tooheys pub, you could only buy Tooheys beer.

And there was a thing called resale price maintenance where a manufacturer of goods prevented retailers from reducing the price of their product below a certain minimum price, otherwise they could refuse to supply them any more. Manufacturers and other organisations could also refuse to supply certain stores, or to favour one store over another without having any good commercial reason for doing so.

There were restrictions on all kinds of businessses and newsagents were no exception. The combined proprietors of the main Sydney newspapers determined who could and couldn’t sell their newspapers and in Penrith the authorised outlet was Schubachs. The owner, John Schubach, could, if he chose, sublicense other shops to sell newspapers in the area but they had to pay him a commission for each paper sold. Only Schubachs had the right to deliver newspapers.

All that said, the system worked quite well and Schubachs was one of the town’s better businesses and lasted a long time. It was always there during my childhood and did not close until 2016 after 77 years in business. Pretty good for a local business.

Mr Schubach also stocked a large range of magazines and books and other stationery and he was also a travel agent and the official vendor of lottery tickets. He used to publish travel brochures to publicise the various tourist spots and historic sites around the town.

schuback poster — The front page of a Schubach brochure c 1940 (Penrith City Library collection)

I think that at 499 High Street there may have been another hardware store (Smith and Son) and next to that was Nepean Dry Cleaners owned by Mr Arthur Bennett. The dry cleaning was done in a factory in Belmore Street but you left your clothes and picked them up from the High Street shop. Mr Bennett was very prominent in community affairs and very well liked.

Next door was Nock and Kirby, a hardware store which also sold household appliances and was particularly big on gadgets. The chain of stores later became BBC Hardware.

Bamford’s Corner

Bamford’s bakery was on the Station Street corner which was always referred to as Bamford’s Corner. I dont’ know why some corners get immortalised with a particular name and others don’t. The opposite corner, for example, was not commonly called Murray’s Corner, nor was the corner of High and Lawson Street (as it is now) known as Melrose Corner. Who knows?

bamford corner 2 — Bamford’s Corner c 1906 (Penrith City Library collection)

For the curious, in those pre-sliced bread days, the going price for bread at Bamfords was a shilling for a 2 pound loaf (delivered or over the counter) and sixpence for a half loaf. Good bread too. Above the bread shop were the White Way Flats, one of the few apartment opportunities in Penrith back then.

bmford corner — Bamford’s Corner in the ’50s (Penrith City Librasry collection).

Next High Street post

North side – beyond Station Street

Last Penrith High Street post

South side Fletchers to Station Street

Things that we had and didn’t have in Penrith (1): the iceman, the milkman, the dunny man and the garbo

July 9, 2020July 24, 2020 John6 Comments

Many of the things that we enjoy today and that make our lives easier and more entertaining did not exist in Penrith when I was a child, at least amongst most families.

I cannot put a year on when a lot of things changed, and can only pinpoint them at about the time that my family moved from living above the shop in High Street to our house in Evan Street around about 1951. Maybe that was when things changed or maybe I just noticed them more because of the change of locale to a residential street.

Services and deliveries

There were many more home visits by vendors of goods and providers of services back then than there are today where almost every product is available in the shops or online and services have been streamlined and more automatised by technology.

I am told that several of the services that I will discuss in this post were done with the assistance of a horse and cart but I honestly do not remember this. I only recollect motorised transport. This may be because horse-driven services had more or less stopped by the time my memories start or because the delivery mode was different for houses than shops.

What I do remember is that there were horse troughs in the town for many years. There was one in High Steet almost outside the Federal Hotel and another near the railway station just down from the corner of Station Street and Belmore Street opposite the Red Cow.

The iceman

I definitely remember the iceman.

Although refrigerators were available from the thirties, they were expensive and didn’t really catch on in this country until the fifties. The alternative was the icebox which was a cabinet divided into three compartments. The ice went into the top section, the food went into the middle and the third was to catch the water from the melting ice.

I believe that the ice came from what was commonly called the Milk Factory (Nepean Cooperative Dairy Company) which was in Castlereagh Road. The milk factory was a cooperative with shares held by farmers and local businesses. When the factory was privatised, if that is the correct word, in later years the shareholders got a real windfall.

milk factory 2 — Cold storage at the Milk Factory (Penrith City Library collection)

The ice was delivered to homes in big blocks by the iceman who carried it with huge tongs and placed it in the top compartment of the ice box for you. The blocks of ice were heavy and the ice man needed to have plenty of muscle.

As more and more people were able to buy fridges, the icebox fell out of favour and the iceman went on to other things. Another occupation lost to technology.

A very popular fridge in homes was the Silent Knight, manufactured by a company owned by Sir Edward Hallstrom, a leading philanthropist who contributed a lot of money to Tarango Park Zoo behind which he was a driving force for many years. These fridges originally ran on kerosene but were later converted to electricity. About the name – I get Silent (although the early models were not all that quiet) but I don’t understand the Knight part. Anyhow.

Most people also had a larder – a cool place in the home where you could keep goods that were best kept cool but did not require refrigeration. Food in the larder was often covered with a muslin cloth to ward off the flies in summer.

The garbo

There was no assortment of plastic bins – one for garden refuse, one for recyclables, one for ordinary garbage. There was only one – a cotrragated metal bin into which went everything.

garebage truck — A garbage truck from the 1950s

The garbage truck was completely manual. One man drove the truck and two other men -‘garbos’ – either rode in the truck or stood on the running boards. The truck would stop outside a house, one of the garbos would alight, pick up the garbage bin, hoist it on his shoulder, empty it into the truck and them return it to its spot outside the house. Unlike today, the garbage bin was returned correct side up with the lid on rather than just thrown onto the footpath in a haphazard fashion.

garbage

The traditional garb of the garbo was a shirt (with jumper if it was winter), shorts and boots. As David Ellis has reminded me, Mr Roots was one of the local garbos.

