Garry Gillard > Perth Modern School > alumni >
I was born Ellen Jean Boyle in April 1943 in Blackheath, NSW. My dad worked at the Lithgow Small Arms factory, and mum was a former housemaid at the Hydro Majestic hotel at Medlow Baths. Mum was born in Subiaco, WA, and she always wanted to return to WA.
When the war ended dad started work at the Edgell factory in Cowra, and would come home to Mt Victoria at weekends. We lived in a flat behind a fruit shop that mum worked in. As an only child, at that stage, I had already learnt to read when I was four. Mum asked the head at the two-teacher school if I could sit in with the youngest kids. He agreed, as long as I could keep up with the others. So that's how I ended up a year ahead of the others of my age.
Then dad started work at the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and we moved to Cooma. This was quite a change as Cooma primary school was bursting at the seams with migrant children. There were several classes at each grade, and I managed to be put in the “A” stream. We had a teacher, Mr Eades, who really worked hard on teaching us to think quickly. Mental arithmetic was his speciality, and mine. He was quite “cool”, as he had one of the first Holden cars.
A highlight for me was when the students from the three Cooma schools went to Canberra to see the Queen on her first visit to Australia.
Mum finally talked dad into moving to WA. He bought our first car, a Ford Pilot, and loaded us, mum and my two young sisters, with dad's dog, and we headed across Australia. The road across the Nullarbor Plain was a gravel road then, so it was quite a bumpy trip.
We rented a house in Highgate, near mum's relatives, so I attended Highgate Primary school. With the difference between schools in NSW and WA I was now two years ahead of my age. So I was made to repeat a year, and I was a bit of a pest in school.
Dad started work at BP terminal in North Fremantle, and my parents bought a block of land in Riverton. Post war building supply problems meant that the house was built in stages, and we moved into a half-built house.
The closest high school was Kent Street high, so I started there. I was one of several students who were a year ahead of their age, and we were all put into the top first year class. We were considered “scholarship” candidates. I had no idea what that meant, but I did enjoy that year. We had no special coaching for the exams. We were just told to go to Perth Girls High for the exams. I remember there was an Intelligence test, and I had never done anything like it, so it was a challenge. I liked the Mental Arithmetic test. I think there were an Arithmetic test, and possibly Dictation.
Pam Rowe was my friend at Kent Street, and she won a scholarship. Her parents were both teachers, who had also attended Perth Modern School. They were thrilled that she was going there too.
My parents were very disappointed, when I did not win anything. Then a few weeks later a letter arrived to say I had been awarded an “Entrance” to Mod. I did not want to go there, even though Pam was going. I was put under considerable pressure by the family, and I finally agreed.
The “Entrance” provided some books, and part of my bus fares, as well as admission to Mod.
My family was very poor, so I put my age up to 14, and started work in a fruit shop in Victoria Park during the school holidays and Saturday mornings, for three years. That helped to pay for my uniforms and books and fares.
The only books we had in our home were the school and Sunday School prizes that I had won, and an atlas. Mum and dad had both left school at 14, and had never learnt a foreign language, nor maths, nor science, so all my homework was unaided.
At Mod my friend Pam was put in 1D, while I was in 1C, as we were divided by alphabetical order of surname. Many of the other girls had friends from primary school, or even older siblings, so I was quite lonely. I had attended a Methodist church, so I joined the Christian Endeavour and ISCF groups, which began my interest in religion.
I did well in the final first year exams, as I had repeated first year. I was put in the Science stream in second year, and stayed with most of those girls for the next 4 years. We learnt English, German, History, Maths A and B, and Physics and Chemistry. We also did Home Science until the Junior Exam. Many of the others learnt Music privately, and had that as another Junior subject.
I played hockey for winter sport, and tennis in summer. I loved the singing classes, and remember hearing the men singing “On the Road to Mandalay” in the hall when we were in classrooms near the hall. I admired the talent of others who participated in the annual productions like “HMS Pinafore”.
We had dancing classes at some stage, and I attended my first ball. My mother made my dress, and even though she had been a dressmaker, it was shabby compared with what other girls were wearing. Clothes were where the social strata in the school, especially among the girls, showed up.
Some of the teachers were excellent, though fearsome in some cases: Beryl Hume (Maths) , Harry Orriss (Leaving Maths) and Vera Wrightson (German), Ron Hartley (Physics), Brian Hill (English) , Mr Snell (Chemistry) .
I wanted to be a Veterinary Surgeon, but you had to win one of two Veterinary Scholarships to go to Queensland University, and that did not happen. If you wanted to attend UWA a Commonwealth scholarship was also needed, if you could not afford the fees, but I did not win one of those either. I passed all seven Leaving subjects, but had no distinctions.
I did not want to be a teacher, nor a nurse, which is what many of the girls were aiming for. Some had even had bursaries from 4th year.
My dad wanted me to start work, and bring in a much needed income for the family. I had been working at the Agriculture Dept in South Perth during the 4th and 5th year school holidays, and I could have continued there.
