#52Ancestorsin52Weeks Week21 Social - Year Book

 

Having stoutly denied that Australians have such things as Year Books, I am now forced to concede that we do...sort of.  So here's the entry from mine.

The editors spelled my maiden name correctly - Yay!  Given that I was only at this school for a couple of years, that's amazing.  

The book had mini-bios of all the girls in 6th Form as it was then called.  There were some extracts from Charivari, the school magazine from earlier years - funny poems from the littlies.  There were some memorable quotes from teachers at the back of the book.  And some thoughts about what we learned at school.  There were also photos of us as babies and some more casual ones of us at school.  There's one of me studying in the library, one of me on the sporting field, which is a rare occurrence let me tell you, and one of me washing cars, to raise money for charity.

The quality of the photos by today's standards is of course a joke but I am grateful that anything was recorded in my short time at Ascham.  My copy of the Year Book is extremely dusty and dirty with coffee stains on the cover and notes scattered throughout.  

I've just realized that I recorded what HSC score some people got and what course they got into at Uni. and the scores needed to get into particular courses.  I wanted to get into Arts/Law at Sydney Uni but the score was 390 so I missed out.  I got into Arts and then transferred in my 2nd year.  You need 427 to get into Medicine and 401 to get into Vet Science in those days.  The score was out of 500.  I got 368 from memory.  

So what do the quotes mean above?  Well, I think I was into fundraising in 6th form and always trying to think of things we could do to raise money.  

Ascham was a bit of an unusual school in that you had some formal lessons for subjects but then there were a lot of free periods in which to study.  You got to choose how you spent your time but you had to get your assignments for every subject done by Tuesday morning.  Monday nights were hell!  And if you were cutting it fine, you'd be at school early on Tuesday morning to try and get help from fellow students with particular subjects.  Maths was my bete noir so I'd always be begging for help on a Tuesday morning with that.  Latin was a close second.  

My BFF was living with us at the time - Judith.  She'd tried boarding at a school in Sydney but we decided it would be more fun to do the HSC together at home so she came to live with us and was a day bug instead.  We went to different schools but being an only child, it was great to have a "sister" in what was a very stressful final year of school.  Consequently, I was probably exceedingly boring to everyone constantly saying "Judith and I....."  

Not sure what the bushwalking quote is about but we did love it and knowing my parents we probably did a lot of it up in the Blue Mountains to get rid of some of the stress.  

We also did a lot of swimming at the Uni pool as Dad worked there and he was on a bit of a health kick too.  We did a lot of swimming full stop.  You had to do 20 laps a week at Ascham whether you could swim or not.  I could never do butterfly and you were meant to do 4 laps of butterfly, 4 of breaststroke, 4 of freestyle, and 4 of backstroke.  Breakstroke and backstroke were fine for me but freestyle and butterfly were killers.  All good fun.  I was probably the fittest then than I have ever have been.  We had four flights of stairs in our home and my bedroom was in the attic.  I think I even managed to do hurdles in sport that year!  Crazy town.  Sport was my very worst subject but compulsory.

My ambitions haven't changed much although I don't want to own an otter anymore.  I'd just like to see one in the wild. Punk rock drummer - well, maybe not anymore but I would love to be able to play a musical instrument still - my one regret. 

What about you? Did you have to do sport right up to Grade 12 at school?  I don't think it's compulsory anymore.    What are your memories of Grade 12?  Did you have a Year Book?