The milko

And then there was the milkman. As I remember it, milk was not at first delivered in bottles. At night, people would put a container – a billy, a pot, a jug or whatever – outside their front door with a note as to the quantity of milk required. The milkman would come by in the early morning and fill the container from the big milk cans that he had with him on the truck. Payment was usually by way of a weekly account if credit was available, or the money was left with the container.

milk van — Milk van 1950 (Penrith City Library collection)

The mlkman for our area was Mr Love. Trust was big in those days and if, for any reason, there was going to be nobody at home when the milko arrived, the door would be left unlocked and a note left asking him to kindly put the milk in the icebox or fridge for you. This ensured that the milk did not go off when the day heated up.

Cream was delivered too, and sometimes the milk man also carried eggs, but there was no such thing as low fat milk, yoghurt in the many varieties around today, and other associated lines.

Then they started putting milk in glass bottles with an aluminium foil stopper and the need for the billy can disappeared, with the number of empty bottles put outside the door indicating how many were wanted. You were expected to wash out the bottles that you wanted replaced. As containerisation of dairy products improved, the packaging altered from glass to plastic and cardboard and the variety available widened.

With the advent of supermarkets and multiple other types of stores selling milk, the milko disappeared into history.

The dunny man

Much of Penrith was sewered although there were still pockets of houses that relied upon outside toilets.

For those who have no experience of the outside toilet, it was a separate small building in the backyard, often roughly constructed. The waste was collected in a metal bin under the wooden seat (splinters in the posterior were a common occurrence) and was collected on a weekly basis by a dedicated worker, and exchanged for a fresh container. For those who have had no experience with outside toilets, this work was politely titled a ‘night soil’ worker but was affectionate;y known to all, children and adults alike, as the dunny man.

He needed to be always kept on side as you didn’t want to miss a dunny man visit. It was mandatory to present him with a dozen bottles of beer at Christmas to keep him happy. He was however fatally attractive to dogs and it was always necessary to keep the family cur tethered when the dunny man called to avoid an unseemly spill caused by an attacking or friendly hound. Garbos had the same appeal to dogs.

Even when sewerage was introduced to previously dry toilet areas, the outside toilet was often kept as a now sewered throne room either because people could not afford an expensive addition to their house to cater for a new toilet, or there was just not enough room. Almost everyone had chokoes growing along the side wall of the outside toilet. They flourished.

Toilet paper was primitive, generally consisting of cut out strips of newspaper placed on a nail in the toilet, a far cry from ‘what’s the gentlest tissue in the bathroom you can issue’ of today.

And then there were the insects. You can imagine that flies, including those enormous Penrith blowflies of summer, were highly attracted to the outside toilet and they were both a pest and a health hazard. The real problem is that the underneath and back areas of the toilet seat were a magnet for redback spiders. It was always good practice to check these areas before taking your seat. At night, carrying a torch was mandatory.

I have been told by Bill Joyner that his father recalls Barney Roots as being the local night soil man. I and others recollect that Mr Roots was the garbage man so either he was doing double duty or there was more than one Roots helping Penrith get rid of its waste.

Bill’s father also recounts a story that the night soil truck lost a full can when it was turning into Station Street at Tatts Corner one day. As Barney Roots was shovelling the fallen contents off the road, Tatts drinkers enquired of him what he was doing. ‘Stock taking’ was the witty retort. A great story, thanks Bill.

Other deliveries

I understand that various other things were delivered too – bread, fish, meat and fruit and vegetables. I don’t recollect many of these but I do remember, even in the fifties, a man driving around in a horse and cart with rabbits for sale, and other one collecting old bottles. The Turnbull family at one stage had a fruit and vegetable delivery service in South Penrith.

David Charlton tells me that he remembers horse-drawn carts coming around the town: Woods Butchery had one delivering meat, and O’Farrels used one to deliver bread. Stan Price who later had an oil depot in High Street just up from the Catholic Church, was also a general carter and he too used a horse and cart.

I also recollect a man coming around from time to time in a horse and cart selling props for the clothes line. Before Hills Hoists, the clothesline generally consisted of a length of rope tethered to fence posts (almost always paling in the pre-colour bond era) and supported by a wooden stick or two called props to keep the clothes from weighing down the line. Another fun pastime for the family dog and a hindrance to outside games.

One thing about the coronavirus pandemic is that quite a few merchants have returned to home deliveries. A good thing, but I do not anticipate a return by the dunny man any time soon.

The Nepean Times: Penrith’s newspaper of record

June 22, 2020 John3 Comments

A newspaper of record is a newspaper that has a large circulation and is considered to be authoritative and reliable in what it publishes. It is often said that what it publishes is the first draft of history.

The New York Times and the Times in London are reputed newspapers of record. On a less grand scale, the Nepean Times should properly be seen as Penrith’s newspaper of record because it chronicled what was happening in Penrith for over 80 years from when it was started by the Colless family in 1882 until it closed in 1962.

Alfred Colless was a true local, being born in Emu Plains. As well as founding the local newspaper, he at various times served as Mayor, President of the Show Society, Grand Master of the local Masonic Lodge, a member of the Cottage Hospital Board and as a magistrate. He clearly made a great contribution to the development of the town.

As I understand it, the Times was located first in a building at the end of High Street on the southern side and later moved to a site on the northern side.

nepean times 1900 2 — The *Times* building c 1900 (from Penrith Museum of Printing): the original building ?

The Nepean Times told us what was happening in Penrith, what our institutions were up to, and the doings and goings of the local people. It advertised local goods and services, gave the results of local sporting fixtures, and allowed our citizens to narrate the important events in their lives – births, deaths, engagements, weddings, and other milestones. And perhaps, some not so vitally important ones, such as people returning from holidays in Newcastle.

The pages of the Nepean Times are a mirror into the past and helped us see into the future and what Penrith would become. It is fascinating to look at various issues and see what Penrith was at that moment of time. The almost complete issues of the Times are in the National Archives at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/10644848#.

