PHOTOS (L to R): The Garratt family, Joyce and Bub Garratt

At the weekend Joyce and I learnt music in Tweed Heads at the Ursuline Convent. We travelled into Tweed Heads with Mr Bob Giddy - sitting up on the back of his milk lorry on the milk cans which he took to the butter factory. We travelled around Banora - which in those days were dairy farms and we stopped at every box. It was quite a long trip. Dad and Mum would come into Tweed later to take us home after our lessons. It was quite a hectic ride home to Bilambil in those days as the road was not tarred, and it was so windy and really dangerous, and of course in an old 1926 Chevrolet it took us ages. On our way home we always passed the Carool bus packed with young people all going into town on Saturday night to either the pictures or to dance at Jazzland in Coolangatta.

I have so many happy memories of my school days at Bilambil. How we knew every Lilly pilly tree, every quondong and most of all I still remember the guava trees on the road up to the residence. On rainy days we loved to paddle in the gutters and so took us ages to get home - I mention that in those days very few of us wore shoes to school.

Some children rode horses to school for miles. They all worked very hard, early in the morning one would see the lights on in the dairy farms. The kiddies would have to get up, get the cows in, help feed the calves etc, then ride miles to school and repeat the performance in the afternoon. Dad used to say he never gave then much homework as their day was long enough.

Some of my happy memories at school included Arbor Day when we would all go up to the bush, take a picnic and have fun amongst the trees - then we would come back down to the school and one year we planted many camphor laurels around the school. I remember my Dad saying “One day you will come back here and be able to say ‘I planted that tree’” - I hope I can say that!