The 15th Kitchen Tape

Recorded 24 May 2018

Starting High School

GM:  OK, We’re here today with Trenna Mahney.  Today is Thursday, the 24th of May, 2018. 

Tren, we’ve done a lot on your primary school, could you start now by telling us a bit about what you remember about High School?

THM:  High School was at the start of a new decade, it was 1970.  Everything in the world had changed in 1970.  

I was going to Kent Street Senior High School, which was a state school. It was the biggest, as much as Applecross, [GM: where I went to school] not sure if we were bigger than them, or they were bigger than us.

There were 1,800 children in the school, and we were going to go into prefab buildings which were down a slope.  You walked upstairs to get to the old original building which was sort of I guess 1940s or 50s?  That era.

These were just prefabs, and they had a wooden decking verandah with cross beams over.  You walked a few steps to the rooms, very basic. 

I don’t think there was any such thing as air conditioning or heating.  

I was very scared about going to high school because, also, puberty was also coming into play, and I was still a child.  So much so that when I was about 11 or 12 my family had put money together, I’m not sure it may have been when I hit my 10th birthday, like double figures or something, that they all put their money together and they bought me a Malvern Star bicycle. 

A red and white one, and it was really fabulous.  We did have an old bike which a legatee had given us which was a rusty old daggy thing, so I loved the idea of having the Malvern Star. 

But I was getting to the age where I didn’t want to be seen riding it, because as I grew I still remained thin, but I was getting taller and more conscious about what I looked like.  

I had started having orthodontic work done on my teeth as they didn’t want to start doing that when I was too young.  My front two teeth crossed over each other, and my mouth was full with too many teeth for the space available.  They were broken and brown. 

I used to go to the Perth Dental Hospital.  I had a lot of orthodontic treatment.  In the end having 5 sets of double teeth taken out.  I had to have that done under sedation. 

I was in hospital and when I came home all the kids made fun of me, because I had these wads of cotton wool in my mouth that looked like tampons. 

They all used to joke because a lot of the other girls by 13 had started their periods.  They all used to joke about how I was getting my period from the wrong end.  I did have a lot of blood.  

It was something these days that they wouldn’t do to children with Marfan’s.  They would deal with it in another way. 

I’m not sure how they would do it, but I think with me what they did was they just got a whole lot of back teeth and took them out.  My mouth is hollow at the back. 

I think they probably would have interspersed where they took the teeth out, but I don’t know, I’m not sure what was available.  Anyway it was quite a big job. 

I had to wear a plate, not braces.  I couldn’t wear braces for some reason. A plate, which was wires that pulled my two front teeth apart. 

It had a plate, the area up under it would always get caught full of food.  I had a propensity for hating cleaning it. 

I was meant to clean it but it was usually in the school toilets. One, I hated cleaning anything in the toilets, and two, I didn’t want anyone to see, because really in those days, people showed no mercy to anyone for anything, and someone I’m sure would have got it off me, and given it to someone or something. 

So that probably didn’t help my teeth, or probably my breath odour – I don’t know.

So, I arrived at Kent Street. I knew I had good marks because I had got good grades in primary school. 

That didn’t really mean much to me and I don’t really remember what a report in primary school is like. I can’t picture one. 

I remember what they looked like in high school.  They were green and I would do well.  As it turns out it was the start of a new style of teaching.  

A New Uniform

We came with a new uniform.  Gone was the old navy blue pinafore pleated tunic, with white shirt, hat and bulletproof stockings, what we would call daggy with a tie – daggy clothes.

But a new uniform came out which was really like a sailor’s dress.  It was navy blue, it had a little red sailors collar and a little sort of red tie, a little flap that came down like this, [GM: Trenna demonstrates] and you could wear them short. 

Some were too scared to do it at the South Perth bus stop in case someone went out to spy on them

You didn’t have to wear navy stockings or navy socks, you could wear white socks.  Preferably in winter they wanted you to wear high socks but you could wear ankle socks in summer and that was very groovy. 

Sock makers in those days still hadn’t learnt how to get them to stay up on your legs and we had to put an elastic band around the top of the sock and fold them to have a neat cuff folded over.   

Most of the groovier, older girls who went to Kent Street from Craig House and anywhere else, would wear, not your old Clarks lace up shoes, which I had to wear, but they would wear various types of fashion sandals that were in at the time. 

