St Anthony's Centenary Book

I went to St Anthony’s Primary School from Bubs i.e. Prep (I started in 1925) through
to the beginning of eighth grade. When I started, the school was a single storey
building. Later, a second storey was added. During that time, most of the school were
in the parish hall (I recall being in there for about 6 months) and Miss Doherty’s building
had some as well.
The teachers
Miss Doherty taught the Bubs and Grade 1 in a separate building near the presbytery.
I can still see her beautiful hand writing and her drawings which were just perfect. We
all liked her. Sr. Patricia taught Grades 2 and 3. She was a nice person. Miss Wheeler
took Grade 4; a rather pretty woman. Sr. Bertram took Grade 5. She was efficient but
fair. Miss Taylor also took Grade 5 in the time I was there; she must have been close
to 60 years old. Sr. Aden took Grade 6. She was very nice and the good looker of the
lot. She was fairly young and all the boys liked her.
Sr. Benignus was the head of the school and scared everyone. With her, the strap was
always out. She could clean anyone up. If there was a noise at the far end of the room,
then she’d wack everyone down the aisle as she made her way to the noise maker.
She taught Grades 7 and 8. I remember one day in Sr. Benignus’ class when someone
was throwing stones at the window from outside, and we were on the second storey.
She picked the two biggest boys and best fighters in the class and told them to go and
clean up those ‘staties’ (state school children). They both came back to class with
black eyes! (In those days Catholics and non- Catholics didn’t mix.) We later found out
that Sr Benignus had cancer. She would have been in her 60’s when she was teaching
us.
There were weekly singing lessons with Mr Drill. We had to pay a penny for this weekly
lesson. The whole school did the lessons, a class at a time. And he ended up marrying
the pianiSt On another day each week, we had physical culture. The teacher, Mr
Stanley was a very fit ex Indian army officer. He was about 60. His offsider was a
younger guy. I can’t remember his name. It wasn’t sport, just fitness exercises and
gymnastics. For example, there were horizontal bars. One kid was very good; he could
go round and round those bars. I think the boys were on their own and the girls did
something else.
There was also a music teacher who taught piano and violin in one of those shops
attached to the St Anthony’s Parish Hall. She was a lovely person who always said
‘Hello’. The other shop was a lolly shop, and there was another lolly shop closer to the
train line on Neerim Road. (Milk bars didn’t come about until about 1932. To buy milk,