REVELATION

It was a time of change for McKinnon High School. No mere slaves to long-established convention they had taken the radical step, just in time for my enrolment, of abandoning caps for boys and gloves for girls. Girls still had to wear hats, of course. Who knows what passions might be inflamed in twelve year old cusp-of-adolescents if they encountered liberated hair? Experienced staff members shuddered at this collapse of values, while newer recruits to the ranks of late-60s educators quietly rolled their eyes.

The progressive teachers were, of course, the young ones. McKinnon was a big school, over twelve hundred students. The staff grew as the enrolments grew. Not that I recognised any of this as a clueless Form 1 student decked out in short pants, a brand new blazer, and a nervous grin. But I could tell that they were not all like Mr Cavanagh. For starters, the younger teachers didn’t wear ties and ill fitting suits dusted with years of chalk. Nor did they carry a three foot blackboard ruler like a rifle while prowling the rows of classroom desks. And not once did I see one of this new breed drag a boy out of his desk by the collar and pitch him bodily out of the room, bellowing that he would see the miscreant at the Assistant Principal’s office after the bell. The times were indeed a-changing.

I was in 1E, along with thirty-five others. Thirty-six kids in a classroom! No wonder some staff abandoned teaching in favour of crowd control. At recess we’d run about trying to brand each other with a hard-thrown tennis ball. Or the more dangerous British Bulldog, a more physical game that often involved sudden forceful contact with the turf. Some, like my new friend Trevor, would sneak out one of the unguarded gates to indulge in a furtive cigarette. John Laffy and I would see him when we walked to John’s house just behind the school. We’d sit on the twin beds in the room John shared with his brother and talk about… whatever twelve-year-olds talked about. Nasty teachers, boring subjects, adventures in trying to buy cigarettes, dreams of new bicycles… the lunch hour just flew by.

Sometimes I’d examine the radio 3DB Top 40 charts John’s brother collected. These sat in a neat pile on the bedhead cum bookshelf and were something of a mystery to me. My only media device was a crystal set, a tiny, tinny, weak little radio that tethered you between a long string-like aerial wire and the minuscule in-ear speaker on the end of its twisted lead. Noticing that each 7″ square sheet was dated, I worked out that 3DB compiled a new table of songs each week, a list of what was going up and what was sinking down. I recognised a few tunes, but mostly it was a mystery. Which is why, when we stopped to talk with Trevor one Spring lunchtime, he almost choked on his ciggie when I asked him about this tune I’d heard people singing around the lockers. Do you like that song Hey Jew? My gut still churns at the breathtaking naivety. Trevor didn’t sneer, he grinned and corrected my ignorant mondegreen. “Jude,” he said. “It’s Hey Jude. And no,” he continued, “I prefer the other side.” Oh, I said, not knowing what he was talking about but somehow recognising that one faux pas per lunchtime was probably enough.

A couple of days later, Trevor hailed me in the yard as I sat munching my sandwich. “Hi. Bring that, let’s go to my place.”

Now strictly speaking it was against the rules to leave the school grounds, but the exit options were sufficiently numerous that duty teachers simply gave up and hoped no-one got run over or kidnapped during school hours. Or maybe hoped they did. Trevor and I used the gate near the Assembly Hall (also the gym) and tramped across the nearby football oval to a small house on a corner block. The garden was unkempt and there were old car parts and bits of rusty bicycle near the fence. Maybe Trevor didn’t have to mow the lawns, I thought.

Inside it smelt of boiled vegetables and dog. Trevor led me into the lounge. There was a two-seater couch, upholstered in cracked cream vinyl, and a battered armchair. A small HMV stereo sat on an occasional table in the corner. Trevor went across, flicked on the power, and put a 7” single onto the platter. He waved me towards the armchair. I couldn’t see his face, but I suspect he was grinning. There was a grating Krrr-THK! then room cracked as an unholy noise exploded out of the speakers. An dirty electric guitar slashed a rapid salvo, a wild scream, terrifying and utterly thrilling. “This,” bellowed Trevor over the racket, “Is the other side of “Hey Jude,” It’s called “Revolution”. I didn’t know whether to hide under the couch or run away but I knew for certain that crystal sets were sinking down the charts and that a new, noisier world had well-and-truly arrived. With a bullet.