Guns, Graves and Dreaming

This page is a record of a book relating to Fremantle.

Part of:
Title: Guns, Graves and Dreaming: the History of Fremantle's High School
Authors: Tim Johnson
Published: 1992 John Curtin Senior High School
Reference URL: https://freopedia.org/Guns,_Graves_and_Dreaming
Tags: John Curtin College of the Arts; schools
Authority control: Wikidata, Q65122990.

Original URL: http://www.multiline.com.au/~diane/contents.htm
Archive URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20010802182102/http://www.multiline.com.au/~diane/contents.htm

Chapter 1: Before the Europeans

The story of John Curtin Senior High School begins with the original inhabitants of the area at the mouth of the Swan River. The site now occupied by the school remained vacant, with two exceptions, until construction of the school buildings started in 1954. However, this is not to say that the land knew no human habitation or use because the Nyungar people had been living in the area at the mouth of the Swan River for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived in 1829.

The Nyungar people of the southwest of Western Australia believed in a totally different idea of land management and land holding than did the Europeans who soon dominated the area that they called their own. Because they were nomadic hunter gatherers, the Nyungars had no need to "own" land and this attitude was reflected in their use of the future site of John Curtin SHS. Although there was no formal land title concept allowing a Nyungar family to own a particular piece of land, families were given responsibility for looking after defined areas.

This idea of looking after but not owning property finds no counterpart in European thought and tradition.

Pat Vinnicombe, who authored a study of the Swan Brewery site near Mount Eliza entitled Goonininup, says that the Nyungar people used the idea of "kaleema" to define their territory. Simply put, every piece of land was some family's kaleema with all kaleemas touching, like a patchwork quilt. This responsibility required the family to watch over the land, but it didn't mean that they had to alter it in any way or make the land produce something, as Europeans would have expected. Because of the inherent sacredness of the land, a sacredness that included all land and not just "sacred sites," the family in charge of a kaleema undertook to guard its character as something connected to their religious beliefs.

How then does this lead to John Curtin SHS?

The hill site on which the school is built is geologically connected with Monument Hill. It was the Europeans who bisected it with the the construction of High Street and the old tram cut that is now Ellen Street. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the two hills would have been together, and as they are today, would have been the dominant geographical feature in Fremantle.

I believe that we could safely speculate that they would have formed some family's kaleema.

Beyond the inherent sacredness of all land, the limestone outcrop that is the elevated site of John Curtin in one instance and the Monument Hill in the other, has religious significance because of its connection to the great spirit, the waugal. The waugal was the Nyungar name for the Rainbow Spirit and they believed that the waugal created the path of the Swan River as it moved to the ocean.

The Nyungar people believed that the fresh water springs existing around the Perth area were places where the waugal had urinated and where it had defecated there were limestone outcrops. These are the outcrops that form the elevated sites in Fremantle.

As Pat Vinnicombe pointed out to me, we can safely speculate that this elevated area would have provided a perfect location for watching the many tracks that linked the various Nyungar communities of the southwest of Western Australia. One such track followed the ocean side of the Swan River to North Fremantle, crossing the river there and leading in a south easterly direction to Bibra Lake.

There was also an important track that originated at the Stirling Range in the far south of the state. From the hill site, the Nyungar people would have been able to monitor the progress of people using this track and therefore provide a very valuable service to communities in the lower Swan river area.

All these conclusions remain informed speculations for any contemporary reader because we simply know no more than a few basics about the life of the Nyungar people in the Fremantle region. There are a multitude of questions and only scraps of information.

Further references to the Nyungar people in the area of the hill site in Fremantle are few. Reece and Pascoe, in their book, A Place of Consequence, say that there were Nyungar people living in mia-mias on the vacant land of the hill as late as the beginning of World War I.

The Nyungar connection to the future site of John Curtin SHS extinguishes with this last reference.

Chapter 2: After 1829

Now we begin the European connection with the site and this leads us to two further uses of this area before its present configuration was set with the construction of the school.

Very early in the European settlement of Fremantle, the government set aside a large tract of land near the centre of Fremantle as public open space. This area encompassed the present school site, all the playing fields and extended down the hill to include the land now used as the Aquatic Centre. The importance of this designation meant that no building could take place on the site. So we have this very large piece of Fremantle that remained undeveloped and quiet during the years since Europeans arrived in 1829.

The quiet was not complete though. It was first punctured in the years immediately following the first gold discovery by Bayley and Ford at Coolgardie in 1892 and subsequently in Kalgoorlie by Paddy Hannan, when a "tent city" emerged on the flat land at the base of the hill.

The need for such a site became increasingly important as the realisation took hold that Fremantle did not have sufficient shelter for the rush of men going to the goldfields.

The area chosen for this tent city was the flat ground extending into East Fremantle from what is now East Street. The area no doubt included some of the land now occupied by the school.

Another example of the way in which John Curtin SHS blends its history with that of the Fremantle area and the history of the state relates to the use to which the grounds were put during the early years of the century. Farmers who needed commercial numbers of sheep killed for market sent them to the abattoir at Midland. The sheep were taken by boat to Fremantle from the outlying farming areas of the state. Because of the lack of transport, the animals were then walked from the Fremantle dockside to Midland, a journey of four days. When the animals arrived in Fremantle they needed to rest before making the long trip to Midland and therefore, they stayed on the grounds of the Asylum before beginning the drive to the abattoir there.

These connections tie John Curtin SHS irrevocably to the early history of Western Australia. Two remaining historical activities need examination at length, not only for reasons of historical insight, but for reasons of general interest. Here, the story becomes more colourful.

