Richmond River High School

I burst into tears at about 9.30 on Thursday morning. It wasn’t one of those deep heartfelt moments of grief like the death of a family member or friend. But still, it was a moment of grief.

My old school friend, Anne, shared on Facebook a media release from the NSW Department of Education, saying it’s very unlikely our old school will re-open on the same site, following the catastrophic flood in Lismore.

Based on the Department of Education’s site visits and assessments, all buildings except block A, are beyond repair and deemed unsalvageable. It is increasingly unlikely the current site is viable for a rebuild.

Anne wrote:

This is breaking my heart My Mum went to this school….myself and my siblings, my sister’s kids and then Luke….until Feb 28th when our town was destroyed

And my friend Richard, who went to the school both as a primary school, and then into high school shared this.

That school site was the only one I ever attended from start to finish. It has significance for me. My mother also attended that site when it was Lismore High School.

For the first time I’m aware of, water entered the classrooms in the catastrophic flood in February. Before then, water had often entered the nearby lower-lying sports fields and sometimes entered the grounds.

In fact, I remember going to school in Year 11 or 12, and there was water on the grounds, but we still attended. Back in those rather reckless days, a couple of boys ventured out in kayaks made at the school into the flood waters to get fish and chips for lunch. They got in trouble.

Back in those days, it was customary for teachers and students to come back to the schools for flood clean-up.

No such cleanup could happen after the floods this time, as water entered the classrooms, and the damage was beyond anything anyone who went to RRHS could imagine.

Memories went back to when the science block caught fire, and when the new sports stadium also caught fire (arson?), which saw my year at school lead a fundraising project.

The fundraising project was led by our wonderful Form Mistress, Anne Bosse. Anne was an inspiring figure. Even now, I remember the way she held my hand and embraced me when my dad died when I was in Year 11. Anne died far too young, aged only 39, due to breast cancer, back in the days when awareness, diagnosis and treatment weren’t nearly as good as now.

Another important teacher for me was Barbara Kearney. My German language teacher was smart, funny, and tough when it came to learning German. She also led a small group of us through fundraising, finally realising a trip to Germany back in the days of the Berlin Wall.

Coincidentally, the last time I spoke to Barbara was during the 2017 flood. I was on ABC Radio North Coast (Lismore) with warnings about the flood. She called in for a chat more, and to say hello. In the midst of the warnings, she wanted to say hello.

And of course the friendships. A small group of us still chat most days on Messenger.

Though now part of a three-campus high school, along with Kadina and Lismore High, RRHS was never the “elite” school in town. We were the “flood zone kids” from North Lismore, South Lismore, and adjoining towns. Chatting with a friend who is from Nimbin and caught the bus for an hour every day to and from school. She wondered where the kids from Nimbin will go. Depending on where they build the school, it might be an extra 15-20 minutes each way.

We held a school reunion in 2004, and have been promising to do another one, and then COVID got in the way.

Still, we keep in touch through Facebook, and from time to time, we also keep in touch with real life.

All of those things went through my mind today. Along with the memory I was “Boy Student Of The Year” in 1983. My name was on the “Honour Board”, something which brought great pride to my family, in particular.God knows where the “Honour Board” is. Maybe somewhere down the river?

Ironically, the school named after a river has been destroyed by that same river. The school will move to new accommodation, it’s likely, but not on the site in North Lismore which has been home for over 100 years.

We hope there will be an opportunity to say “goodbye” properly to our old school, a school that thousands and thousands of people went through.