Clothes Make the Man (or Boy)
Summer, 1945

In mid summer, I was introduced to Peapes.

Peapes was a small, three-storied, sandstone-faced, gentleman's store squeezed between the bustling George Street ramp entrance to Wynyard train station and an adjoining office building. The interior furnishings and displays were subdued much like the old Brooks Brothers store in New York, or the old bespoke tailors of London. The clerks were dressed properly in suits and ties and tried to ape the Patrician attitude of their betters looking down their Australian sun tanned noses.

Emerging from the creaking, elevator at the second floor, the customer entered the Temple of the GPS - the Great Public Schools. The GPS schools are not "public" but private schools for boys only and are the Etons of Australia attended by the sons of doctors, solicitors, barristers, wealthy merchants, farmers and the occasional pub (hotel) owner or bookmaker. Beginning in the nineteen eighties, a father would enroll his sons at birth to ensure their seat or bed in a GPS school. Framed and high on the walls were replicas of every GPS pocket patch: Sydney High, Sydney Grammar, Sydney Church of England Grammar School, Scots College, Newington, Kings, St. Joseph's and Riverview.

I was outfitted in Riverview gray (not a St. Joseph's College brown as the Sisters of St Joseph would have preferred) complete with a white pocket handkerchief. Even though World War 2 was over, clothes were still rationed and Mother, who could remember her own privileged schooldays at St Vincent's in Potts Point, was still a classy lady despite her 'below stairs' status. She had found several yards of gray silk-like lining and insisted that the Peapes' tailor use this treasure to ensure that Billy would make the right impression. The rest of my sartorial accessories were not purchased at this emporium, rather they were 'shopped' from Anthony Horden's, a working class department store at the far end of George Street.

My Riverview Debut

At the end of the summer, when mother was housekeeping for the priests at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church on Arden Street in Clovelly and I was slogging my way thru a gift of literary excerpts from sister Mary, I was taken for, as mother called it, my 'debut' to interview the Rector of Riverview, Fr. Johnston. He was known as 'The Cat' for he followed the previous rector, Fr. Hehir, a small and kindly grey haired Jesuit known as -The Mouse'. Perhaps through the auspices of the Legacy Club, I had been awarded a second bursary to cover the other half of the fee.

Unable to afford a taxicab, we walked the two miles to that interview from the tram stop in Lane Cove, - Mother in her best 1938 American dress and heels, and I in my new gray, Peapes-tailored uniform. The avenue from the school gates was lined with eucalypts and at mid point, we looked down on First Field, the largest sports oval at the school. This was the 'big time' c no more cracked cement cricket pitch, or arguments over if it was a four or a six run hit, there was a proper pavilion and the field was circled with a white fence. But, it was January and there was no cricket in progress and the whole atmosphere was tranquil - the hot sun extracting the smell of the lantana in the surrounding bush that was clicking with cicadas.

On that day, I don't recall what my feelings were beyond awe at the size of the school, and a fearful unease that my days of being a bigger fish in a smaller school were over. It was definitely the lull before the storm. We waited in the cloisters in the bright light of a typical Australian summer. The yellow bricks reflected the sunlight on the empty bulletin boards which bracketed the hall to the Rector's office. Beckoned inside, we entered his lair and it was cool and smelled of cigarette and pipe smoke.

'Mrs. Critch? Master Critch?' We sat in the Rector's office under Fr. Johnston's steady gaze, a lean and critical look. Christian names were never used when addressing pupils and to him I was 'Master Critch.' I felt he disliked me from the very beginning. Perhaps he treated all the new kids alike, but if my father had been a prominent barrister, I suspect the interview would have been on a different level. No, we were the poor relatives at the garden party, with no social standing. I was taking the place of a better class of boy from Sydney's Catholic elite.

Riverview began in the 1880s in a cottage on its present site. In the mid-forties, it presented a very traditional English Public School appearance. Robert Hughes in a short essay 'Flying the Black Mamba - A Sydney Boyhood'describes Riverview as, 'a Minatory place: a blockish palazzo of Hawkesbury sandstone, dark and frowning with a Berninesque facade, resonant cloisters, and long chilly dormitories open to the night air, clustered about with playing-fields, tennis courts, a small golf links, and a battery of elephant colored handball courts which looked like fortifications.'