Chapter 3: The Cemetery at Skinner Street

After the arrival of the Europeans and the extinction of the traditional Nyungar (or more specifically Whadjuck) culture which had existed in the area from the foothills to Rockingham, the site John Curtin SHS now occupies was historically quiet until 1852. This year marked the opening of Fremantle's first official cemetery at Skinner Street on what was to become the playing fields of John Curtin SHS.

Before this opening, Fremantle had no official cemetery and burials took place at the Alma Street cemetery located where the Fremantle Hospital now stands. The Skinner Street cemetery operated from 1852 until December 7, 1899 when the Fremantle City Council closed it and burials were henceforth made at the new cemetery on Carrington Street.

Twenty six years after the closure of the Skinner Street cemetery, a notice appeared in the West Australian saying that for five pounds, relatives could have the remains of the deceased transferred to the new cemetery at Carrington Street. The contract to do the disinterment was won by the Earnshaw brothers who were monument masons for the Fremantle area.

By that time, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair and vandalism had taken its toll. George Earnshaw recalls his father, William, being awarded the contract to remove the headstones from the old Skinner Street Cemetary in the late 30's. According to George, attempts were made to locate relatives of the people buried there. Some relatives elected to have the remains re-interred and the original headstones removed to new grave sites at the Carrington Street Cemetery.

After all re-interments were done, any remaining intact stones were transferred to a site at Carrington Street and can be seen today on the right side of the road leading to the crematorium. Broken stones were carted away, most likely to the rubbish tip.

Although the material about the Skinner Street Cemetery is patchy, there are a few wonderful sources for history buffs to search through. I think that the first place to begin would be an oral history tape pointed out to me by Lorraine Stevens, the local history archivist at the Fremantle Library. She told me that the library possessed a tape made by Alfred Lewis in 1988.

He recalled the old, vandalized cemetery which was familiar ground to him as a young man. He often walked through it on the way to Fremantle Boy's School from his home in East Fremantle. Lewis remembers where trees were growing and what type they were and the location of particularly prominent ones. He remembers incidents about the exhumation of some of the graves and the removal of the remains to the Carrington Street Cemetery.

One macabre memory he relates concerns the position of the skeletons in the coffins undergoing disinterment. In his tape Lewis reports that three of the disinterred coffins contained skeletons laid in positions different from the normal positioning of the deceased in coffins. Skeletons were found completely turned over and on their side. These could not be their original positions and the most reasonable conclusion that can be drawn suggests that premature burial took place.

Lewis also talks about one of the last caretakers of the Skinner Street cemetery and the rumours surrounding him. According to Lewis, this particular man had no close friends and was considered by many to be an unpleasant person. It was also rumoured that he was the hangman at Fremantle Gaol, a feeling held by his workmates on the wharf at Fremantle Harbour where he worked part time.

This information is not corroborated by any other evidence. But like many other stories about the old cemetery, it doesn't seem to be too farfetched and, in any event, adds to the interest of this significant part of Fremantle's history.

After the closing of the cemetery in 1899, gradual but persistent vandalism reduced the cemetery to an unused derelict place.

This dilapidated spot was not to be disturbed until the Australian soldiers came in early '41 to make their temporary homes among the broken gravestones while they operated the anti-aircraft battery installed higher up the hill.

Chapter 4: Guns

After the activity of the closure of the old Skinner Street Cemetery and the removal of the remains to the new Carrington Street Cemetery, the hill site that was to become John Curtin Senior High School remained quiet and forgotten by all but a handful of young kids who had to cross it when walking to school. These students either walked to Fremantle Boys, Princess May or to the private school at Christian Brothers College. It seems that the only activity on or around the bottom of the hill was this movement of young people from various locations in East Fremantle to schools in Fremantle.

Allen Linto remembers walking to CBC from East Fremantle using the track that wound over the hill in the same location as the one used today for students going to and from John Curtin. He reports that there was never any construction or activity of any sort in the area known to the kids as "Bushy Park."

This quiet ended abruptly in 1941 when the Japanese began their conquest of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean became the second theatre of World War II.

So begins the next chapter in the history of the site that was to eventually become John Curtin Senior High School.

The declaration of war between Japan and Australia meant that Fremantle, situated as it was on the underpopulated western side of the continent, would be a prime target for enemy raids and eventual invasion. Therefore, it became critical for the armed forces to protect the port of Fremantle from the attacks that were thought to be inevitable, particularly after Australia's near-neighbors fell to the Japanese.

In these early days of war with Japan, Fred Ingram was an enlisted man stationed in Western Australia. He recalls a meeting with his commanding officer who ordered him to begin the construction of four heavy anti-aircraft gun sites. His responsibility included the positioning of the guns on the hill site of John Curtin SHS and at other locations around Fremantle. Fred told his commander that he couldn't do that.

His commander, thinking that he might be facing disciplinary insubordination from Fred, immediately asked him why he couldn't or wouldn't follow the order. Fred replied that under the rules for the mounting of anti-aircraft artillery, only men with the rank of officer could carry out such tasks and because he was an enlisted man, he could not do the job even though Fred was the only person in Western Australia that knew how to do the work. (He had attended training courses in the eastern states to qualify for such assignments).

The officer, caught between the need to mount the guns and an inflexible military rule, took the only course of action available to him and gave Fred an Officer's Commission on the spot.

From that moment Fred was known as Captain Ingram and he oversaw the positioning of anti-aircraft batteries at John Curtin, Scotsman's Hill, South Beach, East Fremantle Oval and South Fremantle Oval. (The entire network of defences was referred to as Fortress Fremantle.)

One of the more curious aspects of this feverish activity connected with trying to make the port of Fremantle safe from aerial attack, was the use of Italian POWs to complete initial construction of the gun sites. The Italian cruiser, Raimondo Montecueoli, was sunk during the important Mediterranean naval engagement known as the battle of Matapan off the southern coast of Greece in 1941.

