Terrace End School 125th Celebrations – 20-22 March 2009

The following is my report on the 125th Celebrations of Terrace End School in Palmerston North (1884-2009). I’m sure it was an enjoyable weekend for most (if not all) of those who attended.

This story begins 25 years ago in March 1984. I was just 10 years old and in Standard 4 – my final year at Terrace End School. I spent my whole primary school days at this school (starting in 1979). March 1984 was the centenary for the school, 100 years since starting in 1884. I remember being involved in the celebrations being a student at the school back then. I was thinking at the time that I wanted to be around for when the school would be 125 years old. Of course back then 25 years seemed such a long way away!

Fast forward now to 2008. In May my daughter and I moved back to Palmerston North after living in the Waikato for about 12 years. We managed to get a flat in Church Street and discovered that the nearest school was Terrace End School – my old school! So we went along to check it out. I was surprised when I discovered that Graham Rolfe, my Standard 4 teacher, was now the principal of the school. So I enrolled B’Elanna at Terrace End School. After being here for a couple of months one of the Board of Trustee members asked me to be a part of the committee for the 125th. I knew it was coming up so I thought it would be a good idea to be involved.

Over the next few months committee meetings were held every 2 or 3 weeks to start organizing the weekend. Among my many tasks were delivering flyers to letterboxes, setting up a display at the Palmerston North public library, creating a Facebook page, and scanning about 500 photos!

Once 2009 came around and the holidays were over it was back into the committee meetings much more regularly – like once a week. I continued scanning photos, along with ex-classmate Tracey Slade, to create a Powerpoint presentation for the celebrations. It was our job to create a display for the 1980s, as this was the decade in which I attended the school and a decade I am very familiar with. The Powerpoint presentation ended up being 450 slides and most of these slides were scanned photos! The presentation took a long time to create and contained class photos from the 1980s as well as photos from school events from each year (courtesy of an excellent photo album that I found at the school), and a section on the 1984 Centennial (courtesy of another excellent photo album). The presentation was just completed on the morning of the first day of the reunion! When I attended the Freyberg High School 50th Jubilee about 3 years ago they had “decade rooms”. The 80s room had 80s music playing, so I thought this would be an excellent idea for our display. I made up a MP3 CD of 80s music which played continuously next to our display throughout the weekend. We also put up photos from the 1980s (mostly class photos) and the Centennial. Part of our display was newspaper ads from the 80s showing prices of clothing, food, etc. Amazingly some prices have changed (particularly food) and some haven’t.

The day arrives – 20th March 2009. The kind people at work allowed me to have the afternoon off. I got to wear a nice new Terrace End School 125th shirt (which included a pocket for my cellphone :-). My daughter wore my T-shirt from the Centennial 25 years ago – it doesn’t fit me anymore! I was very proud that she was able to wear this. My first task on arriving at the school in the afternoon was to set up the laptop and projector for my Powerpoint presentation – it looked good. I knew there wasn’t going to be many ex-classmates from my era there, so I was more excited about meeting some of my former teachers and seeing if they remembered me. I met one of them pretty quickly – Margaret Palmer, who was my principal for most of my time at the school. And guess what, she remembered me (is that good or scary??) She was quite easy to recognize and I had a brief chat to her then. I was at the school for about three hours in the afternoon running around doing stuff. I also picked up my registration pack which contained a nice pen and a mug – cool! I got to meet three ex-principals that afternoon – Margaret Palmer, Ian Roberts, and Graham Rolfe.

On the Friday evening was the first official event of the weekend – the Mix n Mingle. There were a quite a few people there which was good to see. Throughout the evening I wandered between the memorabilia room in the admin block (the old Open Plan) and the hall and gallery (where the food was!) I got to meet up with some of the former teachers from my era – Helen Warner, Judith Longworth, and Gloria Kilmore (the office lady). Even though none of them taught me they all remembered me – and I must say they a look quite different from the 1980s. I was with them when they were going through one of the photos albums at our display. It was fun pointing out people that we remembered. I also met my Standard 1 teacher Stuart James. He didn’t quite remember me but once I pointed myself out in the class photo from that year he knew who I was (yes, I know – scary!) He looks older of course but still sounds the same. I got to give a short welcome to the people over the PA from the stage in the hall – don’t know if many heard me, but hey, at least I gave it a go. The evening didn’t finish too late – about 10pm. I helped with the clean up by using a vacuum cleaner that didn’t suck!

Saturday the 21st of March was the main day of the 125th Celebrations. It was an early start to the day – down to the school at 8am to make sure all was ready for the official ceremony. Even though it was a cool start to the day we were blessed with a beautiful fine day, and as we all know this is a rare one for Palmerston North! It was also a normal school day for the children, so my daughter came with me. Don’t really know what they got up to in class, but one of her jobs was to show visitors around the school – don’t know if she had any takers. Anyway, it was my job to help set up for the official ceremony. As it was a fine day we had it outside in the courtyard. We set up a stage along with all the seating.