The first issue

The first issue was published on 3 March 1882 and the front page carried only advertisements, some of which now are only faint reminders of the town’s past. There were ads for a chaff and corn crushing mill, blacksmiths and wheelwrights, boarding houses and bootmakers, and a buggy maker.

nepean timrs first — The first issue (front page)

There were familiar names – James Price advertised as a draper and grocer from his premises next to the courthouse, and John Barlow as a bread and biscuit maker at the corner of Mulgoa Road and the High Street. Both these families feature prominently in Penrith’s life over the years. There was an ad for the Wheelwright Arms in High Street and I think this became the Federal Hotel. The Red Cow and the Australian Arms were around then too, the Cow in the same spot it is now, but I don’t know about the Arms.

The following pages contained some general news about Sydney and New South Wales but you had to go to the end of page 2 to read about anything local.

In cricket, Emu Plains beat South Creek and Castlereagh beat Carpenters, whoever they were. In community news, Mr Edmund Williams, bootmaker, married Miss Elizabeth Manning; an organ grinder visited the town to entertain; renovations started on the Wheelwright Arms; and the completion of the new courthouse (now the old courthouse) was running late much to the dismay of the Times which blamed the ‘lamentable ignorance’ of the architect.

The local council was concerned about the town’s water supply, and eggs could be bought for one shilling and sixpence a dozen. The Methodist Church was organising a special excursion for Sunday School children to Parramatta Park and there were 330 students attending Penrith Public School.

An auction of land was also advertised at Penrithville, wherever that was. 46 lots were available and although no expected price is mentioned, the terms seem very generous – £2 deposit, and ten shillings a month, interest-free. Title was ‘first class’, as opposed, I suppose to second and third class. There were also lots in High Street up for auction in the heart of town. I wonder who the lucky bidder was.

And you could buy a handcrafted seat to sit by the fire for two shillings from William Sykes, a carpenter in High Street, a brand new sewing machine for £8.10 shillings, or Holloways Ointment, which fixed up apparently everything from scurvy to piles in containers for as little as a shilling, but you had to send to London to get it.

28 September 1950: A glimpse of the town

I thought that it would be interesting to choose an issue of the newspaper in 1950, about the midpoint of the era that I am covering in this blog. I chose the issue for 28 September 1950 which is about when I turned 10.

There was not much doing at Penrith Council but the Football Club was having a ‘smoko’ in the Masonic Hall. I am told that smokos were big back then. My understanding of a smoko is that it is or was an informal break from work where cigarettes were smoked, workers chatted and tea was brewed. What a formal smoko was I have no idea but can imagine that it might be just another term for an organised booze-up. Do they still have smokos in an era when smoking is frowned upon as a health hazard?

On a more subdued note, the Show Society was planning its next gymkhana and still agitating for a trotting licence.

The Penrith pubs were still advertising but the Wheelwright Arms had disappeared from view. I suppose that wheelwrights were rare in Penrith in 1950. A change of licensee in the Penrith Hotel went through. The departing licensee was Mr Leavey and as this hotel was often referred to as Leavey’s Hotel (or just the top pub) so Leavey must have made some impressions on the local tipplers.

The Times did not report any traffic accidents that week but there were a number of drivers brought before the court by Constables Beris Siddens and John Braham (later to become a real estate agent in High Street next to the Nepean Theatre), for driving while drunk. Magistrate Stonham noted that the incidence of drunk driving was becoming a major issue in Penrith.

Advertisements

Other ads give us an idea of what the town was like then. You can see that it is still semi-rural in the court reports where various people were charged with offences such as moving stock without a permit, and the advertisements for such products as bulk seed and fertilisers, pesticides and tractors. A Mr Grant of Mayfair Park, Penrith was looking for woodcutters, Mr Pinken was offering his services as a contract plougher, and George Howell had plenty of fruit sorting machines for sale, new and reconditioned.

Because people were still in the process of replacing their old ice boxes, the various electrical goods shops were busy promoting electric refrigerators. The absence of television and other electronic entertainment can be seen in ads for radios (wirelesses as we called them) . Handley’s were advertising an attractive HMV model with 5 valves and short wave capability in walnut or ivory plastic casing. Who could resist it?

radio

The offer by Nepean Dry Cleaners to clean and block men’s’ hats (at ‘city prices’) tells us that many men still wore hats back then and the various ads for men’s’ and ladies’ bicycles (‘You’d be better on a Malvern Star’) suggest that a lot of people still used bikes for transport, probably not for fitness or environmental purposes, but because households were, at best, one-car families.

As well as selling ‘Swami’ Pajamas (whatever they were) for only 35 shillings, Bussell Bothers were happy to sell you a push lawnmower in pre-Victa days for only 6 pounds 4 shillings, electric mowers being dearer at 21 pounds 11 shillings and sixpence. And you could bomb out on sweet sherry at just five shillings and threepence a bottle. Good value, perhaps?

And you could buy a draught horse that could ‘pull anything’ for only a tenner.

On the property front, Frank Cronin had for sale a 5 room weatherboard cottage on 85 acres just 9 minutes from town together with all necessary farm equipment and sheds for just £4500 or, for the less rural types, building blocks from£85 to £110. All good buying, one would think.

Social and other events

On the social side, Penrith was unusually bereft of dances and balls, the only starter being the Catholic Youth Club Dance. For those who were prepared to travel a little, the action was better outside the town. There were Balls at Springwood and Emu Plains and two dances coming up in each of St Marys and Castlereagh. In the days when alternate entertainment choices were scarce, dancing was very popular. Organisers of dances and balls generally put on buses to take people to and from the event.

On the personal social side, Ernest Giles of Penrith and Laura Cochran celebrated their engagement, Beryl Tolhurst of Penrith married Frederick Wright, a Mr Machen returned home to convalesce after surgery, and Mr and Mrs Nichols came back to town after a two week holiday in Canberra.

