School Days

2001 - "Outback Services"

Sometimes called the "largest classroom in the world" the Australian School of the Air celebrated its 50th Anniversary with this stamp and maximum card.  Originally the school produced 3 sessions a week on it own radio frequency with teacher broadcasting from 2 studios in a purpose built school for children in remote areas of Australia.  Teachers travelled thousands of miles each year visiting each one of their students.  In 1992 the service expanded to include television content, then research on the world wide web  in 1995 but still the radio remained the most important tool.  The last HF radio lesson was conducted in 2005 and now the service has interactive distance learning via satellite broadband internet.

I can remember as a child being fascinated by the School of the Air as it occasionally featured in stories of the outback.  I would have loved this little corner of study especially if Skippy the Kangaroo was hopping around outside trying to warn me someone had fallen down the mine.  Of course it might have been trumped by the other schooling fascination, boarding school and midnight feasts - a staple of comic strips.

2012: World of Comics

My grandfather used to buy me a Bunty and a Barley Stick every Saturday. The latter was a stick of barley candy with a core of chocolate, bliss.  I've never seen them in modern day sweet shops even the retro type. The Bunty stamp  (bottom left) features the Four Marys of St Elmo's Boarding School drawn by Barrie Mitchell which ran the life of the Bunty magazine from 1958-2001.

Returning to Australia they honoured books in the Picture Book of the Year category of the Book Council Awards which had become contemporary classics.  The 1996 postmark of Riddells Creek is because it was home to the Dromkeen Museum of Children's Literature which was housed in a 19th Century homestead. Since the FDC it has been relocated to the state library of Victoria in January 2013 although there will still be exhibitions at Dromkeen itself.  I'm not familiar with any of the books on the stamps but

lets take a look. From Left to Right is - 1) Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen. A rhyming book about 5 friends, a donkey, a cow, sheep, pig and mouse go for a boat ride  and enter the boat from biggest to smallest each one lowering the boat in the water.  I wonder which one will sink the boat?  2) John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat about a widow and her sheepdog John Brown 3) Greetings from Sandy Beach by Bob Graham about a camping trip and lastly 4) Animalia by Graham Base, an illustrated A-Z of animals with poems and other objects of the letters of the alphabet, plus the author hides a picture of himself as a child in each illustration.

Well the sun is up so its time to stop reading go outside and play:

1972: Health Stamps

These are from a decades long series of 'Health Stamps' issued by New Zealand post each year which fund holiday relief for children with nutritional and minor physical problems, first issued in 1929.

1969: Health Stamps

Maybe these potential New Zealand cricketers will play for the national team, the Black Caps, or the women's cricket team, The White Ferns named from the New Zealand sporting emblem.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme - Of Children or For Children here