Iris Steensma - printmaker: Freyberg High School

Salamander Cover

Size: 33 x 46 cm Linocut Cover for "The Salamander" Freyberg High School magazine, 2005 This has been a year of long forgotten memories, my old high school is having its fiftieth reunion. Fifty? That's only a minor mile stone for a cricket player, but I was a foundation student in this brand new school and going back fifty years is like delving back into history. This was a co-educational school, one in which the two sexes were kept separated most of the time, the "co" meant that we shared a classroom but sat on opposite sides, had the same morning and lunch breaks but in different parts of the ground, sang the Lord's Prayer together at every school assembly, but again strictly divided into two separate groups. There really wasn't much "co" at this school and I had no idea how the "boys" remembered their school days at Freyberg High. Before I started making drawings for this cover I got in touch with old Freyberg friends who shared their memories of the first years with me. I found that mine were decidedly sexist biased and it was good to get some boys' memories in the picture. Looking at old Salamander magazines was really useful too. In the end the "Memory" list had grown so long that there was no way I would be able to fit all of them on an A4 sized cover unless I were to do an intensive course in Persian miniature painting. So here are just a few of them : We all cycled to school and if your bike tyre had a puncture you would phone a friend and ask them to come by your house and give you a "dub". The school opened in the summer so here we are all wearing our summer uniforms, including caps and panamas once we were outside the school gates. We carried our books in satchels or school cases. Trees were planted on Arbor Day and the library was filled with books. We were always having inter-house copper-trail competitions to raise money for the building of a school hall, something which was finally built long after we had left. The school was new, still a building site, and bulldozers were in action. The ground was full of muddy puddles after the rain and paper boats could be sailed in them. The odd sheep still found its way onto the sports field. Everyone played sports. I have included basketball and cricket. I was unsure about posing the cricket players so I found a photo on the internet of the Australian cricket team at play. Up in the air is a glider which once landed on the sports field. It was flying from the South Island to the North but had been unable to land at Wellington. I think there is one incident which most of us remember fondly and that was the day two boys came to school with Mohawk haircuts. What a disgrace! The hair showed under the school cap! They were immediately taken to barber's by Mr Craig to have all the visible bit shaved off. Would that happen today? Finally I took this opportunity to put myself and a friend into this lino cut. When the original Foundation Students photo was taken most of me was cut off, only a shoulder and a plait showed, so I have put the missing bit right at the edge, that worried little girl is me.