Kath Semmel, form 3, 1959, aged 14, in Monash Avenue. Such a fetching 'outfit'!!
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Xmas Holidays 1960-1961, Sorrento back beach.
Left to right: Richard Smith (not BHS), Helen Miller, Ian Semmel, Dorothy Vietz, Katherine Semmel.
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Kath Semmel (McKay)
Mr. Clements at Balwyn High School Golden Anniversary celebrations, 2004 (Mr. Clements has since died).
My memories of Balwyn High, like all of us, are mixed. 50 years is a long time and society has changed a great deal.
I do not remember our girls’ uniform with any affection or sentimentality. The worst colours possible, probably designed to make us girls look as unattractive as they could make us: grey blazers, grey jumpers, mustard yellow and brown check summer dresses, in winter mustard yellow shirts with tan brown ties, yes: ties, such as are worn still by men. That was when I learned to tie a Windsor knot, useless skill of course, unless you are a boy. Grey beret in winter, straw hat in summer. There were strange rules such as not being allowed to wear our jumpers over our summer dresses – in case it ‘showed our figure’ i.e. people would be aware we had breasts! If we were cold in summer we could wear our jumper over our dress but only underneath our blazer. We could wear jumpers over our winter tunics as these box-pleated grey wool numbers, tied in the middle, made us look like a sack of potatoes anyway so there is no way that a jumper would show anything other than bulky box pleats. And of course our dress and tunic length had to be well below the knee.
Sports uniforms were mustard yellow dresses that had to be no less than four inches above the knee when standing – this was policed by making us kneel on the asphalt whilst wearing the sports uniform: the skirt should touch the ground in front. If it did not, you would be required to let the hem down or a note would be sent home advising a new one should be purchased. Underneath the sports dress we wore big mustard-yellow bloomers over our knickers: these were called ‘swedes’ and I have no idea why. Of course this was to protect our ‘modesty‘ should the skirt blow up during a vigorous game or activity.
But teenage girls being teenage girls, we found ways to modify our uniform to make it in some measure more attractive. The most common one was to starch the cloth belt so that, rather than being a soft and useless (to us) waist marker, it became as hard as cardboard and could be pulled in tightly to accentuate the waist and, more importantly, (to us), enable us to hitch the skirt up a little. We learned how to make cold water starch in our domestic science classes – along with other helpful hints of how to undertake domestic tasks such as how to use borax in the wash. I notice with some chagrin that my grand-daughters also hitch up their school dresses in this way, as did my daughter when she was at high school. Some things never change it seems.
Sexism was not a word we knew in those days, but it was clear that girls and boys were supposed to have different aims in life. In first and second form, girls studied compulsory cooking, sewing and ‘domestic science; (how to wash clothes, clean houses, etc.). No boys allowed. Boys studied woodwork and carpentry, no girls allowed.
Apart from in class, boys and girls were strictly segregated, a strange practice in many ways, given that the school was co-educational and one of the points of that was presumably to enable boys and girls to mix with each other in preparation for life beyond school. However, for us it meant separate boys doors through which no girl should pass, separate sections of locker corridors, separate lunch eating areas and, definitely, no walking to or from school with members of the opposite sex. My mother was most piqued when I was in year 11, my brother in year 12, and the headmistress wrote a letter home to say that Ian and I should not walk to school together as the public would not know that we were brother and sister and it didn’t look ‘proper’! My mother was outraged and wrote back and said so. We were 16-17 and 17-18 at the time!
Despite these anachronistic rules, reflective of the times, Balwyn High School was good for me and good to me. Particularly some of the teachers who I remember still. Teachers are incredibly important to students, something that many others have written about. The good and the bad stay with you for life it seems. At Balwyn there were not many bad ones.
Many great teachers stand out in my memory. Mrs. Miller, who taught me English Literature over several years and through her teaching of Ibsen, Shakespeare and Chaucer, started to awaken my consciousness of the unenviable position of women in much of society; John Martin who was really only a few years older than us form 5 and 6 students and who had a passion for learning and for understanding the world through history; Miss Sampson who chose award books by what I now know are feminist authors (Henry Handel Richardson, Eleanour Dark, Miles Franklin, etc.) and Mr.Clements, who taught me Economics, who was my form teacher in form 5 and inspired me with his humanity. Mr. Clements must have had an inkling that I was being pressured from home to leave at the end of form 5 and not proceed to university. At his own home, he set up an interview between me and an Age Journalist, thinking that could be a career I undertook if I could not proceed to university. At the end of form 5, Mr.Clements wrote me a particularly glowing reference to help me with future employment. Reading those praiseworthy words fuelled my determination to continue at school, rather than go to work. I was a top student, loved learning and had been encouraged by all my teachers to pursue university studies, to make the most of my talents. But my father had decreed that I must leave school, as my three older sisters had. Only boys should be allowed to finish secondary education and go on to uni. From somewhere came the idea that I did not have to do what my father said. So I defied his edict to leave school. I went out cleaning houses and working in shops to pay my way through matriculation. The bigger lesson for me was that you do not have to obey figures of authority in all things, something I carry with me still.
