School Snippets
by various contributors
We have lots of vivid memories to share, some of them too short to write a whole article about. Here are some of them... do add yours!
Queuing up outside the Kitchen at Gifford for "Second's" of
Brown-bread-and-sandwich-spread Sandwiches. We were always starving!
Malcolm
Plates of liverpaste sandwiches curling in the sun at breaktime. Arundel Girls High.
Mary
My memories of Umtali convent were stealing grapes after boy scout meetings
on a Friday night.
At some stage they got a big dog which made life exciting and doubled the
fun. Get in and fill your scout hat with grapes and then up and over the
fence before the dog got you. UGHS was a case of getting on the bicycle
going to see the girl friend who was a boarder, sitting on a bench happily
holding hands. .
Rob
Our green summer uniform at Girls High in Salisbury had these funny long white collars, bit like spaniels ears, and when we tucked them in we looked like surgeons!! On walking past Prince Edward School, Alan Wilson School and especially the RLI Barracks next door we definitely took our awful straw boaters off. Oh how we loved those army boys!! My first serious boyfriend I met through the fence between RLI and Girls High, oh sigh.
Jenni
YES!!! Memories of school days- Stealing from the matrons' food-cupboard at midnight - Langdon House, Eveline High, Bulawayo.
Anon
Old school memories - Marandellas High School, Cumberland House ( boarding dorm.)....the Sunday evening sandwich races, when two form 2 blokes would see how many gooseberry jam sandwiches they could eat at one sitting. I forget the actual figures but 4 loaves of bread by 1 bloke rings a bell.
Brooksy
UGHS
by Karen
UGHS's Ocky - what a reminder! I gave up piano lessons after a few trying times with her!! Tessa Ball and I had to write out the words to all the songs from the King and I TEN times because we didn't wear our church uniform when we were collected to go out one Sunday - to this day I remember them!!!
Other memories of my days at Athlone were
- mid-night feasts in one of the music rooms - prerequisite : bread and condensed milk!;
- Fire Drills late at night;
- revolting grey-green brussel sprouts (still hate them)!;
- jacaranda's blooming and panic if one hadn't started swotting for exams by then;
- listening to the LM Hit Parade on Sunday nights (the only night we could have a radio on in the dorm;
- 'Harvey' the ghost;
- only being allowed to wear slippers upstairs;
- bathroom rosters;
- boyfriend visits on Sunday afternoons;
- school dances;
- waiting for Lower/Upper 6 girls to bring letters from UBHS;
- travelling on the overnight train to Salisbury for sport;
- walking (crocodile) to UBHS to watch rugby.
Highlands Junior
by Lynda
A memory that I thought I would share with those BT readers who went to Highlands Junior in Salisbury in the 1970s.
Do you remember marble season?We played on the practice tennis court( you know the one with the green practice wall)and we would set up a little marble market place with oners,cats' eyes,smokies,spaghettis,grannies and clearies to name a few.
Then we'd sit there with our chosen marble lying in front of a line in the dirt and the paces measured out for where you had to shoot from according to the value of the marble.For example, a oner was one step, smokey was two, cleary three and so on.We'd sit there yelling "ROLL UP,ROLL UP,ROLL UP FOR A SMOKEY!"
When somebody decided to try and win your marble,they had to stand at the designated mark and try and knock your marble over the line behind it.
If they missed, you kept their marble.And for
those in the know...remember "Ninga fudgies" (marble speak!)Please let me
know if anyone of you remembers this most excellent pastime.
More from Highlands
by Elaine
15 cents to spend at the tuckshop every Saturday at Highlands Boarding School, which would buy a glass bottle of coke and a bag of Willards cheese and onion chips OR 45 niggerballs (3 for one cent); a little cylinder of ice cream wrapped in blue plastic on Sundays (big treat for those poor boarders who had not gone home for the weekend); bengal juice (chocolate milk sold by vendors at break time in 1/3 pint plastic bags); frogs eggs; awful liver; endless brown bread and marmite or peanut butter sandwiches and oranges for breaktime; sports days and galas with houses to cheer for.