Sepia Saturday 486 7 September 2019

School days.  Good morning everyone. Good morning Mrs So - and - so.....said in a long drawn out sing-song voice.  

I have spent a restless night, waking frequently to hear wind moaning as it snakes its way in through door and window crevices.  It's not good.  There are fires raging around south-east Queensland and parts of NSW.  I am worried for the good folk at Binna Burra, Stanthorpe, Applethorpe,  Tenterfield and Armidale. All this week, as I have driven from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, I have been driving through smoke haze from about Helensvale onwards. We've had a dry end to winter and the climate outlook for the remainder of the year shows an increased risk of bushfires.

When I looked for bushfires and schools on Trove, I found photos of the Hornsby Home Science School which was destroyed by bushfire on 30 November 1957.  It wasn't the first time the school had been threatened by a fire.  Newspaper articles give accounts of the fire threat five years earlier in 1952.

The Daily Telegraph 1st February 1952 courtesy of Trove.

I had to explain what domestic science was to my son the other day, it's such a quaint old-fashioned concept now.

Another interesting series of photos I discovered on Trove was of the Chateau Napier in Leura.  My parents used to live at Leura and I have many happy memories of spending May holidays in the Blue Mountains.  My mother used to tell me stories of when she was a small child being evacuated to the Blue Mountains during the war.  But I didn't remember hearing about Chateau Napier.  

Chateau Napier, 1946, courtesy of Blue Mountains City Library found on Flickr here.

I was keen to see where exactly this was located in Leura.

Bascially if you go to the top of Leura Mall, cross over the railway line and keep walking along Leura Mall, it was on the North-East corner of the roundabout where the Mall intersects with the Great Western Highway.  This street view photo shows all that is left of the original building...some exterior walls and archway leading into the garden.

You can see the arch more easily in this photo taken after the fire in 1957.

Remains of Chateau Napier Leura courtesy of Blue Mountains Library Local Studies Collection found on Flickr here.

What does this have to do with schools you may ask.  Well, this article here will fill in the gap a bit.  This was found on Trove in the Blue Mountains Advertiser, Friday 13 February 1942, page.4.

So there you go.  Students from SCEGS or Sydney Chruch of England Girls Grammar were evacuated to Chateau Napier during the war. There are some really interesting articles about the Chateau and the bush fire of 1957 here and here. Oh and this one too.  The latter makes me hunger for another holiday in the Blue Mountains.  I do miss it.

And just to finish off on happier memories, here's some photos of my Mum and her school friends at I think at Fort Street Girls High and Summer Hill Public school in Sydney.

My Mum isn't in this photo.  That's another Barbara but I chose the photo because of the tilting window a bit like the photo prompt.  I'm thinking this was probably taken around 1952-53. 

My Barbara is in this next photo of Summer Hill Girls Practice School - taken 9th September 1946. She's in the back row on the end at the right.

For more responses to the Sepia Saturday meme go here.