In A grade cricket, RSL defeated The Crescent with J Rattenbury (presumably then Constable Jack Rattenbury, a local legend) unlucky to be caught out on 99, and Emu Plains defeated Warragamba, thanks to a brilliant century by I Curry.

The final issue

For some years the Times had suffered intensive competition from the Penrith Press, a division of Cumberland Newspapers, at one time part of the Murdoch suburban newspaper chain. The Press, being part of a chain, had advantages in that it could promise advertising rates over the whole of the area covered by Cumberland Newspapers publications and could use news stories that were common to the areas covered. And at one stage, Bill Elson Green, the owner of the local drive-in, brought out a newspaper called the Star.

The Times published its last issue on 1 November 1962 and it was definitely the end of an era. Although the pubs, for reasons not clear to me, had stopped advertising, the small businesses that were the core of Penrith commercial life still loyally took advertising space. although some of the names had disappeared as businesses closed or changed hands and new businesses opened.

times last issue — The last issue: front page

The paper still told us who had been born, got engaged, married and died, and still published all the sports results, the doings of Council and other organisations and clubs, and notices and reports about social events.

The latter-day competitors to the Nepean Times certainly had a broader spectrum of news and advertising and better and more extensive artwork. Photographs had never featured much in the Times until its later years, probably in response to the increasing competition. But those papers never refected the heart and soul of the town as did the Times.

The Nepean Times truly was Penrith’s newspaper of record, a status that its surviving competitors and later publications never achieved.

High Street in the 1950s (9): South side Fletchers to Station Street

June 5, 2020August 18, 2020 John2 Comments

This stroll down Memory Lane will take me from Fletcher’s, Penrith’s biggest store to Murray’s Hardware on the corner of Station Street. My memory is a bit hazy about this block because my early years were spent living above my father’s cafe further up High Strret and I knew the shops between the schools and Woodriffe Street a lot better than further down. Then, after we moved to Evan Street and I began to work in Sydney, I would walk to the station down the south side of High Street and thus never got to know the north side as well.

Fletchers

We had two department stores, Neales and Fletchers but Fletchers was far more general and large. Oscar Fletcher had, I believe started the store in 1941 and eventually sold it to Myer in the early 70s. Although Mr Fletcher’s two sons, Bert and Frank, helped him in the business, he was always the one in charge.

I have been told that Fletchers did not start out as a department store but as a gentleman’s outfitter but it just got bigger and bigger, expanding its range of products. At one stage, Fletchers had its own car yard and a store in Richmond.

There was an extensive remodelling of the store in 1961. At its peak, Fletchers occupied over 40000 square feet of retail space and employed over 110 workers. It was a big employer and many young people had their first taste of employment by working as a casual for the store at Christmas and other busy times.

One of the things I remember about Fletchers is the system that they had for payment of purchases. They had a network of pneumatic tubes over the counters running down from the ceiling that went to the office section on the first floor. The customer paid the shop assistant for the purchase and the money, together with the cash register slip, was put in a container attached to the tube. The shop assistant pulled a cord and the tube went to the office where the purchase was checked, change given if the cash tender was not exact, and the receipt and change were tubed back to the counter where the shop assistant extracted the contents and handed them to the customer. A far cry from today’s methods of payment where you can pay just by waving a piece of plastic at the cash register terminal.

You could also buy goods on credit in those days before plastic. Most shopkeepers were prepared to allow customers to run up a bill but in most cases, the details were just jotted down in account ledgers. Fletchers had a more formalised system and also sold paper vouchers with preset amounts. Stores also offered lay-bys where you paid an initial deposit on goods which were then put away for you until you redeemed the purchase by completion of a set number of payments, supposedly to be made regularly, but leeway was usual made for irregular payments. People paid when they had the money.

Most local businesses liked to have a regular spot for their ads in the Nepean Times and Fletchers was no exception – the right hand side of page 3. Surprisingly, although it was by far the largest store in the town, its ads were modestly sized.

fletchers ad — Cheap suits (at least back then) at Fletchers

Fletchers became a part of Myer in 1962 – the end of an era – and was never the same after that.

Aroney’s Cafe

Near Fletchers was Webber’s Mens wear and after that was Aroney’s cafe.

There were several cafes in Penrith owned by immigrants from Greece and Cyprus. Aroney’s was run by two brothers, Nick and Peter Kepriotis, who somewhere along the line adopted the surname of Aroney. Like most cafes, including the Nepean Cafe further up High Street and owned by my father, the menu consisted entirely of Australian dishes. No exotic foreign food for the burghers of Penrith.

aroney 3

This was the second Aroney cafe, opening in 1939, the previous one was on the same side of the street just a few doors away. I think that before the Aroneys took this over, it was either called the Imperial Cafe or possibly Carl’s Cafe and owned by a Mr Nicholson.

Bill Parker had a furniture shop near here and then came the Rural Bank (no longer with us) and another barber, Cyril Upton. There were a lot of Uptons in business in Penrith – Max the chemist, Cyril the barber and Geoff who owned a sportstore.

Then there was the Whiteway Butcher at 490 High Street, run by Harold East. I don’t know what the set up was with the East family, whether the shops and abattoir were run separately or as one enterprise, but recollect that this particular shop had better and more extensive cuts of meat and a wider range.

Mr Rule had a builder’s supply and hardware shop next door and then you came to a nursery run by Mrs Merz. The Merz family lived opposite us on the south eastern corner of Evan and Lethbridge Strets and they had two daughters, Barbara and Patricia. After this area was redeveloped into an arcade in the 1970s, Mrs Merz continued to run a nursery on the ground floor towards the back of the arcade. I think there was a ladies’ wear shop next to Mrs Merz.

Murray’s Corner

On the corner of Station Street was a large two story building, a shop downstairs and a dwelling upstairs owned by Bill Murray.

Mr Murray’s father, also called Bill, originally had started a produce business in the early 20th century in a building at the corner of High and Riley Streets. When Mr Murray Junior’s son, Bill, came into the business, they moved the produce store to a new location on the Station Street corner and then extended the business to hardware and building supplies. Bill’s son, Alan, eventually took over the running of the shop.

