Newspaper Article 2017 – Past pupil lines up for 150th festivities

Past pupil lines up for 150th festivities

By Clinton Llewellyn

One of the first people registered to attend Waipukurau Primary School’s 150-year celebrations is the school’s oldest living pupil.

Waipukurau’s Jim Fleming first attended the school in 1930.

He will have a part to play at the official opening of the festivities over Labour Weekend in October, when he cuts the 150th birthday cake with the school’s youngest pupil.

“I just hope I can make it,” chuckled the 96-year-old.

He said the school’s 125th reunion back in the early 1990s was “quite a big deal”, with a massive dinner held before a ball.

He knew quite a few faces at the event, but did not expect that to be the case come October.

“This one will be a bit different to the other reunions I’ve attended – and I’ve attended most of them – because I’ve outlived them all,” he said.

He started at the Waipukurau school as a 9-year-old in standard two in 1930 after his farming father returned the family to CHB from Napier.

Mr Fleming said he wanted to attend the reunion because of his family’s ties with the school.

“My father went to school here.  So there’s my father and then me and my siblings, and then there are my two sons, Peter and Tim.

“Peter’s two sons would have gone through there and one of Tim’s sons, his sons now go there.

“So that’s five generations,” he said.

He still remembered his first teacher at the school, a Mrs Preston, who travelled from Waipawa to teach.

“She was a little petite lady.  She spoilt us rotten and held parties for us and heaven knows what else.”

“She liked us so much, she took us on again in standard three,” said Mr Fleming.

Mrs Preston was his teacher when the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake struck.

“Her husband had a carrying firm, and she had this big car.”

“Anyway, at the time of the earthquake somebody told her that both bridges were down between here and Waipawa.”

“It wasn’t true, but she had to go right out to Onga Rd to get across the river and into Waipawa in those days.”

Standard four brought his first male teacher.

“He used to sit there and read Pooh Bear to us, day after day.  And this was standard four!”

In his last two years at the school, he was taught by a Mrs Robinson, a “stern, older-type woman” who had taught there for “donkey’s years” and then a “big chap”, a Mr Phillips.

“Well, to get to form three at the high school, you had to pass the proficiency exam and there were about half a dozen of us who didn’t get it that year.

“I preferred to stay back, so my final year was a bit of a breeze,” said Mr Fleming, who confessed he wasn’t much interested in school.

“I used to sit there and try and look intelligent but it was going in to one ear and out the other.”

After one year of high school, he headed straight into the workforce.  “You had to get out and work.  Things were different back then.”

He went to work as a joiner for undertakers Wharmby & Williams, and became a shareholder.

Mr Fleming took over the funeral department in 1966 and was joined by his son Peter in 1978, before retiring in 1981.

Committee member Karen Olsen said the official programme for the 150-year celebrations has been finalised, with the first event coinciding with the street parade being held to celebrate Waipukurau township also turning 150.

The school would be entering a float in the parade, which would run from 11.30am along Ruataniwha St, and past pupils were invited to walk alongside the school contingent, with period costumes welcome, she said.

The official opening and cake-cutting will be held at 1.30pm in the Waipukurau School Hall and it will be open from 12.30pm to 4pm.  There will also be an afternoon tea and classroom displays.

The school’s 150th birthday party will start that evening at 6.30pm with continuous canapes and a cash bar available.  There will be dancing and music from local band, Sir Duke.

Registrations cost $15 and tickets to the birthday party cost $45.  Registrations close on August 31.  Email:[email protected]

Photo caption – SCHOOL TIES: Waipukurau Primary School past pupil Jim Fleming with a photo from the school’s 125th reunion.  Later this year, the 96-year-old will cut the ceremonial cake at the school’s 150th birthday party.
PHOTO/CLINTON LLEWELLYN