At the 2004 Balwyn High School golden anniversary event, I came across Mr. Clements, then a sprightly octogenarian. I was able to shake his hand and thank him for his wonderful teaching, for the help he gave me and for being such a wonderful role model. Dear old chap wept and so did I.
(click on this link to read what Kath did after Balwyn High School)
I do not remember our girls’ uniform with any affection or sentimentality. The worst colours possible, probably designed to make us girls look as unattractive as they could make us: grey blazers, grey jumpers, mustard yellow and brown check summer dresses, in winter mustard yellow shirts with tan brown ties, yes: ties, such as are worn still by men. That was when I learned to tie a Windsor knot, useless skill of course, unless you are a boy. Grey beret in winter, straw hat in summer. There were strange rules such as not being allowed to wear our jumpers over our summer dresses – in case it ‘showed our figure’ i.e. people would be aware we had breasts! If we were cold in summer we could wear our jumper over our dress but only underneath our blazer. We could wear jumpers over our winter tunics as these box-pleated grey wool numbers, tied in the middle, made us look like a sack of potatoes anyway so there is no way that a jumper would show anything other than bulky box pleats. And of course our dress and tunic length had to be well below the knee.
Sports uniforms were mustard yellow dresses that had to be no less than four inches above the knee when standing – this was policed by making us kneel on the asphalt whilst wearing the sports uniform: the skirt should touch the ground in front. If it did not, you would be required to let the hem down or a note would be sent home advising a new one should be purchased. Underneath the sports dress we wore big mustard-yellow bloomers over our knickers: these were called ‘swedes’ and I have no idea why. Of course this was to protect our ‘modesty‘ should the skirt blow up during a vigorous game or activity.
But teenage girls being teenage girls, we found ways to modify our uniform to make it in some measure more attractive. The most common one was to starch the cloth belt so that, rather than being a soft and useless (to us) waist marker, it became as hard as cardboard and could be pulled in tightly to accentuate the waist and, more importantly, (to us), enable us to hitch the skirt up a little. We learned how to make cold water starch in our domestic science classes – along with other helpful hints of how to undertake domestic tasks such as how to use borax in the wash. I notice with some chagrin that my grand-daughters also hitch up their school dresses in this way, as did my daughter when she was at high school. Some things never change it seems.
Sexism was not a word we knew in those days, but it was clear that girls and boys were supposed to have different aims in life. In first and second form, girls studied compulsory cooking, sewing and ‘domestic science; (how to wash clothes, clean houses, etc.). No boys allowed. Boys studied woodwork and carpentry, no girls allowed.
Apart from in class, boys and girls were strictly segregated, a strange practice in many ways, given that the school was co-educational and one of the points of that was presumably to enable boys and girls to mix with each other in preparation for life beyond school. However, for us it meant separate boys doors through which no girl should pass, separate sections of locker corridors, separate lunch eating areas and, definitely, no walking to or from school with members of the opposite sex. My mother was most piqued when I was in year 11, my brother in year 12, and the headmistress wrote a letter home to say that Ian and I should not walk to school together as the public would not know that we were brother and sister and it didn’t look ‘proper’! My mother was outraged and wrote back and said so. We were 16-17 and 17-18 at the time!
Despite these anachronistic rules, reflective of the times, Balwyn High School was good for me and good to me. Particularly some of the teachers who I remember still. Teachers are incredibly important to students, something that many others have written about. The good and the bad stay with you for life it seems. At Balwyn there were not many bad ones.
Many great teachers stand out in my memory. Mrs. Miller, who taught me English Literature over several years and through her teaching of Ibsen, Shakespeare and Chaucer, started to awaken my consciousness of the unenviable position of women in much of society; John Martin who was really only a few years older than us form 5 and 6 students and who had a passion for learning and for understanding the world through history; Miss Sampson who chose award books by what I now know are feminist authors (Henry Handel Richardson, Eleanour Dark, Miles Franklin, etc.) and Mr.Clements, who taught me Economics, who was my form teacher in form 5 and inspired me with his humanity. Mr. Clements must have had an inkling that I was being pressured from home to leave at the end of form 5 and not proceed to university. At his own home, he set up an interview between me and an Age Journalist, thinking that could be a career I undertook if I could not proceed to university. At the end of form 5, Mr.Clements wrote me a particularly glowing reference to help me with future employment. Reading those praiseworthy words fuelled my determination to continue at school, rather than go to work. I was a top student, loved learning and had been encouraged by all my teachers to pursue university studies, to make the most of my talents. But my father had decreed that I must leave school, as my three older sisters had. Only boys should be allowed to finish secondary education and go on to uni. From somewhere came the idea that I did not have to do what my father said. So I defied his edict to leave school. I went out cleaning houses and working in shops to pay my way through matriculation. The bigger lesson for me was that you do not have to obey figures of authority in all things, something I carry with me still.
At the 2004 Balwyn High School golden anniversary event, I came across Mr. Clements, then a sprightly octogenarian. I was able to shake his hand and thank him for his wonderful teaching, for the help he gave me and for being such a wonderful role model. Dear old chap wept and so did I.
(click on this link to read what Kath did after Balwyn High School)