Mother ensured that I had the proper clothes: corded dressing gown, a bare minimum of underwear, handkerchiefs and knee length socks, two towels and a felt hat complete with the school hat band which I still have in my possession. Remembering her own schooldays at St Vincent's, mother insisted that I have proper Cashes nametags that she purchased at great cost. Unfortunately she did not know that my laundry number was 198 and instead had my name on the tags. This caused great confusion in the laundry-sorting department and I was frequently without some of the underwear and handkerchiefs so necessary for small boys. I learned however, that 'midnight' or sometimes 'mid-day' requisitions covered the deficiencies in my 'smalls' supplies. Some poor bugger went without, but then, they were the rich kids.

College Life

The Riverview routine was similar to St. John the Baptist. The school was divided into three age-delineated divisions. Being not yet twelve years old, I was assigned to the Third Division and was in the 'Little Dorm', a large dormitory separated from Robert Hughes' 'chilly dormitory'. We had a young, kindly nurse who supervised our bathing and dormitory behavior and was still on duty in the evening to comfort those 'littlees' who were perhaps choking down the sobs of separation. The beds were black wrought iron, had horsehair mattresses and white covers. A white mosquito net was suspended from an upper frame and during the day was gathered by a white tape and stowed behind the head of the bed. Next to each bed was a bentwood chair over which we draped our towel; our soap dish, toothbrush and paste were concealed underneath. Pajamas were under the pillow and our dressing gown was folded across the foot of the bed. (This conformity to the rules served me well and in my early twenties after returning to the USA, for I had no trouble following the USAF Aviation Cadet regulations and was never 'gigged' for poor housekeeping.) We rose early, and attended Mass every day except Saturday.

The Refectory

Breakfast and all meals were terrifying. We were assigned to a table - one boy at each end and four to a side. The refectory, a long room with tables, benches and a terrazzo-like floor has recently been restored to its original condition. In my time, as today in the same tradition, gray jumpers (sweaters), the school tie, khaki shirts and shorts, long stockings filled that frightening place. Most of the boarders ate at one sitting, the 'Bubs' had their own 'ref' in a separate room. Following Mass, there was a stampede to be the first to arrive as the cold food, such as milk, bread and butter and packaged cereal were already in place. The first boy at table would position all the food he could grasp and move it to 'his' end of the table because we had 'table wars' and victory was in having possession of it and forcing the other end beg for their share. The 'ends' and the two boys adjacent to them faced off their counterparts at the opposite end of the battlefield. The four in the middle who were usually younger were at a disadvantage - they were in 'no-man's land' and were forced to make deals with both ends for their share of the food.

Breakfast was usually two Weet Bix apiece, and for the 10 boys, two quarts (no refills) of whole milk, a giant pot of milked and sugared tea, and bread and jam - usually IXL Brand Melon and Lemon. I do not recall either juice or fruit. If you wanted fruit, your parents were expected to provide it during their weekly visits. Extra-curricular food was stored in your locker in the basement and some lockers in Third Division became very 'ripe' with forgotten perishables.

We stood for Grace Before Meals and, except during Lent when scriptures or lives of the saints were read to the entire school, we were allowed conversation. One priest or Scholastic supervised the entire refectory of 170 boys and if he considered we had become too rowdy, we were silenced. Occasionally, the rector would address the boarders from the pulpit in the center of the 'ref'. The most pleasant announcement he could make was that the school was to be shut down for some outbreak of a childhood disease.