My friend Russlyn Millar had already arranged a Pharmacy apprenticeship, so in desperation for some form of higher education I found a pharmacy where an apprentice was needed. This was in Maniana, Queens Park, so I bought my first car, an Austin 7 two-door.
The Pharmacy course was a 4 year Diploma at Perth Technical College Pharmacy School. Entrance required Leaving passes in English, Maths A and B, Physics and Chemistry, so I qualified. Lectures and lab work at the college were 12 hours per week for 40 weeks, with exams. At the same time you had to work for 30 hours a week in a pharmacy for 50 weeks each year. The master pharmacist taught you how to read and dispense prescriptions, as well as all the ins and outs of running a business. At that time many prescriptions were compounded, so you learnt how to make mixtures, ointments, eye drops, etc. from basic ingredients.
At Tech we learnt Materia Medica which included the production of drugs from natural sources. We also learnt some medical Latin.
Once again I struggled with the study, and travel, and needed supplementary exams each year, but I felt quite a sense of achievement in only needing the basic four years to qualify. Russlyn also passed in the four years. We were among the six women in our year, when there were sixty men.
I was interested in travel, and religion, so my first work in 1965 was as a volunteer pharmacist, in a hospital attached to a refugee village in Hong Kong. I was working seventy hours a week, and my health gave out, so I returned to Perth. I then worked in a pharmacy in Hay St, Perth for six months, and Esperance for six months. That's where I met a schoolteacher, Jim Reid, whom I married in 1968. I worked as a locum manager in many pharmacies.
My parents had always hoped that I would settle down near them, and they built a pharmacy on part of the block where they lived in Riverton. I opened Riverton Bridge Pharmacy in 1967, and it is still functioning as a pharmacy! I sold it four years later, when I was having trouble carrying babies. I have a son James, and a daughter Jean.
Jim moved around the state, as male teachers were shifted in WA, so we lived in both Perth suburbs and the country. I worked part time wherever we lived.
I was interested in alternative medicine, so I started a Grad Dip in Pharmacy at Curtin Uni. I did a unit of Pharmacognosy (Materia Medica), and decided that the Australian Aboriginals would have been like indigenous people elsewhere who had their own medicines. So I did a project unit on the Medicinal Plants used by Aboriginals in Western Australia. My research discovered a hidden history of plants, and a paper was published in an international journal, Planta Medica, in 1979. This work was accepted by UWA for entry to a Masters Prelim in Anthropology and Botany, but I only stayed a term. My young children were not coping with a mother who was not at home when they needed her. I already had a career in pharmacy, and that was enough.
Jim was interested in gardening and entomology, and I learnt about butterflies from him. That began a nearly fifty year interest in Monarch butterfly breeding.
In 1981 our family spent six months in the UK, when Jim had long service leave. We wandered the country, visiting museums and book shops, and began collecting Bibles for displays. I had taken my pharmacy licence with me, and worked as a locum manager for six weeks.
Jim's health was declining, and pharmacy jobs were scarce in Perth, so I opened another pharmacy in Bassendean. Pharmacy 51, in Old Perth Road is also still functioning as a pharmacy. I sold that after six years, when once again we moved.
Jim took early retirement from teaching because of his health. Our children had moved to London for work, so we joined them in 1996. I worked as a pharmacy locum manager for a pharmacy chain in Kent.
But Jim needed a full time carer so we moved to Victoria, as Jim could not tolerate Perth's hot weather. Sadly, he died in 2005.
I retired from pharmacy when we left the UK in 1999.
After Jim died my daughter Jean and I decided to start a Bible museum. We found an almost derelict property in St Arnaud, a small town 250 km from Melbourne. We sold our home in Melbourne, and then renovated and opened the only Bible museum in Australia. The collection is extensive and comprehensive, and includes Australian Aboriginal languages as well as foreign languages. The interest in languages that started at Mod was an important aid in this work.
We have had many different groups visit the museum, and one was a German group from Ballarat. The German I'd learnt from Mrs Wrightson came in very handy: When I recited the poem I'd learnt for Junior German, the group sang it back to me! Vera would have been very surprised that I could still recite it sixty years later!!! She really knew how to teach!
We also have a butterfly garden at the museum, and Jean is planning a Butterfly Museum. So even though our subject choices at Mod prevented me from doing Biology with Physics and Chemistry, the Tech course in Botany filled that gap.
The history course, with an emphasis on European history, provided me with a background for learning about Bible languages and publishing history, and prophecy.
I have travelled extensively throughout Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Israel and North America, and Geography would have been a useful subject, but once again we could not do that in the science stream at Mod.
Had I stayed at Kent Street High I would probably not have studied Pharmacy. So even though I did not want to go to Mod, Mod gave me the opportunity to do things that most of the women in my generation would never imagine. It has been a very interesting, and worthwhile, life!
Ellen Reid.
Perth Modern School 1956-60.
The Bible Museum, St Arnaud, Victoria.
Garry Gillard | New: 22 April, 2022 | Now: 25 March, 2023