I Have just read a blog by Paul Holmes, which basically gives reasons to
love your school. While it appears to be designed to teach existing students to enjoy, and take the maximum benefit from their school years, it caused me to reflect on my own school years in Central Hawkes Bay.

My initial schooling through the infant class, the primmers and the first of the standards, was done at St Josephs in Waipukurau. The fact that those school years were not very pleasant for me, was probably as much my own fault as it was the fault of the good "Black Joseph' nuns.

I struggled with the knowledge that I was slow of speech, socially inept, and literally from the wrong side of the river (the council yards in Lindsay Road).
Although looking back, I acknowledge that I made some life- long friends, and some almost-friends ( those who may not have generally liked me, but tolerated me as 'interesting', even if somewhat 'feral'). Those almost-friends, still in The Bay, probably almost-tolerate me on the same basis today.
Although I have always felt that I was dealt with as a little boy, somewhat harshly
and even unjustly, by Sister Isador (possibly not intentionally so- we all have our own demons) on reflection I can thank her for engendering a determination in me, as a child, to fight injustice, something I have always tried to do, although not always succesfully, during my adult years.

After we moved to Waipawa, when I was aged 9, my dad threw the local Catholic priest off the property, when the priest queried the status of my parents marriage and my legitimacy, because the marriage was outside the Church, and my mum was a divrocee.

I was then enrolled in the Waipawa Primary school, which I enjoyed for the next few years. I seemed to fit in better there. I felt that several of the teachers there, inspired a feeling of self-worth in me, that St Josephs never did.
I have fond memories of several of the teachers there. Names such as Mrs Brown,
Ian (Skip) Grainger, Mr Hiha, as being inspirational to my desire to actually learn.

Possibly because my parents never did grace any of the primary school events or special days with their presence, I found the teacher who was most inspirational
for me was Athol Bibby. As well as taking on the roll of 'locum parentis' for me,
he encouraged my reading and more particularly my writing of essays.
Athol's own ability to recount his own reminiscences, to read to his classes with such natural ability as to make such stories as 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn', so real that the class would utter a collective " Awww!" if their begging for more could not be indulged, was legendary among us.

My time at Waipawa Primary was extremely happy. The only incident which at the time was crushing, but remembered now many years later with humour, was when I had to be strapped by 'Skip' Grainger, when my young brother Terry, hysterically recounted to me that a tough young bloke in his own class had punched him, and I had planted the lads head in a toilet and flushed the chain.

Aha! The sins of youth.
Still,in the words of the old song, "Even the bad times were good." What say you?