At the midday hot dinner meal, we were served by waiters in white jackets and black trousers. An interesting bunch who would not have been out of place in Nelson's Navy and definitely fo'c's'le crew, they lived in the servants' quarters next to the laundry and out of sight. They did not socialize with the boarders but one of them, Mick O'Doud the headwaiter, stands out in my memory. He was an Irish 'fairy queen' with a great sense of humor and ran the refectory like a sergeant major. He and the other waiters carried the steaming dishes of sliced beef or mutton, mashed potatoes and carrots and, unless they were drunk or hung over, never dropped one. They put up with our smart remarks knowing that we were their 'betters'. Looking back, I believe that the Jesuits were very tolerant of fairies if they kept to themselves and didn't bother the students. Among the servants there was however, alcoholism and occasional knife fights but no homicides that I recall.

Academics

The grades were named in an unfamiliar academic way: Elements, Rudiments, Grammar A (6th grade) and B (7th grade), 1st Intermediate A and B (upper and lower sections of the 8th grade), 2nd Intermediate A and B (9th grade), 1st Certificate and 2nd Certificate - the last grade corresponding to the 6th year of high school in the USA even 'tho it was only the 5th year in high school. 2nd Certif. was the one in which students prepared for the Leaving Certificate, a necessary hurdle to entering university.
The curriculum was probably influenced by Stonyhurst, the Jesuit school, in England. It made no attempt to integrate any of the 'modern' progressive notions of teaching – the Jesuits used the classical Socratic Method. We took what would be considered now in American public schools, 'hard' subjects: Algebra, simple Euclidian Geometry, Latin and French, Physics and Chemistry, History of England and the Ancient World and English. English was grammar complete with parsing and analysis, spelling and punctuation, poetry (mostly English and scansion), fiction, short stories and style analysis. I am a slow learner and I was outclassed academically in the advanced grade to which Bursary Boys were assigned. I was unceremoniously thrown out of French class by Fr. McLaughlin, and joyfully received into Geography by Dr. King, a European refugee from Hitler's world at war. In Geography class I could use my art talents in drawing maps and graphs. Geography served me well in later life. I struggled through Algebra, loved Geometry, Physics and History. My Latin was definitely at D minus level, but English and Religious Knowledge were fun. We read Wind in the Willows, mostly English poetry and recited our memorized lines under the critical eye of Harry Thomas. Harry, an elocution teacher, a retired actor and once, a John Barrymore look-alike, came once a week from the City to ensure we did not end up with an Australian accent. In spite of Harry's efforts, we all spoke 'Strine. For thirty years students misbehaved and played practical jokes on Harry but he was a true gentleman and never lost his temper. His graduation lesson for the senior class was in the proper way to light and smoke a cigarette.

Sports

We played sports: football, swimming, cricket and athletics in season, but I was uncoordinated, small for my age and easily intimidated by the larger kids. I knew I must excel at something to be 'one of the blokes', to survive and be counted as a significant person. As I had no example to emulate other than my mother, my sister and the priests, I concentrated on modeling myself on those of my classmates who appeared to be more sophisticated than I because of their worldly experience learned from older brothers or male parents. I became a smart-ass and took my knocks for it.

After tea (dinner) we adjourned to the Third (junior) Division play area, a cement patch resembling the exercise area in some U.S. prisons. Depending upon the season and as we were in our school clothes we would play 'soft' contact sports: Cockey Laura (the Australian version of Red Rover), 'chasings' (tag) or hidings (hide and go seek). Sometimes we merely 'hung out' with our mates. What did we talk about? Probably food, imagined encounters with girls, older brothers (never sisters) and their exploits, who owed food to whom, building crystal sets, how much we disliked various teachers and how we could 'nick off' for a fag (cigarette) by breaking bounds and concealing ourselves in one of the several caves which overlooked the Lane Cove River. The caves were still there the last time I looked in 2000, but, just as we 'Old Boys', the sandstone is crumbling with time and soon will be just a vague memory or one of grandpa's tales of youth.

Beyond the cemented area, was a treed spot which held Father Burke-Gaffney's zoo: two kangaroos - Jessie and Peter, and a collection of guinea pigs. Peter was aggressive and you quickly learned to avoid a boxing match with him. Father 'BG', was more proficient, but the sound of his cultured English voice calling, -Petah, No!� is stuck in my memory forever. Thirty yards away some of us built a sod house out of grass removed from a playing field. The word 'sod' is carefully chosen, and although I did not lose my virginity in this cubby house, I suspect that there were some that did.

