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Attention! Memories of the wilds of Weston

An archive aerial picture from 1972 looking south over the Weston Creek Sewerage Works towards Holder.

I RECENTLY received a notice about how Weston Creek Community Association was hosting a big community party to celebrate 50 years of the suburb.

Paul Costigan.

Reading this I was reminded of my experience of being on the ground in the early days of Weston Creek. It was late in 1972 that I was pushed out the door having served my two years for the nation in the army under the national service system.

I served out most of my time hanging around the Singleton Army Camp not doing much that was very useful. What fun!

Signing up again for work as a teacher with the NSW Education Department, I was posted to the Weston school for the last couple months of 1972 (NSW ran education in Canberra back then).

It was an interesting experience. One clear memory was showing up and being quickly assigned to a class that was to be largely made up of students who were from the nearby suburbs where the schools were yet to be completed. The class size grew almost daily.

The other issue was that the school was not large enough for this constant intake of students on a temporary basis. I can remember being allocated a space in a corridor for most activities. The only approach was to be creative in how you managed the class as the classroom/ corridor was not without its distractions.

The other fun bit that is embedded in my memory was the first time the school gathered outside for the daily school assembly on a large piece of bitumen. The deputy head at the time had the attitude that such gatherings were to be treated as a military style operation – complete with loud orders of “ATTENTION” and “AT EASE”. Given where I had just come from this caused much amusement – but I had to keep this to myself so as not to upset the routines of the deputy head.

Somehow I managed to get through those couple of months and as the children were soon to be sent back to their new respective schools, I left at the end of year to start anew elsewhere.

I still remember the time at the school as being a good one – there was a great school camaraderie within the staff as we all did our best to cope with this unusual situation of class sizes that changed daily.

I wish the Weston Creek Community well with their celebrations:

50th birthday of Weston Creek, celebration and garden party at Fetherston Gardens, Heysen Street, Weston, 11am-3pm, Sunday, October 28.

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Paul Costigan

Paul Costigan

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