It didn’t take long for 11am to roll around for the start of the ceremony. The seats started filling up with those registered and other visitors. My father turned up as well as my brother and his wife. My brother said that reunions are only for old people so I’m glad that he showed up. My job during the ceremony was to make sure the sound was working OK. I had to make sure that the microphone volume was at a good level and play the CD for the national anthem and a song the children sung (I positioned my seat at the front near the speaker so I had a good place to sit :-). Speeches included Sue Allomes (the current principal), Cara Lockwood (the BOT chair), Ian Roberts (former principal and chairman of the reunion committee), an ex-student (not much of an ex-student if you ask me cause he only attended the school less than 10 years ago), and a current student (from Year 5). The main speaker was Steve Maharey. Now I don’t know in what capacity he was speaking – it could have been as an ex-student of Terrace End School, former MP for Palmerston North, former Minister of Education, or current Vice-Chancellor at Massey University! He gave a good speech anyway – mainly about his days at the school. (So there is another famous ex-pupil of Terrace End School besides me :-) The cutting of the 125th cake happened during the ceremony as well. The oldest ex-pupil and one of the youngest current pupils cut the cake. It was a nice chocolate cake which I got to have a couple of pieces of. At the end of the ceremony our local photographer got up on the roof of the admin block and took a photo of everyone in attendance. The camera guy from Tararua TV was also there. I don’t know when it will be screened on Tararua TV but it will be interesting to see (better fix up my UHF antenna!)

Straight after the ceremony were the official decade photographs. I helped to coordinate the groups for the photos. I would announce over the PA system the next photo decade group to come up and then I talked with the photographers to tell them which group was up next. It started off with the current pupils and teachers of the school, then the 1920s & 1930s, and so on down to the present day. Because I attended the school from 1979 to 1984 I was in two decade photographs – the 1970s and 1980s. Actually the last photo was 1980-2008. My daughter was still around so I stuck her in this one as well (as she started at this school in 2008). Trouble is the photos are going to cost $15 each. I’m going to have to find $30 for the two photos I’m in – or share the cost with someone. During this time I met another of my former teachers – Ivan Gore (he looks a bit like Santa now!) It was great to meet him again. He was at the school for so long. He remembered my name which was good. I also got a photo with my principal Margaret Palmer and my brother. She remembered my Dad too when he spoke to her.

We got through the official photographs quite quickly, so as I hadn’t previously ordered Subway I went home for lunch and a break. Then it was back to the school just on 3pm for the wreath laying ceremony. This was held at the memorial gate out the front of the old swimming baths. The gates list former school pupils that died in World War 1. A wreath was laid by someone from the RSA and the Last Post was played on a trumpet. (It was good to see that the “R” has been replaced in the word “Memoriam”. For as long as I can remember it has said “Memo-iam”.) It was a nice short ceremony. And then after a bit of clean up that was it for the day. I also closed down our Powerpoint presentation in the memorabilia room as this was the end of the activities at the school for the weekend.

Speaking of the old swimming baths, they were open up for people to have a look through them. What a mess they are now. It’s quite sad really to seem them in such a state of disrepair, but I understand it would cost far too much money to keep them maintained. I can’t believe I used to get changed in those filthy old changing sheds. But I have a lot of memories swimming in that pool. During the summer months when I was a child we had a key to the pool and used to go there for swims in the evenings and weekends. I always remember though that the water was freezing cold! One of the aims of the weekend was to find out from people what to do with the old swimming baths. Is it going to be demolished or restored by someone? Whatever happens the memorial gate out the front will need to stay. (Perhaps they could demolish the baths and extend the memorial – something I just thought of).

The final event of the day was the Dinner and Dance at the Palmerston North Convention Centre on Main Street. Pre-dinner drinks started at 6pm but I showed up about 6:30pm (after picking up one of the committee members on the way). We were seated for dinner just after 7pm (not too bad). I sat with a few others from the committee (including Gibby who caused us a bit of laughter!) Each table went up one at a time to get their food (buffet style) and of course my table was one of the last – that always seems to happen to me and then all the good food is gone – but it was OK this time. I must say that the food was very nice – good selection of meats and stuff. However, there was a huge disappointment. After everyone had got their food they cleaned up the rest of the food and took it all away! How dare they! This meant no seconds. I thought the idea of buffet was you could go back and eat as much as you want (i.e. eat till it hurts!) I know there were a few others that were disappointed that they couldn’t have seconds. Dessert followed straight after and that wasn’t very exciting. It was pre-dished up and was one piece of lemon meringue pie and one piece of chocolate log, so I put lots of cream on it to make up! Gibby from our table grabbed some extra desserts in case someone was still hungry! (For what we paid for the dinner it should have been much better – I always compare it with how much food I would get from McDonalds for the same price :-) After dinner the band started playing (I think their name was “Sweet As”). They were OK – playing a mixture of contemporary music. A few got up to dance – I didn’t. However, after the dance had been going just for a little while, just after 9pm it would have been, someone collapsed on the dance floor. The band suddenly stopped playing and one of the singers said to call 111. It appeared that 2 or 3 people were calling 111. It was hard to see what was going on but someone came to our table and asked if anyone could do CPR. I learnt it about 3 years ago, so probably wouldn’t be too confident to do it now. We were soon ushered out of the room and I could see they were still doing CPR on him. The principal, Sue Allomes, appeared to be heavily involved with it. When we were ushered out into the lounge there were two ambulances outside (must have been because more than one person called for an ambulance). We knew something was up when we saw one of the ambulance workers walk in with a white sheet. After about half an hour or so Sue came out and announced that he had passed away. Wow, what a shock to us all, to have someone die on the dance floor while we were all there enjoying our reunion! Even though the principal said we should get back onto the dance floor because “that is what he would have wanted”, I don’t think anyone did. So it was a sudden end to the evening – I was home about 10pm.

