My first diary was in 1970. It was a foolscap size diary with a page allocated to each day, and the first day of my full-time teaching experience turned out to be pupil free by accident rather than design. It was a day, now over half a century old, I will never forget.

Warburton Ranges School Headmaster Bruce Goldthorp, an educator with seven or eight years of teaching experience, was on his first day in the role of headmaster. A kerfuffle with beginnings outside the schoolyard quickly entered the school precinct as he lined the students up. One of the older students (1) had told another that her Father had snakes in his legs. Her Father had obvious and prominent varicose veins in his legs. This ‘observation’ was part of an altercation that had occurred sometime prior between the two students.

This comment was relayed to her Father, who took umbrage at the deep insult. She took off into the school and up the classroom connecting passage, being chased by the offended Father and family. With his weapons to hand, he and his family came into the schoolyard, seeking retribution on the utterer of that comment.

The girl’s family, who had commented, became alerted to the dispute and began chasing after the offended family with appropriate weaponry (no firearms were involved).

The result of this situation was a scatter of all students, first as spectators to the event, which rapidly moved from the schoolyard into the community, thence into the distance. There was no school that day: Our first school day of 1970 at Warburton was the second day of the school year.

(1) Names and identities withheld.