Marbles, too, were an annual event, with circles marked out in the dust and fierce contests waged till the best players started gathering all the winnings. Ron O`Donnell was the champ one year, walking everywhere with this great bulging bag of marbles. We eyed him off with a boyish hate till the day he was running down the stairs late for parade---and tripped. Marbles flew everywhere, hands grabbed and hid as much as they could and Ron was left with only a few. He had to win them all over again.

Swimming lessons were compulsory in the Education syllabus at that time and once a week in summer we trooped, towel around neck, around the corner to the Valley Baths. After disrobing and disinfecting in the hygiene footbath, we jumped into the pale blue water to practice our latest stroke. No world champions emerged, but somewhere or other I still have my certificate attesting that A.R. Cameron had completed a 10 yards swim in freestyle across the pool.

Girls remained a distant quantity till the year after I sat for my Scholarship exam, when they created mixed classes. We gazed across the railway tracks to the girl`s school and picked out our favourites. I was love-struck by Nelda Jacobs for a couple of years, but, alas, I doubt if she ever noticed me. In spite of having an appetite like a horse, during those years my photos show a frame more akin to Belsen Concentration Camp survivors than a healthy young Australian. Somehow, having sisters never seemed to equate with knowing girls, so we grew up devoid of all the little flirting tricks that we needed in our later teenage years. However, with girls out of bounds, we made do with sport and similar boy-type activities.

Oddly, we never knew or talked of S-E-X. Though there was one time a rumour spread among the boys that Miss ‘X’ would show ‘it’ to you for threepence down under the willow trees. No one had a clue what she would show, and the paying viewers remained tight-lipped. Came one day when my pocket-money was exhausted and naught remained save a thrippence. I determined to wander down to the willows and settle the question once and for all. Blow me if I didn`t get waylaid by my mate Gordon Barnes as I set out on the trip.

‘Where ya goin?, he asked. I revealed the Great Plan.

 ‘ Watch you doin?’ I asked him.

 ‘Goin’ to the cake shop for a custard pie’ he replied.

Now I should warn readers that apart from sport, the great love of my life was a custard pie. Sad to relate, the fortunes of Miss ‘X’ were none the richer that arvo, and I had to wait till seventeen to see the Great Secret of Life.

Thar ya go, a taste of real life from the past. More available, but only on demand :-p