As Robert Hughes discloses in his essay, most students had some type of homosexual experience during their stay in a GPS school. In my first year I was seated in study hall next to a fat bully, a son of a prominent Sydney attorney, who insisted that I put my hand in his pocket to massage his member through a hole he had conveniently cut in the lining. I suspect that more than once this resulted in a non-religious ejaculation and a rather wide, wet patch on his strides. Study (Hall) was held three times a day. The whole school attended and was monitored by a single priest or scholastic (student Jesuit in training) that either read his Office or corrected papers. The desks were wood and a hinged flap formed the desktop that covered books and supplies. Dropping this lid produced a very loud crash and always resulted in punishment to the perpetrator subsequent to the study hall. The undersides of most lids were decorated with pictures, photos and drawings. My sister Mary produced a beaut - the rear end view of a Jitterbugging babe in a striped sweater. This was appreciated by my masturbatory desk partner, but not the Jacks (priests). They did not, however, remove it.

Sick Call

One way of passing the period in between tea and the last study hall was 'sick call'. Sick Call was a social event which broke the boredom and cut into 'study' that lasted from seven thirty till nine thirty. The infirmary - the school's medical facility was built in 1883. It was a weatherboard (wood frame) building reflecting an Early Confederation style and not unlike many farmhouses. It was surrounded by the lantana filled scrub of the western slope of the college property overlooking Burns Bay and had a galvanized, corrugated iron roof. Complete with stiff, starched veil and black horned-rimmed glasses, the matron, Brigid Maher, a registered nurse or sister and known to all as "Battleship", held court in the school's Infirmary. She had not been hired for a sunny disposition. I suspect that she intimidated the priests just a little less than the boarders. Once during a week's stay with the mumps, my mother visited me and left several expensive cream puffs. Not only did matron eat every one of them, but denied that my mother had come to visit. I still like to think that matron wore these on her thighs until she was overgrossed. On the way to the Head of the River Regatta as the busses passed the Infirmary, we would chant:

"Riverview, Riverview, yah, yah, yah!
How we love our Matron Maher,
Put her in a barrel and boil her in tar.
Riverview, Riverview, yah, yah, yah."

To be considered sick, we would fill our mouths with hot tea as close in time as possible to the insertion of the thermometer. We longed for epidemics such as mumps, measles or chicken pox. These would ensure time off from class, a much better diet and a possible closure of the entire school. I was fortunate to get all three diseases.

Critchey

Like most 'public schools' we were called by our last name, or a nickname. A nickname was desirable and signified acceptance. Many nicknames were inherited from older brothers, or even uncles who had attended the school previously. Had my school 'career' been properly managed, I may have been known by another name attributable to one of mother's brothers. Names like Bluey, Pud, Ding, Pussy, Horny, Dinky and Froggy, stand out in my memory as well as diminutive extensions of our surnames. Alas, I never achieved the stardom of a distinct nickname although my friend, Bob Bower who was a good cricket bowler and known for his 'Yorkers' which were delivered to the point of contact between the bat and the pitch, became known as Bow Wow but it was more a mate's term of friendship than a true nickname.


Mr. Begley's Voyage
During the rowing season which as I recall was in the Spring, the Third Divisioners were given rowing practice once or twice a week. On some Sundays, a Jesuit
Scholastic would supervise two or three boatloads of students and take them out on the Lane Cove River. There was usually four rowers plus a coxswain in each 'tub'. These were not skiffs or shells, but conventional rowing boats with bench seats and open rowlocks. The docent usually sat as coxswain of one of the boats and kept us somewhat together. Most of these excursions were in the shallower reaches of the river and to the North West of the rowing sheds near the Fig Tree wharf or up the Burns Bay inlet. The river is fairly shallow at this point and any waves required the action of a stiff breeze. There were sandbanks in mid stream and a great joke was to maroon one of us on a sandbank and row off two or three hundred yards. No problem - as long as you were not over your knees in the river. The river was known for its sharks and although it was quite a lark, we all knew the danger. Students were quickly rescued if the Spring Tide was rising quickly.

