SCHOOL MAGAZINE 70 YEARS AGO
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In the school magazine of 1953-4 the Old Girls’ Section reported that:
“We held three meetings as usual this year, and in addition, a Mothers’ and Babies’ meeting was held on June 19th and was very well attended. At the Christmas meeting an appeal was made for funds to enable the Association to buy its own crockery. There was an immediate response, and at the Easter meeting we were all delighted to be able to use our own crockery. The Summer meeting was held at North Hill on July 17th. Unfortunately rain prevented the tennis tournament that had been arranged between the Staff, present girls and the OGA.”
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Also in that magazine:
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Report from Melbourne by Grace Hantot (née Duddy) about several flights with the Flying Doctor, Dr LW Alderman
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Grace Eleanor Duddy was born in Lexden, Colchester in December 1914. It is not known whether she attended the Preparatory School but she would have been in the secondary school at CCHS from 1926. She trained as a teacher and emigrated to Australia in September 1946, where she married Henry Hautot. Henry died in 1965 and she later returned to England and died in Ipswich in 1993.
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(Ed: Unfortunately I have had to edit this very long report.)
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At 7am on Easter Sunday (1950) we started off on our first flight from Broken Hill, NSW to the opal fields at Andamooka. This is an isolated spot to the north west of Lake Torrens, about five hundred miles by air. The opal miners all live in dugouts
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underground, like modern pit dwellers. They scoop out a room in the side of a small hillock and usually sleep on a broad platform of earth, on which they place their bedding. Any building materials would have to be brought over dangerous desert route from Adelaide. So the only semblance to an ordinary home is wooden doors in the hillsides. The earthen homes are also much cooler in a place where the temperature can reach 130F in the shade.
Flying Doctor aircraft – de Havilland DHA-3 Drover
There was a tiny hospital made in a similar way. One room held a bed, a small table and a medicine chest. Besides these there was just room for the doctor. The hospital is usually kept locked and in charge of the medical man appointed by the small community. The doctor calls once a month, unless for an emergency. I saw some very nice opals here. Sometimes people dig for years and find nothing. Then they may suddenly become rich in an afternoon.
On a later flight we went to Maree, one of the hottest places in Australia. It is in the South Australian desert, on the railway line which runs from Adelaide to Alice Springs. As soon as darkness came the air was full of flying beetles. This hit me in the back, went down my neck and into my hair. They are a very pretty iridescent green, but if you step on one the smell is abominable. This quiet desert town is on the old camel route to Birdsville. The famous Birdsville track has seen many an Arab drover with his string of ungracious beasts. I met and talked with one old Arab drover who told me that they are now being replaced by motor trucks. He also showed me over the Mosque which they had built there.
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From here we received an emergency call, which meant flying over some hundreds of miles of flooded country. We saw water flowing into Lake Eye, this happening for the first time in living memory. When we arrived at Birdsville, the place was completely surrounded by water and had been so for three months. No one had been able to get in or out, so we were greeted most enthusiastically. Here we dined on goat meat, tinned tomatoes and tinned beetroot. That afternoon we had flown over floods large enough to have engulfed the whole of England and Wales.
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It was a most exciting experience. I would like to be able to go again and meet all the very hospitable people whom I met then.