NOTES: Reading about the untimely death of Laverton School Principal, Trish Antulov, in The West today took me back several decades and reminded me of my own experience in that role. I thought about the many years she must have labored long and tirelessly to deal with issues of race and gender as effectively as she clearly did to achieve the recognition and appreciation she received both before and after her death.
That could have been me, I thought, if I had not caved in to the similar pressures and accepted an early retirement settlement back in 1985 organized for me by WA Teachers’ Union Rep, Bill Latter. It sent me rummaging amongst boxes of old papers and diaries to find things I had, not so much forgotten, as determinedly put behind me.
I’m glad I just boxed them all up and didn’t burn them in my rage at losing my job and career. I’ve had a great new life since then, but now I’m needing a new challenge in my declining years. Learning how to transpose old script for editing and weaving into a story line is the next step. I’m surprised that I was writing ‘pomes’ way back then – I guess it helped me get through some dark days of dealing with issues of ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ as we now call them. Though we didn’t use those terms back then.
Last night I watched Shareena Clanton on ABC’s Q & A as she made an impassioned plea for her people to be heard; I wondered what one could do to help now when we seem no further forward than back in 1984 when the world was drawn here by Australia’s America’s Cup triumph. So much could have been achieved with the magic of our ancient history. I can remember how optimistic I was about that and with help of officers from the WA Aboriginal Education Department like Lyn Sherwood, pictured below here to the right of me……..
I want to contribute ‘my Australian story’ about being rejected as first ever woman principal of a small wheat belt town in WA in the early eighties. How I was so good at the job that I lost it!
My ‘cinderella’ school in the WA wheat-belt, less than a l00K from Perth, had been by-passed forever by men seeking promotion because of its reputation for difficulty with the discipline of its largely aboriginal students and some few ‘poor whites’ whose parents were unable to afford Perth boarding schools. When I first visited it before my appointment I saw a shambles of a school – run down, with a dry, ragged brown front lawn and unkempt gardens. Records showed a high absentee rate because the cane had ruled there forever and teacher turnover was high.
No one wanted it, even as a stepping stone to high school principal promotion – except me! I was looking for a challenge and I loved teaching too! Even so, I put it last on my preference list for promotion when I made my move from home. I had long been a single parent and at that time my grown up children were moving out, leaving me free to travel anywhere I wanted. Still, however junior and low on the principals’ list and one of only two female applicants I might be, I was appointed! I could have it!
But then, in 1980, the fellahs began to complain about how unfair it was that a woman should get promotion ahead of them with only eight years of service! That was true – I had many years teaching experience in Kenya before emigrating here but only eight years in WA, but all of them at secondary and upper school levels and my tertiary degrees more than qualified me for the job.
Just stopping children being caned turned that place around. The kids came to school. The garden grew green because Tuffy Turville, the gardener, could do his job instead of holding the place together by negotiating as go-between with parents and teachers and kids.
Yet very early on the pressure on me to resign by senior Education department officers was huge because the Minister was being lobbied by the farming community about my failure to ‘suitably discipline’ local children. In fact, I now recall that even before they met me they wrote protesting my appointment ‘because the lady concerned would not be able to control difficult Aboriginal teenagers. The secondary superintendent tried to dissuade me, as did Union officers. I persisted, and found that once we stopped hitting them the kids were quite cooperative. I was much encouraged one day when a Noongah mum came up behind me in on a school verandah, grabbed my shoulder and pulled me round to face her, saying, “I wanna thank yer!” This was a surprise, so I asked why. “My Nikki!” she said, “He’s the first of our kids to finish Year 10 and go on to Narrogin!”
He didn’t stay long at Narrogin, which is Nicky Winmar has become a legendary WA sportsman, but back then he would have been a drop-out if Bill Hughes, Chairman of South Fremantle Football club, had not befriended the school and me as he came looking for football talent for his team! He bought Nicky his grey Narrogin school jumper, which sadly wasn’t worn for long because Nicky took badly to racist slurs and then discipline for ‘trouble making! Still Bill persisted with him and somehow held him down at Souths to start what has become a proud and achievement filled career. My heart still beats a little faster every time I see him in the news!
The local community [ie the p&c, local council and parents of former white students now at expensive boarding schools in Perth)didn’t like the job training program I set up there with a local screen printing business which had rapid and huge success with sales in the tourist industry and then overseas – Pinten Enterprises (PingellyYear Ten student enterprises) sold high quality linen screen printed teatowels with just three simple Aboriginal designs by a young aboriginal woman.
The Teachers’ Union supported me to the extent that they negotiated a ‘settlement’ for me i.e. early ‘retirement’ at fifty on ‘medical grounds’ with a Senior High School Principals retirement salary for life. I didn’t want it and held out for a couple of years. But I eventually succumbed to huge pressure. I retired at fifty, after barely ten years in Ausralia and just ten years before the ‘sixty’ threshold for female teachers, from what had been a beloved job.. Then, since no one in Pingelly seemed to want its six wooden screens with its authentic aboriginal designs, I travelled back some months later and rescued them from the art room store and took Pinten’s already booming potential elsewhere. I didn’t have to argue with anyone that I could do that legally since I had signed all appropriate ownership and then the business registration forms when I diplomatically offered them to the P&C who refused to sign them. If I had hoped for even a glimmer of a smile of recognition to that overture I was crazy. But I can only see that in hindsight. The town council too, whose members, many of whom were the same protesting PC members, didn’t seem to appreciate that already Pinten Enterprises from Pingelly, Western Australia, was receiving a growing trickle of orders from all over the world for these high quality linen tea-towels with their simple two board screen printed designs. We only had three designs, Snake, Kangaroo, and Emu, but Pinten, later known as Walyalup – the Aboriginal name for Fremantle where I finally landed – sold many thousands of them here to tourists looking for souvenirs of to tourists to Perth and Western Australia just waking up to this thing called tourism. Then Fremantle won the America’s Cup for Australia 1984,
ekmubut they were drawn around authentically Noongah designs by then pioneering Aboriginal Artist, Naomi Mills in her early years of studying at Curtin University.
How I set it all up again in Fremantle with help from Bill Hughes, ‘South Fremantle’ football club’s chairman, is another story.
I’ve had a great life since then once I recovered from my initial heartbreak about the rejection and sense of failure. However, I was never able to write my story about Pingelly though I have had success with writing in my retirement years. My blog ” https://polliepomes.wordpress.com/” is the obvious place to start writing coherently about it..
If you’re interested that might help!
When I left, under pressure from the local white community because t had banned the cane and our attendance rate was up to near optimum.The front lawn was green because Tuffy Turville, the gardener was able to do his job instead of liaising with local families and holding the place together.
Western Australian Rules
polliepomes 