This was the biggest hardware store in Penrith until Nock and Kirby’s came along a few years later and opened a store on the other side of High Street, selling not only hardware but a range of household goods.

Nock and Kirby was famous for its television ads featuring a fast talking spruiker called Joe the Gadget Man. He was more or less the forerunner for the advertorials that today pervade the airways – the ones that finish up by saying ‘And that’s not all’- throwing in a set of steak knives or other similar items that they picked up cheap somewhere.

joe gadget man — The ever-annoying Joe the Gadget Man.

The power brokers of Penrith and what came after

May 25, 2020 John2 Comments

Power brokers may be too strong a term but there definitely was a group of people, almost exclusively male, who wielded considerable influence in Penrith in the 1940s and 1950s over the town’s civic and cultural affairs.

They were primarily made up of business and professional people, and, during their time in Penrith, bank managers and school heads.

Clubs and committees

Their power, or influence, if you prefer, lay in their membership and executive office in various cultural, social, civic and sporting clubs and associations in the town. If you looked at members and office holders in a range of organisations then, the same names appear time and time again.

These bodies included the Rotary Club of Penrith, various Masonic lodges, the Chamber of Commerce, the board of Nepean Hospital, the Show Society which ran the Penrith Show and trotting gymkhanas, the various school Parents and Citizens Associations, Police Boys Clubs, the churches and their associated organisations. Group members were also involved with the various sporting associations, either as patrons, donors or office holders.

And their wives were actively involved in groups such as the Country Women’s Association, the Red Cross and hospital auxiliaries.

You could be sure too that whenever a new organisation or committee was needed for some special purpose such as activities to celebrate the end of the war or the electrification of the railway to Penrith, the same people would be prominent.

the old council — Old Council Chambers (Roving Librarian)

The council

Some of them at various times also served as councilors, then called aldermen, on Penrith Council. And if they weren’t on the council, they certainly knew those who were.

Through their membership of these organisations, their inter-involvement and their commitment to the betterment of Penrith, they had a large if not dominant influence on the way Penrith went and on the town’s institutions.

This is not to suggest that there was anything dishonest going on. There was not. These men had every right, as citizens in a free society, to have and express their views on anything that they chose. It was just that these views were more likely to be listened to by those who had the power to make decisions than the views of others, or that the decision makers were likely to have those views themselves.

It is also not to suggest that the influencers were all of one mind. They had factions, some of which were conservative and others that were more progressive. It is also not to say that the only people on these committees and boards were business and professional men. There were people from all walks of life who served and worked hard for the town but they did not have the same connections and networks as the others.

I do not intend to name these people but readers who are interested can do their own research by looking up various issues of the Nepean Times during these years and reading how many times the same names crop up. The Nepean Times archives are available online.

The good of the town

Some people will see these activities as wrong and undemocratic and assert that these men were seeking personal advantage through influence. Sure they had a vested interest in Penrith doing well; a prosperous town could only help their businesses. Certainly too, there were egos involved.

But that is not the whole picture. The predominant motivation for these influencers was, I believe, altruistic and a genuine desire to see the town do well.

Consider this. These men had their businesses and professions in Penrith, many of which were started from scratch and built up by their own efforts, or those of their parents. There was little inherited wealth in the town and not many who could be described as landed gentry. They also lived in Penrith with their family, often above their shops or businesses, and, with few exceptions, sent their children to local schools. Not many children, even those from the more affluent families, were sent off to Newington and Shore. These people shopped locally and entertained locally too.

They had a vested interest as citizens and as parents in seeing that the town remained a nice and prosperous place to live in. They saw their future and that of their children in Penrith and had no burning desire to live elsewhere.

They also gave their time freely, sacrificing nights, weekends and family and business time to work for the common good. They received no payment; you didn’t get paid to do these things even if you were on the Council. The mayoral allowance was only a pittance and councilors received no payment at all until years later.

Penrith too was a small town – the population in 1956 was about 18000 – and that is often the way things happen in small towns. It could not happen today because Penrith is so big and disparate that a small group of people could not possibly have the same sort of influence.

New players and the rush to progress

It is different today. Many if not most businesses are owned outside the town by national and international companies and are run by managers or franchisees who do not necessarily have the long term interest in Penrith that the influencers of the forties and fifties did. Most of them do not want to become involved in town affairs.

As the town grew, other players with a wider range of views and interests came into town and the influence of the ‘power brokers’ gradually lessened. Councils, officials and developers without strong roots in the town began to see Penrith as a vast metropolis rather than as a village and a community with semi-rural traits and urged on development and progress at any cost.

High Street, the throbbing heart of the town, was pushed aside in the interests of the developers of the Penrith Plaza, businesses owned by locals were bought out by chains and out of town interests, historic old buildings were razed to the ground and utilitarian but not necessarily graceful structures replaced them. Fields and orchards became subdivisions, houses became blocks of flats, and quiet streets on which kids once played cricket became traffic nightmares. The little local clubs became megaclubs, dabbling in everything and taking over other clubs, and parking became impossible.

Where once you could walk up High Street nodding to people you knew, now all you saw were strangers.

And so many old and historic buildings in Penrith were destroyed. The stately old home of Miss Lennox down the far end of High Street – gone. The wistaria draped house of Mrs Parkes near the Infants School – gone. The convict built house of Essie Price in Henry Street with its wattle and daub walls – gone. Not many historic places have been preserved. I can never forgive those new power brokers who stood by and allowed this to happen. I don’t think the old elite, with their roots in the town and its history, would have allowed this.

I realise progress had to come and I don’t deny its benefits but the Penrith that I knew as a kid is not the Penrith that exists today.

High Street in the 1950s (8): North side Woodriffe Street to the Federal Hotel

May 11, 2020August 18, 2020 John4 Comments

Barrett’s

On the corner of High Street and Woodriffe Street was the garage owned by Ron Barrett, another well known Penrith businessman. The Barrett family have been Penrith stalwarts for as long as I can remember.

