Regan ran away from boarding school. It seemed runaways go to the rail station, down hill from the school, and have the ticket already using the contraband provisions in place, and wait until the evening mail trains come in. There is one train to Sydney after midnight and one train to Dubbo about 11.10pm. These are mail trains, not quite express because coming away from Sydney they stop at all major towns, 7 out to Dubbo. Trains to Sydney don’t stop, not scheduled anyway. There are 11 carriages for the first school holiday evening and two locomotive power either way. You wouldn’t run away at school holiday time, its nonsensical.
So a small statured human, alone on a railway station, might be suspect if an alert for the presence of a runaway is given. That’s the thing, the railway staff are told, then the tellers drive off to drive around looking and the runaways are interrogated by the railways, and the runaways run off again at the earliest opportunity, there is no duty to hold the boy according to the railways. Often the child will remain seated as told and when the College staff return from looking to check, he, the child, is taken back into care. Often the runaways leave anyway, next day when a parent arrives after being summonsed, their decision is to remove the kid, miserable as he may be, and has been for some days, weeks often which condition was ignored, hoping perhaps he would get better, grow out of it, anything but come home it seems. Dislike of boarding was individual, no one reason known perhaps, and although the answer to the question, ‘why, don’t you like it, us,them, food, yourself’ was answered it probably didn’t effect any change. It’s boarding school, come on board. If you mean to stay, after first running away, it is better to stay, don’t go off for a settling down, quitening, pat on the head, hug or anything else, chocolate, chips. Leaving for an afternoon just perpetuated your misery, some ran off again. Perhaps twice was the maximum, it seems you weren’t welcome after two trots off. Because you paid in advance you don’t get the remainder due, no way. That money is theirs, so let me state emphatically I don’t think they wanted runaways as a money-making side act, but…
Regan was different, he had walked his route of escape while on a Sunday ‘free with us’. The ‘free’ is a word used to explain that senior boys were allowed into the city one or more Sundays a month, for pictures, or visits with family, for the pool, or just lounging in the park with the radio station speakers playing rock music. No rock at College, no way. Regan was a surprise entry into the runaway club. He had been a ‘bounder’. This was more leaving the yard (school premises fenced area) early to meet his parent, Dad, in an attempt to get him to get me out of here. Didn’t work, and Dad and two staff talked to him for a long time until he agreed to get out of the station wagon through the back window and go inside the college, where the doors were closed behind him. There can be a period of some days where you are accompanied by a senior boy after a disappearance attempt.
The reasons for leaving, wanting to leave, planning and executing a leave, the ideation of leaving don’t appear to be examined. ‘It’s a boarding school, get over yourself’, would appear to be the maximum endeavor to find out why. It’s likely if you did blurt out that you hate the place, hate the food, hate the form (other kids), hate the teacher, one or any of several dozen concocted reasons for an act of leaving the place then you would be shown the door. DCM – don’t come Monday.
Anyway, on the next ‘free’, Regan left about 10.00am after Mass and communion, and walked along Brilliant Street, to Pioneer Street, and to the end of that which was then a wooded area, and got changed, out of his school suit, everything recognisable, and left these discards hanging on a tree, his wooden hanger too, school issued. He had money, and a school ruler with a compass stuck on it/in it, some note paper, a pencil, two changes of clothes, a birth certificate, and contact details for his sisters, two, whom he saw at Christmas last and told them, ‘I’m leaving if I need to”. He had a towel and toilet paper, this was forward thinking, fruit tingles. Coalies are enormous trains, long, overloaded, and ran to places west often. He was going to find one of those.
He bought smokes, a drink and four bananas from the Greek deli that way and walked over the road to the fenced paddock and commenced to walk overland to the south-west. This was farmland then. Cars race there too sometimes. This was a different direction off and away too. Presumably most run offs went to the station, there was no bus out, no plane out, two had tried a taxi and they drove those to the Police Station, being in uniform might have been a red flag, and asking how much to Hillston?
