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20’s. During school all I wanted to be was a teacher. I studied hard to finish the course in 1984 with very little support emotionally & financially graduating officially in May 1985 to my great delight. After the mandatory health check we were discouraged to learn it would take many years before we received a placement as the list of available teachers waiting to be employed was extremely long.
So, I decided I would look for a job, any job to support myself in the meantime. In the local paper I saw the Whale Car Wash were advertising for a cashier. I did not have any experience with cash registers as during college I had worked as a waitress at the Pizza Hut, however, I was willing to give it a go so boarded the next bus to the site. It was a busy Saturday when I was greeted by the current cashier a lovely women who went to enormous lengths to show me the ropes before introducing me to “the boss”. After exchanging a few words to my great surprise he offered me the position which I gladly accepted. While working as a cashier at “The Whale” as they called it, I spied a typewriter in the corner of the office. After gaining permission to use it in my lunch hours, I typed letters to every private school in Sydney to let them know while I was enjoying my time at ‘the whale’ it was a teaching job I really wanted. With all my heart (I did not write that in my application but hopefully my passion came through!). After posting an armful of mail, I forgot about my lunchtime antics over the past week as the chance of receiving a reply (except to acknowledge my efforts) was remote.
One week later, on the way home from the car wash I had one of those unexplainable moments you hear about, where somehow I knew there was an important letter for me waiting in the mail box. Not imagining what it could be, I ran all the way home until I reached my destination & there it was, an invitation for an interview at a small private school called Claremont in Randwick. After completing the interview I overheard the secretary say to the principal “they are all (all candidates) nice. It’s going to be hard to choose”. Well it just so happened that the principal had a daughter with the same Christian name as me and after marriage the same sir name so years later I discovered she had also said to her secretary “ this is too much of a coincidence let’s go with that one”.
The rest is history as they say. From Claremont I went on to teach at Kambala Girls’ School, St Andrews Cathedral school & Newington College. To say my years at Claremont & Kambala were bliss would be an understatement. I was practically floating, the joy I felt was…well there are no words to describe such happiness. One day in my 20’s I woke up & said to myself ”you are living the dream”. I still have to pinch myself when I think of those days - where one day I was living the ordinary & the next the extraordinary.
So, I decided I would look for a job, any job to support myself in the meantime. In the local paper I saw the Whale Car Wash were advertising for a cashier. I did not have any experience with cash registers as during college I had worked as a waitress at the Pizza Hut, however, I was willing to give it a go so boarded the next bus to the site. It was a busy Saturday when I was greeted by the current cashier a lovely women who went to enormous lengths to show me the ropes before introducing me to “the boss”. After exchanging a few words to my great surprise he offered me the position which I gladly accepted. While working as a cashier at “The Whale” as they called it, I spied a typewriter in the corner of the office. After gaining permission to use it in my lunch hours, I typed letters to every private school in Sydney to let them know while I was enjoying my time at ‘the whale’ it was a teaching job I really wanted. With all my heart (I did not write that in my application but hopefully my passion came through!). After posting an armful of mail, I forgot about my lunchtime antics over the past week as the chance of receiving a reply (except to acknowledge my efforts) was remote.
One week later, on the way home from the car wash I had one of those unexplainable moments you hear about, where somehow I knew there was an important letter for me waiting in the mail box. Not imagining what it could be, I ran all the way home until I reached my destination & there it was, an invitation for an interview at a small private school called Claremont in Randwick. After completing the interview I overheard the secretary say to the principal “they are all (all candidates) nice. It’s going to be hard to choose”. Well it just so happened that the principal had a daughter with the same Christian name as me and after marriage the same sir name so years later I discovered she had also said to her secretary “ this is too much of a coincidence let’s go with that one”.
The rest is history as they say. From Claremont I went on to teach at Kambala Girls’ School, St Andrews Cathedral school & Newington College. To say my years at Claremont & Kambala were bliss would be an understatement. I was practically floating, the joy I felt was…well there are no words to describe such happiness. One day in my 20’s I woke up & said to myself ”you are living the dream”. I still have to pinch myself when I think of those days - where one day I was living the ordinary & the next the extraordinary.
