Reference: Georgie Girl Newspaper Volume 8 No 3 1988 Copied for 1988 girls reunion.
Adelaide King arrived in the city she was named after at the age of 5 months, after a 2 month sea voyage from England. She lived in Victoria until June 1923, when her family moved to Sydney.
At that time she was part way through 6th class, and although unfamiliar with the NSW curriculum , she came second in her year . She was considered too young for high school (she refused to believe that she was) ,so she attended a Domestic School for a year.
It was there where she developed her notorious backward stitch. She heard about St George at the Domestic School when a student wishing to enrol at St George Girls, turned up by mistake to the Domestic School. She liked the sound of St George Girls –she was born in the St George District of Bristol and registered at St George Church She sat for the entrance exam and received the necessary enrolment card.
Up to 4th year she studied English, French, Latin, and Ancient History, Maths 1 and 11 and chemistry. After that she dropped Sciences, and Languages taking up book keeping, typing and shorthand. Her favourite subject was chemistry, and when asked by her English teacher what she would do when she left school, she replied i am going to be an analytical scientist.” Don’t be silly “the teacher exclaimed “Girls don’t go those sorts of jobs “.
After finishing 5th year at Tech so she could look after her sick father, she was offered a job at Nestle as an analytical chemist. Most girls at the time went into factories and offices, although many from St George Girls became teachers.
She worked at Nestle during the day and studied for her Diploma at night. Her studies were interrupted after 4 years due to ill health. She decided to marry and when the Depression came she had to give up her job for someone, who had no other means of support Husbands had to support their wives and children in those days.
During World War 2, she studied chiropody, so that she could support herself and her children if anything happened to her husband. After her husband became an invalid, she cared for him for 20 years, as well as raising her children. She supported herself and her family in the chiropody business, until she discovered that she had cancer. She retired in 1986, aged 74 years of age.
Perhaps the secret to Mrs Croucher’s vitality is her active mind. She gives credit to the school for this. You never lose that initial good training, all of your life it is useful.
One of the ways the school helped to train Mrs Croucher was to provide a daily walk from Brighton, where she lived. She would never catch the bus which saved her a shilling a week. With the money she saved she bought presents for her brother. She found Sydney’s transport system inferior to Victoria’s-the steam trains in NSW were no match for electric trains in Victoria.
School was a close knit society. You knew everybody. The hierarchy of the school was firmly established. Mrs Croucher, as the leader of a group of senior girls, once made some juniors clean up the whole playground for sitting in their spot, and leaving paper. Another incident she remembers when Mrs X told a 5th year student, with powder on her face, to leave the Assembly. The whole of 5th year promptly left the Assembly. And 4th year were put on detention for laughing.
Unfortunately, Mrs Crouther and her friends did not have much contact after leaving school. Many of her friends went to university because there were few jobs during the Depression and she went to Tech 3 or 4 nights a week. They were too busy with their studies to join the Old Girls Union. Sadly, Mrs Crouther’s 2 best friends died young –one drowned at 15, and one died from cancer, aged 27.
Mrs Crouther joined the St Georgians later and at the 50th Anniversary (of the school 1966)8 or 9 of her classmates attended. Some are now in Nursing Homes and some have died, Mrs Crouther remains philosophical.
You can’t live forever, you don’t want to even if you are able bodied… I mean, you‘re only going to keep younger people out of homes and employment. And if you’re on Social Security, younger people have got to keep you there. I am a war Widow and i get war compensation but other people still have to pay for it. I’m useful because i do charity work, but a lot of older people just sit around and play bingo at the RSL. They’re talking money that younger people are working hard for.i suppose i sound hard, but that is my opinion.
And what does Mrs Crouther think of the young people today?
A lot of people condemn modern young people –mind you, you have to move with the times-and thank goodness i have learnt to do that. There’s always the good and the bad. Of course, there is better than bad, but the bad just shows up more. So really in proportion, things are the same as they were then. Life’s gone on.
Mrs Croucher condemns nostalgia. She remembers the days of her youth fondly, but life; well they weren’t the good old days. Life has gone on. Give me modern times and microwaves and all of the rest. I don’t think of the past, a lot of it was wonderful but then a lot of things weren’t. Well, it was the war (WW2) and things like that. My brother was killed in the war (WW2) and my husband died of war illness. 18 again? No thankyou and i don’t want the years in between.
If i could have my time again, yes i would come here (St George Girls) i loved every minute of it. They were the happiest years of my life.
Interviewed by Robyn Mountford and Melissa Bradley Year 11 1988
