I was assigned to Stanley House, so I, like my fellow members, wore a small metal purple badge denoting this. The other Houses had different coloured badges. All were named after well-known colonial explorers of the past. Houses competed with one another in both academics and sports. The House with the greatest number of Good Points at the end of the year won an award. Good Points were given by the staff for excellent work or conduct, or Bad Points for work or behaviour not up to standard. I never received a Bad Point, but I won plenty of Good Points. Nevertheless, Stanley House didn’t win any coveted prize during the years I was there!
Wearing the school unform was obligatory. For the first several years of high school, I, like my peers, wore in summer a short-sleeved green dress, with a matching fabric belt. We were required to wear sturdy brown leather shoes and white ankle socks. Prefects and sub-prefects wore white belts, so we used to call those girls white-banded cobras. Was there even such a snake in existence? I suspect not, but it seemed an apt term. We also wore a green felt hat with a brim at the front. I would love to have owned a straw boater, as did my brother John. He had to have one, because, even though he was a day student, he was still required to attend as a spectator all his school’s Saturday sporting events, such as rugby matches against rival schools. A boater was mandatory for these occasions. However, such hats were not cheap, and were optional in my school so I never had one.
In the winter, like my peers in the junior years, I wore a white blouse and a school tie underneath a green serge, box-pleated gymslip, with a sash round my waist. It wasn’t until we girls were 17 and 18 in our last two years of high school that we were allowed to wear green pleated skirts and stockings. We had striped blazers in the school colours of green and gold. Senior students who had won accolades in sporting activities, wore white blazers. Not being particularly gifted in sports, I was never to wear one of these.
However, I was to become well-known both in school and in the community at large, not only for being one of four representing our school on the nationally broadcast High Schools TV Quiz Challenge, but also for being chosen by the staff to be the Head Girl of GHS. It changed my life.
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