We weren’t allowed to wear them at Craig House but as soon as we hit the back lane walking to the bus stop, at the bus stop, we, well, the rest of the girls, would change into their groovier shoes.  

Some were too scared to do it at the South Perth bus stop in case someone went out to spy on them. 

We would catch the number 34 bus into the city.  In those days it went up Mill Point Road which was a very short trip, up Mill Point Road, onto the [Narrows] bridge, over the bridge and into St Georges Terrace. There was a stop at Zimples Arcade.  

It was at Zimples Arcade that we would get out and that’s when we would catch the next bus.  I can’t really remember the number of the bus that took us to school, but I’m sure someone else would. 

Kent Street was for me, just one hell of a nightmare

We would wait for that bus and catch it to the East Vic Park School, Kent Street.  That was a bit more scary on that bus ride because that’s where we picked up a lot of the other normal kids, ones not coming from a Home. 

So, there would be boys on the bus and I would never want to sit up the back.  

I wanted to be with Helen, but Helen had started puberty.  She had started to get boobs. 

More Haircut Drama

I think when we turned 12 we were allowed to stop having our hair cut because we had to be responsible for our hair then.  So by the end of primary school we were able to start growing out our hair. 

In First Year my hair was still quite short, but it wasn’t the bowl haircut of earlier, but we had to look after it.  Matron still insisted on cutting our fringes if they got too long, which I hated.  Well, so did Helen. 

We were allowed to get more groovy haircuts.  Helen got sort of a very groovy shaggy-dog haircut,  which Matron hated, and basically cut that off into a bowl. Helen was very upset about that.  It had been a really cool haircut. 

Most of us just grew our hair long.  That’s all you wanted to do, have long hair.

Kent Street was for me, just one hell of a nightmare because I was going to be separated from everybody.  Everyone was older than me. 

A lot of the kids didn’t go to Kent Street, they went to schools they were already going to when they came to Craig House, or private schools.  The Crossings, some of them went to Kent Street for a little bit of time, but ended up at St Marys.

There were a variety of schools that people went to, I’m not sure now.  But anyway, the main ones who went to Kent Street were me and Helen, and some of the boys, and Sally for a while.  

There were two “sections” in the school.  This new style of teaching was meant to be a really modern way of teaching that included taking into consideration different styles and potential professions. 

Like for instance we would learn about interior decorating which I thought was so cool.  There was still Sewing as a subject but Laundry had stopped.  Up until that year girls had had to do laundry – for God’s sake! – to learn how to peg things out properly on the clothesline. 

At least we didn’t have to do that.  We did have to do cooking and sewing.  I can’t remember what that one was called, but I should be able to find it out because I do have an Achievement Certificate somewhere.  

Art Teacher’s Charm Lost on Trenna

We did art.  We had a very young art teacher who all the girls loved.  I thought he was just a dag.  He seemed too old for me, but he clearly loved the girls loving him. 

He had long brown curly hair and he drove what I called, a cockroach car.  A light blue cockroach car which was a Citroen. [GM: A Citroen DS]. It didn’t appeal to me but everyone thought it was fabulous.

I was put in A Section because I was brighter than Helen, who was put in B Section. Although they tried to be a bit more equal, you know they were going to sort of say you were the ones who didn’t do well, but the fact of the matter was that it was quite clear that all the bright kids were in A Section and the not so bright in B Section. 

However, in the non core classes, not English, Maths, Science and Social Studies, I think there might have been a bit of a mix of where you went. 

For me, high school was a bit of a period where I self-destructed. I started to comprehend that it was the worst possible thing for me

I was in Advanced for English and Mathematics, however I was in Intermediate for Science and Social Studies.  I don’t know how I got to be in those because I barely remember doing any social studies or science at primary school. 

I think a lot of that would have had to do with looking at something and explaining what I was looking at, and that’s something I couldn’t do because of my poor eyesight. 

Whereas mathematics was a puzzle in my head that I could work out, and so was English, it was a story I could tell, a description I could make.  They were things that we’re done in your head. 

And then there were all the other non-core subjects. I don’t know that we got assigned a level that you went into, you just went into that class. They did have some thing that was like … when I was in first, second and third year I don’t think we did human biology or anything like that. 

I don’t think it was called anything like that, but we did have sex studies, which was a bit out there.

I think I’ll come back to this later on when I do find my Achievement Certificate because it will bring it back to me what subjects I actually learnt.  For me, high school was a bit of a period where I self-destructed. 

