OLD-TIME SCHOOLDAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21159, 16 April 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

OLD-TIME SCHOOLDAYS.

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. By H. MASOX, S?, Grange Road. I won't tell you the name of the school but it was in Wellesley Street, and it isn't there now. A thick and heavy curtain divided the boys' school from the girls', and the boys never had anything to do with the gills. A master and his son had to manage about eighty of us, and tha cane was used so freely that I at least found school, not only a dull place but » rather unhappy one. Of course, it was my own fault. There were no standards, no examination and no inspectors in those days and we were expected to muddle through our lessons with but few • explanations and very little help except from tho aforesaid cane. But play time was as happy then as it is to the boys of to-day. though our games seem to be different. When buttons were in, we made holes in the playground and flipped them along from one hole to another. We went to the rubbish dumps in Albert Park, where thousands of soldiers were in barracks. From the rags of old uniforms lucky ones got brass but* tons which wo filled uith lead. These were our prize buttons. One game was tossing up a peach-stone, or knuckle bona and catching up one, two, etc., up to sis others.'

Of courso we made and flew kites. * so telegraph wires were there to get tangled with our string. We played alley (' nar " bles) around :i ring perhaps 201t. aiul wo could shoot our ' bonzes swiftly and with such good aim that v® buriod the stakes to make it harder to win them by knocking them out of the ringNew tops had to be christened, and pf r " haps split by the peg of another top- Tie rings for these games were often in the streets, which were not cluttered up w1 • motor-cats. We tatooed ourselves u , needles and gunpowder. It hurt, bat tna made us feel brave. Best fun of all we had in Freeman 8 Bay. The sea covered Victoria Park. an came up to where the Ponsonby tranih"® now runs. .Most of us were quite swimmers and divers. The best of it that our fun. cost us nothing, for p ennie were scarce in those davs.