Megan Monaro 15.05.05

(Transcribed from a carbon copy held by Megan Monaro October 2005)

4^th July, 1960

RECOLLECTIONS OF NIMMITABEL PUBLIC SCHOOL

By Norman W. Drummond

Writing the word “Nimmitabel” recalled the spelling of the name as I first knew it “Nimitybelle”. Even as a child I appreciated the beauty of the name and there was a feeling of regret when first I came upon the spelling that is used to-day. It appeared on a Notice Board at the local Post Office and I well remember the talk that went on in the town at the time when it appeared that local people were not consulted in changing the spelling and little liking for the change that was made. 

I was a pupil at the school between the ages of eight and eleven years. What fixes the first date particularly in my mind is the fact that I had my eighth birthday party in Sydney, where the family stayed for a few weeks when moving from Lostock, on the Patterson River, to Nimitybelle. In those days, of course, the railroad had not been built from Cooma to Bombala and on our arrival at Cooma we were all bundled into a coach to take us out across the plains. As we were a family of eight children from two years of age to about twenty, we certainly filled the coach and my Father took his place with the driver on the driver’s seat. It was about the second week in May 1901. I well remember our first experience of biting Monaro winds as we travelled slowly up Cooma Hill. The memory is made the keener because on the way up the hill a wheel came off the coach and we all had to get out. It was not until a gentleman passed us going into town that the men were able to get the wheel back on the coach. The traveller was the Rev. J. J. Boyd, the local Methodist Minister. 

We arrived safely at Nimitybelle and my next vivid recollection is of the family standing outside the stone residence looking at what was to be my home for the next three years. 

We were not long at Nimitybelle before we had our first experience of snow. One night as I looked out one of the windows across the school playground, I noticed pools of water made by the rain that was falling. Soon after that I went to bed. Next morning I found myself awakening to the sound of voices in conversation. The first voice I recall hearing was that of my Mother, who called out from her bedroom “What’s the time, it seems to be getting light”. My brother Stan, then seventeen years of age, was out of bed and he replied “I can’t see the clock”. Mother said “Pull up the blind” and Stan answered “I’ve pulled it up but I still can’t see”. By this time everybody seemed to be out of bed and talking. Stan lit a match and to my surprise, and everybody else’s, he said “It’s nearly nine o’clock”. By the time I was dressed Stan and my older sisters were in the kitchen trying to get the back door open. Eventually Stan got a lever – I think it was a pick – and after some difficulty prised the door open. To our astonishment we could see nothing but a wall of snow. We had been completely “snowed in”. If that snowfall were not a record up to that time, it must have been pretty close to it. 

We had little wood in the house and the first job was to make a way out and dig a path through the snow to the wood-heap, about thirty yards away. By the time the snow was thrown up on the side I could see nothing. The fall on the flat was about 4 ft. with drifts that obliterated fences, sheds and every building about the place. The wood-heap was soon exhausted and a deep freeze set in and the snow seemed to be covered with ice, inches deep. Well I do remember our treks across the snow, climbing up trees to cut down dry branches for firewood. 

As my Father had recently been appointed as Teacher in charge at the school he had not had time to make the provision which local people do, namely, laying up a store of wood for the winter. Well, there was a lot of fun in it besides hard work. The very big “snow-man” that we all helped to make behind the residence froze and stayed there for several weeks, even after most of the snow had gone and so far as I recollect this was about four months later. There was still the remains of a snowdrift on the southern side of the residence because in trying to cross it one day I lost a boot in it and when the surface of the drift broke I had to dig my boot out. There was quite a large pool at the end of the paddock near the residence. During that 1901 winter the water froze to a depth of 8” or 9”. It carried the weight of us schoolboys quite easily and I remember the thrill I used to get by running to the edge of the pool and sliding on my boots right across to the other side. This reminds me of a song that we all learned to sing on wet days – “See how merrily the skaters go, glancing quickly on the ice and snow. Though the summer wears a burdened hue, the winter brings a merry season too.” 

Early in the summer my Father made two presentations. He made quite a little ceremony of it. He gave a man’s size axe to my brother and a very much smaller axe to me and from that time on we really could have been called “wood cutters”. Nearly every afternoon after school we made our way out to the common, getting fire wood. Dad was a first class axeman and enjoyed it. He and Stan would fell a tree and my job would be to cut off the smaller branches. The timber would be cut up, stacked to dry and left for carting in towards the end of summer. Even as a boy I thought it was rather good that the timber we got in the springtime was still there for our carting, months later. There was no shortage of wood in the Drummond home for the remaining winters we spent in the stone residence, which proved to be bitterly cold in any room without a fire in winter, but delightfully cool in the summertime. 

