Ian Forte’s old school days

I TURN left five and a half kilometres off the Garfield North Road onto a long snaking downhill driveway that eventually leads me to the home of Ian Forte.
The white weatherboard house is not visible from the road and sits in a tranquil setting among large citrus trees and neatly planted raspberry bushes.
The backdrop is the Bunyip State Forest, which seems only an arm’s length away from the back of the house.
Peace and serenity is the normal environment here.
Ian greets me and shakes hands, but as soon as he sees my camera he shoots off to comb his hair.
He is a fine gentleman. He is 82 years old and his wrinkled face breaks into a broad, happy smile after he finally sits down to talk to me about his younger days.
The name of his 400-acre property is Fern Glen, which was so named by his grandfather. The original 108-year-old house is still “just” standing, overcome by a huge cover of wisteria which stems from a massive twisted root system.
His mother lived in that house until her death in 1976. Now it stands empty, barely visible among the twisting wisteria and is riddled with white ants.
Ian relates a story about when the railway line came through Garfield and a sawmill was established near his property on Two Mile Creek in the 1880s.
They even built a tram line to carry timber from the mill to the Garfield station.
Another tram line was being expanded into the forest to bring the logs to the mill. All the machinery in the mill was powered by steam.
Those trams needed good brakes too as once they were loaded up with logs and sent on their downhill journey to the mill, they were moving at a very rapid pace by the time they got to the mill.
From memory there were no accidents. This mill employed about 40 men, but experienced difficult times and closed its doors after four or five years’ operation.
Ian recalls going to school in Garfield North after a classroom was moved from Garfield.
It was a one-teacher school with 16–18 students at times and at other times 8-9 students. The school taught up to the Merit Certificate (Year 8).
“School was much stricter in my days,” says Ian. “If we got more than two spelling mistakes, we got the strap and if we came late for school we were not let into the classroom until after recess.”
A teacher he remembers brought a rope to school and used to threaten to hang anyone who misbehaved.
“Another teacher, Gerry Lyons used to let us go across the road and fish in the creek at recess and lunch times.”
Mental arithmetic was one of the tests and he still remembers that he wrongly answered a question, which was multiply 364 by 125.
“These days a lot of teachers are under siege from the students, unlike in my school days.”
Because it was impossible to continue his secondary education, Ian studied and achieved his Leaving Certificate by correspondence.
Ian has seen many changes during his years living in the Garfield district.
He remembers when there were two grocers in the main street, one where the photography business is located and another where the newsagent is.
There were two garages, a police station, a fully manned railway station as all goods were transported by rail then, a post office, two butcher’s shops, a doctor’s surgery and a variety of shops from where the hotel is now to the corner.
His grandmother owned the first hospital in Bunyip between 1910-1915 which was on the corner of A’Beckett Road and Nash Road. The hospital closed after the local doctor went to war.
A lot of people claim that those who lived in Ian’s time lived in the best era, but when I think about his school days … I’m not so sure.