Mr Barrett, as well as having one of the best motor car orientated businesses in town, was also the district NRMA man and the local agent for the British Motor Company. BMC produced a huge range of underpowered family sedans ideal for a country like England but, despite their huge popularity, not as well adapted to this country. Their classic big seller, the Morris Minor, could often be seen chugging up a hill, trailed by a long line of Fords and Holdens, whose drivers were desperate to avoid stalling from the snail pace of the leader.

Still, BMC eventually redeemed itself by coming out with one of the all time great cars – the Mini-Minor.

barrett snip — Barrett’s garage on the Woodriffe Street corner in the 1950s. Looks to me like one of the dreaded Morris Minors out the front (Penrith City Library collection).

The Barrett garage eventually moved to the far end of High Street and was later run by Ron’s son, Geoff.

I think that there might have been another cafe next to Barretts at one stage but I do remember that LJ Hooker set up there later on.

Blatch’s bootmaker shop

There were several bootmakers in Penrith, Mr Karpoozis was another one. I don’t know that there was a big demand for handcrafted Spanish riding boots in the town as there were few people who would either have aspired to or could afford custom made boots. But I suppose that specially made footwear was required for specialised jobs and for people who had problems with regular sizes.

Most people only had a couple of pairs of shoes, women probably a few more, and they were generally leather. We did not have joggers then, only sandshoes, and nobody had ever heard of thongs. I suppose that most of the cobbler’s business came from shoe repairs because people tended to keep their shoes until they wore out, rather than change them to keep up with fashion.’

The thing I remember most about this shop was that every Anzac Day, or a couple of days before, Mr Blatch would put in his window a large and very dramatic painting of the Diggers landing at Anzac Cove. He added other things to the window display too – the flag, some medals and other memorabilia.

Then came Jim Bridger, another barber, and a jewellery store owned by a Mrs Parry and later by a man named Gillers.

In an earlier post, I had placed Buttles General Store further up High Street near Lawson Street (as it now is) but I now belive it was in this block.

There was a shop next door to Buttles called Douglas Stores that was part of a chain but I have no idea what sort of business it was. That store disappeared and I think became the National Bank.

Bellhouse’s Pharmacy

The next shop was the Bellhouse Pharmacy at 441 High Street. I would swear that Saunders’ Chemist was here and Bellhouse’s on the other side of High Street but I have been persuaded, on the basis of information from someone who worked at Saunders’, that Saunders’ was on the southern side and Bellhouse’s on the northern side.

The Ham and Beef Shop

There was a dress shop at 443 High Street and then you came to the Ham and Beef Shop. As the foreign foods invasion had not yet reached Penrith, we did not have a delicatessen proper – we had the Ham and Beef shop where you could buy all sorts of exotic ‘foreign’ foods – garlic sausage (which we now know as devon), frankfurts big and small (the small ones were known as ‘little boys’ – you work out why’), and a few cheeses, parmesan being particularly exotic. Kraft cheddar was the standard cheese in the pantry back then. There was a salami or two and that peculiar English preserved meat known as brawn – UGH! The staples in the preserved meat category were ham, bacon and corn beef

The shop might have been owned by a Mr Jackson or a Mrs Keech, different memories. There was also another ham and beef shop in Station Street, known as the Half Way, as I remember.

Falconer’s Cake Shop

There were at least two cake shops in Penrith – Falconer’s and Elston’s. This one was Falconer’s. I have been told that it was called the Coronet Cake Shop but my memory is that it was called Falconer’s and the photo below bears this out.

What I remember most about this shop is that they usually had in the window one or two meringue cakes – either a sickly light blue or an even sicklier pink one. In summer, the window was often enlivened by the presence of a big Penrith blowfly eagerly buzzing the meringue.

I have had an aversion to meringues of any kind since those days.

The Federal

After the cake shop came a small lane leading to the back of the Federal Hotel, the central hotel in Penrith and one of the four hotels in the main street.

The Federal was the working man’s pub and, lets face it, a bit of a bloodhouse at times. Drinkers often spilled over onto the footpath and could be rowdy at times causing fashionable Penrith matrons to divert to the other side of the street.

The Federal alas is no more, closing in 1976 for redevelopment. A pub in the centre of town gave Penrith some atmosphere, I always thought.

Previous High Street post

South side: Woodriffe Steet to Fletchers

The Penrith Post Office

April 14, 2020 JohnLeave a comment

The Penrith Post Office was on the northern side of High Street between Lawson Street and Woodriffe Street.

post office 1945 — The Post Office in 1945 with the big scales (Penrith City Library collection

I need to set the context to explain why the Post Office was the most important business in town in the 1940s and 1950s.

There was no internet then. This means that letters and telegrams were the only way to transfer written communications. There was a weird thing called Telex, kind of like two typewriters talking to each other, but this was mainly used by international trading businesses.

It also meant that you could not transfer money by way of electronic funds transfer. And there were no mobile phones, Ipads or similar devices.

This all affected how ordinary people conducted their affairs.

The PMG

The Commonwealth government had a monopoly over all postal and telephone services and the government department that managed them was called the Post-Master General’s Department, or PMG as it was commonly called.

The property occupied by the post office ran right through to Henry Street until the council compulsorily acquired strips of land from all the High Street properties to build a car park. The post office then ran through to adjoin the Edwards Place car park.

At the front of the post office, before you entered the big wooden doors, there was a large set of scales. You could weigh yourself for a penny but eventually, the price went up to threepence. There was another big set of scales just a few doors down at Judges’ Pharmacy.

The public facility for mail services was in the front of the building as you went in and the clerks stood behind a big wooden counter. Behind the public area were the administrative and mail sorting sections and behind that was the telephone exchange – more on that in a later post. On the Henry Street frontage, a red brick building contained the various technical areas relating to the phone service. A local postmaster ran the whole thing and he was a vital cog in the machinery.