There was one schoolroom in those days with long desks and forms. The desks were in three blocks, with the desks in rows, each row a little higher than the one in front of it. The seat I remember most was the one I occupied when I reached third class, which was really a high class in those days. My seat was near the door at the front entrance of the class-room. If I stood up I could see the snowy mountains about 50 miles away and when the door was left open, as it often was, my little legs became blue with the cold, despite the fact that there was always a good three-log fire burning in the fireplace in the centre of the classroom. 

Most of the boys and girls remember particularly the annual visit of the Inspector of Schools. In those days it was Mr. Archibald Smith, whose district ranged from North of Cooma to Bega. There was the usual excitement among the children because news had come up early one morning that the Inspector was in town. Of course he travelled by horse and sulky. Little things stand out – first of all this tall Inspector with the moustache and clipped pointed beard. His manner was rather kindly, but very firm. There could be no nonsense when he was about; it was much the same as school on any other day for our teacher was always very firm. The Inspector looked at the timetable – “Upper Division – Grammar – take the class for Grammar, Mr. Drummond”. We all knew what was coming because every grammar lesson started in exactly the same way:-

Teacher.                                What is Grammar?

Pupil. (all hands up).           Grammar is the art of speaking or writing our language correctly.

Then the question moved on to “parts of speech”.

Teacher.                                How many parts of speech are there?

Pupil.                                      There are nine parts of speech.

Teacher.                                What are the parts of speech? and so on – I could continue the lesson for several questions more until we reached a point where the teacher would begin some new instruction. Before we reached that point, the Inspector said “That will do, Mr. Drummond”. We all knew that grammar would be marked “Very Good”. 

The chap sitting beside me was Alf. Thornton. Alf was about twelve and had to take special examination for authority to leave school. The Inspector gave him a test in writing, dictation and five sums to do. One sum had to be “proportion” and one “practice” and the rest I have forgotten. We had to show our books when we came to “drawing” and the Inspector gave us each a mark. I remember one of my sisters becoming annoyed, and telling us so afterwards, because she said the Inspector marked the drawing she showed “8” but as she had shown it before and got “9”. One of my own prideful recollections came from showing our “copy books”. Mr. Smith picked up my “copy book”, looked at the writing, looked at the copy and then said to the Teacher “I can’t tell which is the writing and which is the copy”. 

Two other recollections might be mentioned – one of the great days of the year was “Arbor Day”. Wherever Dad went he planted trees. After nearly 60 years there is little to show for his work in tree planting at Nimmitabel. Although I have been to other places, e.g. Appin, where there are huge trees to-day planted by my Father more than 60 years ago. He was a keen gardener but he found Nimmitabel disappointing in that gardening was possible for such a short period of the year. 

The other recollection was of the School Sports, particularly the football matches. I was very much too small to win a place in the school team; but after the Convent opened the football matches between the “Public” and the “Convent” became highlights of the year. Probably if the teams were mentioned I would remember more of them but the boys who come clearly to my mind just now are Alf. Thornton, Les and Rex. Cansdell, Clarrie and Ossie Clarke and Randolph Clarke was sometimes in the team. I think the rest of the team were nearly all Thorntons. 

Well my days at Nimitybelle Public School ended about the end of April 1904, just before my eleventh birthday when I left home to go to stay with Uncle Peter Drummond in Goulburn, where I became a pupil at Bourke Street Public School, from which school I later won a bursary that brought me to Sydney and was the beginning of my career in education.

_________________________________________________________ 

The author of this article was Norman Wesley DRUMMOND, born 3 May 1893 School Residence, Laguna, near Wolombi, near Cessnock, NSW, died 6 April 1983 at Narrabeen War Veteran’s home, Narrabeen, NSW. 

Norman graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1923, and was appointed Headmaster of Schools at Wyalong, Canowindra (1927) and Murrumburrah. He then returned to Sydney as Headmaster of Newtown Central Demonstration School. In 1935 he became the youngest Inspector of Schools, and was stationed at Inverell and Forbes, before being transferred to Head Office and being appointed to Staff Inspector in 1941. He was appointed Director of Primary Education in 1949, together with the appointment of Deputy Director General in 1952, which he served until his retirement in 1956. 

Norman’s father, James DRUMMOND, was born 6 August 1853 in Beechworth, VIC and died 26 April 1926 in Veron Street, Fairfield, NSW. James was a saddler by trade who became a teacher in his early twenties, with the NSW Department of Public Instruction. He served as Teacher in Charge at various country schools, including Appin, Laguna, Barrington and Lostock on the Paterson River. Ill health forced James to retire from the Department in 1903 when he was stationed at Nimmitabel, NSW. He resumed his work as a saddler, sometimes combining his work with that of a teacher of a subsidised school. 

This article was written following a request by the Headmaster of Nimmitabel Primary School, Mr John Byrne, in August 1959 for inclusion in a proposed compilation of a centenary booklet for the school.