One afternoon three tubs were taken out under Mr. Begley's command - fourteen kids, and one very intellectual but somewhat shy Scholastic. We prevailed on him to head South east in the direction of Woolwich. It was early afternoon - a clear sunny day and we were all full of Saturday afternoon energy and looking forward to the relaxing of rules at Saturday dinner. After passing the Loungeville wharf, the lead boat, sans Mr. Begley, took off, turning our gaggle into a line astern formation. We raced around Onions Point and headed for Greenwich Point. When we passed Greenwich and entered the Parramatta River, we could see the coat hanger shape of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the lead boat took the 'bit between its teeth'. Despite Mr. Begley's exhortations there was no turning back. There was now a good chop running but we rowed like demons right under the center of the bridge keeping company with the motor boats, yachts and ferries. We stood up in the boat and cheered. Mr. Begley looked exhausted even though he had not been rowing; we had rowed those leaky boats four miles.
Now came the hard part. Although it had taken us two hours to row to the Bridge, it would take us three to row back to Riverview. We were very late for dinner, and it was a cold supper. We went to bed as soon as possible and not even the Saturday night shenanigans in the dormitory woke us. Mr. Begley? We never knew what reception he received, but we were heroes.

My Mother's Fears Are Realized

In 1947, mother took a job as housekeeper for the priests at St. Joseph Church in Edgecliff. For me, this was an auspicious year. Following the academically disastrous first year in Grammar B I was put with the 'slower' group of students in First Intermediate B (8th grade). The math teacher was the football coach and he was much more patient than the terrifying Mr. Crowley from the previous year. (Years later when I visited Riverview with my wife and daughters I met up with Mr. Crowley again. He was now in his sixties and had retired. He was short, bent over and totally non-threatening.) My new math teacher did not assume that everyone got it right the first time, so I was able to do my own work without copying from one of the brighter lads and felt good about my progress. At the end of the school year I was awarded a prize for geometry.

Mother's year was not so auspicious.

On the first of August I was summoned to the Rector's study and informed that my mother had died. The funeral was to be in two days and if I desired, I would be permitted to skip classes. As there was nowhere else to go, I stayed in school. My friend Bob Bower who would later lose his mother prematurely, was sympathetic. The other boys made few comments but the looks I received told me that most of them could understand that I was now an orphan. My sister, Mary, quit her job in Melbourne and returned to Sydney in time for the funeral that was held at the church next to the presbytery where mother had worked. Sister Clotilda and Sister Aloysius brought a contingent of boys from St. John the Baptist to attend the Mass for the Dead.
If I did not miss my father, I was overwhelmed at the death of my mother. Other than Mary who had been absent for some time, there was no one.

The Last Year at Riverview

Having been so successful the previous year, I was re-assigned to the 'fast track' group for Third Year. A slow learner, I fell flat on my face, as I could not keep up socially or academically. The lack of family connections and money were beginning to separate me from the others. While Mary was living in Coogee, I used my occasional Sunday parole to visit her. She was a surrogate mother and my idol. In my eyes she was glamorous and very sophisticated, surrounded by men with cars, careers in the making or 'sparkling' repartee. In reality, she was struggling to cope with low wages and few prospects of a better life. Whereas my school friends had successful fathers and older brothers I could skite (brag) only about my sister and her exciting social life.

Later in the year, Mary moved to Boggabri to earn a better salary and perhaps catch a rich 'cocky' (farmer). My 'Home Sundays' were spent at Lindfield and my visitor list was zero. My academic progress slowed to a crawl and I failed Chemistry and Geometry. That year for the first and only time, the State of New South Wales had instituted a new policy that directed all students to not only sit their private school exams, but to take the State exams as well. As I had failed two subjects, my counselor advised me to take them in the state test. I did not learn until late December that I had failed to pass either one and had therefore failed my Intermediate Certificate in toto. At the end of the school year I was directed to take the train to Boggabri and join my sister Mary.

But that's another story.








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