Mail

There were only two types of mail – ordinary and registered. There were not the options that there are today – priority, special priority, certified. You bought your stamps at the counter and you posted your letters outside at the red mailbox. Outside there was also a coin-operated device that allowed you to buy stamps outside business hours. It sometimes worked.

post office staff — The staff behind the Post Office counter in the 1950s (Penrith City Library collection)

If you wanted a quick communication, you could send a telegram. This service no longer exists. There was a set rate that allowed you 12 words and each extra word cost an additional fee. People would go to all sorts of spelling and grammatical acrobatics to fit their message into 12 words. The telegrams were delivered by postal employees on bicycles and the system was efficient.

At one stage, there were two mail deliveries a day but this was reduced to a daily delivery in the late sixties, and there was a single mail delivery on Saturdays until 1975.

There were also aerograms. Airmail was expensive because there were nowhere near as many flights to and from Australia as there are now. (Well not so many at the time of writing this because of the corona pandemic).Postage was charged on the weight of the letter.

An aerogram was designed to allow people to communicate to an overseas address. It was a self-contained packet made of very fine blue paper to reduce the weight and that allowed two pages of writing and which then folded down into an envelope. Aerograms between Australia and say London could take up to two weeks which meant that there was quite a communication delay between sender and receiver. The paper was very thin and blotted easily and it was risky to bear down too heavily when you wrote because the nib could put a hole in the paper or the writing could mix with the words on the other side.

Wages and bills

Most people got paid then in cash and only a few got paid by cheque. There was no electronic transfer of funds into employees’ bank accounts. Welfare payments were also paid by cheque. The majority of people did not have cheque accounts, only savings accounts, so this presented a problem if you had to pay a bill or for goods to someone to whom you did not have ready physical access.

The solution was either to ask your bank to issue a bank cheque or to go to the post office and buy a money order or a postal note. With each, you paid the post office in cash and got an effective credit note made out to the person to whom you owed the money and that person could bank it into their banking account or negotiate it as payment to someone else.

The difference between the two forms was that postal notes came in predesignated amounts – five shillings, a pound, two pounds and so on – but you could buy a money order in any amount that you wanted.

This was another service in high demand at Penrith Post Office but nowadays, postal notes do not exist and money orders, although still around, are rarely used.

canteen order 1 — Australian Canteen Order (Spinks)

Interestingly, during the War, post offices also issued a Defence Canteen Order which could be sent to a friend or relative in the military and used in the canteen to buy goods to the value of the Order.

Payment of wages or welfare by cheque could present liquidity problems. If people had a cheque they could deposit it in their bank account but clearance of a cheque could then take up to a week before the account holder drew funds against it, interstate cheques taking a bit longer. Local merchants would cash your cheque for you if it was drawn on the government or a reputable firm.

Endowment

Before family benefits, Australian mothers received a payment from the Commonwealth government called child endowment, so much for each child. I have no recollection of how this was paid but as they were small fortnightly amounts, in the shillings range. I don’t think child endowment was paid by cheque and have an idea that this might have been paid through the Post Office.

One thing that you could not do through the Post Office that you can do now is pay bills to organisations like the council, water board, and insurance companies. They did not operate as a money transfer agency as they do today.

Not having moved into the digital age, rubber stamps inked on an ink pad were very big at the post office. The people behind the counter had heaps of rubber stamps, seemingly a different one for each function, with different coloured ink pads – black, blue, red, green, purple. The colours presumably had some significance. I never worked out how they managed to keep track of the various stamps and colours but they seemed to always get it right.

Post offices today are still essential to our community but they are not the focal points that they once were.

The polio scare

March 31, 2020 JohnLeave a comment

This will only be a short post because, at this stage, concentrating on the present and contemplating the future is occupying my mind more than memories of my Penrith past. I expect that will change and I will soon resume longer and happier posts.

The present epidemic casts my mind back to the polio epidemic and scares of the 1940s and 1950s. We had a lot of childhood diseases then: those that have been almost eradicated by the development of vaccines – measles, chickenpox, mumps; and those that have just seemed to go away, perhaps because of better nutrition and changed hygiene habits – rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, rickets, nephritis.

The biggest scourge was perhaps polio or, as it was commonly called, infantile paralysis. Poliomyelitis is a disease that stems from a virus and like most viruses spreads from person to person through saliva, droplets, and feces. It was particularly prevalent in the summer months and amongst children and could lead to death, muscular degeneration and paralysis. Our parents were dead scared of their children contracting it because of its severe effects.

One effect of the disease was that the lungs were sometimes unable to function on their own and patients often ended up in an apparatus referred to as an ‘iron lung’. The patient was encased, lying down, in a steel box, head outside, that did the breathing for them. I don’t know how this worked but many patients were encased in this thing for months, even years. It must have been horrible.

iron lung — Patients in an Iron Lung (ABC)

Survivors were often left paralyzed, wholly or partly, and it was not uncommon in the streets of Penrith, for years after, to see someone limping with or without the use of steel calipers on their legs.

In 1954, Dr Salk developed a vaccination against this disease which was delivered by injection and mass immunization began. A subsequent vaccine, the Sabin vaccine, delivered orally, was introduced and the days of the polio scare were over, at least in this country.

Polio remains in the community – it hasn’t gone away – but as long as one gets immunised, the virus should not take hold. In other less developed countries, polio remains a major problem.

Let us hope that the boffins come up with a vaccination against this latest scourge on humanity.

Penrith High School in the 50s (14): Maths and Science teachers and the rest

March 10, 2020 John2 Comments

As I have written previously, there were good teachers and bad teachers at Penrith High School, mostly good, mostly decent and mostly fair. That said, I cannot really remember one teacher who inspired me; possibly Miss Butt but only to go one day to France, and maybe Mr Edwards who influenced me to love Shakesperean tragedies, but other than Miss Fardell who encouraged me to read widely, that’s about it.

Maths

Miss McEwen was the first teacher I encountered at the school. After we assembled as first-day first-year students in the Assembly Hall, we were streamed into our respective classes and led to our home room by the chosen class teacher. My home teacher turned out to be Miss McEwen.

I had, like others, entered high school with apprehension and not just because of the perennial rumour of the initiation rite whereby older boys stuck a new boy’s head down the toilet and flushed it. All my previous schooling had been in classes with the same kids, kids whom I had grown up with, and I was now going into a class with lots of strangers.

My nervousness was not eased when, by mistake, I was streamed into a class substantially lower down the academic scale than I expected. Anyhow, when I finally arrived into my proper class, the kindness of Miss McEwan went a long way to easing my concerns.

Although only a slight woman, Miss McEwan exercised strict discipline and earned the respect of her students. She tolerated no misbehavior but I never saw her treat a student unfairly or detected bias for or against individual students. She was a good teacher.

She had a stock saying that I still remember.’ Pens, pencils and other playthings DOWN’.

In second and third years, Miss McEwen was replaced by Mrs Reynolds who was known as ‘Mum’ Reynolds because well, she looked like a mum. Mrs Reynolds was an okay teacher and had few discipline problems but I never really warmed to her either as a teacher or as a person although I managed to do well in her subjects.

My teacher for Maths 1 and Maths 2 for the final two years of my time at Penrith High was Mr Penman, Ernie both in name and in nick-name. Ernie was so laid back that we had to check him from time to time to see if he was still breathing.

His dry style and sardonic approach did not affect his ability to teach well but he never managed to make me understand either the vagaries of differential calculus or of third-dimensional geometry – being an astrophysicist or a surveyor were definitely not career options. To this day, I do not know why I took two math subjects for the Leaving Certificate instead of General Maths and a social science subject, a choice I have always regretted.

Other members of the Mathematics Department whom I remember but who never taught me were Mr Allison (‘Joe), Mr Mullane (‘Muscles’), and Mr Cameron. I don’t know why Mr Mullane was called Muscles because he certainly didnt look a man of physical prowess. I understand that he later became headmaster of the school. Mr Cameron’s daughter, Claire. was in my class.

Science

My science teacher for the first three years was Corky Duncan about whom I have written separately. When I entered 4th year, I decided to take Chemistry and Physics, two separate subjects. I had some vague idea that I might become an industrial chemist but I soon realised that doing chemistry as a job would be nowhere as much fun as mixing chemical compounds for a lark but by then I was stuck with these subjects.

The other discrete science subject was Biology but the thought of dissecting dead animals was enough to put me off. Miss Baldwin was the Biology teacher. The other reason that I did not choose Biology was that Miss Baldwin scared the life out of me – she was a nice enough lady until she got riled about something.

Mr Bayfield was our Physics teacher and although I must have understood at the time the strange things that he taught like sound and light waves, I certainly don’t understand them now.

Mr Baguley taught me Chemistry in my final years and although I did not get on well with him, he was a very popular teacher. In my final year, he told me that I would be wasting my time even sitting for the subject in the Leaving Certificate as I had no hope of passing. This angered me and caused me to really apply myself and I did well in the subject in the final exams. So either Mr Baguley was just putting me down or was, in fact, an inspiring teacher who shrewdly worked out how to motivate me. You be the judge.

Other members of the Science Department included the red-headed Mr Crockart (Bob) but I never had him as a teacher.

Sports and Physical Education (PE)

Mr Ewens, ‘Wilf’, was the sports teacher for the boys. He conducted weekly PE classes which were either a welcome relief from regular classes for boys who enjoyed that sort of activity, or a torment for those who didn’t. Mr Ewens also exercised general supervision over school sports.

There was nothing ambivalent about students’ feelings for Mr Ewens. Wilf was either a well-loved teacher, committed to ensuring that his charges became fit and healthy, or a petty tyrant, depending upon whether you liked PE.

Wilf was also a handy cricketer at first-grade level turning out for Cumberland, the team based on the Parramatta-Penrith District and was known as ‘The King of the Sweep’. He was also a qualified sports scientist.

Miss Gould was the sports mistress and she seemed a nice but very sporty person. I never had much to do with her but she seemed popular amongst the girls.

Library

Miss Joyce Fardell was the school librarian until 1956 when she left for a position at the New South Wales School Library Service and became its administrative head in 1959. She was replaced by Miss Harris. Miss Fardell was very influential in developing school reading programs and the training of school librarians and was known internationally as an expert in her field.

She ran the PHS Library like clockwork and was very encouraging to all her students and library users and always had a place in her heart and guidance for kids who liked books and a helping hand for those who didn’t. Miss Fardell received awards for her contributions to children’s reading and library services and she established a scholarship at Sydney University for students in wheelchairs.

Miss Fardell was an ornament to our school. She died in 1982, an ornament also to children’s education.

Art

I never did Art and so have no opinion on the level of teaching there but I did have various run-ins with the Art teacher, Greg Horton, commonly known as Fatty – not really fat. Friends who did Art with Mr Horton told me he was an excellent teacher with skills across all art forms.

With me and Mr Horton, I think it was mutual hate at first sight. I probably received more scoldings and disciplinary actions from him in the school grounds than from any other teacher.

Worse, he was a frequent visitor to my father’s shop, often coming in for an afternoon milkshake. He really liked talking to my father, or my mother if she was in the shop, and giving regular reports on my progress at school – the social and behavioural aspects but not any academic ones. Thank you, Mr Horton, for your interest in my school life and your continuing need to share your thoughts about me with my parents.

The greatest school there ever absolutely was

That about wraps up my recollections of my years at Penrith High School but I loved my time there and, despite the angst of adolescence, and the ups and downs of high school life, my memories of Penrith High remain with me, and they are good memories.

I don’t know about ‘Altiora peto’- I seek higher things’ but my days at Penrith High were happy ones and the friendships were good.

Previous Penrith High School post

English and language teachers