I Remember When With Milton Rendell

Do you remember how, in the Swan Valley, the Swan River would flood every winter? It seemed to happen every year. I remember seeing the river flood over the lower level of the paddocks opposite, which I could see from the old science block at Governor Stirling Senior High School. The school was crazy enough to take us students on canoe lessons in the middle of winter. Sometimes we couldn’t go because the river came up too far, and the water was as high as the top of the boat shed. Today, that area is the Woodbridge Riverside Park, so fifty years ago it would have been just a bit different. We had plenty of sports grounds in the area, which really didn’t like the rain much. Midland Oval was a classic example—playing footy there with the cricket pitch in the middle was a horror unless you loved sticky, stinking mud. Mind you, the Guildford Rec, as we called it, wasn’t much better. It was as hard as a rock in summer and underwater in winter. Pauly Park in Midvale was pretty interesting as well. The guys up in Swan View had their own challenges with Brown Park. But hey, we didn’t know any different; we just played the best we could. There certainly wasn’t any free-flowing footy happening unless it was with the tide.

The De La Salle Oval, as we knew it then, was a sandpit at times and had a slope to one end. The rugby guys at Guildford Grammar had some pretty muddy grounds as well. It didn’t matter—we all just wanted to play sport. The girls had their netball games on courts of mud as well, and huge puddles were funny to watch. I remember seeing the shooting circle on one court being just one big puddle, and the rest of the court was slippery mud. It wasn’t ideal for girls trying to stop when they caught the ball. None of that indoor stuff in those days. Saturday and Sunday, come hail or snow, you were out there giving it your best while poor mum and dad sheltered under an umbrella, cheering for their kids and making sure they got their oranges at halftime. Most of the grounds had hardly any shelter and tiny change rooms if you were lucky. We all survived and, believe it or not, had a great time. Not sure it was that great to watch, but we all gave it a go.