Fred took command of twenty five POWs assigned to complete the initial work on the gun sites. These men constructed the four gun pits and positioned four disused 121 lb. field guns as decoys to fool the enemy if they sent reconnaissance flights over the position. The artillery pieces started out as field guns and their construction did not allow the barrels elevated much higher than 15 degrees, so Fred told the POWs to lift the carriages off the ground and prop railroad sleepers under the barrels so enemy aircraft would think that these guns were anti-aircraft artillery. Evidently the ruse would have worked because Fred reports that photographs taken by the Australian airforce during reconnaissance flights over the position showed 8 anti-aircraft batteries, rather than the four that were genuine. Fred ordered these dummy batteries placed in the rough area along the side of what is now the student carpark at John Curtin.

The POWs did not sleep at the site of the positioning of the guns, but were taken to the location each day from their barracks at Karrakata and returned there for the night. The first men to actually sleep on the site were the Australian soldiers who took over the operation of the guns after their positioning by the POWs. These young men were in their late teens and others, like 16 year old Dan Gallagher who enlisted early, found themselves assigned to Bushy Hill. This hill overlooking Fremantle provided a superb site for the positioning of the heavy anti-aircraft guns needed when the inevitable Japanese air attacks came: attacks that were meant to destroy the port and prevent its use by the allies.

Large anti-aircraft guns were few in these early months of unpreparedness; nonetheless, guns turned up at various places around Australia and were quickly positioned at locations at Fremantle. Initially, Bushy Park, the future site of John Curtin SHS, and Buckland Hill became the sites for these new defences for Fremantle.

Acquiring the anti-aircraft artillery needed for Fortress Fremantle took some interesting twists. When guns bound for the defence of Rangoon, Burma were re-routed back to Fremantle because the military command realized that Burma would fall to the Japanese before the guns arrived, the decision to place them on a hill between the Fremantle Hospital and Fremantle Prison made the most sense.

The hill exists only in the memory of blokes like Dan Gallagher since its flattening for commercial use after the war. Dan and the other original members of the Fortress Fremantle contingent spent the remainder of the war operating the anti-aircraft batteries at Darwin.

In July 1990 Len de'Grussa and his mates who shared those early days visited John Curtin after an absence of many years and pointed out the location of the four gun pits that they helped construct during those fearful days when their officers freely admitted that they all were part of a suicide force and that they were not expected to survive when attack came.

There were several other battery locations in Fremantle and they have their own stories of the boredom of duty and the difficulties faced by young recruits who had to construct homes for antiaircraft guns and homes for themselves in places where no one was expected live and work.

The problems faced by the 120 men operating the guns on the future site of John Curtin Senior High School were certainly far more difficult than those faced by the soldiers at the other gun sites around Fremantle.

As noted earlier, the hill site of John Curtin SHS's future home remained vacant and unused since the first town planning map had been drawn in 1832. However, the flat area at the bottom of the hill on the north side saw very extensive and historically important use by the Fremantle Town Council when they decided to locate the town's first official cemetery there in 1855.

By the time the 120 soldiers of the 5th Heavy Anti-aircraft Battery received orders to construct their living quarters on the flat area at the base of the hill in 1941, the old cemetery looked like a shell of its former self. Vandalised and allowed to become overgrown to such an extent that it was hardly recognizable as a cemetery, the young soldiers of the 5th Anti-aircraft Battery made their peace with living in a cemetery. When Bob Linto and the other men of the 5th AA Battery started putting up tents, latrines and all the other facilities needed to house the 120 strong contingent, some surprises were in store.

There is no evidence to substantiate it, but it seems logical to assume that because of the prevalence of limestone close to the surface, the graves in the cemetery could not have been dug very deep. Therefore, it would not have taken very much digging during the construction of the facilities needed by the soldiers of the 5th AA Battery to uncover the remains of coffins and skeletons.

When recalling these early days, former soldiers will tell stories of unearthing the skulls and bones of people interred during the 19th century when the old Skinner Street Cemetery was still in use. Ashley Hyde, Frank Cahill, Verne Donegan and Len de'Grussa all have stories to relate about this strange episode in Fremantle's history.

Len remembers the story of having their cricket game interrupted because an old men berated them for being disrespectful by playing cricket on his mother's grave.

Eventually the original rough military camp composed of tents scattered among the grave sites gave way to six, ten man barracks. These were constructed in an arc following the contours of the playing field on the east side of the current school site.

As the initial haste of the battery's construction lessened, more permanent buildings were placed at the site including a mess hall, officer's quarters and an orderly room. The barracks were put to use after the war when, because of the acute housing shortages due to the war, the State used them to house returned service personnel.

Chapter 5: Site Changes

It is obvious that given the size and location of the land area allocated for use by John Curtin Senior High School that there would be efforts made by various bodies within the Fremantle community to use such a large tract of land for purposes other than education.

On July 16, 1922 the site of what was to become the home of John Curtin SHS, was formally designated as "School Site-Secondary" for purposes of town planning within the boundaries of Fremantle. There were some major difficulties during the intervening years that caused the 32 year delay in finally building the school.

The face of the hill site of the school changed dramatically in 1938 and the hill site made its first step toward becoming the school site we now know as John Curtin when the Minister for Education, Mr. W.H. Kitson, called for the construction of a new manual arts building on the site. This move by Mr Kitson was in response to requests from local primary school principals.

