Ken Easton - Wingham District Rural School

 

 

Ken Easton was a third generation student in Wingham during the 1940s, when the school was officially known as Wingham District Rural School. In Wingham, as throughout the world, the 1940s were characterised by World War 2 and its aftermath.

 

Postwar rationing of food and clothing remained in place until 1948. There was no canteen operating at Wingham District Rural School, so students took their lunch from home. Vegemite sandwiches were a favourite, but lunch was sometimes a surprise, with whatever meat was left over from yesterday’s main meal being encased in bread and wrapped in grease proof paper.

 

A favourite treat was sneaking out of the school and across the road to a small shop located downstairs from the Bottom Pub for a frozen orange. During hot Wingham summers, the boys could be found enjoying a sneaky cigarette, a frozen orange and a game of marbles. Ken’s classmates also amused themselves with a game where cigarette cards were flicked towards a wall, with the card closest to the wall earning its owner all of the cards played in that round.

 

Wingham District Rural School didn’t have a uniform until the mid 1950s, and with rationing in place, Ken attended school in the mid-1940s in shorts, a collared shirt and bare feet. It seems inconceivable now, even to Ken, but in those year during and after the war, many families had to “make do”, and school shoes were not a priority.

 

At the end of Primary School, where Ken was Dux of Wingham District Rural School, he transferred to the larger school in Taree to attend high school, before attending Teachers College and becoming a teacher himself. After teaching in various public schools around New South Wales, Ken and his family returned to the Manning in the late 1970s, where he served as Principal at Mount George Public School and later at Lansdowne Public School before retiring to Brisbane in the 1990s.