At the end of their course, students were sent out, often rather unready, to the country. They were usually placed in GEHA housing (Government Employee Housing Association). Groups of teachers were placed in the same house and had to do things like chop their own wood and look after themselves.

The GEHA housing was not necessarily the same throughout the state and in some cases none existed. This section talks about the various placements, the housing offered and the experiences of the first year of teaching.

Placements

City

Regional/Country

Remote/Aboriginal school

GEHA housing

Margaret Harris:

GEHA housing was in Bridgetown but there were no rooms available for rent. So I had just turned 20 years of age and drove down to Bridgetown the week before school began. I walked up and down the main street stopping at each shop and asking if they knew anyone who would rent me a room as I was about to start my teaching career. I finally managed to find a room where I stayed for about six months before I moved into a flat near the school. I only stayed one year in Bridgetown as it was very small school and about half the staff were graduands in 1973. I was transferred to Margaret River High School for the next two years. Here I was able to live in a GEHA duplex.

Robert Kidd:

After I graduated from Mount Lawley Teachers College with a Sociology award in 1973, my wife and I successfully applied for positions at Pemberton, which was a Junior [District] High School. We had ‘Decided to move to Pemberton while at Mt Lawley Teacher’s College so I wrote a letter to the Director General of Education!’ “I was proud and idealistic and ready to change the world!”

No house was supplied by the Government Employees Housing Authority (GEHA) but we managed to get a cute little old weatherboard and corrugated iron house to rent on the street behind the pub. The rent was $7 a week and we could book up any hardware we needed at the local hardware shop. We painted some rooms and even had some of my students over one weekend, to oil the outside boards!

In 1976, we were posted to Derby District High School and flew up, while our near new VW Kombi was sent on a truck. The heat was over-whelming and we had to make our way to the GEHA agent for our keys, then onto the school and house. This house was tidy, cyclone proof and just across the road from the school. The back yard was overgrown with Kangaroo Grass, but wisely I had brought up my Dad’s old Victa Lawnmower!

Rivka Finley:

After a year in the metropolitan area, I was posted to Katanning, in the wheatbelt area. I shared a house with two other girls, with whom I had nothing in common. My friends lived in a different GEHA house, but it was not possible to swap.

As I was the first person to arrive in my GEHA accommodation, I got my pick of rooms and picked one which had a fireplace or chimney. Either way, I was unused to country living and did not realise that in the wheatbelt area there are lots of rodents, all of which descended into my room.

When I went to bed at night, I could hear the skittering of their claws on the wooden floor and was petrified they would crawl over my face, while I was sleeping. I put down Ratsak, but then I had crazy rats walking around day and night and dying on the floor. In the end, because of the rats, the people I lived with and the fact they didn’t give me my requisite DOT time, I quit and left teaching forever.