Maryborough High School 140 year celebration 2021 - Boys

It is 140 years since the Maryborough Boys Grammar School was established in 1881 and the current Maryborough State High School held a 140 year reunion on May 1. The Girls Grammar was established in 1883. You can read an interesting history here. Interestingly, the document states that until the Girls Grammar was built, girls were taught in two of the classrooms in the Boys Grammar!

After months of dry weather with little rain, the Fraser Coast had some rain. Fortunately, the rain held off for the 140 year celebration. It was also a chance for my wife Marianne to finally go inside after just driving past for so many years.

Some of us will never see the old school again so here is a chance to see what has happened in the 57 years since we left.

The oval is much the same except that the fence around the oval is not white and the goalposts seem to be suitable for soccer and rugby.

Parade, attention! Into school, right or left turn. Quick march.

The old parade ground appears to be a parking lot these days.

I had arranged to meet Roy and Helen and Derek and his wife turned up instead. Roy and Helen were delayed by the rain further south.

Most people were going into the Museum in the old assembly hall, so we toured the old building classrooms first. Here are the steps going up to the first floor. The whole place is carpeted now.

The third form classroom in the corner closest to the Town Hall.

The desks and chairs are quite different from our day.

The ceiling at the top of the stairs seemed to be in good condition. I wonder if the current school children know it fell down.

The doorway to the old Fifth / Sixth form room has been closed up.

The Fifth / Sixth form room. The wall between the room and the corridor has been removed but it was already gone when I was last in the school back in 2004. How did we all fit in that room?

The blackboard is gone.

Looking out the window with the Physics Lab on the left. The Chemistry Lab has long gone.

The right hand dorm.

The left hand dorm.

The blackboards used to be on the right-hand side in our day. It looks like the whole building is airconditioned.

There was discussion about the deputy principal and his penchant for caning.

The traditional 6th form room. It must have been a struggle to work out how to accommodate the huge number of students in our year. Undoubtedly, a rare stroke of 'genius' occurred in deciding to lower the age of starting school at the same time as a baby boom.

The corner room closest to the town hall. I thought it was one of the nicer classrooms.

The oval. I get the impression it is not used a whole lot these days. I do remember when Wes Hall visited the school and wacked a bunch of sixes over the fence near the woodworking / sheet metal building.

Clive Bliss turned up. Derek and Clive both live in Maryborough.

The school entrance.

The room with the stained glass windows. I don't remember ever having a class in there.

Somewhat different schedule from our day. It makes me wonder if short or longer periods are better.

With my IT background, I was interested to see the wiring cabinet in the last classroom which now appears to be the computer techie room. It makes me wonder how they ran the wires to the different rooms in an old building.

The other set of stairs which I seem to remember replaced an outside set back in our day. Some of the classrooms were not open and I get the feeling that not many classes are now held in the building.

Physics lab. The building that was built for us in 1959 has been demolished. I believe it had asbestos problems. It was just to the right of the Physics Lab.

I still remember our first encounter with Col Mason in the Physics Lab. He was seated at the bench at the front of the room and looked terrible. An older student appeared at the door and declared that he had been sent by Mr Andreson to borrow a metre rule. Col replied 'If Mr Andreson wants a metre rule, he can come and get it himself'. I suspect most of us quaked in our boots.

But many of us thought he was the best teacher we ever had! We were very lucky in the quality of teachers at the school.

There are quite a number of new buildings scattered around but they mean nothing to me.

Many of us had classes on the ground floor when we first arrived in Intermediate (Form 1).

Stairs to the Physics Lab.

The tennis courts now have some sort of playground equipment on them. 

There also appears to be an amphitheater.

The Assembly Room is now the museum. Roy and Helen turned up as we entered. Of course, we all eventually got separated, but it was fun to talk to the old classmates.

Some of the ancient artifacts and photos.

The number of people in the room was restricted because of Covid regulations, but it was still too crowded to be able to see much. I suspect many of the old girls of our vintage had never been in the room before. We were all given small labels to wear, but with old eyes, it was difficult to make out the name and years of attendance. I was amazed at how many old women turned out to be 10 years younger than me. Of course, we boys never aged.

One of the numerous shields and trophies. When I last toured the school in 2004 before the Museum was established, they were heaped together in an old classroom.

It was not a fetching uniform. 

More artifacts that were probably stored in some Physics Lab cupboard back in our time.

I seem to remember that our tie was a plain brown.

The basketball courts that were installed in our time. I remember sitting on the bank at the left one afternoon in October 1962 talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the possibility of nuclear war which was looking particularly dire at the time. It seems both like yesterday as well as almost 60 years ago.