Country Retreat - 1. New School & New Friends

It was on my very first day of arriving at the boarding school in the western suburbs of Perth when I first met the two guys who would be my good friends, as well as changing the lives of people who have been caught up in difficult situations, but that would not happen for another 14 years.

I was brought up in the family farming property, two kilometres east of the regional country town of Moore, which is on the banks of the Moore River, which usually flows only in the winter months. The town has a population of around 1,700 people, and it has all the necessary facilities for a large town. My father is a farmer as well as a diesel mechanic and has a business workshop at the western end of the 5,750-acre property.

For the first eleven years of my life, I attended the local primary school, where I did very well in my grades and I liked to play cricket and tennis on weekends, as well as swimming at the local swimming pool, when not working part-time helping Mum with cleaning the tidying up the admin and staff buildings.

In the mid-year and end-of-year holidays, the family would set off on a two-week-long trip. In the winter season, we would travel east and south to Esperance, a distance of just over 800 kilometres, and it would take us a day and a half to get there with an overnight stop in Hyden, where we stay with family friends on their farm.

In the summertime, we would travel to the coastal town of Karakin, which is only 117 km away, and I always enjoyed those holidays at the beach, while on the other two holidays in Autumn and Spring, we would travel 68 kilometres down to Regan’s Ford, where our Grandparents have retired to a small property on the northern banks of the Moore River, which I loved visiting.

I was nine years old when my brother Deacon was born, and for some time I was annoyed that he was getting all the attention, so I avoided being home as much as possible, spending time with friends around town, and when on holidays I spent a lot of time at the beach. When my sister Amara was born two years later, I had to take more responsibility for my brother, which I resented a lot as he followed me around the house and yard when at home, and kept a close eye on him when we were on holidays.

In a way, I was relieved when I was sent away to boarding school, at the age of twelve, for the first year of junior high school, but I was also terrified, as I was going to be so far away from home. That all changed, when I met my new friends, Canadian Koen Atkins, Rizen Silverton from the UK and New Zealander Hugh Oakly. We were all well away from home, although for me I was only 155 kilometres away from home, while my new friends were thousands of kilometres away from their homelands.

The boarder’s residence consists of twelve pods, six pods on each side of the central hallway, with each pod consisting of four single bedrooms with two shared bathrooms, and a small lounge area in the centre. It wasn’t like home but it was comfortable, and we all had our own space, which consisted of a single bed, a two-door wardrobe, a decent-sized study desk and chair plus storage cubes and shelves.

Dad had brought me down to the city to help me get settled into my new school, with Mum staying at home to look after my younger siblings, and I had been assured that I would be coming home for each school holiday, and on long weekends, I would be staying at my grandparent's place at Regan’s Ford. Once Dad was happy that I was settled in enough, he said goodbye, shaking my hand and with a nod of his head, he was heading back home to the farm, leaving me feeling very empty.

During the next two hours, I unpacked my bags and made up my bed, which Mum had been teaching me to do for some time now, as well as learning to shine my shoes, how to hang my uniforms correctly in the wardrobe and how to knot a tie properly. Dad had included 6 editions of the Countryman Newspaper for me to read, to help me get over any homesickness that I may get for the first week or so.

I was sitting in the lounge room reading one of my newspapers when the first two of my pod mates and new friends arrived. Being the first to arrive, I had selected the back right bedroom, and Hugh from New Zealand chose the front one on the right where we would share a bathroom, while Rizen from the UK chose the other back bedroom, and shortly after Koen arrived.

After all the introductions were made, I let the others get settled, while I continued to read, and we chatted while this was happening. Once unpacked, we settled into the small lounge area, which has a television, a double-seat lounge, two-seat lounges and a small round table with four chairs, and continued to get to know one another, when one of the house supervisors appeared.

“Hello lads, good to see that you are getting settled in. Have you unpacked and made your beds?” he asked us, “Yes, I have,” I replied, and the others said they had unpacked but not made their beds. The house supervisor suggested that they get their beds made before the dinner assembly bell sounds in twenty minutes and that we are to gather in the recreation room downstairs when the bell sounds before he leaves, and we heard him speaking to the guys in the neighbouring pod.

“Any idea how to make a bed?” Koen asked, and Rizen grabbed his arm and dragged him to Koen’s room, where he showed Koen what to do, before stripping the bed and getting him to do it himself, while Hugh and I watched from the doorway.

The first evening was a tough one for me, with so many new people, not just the 50 in our boarder’s residence, but the other 80 from the other two residences as well. I eventually learned that our residence was for years 7 & 8 boys, while the other two were for years 9 & 10 and 11 & 12 boys and the dining hall was quite a crowded and noisy gathering.

Along the centre of a side wall were three tables that had just four or six seats each, and I recognised the house supervisor seated at one of them, where our dining tables have a total of eight seats, and we learnt that the lads seated on our table are from the pod located next door to us and that they are in year nine. Each table had a card on it which had pod numbers listed on it, which we had been told about at dinner assembly, before heading over to the dining hall.

A gentleman in the centre on the middle front table stood, and we all stopped talking. “Please stand to say Grace!” he announced and we all stood up. After Grace was said we were motioned to sit, “Now, let’s start by saying welcome to all new boys to the school, we hope you have settled into your rooms and pods. As was mentioned before dinner in your residences, you have been assigned a dining table, this is where you will sit for all your meals for the whole school year.

Each table has boys from two pods of different years whom I suggest you get to know each other, as that is your core support group, one of the older boys in the group is your group mentor, he will let you know who he is during dinner, and is available to assist in any way while you are in the residence,” the gentleman said, who we learnt was the School Principal.

Also seated at his table, were the School Chaplain, the Deputy School Principal and the Senior Residence Master, while at the other two tables, were the residence supervisors for the three boarder’s residences. “Hello, I am Tom, and this is Greg, we are your residence supervisors, along with Harry, who isn’t here tonight. All three of us are University students, so we are rostered on duty depending on availability from our studies.

In a moment, I will let you go and get your dinner with a choice of dishes available, and trust me you will enjoy the cooking here, and you will eat well too. I believe Anton, you are the Mentor this term?” our supervisor said when he approached our table. “Yes, that is correct. Hey guys, I am Anton Gibson and I come from a locality called Coomberdale, which is just North of Moora where my family has a farming contractors business.

This is my second year at this school, and I have made lots of friends, I hope to help you out with whatever you need to the best of my ability. We have several International guys with us this year, so I want no trouble from any of you, as I do not tolerate any kind of discrimination, understood,” our Mentor announced.

The first week at the new school was a mixture of worry, homesickness and trying to get used to all the new things at school. Unlike primary school, where there are two or three teachers per year, here we had a teacher for every subject that we studied which I found exceptionally difficult and although it was a bit unsettling at first, getting changed for swimming and showing up afterwards I eventually got used to the nudity around the other boys, and I tried not to look at anyone when showering or changing.

After five weeks at school, I managed to settle into a routine, and I had four awesome best friends who happened to be my accommodation pod mates too, there was also a group of day students that I got along with as good friends as well. Hugh I discovered was a bit of an exhibitionist, not caring about his pod mates seeing him nude, and he would often walk into our shared bathroom when I was in the shower, which I found a little embarrassing.

Eventually, I just ignored it. During the weekends, we had sports on Saturday mornings, which at the start of the year were tennis and cricket for me, with the afternoons to relax, and in the evening, we gathered for a movie night in the hall. On Sundays, we attended chapel in the morning, in the afternoons, we had social sporting activities, or we just relaxed, and finished off any homework that needed to be finished before the start of the new school week.