In a meeting called that year by the principals, the strong need for new facilities in the area of technical education was pointed out. Hugh Cooper had attended Fremantle Boy's School and remembers walking with other class members through Fremantle to take manual arts classes at school in what is now Fremantle Tech on South Terrace. Students from Fremantle Boy's used the manual arts facillities until 1941 when the outbreak of war forced the army to take over the facilities for use during the war to train soldiers in the technical skills needed by the defense forces. Fortunately, the new manual arts building was nearing completion on the present site of John Curtin SHS. Hugh and his classmates who could no longer use the facilities at the Essex Street school had to walk up the hill and use the new facilities at the Fremantle Technical School.

Gus Ferguson remembers the Army using part of the school to train instrument repairers. He can remember watching from his classroom window and observing the soldiers who operated the four anti aircraft batteries located on the hill during the war years.

A plaque commemorating the opening of the new Manual Arts building was affixed to the exterior wall on the 9th of April 1943.

On several occasions during the years since the completion of John Curtin SHS, attempts have been made to use land vested under the school's name for purposes other than those connected with the operation of the school.

The position of John Curtin within Fremantle and the size of the site would suggest that various organisations coveted the land and that it demanded spirited measures to maintain the integrity of the site.

The first such attempt to use John Curtin land for other than school purposes was successful. During 1961, a controversy arose when the lease for the old Naval Stores on Shuffrey Street ran out and the Commonwealth directed that the Naval Stores could not expand.

During the war the federal government had given the Navy a lease of ten years plus the duration of the war on land now located near the Fremantle Aquatic Centre. When this lease expired the defense forces decided to abandon the site and relocate to another area. This left an attractive parcel of land very close to the centre of Fremantle and unsurprisingly, it was immediately recognized as a valuable piece property. So, in 1961 when the Commonwealth disallowed further expansion of the Naval Stores, another player entered the game leading to curious consequences for the future of John Curtin SHS.

The former name for TransPerth was the Transportation Trust and it realized the possibilities of using the old Naval Stores as a bus maintenance barn. The State would have received about 60 000 pounds for the existing Trust maintenance barn, but they made the decision that the land should remain under school authority and the Trust built its maintenance barn in another location. However, the story doesn't end here. There is an interesting conclusion to this episode.

On the 26th of Frebruary 1962, the Town Clerk of Fremantle sent a memo to the Director General of the Education Department indicating that the Fremantle City Council wanted the old Naval Store's land for the construction of an Aquatic Centre. This exchange of land took place and today the results of this deal can be seen by anyone driving south along Ord Street.

Chapter 6: J.B. Sleeman and the Dedication

In the history of John Curtin SHS, there are few people who stand out quite as

prominently as J.B. Sleeman. He worked for many years trying to convince the state

government to allocate funds to build the school and he finally succeeded in the

early 1950s.

J.B. Sleeman was the Fremantle member of the Legislative Assembly from 1924

until 1959 when he retired as the longest serving member of that body. He was born

in Inglewood, Victoria in 1885 and came to Western Australia at the age of 10. He

attended school at Day Dawn, a mining town near Cue. Cue is near Meekatharra,

which is northeast of Perth in the Murchison gold mining area. Day Dawn is now a

ghost town, but in its early days its gold deposits were rich enough to lure people

such as the Sleeman family from Victoria and provide John Curtin SHS with another

connection to the early history of this state.

The Sleeman family eventually left Day Dawn and settled in Fremantle where J.B.

grew up and began his working life. He went into politics and won the seat of

Fremantle in the Legislative Assembly in 1924.

When Sleeman won the seat of Fremantle, he began a

long and distinguished career in the Assembly.

In 1925 the government broke its word to build the next technical high school in

Fremantle and Sleeman began a campaign to have the government uphold its

promise. He started by making a speech in the Assembly requesting that Fremantle

be the site of a new high school. Every year until 1953 Sleeman gave the same

speech asking the government to honour its undertaking to allocate funds for the

building of a new high school in the Fremantle area. The government finally realized

that there were too many reasons to delay any longer and Sleeman's dream of a

new high school for the community finally went ahead. Plans were approved for what

was to eventually become John Curtin Senior High School.

J.B. Sleeman retired in 1959 after 35 years in parliament. If any person deserves

credit as the primary force behind the building of John Curtin SHS, I believe it would

have to be J.B. Sleeman. His obvious love of Fremantle and his sensitivity to its

needs led to a story of remarkable tenaciousness culminating in the construction of

Fremantle's new high school.

The history of this high school formally began on October 29, 1954 when Mrs John

Curtin, widow of the former wartime prime minister of Australia and the school's

namesake, laid the Foundation Stone signalling the commencement of the

construction of Fremantle's new school.

After construction, the school dedication was made by the state's Premier, Burt

Hawke at 2 pm on Wednesday, October 18, 1958. It was a hot day and the guests

and dignitaries gathered in the main quadrangle of the newly completed school. This

quadrangle was the hollow centre of the school between the sides of the building

containing the classrooms. As sometimes occurs in political decision making, the

speakers gave two different versions of the high school's initiation. The Premier

spoke first and told the audience that the state government, in order to provide

suitable educational facilities for the young people of Fremantle, had constructed

John Curtin Senior High School. After Burt Hawke's speech, Sir Frederick Samson

rose and told everyone that the Fremantle Town Council had given the state

government an ultimatum - either build the school or the council will take back the

land.

Where the true motivation for the school's construction lies, only conjecture will

provide an answer. J.B. Sleeman's name remained unmentioned.

Chapter 7: Getting Started

What was the nature of this new John Curtin High School during the late fifties in

those very early years after the school's completion? How did that school differ from

the John Curtin of the nineties? The predominant change from the contemporary

school is size. The John Curtin that began life as a school in 1956 was physically

very different from the single building with a single group of teachers who drive to

school and park in the same car park today.

