07.29
NO COUNSELLING FOR KIDS IN “THE OLD DAYS.”
Just found these drawings I did, age 11 at school (Grade 5, Albert State School, Maryborough, Queensland, Australia). Please see previous post (or search ‘Moby Dick’ on this site, for Part 1.
I realise that young boys like gruesome stuff, so I thought these pics a bit of a laugh when I discovered them again. But then, like my previous post, I wondered if I was a tad disturbed at the time. I had not long arrived as an immigrant to Australia, from England. And I was being bullied at school – particularly for the fact that I “spoke funny” – a thick, Northern English accent. My home town was only about 10 miles from Liverpool, home of the Beatles. Not a Liverpudlian accent; but to outsiders, not far from it.
I wonder if those geese in the drawings represent the bullies, in my head at the time? Either that, or I am reading too much into it. Could just be the typical boy interest in the cruel and grotesque, as I have mentioned. Oh well, at least I am here now, in 2015. Evidently I survived.
The drawings were done as illustrations for a poem given to the class by the teacher (Miss Blake), “The Fox and the Farmer.” I am unable to locate the writer of the poem. Other poems with similar titles come up online, but not the same one, involving geese. I thought Miss Google knew everything. Miss Blake did.
click on images to enlarge – it might be worth it.