I love that so many people are sending photos and stories to SpringDale, to help us collate them for the SpringDale Messenger and for a book to be available during the celebrations in October. This month I met up with Maria Matuzak and Anja Zonneveld, Bibiana Veryzer, who was visiting from The Netherlands. John Edsall loaned many photos from his mother’s collection and Emeritus Professor Ross Williams AM sent one of his class photos and I’m looking forward to some stories too.
Grade Six in 1965 had another reunion and Dianne Bennett (nee Gillies) wrote down some of the memories.
Our Grade Six class meets together on a fairly regular basis; at least twice a year and sometimes more often.
We are so fortunate to have so many class mates, who are living in Drysdale and the surrounding areas. There were fourteen present recently, but there have been more on other occasions. Some have never strayed far – like myself, and others have moved back after living interstate, overseas and in other areas of Victoria.
That sparked another question; What made you return to Drysdale? Heather was living in her own unit and working on the Gold coast in Aged Care. She just felt a longing to return “home”, and to care for the Drysdale “oldies”. Many of these Heather had know for many years. Even though she returned just for a trial run, she said she felt so at home that she didn’t want to leave. She sold her unit, moved back to Drysdale and built her home here amongst family and friends, she had known all her life.
Others, who had moved away also felt the pull of “home”. Some because their parents were aging and others because it was just “the best place” to retire.
Back to the memories: Gordon lived opposite the school and loved being able to go home for lunch. He also confessed to weekends wandering over to wreck the pine needle huts that we girls painstakingly spent all our lunch times constructing.
His favourite thing was being picked to ring the big bell outside for recess, lunch and home time.
There were “film days” when Mr. Robinson, in his grey dust coat, would come and show movies while we sat in the darkened cloakroom on the floor, and hating to have to do “yard duty” for punishment.
Our teachers were (mostly) remembered fondly, while others employed some forms of discipline we’d rather forget.
Drysdale was a great place to grow up, and Drysdale P.S. was a great school. We all had brothers and sisters, sometimes even mums and dads who had been to Drysdale P.S. It was a bit like a big family, because back then, it was such a small town, and all the families knew each other.
As John said, we are so lucky to have so many friends from those years who are still able to catch up and really enjoy being together. Class of ’65, I think we’ve all done really well, and this has to be due in some part to our years at Drysdale P.S.
Dianne Bennett (Gillies)