Right up to 1962, the school scattered itself between what we identify as John Curtin

SHS and a series of annexes located around Fremantle. These annexes had a life

of their own and were almost separate schools. However, the public knew them

collectively as John Curtin High School, one very large urban school.

These annexes existed at the old North Fremantle Primary School and the old

Princess May Girl's School. Another annex was the Finnerty Street Annex, in reality

the Old Women's Home or the old Asylum which has now become the Fremantle

Museum. Each one of these annexes had its own specialty subjects and its own

teaching staff who took classes only at that location. There was also a

teacher-in-charge who was responsible for the administration of the annex.

Students did not move from location to location except to take certain specialised

classes such as home science and physical education. There just wasn't the room,

nor the facilities, at the smaller annexes to cater for the demands of a full curriculum.

Teaching staff also remained at the particular annex and did not move from one

annex to another for various classes.

The only time that all students and staff assembled in one place was for assemblies

at the "big school" and these occasions were rare and considered special events by

students. John Mills, a teacher at John Curtin, remembers his student days at the

school and the coming together of all the students from the various annexes. He

recalls that seeing these streams of annex students coming up the hill "... looked like

the Second Coming."

When all the students from the various annexes assembled, the entire quadangle

[the open space in the centre of school] was full of students, while the upper

balconies had students at the rails trying to get a look at the assembly. Assemblies

today barely fill one half of the grassed area in the quadrangle and there is no need

for the extra space on the balconies.

The need for annexes was a condition that John Curtin SHS had to accept because

it was the first government senior high school in the southwest corner of the

metropolitan area. At the time John Curtin began accepting students, it was the only

state high school from Canning bridge to Mandurah. This, coupled with the baby

boom after the war and the increased migrant intake during the late forties and early

fifties, meant that the population of John Curtin was astonishing by today's

standards.

We must remember that Kwinana, Rockingham, South Fremantle, Hamilton Hill,

North Lake, Melville and Applecross high schools had not even been planned. If

parents in the south metropolitan area wanted to educate their children at a state

school, then they had to send them to John Curtin.

Beyond this, another feature was at play which increased numbers at the school. If

a child had attended smaller, denominational schools for their lower secondary

studies and they wanted to complete upper school and attend a tertiary institution,

then they had to transfer to John Curtin because that was the only school, other

than the expensive private schools, with facilities for upper school.

In these early years a student's life revolved around these annexes, but what

determined which annex would be the centre of a student's universe? Ron Bowe,

who completed his secondary schooling at John Curtin in 1956, remembers Year

Eight students placed in one of three occupational streams based on testing that had

taken place during their final year of primary school. The three streams were:

commercial [which was totally composed of female students], technical [which was

totally composed of male students] and professional. This last stream comprised

those students considered academic enough to undertake tertiary studies.

Each of these streams had its own annex. The girls in the commercial stream

attended classes at the Asylum or, as it was known, the Finnerty Street Annex.

The boys in the technical stream were at the North Fremantle Annex and the

students in the professional stream were at John Curtin's hill site.

Once students found themselves in these streams, it was virtually impossible to

move to another. So the circle of friends and vision of the world as a young person

was totally determined by placement which occurred in primary school years earlier.

I don't suppose this is very much different from the adolescent high school

experience of today, but one student from those early years, Diane Foster,

reference librarian at the Battye and Fremantle libraries, remembers high school life

with a rather more jaundiced view. Because of this streaming and lack of paths for

the development other interests, secondary school appeared as very

one-dimensional; there were no lateral paths, no divergence from the traditional

ideas.

One final theme must needs exploration before we leave these early years in John

Curtin's history and that is the question of student behaviour. Was alienation,

anti-social attitudes or rejection of authority demonstrated at school in these early

years?

One common thread binding together all my interviews with ex-students from the

fifties was the contention that there were no behavioural problems at the school.

They didn't understand what I was getting at when I asked them about this issue.

Universally, they told me that if there were any kids who didn't like school and felt

that there was no reason to attend, then they simply left.

As noted earlier, the leaving age was 14 and everyone to whom

I spoke remembered that there were jobs everywhere. Unemployment was near

zero and jobs for high school students were there for the taking.

Diane Foster remembers that many employers around Fremantle accepted Year Ten

students into employment before they left school and their job was waiting for them

when school finished at the end of Year Ten. Here again, we see society

determining the path of education.

Throughout the history of John Curtin we see that the school simply reflects society

and its needs, timetable and values determine the paths that will be taken

educationally. People in education make decisions about how to educate children

and those decisions demand acceptance by the greater society beyond the walls of

the school.

John Curtin Senior High School reflects the history of Fremantle and this reflection

can easily be seen in all aspects of the life of the school during the four decades in

which the school has operated.

Chapter 8: Heads Down, The Student Fifties

After the eventful decades leading to the establishment of John Curtin SHS in

Fremantle, what can we say of this newly formed "school on the hill"? What role was

it to play? Would it fulfil the expectations of J.B. Sleeman and the other members of

the community who wanted a new school to satisfy a need and perhaps represent a

new beginning after five years of war and further years of economic deprivation?

The early years of John Curtin SHS are actually the history of other places around

Fremantle which existed as sub-schools or, as they were known by students at the

time, annexes. These annexes absorbed different groups of John Curtin students at

different times as these students passed through the school.

When new year 8 students entered high school they had already been placed on a

career path (determined by their scores on primary school tests and an interview

with their principal.)

These career paths were not peculiar to John Curtin. They were placement

processes in place long before this new high school was established. Remember

that there were numerous private schools throughout the metropolitan area and that

Perth Modern, Kent Street and Midland Senior High Schools predated the

construction of John Curtin SHS.

These schools used similar placement procedures for their new year eight intake and

the only unique aspect of the process was the eventual placement of students in

geographically distinct campuses of the same, very large high school.