Over the paddocks that morning, and all of the afternoon, guided by that compass-in-a-ruler navigating aid he strolled the 3 miles towards Georges Plain, a railway town if ever there was one.
At College on Sunday, and this was Sunday, there is no roll until ‘evenings’, the light meal that constitutes Sunday night feeds, and that roll progesses while you eat. Almost everybody had a set seat; Form 4 sat at two tables and on seats determined alphabetically, Yanna, on the end said laughingly he felt excluded and called us fat whiteys, all of the rest of us, fair enough, honky.
So, at the time Regan might have been conspicuous by his non-appearance, his non-appearance could be explained by the fact he was out and away on a ‘free’, and tough about not getting tea, your fault. The chocolate milk shakes and chips would suffice, ordinarily. Nonetheless, Regan, or his name, needed to be ticked, and it wasn’t that day, 3 others likewise were missing, administratively, until after admission to the dorm at 8.30pm, when the very obvious now non-appearance of him was noticed, if you know what I mean. The missing three were there, again no ticks to legalise their presence, as explained to the Police that evening.
At Georges Plain the trains came and went, two lines in, 6 or so waiting loops, two lines out. The big and slow coal trains stopped here while the fast mailers, named expresses, and goods passed through. Steam trains need coal, do you think, and the coal trains dropped 7 or so very full 8-wheel wagons at each location requesting some. This depositing, shunting and moving to 30 mile an hour movement between the speeding others all meant travel time was tripled over 100 miles, even goods were speedy compared to the fuel trains.
At that school, nobody, and nobody previously revealed, ran away from college, then went out of town to catch a train. Meanwhile, in the evening, when the clanger was heard, Regan was missing, it was assumed he had done a runner and the finding efforts were to look for him in the town, a city, at the station. He wasn’t found of course, he wasn’t there, and the Railways were alerted, in the town and those towns east and west. The Police came and searched the College buildings, and those on the ‘free’ were spoken to. He hadn’t been with those ‘free’ boys, he had left prior to them also leaving. The streets between the college and the station had the footpaths walked, and the fences peered over, it was something positive. Four staff in one car was another search option used.
His Dad was spoken to, and alerted by the Police. Contact details were lacking at the college. Regan’s sister’s address and name were obtained. She too was alerted and could not add any newer information. Peta put the front light on.
Regan was going to Molong, his sister, and he did too. He boarded in the night and sat in the breeze wrapped in his clothes and overalls, crosslegged. All night, two stops, until Orange he had to leave the train in the misty morning, grabbed a feed, toilet? He found the line diverted from the main that went where he wanted. This coalie had a conductors van, he sat off and looked, watched, and when the train lurched that evening, he too lurched towards it and on it, on the verandah of the van, the door was open, unlocked, no conductor, none on coal trains, and he went to where he wanted. A day later he got his stuff from us, 4 years of what, he said. He went and got his school clothes, hanging where they were. He got conscripted, like some of us, and that straightened him up, like some of us.
To read more by Pestwac click here.
To return to our Footy Almanac home page click HERE.
Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.
Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help things keep ticking over please consider making your own contribution.
Become an Almanac (annual) member – click HERE.
I was one of those lucky young men whose appointment with the draft ballot became null and void with a change of government in 1972. Unlike your protagonist Regan, I discovered the joys and frustration of hitch hiking, instead of freight trains before Ivan Milat wrecked it for everyone 15 years later. I met people during that most momentous election – 1974. Adelaide to Melbourne, Nimbin to Canberra, Sydney to Batemans Bay, and unlike Eric Bogle’s unfortunate, i still have both my legs.
To the people like Simon Townsend and your man Regan who were drafted against their will, and spent time in jail or worse sent to Vietnam I am sorry. To the people who demonstrated against the war and found nothing but frustration and the batons of Victoria’s and Queensland’s finest, I am sorry.
To the people who voted Liberal in 1969, the old bitter men who organised the ballot, and all the others who used this pointless activity for political gain, go make love to yourselves elsewhere.