Juliette
Meade
1982-1985 Years 5-8
Email: majors@sparkos.com
Memories:
Of all of the schools I attended and by golly there were
a few... RAAF School Penang would have had to have been the highlight of my life.
My most vivid memories of schooling come from my time in Penang. What a strange
yet amazing environment to grow up in.
My parents and my sister, Suzanne, flew out of a Sydney Winter and into a heat wave. We arrived in June 1985 and lived at 1 Road 3 Vale of Tempe. Greeted off the bus by Kathy and Sandra Stewart's family with a box of food and mozzie coils to show us the ropes. We later moved to 25 Seahome, Tanjong Bungah. Neighboured by the Hills, Muirheads and then the Head's and a few chalkies down the lane.
Where
do I start? There are just so many memories of fantastic times. I loved listening
to RRB of an afternoon (well Ross Bradley was on air so of course I was glued)
and the requests on a Saturday night which was the best way of finding out who
had started dating whom and who was breaking up with whom via the songs they requested
for each other. God help you if someone requested "You're So Vain".
Madonna was huge and WHAM was everywhere.
I remember being 'jailed'
at 4 RAAF Hospital for the yearly bout of food poisoning from Hillside Makan.
The trips over to the mainland on the ferry and stealing the fruit from the trucks
beside us out of the windows. I joined Girl Guides up at the Annexe and met some
of the best people in the world. Friday night Youth Groups up at the school, a
million kids piling into a combi bus to go site seeing or bowling or some such
activity to keep us amused. The multicultural days at school where we drew all
over the asphalt with chalk and dressed up in local costume, sampling foods from
makan stalls that came right into the school. The bands that came to play for
us and Waltzing Matilda became Riding a Trishaw. My God what were we thinking?
By golly I was such a nerd and joined the choir. The highlight of our performance
was making everyone cry by singing "I still call Australia Home". Men
at Work singing "Down Under" played everywhere when we won the America's
Cup. Sat nights we would sometimes go to the SNOWs club. I believe that I watched
"The Blob" about a million times as it seemed to be the only English
video they had. I think my mum still has a copy of The Towering Inferno on tape
with Malay subtitles.
Chinese New Year was spent with our Amah, Sim,
and her wonderful family. There was always so much food to eat and they were the
most generous people I knew. Sometimes we would spend a weekend up on Penang Hill
with some friends of our parents and watch the clouds come in over the Fernicular
railway. I remember Rolf Harris coming to visit and still have blurry photos of
him painting at the hall in the Hostie. There was a production of Annie on there
too and I learned to play Tennis there on weekends.
We visited Singapore
twice and we bought extra suitcases to bring back the radios and gadgets we purchased
there for "special RAAF price".
I had some amazing teachers
and some not so amazing ones at that school. Howard Looney was my year 6 teacher
and by far had the most impact. I still remember him telling us how to use the
word 'regurgitate'.
Today
I am a teacher myself in Canberra. I have started finding people via schoolfriends.com.au
and its been fabulous catching up with people to see what directions their lives
took. I would love to hear from people I knew over there and if I never get the
chance to catch up with you in person...
Thank you for making those 3 years some of the best of my life.