Paul,

Pencils ! Jesus, we used to dream of pencils. We had to draw with a finger in the mud, while the 'teacher' was flogging us with tree branches.

Joe

Joe, you lucky, lucky, bastard! Teachers pet were you! Oh, what I would have given to be flogged with a tree branch! Oh no, it was the strap and cane for me. I learnt my Catechism! Yes sir re, I learnt that god was kind and merciful to us poor 7 year old retched sinners. Sister Mary made sure we knew how kind and merciful god was, she belted it into us with her strap! Can't be fairer than that.

Paul,

Well, yeah, but usually we had to suck and crawl just to get into the school grounds, on the off-chance that we might get taught something. Capitalist schools forced us to fight each other, bare-knuckle fights over thirty rounds, the boys too, so that only one out of every five of us kids could ever eventually even get into the grounds, after running through a gauntlet of rich kids, often there headmaster's kids, with baseball bats. If we were lucky, we could compete annually for the one pencil made available, but only if our parents did unpaid work on the plantations.

I still remember dreaming about a pencil, just a stub of a thing, about 3 cm long and no real lead inside. Since our parents, or their parents, had never had pencils, it was obviously just a cruel fantasy.

On the other hand, we might have been poor but we were happy.

By the way, my singing group sang He Ihowa Atua this morning in front of around a thousand people: very moving. Beautiful.

Aroha,

Joe

//We had to draw with a finger in the mud, while the 'teacher' was flogging us with tree branches.//

Drawing in the mud with your fingers? Luxury...

We used to dream of havin' mud to draw in. Aye, and fingers. We used to have to draw with our toes, in t' puddle of blood from our fingers being chopped off first thing every morning.

And you tell t' young people of today that, and they won't believe you.

Why is everyone avoiding the current topic? I can't believe what I'm reading. There is talk of IQ and all manner of material foreign to the topic in question. I feel like the teacher trying to bring the classroom back to the lesson. Will somebody please say something about freedom of speech, or at least why we are being denied the right to practice it. And when you do, please consider that PC is a major player in our being denied freedom of speech. Thank you. Jeez.

Toni, you lucky, lucky, bastard! Another teachers pet! Not only did we have our fingers chopped off, we had our toes chopped off as well. Then we were forced to recite The Lords Prayer backwards, and if you got it wrong you were kept in at play lunch, and didn't get your treat, that was getting to eat our own fingers and toes. Some people had all the fun.

Joe, we did the same thing Sunday avo and again this morning, sung "Our Heavenly Father... and the rest of the New Zealand National Anthem in Maori and English followed by the Australian National Anthem. This avo we were invited to a pub to celebrate ANZAC Day with a bunch of mostly young Kiwi's with a NZ band playing all the favourites from back home, along with lots of Aussie ones as well. Only stayed a couple of hours, it was packed, and most had been drinking all afternoon, so were well on the way.