When former Kangiara school bell ringer Kerry Boulding visited Hall Heritage Centre last weekend, volunteers rehung the old clanger for the special guest. Photo: Sally Hopman.
As a little tacker, one of Kerry Boulding’s favourite parts of the school day was when he was allowed out of the classroom to ring the school bell.
He rang it to start the day, to take a morning break, for lunch, and, according to him, to mark the best part of the day – when he and his classmates could go home.
“I don’t know how I got started doing it,” he said. “They just got me to do it.
“I was pretty young when I first started doing it; I don’t remember there being any rope, it was just wire. They just told me to grab it at the top and push it back and forward. But I remember it was a heavy bloody thing.
“But I didn’t really mind because it got me out of the classroom a lot.”
Kerry, who lives at Bowning, near Yass, went to one of the region’s original bush schools, Kangiara, built in the then-mining village between Yass and Boorowa. It ran from 1910 to 1958 – closing, Kerry said, because it ran out of children.
But it was one of about 80 bush schools which sprang up from the 1800s onwards, providing an education for the growing population.
Our old bush schools have always had an important place in that fount of history, the Hall Heritage Centre, thanks to the remarkable database of early bush schools its volunteers have put together, including that of Kangiara. It includes information on about 80 schools – starting from the first in 1850 – to their 600 teachers and more than 400 photographs, maps and plans.
For Kerry, who thought his connection with the school bell ended all those years ago, the Hall volunteers had other ideas.
When Kangiara closed, the school bell apparently did the rounds at other schools, before being “rescued” and taken to the school at Hall where it was hung outside the modern classrooms, within a stone’s throw, according to Hall Heritage Centre’s Jane Southwell, of the original wooden school building that had been converted into a museum.
“All that was known of the history of the bell was that it once hung in the schoolyard at the mining village of Kangiara,” she said.
Mrs Southwell said the bell was taken on the road earlier this year including to the 175th anniversary of the Bowning school in March and to the 125th memorial of the Wee Jasper school in August.
The original Kangiara school bell, now on display at the Hall Heritage Centre. Photo: Sally Hopman.
But perhaps the most touching reunion was when Kerry was invited to the Hall Heritage Centre last weekend, to see the bell in its now permanent home.
“It certainly brings back some good memories,” Kerry said. “I remember I loved to ring the bell back in those days, but I didn’t like school very much,” he joked.
“It was a terribly cold place. I remember it just had this wooden floor with all these big knots in it, there was no carpet and we just had a wood heater.
“I also remember the dusty walk to school every day, a mile or so there and back with my satchel.
“But I’ll never forget ringing that bell in the morning, trying to round everyone up just a couple of minutes before nine.
“I loved doing it because it got me away from the other kids,” he joked. “It made me feel special.”
The Kangiara School Bell is on display at the Hall Heritage Centre, 19 Palmer Street, Hall. Open Thursdays from 9 am to midday and Sunday afternoons from midday to 4 pm. Also open by appointment – email: [email protected]
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