In the current newsletter there is a picture of the old Strath School that is being considered to be made into a library and I write to let you know that I think it is a wonderful idea to incorporate the old school into the current community.

My name would not be Gordon Michelmore if I didn’t tell you a little story!!

 Except for the school of life that is the only school I went to from 1929 to 1935.

The centre door was the office where we were sent to get the cane.

Marg Pratt taught grade 1 in the right side back room, and her sister Amy, grade 2 in the same room.

Letty Doig taught grade 3 in the middle room behind the office.

Carrie Menmurr grade 4 in the right front room, Ken Semple grades 4 and 5 in the front left side and the Headmaster, Peter Doig was in the left rear room.  He was Letty’s father.

One extre hot day the headmaster told me to go and get the mail.  I said “please Sir, it is a hot day, could it wait until you go to the pub at dinner time?”  He was a regular!

Geez I got a good hiding in the office for daring to question him!

I remember a lunchtime one year we watched workmen exhume pioneer grave sites in the cemetery under the big pines in the foreground and move them to the new cemetery on Limestone Hill (Parker Avenue).

The Headmasters house was on the right and over the road was the Methodist Church, which is now a dwelling.

Further over 4 trees went on the Showgrounds between Commercial Road – Mill Street and West Terrace and the one with the new police station.  All 6 acres of its and my “Book of Life”  (Alexandrina Library) Page 83 shows a picture of my father and Uncle Bill Watt with 2 silver ponies in the buggy and behind them is the Methodist Church and the school is behind the big tree.

Some say it is a ariel photo, but there were not many planes about in 1900.

It is some 70 years since I climbed to the top of the church tower.  1910 would have been the last show on that ground and Jimmy Carruthers donated 12 acres to the show and sporting clubs. In 1910 6 acres was sold for a wopping amount of 600 pounds.

If you would like any more information please contact me on 8554 2141.

Gordon Michelmore

Middleton

(email dated 2 March 2009)