Correspondence Pupils Write Of Life In The Back Country

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28154, 18 December 1956, Page 22

Correspondence Pupils Write Of Life In The Back Country

Interesting sidelights of life in the backblocks are contained in children’s contributions to “The Postman.” the annual magazine of the Correspondence School. Outdoors life is the theme of the contributions, many of which show a more mature sense of awareness and appreciation than is found in city children.

A sense of responsibility gained from helping parents and a realisation of the workaday world are reflected even in contributions from primer children.

"We have been cutting and hanging 10 tons of dog tucker. How are you?” writes a primer 111 boy from Port Underwood. “Dad and I have been dipping," says a standard I boy at Waitotara. "We got up in the dark before it got too hot. My job was to tip the sheep off into the dip. I was so tired I went to sleep at my tea.” "When the topdressing planes come here, we have to take lunch, morning and afternoon teas out to the airfield.” writes another standard 111 pupil from Ethelton. Such comments are typical of the back-country children. The sense of achievement and fulfilment of a day spent actively and the enjoyment of a meal and relaxation at the end of it are expressed in these two of many similar contributions. "We went to the Ball Hut for the day,” writes a Form I girl from Mount Cook.

“At first our skis stuck, but after a while we learnt how to hold on properly and it was great fun gliding up the slope instead of walking slowly up step by step, and we had far more ski-ing too. At lunch we ate fresh home-made bread and cold meat. At the end we had hot baked potatoes. They tasted lovely.” "I remember the day when I went deerstalking with my father,” says a standard IV boy at Ongarue. “It was a Saturday and it was raining slightly. We went up an old disused train-line — all the way up there were deer tracks. We carried on up a hill which we climbed carefully and quietly.’’ After a good description of a successful stalk, the boy concludes: “There was still the long and tiresome walk home, and I had to carry the rifle

(and it is a heavy one), because Dad carried the venison. Just when I was getting so tried that I began to wish I had not come, home came in sight. When I was seated by the fire in dry clothes. I felt I had had a very satisfactory day." Another child, a form I pupil at Batley, writes of equally full days: “Every day I mind the baby when mother goes out to help on the farm. I have to do the cooking, watch baby, and do my lessons. It’s a very big job." Pig-hunting. mustering half-wild cattle in the bush, and being treed by a bull, are other experiences described by pupils with matter-of-fact vigour. Another boy describes his favourite sports as not football or cricket, but opossum hunting and riding horses. He also milked two cows, night and morning.