With little attention paid to the student's own opinion, a package of test results and

teacher recommendations were used to select an educational and career path for

students attending high school. This information placed the young person in one of

three streams that would constitute their world at John Cutin. This stream would

dictate their friendships, the annex that they attended and very likely, the career that

they would eventually follow.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, these three streams were: technical,

commercial, and professional. The technical stream had its classes at the North

Fremantle Annex, the commercial stream had their classes at the Finnerty Street

Annex, which today is known as the Asylum or in its modern form, the Fremantle

Maritime Museum. Commercial students attended classes in the old Asylum and

temproary classrooms constructed on the grounds of the Asylum.

When the programme for these students required work in Home Economics or

physical education, they filed up the hill to take these classes in the cooking and

sewing rooms of the "big" school or to use its playing fields and sports equipment .

The only students that took all their classes at what is now known as John Curtin

SHS, were those students in Upper School.

Remember that while teaching was going on at the "big" school, workers were

continuing the construction of the school. Miss Burgess, the inaugural Deputy

Principal at John Curtin SHS, remembers that the home economics wing was the

first facility completed and that the noise connected to the continuing work made

teaching under such circumstances very tiring.

Leaving aside all these details of location, what was the school like? What did it

mean to attend this new government school at Fremantle? What memories did it

leave with people who are now in their forties and who have long since staked out

the boundaries of their lives?

Former students from this time remember the Headmaster, Jack Howison, telling

them that John Curtin was the largest school in the Southern Hemispere. With a

student population of 2 270, their memories wouldn't have been wrong.

To be exact, in 1956 when John Curtin had its first intake of pupils, there were 2 241

students and 144 staff with teaching taking place in seven different locations.

People who worked with Jack Howison have spoken very highly of him and have

said that they cannot imagine another person who could have handled the pressure

and responsibility that went with organizing and maintaining such a large and

complicated educational facility.

Let us leave for a moment the physical layout of this huge, new school in Fremantle

and turn our attention to the nature of the institution that was to educate the children

of West Australia.

What was it like to attend this new school? What did it mean to the students who

owed so much of their life to John Curtin Senior High School? Beyond just dealing

with the mundane aspects of school organisation, what were the underlying themes

remembered by the students who attended John Cutin SHS.

For instance, a whole list of Curtin graduates who had completed five years of high

school, remember school as being very demanding with little time left over for

outside activities. In interviews with these students, many of whom now have

prominent positions in West Australian life, they spoke of the expectations parents

had placed on them as students at John Curtin. This was particularly pronounced if

the family was a migrant family. This I believe, is a very important point to remember

regarding the social history of John Curtin SHS.

This new school in Fremantle represented more than merely a closer

neighbourhood secondary school involving less travel time for a son or daughter.

This new high school represented an opportunity - an opportunity to take advantage

of a new life in a new country. We are talking about more than education--here was

the chance to succeed in a new country.

Many of the postwar migrants to Western Australia settled in the greater Fremantle

area for occupational reasons. The area south of Fremantle was yet undeveloped

and market gardens proliferated supplying fruit and vegetables to the new wave of

post-war migrants.

The garden of the sea provided a huge untapped resource for those Italian and

Portuguese migrants familiar with the waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

These new European migrants married, had families and looked for a high school

that could provide the education to lead their children to new socio-economic levels

in West Australian society.

Education was the engine that provided the migrants access to new opportunities for

the children of a migrant population starting over in a new land. One need only

examine the names

on the rolls of the upper school, now and through the sixties, to verify these

observations.

Beyond the "high flyers" at this time in John Curtin's history, what about all those

students who decided that they wanted to return to their father's occupation and

leave school as soon as possible? What of those kids whose parents were

anglo-celtic and had lived in WA for generations? What role did the school play for

them? This story is harder to trace because these students left school early and

their memories of life at Curtin are not as chiseled as the memory of those students

who did the full five years. Remember that the leaving age was only 14, so their

experience of high school life was very short. Since all year eight students attended

the old Princess May school in Fremantle, many student's memories of life at John

Curtin would have very little to do with the "school on the hill."

Chapter 9: The Student Sixties

In the previous chapter we saw that John Curtin SHS during its early years was a

no-nonsense place. We noted that the curriculum was very straight forward with

little opportunity to vary student placement after arriving from primary school. There

was no unemployment and students moved easily from high school into outside jobs

with little of the stress that contemporary students find when making the transition

into employment.

The postwar era for the victors of the Second World War was rich enough to

provide fertile ground for the growth of popular cultural movements, growth which

was unimpeded by the poverty of the Depression as occurred after the First World

War. However, it took some time before the children born during the war would grow

up and begin charting the new paths that popular culture would take during the

Sixties.

Former students at John Curtin before the mid-60s spoke little of the interests and

lifestyle that we see portrayed through the media today. Their school life was similar

to that of their parents and no student interviewed recalled aspects of popular

adolescent culture like the later generations of Curtin students.

The Beatle's invasion of the early Sixties signalled the beginning of popular

adolescent culture. With this popular culture of music came the popular culture of

dress and "style." These coalesced into group identity and eventually into the

subculture groups that are one of the most identifiable aspects of life in a

contemporary high school.

John Curtin didn't have such a profusion of these popular cultural themes in the

fifties, but they manifested themselves strongly starting during the mid 60s and they

are still a very salient feature of high school life.

Doug Cornish ['63-'65] spoke of three main groups forming the basis of this new

phenomenon of popular adolescent culture.

