The joys of travelling to school

In 1924, for example, a train-train-bus combination transported students from Yackandandah to Benalla on Mondays and returned them on Fridays. It seems extraordinary today, that students travelled past secondary schools in Beechworth and Wangaratta to get to Benalla High School.

Kathleen Hall was Senior Prefect at Benalla High at the time and endured years of these 100km journeys.

At the time, Ms Hall reflected on the three-stage trip home to Yackandandah one Friday in a piece called The Joys of Travelling: The Trials and Tribulations of those travelling between Benalla and Yackandandah on a Friday.

To begin with, we almost missed the train at Benalla, and after pushing our way through the crowd and getting our tickets, had to fairly run and throw ourselves into a stuffy carriage, where a fat gentleman of the bald head type snored peacefully; a harassed woman chased her small son round in a vain endeavour to keep him from the door; while a baby filled the air with ‘music’. We bore it manfully until we reached Wangaratta, where we had to change trains. We had a long wait on the hot, dusty platform, but at length we got away.

The express was bad enough on a hot day, but the Beechworth train is well, it is like a bad dream. Again the carriage was crowded, and again there was a baby. I offered to nurse it, and mother seemed only too glad to get rid of it. It cried a good deal, but no wonder, poor thing, as it was absolutely buried in shawls.

The train crawled slowly up those hot hills between Everton and Beechworth; so slowly that at times it almost stood still. We sweltered in our corners and had not even the energy to talk. Eventually, in the hottest part of the day, we arrived in Beechworth, where everyone seemed to be asleep.

Now, on a Friday, the train goes no further, so we had to take a coach. Unfortunately, by the time we had collected our luggage, of which there was a great deal, all the cabs had disappeared, and so we had to carry it from the station to the post office, which being a good way, and uphill, took most of our remaining energy. We waited about two hours at the post office for the coach, which would not hold us all. However, the driver hired a buggy, and the four of us packed in somehow. I was one of those that ‘sat forward’, and when we were descending a hill had to be held in; but I will admit that I got all the breeze. In one place on the ‘Rising Sun’, the road was being mended, so we had to get off at the side, and in doing so, very nearly capsized. The coach, which was in the lead, was at an angle of about 45 degrees with the level.

We had just about recovered from that when we passed a crushing mill, which was making a great deal of noise, and naturally the horses went a trifle faster than was healthy. At Wooragee, we helped the coachman to give out the mail, and were almost finished when a car picked us up and took us to Yackandandah. (I have never ceased to wonder that the car did not break down).

When we arrived at Yackandandah, the coach was miles back, with all our luggage; but being the proud possessor of a brother, I didn’t have to wait for it.

The first news I was greeted with was that everyone at our place had measles. Therefore, I had to hurry home and start nursing the patients. I went to bed early, only to land on a prickly hair-brush, which no one would own up to having placed there. Thus ended a rather measly day.