As Helen McCrohon listened intently to the nuns on her first day at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School 70 years ago, classmate John Prichard was on his bike and out the gate.
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“I beat mum home,” Mr Prichard laughed.
He and Ms McCrohon were among the Tarro school’s youngest students when it opened on September 12, 1944.
“I can remember standing outside the church on the cement and lining up,” Helen, then four years old, said.
“I remember the boys had no shoes on.”
Mr Prichard, who was five years old, said a lot of the families in the Tarro and Beresfield area had struggled.
“We did it tough,” he said.
“But we had a great time. You can’t do anything these days with OH&S.”
Ms McCrohon agreed.
“They were simple times,” she said.
“You could go to Newcastle for 40 cents; go to the movies, get sweets,” Mr Prichard said.
“You can’t even get a bag of lollies for that these days.”
Classes were held in the Tarro church with the Sisters of Mercy for 13 years until a school was built in 1958. Mr Prichard and Ms McCrohon recalled ink wells and riding home along a dirt road.
What they can’t forget is the corporal punishment.
“The cane was quite prevalent,” Mr Prichard said.
He remembered being whipped across the palm of his hands by the brothers during his secondary years.
“[Children today] can’t believe that you got the cane,” Ms McCrohon said.
“They say we had it hard from the nuns, but so were the parents.
“You wouldn’t speak up to a teacher in those days.”
From the 26 boys and 26 girls who enrolled in 1944 the school has grown to 340 students, many of whom are the grandchildren of original students.