He remembers Surfs, Mods and Bodgies & Widgies as being identifiable within the

school population. These groups, although perhaps the very first examples of this

new youth culture, contained similar features to youth groups that are part of the

contemporary high school scene. Students expressed their bond to a particular

group through dress, hair style and where they chose to congregate. Particular

spots around town appealed to different groups just as they do today.

In contrast to Doug's memories, Peter Zacoria ['62-'67] remembers John Curtin

during these early sixties as being strict with discipline and uniforms, those aspects

of education that would be recognizable and comfortable to students who passed

through the school during the fifties.

He remembers that the leaders or the strong personalities in the school were drawn

from students who were prominent in sporting activities and that during the early

years of the 60s there was little or no anti-social or anti-school behaviour of any kind.

How things were to change in a few short years. Peter's observations would have

been true for John Curtin during its early years just as much as they were for the

John Curtin of the mid-60s. However, a fellow student with Peter at John Curtin ,

Rayleen [Gabrielson] Argent, remembers a different school. I believe it is significant

to note that Peter began high school in 1962 and Rayleen began school in 1965.

There were only a few years separating these two student's high school entrance,

but these are years that seem to demarcate the old school with its particular ethos

and the new period of student thinking.

The John Curtin that Rayleen recalled was the same school that Doug remembers. I

don't think that we are dealing with differences of group identity or socio-economic

levels. I believe we are dealing with an age difference that meant Doug and Rayleen

were closer to the changes affecting the school.

In today's words we could say that Doug and Rayleen were closer to "the action" and

therefore felt the tremors of change to a greater degree than had Peter.

Rayleen began school in 1965 when the Beatles and Normie Rowe were perhaps

unknowingly building a new idea of youth and youth culture: a youth culture not to

be cut short as had the youth culture of the late thirties by the holocaust of the

Second World War. Rayleen remembers school leadership going to students who

had the nerve to show any "style" or flare with their manners or their dress.

She remembers "witch's britches" and rolling your skirt up to shorten it and rolling it

down the moment Miss Hoad, the Principal Mistress, was in the vicinity. For those

of you not aware of the contribution that witch's britches made to popular culture,

they were brightly patterned bloomers covering garter belts worn so as to be

discreetly visible and I have assurrences that every girl at John Curtin, if not the

whole state who attended school during this period, would know immediately what I

am talking about.

As John Curtin moved into its second decade of operation, there were many

changes taking place, but this change was not universal. There were still aspects of

the school that were more products of the recent past than products of a new future.

For instance, John van Dongan ['65 & '66] remembers the important role cadets

played in the social life of the school and he remembers the demanding and time

consuming part that studies played. He looks back at a teenage life dominated by

studies because the older themes of hard work and a desire to improve one's

prospects in life that were still important.

John attended Curtin during the mid 60s and he recalls changes taking place during

these years that ushered in a new student ethos that seemed to demarcate the

earlier years at the school from these later years. John Mills, although attending

John Curtin in the 50s, began his teaching career during this transitional period of

the 60s. He easily recalls the changes that now took place in schools.

The ethos of the 60s manifested itself in many ways, most of which we would now

interpret as being misbehaviour. The upshot was that schools simply could not do

things the way in which they had been done in previous years.

Ron Waddy, Deputy Principal at John Curtin, recognized that there was something

new happening in schools when, after being out of the classroom for several years,

he returned and found that the teaching techniques he had used successfully in

earlier years had lost their usefulness in this new environment.

Charles Fiorentino, a student during these years of change at John Curtin,

remembers his classes having five or six troublemakers in each one and that

absenteeism was high.

Larraine Cornish ['63 - '68] also recalls a school that underwent "... big changes in

attitudes to authority" as a result of the Cold War and Vietnam.

This was a totally new phenomenon at John Curtin and we must look to the

rebelliousness of the 60s and to the changes in the leaving age as possible

explanations for a new student ethos. Something happened during these years at

John Curtin and we can only speculate about its cause.

Chapter 10: The Student Seventies

By the beginning of the 70s John Curtin took on the

appearance of the school we recognize today. The annexes had long since

undergone transformation into other uses; the school buildings took on their present

appearance and only cosmetic changes occurred through the decade.

My introduction to the school took place during this period when, as a new teacher

recruited from the United States, I walked into the staff room at John Curtin SHS and

began a relationship that has involved, at different times, three decades and

fifteen years.

As with many aspects of school life, students perceptions of

John Curtin SHS were determined by changes made at the Education Department in

Perth. Only very superficial decisions could be made at the local school level and

the real decisions affecting the lives of students had to be made on a statewide

basis because organisation occurred from the top down. Locally, schools could do

little to change the fundamentals as set down by the Education Department. When

the decision was made to scrap the old Junior Certificate, students at John Curtin

were impacted heavily, but the change had nothing to do with student or local input.

As a result of the introduction of the Achievement Certificate

students now found themselves organized into Basic, Intermediate and Advanced

streams based on their tested abilities and their work in similar classes in previous

years or terms.

They no longer found themselves with the same group of

students in class after class because these classes had a separate roll and students

who excelled in one subject, but not in another, could move into a new stream. The

upshot of this change in organisation was that a student's life was more

heterogenous than it had been under the old Junior Certificate where occupational

streams determined the annex you attended, your immediate classmates and your

timetable.

With hindsight, I remember John Curtin during the 70s as a

school that stood between the cohesiveness which characterised Fremantle during

the decades after the postwar era and the heady changes that were to mark

Fremantle beginning with the America's Cup period.

I look back and remember students decked out in full school

uniform, Cadets playing an important role in school life and the cane still frequently

used to enforce a rigid code of discipline. How things change! How fast they

change!

