The verandah of the homestead is so vivid, the hatstand, the slate and chalk, the desks, the timetable - every small detail comes to life ... but all this seems such a long time ago ... then the memories come flooding back ... now it almost seems just like yesterday.

Battery's Hill, is under water now (July 1998). You may ask what is the significance of this to you or me but how close we came to losing some very precious historical correspondence material that alone tell their own story about the correspondence schooling of yesteryear. Battery's Hill is on the Mooki, a river that flows into the Namoi River. On many occasions the river has flooded and herein lies the beginning of our story.

It took just one phone call from Robin Darling in July this year for us to realise how much appreciation we owe to the governess of Battery's Hill (Betty Pinkerton) and the Darling family.

On 30 July this year the SSDEC was lucky enough to be presented with some very historical material from yesteryear when correspondence material from the late 1940s to mid 1950s - workbooks and the like were donated to us by Robin Darling and her Mum Noel. Robin, born in 1943, was a student at the Blackfriar's Correspondence School from 1949 to 1954. She and her family lived on a very large and famous sheep property at Gunnedah called Battery's Hill and both Robin and her sister Jill did correspondence lessons through the Blackfriar's Correspondence School. Robin again did correspondence lessons in 1958 when she travelled the world with her family (some of the time on the Queen Mary). When Robin completed her correspondence work at the end of 1954 the governess at the time carefully wrapped up all the school materials in brown paper and labelled them and put them in to storage. The materials were lucky to escape some very bad floods, especially the flood of 1955 (when the Keepit Dam overflowed) after which the house was raised and during which the girls had to board at Abbotsleigh in Sydney. During the 1955 flood, food and other necessities had to be dropped in by plane. The property was isolated for three months at this time. At this moment in the interview the photo albums appeared and were dusted down as Noel reminisced about this time. 

It was lucky for us that the Darlings recently sold their property before the recent horrendous floods in Gunnedah that almost certainly could have destroyed this precious collection of historical material.

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The collection includes old workbooks, lesson books, magazines and even Sunday School lessons. Robin and her Mum Noel even presented me with a very old map (circa 1930s) of the Sydney area that is absent of the Harbour bridge and shows all the tram lines that provided public transport for Sydneysiders at the time. The interview certainly proved to be a very nostalgic step back in time.

Battery's Hill produced the first wheat in the Gunnedah area. They also ran sheep, a few cattle and a few horses. There was no mail service to the property back then so the mail had to be sent and retrieved by packhorse once a week. The 30-mile trip also was used to buy bread and other necessities.

Those school days were spent on the verandah of the homestead. There was a hatstand, separate desks for the girls, a slate and chalk and the girls kept to a strict timetable, an atmosphere created by Mum Noel to resemble a normal school environment as much as possible. Robin's sister Jill, who was a little older than Robin and also attending correspondence school, supervised Robin's lessons for her most of the time. Of course to Robin and Jill this was school!!

The unwrapping of all the brown paper parcels was an exciting affair. We managed to find Robin's lesson and workbooks from 1^st class to 6^th class along with magazines produced by the Department of Education (remember those?!).

Also old atlases, maps, and Sunday School lessons (from the CMS but despatched by the Correspondence school apparently) brought back many memories. Works of art also appeared - showing Robin's flair for art and what life on the farm meant to her!

The property is now a levy on black soil and also produces cotton, sorghum, and wheat, a testament to the rich soil. Most of the property is now irrigated also.

Many memories came flooding back for Robin and her Mum - too many to elaborate here. Hopefully the historical work will be displayed for all to see in the not too distant future. This certainly was a trip down memory lane for the Darlings and myself.

Julie