A Sense of Foreboding

I started to comprehend that it was the worst possible thing for me. It was enough that I came from a Home.  In those days “a Home” was considered to be for naughty kids or Aboriginal kids. 

People used to ask, was I Aboriginal, or was I a slut because I had ended up in prison?   It was never considered to be anything other than that.  

I also learnt how my strength and power that I had had in primary school – where I could stick up for myself with the boys, by beating them up – it soon became obvious that a group of five boys coming towards you, conniving as they came to get you in some way was going to be of no use to me.

I was harangued by a lot of boys.  Some of them were in my class, but they were usually boys in the lower classes. The Section B classes. 

The boys in A level classes were usually bright enough, or perhaps had happy enough homes not to be quite so cruel.  Boys would always come up and do things like “ahh! Skeleton!” 

My favourite one was “starvation on stilts” because I had such long thin legs, and it was the start of minis, and our uniforms were allowed to be pretty damn short. 

I wasn’t going to be daggy and wear long uniforms, so I would’ve looked pretty ridiculous when I wore mini uniforms. I was woefully thin.  

I had very ugly, white, cat’s eye glasses, which were children’s glasses. I had a very small face so it was very hard to fit me with glasses and they wrapped around my ear. 

And I suffered badly from having had six eye operations where none of them had gone particularly right.  Although I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t bear the sun after my eye operations. 

I never had operations when I was in high school, all were when I was in primary school ending in 1969.  My eyesight was so bad I would have eye migraines everyday. 

The very thick bifocals that I had would magnify all the light around me.  I just had to put up with it.

As a coping mechanism I would write with my head on the desk to block out all the sun.   In summer the teachers, especially the English teachers, and the Social Studies teacher, would say “it’s such a lovely day let’s do our class outside under the trees”. 

We would have to go outside and I couldn’t read anything.  I was terrified to tell the teacher that I couldn’t see because I hated being the different one all the time.

Self Destruction

So, what I said earlier about when I started to self destruct. 

I was bright. I was sort of naturally bright I think, but I started to not try, because I didn’t want to be too bright. 

It was bad enough for a girl to be ugly, but to be bright as well, was just horrendous.  I wanted to be groovy. I wanted to be funny, and I did have a sense of wit, which the girls got to hear about. 

They did think I was funny.  I had a quick wit and I was funny.  Then I learnt that I could write poetry, and the girls could have a look at them, and they would be really funny. 

So I made friends easily with all the girls around.  But the boys were another thing altogether.  

When I first went to Kent Street a couple of people came up to me and said “do you remember me” or  “hello Trenna”. One of them was a very effeminate boy called Ian Hansen. 

Clearly to me he looked like what I would call in those days a faggot or a fag.  He was very effeminate, and I was so embarrassed when he said “what happened to all your blonde curls?”

And I didn’t know who he was. I wasn’t pretending.  Apparently he claimed to be my boyfriend from grade one and that we would hold hands to go into class, and even to this day I don’t remember him.

But I have a friend Julie who also we were best friends in high school.  She didn’t really realise that it was me who was in her grade 1 class until she looked at a grade 1 class photo and saw that I was in it. 

She said “I’ve got a photo, and you’re in it.  We were in the class together”.  She could remember who I was, and that I came from the Home, but she had moved to another school because her family had moved out to Thornlie. 

She went to Thornlie Primary School, but then came back because her Mum had gone to Kent Street High School and she wanted Julie to go to Kent Street High School. 

Her Nanna lived in Kent Street, so they used her address so that she could enrol in Kent Street High School.  From the day that she said that about having a photo I pleaded with her for years to see it. 

She said “Oh Tren, I’ll get to it, it’s in a box somewhere”, but I’ve never got to see it. [GM: And she never did.]  

For many, many years I thought that that’s the only year I was in primary school at East Vic Park.  Then I went to Craig House to be with my family, but that’s not the truth. 

I was there for that year, that was the year I turned 6, and it was the year my Dad took his life.

I didn’t know any of this but he knew I was at that school and called me an “A” Grade student. I don’t know if that was just a father’s pride or that somebody had told him that. [GM: Trenna knows this because it is in a letter we have from her father to a friend].

Back to high school.  There was another girl, Vanessa, who came up to me and she had really dark skin.  She was very clearly Aboriginal and she was a ward of the state….  

[GM: At this point the phone rang and we didn’t resume. ]