The next day I found out a bit more about what had happened. His name was Doug Lewis and he was about 80 years old (committee member Ray Carter knew him quite well). Apparently he was dancing away with his wife and really enjoying himself. Then he had a heart attack and collapsed and hit his head. Sue Allomes was right next to him and immediately started CPR. When the ambulances arrived they used their defibrillators etc but this obviously didn’t work cause he died. The band wanted to go back in and collect their equipment but they couldn’t because they had to wait for the police to arrive as it was an expected and sudden death. They also had to wait for the coroner/undertaker to arrive to take away the body. This was after 11pm so obviously the band didn’t play again and no one danced again (personally I wouldn’t want to go back on a dance floor that someone had died on.) I heard that the principal (Sue) was quite involved with it all and offered to have his wife stay with her (as the couple had come down from Gisborne in a campervan). Terrace End School is so lucky to have such a great principal. I guess one unfortunate thing is that the Terrace End School 125th Celebrations will be remembered because of this.

The last day of the celebrations was Sunday the 22nd of March. It started off with a church service at 10am at St. David's Presbyterian Church just round the corner from the school on Main Street. They’re a community church so I guess that’s one reason they were able to have us there. I assume their local parishioners were there as well, but I bet their congregation was a lot bigger this time! I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and attend church there every week so this was a little bit of a different experience for me. I tried to join in with the service as much as I could – I even recognised a couple of the hymns. The service went for about an hour and a half but it was a nice simple service with readings and hymns. The sermon was quite interesting but probably went over the head of a lot of people – lots of facts and figures about the universe and stuff (you could say it was a sermon about “Life, the universe, and everything”!) Of course the man that died last night was mentioned in the service. Part way through the service the children went out for their own Sunday School/Primary type thing. My daughter went with them and said she enjoyed it. There was a nice morning tea afterwards (which I don’t think they have very often) – with more of the 125th birthday cake.

So that was it for the weekend of the 125th celebrations. There was supposed to be a family fun day at the school in the afternoon but whoever was supplying the bouncy castle etc obviously didn’t turn up (and the weather was looking a bit dodgy).

So after all the planning and waiting for 25 years I feel that the celebrations for 125 years of Terrace End School went well. (TES is only the 2nd school in Palmerston North to have reached 125 years. And did you know that 125 years is known as the Quasquicentennial.) I was disappointed that there weren’t more ex-students from my era, but I guess it’s correct what my brother said that only old people attend reunions. However, it was great to catch up with former teachers and see how they have changed and if they remembered me.

I really enjoyed going through all the 1980s photos while preparing for the weekend. It brought back some interesting (and scary) memories. I came across some photos of me and my brothers (even a couple of photos with my Mum and Dad in) which I had never seen before. As was mentioned another committee member and I scanned about 500 old photos from the school (mostly from the 1980s). I plan to put all these on a CD, along with the photos taken during the weekend, and give it to the school for their archives. Scanning all these photos will hopefully preserve the life of them a bit longer.

Here’s one thing I thought was quite amazing. I was in my final year at this school (Standard 4) during the Centennial celebrations, and now 25 years later, my daughter is also in her final year at the same school (Year 6). Isn’t that amazing!

I got to make some good friends among the reunion committee members and enjoyed spending time with them over the weekend. I’m sure I’ll stay in contact with them too. A few ex-students have popped up on the Facebook page I created to find out how the weekend went. They weren’t able to attend because they live overseas. The only students that were there from my era were Tracey and Tony Slade, Mindy Foothead (Lockwood), Daniel Lockwood, Michael and Michelle Hebditch, and my brother Josh for a little while on the Saturday.

So now we can look forward to the Sesquicentennial in 2034!! Let’s hope that most of us, and the school, are still here.

Photos of the event can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=45842540739&view=all