However, John Curtin SHS in the 70s still retained certain

salient features that had marked its progress through the 60s. One of those features

was its cosmopolitanism. John Curtin was still a migrant school and Victor Turco

remembers the school as being very ethnically diverse reflecting the larger

Fremantle community. He remembers Con's

Fish and Chip Shop (across from school at the corner of East and Ellen Street) and

Papa Luigis as being places to find students when school was over.

Mark Halsey remembers a similar large, ethnically diverse,

urban high school with all the problems associated with such a school. He

remembers a school whose population divided along ethnic lines and whose student

leadership, unofficially, drew upon the tough, aggressive kids who made their

presence felt around school.

In short, John Curtin SHS provided a true reflection of the

community it served. The 60s provided the engine of change that in the 70s was to

sweep many of the old school attitudes away. The community began to change

during this period and,

Ras always, the school reflected this change earlier than other

Institutions

Chapter 11: The Student Eighties

The 80s were a decade of fundamental change at John Curtin.

Not just change that occurs in any high school as time passes, like change reflected

in teaching techniques, discipline structures and student dress, but large scale

community change.

For instance, Fremantle became much less cosmopolitan during the 80s. As

Fremantle changed, so did John Curtin . When

the young migrants who were new to Australia in the hectic years of the 50s and 60s

passed through school and joined the workforce, Fremantle underwent considerable

alteration and this alteration became reflected in the nature of its largest school.

Fremantle lost much of its working class ethos and Fremantle's bond with the port

declined as the importance of those facilities became less significant during the 80s.

Also, the gentrification of Fremantle could be seen in the declining numbers of

primary students in the high school's catchment area. So, we have fundamental

community change taking place and reflected in the most sensitive barometer of

community movement--the local high school.

This change involved a radical redistribution of migrant populations from Fremantle

outward to all surrounding suburbs and a redefinition of Fremantle away from a

working class port city with socio-economic cohesiveness. Thus we can accurately

say that with its changing student composition, John Curtin was undergoing

considerable transformation from a working class and migrant school during its early

years into a school of the middle class with students composed of considerably

fewer first or second generation migrants.

If the cosmopolitan nature of the school was changing, then who were the students

taking the places of those migrant kids who were moving out? The simple answer is,

no one. John Curtin was losing student numbers very quickly as the migrant boom

passed through the city and as a consequence the school's closure was seriously

considered. Students from the local primary schools who needed to attend John

Curtin would have been forced to find places in other high schools such as South

Fremantle or Melville.

The principal during these early years of the 80s, Peter De Kerloy, was able to

institute several changes which prevented student numbers dropping to the point of

necessitating school closure. All these measures were designed to maintain

student numbers. The only way to do this was to recruit students from beyond the

immediate Fremantle area by offering them a particular educational programme

unavailable at their designated school.

By far the most important of these programmes was the establishment of a Theatre

Arts and Dance Course expanding on the school's strong theatre interest which had

its beginnings in the early days of the school. The Education Department

appropriated money and a new Theatre Arts complex sprang up between the Library

and the back of the existing school hall.

As of 1991, the proportion of students attending John Curtin SHS school and living

outside of the boundaries of the school is greater than 70 percent. The 80s

therefore, saw a fundamental change in the nature of John Curtin SHS. Before this

time, John Curtin and Fremantle enjoyed a particular closeness. Now however, with

these changing enrollment patterns, the school lost this identification with the

Fremantle community and began to reflect the larger community of the south

metropolitan region.

The phenomenon that had begun with the impact of the 60s and the development of

a popular adolescent culture continued during the 70s, but I feel to a lesser extent.

The 70s and the early 80s were almost a period of definement--as if the school was

struggling to return to a quieter place in time, when roles were more clear cut and

change operated at a slower pace and traditional values were more rigidly

maintained.

As previously mentioned, the Fremantle community was undergoing far reaching

transformation. It was trying to redefine itself in the changing world of Western

Australia. Fremantle's traditional role as a working class town revolving around the

activities of the harbour (its most important facility) was undergoing rapid and

profound change. The America's Cup defence during 1986 and 1987 served to

speed up change. But this change was already at work and the Cup merely acted to

boost what was already in process. Fremantle was transforming itself from a

community based on port work to one based on providing services to visitors: food,

drink, entertainment, crafts and all the ancillary activities needed by such a

community.

This transformation was felt at John Curtin SHS. The heterogenous nature of the

students attending the school, the new patterns of employment within the community

and the break up of a traditional socio-economic community all had important

ramifications for the school. Students did not see their school as being very ethnic

or cosmopolitan nor did they see their high school career ending at year 10.

Before we leave this discussion of the 80s at John Curtin, some space must be taken

to identify the changing time patterns and academic goals of the students passing

through the school.

Remember the statements made by Diane Foster and others about Fremantle during

the 50s and 60s when students found employment before graduating from high

school? Those students knew that their job would be waiting for them when they left

school at the end of the year. How much different the situation of the 80s and even

more so the 90s when students feel compelled to remain in school beyond Year 10

and to complete Years 11

and 12.

School organisation throughout the state has undergone tremendous upheaval as

schools try to adopt to the continuous upward pressure of school retention rates.

Young people who attended the school in previous decades studied at an institution

organised to cater for a student population that would generally complete three years

of high school and then leave to take employment in the community. Now schools

must rapidly reorganise themselves in order to cater for a student population that

remains past Year 10 to complete another two years in upper school.

It seems appropriate that this history of John Curtin SHS end as the 90s begin. After all, the organisation of the school that will complete the 90s and begin a new century, is going to be a school that bears little resemblance to the one dedicated on that hot afternoon in 1956.

Contributors

I would like to thank the following people who contributed to the research for this history through their letters or interviews.

And most of all, I would like to thank Ron Waddy for being the one to suggest that I write this history and who offered his knowledge as the springboard to begin researching this work.