Just over 100 years ago the residents of Adaminaby "crushed" into a school hall to see a wonderful concert of dance, songs, girls waving wands and boys picking up dumb bells.
The songs included "A Little Farm Well Tilled" and "Stay in Your own Backyard". There were many laughs, ovations and 20 guineas was raised for the school's library and sports material in a town described in 1903 as "the most flourishing town on the Monaro".
Now move forward to this Saturday, April 6, and you will see a packed schoolyard with songs as well and with students dancing with ribbons around a maypole as the town celebrates its public school's 150th birthday.
A lot has changed - the town has been moved - one of the few in Australia ever moved as one, when the Snowy Scheme was built. But then not a lot has changed. Now the townsfolk watch as a new part of the Snowy scheme gets underway with Snowy 2.0 just up the road.
And the school's P&C committee is still going hammer and tongs to raise funds for school equipment.
Now there's a plentiful schoolyard, peach trees that groan fruit, an oak tree-lined fence, a mini-farm that did have chickens until a quick fox visited recently, and an area where budding farmers can practise planting seeds.
There's an weatherboard school room that's not only survived the harshest winter but also father time. The school room, probably one of the oldest in any school has a tale like the town itself moved from place to place. It was built at Kiandra in 1907, and then was moved to the Old Adaminaby school site in 1948, before finding its way to the new site.
It's now the school's kitchen where students each Friday fire up pizzas in the wood-fired pizza oven for their family and friends. The school also has the oldest demountable classroom in NSW that's soon to be adorned by some beautiful ironwork. And there's still the bell, the bell that's called kids to school for over a century.
But history of the school is never far away, and principal, Petrina Baff, encourages students to do their own research, interviewing former students, one of them Jean Ware, 98, still living in town who remembered not only the teachers names when she was at school in the 1930s, but all the games they played.
"We played rounders (a bat and ball game), while the boys played football and cricket, and later we played tennis and hockey," she told student leader Chelsea.
"I lived in the main street (of the old town) and so it wasn't far for me to walk to school. Some kids rode a horse. They rang the bell and we lined up and we marched to class. There were three rooms."
Chelsea brought some laughs when she asked Mrs Ware if she received the cane.
They rang the bell and we lined up and we marched to class. There were three rooms.
- Jean Ware, 1930s Adaminaby school student
"Yes I did," she surprisingly said. "I remember why we were doing dictation and I didn't hear what word the teacher said and so I asked my friend next to me. We weren't supposed to talk and I got a wallop with the cane for talking. They were strict and we we treated like little mice."
Today's students looked at each quizzically imagining what caning was.
Mrs Ware even remembered the teachers in the 1930s names, a Mr Slater and a Mr Trimm. She said, despite the one hit with the cane, she got on very well with her teachers and all were "very nice". She contracted polio and missed a year of school, but came back and repeated.
She told today's students of life in the Depression and also a drought where the cattle had no feed.
"In the Depression we had to ration milk and butter, but if you had anything extra, say you grew your own vegetables, we shared it with one another.
"A lot of people ran out of flour and we had a big bag of it and so we'd give out a few cups to keep them going. We baked our own bread."
Principal Petrina Baff said Adaminaby was still the same with people helping each other out in the community.
Mrs Ware then told a wonderful tale of an Aboriginal boy who gave back for the kindness shown to him in the Depression.
"You'd get a lot of swagmen coming through looking for work. We had an Aboriginal boy who camped over in the briars near us and he was doing it tough so we gave him some of our food. Then years later, you wouldn't believe he came back. He'd finally got work and with his first pay cheque he bought some lollies for all us kids, that was a big thing for us back then, to say thank you for helping him." They were a big bag of boiled lollies.
The new Adaminaby school has all the mod cons and teacher's aides needed for modern internet teaching, thanks to the hardworking P&C Committee. And the NSW Government has promised $40,000 of new fall mulch for the playground.
Things are a little easier than when Mrs Ware remembers swagmen scavenging old jam tins to make mugs out of them and even string them together to make little shelters. They'd also carve pine cones in shapes of birds. The students at school today are also into craft with their own pottery kiln and built their own pizza oven. You name the pizza, they can make it.
- Author's note: My mother's cousin Warren Snell was a principal at the current school back in the 70s-80s. Warren unfortunately passed away recently at Coolagolite, survived by his wife Peggy. Warren loved the school and could also indulge his past-time of trout fishing, going the early hard yards to catch a fish. Being principal you also had many community duties. He also read out the price changes for bookmakers at the races, and the author remembers helping him with the prices. I'm sure Warren would wish the school all the best for its big day.