Stinker’s History: Life at school

OPENED in 1879, the Anna Bay Public School gave the opportunity for the children of Bobs Farm pioneering families to be educated.

Being situated around five kilometers from Bobs Farm it was quite a challenge to walk daily through the swampy marshland to attend school.

Of those pupils to enrol in 1879, little five-year-old Morris Upton had the longest journey to school.

Lovell M Blanch reported: ‘School children did not follow the road coming from Bobs Farm but had a track of their own through the bush and across the paddocks.

“There were four Maslens and four Cromartys and part of their track was right past the front of our house and then through the bush again, coming out at Uncle Steve Blanch’s then onto the road and on to school.’

In 1916 there were sufficient children of school age living in the Bobs Farm area to warrant the establishment of a school. A site was chosen and a school building sourced.

The building had been a school, since closed, situated on the Cabbage Tree Road between Williamtown and Tomago.

This building was duly dismantled in sections and transported to Salt Ash from where it was floated down the Tilligerry Creek and up through the drains and finally hauled by bullock train to the site.

On site, roughly on the northern end of the present tennis court, it was re-erected in mid-1917.

When opened to students the school was to be known as the Provisional School of Lower Anna Bay.

The school was opened in 1918 with Mr Lockney as the teacher.

The name Bobs Farm did not gain permanent currency until a Post Office was established in the 1920s on a site close to the location of the since burnt-out General Store.

Evidently, postal authorities were uncomfortable with having an Anna Bay and a Lower Anna Bay Post Office in the same area, believing that it would cause confusion.

When they enquired as to whether the Lower Anna Bay area had ever been known by any other name, they were informed that it was laughingly referred to, on occasions, as Bob’s Farm after a convict stockman who worked for Gentleman Smith at Fullerton Cove.

So, Bobs Farm, officially, came to be the new name for the area and, by the end of the 1920s, the school was known as Bobs Farm Public School.

The school building was riddled with termites and was replaced with a weatherboard building in 1928.

Over the past 100 years school enrolments have fluctuated.

In 1973 there were 10 students.

Other times there have been sufficient students for three teachers to be employed.

Memories of Bobs Farm School

A pupil from 1958-1964, Linda Martin said Bobs Farm school was one of her first memories.

One of my earliest childhood memories is waking up in the car and looking out the window to see a house that was to become my home for 11 years and the small school that I would attend for seven years.

“I was three years old at the time.

“Wll classes from kindergarten to Year 6 were in the one classroom and my teacher was my father Vince Martin, who was the teacher-in-charge for 11 years.

“Four of my five younger siblings were also in the classroom for varying periods of time.”

Linda said three events during the year were eagerly anticipated by students.

One was Empire Day Celebrations, when “all the community came to the hall and partied”.

“There were so many goodies to eat prepared by the mums,” she said.

Another key date was the annual Port Stephens Area Sports Carnival, in which Bobs Farm “always excelled, returning with several trophies and the coveted shield”.

“The students at Bobs Farm were excellent at ball games, tunnel ball, captain ball as well as the orange and sack races. “We marched perfectly as we had practiced for weeks.”

The final major event on the calendar was the end of year concert and Christmas party.

“We rehearsed for weeks and always entertained our audience,” Linda said.

By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE