Blue on Grey: A Memoir of St Mary’s School, Gore

By Justin Cahill

St Mary’s is a Catholic primary school in Gore, Southland, New Zealand. This year marks the 125th anniversary of its founding. I went there from 1979 to 1983, when my family left Gore for the bright lights of Sydney. This memoir of my St Mary's days is dedicated to my teacher Mrs E.O. Archer, who helped spark my interest in natural history and social science.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Cahill
• Release date: Nov 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311449689

Justin Cahill

Welcome to my Smashwords profile.I am a New Zealand-born writer, based in Sydney. My main interests are nature and history.My thesis was on the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It was used as a source in Dr John Wong’s Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, the standard work on that conflict.I wrote a column on the natural history of the Wolli Creek Valley for the Earlwood News (sadly, now defunct) between 1992 and 1998.My short biography of the leading Australian ornithologist, Alfred North (1855-1917), was published in 1998.I write regular reviews on books about history for my blog,’ Justin Cahill Reviews’ and Booktopia. I’m also a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald's 'Heckler' column.My current projects include completing the first history of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people and a study of the extinction of Sydney’s native birds.After much thought, I decided to make my work available on Smashwords. Australia and New Zealand both have reasonably healthy print publishing industries. But, like it or not, the future lies with digital publishing.So I’m grateful to Mark Coker for having the vision to establish Smashwords and for the opportunity to distribute my work on it.

Book preview

Blue on Grey

A Memoir of St Mary’s School, Gore

by

Justin Cahill

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Justin Cahill

Discover other titles by Justin Cahill at Smashwords.com

Please direct all inquiries to Justin Cahill at

PO Box 108, Lindfield, 2070

New South Wales, Australia

or e-mail to [e-mail]

Cover: A cross from one of the steeples of the original Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Gore. The cross now stands near the entrance to the new building.

To Mrs E.O. Archer

For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth. - Plutarch, ‘On Listening to Lectures’, (‘De Auditu’), Moralia, 18.

Preface

St Mary’s is a Catholic primary school in Gore, Southland, New Zealand. This year marks the 125th anniversary of its founding. I went there from 1979 to 1983, when we left Gore for the bright lights of Sydney.

Since then New Zealand and the world have changed, although not beyond recognition. The welfare state my generation grew up in is a memory - swept away not long after we left. Before then, it offered cradle to grave social security. The cost of living was lower. Only Dad had to go to work. We got the family benefit. We owned our own home. There were few obvious distinctions in wealth or class.

Canning Street, where we lived, was a good example. The mayor, Mr Smith, lived there. So did Mrs Wittingham, the daughter of his predecessor. Mr Harrison, the Post Master, was our neighbor. There were two doctors, Dr Strang, our family doctor, and Dr Jones. Further up the street were men employed at the freezing works and their families and some colourful local identities.

Then, the idea of the internet and social media was science fiction. So when I write about those days and find myself explaining that ‘back then’ we did or didn’t have something or another, I must sound like an old man reminiscing about the War.

While I have relied on my memory in places, I have been able to double-check it against those of my parents’. I have moved nine times since I left St Marys, but kept some papers from those days - call it hoarding if you must. My late grandparents threw out most of my exercise books, which I’d kept and left at Gore. But Nana held